Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #276: Justin Potter-University of Mount Olive

Transcript

#276: Justin Potter-University of Mount Olive · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:10
  Track and Field world Juvenile tuned in to our humble servant
• 0:14
  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message for Guild
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  Athletics connections. All right, welcome back.
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  You pressed play once again here on the Gil Athletics Connections
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  Podcast. So grateful, so humbled to be
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  your host, Mike Cunningham here, National Business development
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  manager for Gil Athletics and host of this really fun podcast.
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  You know, sometimes I have to take a step back and realize,
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  you know, we're on our fifth season here.
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  It's 2024. This started January of 2020.
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  This is episode, I don't know, 270 something maybe 200 and 80th
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  at this point. Just so humbled to sit down with
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  coaches, men and women around the country, around the world
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  and talk about, you know, how they got into coaching, how they
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  got into this great sport and really uplift an honor highlight
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  the positive impact that they make on young people today.
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  It's really truly one of my favorite things of my job.
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  It's my real passion here. And so just super excited to be
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  able to share that with you and share with you today's guest.
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  You've already seen who it is. I always wonder what these
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  introductions, it's like you already read, you know exactly
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  who, who's sitting down here with me.
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  And if you're watching on YouTube, you already see them,
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  you know, bored with my intro saying get to it, Mike, so let's
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  get to it. Help me welcome from the
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  University of Mount Olive the Wise, the wonderful Mr. Justin
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  Potter. Justin, how are you, Sir?
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  I'm great man. It's a, it's a great day.
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  Happy to be here and looking forward to the conversation.
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  I'm happy you're here. You know, I was telling you
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  before we hit record here today that, you know, I keep a list.
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  I don't know. I don't know if people really
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  know how the machine, the Gill podcast goes, but you know, you
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  have to keep a list. You know, you guys all expect a
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  new episode every week, and that means I got to be recording at
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  least once a week, right? And I travel and work and so I
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  got to stack these up. So Justin, you've been on the
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  list for a while. I keep a list of like people
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  that I'm interested in learning more about.
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  So it was kind of it was like fortuitous timing.
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  You emailed me about, you know, the some some work to do for
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  you. And at the same time I was like,
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  Hey, I'm going to be getting a hold of you to see if you're
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  interested kind of a a pre invitation to the podcast.
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  So I'm excited about this man. I really am.
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  Really AM. I'm too.
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  So hey, real quick before we get into your journey, I just
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  because we're, you know, we're now post Olympics.
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  I'm just curious, you know, people's opinion, what did you
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  think about the Olympics and results and how we did or how we
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  didn't do? Man, I'm not the one to ask.
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  Is that right? Yeah, no, I'm well, I mean, I'll
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  keep it real with you. You know, there's a lot of
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  things that I think could have went better for us, you know,
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  the the qualifying period, especially coming out of trials
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  and stuff. But, you know, it is what it is.
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  You know, it's like that in Division Two where I'm at.
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  You know, you got to perform when it matters to go to the
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  next level. And when you get there, you got
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  to get the job done. And I and I hate and it's always
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  like you're harsh or something like that.
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  But you know, we we know we're better than that.
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  And I think it's already been proven down at the Diamond
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  League, you know, Chase, Chase got the wind down there.
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  So yeah. So it's just, you know, it's
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  just unfortunate things happen. It is what it is.
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  But the worst part is right is the wait, right?
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  You got to wait four more years and then some people kind of
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  fall out of the cycle or, or whatever, what have you.
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  Yeah, Yeah. It was a great Olympics.
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  It was awesome. I enjoyed watching everything
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  from, you know, the running to throwing.
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  Obviously really happy for a lot of people.
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  You know, they got some medals. But I think the US could have
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  done better and, and we will as we move forward.
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  You. Know that That's interesting
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  because, you know, take a step back and look at how Team USA
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  did. Wow.
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  I mean, we destroyed. I mean, come on.
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  But you're right there. Were still.
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  Still parts where it's like and Chase is a great example and
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  this is not picking on Chase. No one feels more bad or good
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  for Chase than herself. And you know, as we're recording
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  this, how do you pronounce Lausanne?
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  Is that is that how you pronounce it?
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  Lausanne. Whatever the.
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  Yeah, I think so. Yeah, someone's yelling at me,
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  right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Someone's yelling at me right now.
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  Like, how do I not know this? I don't even know.
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  I don't even know what country that's in.
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  That's how bad I am in that regards.
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  It's Diamond League. I know that.
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  There you go. And she goes out.
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  What? What'd she throw the number 2
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  American throw ever? Is that right?
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  Yeah, yeah. I think it's 2050 something
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  right? 2056 maybe?
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  And she owns the American record, right?
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  Like that wasn't. Man, don't don't don't do this
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  to me on podcast. Hey we we don't edit, so if we
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  just don't know, we still. Know, I know.
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  Someone is yelling at me right now.
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  Like how do you not know this? No, it's alright.
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  Yeah, I. I thought she did, but then it
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  was it, it was odd the way they were announcing it, saying the
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  second best American throw ever. And I'm like, well, that's means
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  it's not APR if she's the American, right?
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  Yeah, I don't know. But but yeah, you know, it's so
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  tough. I I think your point about, you
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  know, four more years. So we're it's 2024.
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  So great. We'll see you hopefully we'll
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  see you in 28 Chase and you can make up for that.
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  That is probably one of our major flaws in our sport.
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  No, no one, you know, the the patriots don't beat the Falcons
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  in the Super Bowl and everybody goes well, man, Falcons hope in
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  2028. Hope for four more years is from
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  now when you go to the Super Bowl.
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  Maybe you can redo it. No, it's like, OK, next year,
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  like let's let's get back next. Year baby.
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  Yeah, yeah. Well, that's the Panthers motto
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  next year, right? I know.
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  I know nothing about NFL. They they may actually be
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  awesome. I have no clue.
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  I don't. Pay.
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  We're, we are, we are on the on the bottom.
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  OK, all right, all right. You know they're trying to come
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  up baby all. Right, but you know, with that
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  once every four years thing too, you're also down to you know,
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  Chase had two days, you know, qualifying day and the and the
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  finals day everything. I mean, God bless you get sick,
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  you, you hurt your ankle, you, I don't know, you wake up in a bad
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  mood. We're we're humans.
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  Chase is human. I just, it's, I don't want to
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  say it's a lot of pressure for one attempt because you know,
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  life's about pressure and things like that.
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  But man, I hope what I really hope is people's legacy.
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  So like a Chase's legacy doesn't get diminished because of that
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  one day. No, I don't think that's.
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  Right. Look at the body.
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  Of work, I think, I think people that are hypercritical do stuff
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  like that. Yeah, no, I just, I appreciate
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  all the effort. And, you know, I remember
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  watching her go from, I know we're way off talking to her
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  maybe, but I remember watching her go from a glider to a
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  spinner. And you know, that process for
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  her and, and how she just, you know, moved up through the ranks
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  and became number one in the world.
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  Like, she's had an absolutely amazing career.
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  And, you know, there's still more to come for her, but it
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  just, it just sucks sometimes, man.
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  It's just it's the harsh reality of what we deal with at that
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  level. Now.
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  I haven't coached there yet, but you know, the goal is to get
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  there one day and hopefully in 28 in LA, you know, on the other
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  side of the country. And remember, you know, a bad
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  day for her allowed someone else to have the best day of their
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  life. Like, you know, someone still
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  won. It was like, holy crap, I
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  thought Chase might win them. And I I was able to beat her,
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  you know, and I went like, they're telling a much.
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  This is the same story that is told way two different ways,
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  right? Chase might be devastated.
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  This other person is like, that was the greatest day in the
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  world. So sometimes it's all someone
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  needs is that door to open up and then there's some more magic
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  that happens, right? And that's that's the beauty of
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  the sport. So it's harsh reality, but the
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  beauty of. It is this the thing maybe not
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  that Chase needed motivation, but is this the thing that like,
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  oh, we're about to see like Chase is about to go destroy
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  everything now, you know, and that wouldn't have happened if
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  she would have won the gold or something like that, you know,
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  so you don't know these are you know, I like to think of I'm a
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  I'm a Marvel Universe guy. So I like to think of the
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  multiverse like, you know, there's, there's different
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  patterns out there and this is the pattern that this might be
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  the, the, the, the, the multiverse that, you know, she
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  goes out and just destroys people now because she lost, you
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  know what I'm saying? So who?
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  Knows well she's she's currently one for one post Olympic.
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  So, so far, we're on that track. That's right.
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  That's right. All right.
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  Well, Speaking of track, let's get to you, Mr. Potter here.
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  You know, Speaking of Marvel, you know, I was a comic book
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  collector back in the day, and my favorite comics were episode
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  #1 comic #1 the origin story, You know, how Spider Man, how
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  Peter Parker became Spider Man and Bruce Wayne becomes Batman.
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  Let's talk about you, Justin. Where does track and field start
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  for you? Man, I have, like, I really
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  think I have a pretty interesting story, so I'm pumped
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  to be here and tell it. But I actually didn't do track
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  until I was in college. So I played baseball for a long
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  time and I did football for a long time.
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  And yeah, I always thought I was going to be maybe a basketball
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  player or something because I can shoot pretty good.
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  But yeah, I got to college and hold on though.
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  Let's not get there yet, then hold on.
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  I want to let's let's paint the whole picture.
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  So you're in high school. What, where, where are you
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  growing up at? Are you?
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  Are you North Carolina native? Eastern North Carolina, so I
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  went to South North high School. OK.
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  So you're in in North Carolina, They had track there.
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  They did. We had a we had a asphalt 6 lane
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  track. Nice.
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  Yeah, Yeah. That's which is.
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  Which is now, yeah. Which is now finally, I think
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  during COVID they actually resurfaced and put a surface
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  down and it's a nice blue track now.
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  So cool. Well, you weren't there, so they
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  didn't care. You weren't on the team.
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  So they were like, whatever, but you're playing basketball is
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  track. Like do you like look at the
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  track team? You're like, will that be cool
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  or did you look down on the track team?
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  Like what? Like what were your feelings for
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  track though during high school? Yeah, I mean, a lot of my
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  buddies so. So baseball was probably the
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  primary thing that held me back from from doing track for so
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  long. I played baseball for 12 years,
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  I believe. So.
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  Yeah. Yeah.
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  So and, you know, getting a job in school and, and things like
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  that kind of kind of deter me from track a little bit because,
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  you know, you get the stigma of, oh, you got to go run and do
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  that stuff. And I just had a lot of stuff
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  going on. And, you know, baseball was, you
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  know, a passion of mine. Yeah.
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  Very, very. What's the opposite of
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  complimentary to track and field?
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  It's very, you know, it's there's rare that a baseball
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  player does track because the seasons coincide and, you know,
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  football and track very complimentary.
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  Baseball and track very. What is the opposite of
• 10:31
  complimentary? I keep going to think like dis,
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  like baseball disses track. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  So when you're looking at going to college after high school and
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  you're you're playing baseball and basketball and baseball is
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  the big sport. Did you, are you, did you go on
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  to play baseball? Like is that what you're going
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  to college or you just, I would say just going to college, hate
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  that word just but what was that thought process going to to
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  college as far as like major and sports and things like that?
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  Yeah, man, you know, I had some walk on opportunities for
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  football actually, but I was kind of steering away from that
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  because I got hurt a few times and you know, I I kind of had I
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  I think I had a good mind about my body at the time, although I
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  guess the more throwing I did, I kind of stopped caring about it.
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  So I have some stuff that, you know, I'm dealing with my elbow
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  and whatnot. But yeah, man, I just had AI
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  thought I was going to go play college baseball at Mount Olive
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  and that didn't work out. I still decided to come here.
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  You know, I had a great relationship with the baseball
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  coach, Carl Lancaster. I mean, one of the the greatest
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  guys I've ever known. But you know, I wasn't I wasn't
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  good enough. And I'll tell you when I went
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  out there about try out and I'm out there with these guys that
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  are, you know, transferring and all these freshmen, I was like,
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  man, I don't know if this is going to be it for me, but yeah,
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  I know. Did you?
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  Were was was coach Like what were you thinking major wise?
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  Like was coaching it all in your purview though?
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  So maybe baseball coaching or football?
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  Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I think a lot of
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  kids who, you know, have 6 success at their high school,
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  like they want to go back and coach at their high school.
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  So that was my fault, right? Like I went to school, I was
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  going to do, I was going to do sports management.
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  And then I I switched over to history because I was like, you
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  know, my my favorite teacher in in high school was my history
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  teacher. So I was like, no, I was very
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  impacted by them. Actually, it was two of them.
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  They were both history teachers, my football coach and my
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  baseball coach. So I just kind of drew to that
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  path and I was thinking about stop Lenore the whole time.
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  But then when I got I got done and not all of you know, I know
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  I'm Fast forward a little bit here, but when I got done, I was
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  like, man, I really enjoyed this college thing and no joke, like
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  I I played plenty of Xbox and stuff like that.
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  So NCAA 14, right? I played all yeah, I played all
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  the NCAA games and the recruiting piece was like my
• 13:01
  favorite thing to do. So obviously 20 NCAA 25's coming
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  out and I'm smashing that public.
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  But yeah, so the recruiting piece was so interesting to me
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  my whole life, like, you know, playing these games and stuff.
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  I was like, I can, I can totally do that.
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  And, you know, continuing to invest myself in the sport
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  because I was so young in the sport when I graduated, you
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  know, I only had four years and most people have eight.
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  Maybe, you know, 10 year, I don't know.
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  So I was pretty young in it and I just gave it a shot, went and
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  be a graduate assistant at Lynchburg College and just fell
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  in love with it, man. So so where does track come in
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  you you're looking at walking on baseball.
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  That didn't work out. I I actually love that, you
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  know, appreciate that openness and authenticity because
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  sometimes we, you know, there's a, if you're on the outside,
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  you, you, you can sometimes think both ways.
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  Things are super hard and also super easy.
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  And so you may think like, oh, D2 baseball, like, come on,
• 14:01
  yeah, you can make the team there.
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  And then you, you got there and you're like, oh, wow.
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  Like, man, there's some dudes here, man.
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  Like, there's a lot. Of good baseball players and
• 14:07
  they won the national championship.
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  Oh, didn't you? OK, so they were.
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  Yeah. OK, OK, OK.
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  So I got cut, right? Yeah, I got cut.
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  And I think, I think only, I think only three freshmen made
• 14:18
  the team that year and they ended up winning the national
• 14:21
  championship that year. So it's kind of like a.
• 14:23
  Bummer. Yeah, yeah, right.
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  Like, can I just sit the ball in there?
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  Just give me a ring, baby. Yeah, man.
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  Help somewhere. So did.
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  How did track come in? Did you get cut and say, well,
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  let me just go try a sport I've never done before?
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  Like how does this work? Out.
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  Yeah. So it was a summer thing.
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  I wasn't good enough. I, I, I knew that.
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  So I'd still decided to go to Mount Off because it was, you
• 14:45
  know, it wasn't far from home, you know, if I needed to go home
• 14:47
  or I actually, I was able to keep my job at home for the
• 14:50
  first two years I was in school before things got like, I need
• 14:53
  to work in Mount Off instead of driving home, you know, 40
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  minutes or whatever it was. So yeah, I was just me and me
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  and my roommate were in the weight room and they had
• 15:04
  started, I think they had started club track the year
• 15:08
  before and we didn't even know that.
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  But but this guy comes in the weight room.
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  Me and my buddy Alex, my roommate who I who I didn't know
• 15:17
  before I went to college and he's become one of my best
• 15:19
  friends and he's in law school right now and he's doing, he's
• 15:23
  doing great. But was he a track guy?
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  Yeah, yeah, he did track all right.
• 15:27
  So there's a little, OK, that's all I'm wondering where like
• 15:29
  there has to be some influence here a little bit.
• 15:30
  OK, got it. Go ahead.
• 15:31
  Yeah, I'm. I'm sorry.
• 15:32
  I'm slowly getting. No, no, we're good.
• 15:33
  You're doing great. Yeah.
• 15:36
  But yeah, so we were just in the weight room and this this old
• 15:39
  dude was high pants on a tight shirt, just comes, you know,
• 15:43
  walking in there and he's like looking at us.
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  And I'm like, OK, Alex, I'm like, man, what?
• 15:48
  Yo, do you see this guy? Look at this dude?
• 15:49
  And then like after I did that, like Coach Hodge, he came over
• 15:53
  and he was like, hey, do you guys maybe want to try throwing
• 15:58
  for the track team? And I was like, we have a track
• 16:00
  team. And Alex is like, oh man, that
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  would be awesome. And I was like, coach, I've
• 16:05
  never I've never thrown before, but you know, I I've thrown a
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  baseball for the last 12 years and I love moving heavy stuff.
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  So it just all kind of did you? Even have an idea like when he
• 16:15
  says you want to throw for the track team, you know, as track
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  people we know. Oh, OK, shot put, discus, if
• 16:21
  we're talking about college hammer and javelin, you know, if
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  I go to the person in the street and says, hey, do you want to
• 16:27
  throw for the track team? You know, some maybe because we
• 16:29
  just watched the Olympics, would know, oh, the shot put or
• 16:31
  something. Most are going to be like throw
• 16:33
  what baseball like, you know, did you when he said that, did
• 16:36
  you know shot put like discus? Like did you know that was an
• 16:39
  attractive event? That's what he was talking
• 16:40
  about. Yeah, yeah, I knew.
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  I knew about shot and disc because, you know, I kind of
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  allude to earlier, like my friends were doing track and one
• 16:48
  of my friends ended up going to UNCW and he actually ordered
• 16:52
  North Carolina Wilmington. Actually my buddy Jeff Clays
• 16:54
  works there. He's one of my mentors.
• 16:56
  So I'm going to mention him now and face I don't mention him
• 16:58
  later. Great dude, I love him.
• 17:01
  Yeah, Jeff is awesome guy, but yeah, he went down there.
• 17:03
  Not that they know each other, but, you know, he went to school
• 17:07
  down there. You know, he graduated the year
• 17:09
  before me, so I had a pretty good idea, yeah.
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  Good point. That's why I was trying to
• 17:13
  figure out, like, where was your level of track?
• 17:15
  So you you didn't maybe participate in high school.
• 17:18
  But good point. I didn't, you know, I haven't
• 17:19
  been in high school for a long time.
• 17:20
  You had friends that do it. You know, you're at the lunch
• 17:23
  table, like, oh, you threw the shot.
• 17:24
  What is that? Oh, OK.
• 17:25
  Yeah. Good.
• 17:25
  All right, guy. OK.
• 17:27
  So you were kind of like, hey, man, I like to throw things and
• 17:29
  I like to move heavily. That sounds like a thrower.
• 17:33
  Like, yeah, man, I was. I was all in, man.
• 17:35
  I wasn't very good either. I gave it my best shot and.
• 17:38
  What was that experience like first time?
• 17:40
  You know, I don't know, first practice, they put a shot in
• 17:42
  your hand or not, but what what's the what when you it's,
• 17:44
  it's interesting when a, you know, a 9th grader joins track
• 17:47
  because we just know instinctively, you know nothing,
• 17:49
  you've never done it, etcetera. You know, you're a college
• 17:52
  freshman soft. You know, you're you're a dude
• 17:54
  at this point, still don't know anything about track and like
• 17:57
  how to actually throw what what's that experience like?
• 18:01
  Almost like, you know, learning as an adult.
• 18:03
  You know, you're 18, but you know.
• 18:05
  Yeah, I think, I think, you know, I, I had a, a good mind
• 18:09
  for movement and understanding things pretty quickly.
• 18:14
  I think that's, I think that's why I do such a good job
• 18:16
  coaching. I'm not trying to pat myself on
• 18:18
  my back, sorry. But I, I had AI had a good
• 18:22
  understanding of like movement and things like that.
• 18:24
  So it wasn't terribly difficult for me because I harped on
• 18:29
  things like that my entire life. So technical stuff was, was
• 18:32
  really always in my mind with everything I did.
• 18:36
  So power, obviously you got to have that.
• 18:40
  But the technical stuff was always in my mind, whether I was
• 18:42
  playing baseball, football, basketball, whatever, you know,
• 18:46
  I'm, I was always thinking about what I did wrong on a shot or
• 18:49
  whatever. So I think I had a pretty good
• 18:52
  understanding of like how to move around and do things.
• 18:55
  But when you put the shot put in your hand, things change.
• 18:58
  Exactly. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:59
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes me think of, you
• 19:01
  know, when Tyson says everybody's got a plan until
• 19:02
  they're punching them out, it's like, oh, you know, I know
• 19:04
  movement. I know I'm strong.
• 19:06
  Yeah. 16 lbs, buddy. Good luck.
• 19:09
  Yeah. I didn't even get there.
• 19:10
  I never even got to see a 12 LB shot though right?
• 19:13
  Right. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 19:14
  Like that's why I was trying to gauge like where, you know, this
• 19:16
  is a different experience coming in to learn it as an 18 year old
• 19:19
  in college than a, you know, 14 year old in high school.
• 19:22
  It's wildly different even though it's the same event, you
• 19:25
  know, now. Now most of the time we
• 19:27
  stereotypically think of a baseball player and
• 19:29
  automatically think javelin. And whether it's javelin only or
• 19:31
  javelin primary, where was javelin, if at all in this
• 19:35
  discussion? I'm hearing shot put.
• 19:36
  Obviously, oh, the javelin was probably the the most intriguing
• 19:41
  thing initially because I'm like, Oh yeah, that's exactly
• 19:45
  what I've done for 12 years is, you know, for something overhead
• 19:48
  like that. And so the javelin clicked with
• 19:50
  me. I wasn't very good.
• 19:52
  I only threw like 43 meters. But hey, man, I didn't have the
• 19:56
  coaching. It's not that I don't, I don't
• 19:59
  think that would really truly help me.
• 20:02
  But yeah, I just, you know, I just soaked it up and, and do
• 20:04
  the best I could for the team and try to be the best supporter
• 20:07
  that I am. And, you know, I think I carry
• 20:09
  that into my coaching world. More than anything, it's just my
• 20:12
  support of the athletes. So how did that experience go?
• 20:15
  You did, I assume you did four years there at Mount Olive.
• 20:18
  Did did the track team go from a club to a varsity or?
• 20:22
  Yeah. So that first year when he came
• 20:24
  and got us that they were going varsity that year, so the club
• 20:27
  the year before and then they were going full bore.
• 20:30
  Got it. How, how that experience go?
• 20:33
  Did you get better? Did you know, never get better
• 20:36
  at all that that's possible? You know, we we don't all have
• 20:38
  it's a skill. So we don't all have a skill.
• 20:41
  Yeah, yeah, I definitely, like I said, like I gravitated towards
• 20:44
  the Javelin more and then, I don't know, it's probably about
• 20:48
  three months in when we found out what a hammer was and I was
• 20:52
  like, yo, that's awesome, Cool of that.
• 20:54
  Right. Yeah, yeah.
• 20:56
  So so I fell in love with that afterwards and I was actually
• 20:59
  the first one to ever throw hammer in a college meet for
• 21:02
  mount all. I think I threw like 27 meters
• 21:05
  or something, but but like yeah, this was like 2008.
• 21:12
  So we didn't have tifers until 2009 I think right.
• 21:16
  So so you can see my nonsense on tiefers if you want to look it
• 21:20
  up. You know, the sidebar, I love
• 21:23
  that that you said that. And I really wish hope that we
• 21:26
  can get all high schools on Tiefers.
• 21:28
  And here's why. Because then we build this
• 21:30
  database of 14 year olds in North Carolina picking up the
• 21:34
  shot or the 100 meter dash for the first time all the way
• 21:37
  through there, you know, 8-9 years later, their senior years
• 21:41
  and caught like we get to see real progressions of athletes.
• 21:44
  I would, I would love to see you.
• 21:45
  We get in college now. I'd love to see that full
• 21:48
  spectrum. I just think that'd be, that'd
• 21:50
  be so cool. So cool to see.
• 21:52
  What what do you, you mentioned the hammer, which, you know, my,
• 21:53
  my eyes light up as well because that's my favorite event when I,
• 21:56
  when I coach. Oh yeah.
• 21:58
  When I coach, I would, you know, hammer throwers.
• 21:59
  I don't know if it's still happens, but everywhere I went
• 22:01
  to, they all that they were the first ones to practice.
• 22:03
  You know, you get them out of the way type of thing, right.
• 22:06
  And so I would always go to practice early just to watch the
• 22:09
  hammer throwers. What, what again, I'm just so
• 22:11
  fascinated by someone who, you know, does doesn't get into
• 22:14
  track until college and coming from a baseball background.
• 22:18
  So again, I think like, oh, he's going to gravitate towards the
• 22:20
  javelin and but he's a thrower and, you know, shot putting
• 22:23
  discuses, you know, reign supreme inside of throwing.
• 22:26
  What? What was it about that hammer
• 22:28
  that you know because your your face lit up to?
• 22:30
  What was it about the hammer that was like, oh whoa, hold on,
• 22:33
  where's this been my whole life? Yeah, no, I mean, it's just the
• 22:38
  how difficult it was, right, But how repetitive it was.
• 22:42
  So it was too. The hammer to me is truly a
• 22:45
  testament of how technical you can do things because there's a
• 22:49
  lot going on in the hammer. You know, you said you've been
• 22:52
  around it. So, you know, three turns, four
• 22:55
  turns, you know, different entry techniques and things.
• 22:57
  So I don't want to get too technical here, but it was
• 23:01
  literally the technical aspect of the throw that just lit me up
• 23:04
  about it. And not that I was ever really
• 23:07
  great at it, like I said, I just I cared more about it than how
• 23:12
  how I did. With it, I guess it's I like it
• 23:16
  because, and I think a lot of people gravitate towards it that
• 23:19
  learn about it. Is it it looks like it's
• 23:22
  deceivingly, deceivingly harder to see.
• 23:25
  I'm not sure. It looks like it's simple.
• 23:27
  It's like, oh, get in there and twirl around and throw.
• 23:30
  Like it actually seems like, Oh, this, like this is easy.
• 23:32
  I get to actually use some momentum and twirl and then
• 23:34
  throw. Not just like, you know, this
• 23:36
  brute like 16 lbs. I got to come across this, you
• 23:39
  know, 8 foot, right? Like that seems like, Oh, I
• 23:41
  better be super strong. The hammer seems like, Oh, I
• 23:43
  don't have to necessarily be the biggest or strongest.
• 23:47
  I, I can like this seems easy. And then you get in and do it
• 23:49
  and it's like, Oh my gosh, like to your point, there is
• 23:52
  technique and you got to be on it to, to, to throw this thing
• 23:56
  and you got to the repetition, which that's interesting because
• 23:59
  you know, typically when you say something is repetitive, it's
• 24:01
  like, well, that's not, it's boring, you know, but here's an
• 24:03
  event that is repetitive that it's fascinating, fascinating.
• 24:06
  Yeah, I love it, man. I could, I could sit up.
• 24:09
  I do it all the time anyway, I've got 25 throwers here.
• 24:12
  So we have a, a big, a really big squad and, you know, some
• 24:16
  very good hammer throwers in there as well and just sitting
• 24:19
  out there every day, man, It's, it's, it's awesome.
• 24:22
  It's, it's so much fun. Like, I know I, I'm hard on them
• 24:25
  sometimes and I, you know, I hit them with some stuff and, but
• 24:29
  man, I just love sitting out there and watching these kids
• 24:31
  throw and, and watching them figure things out.
• 24:34
  Man. It's the literally the best
• 24:36
  thing in the world. So the other part of the hammer
• 24:38
  that I like, you know, if you're going to be a good shot putter,
• 24:43
  you've got to be a big person, whether that's big and mass, but
• 24:46
  also big and strength like it. It's just, you know, there's
• 24:50
  Adam Nelson is the absolute rarity, right?
• 24:53
  The the person who's not tall, but you know, obviously picked
• 24:56
  up with it with much strength and speed, but you got it.
• 24:59
  You got to be big discus, you know, you, you better have some
• 25:01
  long levers. You're you're not going to be
• 25:03
  successful if you didn't get that, that genetic gift.
• 25:06
  Javelin, it's his own other event.
• 25:07
  I'll just set that to the side. But the hammer, you know, when I
• 25:10
  first got into college and therefore I first learned about
• 25:14
  the hammer event, you know, I, I, you know, stereotypically is
• 25:17
  like, Oh, well, there must be a big person and strong and all
• 25:20
  that kind of stuff. And I remember one of the first
• 25:22
  national championships I went to and I go over to watch the
• 25:24
  hammer because I was just fascinated with it.
• 25:26
  And I see these two young ladies and I'm like, oh, these, these
• 25:30
  guys must be, they were from USCI was like, oh, they must be
• 25:32
  high jumpers. I mean, they look, they were
• 25:34
  super tall, 6162 super look like what you would put on the high
• 25:39
  jump apron. And I was like, but they got
• 25:41
  their uniform on. That's just weird.
• 25:42
  Like look at the hammer area, you know, and they go and get a
• 25:45
  hammer and they they won the net.
• 25:46
  You know, I think they went one and two is Dan Lange's kids at
• 25:50
  USC. You know, he's had tons of great
• 25:52
  hammer throwers there. And it was the first time I was
• 25:54
  like, Oh, wait a minute, like, like this is an event that like
• 25:58
  there's other things going on, athleticism, balance, awareness,
• 26:01
  things like it's like that that just intrigued me too.
• 26:03
  It's like, Oh, there's what I love about track and field is no
• 26:07
  matter who or what you are, short, tall, big, small, black,
• 26:11
  white, male, female, there's some event in track and field
• 26:14
  where you can have some success. And the Hammer feels like that
• 26:17
  one event that like, oh, you can be short, tall, obviously
• 26:21
  taller, better, things like that.
• 26:22
  But like you can be pretty good at this event if you put in the
• 26:25
  work, whether you're super strong, super slow, super tall,
• 26:29
  super short, like there's a lot of body types here that can be
• 26:32
  successful in the hammer and that's always drawn me to it.
• 26:35
  Man, it's been really fascinating.
• 26:37
  Yeah, no, it's, it's pretty encompassing is if the person
• 26:42
  can understand and move and you know, spatial awareness is a big
• 26:45
  thing. So if you have some of those
• 26:49
  keys, you know those those things, you can you can be
• 26:51
  successful in the hammer. It just takes time.
• 26:53
  It just takes a lot of throwing and a lot of work, a lot of
• 26:56
  determination. I mean, with anything, right,
• 26:58
  but. That's what I like about I I've
• 27:00
  told the story I haven't told in a while when I was at Ball
• 27:02
  State. In fact, the the our throws
• 27:05
  coach, who was our GA actually went on to go to UNCW and coach,
• 27:09
  In fact, our men's head coach was at Lynchburg.
• 27:10
  Yes, there is at Lynchburg, Yeah, a lot of connections
• 27:13
  anyway. Oh, yes, Jim.
• 27:15
  Yeah, yeah. We had this, this walk on long
• 27:18
  jumper. Holly, never forget her.
• 27:19
  She was awesome. Great person.
• 27:21
  Not a long jumper. I mean, I literally, I think she
• 27:24
  came in. She came in the year before I
• 27:26
  got there. I think she jumped, you know,
• 27:27
  1314 feet. We're in the Mac.
• 27:29
  Doesn't matter where you got 1340 feet ain't getting it done
• 27:31
  right. We got up to like 1616 1/2 and I
• 27:33
  was like, you know, this ain't working.
• 27:35
  And I was like, hey, you know what, though, You know, you're,
• 27:36
  you like athletics, you like, you know, working out stuff like
• 27:39
  that. Why don't you go to lane and try
• 27:41
  the hammer? Like what?
• 27:42
  What's the worst that can happen?
• 27:43
  Like at least maybe you'll have a better college experience, you
• 27:45
  know, and, and so, you know, I'd go and watched and you know,
• 27:48
  he's literally taking her from nothing.
• 27:50
  She knows nothing. She knows.
• 27:51
  I don't even think she knew what the hammer was, you know, starts
• 27:55
  turning, you know, teaching the turns and things like that.
• 27:58
  And by her senior year, she scored, she got 8th place in the
• 28:01
  Mac in the hammer. And I, that's always struck with
• 28:04
  me. It's like, man, this young lady
• 28:06
  goes from having hopefully still a good college experience of
• 28:09
  being on a team at the at the Ball State.
• 28:11
  We had a great team, great culture there.
• 28:13
  So maybe, you know, if she'd have stayed a long jumper, she
• 28:15
  still would have had a, you know, be able to walk away and
• 28:17
  say, man, I, I enjoyed my time as a track athlete at Ball State
• 28:19
  University. Now her story is even greater.
• 28:23
  It's like, oh, yeah, I worked my butt off.
• 28:25
  And by the way, my senior year I contributed, like, to the
• 28:28
  conference. Like, that's like that.
• 28:30
  That to me is like the story you want to tell for college
• 28:33
  athletics and specifically track and field.
• 28:35
  So. OK, anyway, back to you, Justin.
• 28:38
  You got me on my tangents here. You go through Mount Olive, the
• 28:43
  they become a varsity team. Love that you're learning.
• 28:45
  All these throws seem to have some passion.
• 28:48
  What when you go, you, you, you gave us the preview for the next
• 28:52
  step. You become GA at Lynchburg.
• 28:55
  Why I I assume that was track and field.
• 28:58
  Why track? And not like you had a you had
• 29:01
  12 years. You had love and passion for
• 29:03
  baseball. You still kind of had a little
• 29:05
  fork in the road. Like I don't think it would have
• 29:07
  been all that odd if you just said, yeah, I went and became
• 29:09
  the GA at baseball for Lynchburg.
• 29:11
  I'm like, OK, well, that's your, your passion.
• 29:12
  Why this kind of really, you know, 12 years of baseball, four
• 29:17
  years of track. So this is kind of a quick pivot
• 29:19
  here even to to track and field. Yeah, man, I just, I, I fell in
• 29:26
  love with a sport and and like I was saying earlier, like the
• 29:28
  recruiting piece post video games and stuff and, you know,
• 29:32
  building relationships is, is what life is all about.
• 29:34
  So it just, it's all hand in hand there.
• 29:37
  And I just wanted to, you know, get do the Gai did my master's
• 29:41
  in education, you know, again, as a I'm going to maybe go back
• 29:45
  to my high school. OK, I was going to ask, but I'm
• 29:48
  still thinking about going to high school, right?
• 29:49
  Yep. And it wasn't until actually the
• 29:53
  end of my second year at Lynchburg when I got a couple
• 29:55
  phone calls about, you know, going to a different job and,
• 29:58
  and it kind of just all happened, man.
• 30:01
  I mean, I've been happy ever since, you know, had a lot of
• 30:05
  success. How to heck of a lot of fun.
• 30:07
  Sorry, I almost said the wrong word there.
• 30:09
  Oh, it's all good. No, that part.
• 30:10
  So a little behind the curtain here, what he's alluding to
• 30:13
  there. So part of our pre interview
• 30:15
  process is I always tell people I don't do editing, so don't
• 30:17
  make me do editing. Now what that means is I think
• 30:20
  people do just like you did Justin infer about cussing.
• 30:24
  I we don't care. I don't care because I want you
• 30:26
  to be who you are. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:28
  If that's who you are, you say who you are.
• 30:29
  All good. It's more of like, no, no axe to
• 30:34
  grinds. You know what that coach at
• 30:36
  Mount Olive, when I was there, it was did me dirty.
• 30:39
  It's like, that's the kind of stuff like, man, don't say we're
• 30:41
  not here to talk bad about people.
• 30:42
  So, So no, no, if you if you say the word hell, say the word
• 30:45
  hell. That's this is about showing
• 30:47
  you, Justin, who you are in all your, you know, good and bad.
• 30:51
  We all have good and bad. So don't worry about that part.
• 30:53
  Yeah, yeah, Sorry. I just want to clear that up a
• 30:54
  little behind the curtains, the magic that goes on here in the
• 30:57
  podcast, people. So OK, you you become a GA at
• 31:01
  Lynch. Was Sprack there when you were
• 31:03
  there? I don't remember.
• 31:04
  What year? No, no.
• 31:05
  Sprack. Sprack was five years.
• 31:08
  Yeah, because he he went to UNCW for a good amount of time, so.
• 31:11
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.
• 31:13
  Lynchburg, by the way. Beautiful campus.
• 31:16
  Oh my gosh. Unbelievable.
• 31:18
  Beautiful. So I'm always interested, you
• 31:21
  know, just because you were an athlete, whether you were, you
• 31:23
  know, air quotes here good or not good, we all get to define
• 31:26
  that differently, doesn't mean you're going to become a a good
• 31:29
  coach. How did you I know what I'm
• 31:33
  assuming from my experiences that when you become Aga at
• 31:36
  Lynchburg, you get a lot of responsibility.
• 31:39
  It's not like if I go become Aga for throws at Georgia, I'm going
• 31:42
  to be working under man. Of course, I'd forget that name
• 31:46
  as soon as I said I have his face say, yeah, I'm going to be
• 31:49
  doing what he tells me to do. I'm not going to be necessarily
• 31:51
  writing at the workouts, but I feel like at a Lynchburg you're
• 31:54
  going to be like, Nope, there's your group.
• 31:55
  Go you like instable a recruiting great, go do that,
• 31:58
  too. How did you talk to us about
• 32:01
  that transition from athlete to coach?
• 32:05
  Yeah, I mean, I think thankfully I had the best boss I could have
• 32:10
  ever asked for, Doug Thomasy. He was All American decathlete
• 32:14
  when he was a student at Lynchburg, and then he became a
• 32:16
  coach there. Then he was the head coach, and
• 32:19
  now he's just teaching. He's got three kids.
• 32:21
  So he's got his doctorate from Virginia in math.
• 32:26
  So I have a doctorate in math. Yeah, Yeah.
• 32:30
  So he's. So he's with Blue Ridge Timing.
• 32:32
  I don't know if you've heard of him, but yeah, yeah.
• 32:34
  So, yeah, he owns that company. And so he came out of coaching
• 32:38
  and went in the timing and stuff.
• 32:39
  But sorry, I'm Angela Hargis. But yeah, so I was just all
• 32:45
  unbelievably blessed to work with him.
• 32:47
  And one of his biggest things he always said to me, because I
• 32:51
  asked a lot of questions and I wanted, I wanted the
• 32:53
  responsibility. So he gave it to me.
• 32:56
  He gave it to me. And if I had a question about it
• 32:59
  and it was something that he knew that I could figure out, he
• 33:02
  would always say, it's your baby, figure it out.
• 33:06
  So I that is always stuck with me.
• 33:09
  And you know, I try not to ask for a ton of help just because
• 33:13
  of, you know, how he taught me to do things.
• 33:16
  And yeah, obviously we all need help with things.
• 33:18
  And we, we ask her, you know, our, our people for those
• 33:20
  things. But I, I just, I, I am truly
• 33:23
  blessed to have gotten to work with Doug.
• 33:25
  And he taught me so much about the sport.
• 33:29
  He put me through a date. And you can see I'm a big guy.
• 33:31
  I'm a throws guy. He put me, he put me through a
• 33:34
  day of pole vaulting. Just yeah, we had a 10 foot 500
• 33:39
  pole and he made me vault. I'll get the guys in the
• 33:43
  background all right. We need a 10 foot 500.
• 33:46
  Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it was like a it
• 33:47
  was a 15 foot pole that broke and we cut it.
• 33:51
  Sure. Yeah, yeah.
• 33:52
  Yeah, you. Anybody in the world could have
• 33:54
  jumped on. How did that, how did that go?
• 33:56
  Because I have a kind of an experience too, where we were
• 33:58
  like, hey, let's screw around and play with the pole vault.
• 34:00
  And it did not go well. What in the world?
• 34:03
  I had a ton of fun, but my SO I've never, in all the years of
• 34:09
  sports, OK, I mean, I've played so much stuff.
• 34:12
  I've never rolled my ankle ever. So I've never had any kind of
• 34:16
  ankle issues. But after I got done vaulting,
• 34:19
  my left foot was bigger than I've ever seen and my ankle hurt
• 34:23
  for like probably 3 days. So I'm, I wasn't a little guy.
• 34:27
  I'm not a little guy. So it was just a lot of did you?
• 34:31
  Get off the ground. Wow, Yeah my feet got like 2
• 34:35
  inches. I didn't.
• 34:35
  I did not turn over. Yeah, yeah.
• 34:37
  Oh, God. Come on.
• 34:38
  That ain't no way. If you would have told me you
• 34:41
  turned over, I'd be like, Jay, listen, man, we want to talk
• 34:45
  about truth here. There's no way you did that.
• 34:47
  Yeah, I would have not have believed that anyway.
• 34:49
  So but you. But you got off the ground.
• 34:51
  I I like I said, I got my feet like 2 inches off the ground and
• 34:54
  I was like, done. That is not a comfortable
• 34:55
  feeling for me. These people that pole vault
• 34:57
  bro. Oh no, I was blessed.
• 34:59
  I was nowhere near comfortable, that's for sure.
• 35:03
  But yeah, it was a lot of fun. And man, I learned so much about
• 35:08
  take offs. Did that give you like, maybe
• 35:12
  you already had some of it, but you know, it's one thing to have
• 35:14
  it then actually experience it yourself, like understanding,
• 35:17
  empathy, admiration for other events.
• 35:20
  Oh yeah, yeah, definitely it it because he was a decathly right.
• 35:24
  So he had his hand and all kinds of stuff.
• 35:27
  So he was just giving me everything that I asked for.
• 35:31
  And like I said, man, I I couldn't have been more blessed
• 35:33
  to, to have a boss like him and, and work with him and learn
• 35:37
  everything from him. Yeah, there's some technical
• 35:41
  stuff we don't agree on, but sure.
• 35:43
  Sure, sure. That's what's great about our
• 35:44
  profession. I I love that.
• 35:46
  Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that's a
• 35:47
  healthy conversation to have. Actually, Justin, you know, a
• 35:51
  lot of people will say, you know, I have conversations with
• 35:55
  coaches every day. Like, you know, obviously I have
• 35:57
  very long form like, like these conversations which I'm grateful
• 35:59
  for. Text messages, phone call every
• 36:01
  day. You have 100 coaches a day,
• 36:03
  right? And the way you just said that
• 36:05
  is very common that I hear it that way a lot like, Oh, we may
• 36:08
  not disagree, almost like you're apologizing, you know, a little
• 36:10
  bit. But when you go back, take a
• 36:13
  layer back and you think about our, our sport and our athletes,
• 36:16
  you know, you'll hear the term you, you, I, I'll go on a limb
• 36:19
  and say, I bet you'll agree with this statement that, you know,
• 36:22
  you can't coach every athlete the same.
• 36:24
  Some athletes need, whether whether it's a throwing or
• 36:26
  running distance running is probably the easiest one to give
• 36:29
  an example. Some people need to be 100 miles
• 36:31
  per week and some people need to be 40 miles per week, right.
• 36:34
  And so if that's true, what which it is, that means like
• 36:39
  when you say like, yeah, he and I, there were some things we
• 36:41
  didn't agree on coaching wise, as long as we're not talking
• 36:43
  about like safety things like, oh, he, he thinks, you know,
• 36:46
  everybody should jump off a 40 foot bridge, you know, dumb
• 36:48
  things like that. That means some of the things
• 36:52
  that you disagree with him, I think, I assume specifically
• 36:55
  we're talking about throws coaching here is the right thing
• 36:58
  to do with certain athletes, just like what you do that he
• 37:02
  might have disagreed with is the right thing to do for certain
• 37:05
  athletes. So it's not AI think we try to
• 37:07
  get into a very like, Oh, you know, that coach is a volume
• 37:11
  coach versus I'm a Sprint coach and they're wrong and I'm right.
• 37:14
  And it's like, no, depending on the athlete.
• 37:16
  And, and so you're going to get so many different athletes
• 37:18
  throughout the years and throughout your career.
• 37:20
  It's almost like, well, you might not have to necessarily
• 37:23
  agree with it, but you better understand it because you're
• 37:25
  liable to have an athlete that needs that.
• 37:28
  And if you're not able to see that and go, Oh, I need to do
• 37:31
  this one differently that I, I don't agree with that with 90%
• 37:35
  of my throwers, but for these 10%, I do got to do this.
• 37:38
  You, you won't get the full potential.
• 37:39
  So I, I think it's a great discussion to have and not be
• 37:42
  apologetic. You have to have a, a, you know,
• 37:47
  a style that you're you, you feel is the right way, but you
• 37:50
  have to have, you know, bending, you know, because again, you're
• 37:54
  dealing with 18 to 22 year olds who are odd and different and,
• 37:57
  you know, different. Some are coming in and they're,
• 38:00
  they're baseball players. Other come in and they've been
• 38:01
  doing it since 8 years old, you know, so that that's a lot
• 38:04
  different. Yeah, I love that.
• 38:06
  Keep going. Sorry.
• 38:06
  I just I I thought it was important.
• 38:08
  No, you're good. I don't even remember where I
• 38:11
  was so. So we're talking about you're
• 38:14
  describing your transition from athlete to coach and you're
• 38:17
  talking about, you know, get a lot of different experiences
• 38:19
  with with what was Doug's last name.
• 38:21
  I'm sorry. Thomasy.
• 38:23
  Thomasy Thomasy yeah, Coach Thomasy and learning that, how
• 38:27
  about, you know, I, I love and we've heard this before where
• 38:29
  people really liked the recruiting side of the NCAA
• 38:32
  Football game and stuff like that.
• 38:34
  And that's cool. I, I would have been there as
• 38:36
  well. I, I love that aspect.
• 38:37
  However, it's different than really recruiting.
• 38:40
  How did you find actually calling up an 18 year old kid
• 38:44
  and talking and letters and all that stuff?
• 38:47
  Yeah, it's, you know, you know, man, this is this is a good one.
• 38:52
  I'm going to be honest, you know, because, because, you
• 38:56
  know, I, I was so lucky to fall into the situation I did because
• 39:00
  I wasn't a good athlete. I just, I wanted to find out if,
• 39:04
  you know, this was something I wanted to do for a long time,
• 39:07
  you know, And so when I went to Lynchburg, it was all about just
• 39:11
  learning as much as I could, challenging myself all the time.
• 39:14
  And, and like I said, Doug was all about that.
• 39:16
  And he just, he let me make mistakes.
• 39:19
  He let me learn. He let me, you know, call all
• 39:21
  kinds of people. Eventually the second year, I
• 39:23
  became our recruiting coordinator.
• 39:25
  And, you know, if somebody wasn't getting reached out to,
• 39:28
  you know, I made sure that we followed up on things.
• 39:30
  And, yeah, like, he just, I mean, he just handed me the
• 39:32
  reins, man, and just and let me, you know, become who I was.
• 39:36
  So it was awesome. Where did you, can you think of
• 39:41
  a, you know, recruiting is it's not one thing.
• 39:44
  It's a series of 10 to 20 things, right?
• 39:48
  Visits, letters, you know, recruiting management.
• 39:51
  Do you, are you going after the number one kid in North
• 39:53
  Carolina? It's like, well, you're in
• 39:54
  Lynchburg, no offense, but maybe not, you know, can you think of
• 39:59
  some things that you struggled with?
• 40:00
  Like maybe maybe you thought you weren't going to struggle.
• 40:02
  You're like man, I just blow away instead of like 14.
• 40:05
  I'm going to be amazing at this part.
• 40:06
  And you're like, oh, you know what?
• 40:07
  I actually had to learn to manage this side of it a little
• 40:10
  bit. Yeah, it was, it was tough.
• 40:12
  You know, I think you, you know, you go into Division Three
• 40:15
  setting and you know, the the cost of school was, you know,
• 40:19
  not friendly. So that means the best.
• 40:22
  Way I've ever heard that it's not friendly.
• 40:26
  It's not. Yeah, so it was tough.
• 40:33
  Like it was hard because I had this whole different mindset
• 40:36
  about it, right? Like I did have that wrong
• 40:38
  mindset. And I learned quickly that I
• 40:41
  needed to fix that and do a better job of things.
• 40:44
  What? Was that wrong mindset?
• 40:45
  You said you had the wrong mindset.
• 40:46
  What does? That mean?
• 40:47
  Oh, I thought it was going to be easy, right?
• 40:50
  Because that's all I did. You thought, man, I just call
• 40:53
  them up, I'm a cool dude. I'll.
• 40:56
  Be turning people away. Yeah, exactly.
• 40:59
  And that's, that's exactly what I thought.
• 41:01
  And I learned quickly that, man, you got to work your butt off to
• 41:05
  get these kids to come here because, you know, they're going
• 41:08
  to get a great education and you're going to give them a
• 41:10
  great experience. But that cost of school is, is
• 41:12
  daunting, you know. So I figured that out and, you
• 41:16
  know, ended up bringing in some pretty good kids and had a big
• 41:19
  squad there and did really well. I wish I could have spent more
• 41:23
  time there, honestly. But you know, once, once
• 41:26
  graduation hit and I got a couple phone calls, it was like,
• 41:29
  alright man, well let's, let's do this thing.
• 41:31
  Let's really go after and do it right.
• 41:33
  So I really think that graduate assistant coaches, typically
• 41:39
  when we go become Aga, we've already got kind of our mind set
• 41:42
  up that, yeah, this is I'm going to be a track coach.
• 41:44
  And I really wish it was more of like, hey, I'm going to go
• 41:46
  become Aga and see if I want to be a coach.
• 41:49
  Like I, I wonder how many. I don't think it, you know, I
• 41:52
  just culturally don't think it's very often that someone goes,
• 41:55
  becomes a GA, does two years of coaching and getting their grad
• 41:58
  work and goes, Yep, hey, that was fun.
• 41:59
  Alright. I'm gonna go become just a
• 42:01
  regular teacher or I hate to use the word, just I'm gonna become
• 42:04
  a regular teacher or I'm gonna go open a business.
• 42:07
  They say, that was great. I tasted it and it just wasn't
• 42:09
  for me. I really wish that because
• 42:11
  coaching is not for everybody and everybody thinks it is.
• 42:13
  I shouldn't say everybody thinks it is.
• 42:15
  A lot of people think it is You. You made that mind up.
• 42:17
  You're you're in now because it's this is the career path I'm
• 42:20
  moving forward. What what you said some people
• 42:23
  were calling what? What happened next?
• 42:25
  Yeah. So I ended up going to
• 42:27
  Shenandoah University, which is in the same conference, which
• 42:30
  that was incredibly difficult, but it was an opportunity to,
• 42:35
  you know, become a full time coach and just, you know, stay
• 42:39
  in that pathway. So, yeah, I had to go against
• 42:42
  kids that I recruited and coached for two years and that
• 42:46
  was tough. I I was at SU for three years.
• 42:49
  And, you know, we, I think we went from, you know, me and Andy
• 42:52
  went from like 19 kids on the team to when I left, there was
• 42:55
  about 50 some kids on the team. So, yeah, we did a, we did a
• 42:59
  great job there. And, you know, that programs in
• 43:01
  a great place now and they're doing great.
• 43:03
  You know, I've been gone for eight years, but, you know, I
• 43:05
  see him all the time. And, you know, he texted me this
• 43:07
  morning, you know? So, yeah.
• 43:10
  Had you said something again, very common, went to coach at
• 43:16
  another school, but it was in the same conference.
• 43:18
  So I got to see these kids and how do you, how do you, how do
• 43:23
  you handle, how do you adjust to that?
• 43:27
  Luckily, you know, I was still so young and coaching when I was
• 43:30
  with them that I was just constantly learning, right?
• 43:34
  I went and got my level one and I think at some point it was
• 43:39
  even our first, I think, yeah, it was my first year at
• 43:42
  Shenandoah. I went and got my level 2 for
• 43:44
  gross. So I was still growing and
• 43:47
  learning so much of the sport. So I wasn't, I didn't have like
• 43:49
  a huge like I guess coaching attachment to anyone.
• 43:55
  Does that make sense? So that that was helpful because
• 43:58
  I was just still learning and developing myself.
• 44:01
  So it was a little bit easier because of that.
• 44:02
  But it but it sucked because I had to go and try to beat some
• 44:06
  of these kids and, you know, and and I can, you know, one of them
• 44:09
  being Kim, one of my girls, Kim Alfaro, she was one of the best
• 44:13
  female throwers I've ever had. And I was so lucky to get her in
• 44:16
  Lynchburg. And then I had to go against her
• 44:19
  for two years or sorry. Yeah, for three years.
• 44:22
  And it was it was tough. And and we were, we had a great
• 44:24
  relationship and. But I never talked to her about
• 44:27
  coaching after I left her. So yeah, that's good.
• 44:32
  Yeah. She you know, some people ask
• 44:33
  some questions, but it's not my job.
• 44:35
  Yeah, that's that's tough too. And you know, that's very
• 44:38
  common, right, Because, you know, coaches were moving Hope
• 44:40
  and I I say I hope we're moving because, you know, I'm always
• 44:44
  wanting coaches to get the next job that pays more.
• 44:46
  We don't pay enough. Even the jobs that, you know, we
• 44:49
  think are good paying jobs, I think they should be be paid
• 44:52
  more out there. And so we had, you know, our
• 44:56
  actually our number one episode ever still is Boo Scheck
• 44:59
  Schneider. Is that name ring a bell?
• 45:00
  OK, that was a that was a test Justin.
• 45:02
  It's like, oh man, if you don't know, Boo.
• 45:03
  This is it depends. It depends.
• 45:06
  It depends. Yeah, that's it.
• 45:09
  That's exactly right. We had Boo on the podcast,
• 45:13
  except number one, most listened to rightfully so.
• 45:16
  You know, I always bow down to Boo, love him.
• 45:19
  And he talked about, you know, leaving for another job and a
• 45:22
  little different here in that position for you because it's
• 45:24
  GA. So you know, you're forced to
• 45:25
  leave. And then regards to like there's
• 45:26
  no, there's no third year GA get out of here.
• 45:30
  But he talked about, you know, if, if we're doing it for the
• 45:32
  kids, if we think we, you know, what we're in this profession to
• 45:35
  do is to help kids. How do you know leaving brings
• 45:39
  in a coach that's better for those kids?
• 45:41
  And it was like, oh, like I, I remember when he said that.
• 45:43
  It's like, Boo, You can't say that out loud like we're our ego
• 45:46
  as a coach says no, I'm the best coach for these kids.
• 45:49
  And the reality it's like, I don't know, maybe the next guy
• 45:51
  comes in and he or she is better, you know, for those.
• 45:54
  So if it's what's right for the kids, then it's better that you
• 45:57
  move on. By the way, you could be the
• 45:58
  better coach for that next school when you go to
• 46:00
  Shenandoah. You were probably the better
• 46:03
  coach for them in that situation.
• 46:05
  Then maybe what they had the past.
• 46:06
  No shade on whoever was or wasn't there, just begin
• 46:09
  situationally there. So that's that's, that's
• 46:11
  interesting. I was I was Andy's first
• 46:13
  assistant. So, oh, is that right?
• 46:15
  OK. Yeah, I think, I think maybe he
• 46:17
  had like a part time person or something before I went there.
• 46:19
  But yeah, his, his staff has has grown since I've I've been there
• 46:24
  and left. Thanks for saving me from
• 46:25
  accidentally shading someone that's it's always when you're
• 46:28
  like oh I'm not talking bad about someone I swear I promise
• 46:30
  I. Promise.
• 46:31
  Yeah, I don't. Yeah, I love.
• 46:32
  Shannon, Shannon, do it. The Hornets.
• 46:35
  Yeah, yeah. So I went from Hornets to
• 46:37
  Hornets, red to red. Oh, I didn't even think about
• 46:39
  that. That's right.
• 46:40
  That's awesome. You're.
• 46:42
  Just going to go to all the schools that are Hornets that
• 46:45
  maybe Alabama State next or something like that.
• 46:46
  Yeah. OK.
• 46:48
  So it's one thing to be Aga. No matter how many
• 46:52
  responsibilities you have as the GA, you're still Aga, you're
• 46:54
  still a graduate assistant, you're still taking classes.
• 46:57
  You're not making a full time salary, things like that.
• 47:00
  Now you go to Shenandoah and you are, I'm assuming, a full time
• 47:03
  assistant, but you you are you're not taking classes.
• 47:05
  This is your job. Everything's riding on you.
• 47:09
  How did you leverage those experiences that you learned
• 47:12
  recruiting and coaching at Lynchburg to now like all right
• 47:15
  now I really, you know, I know Coach Thomas E was very much I
• 47:19
  love that quote. If it's your baby, figure it
• 47:21
  out. So there's a lot of self
• 47:22
  responsibility there. But now you really are like,
• 47:24
  it's your event. Sink or swim and please, please,
• 47:27
  please swim. Right.
• 47:30
  Yeah, No, it was man, the transition, like I said, was
• 47:33
  just a little rough because, you know, being in the same
• 47:37
  conference, but I thankfully I had that understanding of things
• 47:41
  and I wasn't totally, you know, the coach that I that I became
• 47:45
  at that moment. So sorry, I'm trying to piece
• 47:49
  that in there. But yeah, I just, you know, I
• 47:53
  hit the ground running there because we didn't have a lot,
• 47:56
  you know, went to the weight room and saw what I saw, grabbed
• 47:59
  a couple kids. And I think we had one girl come
• 48:02
  over from field hockey and one girl come over from volleyball
• 48:06
  just to kind of help us really get this thing going in the
• 48:09
  right direction. And it was, it was a little bit
• 48:13
  easier recruiting there, I'm not going to lie crazy.
• 48:16
  But maybe that was because, you know, I had figured things out
• 48:20
  and, you know, got better at it, right?
• 48:24
  But it was definitely a lot, a lot better there for me.
• 48:28
  Yeah. Just more why more friendlier
• 48:33
  tuition. I still love how you put that.
• 48:35
  Yeah, Yeah, it was. It was definitely a little bit
• 48:38
  cheaper. There was, I guess there was
• 48:40
  some pathways that we had there that helped us get kids in.
• 48:45
  I wonder psychologically, I just kind of thought about this, you
• 48:49
  know, you may not express this in words, but Justin, when
• 48:52
  you're recruiting as a graduate assistant, you know, there's
• 48:56
  some a, a, a finite to it, You know, like, hey, I, I'm
• 48:59
  recruiting you today. If it's your second year, I
• 49:02
  won't even coach you next year. I want you to come here because
• 49:04
  it's a good program, yada, yada. But I'm not like there's a
• 49:07
  little bit of like, I don't even get to see four years of these
• 49:11
  kids where when you're full time, it's like, oh, you know,
• 49:14
  the plan at least today is I will see you all the way through
• 49:16
  graduation. I'll work with you for four to
• 49:18
  five years. I wonder if there's, again, I'm
• 49:20
  not sure you would actually verbalize that because it's, you
• 49:23
  know, this is kind of subconscious type stuff here.
• 49:25
  But I wonder if there's like in the back of your mind when
• 49:27
  you're recruiting. And I'm not necessarily pointing
• 49:29
  that you, I'm talking about anybody here actually that that
• 49:32
  there's a, you know what, what is deemed easier or, you know,
• 49:35
  not as easy. I wonder if that plays into it
• 49:37
  all. I don't know.
• 49:39
  Yeah, maybe. Yeah, you're.
• 49:42
  Yeah, I can definitely see that, Yeah.
• 49:44
  A little armchair psychiatry here, of course, but.
• 49:47
  Yeah, as well as as well as you wanted to do, right.
• 49:50
  Like you just kind of continue to grow and get better every
• 49:53
  year and you just get better at all the things that you're
• 49:55
  doing, especially, especially if you care about it.
• 49:58
  So yeah, I guess it, you know, it just kind of, you know, it
• 50:01
  just grew and grew and grew. And I hate to say that, I know I
• 50:05
  said it was easier. I hate, I hate saying that.
• 50:09
  But. Yeah, I get.
• 50:10
  I get. It I think, I think that was
• 50:11
  just because of my growth, you know, so.
• 50:15
  There's a major distinction here.
• 50:16
  You're not saying it was easy, you're saying it was easier, but
• 50:20
  that that's a. Comparison.
• 50:21
  Yeah, I think that's a a fair actually.
• 50:23
  You would hope. I would hope even as you as a
• 50:26
  coach would say, it is easier to coach today in my 10th year,
• 50:31
  wherever we're at today in 2024 than it was in my second year.
• 50:35
  I, I hope you say that because that means you've grown.
• 50:39
  If it's still like, you know, I'm still, I still don't know
• 50:42
  what I'm doing the hammer. It's like, well, bro, you've
• 50:44
  been doing this for 10 year. Like what's what's going on?
• 50:46
  Like something's not happening here.
• 50:48
  So I, I think you're, I think you're expressing that fairly.
• 50:51
  Absolutely. You mentioned, you know, one of
• 50:54
  my favorite topics because it meant so much to me in, in my
• 50:57
  career and still does in, in the business world here and it's
• 51:02
  professional development coaching education.
• 51:04
  You mentioned level one, you mentioned level 2.
• 51:06
  Where did you do level 2 at? Do you remember that?
• 51:08
  I was at NC State for level 2. My level one was done at
• 51:12
  Christopher Newport. Oh yeah, yeah, was.
• 51:15
  That 2000, 2011, OK, yeah. And then not sure what year it
• 51:22
  was a NC State for level 2, but. I don't remember that one.
• 51:25
  Yeah, it was. 15 OK 1414 or I'm not sure Yeah, very good.
• 51:30
  So so you know going into that I'm I just turned in my Level 3
• 51:34
  project for USATF. So it should hopefully,
• 51:38
  hopefully soon next couple days we'll or next couple weeks we'll
• 51:41
  have our Level 3 do. You remember who your level two
• 51:43
  teachers were. Yeah, so we had Larry, Mike and
• 51:48
  Aaron were my. Aaron.
• 51:51
  Aaron. Gilriff.
• 51:53
  Oh, yeah. Oh, Aaron.
• 51:54
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, Of course.
• 51:57
  I was thinking Aaron, Aaron. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
• 51:59
  It's funny when you say Larry Mike, it's kind of like the Cher
• 52:03
  Ambano. Like I automatically knew
• 52:05
  exactly who, just one of the first names.
• 52:07
  Larry Mike. Yeah.
• 52:07
  The judges, of course. That's of course you had.
• 52:09
  Yeah. And I should have automatically
• 52:10
  put Aaron in there as well. She did a lot of teaching and
• 52:12
  maybe still does, but yeah. What?
• 52:15
  You know what? So do you remember level 2 and
• 52:18
  Larry specifically? Mike's great too, but I'm just
• 52:20
  going to focus on Larry because I have some experience here.
• 52:23
  You know, Larry's gift is teaching.
• 52:26
  Like I used to host and, and teach a lot of level ones and I
• 52:31
  had him as a, as my throws teacher for several of them.
• 52:34
  And he made me believe like when he would get the stand everybody
• 52:39
  up and make them do like hammer turns and positions.
• 52:42
  I felt like, oh man, I think I can go through.
• 52:44
  I think I can go coach the hammer now.
• 52:45
  Like he, he is such a great teacher.
• 52:48
  Like I, I just think like I get jealous of the people who go to
• 52:51
  level 2 throws with Larry. And I'm sure Mike, I know Mike
• 52:54
  well, but I haven't been taught by him.
• 52:55
  But Larry is just like you. You think about people who are
• 52:59
  like put on this earth to be teachers.
• 53:01
  Like that dude could teach physics.
• 53:02
  That dude could teach track. That dude could teach history.
• 53:05
  What a teacher, Larry judges. Yeah, I was lucky man to have
• 53:10
  him for level one, level 2, and then obviously at Level 3.
• 53:14
  Like I've had them for all three and I've known them for so long
• 53:17
  now. And yeah, like just just a
• 53:20
  excellent person. And yeah, if you got a question,
• 53:23
  he's the guy to ask. He he reminds me of like the
• 53:27
  call it the throw side of Boo. And what I mean by that is first
• 53:31
  of all, both amazing teachers, but Boo like there's these Boo
• 53:35
  quotes like Boo has these, you know, you mentioned one, you
• 53:38
  know, it depends and things like that.
• 53:40
  Can you, you've had a lot of experience with Larry as a
• 53:44
  teacher and, and, and maybe mentor, even at the at this
• 53:47
  point, Can you think of like, like what are some of the
• 53:49
  things, or maybe even just one thing that Larry told you that
• 53:51
  you're like, Oh my God, like that just like cleared the
• 53:53
  clouds of this misconception I had, whether it was coaching or
• 53:57
  even philosophy, You know what I'm saying?
• 53:58
  He's he's not just talking about, you know, positions of
• 54:01
  arms, you know, something very technical.
• 54:03
  He's talking about, you know, what you should be thinking
• 54:06
  about when you throw a hammer or shop it, etcetera.
• 54:10
  Yeah, no, I think I've, I've had so much instruction from him
• 54:15
  that like, you know, I, I know that what I'm doing, he would,
• 54:19
  you know, obviously I just did Level 3 with him.
• 54:21
  So he's very in tune with what I do.
• 54:23
  And he agrees with a lot of things that I, that I, you know,
• 54:26
  I do. And he's just been there like
• 54:30
  literally every step of the way for me in the coaching world
• 54:33
  because like I said, I was, I was three months into coaching
• 54:36
  when I met him and then he grew my level 2 a couple years later
• 54:40
  do. You realize how lucky you are.
• 54:42
  No, I, I know, man. And I'm so, I'm so blessed, man.
• 54:46
  And, and I've, I've done classes with Boo as well, you know,
• 54:49
  symposiums and stuff at the convention and I did my strength
• 54:52
  and conditioning with, you know, Boo and yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:55
  And Carrie, I think Carrie was the other one.
• 54:57
  Carrie Lane. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:59
  So yeah, no, I just, man, I, I there's nothing that's like
• 55:03
  super specific because I think there's just way too much,
• 55:06
  honestly. But he's he's cleared my head on
• 55:11
  got countless things, man, just you know, do you think I'm doing
• 55:15
  this right? Is this too much throwing?
• 55:17
  Is this, you know, whatever it is?
• 55:19
  Like he's he's graded so much of my stuff and giving me so much
• 55:24
  information. Just all, you know, the things
• 55:27
  I've done in his classes, like man, I, I, I'm just, I'm
• 55:30
  blessed, that's all I can say. Now his gift like Boo is he is
• 55:34
  able to simplify things. You know, we get caught up.
• 55:37
  I, I can only imagine in the throws world, but I know it's
• 55:39
  certainly in the jumps world. We get very caught up in all
• 55:42
  these different positions and the thousand different things.
• 55:44
  And it's like, you know, Boo Boo has again, I kind of have this
• 55:46
  picture of like a cloud moving out of the way.
• 55:49
  Boo has this way of saying like 3 words and it's like oh I get
• 55:55
  it I need my athlete to be doing XY or ZI need to just say these
• 55:58
  one thing. Larry, I feel like has that same
• 56:01
  like, you know, Larry, you know, the turns and blah, blah, blah
• 56:03
  blah. And Larry just says yeah, make
• 56:05
  sure their arms are long. And it's like, oh, that fixes
• 56:09
  this also. I'll tell you a quick a quick
• 56:12
  story that he told us at level 2.
• 56:16
  Apparently Aaron, he was away at something and Aaron was
• 56:19
  practicing and man, this, this is how good he is, right?
• 56:26
  He said, he said Aaron put the phone down because this was
• 56:29
  there's no video back then, right?
• 56:31
  That would have made things a heck of a lot easier.
• 56:34
  I actually do FaceTime sessions with some of my kids sometimes
• 56:36
  it's awesome until they have to walk and go get the implement.
• 56:42
  But Aaron, he he told Aaron he's like, put the phone down next to
• 56:44
  the circle and just let me hear the contacts, right?
• 56:49
  And I was just like, you got to be kidding me, right?
• 56:53
  And go through it. And she, she said, you know, and
• 56:57
  she was in the room. So she was there and he was
• 56:59
  telling the story. And she was.
• 57:01
  And she said, yeah, after, you know, he listened to me throw.
• 57:04
  Like, he just literally heard my ground contacts.
• 57:07
  He was able to give me something.
• 57:09
  And all of a sudden I had the best session of my life.
• 57:12
  And the coach wasn't there. He didn't see anything.
• 57:17
  He literally had the information from her and he heard her throw,
• 57:21
  right? But you don't hear that type of
• 57:22
  stuff, you know, like maybe maybe in baseball.
• 57:25
  Oh, he his MIT, you know, the ball hits his MIT different,
• 57:29
  right? We've all heard that.
• 57:31
  But to hear somebody say that and then actually, you know,
• 57:37
  that's crazy. But yeah, it's just, yeah, it's
• 57:40
  just fall. Man, so that's a quick.
• 57:42
  Quick thing about him. That's Yoda stuff.
• 57:45
  I mean, you know, I have not heard that from maybe less than
• 57:48
  five people. You know, Boo being one of them
• 57:51
  to Les. I've always heard to Les was
• 57:54
  like had like Tom to Les had like a video recorder in his
• 57:59
  head. So a lot of people record
• 58:01
  practice and in to Les was like, I don't need it.
• 58:03
  I can just watch. And he, you know, he could see
• 58:05
  all the angles and be able to, I mean, just, you know, I always
• 58:09
  say there are, there are a bunch of amazing coaches out there as
• 58:14
  far as like their technical skills.
• 58:16
  And then there's about 5 people that are just just a level up
• 58:21
  man. Boo's always been in one of
• 58:22
  those Larry's in there to Les. I mean, it just, it's
• 58:25
  unbelievable. It's really uncanny.
• 58:26
  Like it's if we believe that, you know, some people hit the
• 58:32
  genetic lottery in certain aspects versus others, and that
• 58:35
  has to be true, right? I think in the coaching, the
• 58:38
  technical side of it, I think some coaches hit the genetic
• 58:42
  lottery of how the brain, eyes, ears connects.
• 58:47
  And then that's one thing. But then to be able to process
• 58:51
  it and actually verbalize it correctly, that's all.
• 58:54
  That's another level to the game and it just.
• 58:57
  Like I don't think you can track to.
• 58:58
  That and get to that level. You got to have some natural
• 59:02
  genetics there for that in my mind.
• 59:04
  Yeah, I'll, I'll tell you a little thing that I figured out
• 59:07
  at Level 3. The thing you're just talking
• 59:09
  about with tales and stuff. I'm, I'm the same way.
• 59:13
  Like I don't need. So I have probably 20,000 videos
• 59:17
  on my computer right now, but that is for my kids, if they
• 59:20
  want it, right? I can watch a video or watch
• 59:25
  someone do something and then I can replay it like I I have.
• 59:30
  And this is, you know, it's awesome.
• 59:32
  I only realized that I was like this because I was at Level 3.
• 59:37
  Coach Dagata, you may know John. Yeah.
• 59:41
  And I got to meet him my second year of coaching.
• 59:44
  So I've known him a long time. But he was.
• 59:47
  Yeah. He was talking about, I'm going
• 59:51
  to go into this a little bit, but he was talking about his dad
• 59:53
  was a fighter pilot, right? To do that, you have to have an
• 59:57
  excellent vision. And so he was talking about
• 1:00:01
  vision and how he sees things and.
• 1:00:03
  Then he started talking about like, you know, he didn't need
• 1:00:06
  to continue to watch a video or something like that.
• 1:00:09
  And I was just sitting there. I was like, I was like, man,
• 1:00:11
  like I looked at my buddy Steve. Steve just took the job at
• 1:00:14
  Abilene Christian, great friend of mine, Steve Sanchez.
• 1:00:19
  Oh, yeah. So have him on a podcast.
• 1:00:21
  So he's a good dude. He's got a lot to say.
• 1:00:25
  He's a. Good.
• 1:00:26
  He's a good looking dude. That's my thing with Steve
• 1:00:28
  Sanchez. We're friends like on.
• 1:00:30
  Facebook. And he's like, really?
• 1:00:32
  He's supposed. To be a model, not a track
• 1:00:34
  coach, man. Yeah, he's like Steve.
• 1:00:35
  I don't know if you listen to man, I don't know if you know I
• 1:00:37
  had this man crush on you, but dude, you always look Immaculate
• 1:00:40
  and sorry. Go ahead.
• 1:00:41
  You're. Good.
• 1:00:43
  But yeah, so he was, he was talking about like how he sees
• 1:00:46
  things. And I look over at Steve and,
• 1:00:47
  you know, because we're sitting in the back of the classroom.
• 1:00:49
  Michael, Lottie, we got there later.
• 1:00:51
  Exactly what you don't do. Well, no, it's all right.
• 1:00:55
  We had to walk all the way across the Chula Vista campus,
• 1:00:58
  right, to go to the classroom up the hill.
• 1:01:00
  And so we we just got there last because we were just kind of
• 1:01:04
  straggling along. So.
• 1:01:05
  But I look over and see, and I'm like, man, like, do do you do
• 1:01:09
  you have to, like watch video all the time?
• 1:01:12
  He's like, he's like, yeah, man, I I love it.
• 1:01:14
  Like, I love watching video. No.
• 1:01:15
  And I was like, no, man, sorry. I just hit my table.
• 1:01:18
  I was like, I was like, no, man, like I'm talking about for like
• 1:01:22
  after you see something like do you have to go video?
• 1:01:26
  And you know, people process things differently 100% and
• 1:01:29
  Steve is one of the best coaches I know, but his his brain
• 1:01:32
  doesn't operate like mine. And I realized that in that
• 1:01:36
  moment because I thought everyone did that right?
• 1:01:41
  I thought because because I can pull like I can, I know I can't
• 1:01:44
  prove any of these things right because it's in my brain.
• 1:01:48
  But like, you know, I, I still, I have registered like all the
• 1:01:53
  best throws of my kids. Like I can pull out, you know, a
• 1:01:57
  national championship throw for Mary Bridge and Keck when she
• 1:02:00
  went 56 at NCAA's to open up and PR by meter.
• 1:02:05
  Like I can replay. I can replay all those moments.
• 1:02:07
  I remember the crowd and like everything.
• 1:02:10
  So I like when I'm at practice, like I don't go to my phone.
• 1:02:13
  Like I'm not just on my phone, like I'm, I'm coaching them
• 1:02:17
  using the video that's in my brain, right?
• 1:02:21
  Some of it, you know, some of it does go out, especially the bad
• 1:02:24
  stuff. But but man, I, I can just pull
• 1:02:27
  so many things out of thin air and it just helps me so much
• 1:02:32
  with the kids. And so it's just a little bit of
• 1:02:34
  a processing thing. But I, I swear, man, for 14
• 1:02:37
  years, I thought every single coach had that ability.
• 1:02:43
  But they, but it's just people are different things.
• 1:02:45
  You know, I'm not trying to knock anybody or anything like
• 1:02:48
  that. It's just.
• 1:02:49
  It's crazy. You know, that makes me think
• 1:02:51
  of, you know, kind of a call it a recommendation, a blessing, a
• 1:02:56
  word. You should explore that more in
• 1:03:02
  the fashion of being able to present this at the North
• 1:03:06
  Carolina Track Coaches Association clinic, the USTFCA
• 1:03:10
  clinic, etcetera. And the reason I say that is
• 1:03:13
  twofold 1 is if you sit down like when you're, when you're
• 1:03:17
  writing a presentation, you know, you got to think about
• 1:03:20
  things different cuz you're thinking about how do I
• 1:03:21
  communicate this? And what do I mean when I
• 1:03:23
  internally say this? How you know, that may not be
• 1:03:25
  the right thing to say to the group, etcetera.
• 1:03:27
  So you'll learn more about that skill.
• 1:03:29
  Like you'll, you'll get better at the skill by learning how to
• 1:03:31
  teach it. And then on top of that,
• 1:03:35
  presenting this to other coaches will help them get better, not
• 1:03:39
  to necessarily rise up. Cuz I, you know, I think we both
• 1:03:41
  kind of agree like there's some kind of genetic thing to this.
• 1:03:44
  So you can't get over that. But people can get better at how
• 1:03:47
  they utilize video or video in their mind or that connection to
• 1:03:52
  that. So I just, I would just
• 1:03:53
  encourage you to explore. How would you teach that to
• 1:03:57
  someone? Not all of it, Cuz you know,
• 1:03:59
  you're talking about, you know, usually an hour presentation, 45
• 1:04:01
  minutes to an hour. How would you like help people
• 1:04:04
  get better at seeing their athletes?
• 1:04:06
  And what's cool about this, You know, while you're a throws
• 1:04:08
  coach, all that kind of stuff, this translates to sprinting,
• 1:04:11
  hurdling long. I mean this, you know, this,
• 1:04:14
  this is the gamut. This isn't just a throws
• 1:04:15
  presentation. This is how do you coach better?
• 1:04:19
  How do you become a better coach through that?
• 1:04:21
  So I encourage you to to explore that you know, and you'll get
• 1:04:26
  better and you'll help other people so.
• 1:04:28
  Yeah, I definitely, you know, I went and talked to GADA about it
• 1:04:31
  and I was just like man, like like how do I improve this?
• 1:04:35
  Like how do I use this for my benefit, although it already is
• 1:04:39
  totally benefiting 100%. But like, I didn't even know
• 1:04:44
  that was a skill, right? I just thought it was assumed
• 1:04:46
  and whatever. And I was asking, I was like,
• 1:04:50
  how do we figure this out? And he's like, man, I think it's
• 1:04:52
  just keep going, just keep coaching, you know, tell people
• 1:04:55
  about it, work on it. Like how do you do that?
• 1:05:00
  But I think luckily I have 25 kids at practice, right?
• 1:05:03
  So it's just constantly happening to me.
• 1:05:06
  So it's just over and over and over again, like I'm able to
• 1:05:08
  just register things that matter and like I said, push outs that
• 1:05:12
  I don't want to remember so. So you're at Shenandoah.
• 1:05:16
  How long were you there and what goes on next?
• 1:05:20
  Yeah, so I was at SU for three years and you know, like I said,
• 1:05:23
  we we grew the team. It was awesome.
• 1:05:27
  Started looking around at jobs and stuff.
• 1:05:28
  And I was actually on an interview out in Iowa.
• 1:05:32
  I can't even remember the name of the school because it was a
• 1:05:35
  Division Three school. Or was it NEI?
• 1:05:37
  Might have been NEI school actually, but just a random,
• 1:05:42
  totally random thing. I'm sitting in the interview
• 1:05:46
  with AD, the president of school and someone else.
• 1:05:51
  And I get my phone just starts blowing up and it's it's Mount
• 1:05:56
  Olive. And they're like, hey, we, we
• 1:05:58
  want to come. We want you to come back.
• 1:06:00
  And I was sitting there thinking to myself, like, you know, I
• 1:06:01
  never thought I would go back home, you know, So it's, yeah,
• 1:06:06
  it was just, it was a crazy situation and everything ended
• 1:06:08
  up working out. I was able to come back home so,
• 1:06:12
  you know, closer to my family and stuff, further from my
• 1:06:14
  wife's family, but closer to my family, so.
• 1:06:17
  I love like I have a special place in my heart for alums who
• 1:06:21
  coach at their alma mater. I just think it's it's like the
• 1:06:24
  most genuine. We talk about recruiting.
• 1:06:26
  It's like the most genuine proof of how great your school and
• 1:06:30
  program is. It's like, yeah, you know, great
• 1:06:32
  it is. I went to like, I chose.
• 1:06:33
  I could have gone a lot of places and I chose to go to
• 1:06:35
  school here. When you're at Shenandoah,
• 1:06:37
  you're selling another school. You didn't go to Shenandoah.
• 1:06:39
  You could have gone to Shenandoah, but you didn't.
• 1:06:40
  Why not, coach? It's so great, but why didn't
• 1:06:43
  you go there now when you're at all of.
• 1:06:44
  It's like, yeah, but I went here.
• 1:06:45
  I know this, but I know this hall and I know this the
• 1:06:49
  athletic facility. I know this professor, you know
• 1:06:51
  I just the authenticity is just like dripping when a long
• 1:06:55
  coaches that they're all moderate.
• 1:06:56
  So I love that. What was it?
• 1:07:00
  The same coach? Yeah, he was my coach.
• 1:07:03
  Yep. OK, so I love this topic here
• 1:07:07
  because, you know, when we're athletes, there is deference to
• 1:07:12
  a coach. You know, there's a there's a
• 1:07:13
  power imbalance, right? The coach is here, the athlete
• 1:07:16
  is here. Now you're coming on to staff.
• 1:07:19
  And while you're not an athlete, you're not the head coach.
• 1:07:22
  You know, there's still your coach, but they're still head
• 1:07:24
  coach. And this is the head coach you
• 1:07:26
  used to, you know, Revere and like, oh, he's the head coach.
• 1:07:29
  You know, how did you get over the, you know, the transition of
• 1:07:32
  athlete Justin Potter to him? That was your role for for years
• 1:07:36
  and now your role is assistant coach.
• 1:07:39
  I'm here to help him and be on his staff and we're, you know,
• 1:07:41
  we're working together. How did I mean that's I feel
• 1:07:44
  like that's can be difficult. Yeah.
• 1:07:48
  I mean, of course, because you think, you know, that there's
• 1:07:51
  things you probably could have done or they could have done,
• 1:07:54
  things would have been different.
• 1:07:56
  But no, I don't. There was no It was probably the
• 1:08:00
  most seamless thing I've ever been through.
• 1:08:02
  You had separation, which I think is helpful, right?
• 1:08:04
  So you went to Lynchburg and you went to Shenandoah, So 5.
• 1:08:08
  Years was. Yeah, I, I, I, I'm a, I'm a I'm
• 1:08:12
  against like graduate. Like if, if, if you would have
• 1:08:16
  been at Mount Olive as an athlete and then did Aga at
• 1:08:18
  Mount Olive. I'm, I'm, I'm against that.
• 1:08:20
  And for many reasons. One is that struggle and balance
• 1:08:24
  with the head coach, but also you, you know, you were boys
• 1:08:26
  with them on Friday because you're on the team.
• 1:08:28
  And then on Monday your coach. It's like, yeah, I don't know
• 1:08:29
  that anybody ever, everybody who's done that, who's been on
• 1:08:32
  this podcast has said, yeah, I probably could have done it
• 1:08:34
  better. Like everybody, you know, no one
• 1:08:36
  will tell stories, which is probably better.
• 1:08:38
  But everybody says, yeah, I probably could have done that
• 1:08:40
  better. It's like, hey, you were just
• 1:08:41
  you're just on their team. You're playing Xbox on Friday
• 1:08:43
  and now you're telling them get in the weight room and you're
• 1:08:45
  late. Like, I don't know, man.
• 1:08:48
  I feel like there needs to be separation.
• 1:08:49
  So I think I love that you had that separation that probably
• 1:08:52
  had to be helpful for that transition.
• 1:08:53
  Yeah, Yeah. Because obviously, like working
• 1:08:56
  with two other people, you know, I was in touch with him the
• 1:08:59
  entire time. You know, when I had questions
• 1:09:02
  about things or, you know, I didn't feel comfortable going to
• 1:09:05
  Doug or Andy about something, I would I would talk to him and
• 1:09:07
  then, you know, help get a direction.
• 1:09:09
  So it was pretty seamless me coming in and, you know, the the
• 1:09:12
  new thing was dealing with scholarship money, which is the
• 1:09:15
  first thing in the world, right. Yeah.
• 1:09:17
  That's right, it's different. But yeah, you know, that was
• 1:09:21
  that was the biggest thing, just trying to balance, you know,
• 1:09:23
  figuring out the financial aid piece.
• 1:09:26
  But every everything else, man, it was smooth.
• 1:09:28
  There was no one, yeah, there was no one on the team when I
• 1:09:33
  was around. So there was no connection
• 1:09:36
  there. So it was like I said, it was
• 1:09:38
  really seamless for us, so. Pretty it was five.
• 1:09:42
  Was it five? Were you three years at
• 1:09:43
  Shenandoah? Yeah, so two at Lynchburg and
• 1:09:46
  three so so. Five away, you know, a campus
• 1:09:49
  can change a lot in five years, especially a campus in the eyes
• 1:09:51
  of a 22 year old versus a 2728 year old.
• 1:09:54
  How was it coming back? Was it like, well, this is kind
• 1:09:56
  of a new place or do you follow along and stuff like this?
• 1:09:59
  This this place ain't changed in five years.
• 1:10:02
  Yeah, no, I remember dropping back into town.
• 1:10:06
  I'm like, where did that come from?
• 1:10:08
  We built that. Like, why didn't we have that?
• 1:10:11
  Because now it's not. You haven't been to mount all of
• 1:10:14
  this. It's not a big place.
• 1:10:15
  There's only 6000 people that live here.
• 1:10:16
  Luckily, we have an Air Force Base about 30 minutes away in
• 1:10:19
  Goldsboro. So there's, you know, a huge
• 1:10:21
  town right there. So people can say, you know,
• 1:10:23
  we're out in the middle of nowhere, but we're an hour from
• 1:10:25
  the beach, We're an hour from Raleigh, and we're 15 minutes
• 1:10:29
  away from a major city. So.
• 1:10:32
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:10:32
  So, you know, I came back, I was just like, man, where did these
• 1:10:35
  buildings come from? So it was really cool to see the
• 1:10:38
  town and I'm, and I'm talking about the town, not even the
• 1:10:40
  school. The school's done awesome.
• 1:10:42
  And you know, we went through COVID and crap, everybody did.
• 1:10:45
  And there's been things that, you know, weren't awesome along
• 1:10:48
  the way, but we've just continued to push forward and we
• 1:10:51
  have a great president and my wife is actually the director of
• 1:10:55
  admissions. So that's awesome.
• 1:10:58
  So. She she has a no conflict of
• 1:10:59
  interest at all. No, not at all.
• 1:11:02
  I don't look, I don't, I don't mess with her world.
• 1:11:05
  Like I try not to use her because it would be too easy for
• 1:11:10
  me to do so. So I don't ask her for anything
• 1:11:13
  unless I can't get it from somewhere else and then I know
• 1:11:17
  she'll do it for me. But yeah, I try to try to stay
• 1:11:20
  separated as much as I can with that, even though we definitely
• 1:11:24
  work together. But I like I said, I try not to
• 1:11:27
  use her how she gets enough of me and Carson every night so.
• 1:11:30
  Yeah, yeah, you said the town's roughly 6000.
• 1:11:33
  How many students there in Mount Olive total?
• 1:11:36
  Just about on campus about 900 and I hope nobody watches us and
• 1:11:43
  gets mad at me for not knowing that.
• 1:11:45
  But then like there's probably anywhere from like 1000 to 1200
• 1:11:48
  on campus with the commuters and stuff that.
• 1:11:50
  Come through, how many kids you guys are on the team in total?
• 1:11:54
  We have 90. Oh, God.
• 1:11:58
  Earl's going to yell at me for this.
• 1:11:59
  I should know this too. Yeah.
• 1:12:00
  So 97 I think. So roughly 10% of campus is on
• 1:12:04
  that team. That's AI mean.
• 1:12:05
  So if I'm walking around campus, one out of 10 kids I bump into
• 1:12:10
  probably are on the track team. Yep, that's really cool.
• 1:12:13
  That's really cool. Do you guys have football?
• 1:12:16
  No. So you're the biggest roster.
• 1:12:19
  Yeah, us. And then I guess lacrosse.
• 1:12:23
  Oh, really? Baseball.
• 1:12:24
  Maybe, yeah. No, baseball is not running 90.
• 1:12:28
  No, they don't have 90. They have probably the third.
• 1:12:31
  I think they have the third biggest team, yeah.
• 1:12:33
  Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, right, right.
• 1:12:35
  Yeah, yeah. That's amazing.
• 1:12:36
  I love that earlier you talked about some of your formal.
• 1:12:40
  So, so coaching education. I kind of break into two
• 1:12:42
  different avenues. Both are equally as important in
• 1:12:45
  my opinion. One is formal and one is what I
• 1:12:47
  call informal. Formal being level ones, level
• 1:12:49
  twos, USTFCAS, maybe Altis, things like that.
• 1:12:53
  Informal is the guys and gals that you call for advice.
• 1:12:57
  Hey, I've got this kid. I'm struggling here.
• 1:12:59
  Hey, what would you do in this case?
• 1:13:00
  We talked about someone like maybe a Larry Judge.
• 1:13:02
  Who else? What kind of unofficial coaching
• 1:13:08
  education podcast podcast mentors do you have?
• 1:13:12
  Like who's your who's your phone of friends?
• 1:13:15
  Yeah, yeah. Like I said, Jeff plays at UNCW.
• 1:13:19
  Great friend of mine Steve Sanchez down at Abilene now he
• 1:13:23
  was upstate for a few years so he's he's way far away from me
• 1:13:27
  now so that sucks, but we still call each other every day.
• 1:13:31
  That sounds so like. Aw, yeah, yeah, it's it.
• 1:13:34
  No, it is. You know, people are like, what
• 1:13:36
  are y'all going to do when you're not at beats together
• 1:13:38
  anymore? I'm like.
• 1:13:39
  Oh, so you guys are thick as thieves then?
• 1:13:41
  That's what I'm hearing. I mean, people are asking like,
• 1:13:43
  are you OK? Yeah, no, it's yeah.
• 1:13:48
  Steve's been a great friend and, you know, I've helped him and
• 1:13:51
  he's helped me many times and I hope that never ends.
• 1:13:56
  Golly, I can go down a rabbit hole here, but you know, Denver
• 1:14:00
  Davis down at or sorry, up at Bridgewater College.
• 1:14:04
  Awesome. Like I mentioned Doug earlier,
• 1:14:07
  Larry, Mike, man there's So I'm telling you, I'm leaving a ton
• 1:14:13
  of people. Out here, no.
• 1:14:15
  You're all excused. Everybody who thinks they were
• 1:14:17
  left out know that I always put these guys and gals on the spot
• 1:14:20
  here. It's not fair what I do.
• 1:14:22
  But know that there's a lot we all know.
• 1:14:24
  You know, the good coaches know I should say this.
• 1:14:27
  Say that is that you know, it's not one person.
• 1:14:30
  It is. You are in a you stand on the
• 1:14:31
  shoulders of a lot of great men and women that have poured into
• 1:14:34
  you some important this much, some important this much.
• 1:14:37
  But that's that culmination is what creates who you are and
• 1:14:40
  what you do today. So yeah.
• 1:14:42
  You're all for you. Yeah, you're there's so many
• 1:14:45
  people that, you know, have had, you know, a hand in this process
• 1:14:48
  of me growing in the sport and and developing myself.
• 1:14:51
  So I I just, I can't be more thankful for the people that are
• 1:14:55
  in my life and, you know, that do contribute to my success.
• 1:14:58
  So another one I got to mention, another one I got to mention is
• 1:15:01
  my buddy Tim. He just took the job at Lamar.
• 1:15:04
  I don't know if that's been posted actually, but.
• 1:15:06
  Well it's fine, this won't post until like 5 weeks from now so
• 1:15:08
  it'll be all news of. That Oh, OK, so we got some.
• 1:15:11
  Time. Yeah, yeah, we got a delay.
• 1:15:11
  Yeah, yeah. So my buddy Tim, like he's he's
• 1:15:15
  been there for, you know, I, I met him, yeah, I met him at
• 1:15:19
  national championships and just hit it off, man.
• 1:15:23
  And just been close friends ever since.
• 1:15:25
  And, you know, anytime I have a question about something, he he
• 1:15:28
  literally can just point me in whatever direction I need to be
• 1:15:31
  pointing in. It's love it.
• 1:15:32
  He's awesome, man. So I just, I have so many people
• 1:15:35
  that I'm thankful for in my life, you know, and it's not
• 1:15:38
  just track, right, Like they're, they're legitimately the people
• 1:15:41
  I'm naming are are legitimately my friends.
• 1:15:43
  They're not just hey, my kid sucks at throwing.
• 1:15:46
  Can you help me? It's like, hey, man, how's your
• 1:15:48
  family? You know, like, so it's they're
• 1:15:52
  important to me. Yeah, everyone in everyone
• 1:15:55
  that's touched my life is is important to me and I and I wish
• 1:15:57
  I could show more of that to them every day.
• 1:16:00
  But you know, we got a lot of stuff to do so.
• 1:16:02
  Yeah, yeah. We're going into the 2025
• 1:16:05
  season. What?
• 1:16:06
  What year is this going to be counting your two years of GA?
• 1:16:08
  What year coaching is this going to be now?
• 1:16:12
  14, No 15. 15 That's a lot. No, it is 14.
• 1:16:17
  It is 14. Sorry. 14 still a lot when you
• 1:16:20
  look at as you're, you know, we're in the fall, you're
• 1:16:23
  probably starting to maybe just start practice and things like
• 1:16:25
  that. You're going to you know, you
• 1:16:27
  already, you know, all, all coaches have already have next
• 1:16:29
  indoor conference in their mind and outdoor conference, things
• 1:16:32
  like that. As you take a look at, you know,
• 1:16:35
  take a step back and look at 14 years, where do you think you
• 1:16:38
  have improved the most from that first time year, first year GA
• 1:16:45
  to now 14 years of experience? What do you think when you look
• 1:16:48
  back Like, oh man, I I'm pretty proud of how I've improved this
• 1:16:51
  aspect of coaching. Yeah.
• 1:16:54
  I mean, obviously I think the technical piece I I have such a
• 1:16:57
  passion for doing things the right way that over time I've
• 1:17:02
  actually had to figure out how to tone that down.
• 1:17:05
  What do you mean by that? I don't know if just just
• 1:17:08
  because I, I was super rigid, like I wanted it right now, you
• 1:17:12
  know, like that's, that's the mindset that I had.
• 1:17:16
  But over the years I've, I've figured out, hey, man, like you
• 1:17:19
  can rush this stuff and you can, you can be OK or you can do this
• 1:17:23
  stuff the right way and be really good.
• 1:17:27
  I'm. Hearing the word patience.
• 1:17:31
  Yes, yeah, and, and getting married and, you know,
• 1:17:35
  ultimately having a kid, man, like that really changed me.
• 1:17:39
  And, you know, that was like 1010 years into coaching.
• 1:17:43
  I told my kids I was like, I think I've become a little more
• 1:17:46
  soft these days. But yeah, I mean, my drive and
• 1:17:51
  demeanor is still the same. I just, I'd literally had to
• 1:17:55
  learn how to be more patient with things And, and now I, I, I
• 1:17:58
  care about the technical stuff so much more than what the final
• 1:18:04
  number is going to be, you know, because I know if we take care
• 1:18:07
  of those things, the numbers going to be there.
• 1:18:10
  It just depends on what it is, you know, So I think patience is
• 1:18:15
  the biggest thing for sure. But I'd love more than anything
• 1:18:19
  to say that every part of my life has improved as a coach,
• 1:18:22
  like just being a friend, a dad, God, I mean a husband, like it's
• 1:18:30
  a mentor, you know, to all these kids and stuff.
• 1:18:32
  Like, yeah, every part of my life has gotten better through
• 1:18:35
  all my years of coaching. And I cannot be more thankful
• 1:18:37
  for the sport, the people I'm around, the kids that work their
• 1:18:41
  tail off because like I said, I'm, I'm pretty demanding
• 1:18:44
  because when they tell me a goal, when anyone tells me a
• 1:18:47
  goal, my goal is to hit that goal and then let's do some
• 1:18:52
  more. So it's never, it's never like a
• 1:18:56
  for me. I don't try to make a true
• 1:18:57
  finish line, right? Does that make sense?
• 1:18:59
  Like it's always about like, OK, when we do this, like, let's do
• 1:19:03
  this, right? And it might be their ultimate
• 1:19:05
  goal is to throw 50 meters in a hammer.
• 1:19:07
  No, man, I want to I want to throw 52 meters, right, Like,
• 1:19:11
  you know, things like that. So I just, I guess never being
• 1:19:17
  never being satisfied, right? Like I remember golly, man, it
• 1:19:21
  was the best day of my life, right?
• 1:19:22
  Like national championships, my girl Danny, she brilliant man,
• 1:19:28
  brilliant thrower. And she's going to keep chaining
• 1:19:32
  with the javelin try to hit usas.
• 1:19:35
  But she was I think she was sitting 18th on her third throw
• 1:19:39
  at nationals and just just hadn't quite put it together
• 1:19:42
  yet. And man, she went out there and
• 1:19:44
  PR about two meters through 4919.
• 1:19:46
  And I mean, you can watch the video online.
• 1:19:50
  You you hear me? But like, as soon as we got done
• 1:19:54
  right, we went over there and, you know, she got her trophy and
• 1:19:57
  stuff and it was one of the best things in my coaching career.
• 1:20:01
  I looked at Earl and I was like, we we got to get ready to do
• 1:20:05
  this again next year, man. It was literally immediately,
• 1:20:10
  you know, like I, I as soon as I got done celebrating, I was I
• 1:20:15
  was moving on because I was trying to prepare myself for
• 1:20:18
  what was next. So yeah, just you know that that
• 1:20:21
  little piece there and. I could, I could tell you so
• 1:20:24
  much stuff about Danny and her season and how she grew and
• 1:20:29
  there's stuff online you can check it out.
• 1:20:31
  But man, it was just it was the best season of my my career for
• 1:20:34
  sure. And but as soon as it ended,
• 1:20:36
  man, bam. When's the next one?
• 1:20:38
  I know. So a couple things to unpack
• 1:20:40
  there. One is I love that word
• 1:20:42
  patience, especially for a track coach because you know, my
• 1:20:46
  experience with hanging out with track coaches and practice and
• 1:20:49
  things like that. Isn't that like one of the big
• 1:20:51
  cues or a makeup of a lot of cues of of all your throws?
• 1:20:55
  Like, you know, patients don't rush out of the back, patients
• 1:20:59
  keep the arm back patients stay in front of the ball or
• 1:21:02
  whatever. You know, it's like it's so
• 1:21:03
  funny how you know, you preach this daily in your practice and
• 1:21:07
  then you're like, oh, wait a minute, I need that as well on
• 1:21:12
  how I'm coaching, whether it's, you know, quick immediate
• 1:21:14
  results or long term results. I need to take that step back as
• 1:21:17
  well. Just interesting that patients
• 1:21:19
  from a throws coach. It's like, did you you say that
• 1:21:21
  word a million times a day in practice?
• 1:21:22
  You're preaching to your kids. Oh yeah.
• 1:21:26
  That word, that T word, is a primary source of my life.
• 1:21:30
  Yeah, of pain sometimes too. I I get it.
• 1:21:33
  I get it as you're, you know, we, we talked about 2025 season
• 1:21:36
  is you know, it'll be here tomorrow.
• 1:21:39
  You, you know, you talk about, you know, the, the, the javelin
• 1:21:42
  sticks in the ground and you get the 2m improvement in your
• 1:21:44
  media. Like OK, what about next year?
• 1:21:46
  You know, it's, it's we're our, we're our own worst enemy on
• 1:21:48
  that too sometimes I believe. But what's got you excited as
• 1:21:52
  you're looking into this next year at Mount Olive, You know
• 1:21:55
  the success you guys had last year, year, continued
• 1:21:58
  improvement as a as a cute, as a coach and a human.
• 1:22:01
  What's got you excited there looking forward here in the the
• 1:22:04
  future? Well, my son started soccer
• 1:22:07
  practice. Oh, that's that's huge.
• 1:22:11
  Yeah. He's turning 3, you said?
• 1:22:14
  Yeah. And soccer practice at 30, Lord,
• 1:22:17
  that's not soccer. That's just running around.
• 1:22:19
  Oh my Lord. I'm telling you, I I put some
• 1:22:23
  video online. We will see.
• 1:22:26
  No, he's he's awesome, man. He loves it and he's having fun
• 1:22:29
  and there's difficult times. But yeah, but anyway, about the
• 1:22:31
  team, man. Like, oh, man, I think I got one
• 1:22:34
  of the best recruiting classes I've ever had.
• 1:22:37
  I said the same thing last year. I said the same thing the year
• 1:22:40
  before that probably. But this one truly is awesome,
• 1:22:44
  man. I've got some kids coming in
• 1:22:45
  that are just just unbelievable. That they're coming to Mount
• 1:22:50
  Olive is is wild to me still. You know, we got the number one
• 1:22:54
  hammer throw in Division two coming here and transfer it
• 1:22:56
  over. So we're our goal is to break
• 1:22:59
  Give Way's record. Yeah.
• 1:23:01
  Good luck. Yeah.
• 1:23:02
  Yeah, we're going. We're going to do it.
• 1:23:06
  But yeah, so just just unbelievable talent, man.
• 1:23:09
  I, I, it's across the board. You know, this story coming from
• 1:23:11
  Virginia, who will start a New Balance and just an absolute
• 1:23:15
  monster. Monster.
• 1:23:18
  The ladies coming in, God leave in.
• 1:23:21
  They actually, I think the two girls I have coming in might
• 1:23:24
  have more potential than the two guys I just told you about.
• 1:23:27
  So yeah, no, it's, it's awesome, man.
• 1:23:29
  I'm, I'm just, you know, I'm living a good life right here
• 1:23:32
  and touch my tail off and I cannot wait to see what we do
• 1:23:36
  this year, man, It's going to be awesome.
• 1:23:37
  It's going to be special. It'll be special.
• 1:23:39
  So I'm excited for you. You know, you've done a great
• 1:23:41
  job and you continued a great job.
• 1:23:43
  And you know, it's interesting to me, you know, to use a, a
• 1:23:46
  track analogy, I'm not very good at at a throws analogy with this
• 1:23:49
  one. So bear with me.
• 1:23:51
  You know, you've been coaching now for 14 years and it's easy
• 1:23:55
  at your age and stage to think like, man, I've done a lot and
• 1:23:58
  you and you have but to start thinking like, oh, like I'm, I'm
• 1:24:01
  winding down. I've hit the top and you know my
• 1:24:04
  not that your career is going down like quality of athletes at
• 1:24:08
  your coach, but more of like, oh, like, you know, it's only so
• 1:24:10
  many years. You can coach those kind of
• 1:24:11
  things. Bro, you are to use the let's
• 1:24:15
  use the 400 meter dash. You are barely at the start
• 1:24:18
  line. I mean, that's a good thing.
• 1:24:20
  Like you, you know, at 14 years of coaching, 35 years of age,
• 1:24:25
  you know, I said, I think that we'd said this before we hit
• 1:24:27
  record. You know, I talked about 30 more
• 1:24:29
  years like you. That's 65, that's retirement
• 1:24:31
  age. So you literally, if you think
• 1:24:33
  about it this way, if we'd say you're going to coach for 30
• 1:24:35
  years and you may coach for longer than 30 years, but if you
• 1:24:38
  only coach for 30 more years, that's two more cycles of what
• 1:24:42
  you've done. You've coached, let's call it
• 1:24:44
  15. You're going to coach that two
• 1:24:45
  more times, man. Is that a good way of looking at
• 1:24:50
  that? Called perspective.
• 1:24:51
  It is because a guy like you who likes constant improvement,
• 1:24:56
  you're you're a technical guy. So you have to always be you
• 1:24:58
  know what's next? What's the how do I teach this?
• 1:25:01
  How do I say this differently because this kid will hear it
• 1:25:03
  differently? How does this work for this kid
• 1:25:04
  who's 6 foot eight and this kids 4 foot eight?
• 1:25:06
  You know you're always improving.
• 1:25:08
  That means you've got 30 more years to continue to get better.
• 1:25:12
  I know that's crazy, man. That's the cool.
• 1:25:15
  Thing, man, that's the real and I'm going to yeah and I think I
• 1:25:20
  have a problem with these kinds of things actually.
• 1:25:24
  I don't mean to be negative, but like I, I plan on growing every
• 1:25:29
  single day, continuing to learn and and figure out what's next
• 1:25:33
  and like you said like that is my.
• 1:25:35
  If I don't do that, then I won't be coaching anymore so I don't.
• 1:25:40
  So sometimes when like, you know, people tell me they're not
• 1:25:42
  going to go do you know some coaching education stuff.
• 1:25:44
  It bothers me sometimes because like, dude, take a chance to
• 1:25:47
  like help yourself improve because you're going to improve
• 1:25:50
  a lot, but think about what you're going to be able to
• 1:25:52
  provide for your kids and everybody you're working with.
• 1:25:55
  So yeah, it's, and I don't mean to be negative at all.
• 1:25:59
  I just, I, I see it all the time and I just think we must
• 1:26:03
  continue to be a student of our own sport or we're never going
• 1:26:07
  to. Here's a challenge you you are
• 1:26:09
  either going to have or you have had it, or maybe you could take
• 1:26:14
  a perspective, interest perspective here and maybe
• 1:26:17
  you're in it now. So a very similar what you're
• 1:26:21
  expressing to to myself when I was coaching and also now today
• 1:26:25
  in the business world. So I am constantly, you know,
• 1:26:28
  what's the newest book to read to become a better servant for
• 1:26:31
  my coaches? What's the next technology to
• 1:26:33
  learn, to help our, you know, to do manufacturing better, things
• 1:26:36
  like that. And I got to this was through
• 1:26:40
  coaching as well, But a few years ago, probably, you know,
• 1:26:42
  10, you know, I'm just knee deep and everything.
• 1:26:45
  What's the next book? What's the next book?
• 1:26:46
  What's the next book? And, and I can't remember where
• 1:26:48
  I saw this advice, but it I'd probably seen it before, but
• 1:26:51
  sometimes, you know, you just need to hear the same thing at
• 1:26:53
  different stages of your life. And it just whenever this was
• 1:26:56
  and whatever it was, it, it hit me at the right time and it
• 1:26:59
  talked about, you know, over learner like people just, you
• 1:27:02
  know, I'm constantly learning. I'm constantly getting better.
• 1:27:04
  Part of a big part of getting better is the application of
• 1:27:09
  what you've learned. And some of us becoming, and I
• 1:27:12
  was this way serial learner. So we're always learning, but
• 1:27:16
  because we're always learning, we're not putting it into
• 1:27:18
  application and learning. Well, how did that work out?
• 1:27:21
  What would I tweet? What would I do differently?
• 1:27:23
  How should I've done it? What, what can I add to it,
• 1:27:25
  etcetera. So for you, again, thinking
• 1:27:28
  about, you know, there's thirty more years at least ahead of
• 1:27:30
  you. So two more coaching lifetimes
• 1:27:33
  that you've done. Now the challenge for you I
• 1:27:36
  believe might be what's the next?
• 1:27:39
  What's the next coaching education to go to?
• 1:27:41
  What's the next thing to go to? You're going to have to take
• 1:27:44
  that breath. I think take that step back and
• 1:27:46
  say, OK, let me coach for 2-3, four seats, whatever it is.
• 1:27:50
  You know, there's no time frame that touch it.
• 1:27:51
  Let me put all these things that I'm learned, I've learned and am
• 1:27:55
  learning into application and evaluate that reiterate like,
• 1:27:59
  OK, I remember I learned this from Larry and you know what?
• 1:28:02
  That doesn't work for me in this situation.
• 1:28:03
  So I need to go over here and do this thing.
• 1:28:04
  And I like that. You know, I heard Mike say this
• 1:28:06
  one time. And maybe and again, when you
• 1:28:09
  hear it is always that, you know, I, I, I, I, there's guys
• 1:28:12
  that you listen to and they say the same thing over and over.
• 1:28:15
  And that's good because where you are today is going to be
• 1:28:17
  different than where you are 10 years from now.
• 1:28:19
  The athletes are going to be different, etcetera.
• 1:28:20
  So you may just need to hear the same thing in a different
• 1:28:23
  emotional state or different educational state.
• 1:28:25
  So the challenge to you is going to be not getting enough
• 1:28:30
  coaching education, you know, improvement.
• 1:28:33
  It's going to be taking that step back and being OK with,
• 1:28:35
  hey, you know what, I haven't gone to a called a formal
• 1:28:39
  coaching education in three years.
• 1:28:41
  And that's good because I've been Haiti used the word grind.
• 1:28:45
  I've been coaching, I've been applying it and learning from
• 1:28:48
  it. And now when I go back to go
• 1:28:50
  listen to a talk by Mike or Larry or Dan or whoever, and
• 1:28:54
  again, they, they're probably, you know, the guys like that are
• 1:28:56
  saying the same thing over and over again.
• 1:28:57
  And I mean that in a positive way.
• 1:28:59
  Now you hear in a different way because now you have different
• 1:29:01
  experiences as well. So that, that's just something
• 1:29:04
  to, to think about. Cuz I, I really do like using
• 1:29:06
  that track analogy of like, you know, if this is the four meter
• 1:29:08
  dash, you're barely in the starting line.
• 1:29:09
  Because again, a lot of people it's, it's, you're in a muck,
• 1:29:12
  you're in a day-to-day. You, you just had a recruiting
• 1:29:14
  call last night. Maybe you got practice this
• 1:29:16
  afternoon, staff meeting tomorrow.
• 1:29:18
  You know, you're in the muck of it right now.
• 1:29:20
  My role as a, as the track coach advocate is to kind of help you
• 1:29:23
  see the step back and be like, look, dude, you've got two more
• 1:29:27
  lifetimes to go. You you're, I know it seems like
• 1:29:30
  man, I've done the 14 years is a lot.
• 1:29:32
  That's more that I coach 10 years at the you know, so which
• 1:29:35
  is a lot. You've done 40% more than that
• 1:29:41
  and I'm still telling you you're a pup, you're a babe.
• 1:29:44
  And I mean that in the positive way, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:29:47
  And that. Should excite.
• 1:29:48
  You because you're doing such amazing things today at 14.
• 1:29:52
  Well, golly, what are you going to do at year 20?
• 1:29:55
  How good are your kids going to be in year 25?
• 1:29:58
  And and even better when we start talking about legacy and
• 1:30:01
  what is your real fingerprint on the sport?
• 1:30:03
  I shouldn't say your real fingerprint.
• 1:30:04
  Your bigger fingerprint on the sport is how many people are
• 1:30:07
  coaches from your tree, How many people, not only just athletes
• 1:30:12
  that go on, your athletes that go on to coach because you ought
• 1:30:14
  to be this many, not everybody's going into coaching.
• 1:30:16
  But when when I'm doing this podcast in 10 years and I'm
• 1:30:19
  talking to coach so and so and they go, yeah, you know who, you
• 1:30:23
  know who I rely on, man, Justin Potter, that dude I can call and
• 1:30:28
  we'll just talk. And he has a way of just telling
• 1:30:31
  me about how to think things in my head or, you know, I heard
• 1:30:34
  him speak at USTFCA and is like, oh man, I didn't realize that I
• 1:30:38
  also could coach the jab. I kind of threw the jab into the
• 1:30:40
  side because it's such a different event.
• 1:30:42
  And he told me how to work all four throwing.
• 1:30:44
  But you know, I'm saying like that's where that's where year
• 1:30:47
  30-40 etcetera comes in to, to perspective of what you, you
• 1:30:51
  know, legacy that you leave in this profession in the sport.
• 1:30:54
  Yeah, it's crazy to you put it like that.
• 1:30:57
  Is this crazy to think about, You know, that there's literally
• 1:31:00
  is two more lifetimes at least that I can continue to do this
• 1:31:04
  and grow and help people like and I didn't think of that bro,
• 1:31:09
  you know, I'll like this is what I do and.
• 1:31:12
  I'll hit you with one more. Your son's about to turn three.
• 1:31:15
  One more lifetime from now, meaning 15 years.
• 1:31:18
  So that'll be double. You'll be a 30 year veteran of
• 1:31:21
  coaching. Your son will barely be
• 1:31:24
  graduating high school. Yeah.
• 1:31:28
  You're still in the muck of being a dad.
• 1:31:30
  Going to what are they? Are they going to go to college?
• 1:31:31
  Are they a throw or are they a baseball player?
• 1:31:34
  And your third, I mean, think about right now, think about
• 1:31:36
  coaches, you know, that are that have coached for 30 years.
• 1:31:39
  Those are revered guys and gals like whoa, man, when I call
• 1:31:44
  Susie and she's on your thirty man, I I shut up.
• 1:31:47
  She she talk, I listen, right, that's going to be you and your
• 1:31:50
  kids going to be 18, barely, meaning you still got another 15
• 1:31:54
  years. So that's why I say you're at
• 1:31:56
  the beginning of it. And that is so, so exciting.
• 1:32:01
  Yeah, it's so much. I would have never thought about
• 1:32:03
  it like that. I can't wait to see.
• 1:32:06
  I wish coach, I'm sure some coaches do this and it really
• 1:32:09
  kind of, it actually belittles us a little bit kind of because
• 1:32:12
  it puts down the numbers and I'm much more on the human aspect of
• 1:32:15
  it. But I wish more coaches kept
• 1:32:18
  like, you know how we keep record boards, Like Mount Olive
• 1:32:20
  has a school record board, right?
• 1:32:21
  I wish Justin Potter kept the record board.
• 1:32:24
  Here's the best 100 meter dash I ever coached because maybe you
• 1:32:26
  know, depending if you ever coach, you know, if you went to
• 1:32:29
  high school or something like that, but like here's your, your
• 1:32:30
  throws. Like here's the like you, you
• 1:32:32
  right now. You're like, what did she throw
• 1:32:34
  in the javelin? I'm assuming that would be your
• 1:32:36
  best javelin thrower you've ever had.
• 1:32:37
  Yeah, yeah, 4919. Yeah, so right now, 4919, bro,
• 1:32:41
  1520 years from now, you're going to have a 60 footer, 60
• 1:32:45
  footer, don't have a 60 footer, 60 meter rower and be like, wow,
• 1:32:49
  I know you know, I, I, I had that girl throw 49 and that was
• 1:32:51
  a big deal. I'm not taking anything away
• 1:32:52
  from that, but wow, look, I, I continued to got better to get
• 1:32:56
  better and because of my experiences with her, by the
• 1:32:58
  way, that allowed me to coach a 55m and a 60 meter.
• 1:33:01
  You know what I'm saying? Like it's, I think sometimes we
• 1:33:06
  just all need to take a step back instead of as soon as that
• 1:33:09
  49 meter touchdown, you're thinking of the next season.
• 1:33:12
  I think sometimes we, we we need to allow ourselves to take a
• 1:33:15
  step back and be like, kind of both sides won.
• 1:33:17
  Wow. Like we worked hard together, we
• 1:33:20
  did this. Let's celebrate it.
• 1:33:21
  Let's, let's enjoy this, let's be happy with it.
• 1:33:23
  Let's not. I, I very much just like when
• 1:33:27
  it's like, yeah, you know what though?
• 1:33:28
  If this would have happened, she could have thrown 5th.
• 1:33:30
  It's like, bro, you're taking away.
• 1:33:32
  You're going to be literally be happy with where you are And now
• 1:33:35
  strive for the future, of course, but take that step back
• 1:33:39
  for the athlete and for yourself, both professionally
• 1:33:42
  and personally, and just realize it's a long game, brother. 30
• 1:33:47
  more years of positive impact on young people is what you have in
• 1:33:52
  front of you. And that should excite you
• 1:33:54
  because it it excites this guy right here, excites me, that's
• 1:33:56
  for sure. Awesome.
• 1:33:58
  Man, I appreciate it. Man, this is it's been a high
• 1:34:01
  opening. Good.
• 1:34:02
  You know, sometimes we, we should have called the podcast
• 1:34:05
  the Gill Psychology Sit on the Couch Connections podcast
• 1:34:10
  because you know, my passion is you, Justin.
• 1:34:12
  It is the men and women who choose to be track coaches.
• 1:34:15
  And you know, I say this, I think sometimes people think
• 1:34:17
  I'm, you know, it's a fluff piece when I say, man, I, I love
• 1:34:20
  the profession of coaching, but man, I, I meet all these
• 1:34:23
  coaches. I'm like, man, you could have,
• 1:34:25
  you've kind of, you could have gone on instead of coaching.
• 1:34:27
  You could have grown a business into a billion dollar business.
• 1:34:29
  You could have been a doctor and cured.
• 1:34:31
  Like that's the quality of people that are choosing to do
• 1:34:34
  this profession. You're a great example.
• 1:34:35
  It's like, man, you could be the I don't know anything about
• 1:34:38
  baseball. I almost said you could be the
• 1:34:39
  next George Stein printer. I don't know if that's a good
• 1:34:41
  thing or bad thing. I just know he's a baseball guy
• 1:34:43
  from Seinfeld or something. But but you could, you know,
• 1:34:45
  like you could have gone on the baseball, you could be in the
• 1:34:47
  major leagues making millions right now, right?
• 1:34:51
  And I'm so glad for our sport and profession that you chose
• 1:34:54
  track and field. Like that's just that's what
• 1:34:56
  excites me. And so I want to make sure that
• 1:34:58
  I'm a piece of helping you understand the big part of the
• 1:35:01
  puzzle, not just the 2025 season.
• 1:35:04
  It's it's this much of your entire career.
• 1:35:06
  It's important, but there's a big picture.
• 1:35:08
  And that picture includes that little boy, your wife, your
• 1:35:12
  family, you know, that's the the bigger picture.
• 1:35:13
  And I love that this sport and this profession has given you an
• 1:35:16
  Ave. to support them and, and help them to to help him grow
• 1:35:20
  his dreams and her and your wife as well.
• 1:35:22
  That's magical. That's what's so great about
• 1:35:24
  this this, this profession. Yeah, I'm blessed, man.
• 1:35:27
  That's all I can say. Everybody, like I said earlier,
• 1:35:30
  everybody's touched me in my career.
• 1:35:31
  Like I'm blessed for him and I'm blessed to have my family.
• 1:35:34
  I love it, man. I love it.
• 1:35:35
  Well, I told you when I invited you onto the show, you know, one
• 1:35:39
  thing is to uplift and honor what you've done.
• 1:35:40
  And you've done an amazing job. And I'm excited to see what the,
• 1:35:43
  you know, the book is still being written.
• 1:35:44
  So I'm excited to see the future chapters here and what you
• 1:35:46
  accomplish. But you know your story.
• 1:35:49
  There are people that are listening right now that this
• 1:35:52
  story has helped, but this, you know, showing you I I really do
• 1:35:56
  love that you didn't do track in high school.
• 1:35:58
  Kind of wish you would have because you know, it's a great
• 1:35:59
  sport. But I love that someone right
• 1:36:02
  now is, you know, we have a pretty decent young audience
• 1:36:06
  here as well. That someone right now maybe is
• 1:36:08
  like, you know, they're interested in track or maybe
• 1:36:09
  they come across this, they've never done it and they go, wait
• 1:36:11
  a minute, this dude didn't do track and he's he's pretty
• 1:36:14
  successful. But maybe I can coach track and
• 1:36:16
  field and we get another coach into the fold, man.
• 1:36:19
  So your story, your journey matters.
• 1:36:21
  And I'm just so grateful that you would sit down with us and
• 1:36:23
  spend time and share it with it in a very open, humble and
• 1:36:26
  authentic way. That you did, man.
• 1:36:29
  Yeah, I appreciate it man. This is this was awesome.
• 1:36:31
  Like I said it, it helped me see some things differently and
• 1:36:34
  hopefully, hopefully some of my stuff can help someone else so.
• 1:36:38
  It will no doubts, no doubts. So thank you again for being
• 1:36:41
  here, man. Thank you guys for being here
• 1:36:43
  once again. We're in the middle ish getting,
• 1:36:46
  you know, towards the third, third quarter of the 5th season.
• 1:36:49
  We got some amazing things coming up for you.
• 1:36:51
  We're going to continue to go out there and you know the goal
• 1:36:55
  it's kind of like Pokémon. It's to catch them all it's to
• 1:36:56
  get every coach, high school, college, professional club,
• 1:37:00
  everyone on the podcast. I only get 52 a year, so it's
• 1:37:04
  going to take me a while. But you know, he talked about
• 1:37:06
  goals earlier. Well, that's my goal.
• 1:37:07
  We're just going to keep going at it one week at a time.
• 1:37:10
  So join us next week. We'll do it all over again and
• 1:37:12
  have some fun. Have a good week everybody.
• 1:37:14
  If it goes to appreciate the coach the ones that point people
• 1:37:17
  most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth
• 1:37:21
  you got to prep before you carry the load.
• 1:37:23
  Ice coffee to the soul. For those of us who stay on the
• 1:37:25
  go proper handoff to stay in the zone which you packing for the
• 1:37:28
  road. There's more than one way to go.
• 1:37:31
  Take notes that's paying you're told it ain't practice.
• 1:37:33
  If your purpose ain't clear, it can't happen until you listen
• 1:37:36
  with both is. You can't mentor without the
• 1:37:38
  mental kids of experience. You can reinvent those years
• 1:37:42
  every plan's got to stand and deliver to and the price
• 1:37:45
  sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight not to
• 1:37:48
  win all those. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 1:37:50
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to it's all
• 1:37:53
  about why. You don't know till you know who
• 1:37:55
  you are inside 6. When you waste the time, choose
• 1:37:58
  none. So y'all cross the finish line.
• 1:38:00
  The work ain't done so we learn from the experts but y'all got
• 1:38:03
  to put in the network. Your athletics is the network.
• 1:38:06
  It's all about connections put together.