Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #288: Nathan Warnecke-Fishers (IN) HS/USTFCCCA Boy's National COY

Transcript

#288: Nathan Warnecke-Fishers (IN) HS/USTFCCCA Boy's National COY · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field world UNL tuned in to our humble servant Mike
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  Cunningham for another extraordinary message or Guild
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  athletics connections. Here we go back once again on
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  the Gil Athletics Connections Podcast.
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  Thanks for joining us. Thanks for hitting play.
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  If you were with us last week, we had miss Ursula Harris.
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  Coach Harris was the USTF CCCA Girls Coach of the year that
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  we're going to be celebrating next week in Orlando at the USTF
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  CCCA convention this week. We got the both, We got both big
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  dogs here. So we had Ursula last week.
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  We got Nathan Warneke. Help me welcome from Fishers IN
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  high school and I'll, I'll tell you why I actually said Indiana
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  here in a second. Help me welcome the wise, the
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  wonderful The boys USTFCAUSTFCCCA National Coach of
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  the Year, The wise, the wonderful Mr. Nathan Warnicky.
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  Nathan, how are you, Sir? I'm.
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  Doing well? How are you?
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  I'm doing awesome. So I had to be very specific and
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  say Fishers IN because where I live here in the Champaign,
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  Urbana, IL area, we have very, very close to, I mean, like I
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  have friends that live there, Fishers Illinois.
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  Now Fishers is famous around here because their mascot is the
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  bunnies and they have this like really rabid, but you know, they
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  try to make it as intimidating as a Bunny can be.
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  Tell me please, this would be the best thing in the whole
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  world that Fishers IN high school has a Bunny as a mascot
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  as well. Nope, unfortunately.
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  We're we're the tigers. We're the Tigers.
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  OK, that's what I was in high school, so I guess I'll go with
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  that. See, a tiger could beat a Bunny,
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  even a rabid Bunny. So we, we, let's not do a
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  Fishers versus Fishers like football game or dual meet or
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  anything like that. Nathan, dude, this is a big
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  deal. Congratulations on winning the
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  boys national coach of the year. Man, That's, it's crazy.
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  I mean, has it settled in yet? Not really, 'cause I'm also the
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  head cross country coach. So like literally once the state
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  track meet was done back there that first Saturday in June, I
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  was almost a week later already thinking about cross country.
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  So it's like the state championships kind of settled
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  in, but national coach year. I I don't know if that will
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  settle until get to Orlando honestly.
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  Yeah, I I get it, you know, you know, I'm not a distance guy as
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  a Sprint jumps hurdles coach, my in my coaching career, but I
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  always had a lot of empathy towards my distance guys because
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  it's like, oh man, you know, if if you want to do anything in
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  the fall, well, you have to have a summer.
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  Like there's no getting over that where, you know, for track,
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  it's like, you know, I'd like for you to do some things as a
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  Sprint jumps hurdles, but you know, we got all fall.
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  If you don't, you don't do anything.
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  You distance runners and coaches, man, you are literally
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  365. You get what, you know, maybe
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  you take a week off after cross country, maybe you take a, maybe
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  you take a week off between indoor and outdoor and then
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  maybe you take a week after outdoor and that's it.
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  Then the rest of you just go, go, go, go.
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  Yep, it's amazing. It's amazing.
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  Well, we're going to learn about this magical year that ended
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  with really a, a big award, man. I mean, you know, USTFCA shout
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  out to the crew, Sam Seems and the entire USTFCCCA
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  organization, you know, by the way, and I failed, I think to
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  mention this last week. I got to give a shout out to the
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  US Marine Corps. They're the ones who actually
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  help sponsor this as well. So, you know, thank you so much.
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  You know, obviously, maybe for obvious reasons, have a big
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  heart for sponsors. And so just wanted to show
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  gratitude to the US Marine Corps who sponsors these, these
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  amazing awards for the state coaches of the years as well as
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  the national coach of the year. But you know, I said this last
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  week and it's still so true. You know, they put out this list
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  of 50 high school coaches of the years and and that's just what
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  what a hard award to to to get to to name like the best the air
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  quotes, the best, because, you know, how do you define that
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  high school coach in Texas, Indiana, Washington?
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  I mean, that's impossible. And then to take these fifty men
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  and women and try to pinpoint one.
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  Get out of here. You can't do it right and you
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  can't do it wrong. And I, they got it right here,
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  my friend. And I'm excited to learn more
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  about this. Well, let's hop in to our
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  Wayback Machine. Let's actually learn about your
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  journey 1st and then move into this, this awesome year here in
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  2024 that happened for you guys there.
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  Nathan, you know track typically start somewhere.
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  Assuming you are an athlete, where does track and field and
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  maybe cross country start for you?
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  Start in the 6th grade for me. Yep.
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  So and cross country. So I grew up like on kind of on
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  the east side of Indianapolis on on the outskirts of Marion
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  County, which is where the county that Indianapolis is in.
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  So I went to kind of a rural high school called Mount Vernon
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  High School, but I live a lot closer to some of the Marion
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  County high schools. But I grew up a huge football
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  fan. You know, back in the day, I
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  was, you know, loved Chicago Bears, Walter Payton, 49ers, Joe
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  Montana, Jerry Rice. Wait.
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  Wait a minute. You Indianapolis, though not
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  Colts? Yeah, we.
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  Didn't have a team back then, back when I was young, so you
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  know, so I was born in 1976, so the Colts didn't arrive till
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  about 1984. Is that OK?
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  Hold on. So because you said 1976, that's
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  how old I am now. I, I grew up down in Alabama and
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  Florida. So I, you know, but I don't
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  think I realized this. This is going to sound so dumb.
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  I don't think I realized in my time frame.
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  So our our time frame that the Colts weren't I, I know that you
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  weren't always there, but I thought that was like a long
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  time ago. That's interesting.
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  Yeah, so and then when they when they moved to Indianapolis from
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  Baltimore, we started going to games.
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  So I just, I was just a huge football fan that kind of my dad
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  played football a little bit in high school.
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  And but what happened when we were going into junior high, 5th
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  grade, we found out that I couldn't play with the local
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  optimist team for for the school district I lived in, which they
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  told us we had to play at the neighboring school district just
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  because of where we lived. Yeah, yeah.
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  District and whatever. Yeah, and my dad, he wasn't a
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  fan of the fact that I was going to be playing football with a
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  bunch of kids. I, I didn't know, you know, I,
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  that I was going to be introduced to football in the
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  5th or 4th grade, not with my friends, the kids I was growing
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  up with or be. Even been going to middle.
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  School or high school with, but at back at that time, my dad,
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  you know, when he got out of college, he started getting into
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  running on his own. He ran some of the mini, the
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  mini, the 500 mini marathons. He ran some of those.
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  So he goes, I want you doing a sport.
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  So that's, and I, you know, like any kid back in the day, I grew
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  up playing soccer too, like played soccer all through, you
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  know, elementary school and baseball and basketball.
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  But back then in Indiana, we didn't have high high school or
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  junior high soccer, you know, so for the school like that didn't
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  happen till probably I was maybe I want to say like a junior in
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  high school. It was fine, like school sponsor
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  kind of stuff. So and he was already doing mini
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  marathons and stuff. So he goes, why don't we try
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  running? So back in like the 5th grade,
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  this I think kind of the spring of my fifth grade, I started
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  going on like three mile runs with him.
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  And then I went to the first cross country practice in the
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  summer head into my 6th grade year and I kept up with the
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  best, the best like the 8th graders.
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  And then it kind of it snowballed out there.
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  So I mean, I, I did cross country and track and field all
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  through high school, all through middle school, and then went to
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  the University of Evansville, stopped running for a while, but
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  then I transferred to Butler University and ran there for
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  four years. And then, so then after that,
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  kind of got away from running, went to work at Roche
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  Diagnostics, which is formally, I don't know if it's, it's, it's
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  like Lily, but they do kind of the, the, the, the glucose
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  monitoring for diabetes. They do all that.
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  And I worked in a research and development lab, did that for
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  three years, but then our product line got sold to our
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  vendor out in California and I had the chance to either move
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  out to California or, you know, change career paths.
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  So I changed career paths. I didn't want to move out to
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  California. Kind of I, I born and raised in
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  Indiana, you know, kind of just wanted to stay close to home.
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  So then I decided to transition into teaching.
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  So I went to the University of Indianapolis back this had been
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  2003. I went to the University of
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  Indianapolis, got my Masters of Arts and teaching, but the
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  summer leading into 2003. So I, I got kind of AI guess
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  you'd call severance out of Roche, you know, so in May of
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  2003, they gave me a huge severance package.
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  So I'd already made a decision to go to teaching, but I had
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  that whole summer off because I wasn't taking, you know, so
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  basically three months off and then kind of just did some
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  traveling. But then all of a sudden I got a
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  phone call from my old high school coach, Bruce Kendall,
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  who's, I mean, I think this is his 50th year coaching at Mount
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  Vernon High School. Wow.
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  Yeah. So he's, he's been doing it a
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  long time. But he was back then in 2003, he
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  was having his 50th birthday and his wife was putting together a
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  special cell, like the special secret celebration for him at at
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  his church. And at that time, I was out in
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  San Francisco. And I say, hey, yeah, I'll,
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  I'll, I'll be back in town. Of course.
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  I'll come see Coach and celebrate his 50th birthday with
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  him, you know, and I got there and then he found out my where I
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  was in my life because he knew I was the last he checked, I was
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  at Roche. And he goes, you know what, we
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  actually need an assistant coach.
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  He goes, can you work it out? So then I, I came on as a
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  volunteer assistant coach and I was brought in.
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  I was still in somewhat good shape back then.
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  I don't run anymore because there's.
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  Life. So I, I ran with their #1 runner
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  at the time and got into, I volunteered for three years at
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  Mount Vernon High School, cross country and track and field.
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  And then 2006 Fishers High School became a high school.
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  So Fishers High School has only been around since 2006.
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  And then I, I joined the staff that summer and also I became a
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  teacher here at Fishers High School last summer in chemistry.
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  And then in 2008, the 2000 and eight, 2009 school year, I was
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  named head coach. Wow.
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  Go back. That's amazing.
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  One of the things that I really enjoy, you know, we're on
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  episode, I don't know, 280 or so.
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  So, you know, I've had the privilege of interviewing, you
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  know, deep interviews of, you know, 300 plus coaches here.
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  Now there is no set path. You know, we we we think
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  sometimes even if we're talking about a high school coach.
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  So it's like, oh, you know, to to be a high school coach, that
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  means you got to be a high school teacher.
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  That means you're going to do this, you're going to go this
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  path, you're going to be a college coach.
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  That means you need to do this path.
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  There is no path that there is a billion Pat.
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  So I love, love, love this. When you go back to high school
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  and and obviously your coach had some positive influence over
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  you. If you're going to their, you
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  know, Fast forward, you're going to their 50th birthday and, and
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  on that 50th birthday, they look at you and they're like, Hey,
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  you know what, like we, we actually need an assistant, like
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  we need help here. And to me that like shows the
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  what I call the superpower of a, of a track coach.
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  They see something in you that the athlete before you can see
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  in yourself. So here you are as an adult and
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  here coach is still seeing something in you.
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  It's like, hey, you're a coach, like we need help.
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  You should, you should be here and helping us saw something in
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  you before you can see it in yourself.
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  So I love that when you when you go back to your high school
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  days, you know, you're you're well into your distance, a
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  passion, you know, from doing that from 5th and 6th grade,
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  things like that. When you were looking at schools
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  and you gave us kind of a preview of what you actually
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  went into for a career. But what were you thinking for a
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  career? Like did you go into seems like
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  chemistry because of the job and what you're teaching now was
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  that you're like, OK, I'm going to do something in chem.
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  No, not at all. Nope.
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  So like my original path was business.
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  Like I've always been good with numbers.
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  So I originally went to college with a major in finance and then
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  somewhere around me, I want to say my junior year at Butler, I
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  took this, it was called again, chemistry and society classes
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  like chemistry for non majors. And I, that teacher was amazing
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  and I fell in love with chemistry.
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  And then I remember I went to my academic advisor at Butler when
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  you know, you make your schedule.
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  I was like, how hard is it to change majors at this point?
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  And he's like, it's pretty deep in this path here, Nathan.
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  So so I end up getting a minor in chemistry and IA major in
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  finance. But at the then when when I got
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  into my career at Roche, for those three years, my mom was
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  actually working at Roche. She was a director of
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  reimbursement affairs. So I kind of had an in there,
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  but then I found out that and it's kind of you find these out
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  after it happens like this, like how when you do these interviews
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  or something, like something in your past just kind of resonates
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  with that individual. So the person that hired me at
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  Roche to work in that lab, because I worked in a lab that
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  did drugs of abuse testing. So like a pregnancy test, but
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  for drugs of abuse instead. So if that makes any sense, like
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  the based test, but it's for drugs of abuse, like the Postal
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  Service, like a bunch of government agencies would use
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  it. Anyhow, what I didn't know at
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  the time, I found out a year later was the guy who hired me.
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  He loved the fact that I was a finance, that I had a finance
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  background because he was a day trader.
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  So it was so this this doctorate and he I think he had a doctor
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  biochemistry or chemistry, like the fact that I had hardly any
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  chemistry. But he goes, I just love the
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  fact that you were finance and that's why we hired you.
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  I was like, oh, OK. It didn't hurt that my mom was,
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  you know, up in the management within Roche.
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  But I mean, it's just so it's so interesting.
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  That's funny. How it all plays out.
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  So to that point, did, I mean, was there any thought?
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  I mean, you know, it's we're both 40.
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  I just had my birthday. So I'm literally just turned 48.
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  For me, yeah, it's hard. You know, I couldn't have, I've
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  been here like at Gill now for 18 years, in fact, Oh, almost,
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  almost to the day, 18 years. Go back 20 years even, and I
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  would have never told you, hey, I'll, I'll be working for this
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  company called Gill Athletics or hey, I'll be, you know, hosting
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  this, you know, successful podcast, things like that.
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  Did you at all when you were whether it's high school or
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  going through the college teaching at all?
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  Like I mean like even like, oh, you know, it would be kind of
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  cool, but I'm going to stay on this business path or this
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  chemistry path, but kind of cool to be a teacher.
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  Any at all inkling of being a teacher?
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  No, not, not through, not through high school, not
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  through. I would say it was after 911
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  actually, because, you know, I mean, what we, we would have
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  been what, like 202425 back when that happened, if I'm not
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  mistaken. And you know, you hear stories
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  about people around our age at that time.
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  They, they, they enlist in the military, you know, because, but
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  then I remember I was, I was dating a girl who lived, who was
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  in Northwestern. I just realized at that time was
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  like, man, maybe, maybe I want to be a teacher, do something to
• 15:37
  serve. And but that was back in 2001.
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  But you know, I mean, you currently have a job.
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  You actually, you don't have any education to become a teacher,
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  right? So, you know, I'm going to quit
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  my job back to school where I've already spent five years.
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  So then then it all kind of just somehow it happened.
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  You know, I then I found out in the late 2002 that our event
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  that our product line was being shifted all the way out to
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  California. And I was like kind of start of
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  the process, like maybe this is that opportunity.
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  And I remember there was someone who worked at Roche the time who
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  was actually doing that transition to teaching path.
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  And so I kind of started investigating that.
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  And then I made the decision that I wouldn't move out West,
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  that I would just go ahead, become a teacher.
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  But you know, thankfully the support of my parents,
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  especially financially at that point, because I didn't want to
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  go into any debt. So they were able to support me
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  during that time. Why I went back?
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  Because I had to do a year, an extra year of undergrad because
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  there are some courses I didn't have because I was a major in
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  finance. So to become a chemistry
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  teacher, there's some more courses I needed to take in
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  science and like physics and like upper level chemistry
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  classes. So I took a year to do that.
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  Then I was then I could finally get into the two year transition
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  part where I took all the teaching classes.
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  So I mean, yeah, I didn't grow up wanting to be a teacher, even
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  though both my parents, their bachelors, were in teaching.
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  Oh, is that right? See, I was normally I ask a lot
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  of times people go into teaching because they have family
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  members, whether it's parents or aunts, uncles that were
• 17:15
  teachers. But you mentioned your mom
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  worked for Roush and I was like, OK, well, they're not teachers
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  then, but they had at least some kind of teaching background with
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  educationally or not actually application.
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  So yeah, my mom, she's did a lot of things like she was in
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  medical stuff, just like she ran one time she ran a, a radiology
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  office, but she actually did do some teaching on the side as an
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  adjunct professor at the University of Indianapolis.
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  And then my dad, he worked his whole career at, at a, at a
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  prison called the Pelman Reformatory.
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  And he was the, he had a bunch of different jobs, but a few of
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  the jobs was, he was a teacher in the, in the reformatory
• 17:53
  helping prisoners, convicts get their GED.
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  So he didn't actually go down, you know, the high school, like
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  teaching in a school, but he did teach.
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  But it's just I mean. A little different path.
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  So I guess it kind of maybe it was somewhere in me and I just
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  didn't realize it. Yeah, yeah.
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  Well, that's what, you know, I've said this before on the
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  podcast, and I believe this in my, like, I say this in my life
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  like I, this is a core belief of mine that I believe everybody is
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  put on this. Everybody is put on this earth
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  for one super fantastic purpose. Unfortunately, very few of us
• 18:31
  actually find that purpose. You know, like like Nathan,
• 18:35
  maybe you were put on this earth to be the number one painter in
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  the world, you know, like Starry night and you know, things like
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  that. But because of things that are
• 18:44
  or not presented in front of you, you've never took art class
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  or never had, you know, was even introduced to art.
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  So you don't even, you know, it never even was able to, you
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  know, take that gene and make it grow, you know what I'm saying?
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  So, so what's interesting to me is, you know, maybe you were put
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  on this earth to be a teacher and a coach and it just took,
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  you know, drastic things, you know, you know, your company
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  being bought out. That's a drastic push there.
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  And it's like, oh, now I'm presented.
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  Do I move all the way to California where I have no
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  friends, family, culture. I I know nothing there.
• 19:13
  I, I'm born and raised right here.
• 19:14
  I'd like to stay here. Well, what am I going to do
• 19:17
  then? And I think, I think maybe you
• 19:20
  were putting this earth to have that servant leader heart and
• 19:22
  it's like, OK, well then I'm going to become a teacher then.
• 19:24
  Like I, I just love that, you know, you did a lot of things to
• 19:28
  not become a teacher and yet the universe or however you want to
• 19:31
  put it, it was like, Nah, bro, we going to, I'm going to get
• 19:34
  there eventually. I'm going to make you a teacher.
• 19:36
  You know what I'm saying? Like that's, that's so cool.
• 19:38
  Same similar question as you were going through high school
• 19:42
  enjoying that. I, I assume maybe I shouldn't
• 19:44
  assume you enjoyed the, the actual being of an athlete,
• 19:48
  being on the team, things like that.
• 19:49
  Went to Butler. What a great track and cross
• 19:51
  country program they continue to have there for a long time.
• 19:55
  Was coaching ever because, you know, you don't have to teach
• 19:58
  necessarily to be a coach. Was there ever a thought of
• 20:02
  like, you know, maybe I could be a coach one day?
• 20:05
  So yeah, so when I made the decision to go back and
• 20:07
  transition into teaching, coaching wasn't even on my
• 20:09
  radar. Is that right?
• 20:11
  Yeah, because at that time I wasn't even running.
• 20:13
  Like I wasn't even running on my owns.
• 20:14
  But then when my coach and I went to that 50th birthday party
• 20:18
  and I was like, OK, yeah, OK, let's try this coaching thing.
• 20:23
  And I fell in love with it and it was just, it was a lot of
• 20:26
  fun. So I wouldn't have been
• 20:28
  surprised if you would have said, yeah, I became a teacher
• 20:31
  because I wanted to be a, you know, because coach is such a
• 20:33
  driven in sport. It's such a driven thing for us.
• 20:36
  It's like, OK, if I got to coach high school to to coach high
• 20:39
  school track and cross country, I got to be a teacher.
• 20:41
  Well, then I'll go become a teacher.
• 20:42
  You really were. I am going to be a teacher.
• 20:45
  Like that is where my my life is moving towards to serve others.
• 20:50
  And then this coaching bug kind of came on the side and was
• 20:53
  like, yeah, you're going to do this too.
• 20:55
  Wow. So what was it like?
• 20:59
  I'm fascinated by this because I at one point when I was coaching
• 21:02
  college track and field, also thought about going back to
• 21:05
  become a teacher, thought about it going back to my old high
• 21:08
  school actually, as well, to do football and and track there.
• 21:13
  And I couldn't wrap my head around going back to college.
• 21:17
  You know what you did? Like when you tell me that I'm
• 21:19
  like, oh, my gosh. Like, yeah, you not only did you
• 21:22
  have to do your regular master stuff because of your major,
• 21:25
  like, of course you'd have to go do some undergrads.
• 21:27
  Like that's just what a commitment to like I, you know,
• 21:30
  I barely made it through first time college.
• 21:32
  I don't know. I just can't do it, you know,
• 21:34
  second time What when it when it becomes real.
• 21:39
  So you get your degrees, you get your first teaching job.
• 21:44
  I'm always fearful of like, oh gosh, because you don't know the
• 21:46
  job until you get in the job. How was it?
• 21:49
  Was it everything you thought? Was it like, uh oh, did I make a
• 21:53
  mistake? How?
• 21:54
  How was that? I think over these years, I
• 21:58
  mean, well, I think this is my man.
• 22:02
  Is this my 19th year teaching? Yeah, I think this is my 19th
• 22:06
  year teaching. It would be my 22nd year
• 22:08
  coaching. I would say the teaching I would
• 22:14
  how do, how do you put this? They're probably much more
• 22:17
  passionate teachers in our building than I am about tea.
• 22:20
  But coaching has become kind of my identity, my professional
• 22:25
  identity, if that if that makes any sense.
• 22:28
  It does. So that was a surprise.
• 22:30
  Like how much I've loved coaching and it it hasn't always
• 22:36
  been a smooth ride. I mean, we've had some really
• 22:38
  down years, but it's, it's, it's kind of surprising.
• 22:42
  I mean, I even had the point. There's, there's a point in my
• 22:46
  coaching career. I was like, maybe I should go
• 22:48
  coach collegiately. But then it's like, you know
• 22:51
  what? No, I'm, I'm kind of there's,
• 22:54
  there's a security too in the high school level, which I don't
• 22:56
  think exists at the collegiate level.
• 22:58
  When you have, you know, I, we have 4 kids.
• 23:01
  It's just like, maybe, maybe this is where I'm meant to be.
• 23:06
  You, you would have to, you would be faced with that
• 23:08
  decision to move to California again, if you went to the to
• 23:10
  try, you know, So I like how you put that.
• 23:14
  And this is a topic we haven't explored.
• 23:16
  So I'd like to continue down this route if you're OK with it.
• 23:18
  You know, I believe there are football players who also run
• 23:22
  track and then I believe there are track athletes who also play
• 23:25
  football. That's kind of, you know, if you
• 23:26
  kind of get that distinction. So I can believe that there are
• 23:30
  teachers who also coach and then there are coaches who also
• 23:35
  teach. I know we'd like to think in
• 23:36
  this very idyllic way, I guess, if that's the right word, that,
• 23:39
  you know, all teachers are just 100% passionate and consumed.
• 23:43
  And it's like, no, just like in your own job, you know, there's
• 23:46
  different levels of passion and you're still committed.
• 23:49
  So I don't want to say levels of commitment.
• 23:50
  You're certainly committed to the young people that you teach
• 23:53
  in your in your in your classes. But I can see where it's like.
• 23:57
  But what was interesting is you said, first of all, it is still
• 24:03
  not boggling, but I love this. You did not go into teaching so
• 24:05
  that you can coach. You went into teaching.
• 24:08
  You said that it surprised you of how your identity has become
• 24:14
  coaching. That's where it kind of made me
• 24:15
  think about that. Oh, you're a coach maybe who
• 24:17
  teaches, even though you went in as the teacher first.
• 24:20
  How did that occur? What what if you think back, you
• 24:23
  know, 22 years now of coaching, 19 years of coaching and
• 24:26
  teaching, it's typically probably gradual.
• 24:28
  There probably wasn't maybe a light switch moment where it
• 24:30
  just turned on. It was like, Oh my God, this is
• 24:32
  what I was here for. How did that coaching kind of my
• 24:37
  words on the I don't want to put words in your mouth overtake
• 24:40
  teaching. Interesting question.
• 24:47
  Honestly, it's probably had a lot of early success in my
• 24:51
  coaching career when I was at Mount Vernon as a volunteer
• 24:53
  coach, like when I was in high school, I never made to the
• 24:57
  state meet. I was, I I was arguing.
• 24:59
  Maybe I was just an average runner.
• 25:00
  Yeah, I know I went to run a college, but I never ran on the
• 25:03
  varsity team at Butler back in the day under well, it would
• 25:07
  have been Joe Franklin. That's what say, was it Joe back
• 25:09
  then? Yeah.
• 25:09
  JB. Yeah.
• 25:11
  Good friends, yeah. So I, I wasn't top seven ever.
• 25:16
  I mean, my my final year there is when we finished 16th in the
• 25:19
  nation. So it was the first time Butler
• 25:21
  made it to nationals and they finished 16th.
• 25:23
  Yeah. So that's an OK team to not be
• 25:26
  in the top seven by. The way yes, you.
• 25:28
  Know 8th place was still a really good runner.
• 25:31
  I was a walk on, so I was ever a great runner, but then when I
• 25:35
  started coaching to Mount Vernon, they had an individual
• 25:38
  who end up running at Miami, Ohio, Brad Untrauer.
• 25:41
  Who? You know, his sophomore year, I
• 25:44
  think it was maybe his junior, you know, I came in as junior,
• 25:47
  he was down in the 15301540 range, which is, you know, way
• 25:51
  faster than I was at 5K. So just that success, like my
• 25:55
  first year of coaching, I, I got to actually, I was invested in
• 25:59
  the state meet. You know what I'm, you know what
• 26:01
  I'm saying? Like as an athlete, I never got
• 26:02
  to experience it. So I got to coach him for two
• 26:05
  years or be a part of that process.
• 26:07
  And then Mount Vernon had a pretty good girl who finally
• 26:11
  made the state meet. She didn't meddle, but you know,
• 26:14
  I was. So my three years in Mount
• 26:15
  Vernon, I was coaching athletes or part of the coaching of those
• 26:18
  athletes at the state meet, both in track and cross country.
• 26:22
  And then when I came to Fishers as a first year of high school,
• 26:26
  we made the state meet the first year and finished, finished 7th
• 26:29
  in the state as a first year of high school.
• 26:30
  And we didn't have any seniors on that team.
• 26:33
  So the first year in 2006, 2007 Fishers were just freshmen,
• 26:37
  sophomores and juniors and we finished 7th in the state.
• 26:41
  And then that spring and track I was only like.
• 26:45
  So that first year I was kind of a boys and girls assistant, but
• 26:48
  predominantly boys. But in track I was at the boys
• 26:52
  distance coach and our four bait finished second in the state.
• 26:59
  So that was awesome. And then also we had a are Drew
• 27:03
  Shields in the 1600 finish. I think I want to say he
• 27:05
  finished fifth his sophomore year.
• 27:07
  And then Kel Allen in the 3200. I want to say he finished man.
• 27:12
  Well, actually I have I have stuff right here.
• 27:15
  I could actually look it up. What did he finish?
• 27:17
  He finished ninth in the state. So on the medal stand, my, my so
• 27:22
  so just that success. And then second year as a high
• 27:25
  school. So 2007, 2008, we won the state
• 27:29
  championship in cross country as a second year of high school.
• 27:33
  How I don't know why I'm amazed by that because it's still a
• 27:38
  collection of of but how like I I can't wrap my run around like
• 27:42
  how like for, for some reason, I was thinking when you said first
• 27:45
  year at fish, you know, first year at the high school,
• 27:47
  something like, oh, you know, not very good.
• 27:50
  They they don't have, they don't have a tradition of track and
• 27:52
  cross country because they don't have a tradition.
• 27:54
  Like it's just going to be, I don't know, in my head, I kind
• 27:56
  of like sandlotted as like, oh, just a bunch of scrappy kids
• 27:58
  that are learning track for the first time.
• 28:00
  But I guess like, I guess that wasn't necessarily all their
• 28:03
  first year experience with track.
• 28:05
  They had track. How does that happen?
• 28:07
  It just seems wild. So, so Hamilton Southeastern
• 28:10
  High School, which is it? It?
• 28:12
  It's huge. So and The funny thing is, like
• 28:14
  Hampton Southeastern High School, when I was in high
• 28:16
  school, they were the high school right to the West of us.
• 28:18
  So they were kind of a rival and they were the same size as Mount
• 28:21
  Vernon, But then just growth and growth and growth.
• 28:24
  They got so big. So they had to make a decision.
• 28:26
  Do we stay as one gigantic high school?
• 28:29
  Like, I don't know if Carmel High School in.
• 28:31
  Oh yeah. I I, I used to coach at Ball
• 28:33
  State, so I recruited a lot of these schools.
• 28:35
  Yeah. Yeah, so you know, a, a a school
• 28:37
  of 5200. Huge, huge, huge, Yeah.
• 28:40
  What they realized is Hamilton Southeast is actually going to
• 28:41
  be larger than that eventually. So they made the decision that
• 28:45
  they would split the high schools into two high schools
• 28:48
  instead of just one. So, and that's so Fisher's, I
• 28:52
  think back in 2004 or so that the building we are now was a
• 28:56
  freshman campus for all of Hamilton's Southeastern schools.
• 29:00
  So so we're at we're two high school schools district.
• 29:04
  So then what happened is, you know, they draw the boundary
• 29:06
  like, hey, kids who live in this area, they're going to Fishers
• 29:10
  High School. Kids who live in this area are
• 29:11
  going to Hamilton Southeastern. Well, the head coach at the
• 29:15
  time, Rob Seymour, he did a great job.
• 29:19
  He was a PD teacher. He did a great job of kind of
• 29:21
  starting to pick some athletes and saying, hey, you want to try
• 29:24
  cross country. And he he got some great
• 29:27
  athletes. And then it kind of snowballs
• 29:29
  from there. And you know, and lucky enough,
• 29:32
  we won state as a second. Year, especially when you
• 29:35
  consider and you know, if you're listening back in the spring, so
• 29:38
  April and May, I think April and May of 2024, we actually
• 29:43
  interviewed 1 high school coach from every state to talk about
• 29:47
  their outdoor state meet. And so we did a 15 to 20 minute
• 29:50
  segment on every, every state and in the in in in Indiana, we
• 29:54
  learned and I love that it's actually it, it might be my
• 29:57
  favorite one class system. So there's no one A2A3A4A.
• 30:01
  So when he talks about winning state, it's not like he won the
• 30:03
  2A state and there's six classes or anything like that.
• 30:06
  Not anything's wrong with that. But it's one if you have the 100
• 30:10
  kids in your school or if you have 5000 kids in your school,
• 30:13
  you're all funneling to the state beat to win one title.
• 30:17
  So what was a So what the way you describe that then Nathan,
• 30:21
  what, what might be especially, you know, hindsight, a boon for
• 30:25
  new Fishers High School 'cause you know, you play 7th right off
• 30:28
  the bat and you win state the next year.
• 30:30
  Would it be fair to say was it so as as much of A boon it was
• 30:34
  for Fishers? Was it a, what's the right
• 30:38
  negative word here? Did Hamilton Southeastern get
• 30:40
  screwed? Meaning like those kids would
• 30:42
  have been on the Hamilton squad, right?
• 30:44
  So, well, no, I mean, we, yes. So in that squad of seven we had
• 30:49
  during one state, only two of those guys actually ran cross
• 30:53
  country when they were at, because they spent two years at
• 30:56
  Hamilton Southeastern High School because they came to us
• 30:57
  as juniors. So only those two actually, and
• 31:00
  they would have been our second and like fifth guy.
• 31:03
  All the other guys never ran cross country either in junior
• 31:07
  high or in high school until they came to us, if I'm not
• 31:11
  mistaken. And that's cross country.
• 31:13
  I think a few of the track and field.
• 31:15
  But Drew Shields and Alex Shields are twins.
• 31:19
  They both played football as freshmen.
• 31:22
  Another athlete, Nate Piggish, didn't do any running and he
• 31:26
  just picked out these runners. And then so it really wasn't it
• 31:31
  didn't, I mean Helm Southeastern, if I'm not
• 31:33
  mistaken, they they were pretty good back then too.
• 31:34
  I mean, I think here we finished seventh, maybe they finished 8th
• 31:39
  the year we won. I think maybe they finished 6th
• 31:41
  or 7th. So it that's amazing.
• 31:44
  I know you hear this all time like where we are like man, just
• 31:47
  imagine how good they would have been back then if they were
• 31:49
  combined. Right, right, right.
• 31:51
  What people don't understand is, like you probably there, there's
• 31:54
  some, there's some that would never have done it because an
• 31:57
  opportunity doesn't exist, 'cause it doesn't.
• 31:59
  You don't all of a sudden go up to 14 varsity spots.
• 32:02
  You still only have 7. Good point.
• 32:04
  So that's a really good point. More opportunities, which is why
• 32:09
  I would say like I know Carmel Estate is one huge high school,
• 32:13
  but if if you ever split Carmel, then you would have you'd have
• 32:18
  another team event after some years, you'd eventually have two
• 32:21
  programs just as good. Yeah, that that's I've never
• 32:24
  thought about. That's a really good point that
• 32:25
  there are going to be some kids for all sports.
• 32:27
  We're going to talk specifically across and track here,
• 32:29
  obviously, but all sports that either don't go out for the team
• 32:32
  because they're like, dude, we have 50 kids on the cross
• 32:35
  country team. I don't want to be #51 so I'm
• 32:37
  just not going to do it. And who knows?
• 32:39
  That kid could have been a four flat Miller if they would have
• 32:41
  just, you know, tried out and or hey, they're already so good.
• 32:45
  I can't, I'm not that good. I'm just some freshman and it's
• 32:47
  like, oh man, if you would have started as a freshman, you could
• 32:49
  have been a nine flat 2 mod or whatever, whatever, you know
• 32:51
  what I'm saying? So yeah, I never I never thought
• 32:53
  about that aspect for again, for all sports, you know, tennis, a
• 32:56
  kid says he doesn't want to go to tennis because it's like,
• 32:58
  man, there's already 20 tennis people out there what they need
• 33:00
  me for. Yeah, I never thought about
• 33:01
  that. That's that's interesting.
• 33:03
  So were you. Now you're not.
• 33:06
  Don't take this throw away, Nathan.
• 33:07
  You're not young when you start this out, meaning you're not
• 33:10
  fresh out of college, You're not a 2223 year old coach.
• 33:12
  That's what I mean. We're the same age.
• 33:14
  So you know, if I call you old, I'm calling myself old
• 33:16
  everybody. But what I'm wondering is like,
• 33:19
  so you are young and, and we had this discussion with last week
• 33:22
  with coach Harris from Scotlandville, the girls
• 33:25
  national coach of the year as well.
• 33:26
  And I found this interesting. This was only her 4th year
• 33:30
  coaching. She had another career, so where
• 33:32
  we talk about with athletes and their training age.
• 33:35
  So you may be 18 years old, but you've only got 2 years of
• 33:38
  track. So your training age is 2.
• 33:40
  Her coaching age is 4. She's had four years of coaching
• 33:43
  at this stage for you, while you might be 3030, right?
• 33:51
  Because I started here in O 6. So it's roughly the same kind of
• 33:54
  time frame when I was 30. Then your coaching age is like
• 33:58
  one year, two year, three-year, you know, in this stage that
• 34:00
  we're talking about here. Did you, you know, you're a
• 34:03
  little bit more mature as a 3033 year old than you were as a 23
• 34:06
  year old? I hope.
• 34:08
  But I can see myself as a 23 year old coach, like kind of
• 34:11
  feeling myself a little bit like, oh man, like I got this
• 34:13
  coaching thing down. Look, we already won state.
• 34:16
  How do how are you feeling like as far as like you're, you know,
• 34:19
  were you like, ma'am, why am I not national coach of the year
• 34:21
  already? You know, that's my third year
• 34:22
  and I'm winning. I'm being facetious when I say
• 34:25
  it that way, but like, how are you feeling like as as a coach,
• 34:28
  like your own belief in yourself as a coach?
• 34:31
  I think you, you described it pretty accurately.
• 34:33
  I I thought I had it all figured out.
• 34:35
  Yeah. OK.
• 34:35
  Only did not only did we win state.
• 34:37
  You know, I know I wasn't the head coach then, but I was in
• 34:39
  charge of the training and the workouts because we were a
• 34:42
  combined program, the head coaches of boys and girls.
• 34:45
  So he tackled the girls with the girls assistant.
• 34:48
  I basically had the boys all to myself.
• 34:51
  So, yeah, you know, now that that was I man was that the
• 34:56
  first year of Nike cross nationals.
• 34:58
  It might have been 2007. So and we went to that and we we
• 35:02
  came point O like literally like one second away from Mace and
• 35:08
  what I it might have been Mason. OH, got to go as a like a as a
• 35:14
  callback qualifier at. Large.
• 35:16
  By like and at large, yeah, by one second.
• 35:18
  So yeah, I'm feeling myself. I'm thinking, Oh my God.
• 35:21
  Then then in the spring 2008, I'm still the distance coach and
• 35:26
  Drew Shields wins the 800 and the 1600 state title.
• 35:31
  First time it's happened in 60 years in the state.
• 35:34
  Yeah. Seriously.
• 35:35
  Oh, that surprises me for. Some reason happened more time
• 35:38
  since then, but he was the first one.
• 35:39
  I think for either I might be maybe 40 to six years.
• 35:43
  I'm sure someone in Indiana. Will long time, long time.
• 35:45
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a long time now that
• 35:47
  before that we, we finished second in the 4 by 8 again.
• 35:49
  So we finished second in the 4 by 8 two years in a row.
• 35:52
  Shields won the 16 and the 8:00 and then his brother, his twin
• 35:57
  brother finished, I think it was 6th.
• 36:01
  I have it right here. 6th, 3200. So like I'm two years into
• 36:05
  really 'cause when I was at Mount Vernon, I, I wasn't making
• 36:08
  workouts. I was, you know, 'cause what I
• 36:11
  found out the smaller schools, especially in track, the head
• 36:14
  coach does a lot. He almost micromanages because
• 36:17
  you just don't have knowledgeable staff.
• 36:19
  So, you know, my, my coach, one of my biggest mentors knows
• 36:23
  every event, you know, I mean, he knows everything.
• 36:26
  Also, you've been doing it 50 years, so, you know, but he
• 36:29
  knows everything because at a school like Mount Vernon size,
• 36:33
  he kind of has to because sometimes you're just hiring
• 36:35
  teachers to be your assistant just so you have adult
• 36:38
  supervision. Where is it, Fishers?
• 36:40
  I don't have that problem. And we'll maybe get into this.
• 36:43
  Like, my staff is extremely knowledgeable and I hired them
• 36:46
  for a very specific reason because they know what they're
• 36:48
  doing, you know. But yeah, so after after that
• 36:52
  spring season, 2008, then in 2008, 2009 school year, I became
• 36:57
  the head coach of both because the current head coach became
• 37:03
  the Dean of students because there's just some administration
• 37:07
  shifting high school. So then I stepped into the role.
• 37:11
  And then in 2008, Drew Shields wins the state title over a
• 37:15
  foot. Some some the the the kid from
• 37:18
  North Central. I remember this Northern
• 37:20
  Arizona. So, and now that we finished 5th
• 37:23
  as a team, so two years in a row we're on the medal stand.
• 37:28
  And then come back that spring 2009, Drew wins this 1600 again
• 37:33
  and I that he's 4th in the nation at it would have still
• 37:36
  been Nike Outdoor Nationals down at Greensboro.
• 37:39
  If I'm not mistaken. In the fall.
• 37:42
  He he finished fourth at Footlocker.
• 37:44
  He finished 7th at at would have been Nike nationals.
• 37:49
  He made it as an individual. So he was a two time all
• 37:52
  American and cross country going to Wisconsin to that that
• 37:56
  stellar program big recruit. So I'm just like, man, this is
• 38:02
  I'm living in the lap of luxury here.
• 38:03
  What? The Why didn't I start sooner?
• 38:07
  Yeah. And then?
• 38:08
  We refer, we, we love only refer to around here, especially in
• 38:11
  cross country. Went through like five years of
• 38:12
  what I call darkness. OK, I was going to ask because.
• 38:15
  You where I learned how to come, you come.
• 38:17
  Off much more humble than what this stage is.
• 38:20
  So I was going to ask So what humble?
• 38:22
  I mean something had to have like, I don't say happen again.
• 38:25
  Like it's a very, you know, acute.
• 38:26
  It could have been chronic thing.
• 38:28
  So during five years, just no more, no more Drew I, you know,
• 38:32
  I know you had other athletes, but you know.
• 38:34
  Yeah, yeah. So basically from 2009 till
• 38:38
  2012, we didn't even have an athlete make it to cross country
• 38:43
  state. Wow.
• 38:45
  So how it worked in our state you had sectionals, regionals,
• 38:48
  semi state, state, even though now this year we've cut out the
• 38:52
  the semi state. Portion, right.
• 38:54
  I remember that, yeah. So it's only a three round
• 38:56
  tournament instead of a four round tournament.
• 38:58
  So in that in those four years, there was two years we didn't
• 39:02
  make it all sectional. So we were two years removed
• 39:05
  from winning the state title in 2009.
• 39:09
  We don't even make it all sections as a team.
• 39:11
  And so there was definitely some soul searching and I, I, I, I
• 39:17
  distinctly remember this. So we were up at the Culver
• 39:19
  Academy's invite in Culver, IN. It's a huge high school invite.
• 39:23
  I think even some middle school teams run there.
• 39:25
  It's, it's just, it's on that lake.
• 39:27
  I don't even know what the lake's called, but it's just,
• 39:29
  it's a beautiful scenery. And we went up there and we got
• 39:33
  destroyed. I mean, it was, it was bad.
• 39:36
  I mean it, I mean, I want to say we finished 30th.
• 39:39
  I mean, it was, it was absolutely the most, one of the
• 39:41
  most humbling experiences. I remember I was coming home on
• 39:44
  the bus. You know, we have to leave
• 39:45
  pretty early to get there. So it's a long bus ride back.
• 39:48
  I remember I'm texting my wife. I was like, maybe maybe I just
• 39:51
  need to hang this up. Maybe I, I don't know as much as
• 39:54
  I think I know. I just need, I, I, maybe I just
• 39:58
  need to hang up coaching, just focus on teaching.
• 40:01
  And I remember her. She just said you are not
• 40:03
  quitting. She goes, you love this too
• 40:06
  much. You are not quitting because my
• 40:08
  wife has been with me. We got married right after we
• 40:11
  won the state championship like that December.
• 40:14
  So she's been with me the whole time I've been a Fisher, so
• 40:17
  she's been along the ride. Old time so my kids and she just
• 40:21
  like I want to say this man, I want to say this was about 2010
• 40:24
  or 2011 and then we used to do team camp and cross country and
• 40:32
  that's where some of the old guys Drew Shields all them they
• 40:34
  would serve as camp counselors very cool and we used to and
• 40:37
  this is kind of get into some of my philosophy and a lot of teams
• 40:41
  do this still I know, but like goal setting and all this stuff.
• 40:44
  Hey, we're going to make state and I remember Kel Allen who ran
• 40:47
  for Purdue goes, you know what, and I want to say, guys,
• 40:51
  something's not right here. We have talent, whereas we're
• 40:53
  high school, 2503 thousand kids. We have talent here.
• 40:58
  So I was like, this is some of us on me actually pray a lot of
• 41:01
  this on me, like I'm not directing them in the right way.
• 41:04
  And then we we kind of the bunch of the alumni and I kind of sat
• 41:07
  down and like, what can we do? And then we realized that we
• 41:13
  weren't as as AI as a coach was not focusing on the right
• 41:16
  things, right. I mean, and the goal needs to be
• 41:20
  the any this probably cliche now, like amongst coaches, the
• 41:23
  goal needs to be the everyday right, making the state, putting
• 41:27
  a metal on your neck. That's the reward for attaining
• 41:30
  your goals all the time. But when you make goals that are
• 41:33
  not attainable, it just spirals out of control.
• 41:37
  And then eventually we got, we, we had to just, we, we started
• 41:42
  turning it around and it, it just took a few individuals that
• 41:45
  kind of back in what was it? It had been 2013.
• 41:49
  We had a boy make state, Calvin Kraft.
• 41:53
  Then his senior year he made state.
• 41:57
  Well, he would have made state I, I'm trying to make sure I get
• 42:00
  2015. So he would have made state in
• 42:02
  2012, you know, as an individual.
• 42:05
  Then 2013, maybe, I don't know, I'm probably getting my years
• 42:12
  are wrong. Then then his senior year, we
• 42:13
  had a freshman boy make state with him or no, his sophomore
• 42:17
  year he made state with them and it was it was just kind of like
• 42:21
  those individuals kind of set a new tone and also just kind of
• 42:25
  changing my focus, like really, really focusing in on what are
• 42:29
  we doing on a daily basis is what we're doing on daily basis.
• 42:33
  Doesn't make sense. You know, is there?
• 42:35
  Does the why make sense? Right.
• 42:38
  And we stopped doing team camp because in the end, like we
• 42:41
  found out athletes, their whole purpose of being on team was
• 42:44
  going to team camp was like, that's not, you know, we're not
• 42:48
  a club team. We are a we're a competitive
• 42:51
  running team. If you want to do that kind of
• 42:53
  stuff that you know what I'm saying?
• 42:54
  So we've just really made the running and the competing the
• 42:59
  focus and cross country. And then it kind of started
• 43:03
  spilling over the track to like even in track, I'd say early in
• 43:06
  my coaching career, because, you know, I came up with a coach, my
• 43:09
  mentor, who did everything. I thought I had to do the same
• 43:12
  thing, right? But he had a team we had back
• 43:16
  then, we had teams like 50 athletes.
• 43:18
  We were having teams of 90 athletes, you know, so it's like
• 43:22
  I can't do everything. And I remember some of the
• 43:25
  coaches kind of took me aside goes and you're micromanaging.
• 43:28
  It's like, let us let us do our job.
• 43:30
  And I took that to heart. And I really kind of step back.
• 43:32
  I like, you know what, I'm the head coach, but I'm going to
• 43:35
  focus on my distance boys and give my event coaches the
• 43:39
  freedom to do what I hired them to do, right.
• 43:43
  Instead of kind of like I would go over there and try to help
• 43:46
  out with four by one relay exchanges.
• 43:47
  I was like, what am I doing, right?
• 43:50
  I had never ran a four by one in my life, you know.
• 43:53
  So that's kind of just those years really kind of help form
• 44:01
  where we are now. And then I would say then we got
• 44:05
  a team to cross country state in 2014 for the first time since
• 44:11
  2008 and then see what else here.
• 44:17
  And then in 2015, we finished second in the state and then
• 44:20
  it's kind of been a roller coaster since then.
• 44:22
  And then the cross country kind of took off faster than the
• 44:24
  track did, if you know what I'm saying.
• 44:27
  So then that and then the track over the years, I mean leading
• 44:32
  up to this past spring, we finished fourth three years in a
• 44:36
  row. But this take me, you know, and
• 44:39
  I would say when we lost our season during COVID, we had a
• 44:42
  team, I would argue then we had a team capable win the state
• 44:45
  meet. So I've always found just
• 44:47
  because of the way it is, like the cross country program kind
• 44:50
  of took off a lot faster than the track program did.
• 44:53
  But now the track program, just because, you know, I mean, I've
• 44:55
  always had track is like four or five teams in one.
• 44:58
  Yeah, Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
• 45:00
  You got your Sprint team, you got your throwers, they're off
• 45:02
  in their own world. Then you, you know, actually all
• 45:05
  the field events are kind of off in their own world, like the
• 45:07
  pole vault and all that. And then you got your hurdler
• 45:09
  specialty. But cross country's just one
• 45:14
  thing where there's a bunch of moving.
• 45:16
  Parts. Yeah.
• 45:17
  You know, first, first of all, Nathan, really appreciate your
• 45:21
  humbleness and authenticity to express that.
• 45:23
  You know, when we started this podcast five years ago now, it
• 45:28
  started with, and we still maintain this to today to uplift
• 45:32
  and honor coaches and what you do in the journey that you go
• 45:34
  through to be where you are today.
• 45:37
  And I appreciate, you know, what we're doing here with that
• 45:40
  quickly, because of listener feedback and things like that,
• 45:44
  it also turned into a what value can that journey present to
• 45:49
  people who choose to listen? And I think what you just
• 45:52
  expressed there, while you're a high school coach, I think I
• 45:57
  could have put any university behind your name club behind
• 46:03
  your name and there would be a lot of shared experience there.
• 46:06
  You know, you know, we played this balancing act of with of of
• 46:11
  coaches. I see this a lot of times where
• 46:15
  you know what you do as a coach. So the actual coaching not and
• 46:21
  when I say that not just the XS and OS as far as like the
• 46:23
  workouts that you conduct, but also the leadership, so your
• 46:27
  your style, things like that. We talk about how important that
• 46:31
  is we we as coaches and it is no doubts if someone's not there to
• 46:36
  administer the workouts to administer, which includes rest,
• 46:39
  by the way. If someone's not there to talk
• 46:41
  about that, we're going to be a complete team, not just a
• 46:43
  distance team or just a throws team or whatnot.
• 46:46
  You know, those things matter and they matter tremendously.
• 46:51
  And then on the other end of the spectrum, and this is a spectrum
• 46:55
  that I fight all the time, we get the hey, you know what, it's
• 47:00
  not me, it's the athletes. If I don't have athletes, it
• 47:03
  doesn't matter how good of a coach I am.
• 47:05
  And by the way, I'm just the bus.
• 47:07
  That is my number one pet peeve, specifically on social media
• 47:11
  when a coach will say I'm just a bus driver and it's like, well,
• 47:14
  cool, then we don't need you. That means I can get any parent
• 47:16
  to drive the bus and we and that's ridiculous.
• 47:19
  That's not true. So what is interesting to me in
• 47:23
  that journey that you just described to us, so you go from
• 47:28
  and right off the bat, like I'm not sure if it's good or bad if
• 47:31
  right off the bat when you start coaching, you have great
• 47:33
  athletes. You know, the journey is so long
• 47:37
  and you mentioned roller coaster, which means up and
• 47:39
  down. So but then when you mentioned
• 47:44
  the team camp, I thought when you said, oh, we do team camp, I
• 47:48
  was like, oh, this is how it got turned around.
• 47:51
  You know, in my head, I'm like, oh, team camp, camaraderie,
• 47:54
  blah, blah, blah, you know, these things.
• 47:56
  And you as a leader, we're able to identify.
• 47:59
  Oh, wait a minute, This is one of it.
• 48:00
  You know, no one thing is the one thing.
• 48:03
  This is one of the things that might be holding us back here.
• 48:08
  How And you mentioned, you know, I love here's I did.
• 48:12
  I really like this part of story reached back out to your former
• 48:16
  team, I assume captains, but you know, leaders, your coaching
• 48:21
  staff like you. It sounds like you were able to
• 48:25
  take a step back and humble yourself or lack of maybe a
• 48:29
  better term and say, hey, obviously something's wrong
• 48:33
  here. Maybe it's my what I'm actually
• 48:36
  doing coaching, but that seems to have met it out.
• 48:38
  So maybe it's not that. Maybe it's these team camps,
• 48:40
  maybe it's not. It seemed like you instead of
• 48:42
  trying to, and we as coaches do this a lot instead of trying to
• 48:46
  put everything on your shoulders, you just like you're,
• 48:50
  you're coaching to make a team. You as a coach were like, well,
• 48:53
  I have a team. I have former team members, I
• 48:56
  have my own staff. I have my former coaches.
• 48:59
  Let me sit down and talk with them.
• 49:01
  How hard was that? Cause something, you know, we've
• 49:04
  said this 1000 times. I'll, I'll continue to say this
• 49:06
  on the podcast. Ego is not bad.
• 49:08
  Bad ego is bad. How were you able to, whether
• 49:14
  you had bad ego or not, how are you able to shed that and humble
• 49:16
  yourself and say, hey guys, gals, something's not working.
• 49:21
  Help me. What, what are you seeing from
• 49:22
  your point of view? How are you able to to take that
• 49:25
  step instead of the, you know, sometimes common step of you
• 49:28
  know what guys? I'll put this on my back and
• 49:29
  I'll, I'll figure it out. I think it's just literally that
• 49:34
  the experience of having all those great experiences and
• 49:37
  saying this does not feel, this does not feel good, right?
• 49:41
  You know, like we have athletes, we, we, they desert.
• 49:45
  They deserve more from me than I'm giving them.
• 49:49
  You know, I mean it just and just taking the real
• 49:53
  retrospective and saying, Hey, what am I doing right?
• 49:58
  Because in the end, I the coaches just say it's all the
• 50:02
  athletes. Well, yeah, I mean, you need
• 50:04
  great athletes, but this isn't this isn't our sports, not
• 50:07
  rocket science here, especially, especially distance running,
• 50:10
  right? If you if you if you want to
• 50:12
  work hard and all that, you can be very successful.
• 50:14
  Now, I know in some of the, you know, other sports and track,
• 50:18
  especially there, there there's some, you know, there's some
• 50:21
  technicality to it, right? I mean, not everybody can hide
• 50:24
  jump, no matter how much you want to, not everybody can throw
• 50:26
  a shot and everybody can not everybody can hurdle like,
• 50:31
  right. But just just, if we're asking
• 50:34
  all these athletes to do this hard work, then we as coaches
• 50:37
  need to work hard too, you know, So I just just really taking the
• 50:42
  step back, saying if I'm going to do this, I'm going to be the
• 50:44
  best I can be. And then what goes to just what
• 50:50
  happens is what happens, you know, and I, I, I, I heard a
• 50:56
  quote while back that, you know, you can't have success without
• 51:01
  failure. And we definitely, we definitely
• 51:03
  on the on I as a coach, the program had a lot of failure
• 51:08
  after we had a lot of success. Don't we forget that a lot of
• 51:11
  times though, You know, I love that because it's the same with
• 51:15
  happiness and sadness, good and bad.
• 51:18
  Like the good doesn't matter if there's not bad.
• 51:21
  Success doesn't matter if there's not failure.
• 51:23
  But it's it's, it's cute to forget that.
• 51:27
  That means we need failure. We need it, not, not we have it.
• 51:29
  We need we need failure to have the success.
• 51:33
  And just try and also I see this happen and you know, when that I
• 51:38
  don't like calling it a failure, you know, 'cause it's just you
• 51:41
  don't, it doesn't end or play out the way you were hoping it
• 51:44
  would. And then how there are coaches
• 51:46
  that blame the athletes, you know, and I just, I've never
• 51:50
  been that type. Like, you know, in the end,
• 51:53
  these, these are, these are 1415, sixteen, 1718 year old
• 51:56
  kids. That's what they are.
• 51:58
  And that's also like, you know, hey, you know, it's a it's a
• 52:05
  athlete driven team. Well, no, because in the end,
• 52:08
  you're the leader at this age. Like they need, they need you to
• 52:12
  model that behavior about what a what it should look like.
• 52:15
  Like as a coach, if I'm not the first one there at practice, you
• 52:19
  know, I mean, just also when there is a poor performance,
• 52:24
  don't start yelling and screaming.
• 52:25
  Like, I mean, how many coaches do you see that just start
• 52:27
  yelling and screaming or they, they say one thing I've learned
• 52:32
  is coaching, especially because it's, it's highly emotional,
• 52:35
  right? I mean, there's, there's a lot
• 52:37
  of emotion. Is that never I, I usually don't
• 52:41
  say anything to my athletes right after they, you know, we,
• 52:44
  we talk like, Hey, let's get on our training shoes or let's get
• 52:47
  this especially track. Hey, we got another event coming
• 52:50
  up. Let's get a refocus.
• 52:51
  Let's get, let's get our water in US, maybe gets maybe get some
• 52:54
  fuel to get some food in US and all this stuff.
• 52:59
  But then use like in cross country especially, we'll have
• 53:01
  the team talk like the usually our meets are on Saturday.
• 53:04
  We'll have the team talk on Monday.
• 53:07
  That way you really like, not only do I have a chance to kind
• 53:09
  of digest and play back everything and figure out, OK,
• 53:14
  why did we perform that way? And usually it's related to the
• 53:17
  something we did in training or it also lets the athlete kind of
• 53:22
  work through the process on their own, which I think is
• 53:24
  really good. Instead of you guiding them as a
• 53:26
  code, they, they, they kind of begin to figure it out on their
• 53:30
  own because that to me that's more powerful instead of you
• 53:32
  telling them as a coach, This is why you ran bad.
• 53:36
  Yeah, that that that reminds me of what they call learned
• 53:40
  helplessness. So when you as a coach try to
• 53:43
  automaton, you know, robot, the athletes like, hey, you, you
• 53:47
  need to talk to you after every attempt.
• 53:49
  You know, I have to tell you that it's like, man, don't they
• 53:51
  have to learn to do to make some adjustments and feel themselves
• 53:54
  in their own. So I love that you instead of
• 53:57
  when you're at the height of emotion right after the the race
• 54:00
  or the event, you take that step back and allow that emotion to
• 54:04
  come back down to normal. And yet let the the other side
• 54:07
  of it, the, I'll call it the analytical side, you know, the
• 54:10
  thinking side of it start coming up and now you can have a little
• 54:12
  bit more of a proper discussion instead of a rash discussion.
• 54:18
  Yep, Yep. And but then in track it's a
• 54:21
  little different, like, because, you know, I mean, I go back to
• 54:23
  this, you know, the state meet, I mean, our state meet was in a
• 54:26
  like a downpour. It was the worst weather
• 54:27
  conditions I've ever seen. But you know, I mean, this
• 54:31
  track's different, especially in the high school level.
• 54:33
  I'm not sure how college works. I I don't think there's a lot of
• 54:35
  doubling, tripling in college, track and field, maybe both.
• 54:38
  But but I mean, you got to like, if someone didn't do well,
• 54:42
  didn't do what they wanted to do and like the in the like, we had
• 54:46
  a boy at Matt Kim who was our anchor in the four by eight.
• 54:48
  He anchored us to 2nd place, but then he wanted to finish top two
• 54:51
  in the 800. He finished like 5th.
• 54:55
  So he was really beating himself up in the tent.
• 54:57
  But then he's he's also our second leg on our 4x4, which is
• 55:00
  about an hour later. And we know his coach like this
• 55:04
  is a close stinking meet. So it was just getting him back
• 55:08
  into that Folks like, hey, we still got a job to do here.
• 55:11
  You're a senior. Let's get it going.
• 55:13
  You know where in cross country there's really, you know,
• 55:16
  there's a beginning that there is no talking.
• 55:18
  Yeah, one and done. No halftime.
• 55:20
  No, no, there's not. And also not like especially
• 55:23
  like with distance runners, the things you also say to them
• 55:26
  right before they race is really important.
• 55:28
  Like we don't we don't do a lot of talking before the race.
• 55:32
  We'll break them down and you know, tell them good luck.
• 55:35
  But to me, all, especially in distance running, a lot of that
• 55:38
  coaching happens the days leading up to the meet.
• 55:41
  Right. The last thing I want to do is
• 55:42
  start putting a bunch of things in their head when the gun's
• 55:45
  getting ready to go off in about 10 minutes.
• 55:47
  Yeah. I do it in track too, like hey,
• 55:50
  there's there's nothing you can say right now.
• 55:52
  It's really going to change like that should have been done
• 55:56
  244872 hours would go right. So it's just I, I like my
• 56:01
  athletes not to think. You reminded me of when you
• 56:05
  talked about that kid running the four by 8:00 to 8:00 in the
• 56:07
  4 by 4. It reminded me a lot of what we
• 56:10
  discuss about with multi, with combined event athletes of like,
• 56:13
  hey, after that 100 meter dash, whether you did amazing or not,
• 56:19
  you kind of have to put that in its own little bubble.
• 56:21
  You like, you know, I think you know, a lot of times coaches
• 56:23
  will say you get 5 minutes to think about it and then you got
• 56:25
  to go get ready for the things. The long jump is next.
• 56:29
  We, we talk about that a lot in our combined events, but maybe
• 56:33
  we're doing combined events for almost all of our athletes that
• 56:35
  are doubling and tripling. It's just like, hey, man, you,
• 56:37
  you know, I, I, I get you either, you know, set APR, you
• 56:41
  know, you did the amazing thing. That's awesome.
• 56:42
  I need you to come back down because now you got to go do the
• 56:45
  open eight or the relay and then vice versa.
• 56:48
  Oh, man, I know you didn't hit the goal you wanted.
• 56:49
  I know you're devastated right now.
• 56:51
  We got to kind of put that in a, in a, in a compartment.
• 56:53
  We'll talk about that tomorrow or Monday because now we got to
• 56:57
  get ready, our mindsets got to shift.
• 56:58
  Yeah. That's, it's just, I don't know
• 57:00
  that I've heard that much for our individual athletes who are
• 57:03
  doubling and tripling, but I hear it all the time for our
• 57:05
  combined vendors. Yeah, that's interesting.
• 57:09
  What were you you talked about, you know, the responsibility of
• 57:12
  a coach getting better as a coach.
• 57:16
  What have you done over this past decade plus now to get
• 57:20
  better as a coach? And maybe it's not just the
• 57:24
  coaching education side. Maybe, you know, talk to us
• 57:27
  about maybe any level ones, level twos or USTFCCAS or Altus,
• 57:31
  things like that. But also think of as a teacher,
• 57:34
  because I know there's a lot of professional development on the
• 57:36
  teacher side, which helps you become a better teacher.
• 57:40
  Maybe there's something on the coaching side or maybe there's
• 57:42
  something that transfers from teaching professional
• 57:45
  development to coaching. What have you done to improve as
• 57:48
  a coach? And I asked that holistically,
• 57:50
  not just, you know, how to make your 800 meter runners better.
• 57:55
  I think it's just more just for me, like I get more out of like
• 57:58
  I'm very number driven. I write, you know, when are our
• 58:02
  top guys, like especially in distance.
• 58:05
  I write a lot of stuff down, like our workouts.
• 58:08
  I know a lot of coaches are out there with stopwatch, but I will
• 58:10
  actually write them down and document them.
• 58:12
  So then I can go back and they're like points that I can
• 58:15
  look throughout the year like, hey, this is where we should be.
• 58:18
  So it's just for me, it's just really being very meticulous,
• 58:22
  like writing things down. I, I know we, we have a coaches
• 58:29
  clinic in our state. And after you've been doing this
• 58:33
  like 22 years, like there's not a lot of things that I feel like
• 58:37
  can help me because coaching is very specific to the athletes,
• 58:41
  your clientele, right? And you know, no one can talk
• 58:45
  better about the, the athletes I coach then that me because I've
• 58:51
  been coaching this community now for 20, almost 20 years.
• 58:55
  So now if I was to, you know, switch to maybe a different
• 58:59
  event group because I had to for whatever reason, then yeah, then
• 59:02
  education would be huge. But I think it's just honestly
• 59:05
  just being around kids. I think honestly, teachers make
• 59:09
  fantastic coaches because it's, it's the, you know, I live in
• 59:13
  the world of teenagers. And also I honestly, I having my
• 59:18
  own kids though, I have so have a daughter who graduated in
• 59:24
  2000. When was that 2023?
• 59:28
  And then I have a son who's going to be a freshman, then two
• 59:31
  little girls, 1 who's going to be 1/4 grader and one who's
• 59:33
  going to be a second grader. So honestly, just kind of having
• 59:38
  them, especially girls like so I think I've mentioned earlier,
• 59:42
  like I've been a boys coach, but then just recently back in the
• 59:46
  what 2023, I became also the head girls track coach in this
• 59:51
  fall. I'm now officially the head
• 59:52
  girls cross country coach too. And it's just I just think
• 59:57
  having kids of your own, especially girls have helped
• 59:59
  really kind of, I guess you'd say soften me in some ways and
• 1:00:03
  just kind of relax me too, because, you know, I mean, you,
• 1:00:08
  you can't yell at these kids. Non like, you know, you know,
• 1:00:13
  the type of coaches and it's just it's not some some athletes
• 1:00:17
  can handle it. Without doubt.
• 1:00:18
  So especially there, there are definitely boys I've coached
• 1:00:20
  that can handle being yelled at and being kind of challenged in
• 1:00:24
  that way. I feel like maybe I was kind of
• 1:00:26
  that athlete too. I could handle it.
• 1:00:28
  But then there are athletes that can, you know, that's something
• 1:00:31
  you have to learn like, and you'd learn it through trial and
• 1:00:33
  error, unfortunately. And sometimes it blows up in
• 1:00:37
  your face and sometimes you just learning how to read kids.
• 1:00:42
  So I think being a teacher itself, you kind of just learn
• 1:00:45
  how to read teenagers. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:00:47
  I'm not sure. You know, the arguments occur
• 1:00:51
  from time to time on social media.
• 1:00:54
  You know, well, they'll show, like, a football coach who, you
• 1:00:57
  know, grabs a football player's face mask and is yelling at him,
• 1:01:00
  blah, blah, blah. And, you know, becomes these
• 1:01:02
  very two entrenched camps of like, you know, well, yeah,
• 1:01:06
  that's how life is. That's how football, you got to
• 1:01:08
  be tough. And then there's other side of
• 1:01:10
  like, you know, really yelling. You know, I'm not saying you
• 1:01:13
  have to sit down and have like a an intellectual conversation
• 1:01:16
  with the guy in the middle of the fourth quarter, but I'm,
• 1:01:19
  yeah, really yelling. Like, name another place where
• 1:01:21
  that is kosher. Like when you get to the
• 1:01:23
  workforce, that's not kosher at all.
• 1:01:25
  You know, my boss who has never had a he's right on that wall
• 1:01:29
  right there. He's never had a reason to be
• 1:01:31
  mad at me, boss. But if he did, you know, him
• 1:01:35
  yelling at me would not have been the way to solve even I'm
• 1:01:39
  saying, well, I'm a man. I'm 48 years old, you know, I
• 1:01:41
  can take it. And it's like, yeah, but you
• 1:01:43
  know, I also, you know, we're human.
• 1:01:45
  So that means we should have respect for each other.
• 1:01:47
  And that's yelling at someone is not respectful.
• 1:01:49
  So. And by the way, you know, I
• 1:01:51
  coached for 10 years on the collegiate side.
• 1:01:52
  I'm not saying I was perfect. I certainly had.
• 1:01:54
  You know, I look back and like, oh, man, I wish I wouldn't have
• 1:01:56
  said it like that. I wish I wouldn't have done that
• 1:01:58
  for for sure, but yeah, I don't I don't know that I quite
• 1:02:02
  understand the coaches who are the the yelling get in your face
• 1:02:07
  mad. And I and you know, I my whole
• 1:02:10
  life is around coaching, you know, as all I you know, I
• 1:02:13
  talked to track coaches and see and watch observe track coaches
• 1:02:16
  24 or seven. I don't see it very often in our
• 1:02:19
  sport. I see it to your point, but it
• 1:02:23
  certainly doesn't also seem to be celebrated in our sport like
• 1:02:26
  it may in basketball and football, which, you know, there
• 1:02:28
  could be a whole discussion about.
• 1:02:29
  Well, those are male dominated sports.
• 1:02:31
  So maybe that's why I don't know.
• 1:02:33
  I don't want to get into that discussion.
• 1:02:34
  But but I like that you have to kind of the you know, you, you
• 1:02:37
  certainly sounds like you certainly on your own self of
• 1:02:41
  like, Hey, that's not how I'm going to be.
• 1:02:45
  That doesn't seem like a very intelligent way to to lead young
• 1:02:48
  men and young women in this, I don't want to say in this day
• 1:02:51
  and age because it was certainly wasn't in 1960s either.
• 1:02:53
  But, you know, we're here in today's age.
• 1:02:55
  Yeah, that's interesting. You know, I have a lot of
• 1:03:00
  empathy for high school coaches. You know, there's this weird
• 1:03:06
  dividing line between high school coaches and college
• 1:03:09
  coaches because one does it full time, presumably on the college
• 1:03:13
  side, and one is doing it part time.
• 1:03:15
  You know, and that's not a slam on our high school coaches, but
• 1:03:18
  the majority of us are also teaching classes, which, you
• 1:03:21
  know, a teacher on their own right there.
• 1:03:22
  Boom, Wow. Holy cow.
• 1:03:24
  That's a hard, hard, hard job to do.
• 1:03:27
  And then you add coaching track and field and cross country on
• 1:03:30
  top of that. How do you, I'm always curious
• 1:03:34
  about that. My wife, my wife's not a teacher
• 1:03:37
  by full time, but she is a long term sub.
• 1:03:39
  So like she's getting ready here in a couple weeks to start a
• 1:03:43
  geometry or we'll should go from the beginning of school through
• 1:03:46
  Christmas break. So she you know, she's in it
• 1:03:49
  every day and I'm just like, wow, man, it's a lot of stinking
• 1:03:52
  work. How do you handle?
• 1:03:54
  How do you I'll use a handle. I'm not sure that's the right
• 1:03:57
  term I want to say here, but how do you handle full time
• 1:04:03
  teaching? So you're a teacher.
• 1:04:06
  You, you want to be the best teacher that you can be.
• 1:04:09
  You want to, you're in charge of a 1418 year old kids, So you
• 1:04:13
  want to make sure you're setting them up for success and maybe
• 1:04:16
  they go on to be chemistry teacher or chemist one day.
• 1:04:19
  So you want to be really good at that job and that job entails a
• 1:04:23
  lot of other thing and every job has things that you don't want
• 1:04:25
  to do. So maybe grading or, you know,
• 1:04:26
  reporting to your principles and things like that.
• 1:04:30
  How do you maintain doing that at at the highest level
• 1:04:34
  possible? And yet also being a coach,
• 1:04:38
  meaning and being a distance coach, which means, you know, we
• 1:04:40
  talked to this 365, this is all all year as well.
• 1:04:43
  How do you handle trying to be excellent at at both of those?
• 1:04:47
  Those are two really kind of competing, not not competing,
• 1:04:49
  but those are two kind of full time activities.
• 1:04:52
  How do you handle? How do you handle is not the
• 1:04:54
  right word, but I can't think of the right word.
• 1:04:56
  How do you say handle? Again, how do you handle trying
• 1:05:00
  to be excellent at both? That's a lot.
• 1:05:04
  Time management, obviously. And by the way, you're a father,
• 1:05:07
  a husband, a son, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:05:10
  Like that's a full time job. Sorry, I mean to catch you up,
• 1:05:12
  but I want to make sure, you know, paint the full picture
• 1:05:14
  here. That's like they ain't the only
• 1:05:15
  two things you do in this life, you know?
• 1:05:18
  Yeah. So regards to families, like
• 1:05:21
  I've learned now over the years like that I don't take like
• 1:05:26
  teaching, I really don't take home.
• 1:05:28
  I do take home coaching, but also just kind of realizing what
• 1:05:32
  I needed to be the best. So like, it's going to sound
• 1:05:35
  crazy. I don't know if you, so you're
• 1:05:38
  in kind of the eastern part of Illinois, right?
• 1:05:43
  But I actually live in Crawfordsville, IN which is
• 1:05:47
  about an hour drive from Fishers.
• 1:05:49
  So we, we moved, we moved out here in 2017.
• 1:05:56
  So we used to live kind of, I used to live about 10-12 minutes
• 1:06:00
  away from the high school from like what was that, 2006 to
• 1:06:03
  2017? But then my mom passed away in
• 1:06:08
  2015. And then, you know, we, the
• 1:06:11
  house we lived in couldn't hold 4 kids.
• 1:06:15
  There's a very specific thing that my Wi-Fi envisioned for our
• 1:06:19
  kids, like how we wanted our kids to grow up.
• 1:06:22
  I didn't want to live in the neighborhood.
• 1:06:25
  I wanted to have some land just because just this is kind of
• 1:06:29
  what I wanted, right? And but unfortunately, you know,
• 1:06:32
  teacher, coach, my wife's a nurse, we couldn't afford stuff
• 1:06:36
  in the Fishers, Carmel, Hamilton County area.
• 1:06:38
  We just couldn't, we couldn't, we couldn't afford it.
• 1:06:41
  And her, her family actually is from Covington IN so out there
• 1:06:46
  on 74 as you had the champagne. So we made the decision like,
• 1:06:53
  you know, for all these years, we live close to my family who
• 1:06:56
  live in Carmel, IN After I graduated in college, they moved
• 1:06:59
  to Carmel that we were going to move closer to her family.
• 1:07:04
  And also kind of so I can also kind of have what we wanted.
• 1:07:09
  Like we wanted a bigger house. We wanted some land.
• 1:07:11
  Well, we couldn't afford any of that out here.
• 1:07:14
  So we end up in Crawfordville, Indiana.
• 1:07:17
  I live on a 3 1/2 acres. It's, it's beautiful, but also
• 1:07:21
  what I realized like so back when I lived near 10 minutes
• 1:07:25
  away from the school, I would go on, I would go on like 30-40
• 1:07:29
  minute drives before I went home because I had to decompress
• 1:07:33
  somehow. You get that naturally now.
• 1:07:36
  So people are like, Oh my God, Jesus.
• 1:07:37
  Like I don't think people understand.
• 1:07:39
  I would go to like Meyer, Kroger grocery store and just walk
• 1:07:42
  around and just take my time because I had to decompress and
• 1:07:46
  I couldn't bring this home. Because then you're not a very
• 1:07:50
  good husband and you're not a very good father.
• 1:07:52
  And you know, I don't know if I, I am, I mean, going on what, 18
• 1:07:57
  years of marriage. So I hope I'm I'm doing fairly
• 1:08:00
  well. And so far so good.
• 1:08:01
  Yeah, so. Far so good.
• 1:08:03
  So that's why people I, there are a lot of people in Fishers
• 1:08:07
  that don't understand it. Like, Oh my God, you drive like,
• 1:08:09
  but I knew what I needed as a coach, I'm going to do this.
• 1:08:13
  I have to be able to decompress. And I think a lot of coaches
• 1:08:17
  feel that right after a meet or after anything, a competition is
• 1:08:21
  like, Oh my gosh, I mean, I would even find back when I
• 1:08:24
  lived close, I would pace the building for like 1/2 hour
• 1:08:28
  before I went home because I just, so now I have, I have it
• 1:08:32
  built in. I have an hour, I have an hour
• 1:08:34
  drive home. So it's just time management.
• 1:08:39
  So I don't take teaching home. I try to you, you kind of learn
• 1:08:44
  as a teacher what works and what doesn't work.
• 1:08:45
  And I, I kind of, I hate to say I cut out the fluff like, right.
• 1:08:49
  And that's probably like where those, those unbelievable
• 1:08:52
  teachers, you know, those, those, those amazing teachers
• 1:08:57
  that they have AI wouldn't call flop.
• 1:08:59
  That's horrible to say. But you know, just they push,
• 1:09:01
  they go a little extra and beyond, whereas I don't, I don't
• 1:09:05
  do that because I don't have the time, right?
• 1:09:08
  Because now that like, I mean, as a coach, yes, we only coach
• 1:09:12
  in the afternoon and on weekends, but the parents are
• 1:09:15
  still sending us emails and stuff, you know, So I mean, so
• 1:09:18
  sometimes why the students are working on some problems or
• 1:09:21
  worksheets or something or doing the lab, I'll have to respond to
• 1:09:24
  emails, you know, they have to deal with coaching.
• 1:09:27
  So it's like coaching is definitely a 2424 seven kind of
• 1:09:33
  deal. And also, I mean, you've been
• 1:09:35
  doing it long enough, you get very efficient at it, right?
• 1:09:39
  What works, what doesn't work, And it just kind of just paying
• 1:09:43
  attention to that, like what works, what doesn't work and cut
• 1:09:46
  out the rest. And we do, we do it in, we do it
• 1:09:50
  in with the team, like, right. I mean, my Sprint coaches are
• 1:09:54
  some of the most efficient coaches.
• 1:09:56
  I mean that they will have the, I mean, we, we start practice
• 1:09:59
  about 3:25, 3/30. I mean, most of the time they'll
• 1:10:03
  have them out there by 5:00 PM Why?
• 1:10:04
  Because they're very efficient. There's no like when we get
• 1:10:07
  there, we're there to work. We're not there to socialize.
• 1:10:11
  I mean, you can socialize afterwards like you know, but
• 1:10:14
  our job is to, I mean, it's getting you prepared to compete.
• 1:10:20
  Very. I'd just say very.
• 1:10:22
  Pretty, Yeah, Yeah, yeah, No, I I like that.
• 1:10:26
  Yeah, I like that because, you know, again, our college
• 1:10:31
  coaches, this is all we got to do.
• 1:10:33
  All that. I say that very flippantly
• 1:10:35
  because I know there's a lot of things college coaches have to
• 1:10:37
  do as well, besides just on the track.
• 1:10:39
  Many, many, many, many things. And you're doing a full time job
• 1:10:43
  plus the full time job of coach. I mean, it really is.
• 1:10:46
  I kind of, you know, not kind of I, I push back sometimes on our
• 1:10:50
  college coaches who will say, well, you know, the high school
• 1:10:52
  coach, there's no excuse not knowing everything there is to
• 1:10:55
  be about being a distance coach. And, you know, you can go to
• 1:10:57
  this seminar and that seminar and you should be doing this and
• 1:10:59
  that. It's like, oh, yeah.
• 1:11:00
  But they also are teaching chemistry and that means there's
• 1:11:03
  homework. And I mean, there's just, you
• 1:11:06
  know, so the homework side I have, you know, I wasn't a big
• 1:11:09
  fan of homework when I was a student, that's for sure.
• 1:11:12
  But now if you're seeing my wife, you know, having kid, you
• 1:11:14
  know, like one kids going to 8th grade and other one's going to
• 1:11:16
  5th. And it's like, oh man, I hate
• 1:11:18
  homework. Like really get it done during
• 1:11:19
  the class time. And I know you would love it.
• 1:11:21
  Maybe you're a, a super, you know, chemist person.
• 1:11:25
  So you want them to learn everything there is about
• 1:11:27
  chemistry. And it's like, man, bro, maybe
• 1:11:28
  2% let's do eighty, 2020% are going to go on to do something
• 1:11:32
  in or around that. But you got a whole class here.
• 1:11:35
  What are we doing? And they got all these other
• 1:11:36
  things they got to do anyway. I can be on a soapbox for a long
• 1:11:38
  time there. Let's move to 2024, Nathan.
• 1:11:43
  So, you know, there are a lot of coaches out there that you know,
• 1:11:50
  some will openly admit say, man, I am jealous.
• 1:11:52
  How did Nathan, how did Ursula, how did they win the National?
• 1:11:57
  Like I want to be recognized as that as that others are.
• 1:12:01
  You know, you may not so harsh of a word and call it jealousy
• 1:12:04
  or just like, wow, I strive for that type of recognition because
• 1:12:08
  that means my team is good. How in the world did that
• 1:12:11
  happen? So let's talk about 2024.
• 1:12:15
  You kind of, you know, typically one season is not just, you
• 1:12:20
  know, maybe it's January through into May or June.
• 1:12:23
  I can't remember when your state meet is, but it's typically not
• 1:12:25
  just those 5-6 months, maybe sometime starts actually as soon
• 1:12:29
  as the 2023 state meet ends and it's like, OK, these kids are
• 1:12:32
  returning and these freshmen are coming in.
• 1:12:34
  Talk to us about, I mean, this is a a season that had to be
• 1:12:37
  magical. It ended with a, you know, a
• 1:12:38
  really magical award here for you as the national coach of the
• 1:12:42
  year. Talk to us about 2024.
• 1:12:46
  So we were, we were a senior dominant team, a lot of seniors
• 1:12:50
  on the team and just go back to 2023.
• 1:12:52
  Like I mentioned, we finished fourth in 2023 and we brought
• 1:12:56
  back, I mean, I'm looking at it now the the guys who scored at
• 1:12:59
  the meet for us. I mean, we brought back the core
• 1:13:02
  of that team, right. Tyler Tarter or hurdler was a
• 1:13:06
  junior then and they're also in 2023.
• 1:13:10
  There's odd disappointment. So Tyler Tarter was the number
• 1:13:13
  one seed, basically was the best hurdler in the state when he was
• 1:13:16
  a junior went there. I mean, he was undefeated in the
• 1:13:20
  300 hurdles and all this stuff. I mean, he'd only maybe lost
• 1:13:25
  once in the one 10s. But then we get the state meet
• 1:13:28
  advances through the trials of the one 10s in 2023, gets the
• 1:13:32
  finals number one seed. And then he does something
• 1:13:36
  really weird at the line, leans kind of funny and finishes
• 1:13:39
  second. But he tweaks his hamstring at
• 1:13:41
  the 2023 meet. So that means so we had to pull
• 1:13:45
  him from the meet. So that means he was by far the
• 1:13:48
  favorite to win the 300 hurdles as a sophomore.
• 1:13:50
  He finished second in the 300 hurdles back in 2022.
• 1:13:55
  So that was 10 points that we lost right there.
• 1:13:58
  Now that he was our lead off in the 4 by 4.
• 1:14:01
  By 4, right? Yeah, but, you know, so then
• 1:14:05
  points there. So then all of a sudden there's
• 1:14:07
  just that just the disappointment of 2023.
• 1:14:12
  And now that Tyler, it took him a long time.
• 1:14:15
  I think luckily he didn't really damage the hamstring really bad
• 1:14:20
  at all physically by August, he was fine of 2023.
• 1:14:24
  But I think it's that it's that kind of like I call it demons or
• 1:14:28
  this those things you have to get through emotionally to to
• 1:14:32
  move on. So I mean, we knew we had a lot
• 1:14:37
  of talent coming back. We knew, we knew we had as we
• 1:14:40
  kind of progressed to January 2024, right?
• 1:14:43
  But at that time, you know, we were coming off, we finished
• 1:14:46
  second in the state and cross country.
• 1:14:48
  So we knew our distance quad was going to be pretty solid, right
• 1:14:51
  track. So in Indiana, I don't know, I
• 1:14:55
  don't know how Illinois does it or other states, but we don't
• 1:14:57
  it's just one track season that starts.
• 1:14:59
  Our first official practice is like right around Valentine's
• 1:15:01
  Day. And then we don't have an
• 1:15:04
  official indoor season, but there's a pseudo, we call it
• 1:15:08
  Hoosier State Relays, which is like you have to qualify for,
• 1:15:10
  but it's basically, you know, the unofficial indoor state.
• 1:15:14
  Right. And you do like a big school,
• 1:15:16
  small school, I think, right? Yeah, big school, small school,
• 1:15:18
  yeah, yeah. And we finished second in that
• 1:15:21
  So, you know I mean pretty good feeling and but so when then we.
• 1:15:27
  But Tyler, we're still having, he was just dealing with the,
• 1:15:32
  the, the disappointment of what happened the year prior and also
• 1:15:37
  the, I guess probably the weight of expectations, right?
• 1:15:41
  He hadn't made a decision on his college yet.
• 1:15:44
  Actually, I don't think he had yet.
• 1:15:46
  Maybe he had because he's having IU.
• 1:15:48
  But just all that, all that, all that kind of baggage.
• 1:15:54
  So then, but you know, we're, we're feeling good then.
• 1:16:00
  So our long jumper, John Anthony Hall was actually on our
• 1:16:04
  basketball team, right? And so in 2023, he finished
• 1:16:08
  fourth in a long jump as a sophomore with a 23123 feet, one
• 1:16:12
  inches as a sophomore. But he's also starting starting
• 1:16:16
  guard or four small forward on our basketball team that one
• 1:16:19
  state. Here's a here's a, here's a, a
• 1:16:25
  big piece of our program. And we didn't even get him this
• 1:16:29
  spring until after our spring break in mid-april because of
• 1:16:33
  how the basketball season goes, right.
• 1:16:37
  And crazy thing this year was since we the what they call it
• 1:16:43
  now, Cambridge Fieldhouse was hosting the NCAA's first round
• 1:16:47
  of the men's basketball tournament after the semi state
• 1:16:51
  basketball, which is the round before the state.
• 1:16:54
  They took a two week a ticket. They took a weekend off because
• 1:16:58
  the NCAA had Cambridge Fieldhouse.
• 1:17:02
  So that pushed us getting him back a week further.
• 1:17:04
  So dude had the state basketball game the Saturday night leading
• 1:17:10
  into our spring break. And we don't, we don't have, we
• 1:17:13
  don't have, we don't require the kids to stay here for the one
• 1:17:15
  week spring break. It just as a coach, it's it's a
• 1:17:17
  battle I will not win. Sure, I'm going to win.
• 1:17:21
  Pick your battles. I'm not going to fight it.
• 1:17:23
  But so that means basically we don't see him until like April
• 1:17:29
  10th, right? And then he has to get in a
• 1:17:32
  certain amount of practice for he's allowed to compete.
• 1:17:35
  And then he tweaked his hamstring a little bit.
• 1:17:38
  And then and then, you know, he's a he's he's going to end up
• 1:17:41
  playing football at Stanford. He's so he he's a, he's a
• 1:17:44
  unbelievable wide receiver. So it's like, OK, we're not.
• 1:17:47
  We're. Not dude.
• 1:17:48
  We can't ruin this guy, right? So I would say through April,
• 1:17:53
  like we knew what we could do, but it's like things aren't
• 1:17:56
  looking good here. By that time, Tyler had got
• 1:17:59
  through everything and he was, I mean, he was on fire in the
• 1:18:02
  hurdles. But then when we come back from
• 1:18:07
  spring break, our best distance runner, Sam Cuaglaroli, who
• 1:18:11
  finished third and cross country, just a freak accident.
• 1:18:15
  Like in March, he dropped a 12 case of soda pop on his big toe.
• 1:18:21
  Didn't notice, you know, didn't think anything of it.
• 1:18:23
  Just felt like a stub toe. Then when we come back all of a
• 1:18:26
  sudden and by the way, he won the indoor 3200 that he ran a
• 1:18:30
  nine O 8, I think indoor in March.
• 1:18:33
  So he kept that stuff up front pretty fast outdoor, right, The
• 1:18:36
  big piece of what we're trying to do here.
• 1:18:39
  And then I remembered the that man, I want to say the Tuesday
• 1:18:43
  or yeah, it was a Tuesday out of spring break.
• 1:18:45
  He comes up to me and this all all coaches.
• 1:18:48
  This will resonate with him. Coach, we need to having a pain
• 1:18:51
  like, you know, in distance was like son of a gun.
• 1:18:56
  What is going on here? And he's not a kid that ever
• 1:19:00
  complaints. So we went he I mean non-stop
• 1:19:05
  trying to figure out what I mean he shut down found out he had an
• 1:19:07
  acute stress fracture in his big toe.
• 1:19:10
  And it took us, it took us to like May to figure out because
• 1:19:12
  the doctor told him like this, this, this, this, this is caused
• 1:19:17
  by a traumatic event. Like this was not training
• 1:19:20
  related, which as a coach feels, it does feel good.
• 1:19:23
  Like, OK, so it's not, it's not me, right?
• 1:19:26
  But then like they, I was like, Sam, did you stub your toe in
• 1:19:31
  the door? Did you do something?
• 1:19:32
  Because I, when I ran, I was always stubbing my toes,
• 1:19:36
  twisting my ankles, right? So I was like, did you do
• 1:19:38
  something? And you just kept running on it
• 1:19:40
  and you made it. That's what happened.
• 1:19:42
  That traumatic event. If we would have dealt with it
• 1:19:44
  right then, he would have had a season probably.
• 1:19:47
  He kept running on it and running on it and he was having
• 1:19:50
  the best workouts of his life. But then it got so bad, like we
• 1:19:54
  had to shut it down. So now all of a sudden in
• 1:19:57
  mid-april we've lost our best distance runner who who finished
• 1:20:00
  third and cross country and freaking won the state indoor in
• 1:20:04
  a nine O 8. Our long jumper who was also
• 1:20:08
  going to be in our four by one. We basically didn't get him for.
• 1:20:13
  Half the season because he's in basketball, which is great,
• 1:20:15
  right? It's great.
• 1:20:16
  You know, we want to stay title and basketball.
• 1:20:19
  But now all of a sudden he tweaks his hamstring because
• 1:20:21
  he's trying to get ready to long jump.
• 1:20:23
  And then one of our big pieces on our 4 by 4, Leo Moreau, he,
• 1:20:28
  we, they, they have these showcase meets like in early
• 1:20:32
  April in Indiana. Like the sprinters have a
• 1:20:34
  showcase up in Lafayette. The, the kids have a showcase at
• 1:20:37
  Franklin Central High School just where they showcase the
• 1:20:40
  athletes in like specific events like the one Lafayette.
• 1:20:44
  So you got the 100, I think the 200, the 400, the 110 hurdles
• 1:20:49
  and something like that. Then down at Franklin Central,
• 1:20:51
  it's just it's just a 1600 and how Leo goes up there.
• 1:20:55
  He runs the four by four and something happens and he tweaks
• 1:20:58
  his hamstring and this kids running a 49 second 400, a major
• 1:21:03
  part of our 4x4, right. So here we got our we, we, we
• 1:21:07
  have Tyler dealing with the demons of what happened to him
• 1:21:10
  this year before. Like, you know, I I don't want
• 1:21:12
  this to happen again. We just lost our best distance
• 1:21:15
  runner, John Anthony Hall. Our long jumper is dealing with,
• 1:21:21
  you know, we want to make sure we keep him healthy, not that
• 1:21:24
  for track, but also, you know, this is a football guy.
• 1:21:27
  We are not jeopardizing his future as a football player, you
• 1:21:31
  know, at the D1 level. And now we, you know, so it just
• 1:21:35
  it just seemed like, oh, my gosh, everything's stacked
• 1:21:37
  against us here, you know, But then all of a sudden in May,
• 1:21:41
  things start turning around. John Anthony started feeling
• 1:21:44
  better, starts popping off like jumps in in the low 20 threes on
• 1:21:47
  a consistent basis. We got him into the four by one.
• 1:21:52
  Tyler's just he just I mean, man, when was this?
• 1:21:55
  He's running times that are possibly the best all time in
• 1:21:59
  the history of the state in the one 10s and in the three
• 1:22:02
  hundreds. You know, Leo's doing his best
• 1:22:05
  to get back. We're only going to end up using
• 1:22:08
  them in the four by four. But you know, any sprinter,
• 1:22:11
  especially like anything in the hamstring, I mean, it's, it's,
• 1:22:16
  it takes a while. And I think that for me as a
• 1:22:19
  coach, there was also some, you know, post traumatic stress
• 1:22:22
  disorder because in 2023, Art we had a sprinter, Robert say, who
• 1:22:26
  was a senior. He won the indoor 60, but he
• 1:22:30
  tweaked his hamstring too. And we never got him back.
• 1:22:33
  Like, so not only did we lose Tyler in 2023 during the middle
• 1:22:37
  of the state meet, but also we had to do the probably run like
• 1:22:40
  a 10/5 dude never got to the meet because of a hamstring
• 1:22:43
  issue. So like the like 2023 was really
• 1:22:47
  kind of the setup for what we did in 2024, but it was just
• 1:22:50
  kind of crazy how all of a sudden we're just having all
• 1:22:53
  these different things pop up in April and just how how positive.
• 1:22:59
  Like I know I mentioned Leo, but he was like literally he's like
• 1:23:02
  coach because he knew like there was like like that PTSD like, Oh
• 1:23:06
  my God, it's happening all over again.
• 1:23:08
  We have a team. And he just kept telling me,
• 1:23:11
  coach, I got you, we will be ready when it's time.
• 1:23:13
  I got you, You know, just a senior leader just saying we got
• 1:23:17
  this. It feels like I'm a visual
• 1:23:19
  person. So it feels like as you're
• 1:23:21
  describing coming off of 2023, the things that are going on
• 1:23:25
  early in 2024, it feels like, you know, I use a puzzle kind of
• 1:23:29
  picture a lot. It's like, oh, all the pieces
• 1:23:31
  are there. There's the the 300 hurdle piece
• 1:23:33
  and there's the two mile piece and there's the long jump piece
• 1:23:37
  and then the two Miller. First of all, Soda is bad.
• 1:23:42
  That's what I got out of his story.
• 1:23:45
  Soda for himself, he's bad so. All right, well, first of all.
• 1:23:50
  You know you can't be drinking soda.
• 1:23:51
  And he goes. I was carrying.
• 1:23:53
  For my dad, that's first thing I thought I was like, let's
• 1:23:55
  drinking soda for anyway, there, you know, I, I see this visual
• 1:23:58
  of like you pick up the two mile puzzle piece.
• 1:24:00
  Well, throw that away. That's that's gone.
• 1:24:01
  Oh, there's my long jump piece. All right, well, that was
• 1:24:03
  already, you know, I don't say a questionable piece, but because
• 1:24:06
  of the basketball and everything, it's like, Oh, well,
• 1:24:08
  that was OK, throw that one away.
• 1:24:09
  Oh, my 300 hurdle piece. Well, that don't feel so good
• 1:24:12
  right now. It just feels like.
• 1:24:14
  So how did you you mentioned in May it it started kind of turn
• 1:24:17
  around, but boy, May you're in regionals and semi like it's go
• 1:24:21
  time. How did I mean?
• 1:24:23
  It seems like you're like, man, I feel like I have the the keys
• 1:24:25
  to the castle, but I can't figure out which one's the
• 1:24:27
  freaking key here. How did this turn around?
• 1:24:30
  I think it was just mainly the the those seniors and what they
• 1:24:35
  experienced in 2023. They know they knew what we were
• 1:24:38
  capable of. I think some people have already
• 1:24:40
  talked about this. We didn't win a meet until state
• 1:24:45
  like like we didn't win an invite.
• 1:24:47
  We we won some dual meets, right, But that's like we and
• 1:24:51
  none of that a lot of these meets, we weren't even finished
• 1:24:53
  second in some of these invites, but we were a high end team.
• 1:24:57
  Like we had big points if they put it together on the right
• 1:25:00
  date. And then it kind of gets back to
• 1:25:02
  what I said earlier, right, about failure and success.
• 1:25:05
  This team, the failures they they they experienced in 2023
• 1:25:10
  and 2020, early 2024 and those those kind of disappointments,
• 1:25:14
  those setbacks, I think it made them battle tested.
• 1:25:17
  And when we got to the state meet on that first Saturday in
• 1:25:21
  June and it's raining and what you find out like that, they're
• 1:25:26
  not going to postpone the state meet like unless there's under
• 1:25:28
  lightning. And then it was just raining.
• 1:25:30
  And how these these young men, just like we're here to do the
• 1:25:34
  job. We aren't letting you know
• 1:25:38
  because we never got Sam back just because we tried to get him
• 1:25:41
  to run sectional and he's a junior last year.
• 1:25:45
  Try to get him. I was.
• 1:25:47
  Forgive me, that is Sam the two Miller.
• 1:25:49
  Yes, yes, he's the two Miller and he's also, he was supposed
• 1:25:51
  to be on the 4 by 8 because he can run about 1:57.
• 1:25:54
  So we tried to get him back to start the tournament run right
• 1:25:58
  because you got to qualify each round.
• 1:26:00
  And we did some workouts and then I remember leading into, so
• 1:26:04
  this would have been on Monday before sectional, sectional was
• 1:26:08
  on Thursday. He and I had a real heart to
• 1:26:10
  heart. Like, you know, I mean, first of
• 1:26:11
  all, you've last, you've lost like a month and a half of
• 1:26:13
  training. So and you're running 3200 here,
• 1:26:17
  right? So knowing that, you know, if
• 1:26:22
  you're a senior, we're probably going to push a little bit,
• 1:26:23
  right? But you're a junior and works,
• 1:26:26
  you're expecting big things in the fall and cross country,
• 1:26:29
  right? And that's, you know, some of
• 1:26:31
  that's money too, like you're trying to get a scholarship.
• 1:26:33
  I mean, he ran a 1450 last year as a junior in the 5K.
• 1:26:38
  So it's like we just made the decision to shut him down.
• 1:26:41
  So they're, you know, there's possibly 10 points off the
• 1:26:43
  table, but then it's just amazing to watch like he was
• 1:26:48
  there every day. Just how the team just came
• 1:26:50
  together. They started coming together.
• 1:26:52
  Like I said, Tyler was already on fire at regional.
• 1:26:55
  He ran the fastest time in the history of the state of Indiana
• 1:26:58
  in the 300 hurdles. And just I mean, it was and he
• 1:27:02
  was just on fire. So we knew, hey, right there,
• 1:27:05
  that's twenty points right, because that he was on fire just
• 1:27:08
  but you know, hurdles I was. Just about to say, you say that
• 1:27:11
  I'm a hurdle fanat, that's my favorite.
• 1:27:12
  Like can't go wrong. Will.
• 1:27:13
  Ever. Until they cross that finish
• 1:27:15
  line, there's no guarantee points in the hurdles.
• 1:27:18
  That's right. They they bite for a reason.
• 1:27:20
  Exactly. Yeah.
• 1:27:21
  Yeah, yeah. And then amazingly like, and
• 1:27:23
  this was unexpected, like all of a sudden our discus and shot put
• 1:27:27
  through Joel Gates all of a sudden just started.
• 1:27:30
  It clicked with him. Like all of a sudden he's he's
• 1:27:33
  throwing 180 feet in the disk and just she's yes.
• 1:27:38
  And like lower 50s, mid 50s in the shot.
• 1:27:42
  Like it was like, and that was kind of the unexpected.
• 1:27:44
  Like, so some things had to go right to like, just like, whoa,
• 1:27:49
  that that we were not counting on that originally back in
• 1:27:51
  February, but OK, we'll take it. And he's he's going to throw at
• 1:27:55
  the University of Tennessee this next spring.
• 1:27:57
  So yeah. So, and then our four by one,
• 1:28:01
  you know, I mean, they finished third at the state meet.
• 1:28:05
  They hardly ever finished third in any invite and they just put
• 1:28:08
  it together on the right day. And that, you know, I, I, that's
• 1:28:11
  a testament to my sprints codes. Corey Ellams 'cause he just
• 1:28:15
  drills in them Exchanges, exchanges, exchanges, exchanges
• 1:28:19
  and. How do I know Corey Ellams by
• 1:28:22
  name? I know Corey Ellams, 'cause I
• 1:28:24
  found that mistaken. He did go to Ball State.
• 1:28:26
  Yeah, he. Was from Fort Wayne.
• 1:28:29
  I think. He was played in the NFL.
• 1:28:31
  I think he was there when I was there.
• 1:28:34
  I was there O2 and O. Three season, I think he's like
• 1:28:37
  45. Yeah, I was.
• 1:28:39
  I was on the women's side. I coached on the women's side,
• 1:28:41
  but I knew the men's side, you know, because we're always
• 1:28:43
  together. I was about to say I know that
• 1:28:45
  name. That's so cool.
• 1:28:47
  Oh yeah, so he's been with me now for like 3 years and he is
• 1:28:50
  just, I mean, he is unbelievable coach, but just the way he
• 1:28:54
  coaches and how he had just how we had those sprinters prepared
• 1:28:59
  for that stage. I mean, we're talking, you know,
• 1:29:02
  a driving rainstorm in the four by one.
• 1:29:05
  We're in the, we're in the middle heat.
• 1:29:06
  We're not even in the fast heat. We're in the middle heat.
• 1:29:09
  But we had a great lane. I think we had lane four or
• 1:29:11
  five. So we're in like the perfect
• 1:29:13
  lane. They nailed their exchanges.
• 1:29:17
  And then after we were like, Oh my God, after the, the fast
• 1:29:21
  heat, we're like, Oh my God, we just finished third.
• 1:29:23
  And it's just because they ran. I mean, they ran, what was it
• 1:29:26
  here I 4237, which was almost what they ran in nice conditions
• 1:29:32
  the week before. I mean, it's just, I mean, we
• 1:29:36
  were, we had so that that relay was seated, I think finished
• 1:29:41
  12th or 13th. They finished third.
• 1:29:43
  Our 4 by 8 was seated to finish ninth.
• 1:29:46
  They finished second and our discus wasn't even seated to
• 1:29:49
  finish and he finished second. Now we all knew what they were
• 1:29:54
  capable of, but still doing it on that day in that stage and
• 1:29:58
  those conditions and just it's just amazing like and how they
• 1:30:02
  were all they're they're really, they were senior dominated teams
• 1:30:05
  and those were seen. All those pieces were part of
• 1:30:08
  that 2023 team that dealt with, you know, I mean, we thought in
• 1:30:12
  2023 there's a chance we could have won back around because we
• 1:30:17
  finished second indoor state that year too.
• 1:30:19
  So I mean it, it was a long process and.
• 1:30:23
  I'm reminded, you know, when we're recording, I know you're
• 1:30:25
  listening to this in December as we get ready for the USTFCCCA
• 1:30:30
  convention. We're recording this actually in
• 1:30:32
  August. And I'm reminded, makes me think
• 1:30:36
  about this, Nathan. You know, there was a study done
• 1:30:38
  on Olympic medalist and they said the ones that were the
• 1:30:42
  happiest were the bronze met. Like the gold medalist, of
• 1:30:45
  course, was happy, but the bronze medalist was emotionally
• 1:30:49
  happier than the silver medalist.
• 1:30:51
  And it's like, why, you know, silver better than bronze?
• 1:30:54
  The the bronze people were excited that they got, you know,
• 1:30:58
  one step away. They could have been fourth.
• 1:30:59
  They could have no medal. And so they were just they were
• 1:31:02
  super excited. I got a medal.
• 1:31:03
  The silver medalist were actually a little disappointed
• 1:31:05
  because one more step and they could have been the gold
• 1:31:07
  medalist. And so they felt like they lost
• 1:31:09
  the gold where the bronze people felt like they won the bronze,
• 1:31:12
  you know what I'm saying? And so as you were telling that
• 1:31:15
  story of how it culminated in A state championship, I wondered
• 1:31:20
  like for teams, and this goes for college teams, high school
• 1:31:23
  teams, for teams that are the favorite, whether they're the
• 1:31:26
  heavy favorite or not, but they're the favorite.
• 1:31:27
  Like, hey, you're going to the Indiana State meet, it's yours
• 1:31:30
  to lose because you have XY and Z and things like that versus
• 1:31:34
  someone who a team that goes to a state and says, OK, we're
• 1:31:37
  we're slated for 5th or 4th or whatever.
• 1:31:40
  I wonder in those two scenarios were both end up winning the
• 1:31:43
  state meet, which one has a more like emotional satisfaction?
• 1:31:46
  Does the team who was the favorite and they they held off
• 1:31:49
  they they they won like how happy are they on like on a
• 1:31:53
  happy quotient tier versus the team who was, you know, pegged
• 1:31:58
  to be 3rd, 4th, 5th, whatever, and they won it.
• 1:31:59
  Like it feels like the underdogs, if you will, would be
• 1:32:03
  both win, you know, in, in these two alternate worlds here.
• 1:32:06
  But it feels like the underdogs would have a more satisfaction,
• 1:32:09
  more happiness because they did what, you know, maybe no one,
• 1:32:12
  including themselves, thought they could do where the team,
• 1:32:15
  the the the the favorites did what was expected of them, I
• 1:32:19
  guess, you know, so like for you guys, you guys went in and go
• 1:32:21
  on. Yeah, maybe like we're certainly
• 1:32:23
  not the favorites here. And then you end up winning.
• 1:32:26
  Like that seems like a lot of satisfaction and happiness that
• 1:32:30
  comes along with that. Yeah, I would say like when we
• 1:32:35
  were heading this, it was between US and two other teams,
• 1:32:38
  Hamilton Southeastern High School was in Bloomington, N So
• 1:32:41
  it was like we, we do, we possibly could.
• 1:32:44
  But back to your point you just made, I think it had a lot had
• 1:32:48
  to do with what happened in 2023, right?
• 1:32:50
  That's where like the boys knew we, we, if we did what we needed
• 1:32:54
  to do, we could definitely win. But also that disappointment
• 1:32:58
  2023 like, you know, that's why I think made it very sweet,
• 1:33:03
  right? Because like I said, basically
• 1:33:06
  that whole team came back and we're basically just exercising
• 1:33:11
  demons of what happened the year before when we had a chance to
• 1:33:14
  win. And then the fact that we had to
• 1:33:16
  outlast our rival high school, you know, the other high school
• 1:33:21
  in our district. But just it's probably what made
• 1:33:25
  it really sweet, right? Because they are the primary
• 1:33:27
  rival. And there's, there's, I mean,
• 1:33:30
  there's no love loss. Yeah, sure, sure.
• 1:33:33
  You're like from the same family.
• 1:33:34
  So it's like it's like brothers fighting or like you know, Big
• 1:33:37
  Brother, little uncle. I don't know this is related,
• 1:33:41
  but unrelated maybe a little bit rapper or fire question here.
• 1:33:46
  So we had the discussion this morning.
• 1:33:47
  So as we are recording today, we don't know when you're listening
• 1:33:51
  to this. We actually know how this all
• 1:33:52
  played out when we're recording this today.
• 1:33:55
  Quincy Wilson of the Olympic team for Team USA has been told
• 1:33:59
  he's not going to be on the mix 4x4, which kind of makes
• 1:34:01
  everybody feels like he's not going to be on the four by
• 1:34:02
  fourteen. I don't know how that actually
• 1:34:04
  plays out, but I was talking to one of my teammates, Tim Glover,
• 1:34:08
  who he's now retired but was a top ten Team USA javelin
• 1:34:13
  thrower. And so it made the world
• 1:34:14
  champions team and things like that.
• 1:34:16
  And you know, there's this statement about you're not an
• 1:34:18
  Olympian unless you compete at the Olympics.
• 1:34:22
  So in, in fact, when we're recording this Daniel Ha, I
• 1:34:26
  think is how you pronounce his last name fouled out of the
• 1:34:29
  hammer. And so I just asked, you know,
• 1:34:31
  because I, these are issues I've never had to face as but Tim
• 1:34:36
  has. And I was like, hey, so does
• 1:34:37
  Dan, is Daniel a a, a, an Olympian?
• 1:34:40
  And I was like, you know, he competed, I get it, but he
• 1:34:43
  fouled three times. So, and I and I believe he, you
• 1:34:45
  know, I'm not playing the the side of saying he does it.
• 1:34:48
  Quincy, if he doesn't compete in the relays, this does come back
• 1:34:52
  to you. Nathan, Stay with me.
• 1:34:53
  I promise. I promise.
• 1:34:55
  Quincy, if he doesn't run the relays, there is a contingency
• 1:34:59
  out there that says he's not an Olympian because he didn't
• 1:35:01
  compete, but he was on the Team USA roster and he's there.
• 1:35:04
  OK, I'm wondering this is where it comes to you, Nathan.
• 1:35:09
  Sam's the two Miller, right? Does Sam get a state
• 1:35:14
  championship ring? Yes, right.
• 1:35:18
  So what? So what we decided to do, and
• 1:35:20
  this mainly came to me talking to Casey Poppinfoos, who was a
• 1:35:24
  Brownsburg coach and they won last year and he and I are we're
• 1:35:27
  close. We talk, which he's actually
• 1:35:30
  from Illinois, if I'm not mistaken.
• 1:35:31
  I. Said I know that name too, yeah.
• 1:35:33
  Yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I asked him like, what do you
• 1:35:37
  do? Because I mean, we only had, I
• 1:35:39
  mean, maybe what we had 12 like 15 guys down there, right.
• 1:35:43
  So we basically. Out of a out of a roster of.
• 1:35:47
  Oh man, so out of an overall roster JV and Versi like 140?
• 1:35:51
  Yeah, OK. But we decided I'd do kind of
• 1:35:54
  what they did. And I I think he got this from
• 1:35:56
  other coaches, like everyone who was on the sectional roster
• 1:36:00
  either alternate or like actually competed at the sexual
• 1:36:03
  meet. So when our state tournament
• 1:36:05
  begins will receive a ring and an actual state medal.
• 1:36:11
  And I think that's because, yeah, they didn't compete.
• 1:36:13
  But Sam, for instance, he was at every practice through the
• 1:36:17
  tournament, he was there in the tent sharing the guys on like,
• 1:36:21
  remember, some of the sprinters actually came up and go.
• 1:36:24
  It means everything to us that he is here.
• 1:36:27
  I agree with this because I then asked my teammate Tim.
• 1:36:30
  I was like, hey, if I'm on whatever team that makes, if I'm
• 1:36:33
  on the Colts and we make it to the Super Bowl, but I'm the
• 1:36:35
  third string center so I don't play.
• 1:36:38
  I don't, I don't take a single snap.
• 1:36:40
  Do I still get a Super Bowl ring?
• 1:36:42
  The answer is yes, by the way, we all know this because they're
• 1:36:45
  on the roster, they're on the team.
• 1:36:46
  That's where I was making the distinction for Mr. Quincy
• 1:36:49
  Wilson here. I don't think I've ever called
• 1:36:51
  the 16 year old Mr. but he's an Olympian.
• 1:36:53
  So, well, in my opinion, he's an Olympian, so he deserves it.
• 1:36:57
  He's on the Team USA roster. So I think he's an Olympian and
• 1:37:00
  I think I actually take it a step farther a little bit here,
• 1:37:04
  Nathan. I think that kid who did not
• 1:37:06
  make the sectional team, he's a sophomore on your team right now
• 1:37:08
  and he ran, I don't know, 10-30 in the two mile because of what
• 1:37:13
  he did throughout the year. He helped.
• 1:37:16
  We'll use Sam as the example, even though, you know, we know
• 1:37:18
  what happened, unfortunately, with him, him showing up, him
• 1:37:23
  pushing one Rep for Sam on April for, you know, it's a team.
• 1:37:27
  And I know only 12 go to the state meet because of the way
• 1:37:31
  our sport is run. But I, I don't know, I, I just
• 1:37:34
  like, I guess I'm a little bit more inclusive.
• 1:37:36
  I'm not saying more inclusive than you, Nathan.
• 1:37:37
  I'm sorry. I'm talking about the the
• 1:37:38
  general consensus here with the whole Olympian thing.
• 1:37:41
  I told you I'd come back to you because I was just thinking
• 1:37:43
  about that with Sam. I was like, oh, wait a minute,
• 1:37:44
  Sam wasn't at the state meet, didn't contribute a single
• 1:37:46
  point, didn't race. But boy, Sam sounded like a but
• 1:37:50
  use that puzzle analogy. Seemed like he was certainly
• 1:37:52
  part of that puzzle that I'm not sure it would have went down the
• 1:37:54
  way it went down if Sam wasn't on your team cheering, doing the
• 1:37:58
  leadership things that Sam obviously has.
• 1:38:01
  So yeah, OK, sorry, I knew that was a divergent, but I.
• 1:38:05
  No, but I like that something because this is, I don't know
• 1:38:07
  how they do it in Illinois, if I'm not mistaken, in the
• 1:38:09
  Olympics, right. So there are rounds of the
• 1:38:11
  relays, right? And there's like you have a
• 1:38:14
  relay squad. I don't know if it's six or
• 1:38:15
  eight. Like in Indiana, it's 8.
• 1:38:17
  Yeah, whatever it is, right? But like, say, Quincy Wilson
• 1:38:19
  would have ran the preliminary round, right?
• 1:38:23
  Well, that's a medal. Gold, he gets a medal.
• 1:38:25
  That's correct. That's what happened in our
• 1:38:27
  state. Like so for instance, like so in
• 1:38:30
  the 4 by 8 we have, we're allowed to roster 8 guys
• 1:38:33
  starting at the sectional meet, right?
• 1:38:36
  And I typically don't run, I typically run two or three
• 1:38:39
  alternates all night just because of how it is.
• 1:38:41
  I know we can make it out. So I want to give these other
• 1:38:44
  athletes who aren't going to run in the regional state a chance
• 1:38:47
  to get that level of experience. So I can think of like, if I'm
• 1:38:51
  not mistaken, like the year, because we won the four by eight
• 1:38:55
  in 2019 and 2021, we had two guys run first at sectional,
• 1:39:03
  right? So they're part of us advancing,
• 1:39:06
  right? But the I say doesn't allow them
• 1:39:09
  to get a state medal as a relay medal, even though I would argue
• 1:39:13
  they were part of that freaking. Process.
• 1:39:16
  Those two kids are no different than the backup quarterback on
• 1:39:19
  the football team who doesn't take a single snap in the game
• 1:39:22
  because he's the backup. But everybody would go, oh man,
• 1:39:26
  boy, that first string is not as good if he doesn't have that
• 1:39:28
  second Stringer there. So yeah, he's absolutely part
• 1:39:30
  team. Those two kids absolutely are
• 1:39:33
  part of that relay team success 100%.
• 1:39:36
  Yeah. And I could understand like how
• 1:39:37
  the actually says, well, we're not going to give it to the guys
• 1:39:41
  who never ran. OK, that's fine.
• 1:39:42
  OK. I mean, whatever.
• 1:39:44
  We can have an argument about that.
• 1:39:46
  We actually, we can actually prove we because you know when
• 1:39:50
  you check in at our meets, they take your names, right, right,
• 1:39:52
  right, right. You can actually prove these two
• 1:39:54
  athletes actually are part of our process of getting there.
• 1:39:56
  And this really stinks because I think back in Maine, what was
• 1:39:59
  it, 2021, maybe it's 2019, something like that.
• 1:40:03
  We actually got our first ever medal in the two, the four by
• 1:40:07
  one. Well, one of our kids was in
• 1:40:09
  sexual and regional. He pulled his hamstring the week
• 1:40:13
  leading in the state and he was our third leg And he, you know,
• 1:40:17
  I mean, we actually, our team actually got worse.
• 1:40:20
  They got 5th place, but he didn't get a medal, but because
• 1:40:23
  he because he pulled his hamstring, right?
• 1:40:25
  But then they, but then you can, you can, if we wanted to, we
• 1:40:29
  could have given the state team medal to 140 athletes if we
• 1:40:33
  wanted to, right? We could.
• 1:40:35
  But I you know, so it's. No judgement I, I just it was
• 1:40:40
  the whole the whole discussion and it literally happened this
• 1:40:42
  morning. So I was like, oh, wait a
• 1:40:43
  minute, I got AI got a guy here I want to I want to pick your
• 1:40:46
  pen. OK, we, we're running into time
• 1:40:48
  here. So let's get into the actual
• 1:40:51
  award here, Nathan. So I'm actually not a big fan of
• 1:40:55
  Coach of the year awards, whether it's in your conference
• 1:40:58
  meet, the national championship, etcetera.
• 1:41:00
  Because when we're talking about winning a state title or this
• 1:41:05
  kind of national coach of the year or winning a conference
• 1:41:07
  title, etcetera, it's not one person, it's not just the head
• 1:41:11
  coach. And I'm not diminishing what the
• 1:41:13
  head coach role, it is a bigger role than anyone single event
• 1:41:18
  area role. There's a coach.
• 1:41:20
  But like I, I usually tend to hit this on Twitter around the
• 1:41:24
  conference time because they'll be a conference coach of the
• 1:41:26
  year. And it's like, man, you want
• 1:41:27
  conference. There's no way, let's say it's
• 1:41:29
  the distance coach is the head coach and they get coach of the
• 1:41:31
  year. There's no way only your
• 1:41:32
  distance runners scored all the points to win the conference
• 1:41:35
  title. Like you throwers had to do some
• 1:41:36
  stuff, your sprinters, jumpers, etcetera.
• 1:41:38
  So I do like there's some conferences out there and I'm a
• 1:41:42
  big proponent of this that name coaching Staffs of the year.
• 1:41:46
  Now I know this is a Coach of the year award, but I know you
• 1:41:49
  well enough now at this point that because we talked about
• 1:41:51
  this and I made sure to make a note, I want to shout these
• 1:41:53
  people out. We already talked about one with
• 1:41:55
  Corey there. This is really a culmination of
• 1:41:58
  what your coaching staff, if you're going to say this is, you
• 1:42:01
  know, it's all about the athletes and you know, if they
• 1:42:02
  didn't do what they did, I wouldn't win the award.
• 1:42:04
  All that's partly true. That means the coaching staff as
• 1:42:07
  well. If they didn't do their job, you
• 1:42:08
  also don't win this award. Give give us a shout out.
• 1:42:11
  Tell us about this coaching staff that you know we're a part
• 1:42:14
  of this National Coach of the Year award.
• 1:42:17
  So I think as I mentioned earlier, I coached both boys and
• 1:42:20
  girls, track and field and the head coach of both.
• 1:42:21
  So the beauty of that and you know, for years I there it was a
• 1:42:26
  split staff. You know, we had different head
• 1:42:27
  coaches. So I would say our models closer
• 1:42:30
  to like almost what they do at the college over right, where
• 1:42:32
  you have a director. So I guess you could say that
• 1:42:34
  I'm the director, but what it does is it allows us now that
• 1:42:39
  all the coaches are kind of almost shared coaches.
• 1:42:43
  You know, it just kind of it double S our size of our
• 1:42:45
  coaching staff and it gets rid of that whole idea where I used
• 1:42:48
  to have to deal with the the girls head coach and how do we
• 1:42:51
  share coaches? You know, you know, it just it
• 1:42:54
  just it kind of got rid of a headache.
• 1:42:57
  But I mean, like I mentioned, Coach Ellams and the sprints.
• 1:43:01
  His wife, Coach Lorraine Ellams coaches the girl sprints.
• 1:43:07
  She she ran IU. It would have been Lorraine day
• 1:43:09
  back in the day. She was from New York.
• 1:43:13
  So those are my two Sprint coaches.
• 1:43:14
  They do a great job. Then Coach Weese and Coach
• 1:43:17
  Thomas are the throws coaches. Then Coach Goodwin, Coach
• 1:43:21
  Tarter, do hurdles and then who I know I'm going to forget
• 1:43:26
  somebody. I'm Coach Rogers.
• 1:43:28
  He's kind of our and Coach Potter kind of our specialty in
• 1:43:32
  the field events. So pole vault, high jump.
• 1:43:35
  And then myself, Coach Thompson, coach Kuhn, Coach Torres, kind
• 1:43:40
  of we do the distance side and kind of go where we need to go.
• 1:43:44
  Bro how many coaches do you have?
• 1:43:47
  So I have eight assistant positions between the two had
• 1:43:53
  jobs and then also we have a number of volunteer coaches.
• 1:43:55
  I love, I'm not this, I want more of this for all of our high
• 1:43:58
  schools and colleges. By the way, our our athlete to
• 1:44:01
  coach ratio is bunk when it compared to basketball and
• 1:44:04
  football and stuff. So I love hearing this is
• 1:44:06
  amazing. So that's why combining the
• 1:44:08
  teams like we did, which is, I'll be, it's, I'm, I, I think
• 1:44:13
  it's almost unheard of on the track side at a school our size,
• 1:44:16
  a high school our size that, that the coach is the head coach
• 1:44:19
  of both, which it, it, you know, in the spring, it's a little
• 1:44:24
  rough, you know, you know, especially in cause in May we
• 1:44:27
  kind of our split our meats, you know, like the boys and girls
• 1:44:31
  kind of split. Then they have separate meats
• 1:44:32
  like, but through April they usually combined and it's much
• 1:44:36
  easier. And you find it in cross
• 1:44:38
  country. You see a lot of big schools
• 1:44:40
  even have the, the head coaches of both boys and girls.
• 1:44:43
  But track it's a little different.
• 1:44:44
  But again, this is the end of my second year doing it, trying to
• 1:44:48
  get next year will be my third. I, I, it just, it works as long
• 1:44:52
  as your coaching staff buys in and they have and they've been
• 1:44:55
  fantastic. And a lot of those coaches have
• 1:44:58
  been with me almost for a decade, like coach Rogers, coach
• 1:45:01
  Weese, coach Torres have been with me a long time.
• 1:45:05
  They just, they're just, they just know how we work.
• 1:45:08
  And it, it just, you're right without them.
• 1:45:11
  I remember because when we watched the four by four,
• 1:45:13
  because going in the four by four, if I'm not mistaken, we
• 1:45:16
  were up by 7 points going to the last event over HSC and they
• 1:45:20
  were in the same heat. We were the fast heat of the
• 1:45:22
  four by four. And we just knew what we had to
• 1:45:25
  do. You know, we just got to make
• 1:45:27
  sure we don't finish and they finished, I think, man, what did
• 1:45:31
  they finish? I mean they finished fourth and
• 1:45:33
  we no, they finished fifth. We finished 6th.
• 1:45:36
  So they only gained one point on us.
• 1:45:38
  So we are doing the math, but this all of us were up there
• 1:45:41
  together in the stands in then our administrators are there of
• 1:45:45
  our principal, our assistant principals.
• 1:45:49
  It was is a pretty, it was a pretty special moment because
• 1:45:52
  that's cool. I mean, it was cool.
• 1:45:55
  I mean, because you got to share it with these people that you've
• 1:45:57
  been with and it was. And as me as a coach, I never
• 1:46:02
  like because coach Ellen's coach Corey, he's like coach, we got
• 1:46:05
  this even after the four by one because coach we got this like
• 1:46:07
  Corey, stop. I've seen this thing can go
• 1:46:10
  sideways in a heartbeat. But I mean.
• 1:46:13
  That's a Ball State. That's a Ball State kid for you
• 1:46:15
  right there, buddy. Let me take.
• 1:46:16
  It, I mean, it was just, it was so much fun being with them on
• 1:46:20
  that day, you know, we're all soaking wet.
• 1:46:22
  I had already had two changes of clothes.
• 1:46:24
  I mean, it was horrible and but it was like it made it all worth
• 1:46:29
  it. And so it was a lot of fun just
• 1:46:30
  being there with those people that I spent years with.
• 1:46:33
  And we finally got over that hump.
• 1:46:35
  And now, I mean, honestly, with the combined staff, we're trying
• 1:46:37
  to get the girls there like that's let's, let's get the
• 1:46:40
  girls so they can feel the same, the same like feeling in this.
• 1:46:46
  It's, it's just, if you can, it's just, it was awesome.
• 1:46:50
  It's not over till it's over, especially when there's a
• 1:46:53
  downpour of rain. Get that baton across the finish
• 1:46:56
  line before we do any celebration.
• 1:46:58
  What I, what I reminded of when you talk about, you know, not
• 1:47:00
  only your coaching staff and obviously your athletes and your
• 1:47:03
  principal and, you know, things like that, there's an old, I
• 1:47:06
  don't know if it's a proverb we're saying if you want to go
• 1:47:09
  fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with
• 1:47:11
  others. You know, if you want
• 1:47:14
  consistency in your program, if you want to win state titles
• 1:47:17
  with your program, you better be surrounded by good coaches.
• 1:47:22
  You better have support from your principal, superintendents,
• 1:47:25
  your teacher, all sports, by the way, but here for track and
• 1:47:28
  field, it takes everybody to do this.
• 1:47:32
  Wayne State meets is hard. It's hard.
• 1:47:36
  And so you better be, you better be having a lot of people around
• 1:47:38
  you, good people around you. So you can go far with this.
• 1:47:42
  Nathan, you'll be in Orlando. Remember this is podcast time
• 1:47:45
  next week for the convention. Is this your first convention
• 1:47:49
  I'm assuming? Yep, I've never I've never been
• 1:47:51
  before. I'm actually we we're, we're
• 1:47:53
  going to bring the whole family down of.
• 1:47:55
  Course. Orlando, My wife thought that it
• 1:47:57
  was really important that the kids see their dad.
• 1:48:00
  So I think they're going to be there in.
• 1:48:02
  I think I get it. Tuesday morning they're going to
• 1:48:05
  actually, so they want to see their dad get the award.
• 1:48:07
  So I think they're going to spend some time in Disney World
• 1:48:10
  and do some stuff like that, some of those theme parks.
• 1:48:12
  But yeah, that is awesome. Make a family trip of it.
• 1:48:15
  I love that you guys deserve it man.
• 1:48:17
  You deserve it. I can't wait.
• 1:48:18
  You know the convention is my all time favorite of all year.
• 1:48:21
  It's my favorite week out of all 52.
• 1:48:23
  I call it my Super Bowl. You know, I've got all these
• 1:48:26
  coaches there who haven't started season pretty much.
• 1:48:28
  So they're, you know, the hair's let down.
• 1:48:29
  There's not, you know, the stress of everything going on.
• 1:48:31
  And we're just there to uplift an honor.
• 1:48:33
  We get to learn from a lot of our our peers there.
• 1:48:37
  It's just, it's amazing. So I, I think you're going to
• 1:48:39
  completely enjoy it. Obviously family time you'll
• 1:48:41
  enjoy, but you know, be able to sneak into some of the, the
• 1:48:44
  talks and stuff and continue your, your growth as a coach,
• 1:48:48
  man, it's going to be, it's going to be awesome for you.
• 1:48:50
  I'm excited for you to see that. This should be a great time.
• 1:48:54
  Awesome. You know, so is you're listening
• 1:48:57
  to right now, it's the week before convention when you're
• 1:49:00
  listening. Last week we had the girls
• 1:49:02
  national coach of the year, Ursula Harris from
• 1:49:04
  Scotlandville, Louisiana. She'll be in Orlando next week
• 1:49:07
  as well. And then next week is our our
• 1:49:09
  time there in Orlando. The JW Marriott we will be doing
• 1:49:13
  more than likely we will be doing the Monday Night Live
• 1:49:16
  podcast as well from our booth. So we've done this.
• 1:49:19
  This will be the third year where we record a live version
• 1:49:22
  on YouTube. So if you're there, would love
• 1:49:24
  for you to stop by, get in the seat, spend five, 5-10 minutes
• 1:49:27
  with us just chatting up about what you got excited for the
• 1:49:30
  2025 season. That's crazy to say that, but
• 1:49:33
  the we're already in 2025 basically in what you're doing
• 1:49:36
  there at the convention, how many years you've been things
• 1:49:38
  like that. Sit down with us on the hot seat
• 1:49:40
  for five to 10 minutes there. And if you're not, if you can't
• 1:49:42
  make it to Orlando, we'll be on YouTube live.
• 1:49:44
  You can participate through that venue as well.
• 1:49:47
  So Mr. Nathan, man, I'm so proud of you, so proud of Ursula.
• 1:49:51
  You know, the not just high school, but our coaches, you
• 1:49:55
  know, the positive impact that you guys are making here on the
• 1:49:58
  high school level, the 14 to 18 year old kids, the, the positive
• 1:50:01
  impact you're making is is immeasurable.
• 1:50:03
  You know, out of all the kids you coach and you get your coach
• 1:50:05
  and state champions here, these are big time kids that are going
• 1:50:08
  to Indiana, Stanford, things like that.
• 1:50:12
  You know, 99% of them are not going to go on to participate in
• 1:50:16
  college and, you know, and the pros and things like that,
• 1:50:18
  right? But 100% of them will go on to
• 1:50:20
  be moms and dads and business owners and teachers and
• 1:50:24
  chemists, you know, and that is what you're teaching them by
• 1:50:28
  example with your leadership, you and your coaching staff are
• 1:50:31
  doing for these young people. That is the greater good you're
• 1:50:33
  doing for society. And so that's why I say it's
• 1:50:35
  immeasurable what you're doing. It's not about how do we make
• 1:50:38
  that 23 foot long jumper, 24 foot long jumpers, How do we
• 1:50:41
  make that a better person so that they can go on and
• 1:50:43
  contribute to society. I'm glad the people that poured
• 1:50:46
  into you as a young person because you're a product of
• 1:50:48
  that. And now you're, you're expanding
• 1:50:51
  on that. You're, you're helping their
• 1:50:52
  tree grow with what you're doing.
• 1:50:53
  So I'm so proud of you, man. And just grateful for your time
• 1:50:56
  today here on the podcast. Yep, thank you for having me.
• 1:50:59
  It's awesome. Well, you only get on here if
• 1:51:02
  you win the Coach of the year nationals.
• 1:51:03
  So I wish I could do all 50 state coach of the year, but you
• 1:51:07
  know, I only get 52 a year on this thing.
• 1:51:09
  So that would be, you know, that'd be a bit much
• 1:51:12
  unfortunately, but we'll continue every year.
• 1:51:14
  If you want to know more about 2020 threes coaches of the years
• 1:51:18
  2022, I think we did 2021, check out our library again.
• 1:51:22
  We're 280 something episodes now.
• 1:51:24
  That means we have 280 amazing coaches like Nathan here that
• 1:51:28
  have been on the podcast. Go learn their journeys.
• 1:51:30
  Everybody from Mouse Holloway at Florida, Shelton Irvin down in
• 1:51:34
  Houston. He was a national coach of the
• 1:51:36
  year. Amazing, amazing men and women
• 1:51:38
  who think goodness choose to be track and field coaches.
• 1:51:43
  Join us next week. So we'll be live on Monday.
• 1:51:45
  We'll also have a an episode drop on Monday, of course, as
• 1:51:49
  well. And we're looking forward to
• 1:51:51
  season 62025's right around the the the right around the bend.
• 1:51:55
  And we're going to go right into season six with it as well.
• 1:51:57
  So thanks for being here. Join us next week and we'll talk
• 1:51:59
  to you soon. See you guys.
• 1:52:01
  If it goes to appreciate the coach the ones that point people
• 1:52:04
  most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth
• 1:52:07
  you got to prep for you carry the load ice coffee to the soul.
• 1:52:11
  For those of us who stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
• 1:52:14
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:52:16
  There's more than one way to go taking those sass paying your
• 1:52:19
  toe. It ain't practice if your
• 1:52:20
  purpose Saint Clair. It can't happen until you listen
• 1:52:23
  with both is you can't mentor without a mentor of years of
• 1:52:26
  experience. You can reinvent those years
• 1:52:28
  Every plan's got to stand and deliver to and the price
• 1:52:31
  sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and the fight not
• 1:52:35
  a win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 1:52:37
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to it's all
• 1:52:40
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside 6.
• 1:52:44
  When you waste of time choose none.
• 1:52:46
  So y'all cross finish line. The work ain't done so we learn
• 1:52:49
  from the experts but y'all got to put in the network kill
• 1:52:52
  athletics is the network. It's all about connections put
• 1:52:55
  together for the profession to every track coach could be
• 1:52:57
  blessing.