Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: Replay of EP#134: Boo Schexnayder-USTFCCCA Hall of Fame Induction TONIGHT!

Transcript

BONUS: Replay of EP#134: Boo Schexnayder-USTFCCCA Hall of Fame Induction TONIGHT! · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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Hey gang, tonight is a night of celebration just like every day
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should be. Tonight, December 16th, our
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great mentor, a mentor to most, is being inducted into the
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USTFCCCA Coaches Hall of Fame. That's right, the one and only
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Boo Schex Nader is going into the Hall of Fame guys, so we're
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republishing rebroadcasting. His interview from back in 2021
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should be no surprise to you. This is our number one easily
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most listened to episode. It was a absolutely honor as a
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personal mentor of mine as well to be able to interview Boo
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about his life and journey. He started out as a defensive
0:37
coordinator, but you didn't know that.
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And I bet you there's more you didn't know.
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So press play, continue listening right here.
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And let's celebrate booze Hall of Fame induction tonight at the
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USTFCCCA Hall of Fame convention.
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You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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with host Mike Cunningham. All right, thanks for joining us
1:11
again here on the Guild Athletics Connections Podcast.
1:13
I am your host, Mike Cunningham, and today's guest, you know,
1:16
this is actually kind of personal for me.
1:18
For today's guest, you've already seen his name on the
1:20
title. Help me welcome the wise, the
1:22
wonderful Mr. Boo Schexnader. Boo, How are you, Sir?
1:25
I'm doing fine. Of all the introductions I've
1:28
had, that was the most touching and most amusing at the same
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time. Well.
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You know, I think that's what my wife says about me as well.
1:35
Like, you're very touching. You're very amusing, Mike.
1:37
Yeah, Yeah. Boo.
1:39
It's a real honor to have you here, not only for you know, I'm
1:42
just so excited to bring your story to the listeners and the
1:46
many journeys you've had in in coaching and what you're doing
1:49
now, but also personally for me, and I've told this story many
1:53
times on the podcast. In fact, you're, you're probably
1:55
one of the maybe a handful of people that your name gets
1:59
brought up in almost every single podcast in some form or
2:02
fashion. And I think that's a real
2:05
testament to the impact you've made on coaching, specifically
2:09
with track and field. So I'm just super excited just
2:11
to explore that and kind of just bring your your full story to,
2:15
to the masses, if you will. Well, good.
2:17
I'm looking forward to it. Well, let's hop into it, man.
2:20
I'm so excited to have you here. I just want to get started and
2:22
just like blurt it all out. So let's kind of get in our, our
2:26
wayback machine here. Talk to us about where did track
2:30
start for you? Were you an athlete?
2:32
What, what's where does track begin for you?
2:34
I I wasn't much of A track athlete.
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Actually at my first interest in track, my high school won a
2:42
regional championship, which is not that big a deal in
2:45
Louisiana, to be honest with you, But I thought it was a big
2:48
deal and I wasn't on the team. So I went off of the team next
2:50
year and I ended up throwing the javelin and dabbling in some
2:53
other events. But you know, our we didn't
2:57
really have it. It wasn't coaching like you
2:59
think of, you know, I mean the the coach collected athletes and
3:02
got us out there and got us organized and that type of
3:05
thing. You know, and I'm I'm very
3:07
grateful for the fact that he had that approach.
3:09
You know, even to this day I hear sometimes a high school
3:12
athletes will come to me and as in the collegiate setting and
3:15
say, you know, my high school coach didn't know anything,
3:18
blah, blah, blah. And I immediately put up, I
3:22
immediately curtail that conversation because ultimately
3:26
that's what's important is this is a person that saw you on the
3:29
sport. Well, anyway, this person's
3:31
coach e-mail, you saw me on the sport and I started kind of
3:33
liking track. I wasn't great at it.
3:35
I was much more of a football person than a track person.
3:38
But you know, I was out there and I enjoyed it and so forth.
3:41
And then I don't know why, but as soon as I finished high
3:44
school, I knew I wanted to coach.
3:46
And even though I was majoring in engineering, because that's
3:50
kind of what everybody expected me to do, I just kind of knew I
3:53
wanted to coach. And I started coaching kind of
3:56
part time and everything and I was much more football than
3:59
track. But because I had the interest
4:02
in track, I started dabbling in track immediately upon my high
4:05
school graduation. I'll still, you know, in
4:07
college, you know, taking classes my freshman year and
4:10
still helping started to help out of the high school and that
4:13
type of stuff. And, and I'm just the kind of
4:15
person that if I'm going to do track, I'm going to try to do it
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well, just like I tried to do football well.
4:20
And that's kind of how I got started in track, so to speak.
4:23
I was a pretty decent football player, but as a track athlete,
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I was really nothing special. I just just liked it, you know?
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So what was it about coaching that like you said, it was a
4:34
media like, Oh yeah, I'm going to coach.
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Was it your high school coach? Was it did you see famous
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coaches, you know, basketball, NFL at that time?
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You're like, I want to be the man.
4:43
What? What was it that this seems like
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this was automatic for you? Yeah, it was.
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And I can't answer that question accurately when when I think
4:51
back at it, my high school coaches made athletics a
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positive thing for me. So that was, I appreciated that.
4:57
But I think it probably has something to do with
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personality. I I kind of love the chess match
5:03
of coaching, particularly coaching football.
5:05
I kind of love the chess match. By nature, I'm a problem solver.
5:10
You know, if you give you give me 3 puzzles, I'm going to pick
5:12
the hardest puzzle and I'm, I'm going to obsess until I finish
5:15
it. You know, I'm kind of a problem
5:17
solver by nature. That's probably why I started in
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engineering. And I, I also like the fact that
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there are infinite variables in coaching.
5:25
You know, you play chess and the Rook can only move this way and
5:29
the knight can only move this way.
5:30
Well, in, in coaching, there are there, there's infinite
5:33
variables, you know, there, you know, there really is no single
5:36
road map to success. And so many coaches do it in
5:39
different ways. So to make a Long story short,
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I, I think it's a profession that really fit my personality
5:45
and I saw it as a challenge, you know, and then when you take
5:49
into account the different personalities you have to deal
5:51
with, that's just another level of complexity involved in
5:56
coaching. And I, I think I probably took
5:58
to it not only because I like sports, but also because I
6:01
appreciated the challenges that it came, came along with it.
6:04
You know, I just found it tremendously challenging and
6:06
interesting. So you go to college and you're
6:09
studying engineering, but you're starting to help out from the
6:11
get go, coaching track at the high school, doing some
6:14
football. Were you participating in track
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at college? No, we didn't even have a track
6:19
team. And in, in fact, I ended up I,
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I, I went to LSU. This, this is a funny story, but
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I got recruited to play football at a couple of small schools,
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but they didn't have engineering schools.
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So I decided I would go to LSU as a student to, to, to, to
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study engineering. And I turned down scholarships,
6:41
not only athletic scholarships, even academic scholarships, but
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I was making like $500 a week catching crawfish in commercial
6:51
fishing. And the tuition for college my
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first semester for the semester was $275.00.
6:58
So it it really wasn't that big a scholarship wasn't what it is
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now. First of all, I love how
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Louisiana and you are bad you pay for college by crawfish.
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No, that, and I hate to say it, as much as I love coaching,
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that's still the best job I ever had, to be frank with you.
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But but in any case, so I went to LSU as an engineering student
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and was really miserable because my heart was really in coaching.
7:29
And then I transferred to Nichols and I graduated from
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Nichols. I actually played football for a
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short time at Nichols as a walk on and mostly because I wanted
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to learn footballs to make me a better coach more so than the
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fact that I was trying to go to the NFL or anything like that.
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But they're one of the schools that had actually kind of called
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me, you know, when I was actually, you know, coming out
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of high school and so forth. And that was the local school.
7:54
And since it was the local school, I could, I could go back
7:56
to crawfishing again and make you money, you know?
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Did you end up getting your degree in engineering or did you
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switch to some kind of? Education.
8:05
No, I ended up getting my degree in physical education and yes,
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young people that one time you could get a degree in physical
8:11
education. I think my degree says physical
8:13
education, recreation and safety education with a minor with a
8:18
minor in math education. And I was a math teacher at the
8:21
high school level and math because, you know, with the
8:25
engineering, I had a lot of credits in math.
8:27
So that's what I did. And I like I frankly, I enjoyed
8:30
being in the classroom high school.
8:32
You know, it, I found that to be kind of a challenge as well.
8:35
And you know, I anyway the teach kids math and courses they
8:39
really didn't want to be in, you know, interesting and, you know,
8:42
help the kids succeed and all that.
8:44
So I actually, you know, never really taught.
8:46
PEI was a coach, but I was pretty much more of a classroom
8:49
teacher when I got started. I should have took and taken a
8:53
poll before we started. And you know, what do you think
8:56
Boo Scheck Snyder got his undergrad degree in maybe PE.
9:00
They would have said, but definitely would not have
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guessed. Just started out in engineering
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and then went math and stars, you know, math minor and
9:07
everything. So you end up graduating from
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Nichol State. Great school.
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We've had their their now head coach on the podcast before.
9:14
I love Nichol State. It's a great little place, man.
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In fact, when I was at Troy University, we were in the
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Southland Conference. So we used to play nickel state
9:20
and football all the time. Never knew where Thibodeau was,
9:24
just knew nickel State, the colonels.
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So you, you get your degree, you go and your high school
9:30
teaching. So are you high school coaching
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track and field right off the bat as well?
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Immediately, yeah, I, I was already doing it kind of part
9:37
time, you know, as as a while I was in college and I immediately
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moved into the, in the same school in my alma mater into a
9:44
full time coaching role. And I was a defensive
9:47
coordinator in football my very first year and I was a track
9:53
coach as well. And we kind of had a cool, cool
9:56
track coach kind of thing. There were two of us who kind of
9:58
handle track together, so. So what is your, I'm going to
10:03
call it style of coaching at that point?
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Now, I don't mean, you know, we don't talk XS and OS and things
10:07
like that, but more of like, you know, now I know of you as a
10:11
very, I'm going to call it cerebral teaching type of coach.
10:15
Were you that way from the get go?
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No, Maybe. In football, because I was well
10:20
educated in football, I knew defensive schemes and all that,
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but in track I knew nothing. You know, I, I really didn't.
10:26
So the thing I feel my coaching then was insecurity and, and
10:30
fear of failure more than anything else.
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So, you know, my first season or two at coaching track, it was
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all about just finding, you know, those boys track is what
10:40
we had and finding any kid in the hallway that you thought
10:43
could maybe walk and chew gum at the same time, getting them out
10:46
there and see if they had a talent to, to do something, you
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know, and I remember the the the state champions were in our
10:52
league. We're in our district and
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they've had lots of quality athletes.
10:57
And anyway, I said, well, maybe we don't have a long jumper as
11:00
good as this one, but we're going to have two who are
11:02
decent. We're going to have two triple
11:04
jumpers who are decent. And two, you know, I'm going to
11:06
find two kids who don't mind hurting a little bit to run the
11:09
mile and run the two mile and go, you know, so it was
11:11
basically recruiting the hallways and and so forth.
11:14
And, and anyway, I was pretty successful as a defensive
11:18
coordinator and became successful as a track coach,
11:20
worked through that type of effort.
11:22
But what it, what happened as far as track was concerned?
11:26
Not long after that was when Path and Seagrave and Maxwell
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and all of those guys came to LSU.
11:34
I, you know, I was spending a whole weekend working on game
11:37
plans for football. And I said, well, I spent about
11:40
5 minutes deciding what I'm going to do for track.
11:42
Track, There's got to be more to track than this, you know, so,
11:46
so I started driving up to LSU when I could and watching track
11:50
practices. And I was extremely fortunate
11:53
because Dan Path took me kind of under his wing and he became a
11:56
mentor to me. I will forever be very
11:59
appreciative to him for all the time and energy that he put into
12:02
me as a, as a coach and as a person and everything.
12:05
And he, he took me, grabbed me at a very, a very, I guess,
12:13
critical time in my formation as a coach because I, I kind of
12:18
started to see things and I, I kind of had some punches on some
12:21
things. And not only did Dan teach me a
12:23
lot, but what Dan really did for me that was the most valuable
12:28
was I was getting to the point where I was seeing some things a
12:32
little different than what common culture and culture saw.
12:36
You know, I saw some things differently.
12:37
I said, why do we train this way?
12:39
Why do we use this technique? Some of that doesn't make sense.
12:42
And Dan was the person who told me no, no, no, you're seeing it
12:46
clearly. You need to kind of trust
12:48
yourself. You need to explore what you're
12:50
seeing and so forth. And don't be afraid to go away
12:52
from the, the, the, the, the common culture.
12:55
And that's what Dan really did for me.
12:57
I mean, I learned a lot from him as far as just factual material,
13:00
but the encouragement he gave me that kind of not be afraid to go
13:05
out on a branch or on a limb, so to speak, technically or
13:08
training wise or whatever, if I had a reason for it and if you
13:11
could support it with sports science and so forth.
13:14
So the confidence that he gave me at that point in my career
13:17
was extremely helpful. Was that the state of coaching
13:20
education at that point was another coach?
13:23
I know we didn't have, you know, obviously wouldn't have YouTube
13:25
and maybe we didn't have camps and clinics and we didn't have
13:28
access to a guy like you back then.
13:29
We didn't have e-mail and phones and what have you.
13:32
What was coaching education that you're talking about, Dan Path,
13:35
which that's amazing. Is that what the state of
13:37
coaching education was at that point?
13:39
Well, it was finding a mentor, so to speak.
13:41
You know, they really weren't many, you know, at that that
13:44
time USA track and field coaching in the education was in
13:48
its infancy, you know, just getting started.
13:51
And I kind of met Dan probably a little bit before that got
13:55
started or right around that time, but a little before
13:59
actually when I think about it. But basically there were some
14:02
clinics around and you found a way to hustle and get to clinics
14:06
and things like that. But there really wasn't anything
14:08
that was, I guess you would say curricular.
14:10
There wasn't anything that was all-encompassing.
14:12
And that I think was a tremendous challenge to coaches
14:15
in those days because you'd go to one clinic and this highly
14:19
successful coach said you should be running three hundreds.
14:22
And this court said, no, you run 2 hundreds.
14:24
You know, so you have all of this stuff and there wasn't
14:26
anything you, you have to sort it all out and you spend your
14:30
whole darn life collecting workouts and collecting drills
14:33
and all those things and you never really knew why you were
14:35
doing anything. And that's why to me, coaching
14:38
education was helpful and why I built a passion to advance
14:44
coaching education because it took all of these things that
14:47
were out there and put them in context.
14:49
So now all of a sudden, instead of all of these different
14:51
workouts and we don't know what we're doing, Now all of a
14:53
sudden, because of this curriculum, I understand exactly
14:57
what I'm trying to accomplish. So I know therefore I can do
14:59
this workout, this workout, this work and be fine.
15:02
I don't have to do these workouts because that stuff's
15:04
covered elsewhere, you know? So it kind of put everything in
15:07
context and help you to organize it in your own mind, so to
15:11
speak, you know? As you were organizing this in
15:14
your mind and you're being mentored by by Dan and maybe
15:18
you're doing some of the camps and clinics is there I know a
15:22
passion becomes coaching education for you and we're
15:24
going to get into that here later.
15:26
Did you see it that early of like, man, if I could somehow
15:30
bring all this together or were you still just, you know, you're
15:32
still rookie at that point? Are you still just learning,
15:34
trying to feel your way out? I'm trying to bring it together,
15:37
but bring it together for myself.
15:39
I don't even think I'm worth getting in front of a group of
15:42
people and speaking, you know, at this point in my career yet,
15:45
you know, and that was another thing.
15:47
Dan, you know, says you need to teach this coaching Ed stuff,
15:50
you know, and he said you're going to teach this level 2
15:52
class. I haven't taught a, taught a
15:54
level one class, the teacher level two class, he said, you
15:58
sure you can handle us? If you think I'm, if you think
16:00
I'm ready, I'm ready, you know, so and that's kind of how we got
16:03
started. I guess you would say yes.
16:05
So I had done a, I'd done a couple of clinics, you know,
16:08
like high school level clinics and things, but that's all I had
16:10
done. So Dan really saw something in
16:12
you, not just as a coach, but as a coach of coaches.
16:16
Evidently so. I surely didn't see it in
16:19
myself. We rarely do right.
16:21
That's why we need coaches. Yeah, yeah, I I read somewhere
16:25
where Nick Saban is fueled more by fear of failure than the
16:29
desire to succeed, and I'm not sure I'm not that same person.
16:33
Interesting. You're taller than him though,
16:35
so that's what we're You're on a better footing right there.
16:38
But his hair is better. Yeah, he does have good hair.
16:40
Yeah. So you continue coaching high
16:44
school. Do you bounce around in the in
16:46
the high school ranks or do you go on to college coaching?
16:49
I thought I was a lifer in high school.
16:51
I I thought I was going to be a lifer.
16:54
You know, I was a defensive coordinator.
16:57
I was highly thought of. I was getting some offers to
17:00
coach small time college football and that type of thing,
17:03
you know, and I was there in my hometown and the track teams
17:07
were doing really well. And all of a sudden, you know,
17:09
administration at the school change and I was a little
17:12
disconcerted and whatever. And all of a sudden I got a
17:16
call, you know, about possibly doing something in college
17:19
track. And that's when I ended up at
17:21
the junior college, you know, at Blinn Junior College that, you
17:26
know, I decided I just needed to do something different or try
17:29
something different. And that was kind of when that
17:31
all happened. So I only kind of got into track
17:34
because I don't know, like, like I said, just, I hate to say bad
17:40
high school administration. I don't want to cost, I don't
17:43
want to cast that stone, you know, because nothing's totally
17:46
bad. But for me personally, you know,
17:48
I was growing at a rate and it was kind of confining and so
17:51
forth. So I'm not blaming anyone in
17:53
particular at the high school or anything, but I was kind of
17:56
outgrowing the situation, to be honest with you a little bit and
18:00
needed a place to kind of spread a little.
18:01
And, and that lifeline came along and next thing you know,
18:05
I'm, I was, I was a coward to, to just quit my high school job.
18:10
So I actually took sabbatical to go to work at the junior
18:14
college, you know, kind of thinking, well, if I don't like
18:16
it, I can come back or whatever, you know.
18:19
But that's how I ended up at Blend Community College.
18:21
You know, and I forget you're at Blend's.
18:24
This is a great opportunity because, you know, half of our
18:27
listeners right now are sitting there shaking their head going,
18:28
Oh yeah, Blend Junior College. We remember that powerhouse.
18:32
And then the other half are like Blend Junior College.
18:34
Where is that? I've never heard of That's not
18:35
Barton. That's not the Arizona junior
18:38
colleges etcetera, right? So talk to us about Blend, the
18:42
other coaches that were there. It's got a great coaching tree
18:44
itself out of Blend. And just just how darn good were
18:47
you guys? Yeah, we were really good.
18:50
Junior college is track without rules.
18:52
There's no there are no academic limitations or anything.
18:55
And blend was an incredible situation because the the
19:01
president there of the college was very sold on track, you
19:04
know, his daughter run track, love track, you know, and he
19:07
could always find an extra scholarship or whatever, you
19:10
know, so it was one of those situations.
19:12
But the main reason was successful was a chain of good
19:14
coaches came through there. You know, coach Henry came
19:17
through there and then coach Sylvia came through and coach
19:19
Sylvia was was the guy who brought me there.
19:22
And coach Sylvia was one of the best bosses I've ever had.
19:25
You know, he's known throughout the sport is, you know, a hard
19:28
working coach and also a little a little bit of a character.
19:30
But let me tell you, I've never had a boss who was as good to me
19:34
as Steve Sylvie was. I mean, he gave you he gave me
19:37
complete autonomy over a group of athletes that I probably
19:40
wasn't really qualified to coach just yet.
19:43
And he threw a huge security blanket underneath you, you
19:46
know, safety net underneath you. And it was a working for him was
19:50
a huge positive at that point in my career.
19:53
He really did really did help me by just giving me the kind of
19:56
the, the freedom to kind of never, you know, second guessing
19:59
or, or anything like that. Where you, when you go to blend
20:03
and even through your coaching at the high school, were you
20:07
zeroing in on the horizontal jump specifically?
20:11
Now knowing that caveat, you can coach.
20:13
You can coach anything actually, but you're much, much more well
20:17
known as the long jump triple jump coach.
20:19
Were you steering that way early, or were you coaching
20:22
other events? I was I coached everything in
20:25
high school. The reason I got to be known as
20:28
a long and triple jump coach was because when I was in high
20:30
school, every school that I had to beat would put their best
20:35
athletes in the sprints. And I found that if I took my
20:38
best athletes and put them in long jump, triple jump, hurdles
20:41
and those types of events that were a little more coaching was
20:44
involved and maybe even a little less athletic competition, I
20:47
could get a little more bang for my buck.
20:48
So I was turning out good long jumpers and triple jumpers and
20:51
hurdlers and people like that at that time.
20:54
So I got to be known as a jumps coach.
20:56
But it was restricted by accident in in that regard, you
20:59
know. It's not like, not like you were
21:01
a jumper coming out of high school.
21:03
You're more javelin and some other events really.
21:05
Oh, no, I, I never, I've never. I got to be the Olympic coach in
21:08
the event and I never even tried long jump in a track meet.
21:13
I still haven't tried it. We'll we'll just pipe.
21:16
We've skipped that stage then you don't don't go trying it,
21:19
coach. So give us some specifics here
21:25
when you say Blinn was good, because yeah, I've heard some
21:27
stories about Blinn, how good Blinn was.
21:30
But there's other people have no context at all what good means.
21:34
You know, I coached JUCO for a year and I had to go up against
21:37
my buddy Lance Brahman and Barton.
21:38
And this is when they would win, you remember, because Walter
21:41
Davis and all those guys end up coaching them.
21:43
That was during that time frame. You know, Blinn would win.
21:46
I'm probably going to be way off on this because of my memory,
21:48
but you know, they'd win nationals by 100 points and they
21:50
were by far the greatest team around.
21:54
And my understanding is Blinn would have beaten those teams to
21:57
a pulp. Yeah, Yeah.
22:00
I don't think there's any question about that.
22:02
And again, you had good coaches, you had a great president, you
22:05
had almost unlimited resources. It was a perfect storm kind of
22:10
scenario, you know. And to put it in context, even
22:14
to this day, blend with scoring would be in the top five
22:17
nationally in the NCA Division One championships in any meet.
22:20
You know that we go to the the type of athletes that we had
22:24
back then and so forth, you know, so it was they were
22:27
really, really, really good. How many years at Blen and just
22:31
where? Just one.
22:32
OK. And so where and why next?
22:35
Well, I liked it. I wanted to stay.
22:37
There's a law that says if you take sabbatical and you have to
22:42
go back, if you don't go back, you have to pay back all the
22:45
money. Well, I thought they would waive
22:46
that for me, but they didn't. So I ended up going back to high
22:49
school for one year and then it was the year after that I kept
22:53
kind of had my eyes open to leave.
22:55
And that year after that was 1 Coach Law saw at what was then
22:59
University of Southwestern Louisiana, now Louisiana.
23:02
Lafayette gave me an opportunity to go over there and coach the
23:06
jumpers at that school. Did you meet a lot of coaches in
23:09
that year at Blend? Did you meet a lot of college
23:11
coaches from recruiting the Blend athletes?
23:13
Did you start kind of building network out that way?
23:16
Yeah, it did help somewhat. You know, it wasn't a lot, but
23:19
it was a sizable number, enough to get help.
23:21
You know, I had a few contacts, but interestingly, the the
23:25
contacts I made there weren't the ones that got me into my
23:28
next collegiate job. I guess it was an old high
23:31
school, you know, coach and also and I coach high school at the
23:34
same time, you know, cushion also who was the head coach at
23:36
ULL was a long time Louisiana high school coach.
23:40
And anyway, you know, and so was I and I, I still kind of had
23:46
more high school roots than anything else.
23:49
And and we had him. And of course, coach battle on
23:53
who would Bennett blend as well was his assistant and again,
23:57
long time high school coach. So it was a whole and that's the
23:59
high school coaches moving up. And that's why I always say to
24:03
this day, you can coach, you can coach, you know, and everybody
24:05
thinks that, you know, college coaches are automatically
24:08
better. Part of my recruiting pitch to
24:10
this day is that just because you're going to college doesn't
24:13
mean you're necessarily going to get a better coach.
24:16
You know, I, I tell that to recruits to kind of make them
24:18
stop and think sometimes. And there's no, I, I think
24:21
nobody would disagree with that, you know, But in any case, so I
24:25
ended up there and was coaching the jumpers at ull and I stayed
24:29
there for, for three years. Where is coaching education with
24:34
you at that time? Oh, I'm, I'm well, I'm in it.
24:38
The. I've already, yeah, I've already
24:40
taught a, you know, I've already taught a couple of level 2
24:43
schools when I made that move and so forth.
24:45
So, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm kind of in a deep and I'm starting to
24:49
become a fairly popular clinician, you know, on clinic
24:53
circuit and that type of stuff. I, I, it's, you know, and this
24:56
is when I'm starting to get a little more confident because
24:58
I'm starting to realize because of the reaction I'm getting from
25:01
people that, you know, I must be pretty good this clinic stuff,
25:04
because people are calling me and people are, once I talk in
25:07
one place, I get offers to speak in other places and so forth.
25:10
So that's when it all kind of started to to grow during my
25:13
early years at USL. So you're doing now.
25:17
I'm going to call a ton of different clinics and coaching
25:20
education. Are you writing any of the
25:23
curriculum at this point? Are you still teaching?
25:25
Not yet, Yeah, not yet, but that's coming. 1 long before I
25:29
started doing some rewriting kind of stuff with the USA track
25:32
and field stuff and everything, you know, and Dan and all those
25:35
guys put that curriculum together.
25:37
It was pretty much, you know, they were busy and, you know,
25:40
there was a ton of good material.
25:41
You remember, you've seen those materials back in the day.
25:44
It was like tons and tons of appendices and all those types
25:47
of things, but there really wasn't much text per SE to kind
25:50
of put it all in context or whatever, you know?
25:53
So that was kind of the challenge, you know, at that
25:55
point as far as the rewriting was concerned to just kind of
25:58
take all the good material that was there and just kind of sort
26:01
it all out and make it into a true curriculum rather than just
26:04
a collection of materials, so to speak.
26:06
You know, the stuff that Dan had done and Bob Myers had done and,
26:09
and local stuff and all of, you know, just kind of getting all
26:12
that stuff kind of organized, just kind of, you know, forming
26:15
into an outline a little bit more in that type of.
26:18
Thing and to give full respect to those kind of pioneers of of
26:21
curriculum based coaching education, rattle off some of
26:25
the names that were part of that original group.
26:27
I know you mentioned Dan, who is totally blank in his name, the
26:33
distance coach up in Colorado. Oh, V Hill was kind.
26:36
Of a Yeah, he was a big part. Yeah, V Hill was kind of a
26:40
driving force. In fact, I think the thing that
26:43
supported more than anything else was V Hill, if I remember
26:46
correctly, did his dissertation on coaching education programs
26:51
like international, like a kind of a survey or research project
26:54
into international coaching education programs.
26:58
And I think that was kind of a, a spur to the whole thing.
27:02
But I remember people like Al Beta and Bergen Better were
27:05
involved. And of course, Dan was involved.
27:10
I hate to say names because I'm leaving off a bunch of names.
27:12
You know, Warren was involved in the early stages of it as well.
27:18
I remember Bill Berg being somebody who was heavily
27:21
involved. It seemed like Louisiana was a
27:25
nucleus. Minnesota was kind of a nucleus.
27:29
Anyway, I'm, I'm, I'm drawing some blanks here and I hate to
27:32
leave out certain names, but it was, I would say a group of
27:35
probably a dozen to 15 people who were really involved in
27:38
getting all the whole coaching education movement going, I
27:41
guess you would say. Yeah, I put, I put you on the
27:43
spot there. So Winkler.
27:44
Winkler was another one. Yeah, that's right, Gary.
27:47
Right, right. Absolutely.
27:48
And you mentioned V Hill doing his dissertation on kind of the
27:52
state of coaching education in the world.
27:53
Were we behind in America, and I'm gonna call it formalized
27:57
coaching education, not just, you know, buddies talking at the
28:00
track, actual curriculum. Were we behind in America at
28:03
that point? I guess I think we were, to be
28:06
honest with you, given this number of people we have that
28:10
are certified coaches and the population of our country, some
28:13
people claim we're still behind, but at least now we have good
28:16
programs in place, you know? Yeah, yeah, there's really no
28:19
excuse nowadays. I mean, even when I when I was
28:22
coaching 2005 and prior, it was, you know, there were a lot of
28:25
opportunities. We didn't have USTFCCCA coaching
28:28
education back then. We pretty much only had USATF,
28:32
but it was still kind of hard to get to.
28:33
It was once a year for level 2, etcetera.
28:35
Now it feels like especially now kind of, you know, as we're
28:38
coming hopefully to the other side of COVID now it seems like
28:41
you, you, you can't help but trip over a Zoom call with a
28:44
good coach or, you know, education clinics all on Zoom.
28:48
Like you ain't even got to go travel anymore and amazing
28:51
coaches doing these things. This ain't just, this ain't me
28:53
doing a coaching clinic. These are some amazing coaches
28:55
that are sharing some of their knowledge out there.
28:58
So I I like that where we are in regards to that Open Access to
29:03
coaching education. I hope, yeah, the Zoom has been
29:06
wonderful because of the access people have.
29:09
I just hope that we never go completely to Zoom because I
29:11
just remember the interactions during the classes and the
29:15
interactions between the classes were often so, so, so valuable,
29:19
you know? So I I hope that we never
29:21
totally lose sight of what face to face education is all about.
29:26
1000% And I think about regular education in that same way, you
29:30
know, getting your undergrad or your MBA, certainly there's some
29:35
value. Again, access is a big deal,
29:37
right? To be able to do it through a
29:38
Zoom type, online type education.
29:40
But boy, there is a lot of extra added value face to face in a
29:44
group, in a group of people that are unlike you and learning how
29:47
they do things. And you're like, man, I didn't
29:49
know you could coach the hammer without a hammer cage.
29:51
What am I doing I. Should be able to teach the
29:53
hammer now, you know, So it's great to see that variety and
29:56
how people, you know, coaches just get it done in a lot of
29:59
senses. So it's great to be around
30:00
fellow coaches that are getting it done.
30:02
You can learn invaluable stuff that way.
30:05
So how many years at Southwest Louisiana?
30:08
Is that right? Southwest Louisiana is what it.
30:09
Was called University of Southwest Louisiana, University
30:12
of Cajuns. Yeah, I was there.
30:15
I was there three years and I my first year I didn't have too
30:19
much. I was able to get a really good
30:21
triple jumper in as a recruited midterm.
30:23
And then the next year I produced a bunch of All
30:27
Americans. And then that triple jumper two
30:30
years later ended up winning the NCAA title.
30:33
So I was at a mid major and I was developing All Americans and
30:38
had an NCA champion, a mid major.
30:40
You know, a lot of people think I ended up at LSU because I was
30:43
from Louisiana or, or I was lucky or had a connection.
30:47
But I remind the mid major people who are kind of whining,
30:50
you know, that. Why don't get a break?
30:53
I didn't really get a break. I kind of made a break, you
30:55
know, when my triple jumper in Tennessee won the NCA title, you
30:59
know, from a mid major school. That was something that kind of,
31:03
oh, you know, kind of open some eyes, you know, and I already
31:06
had a pretty good reputation as a jumps coach through some of
31:09
the clinic stuff. But I think maybe people realize
31:12
that it wasn't just I wasn't just a collision mission that I
31:14
can actually produce points, you know, and produce on the track.
31:18
So as you were coaching those all Americans and you win a
31:21
national title, I mean, that is awesome.
31:24
You know, I my last coaching job was at Mississippi State in the
31:27
SEC against you, by the way. So like to hear what this guy's
31:31
who got me out of coaching. I was like, I can't beat this
31:33
guy I'm getting. No, your hurdlers ran pretty
31:36
good, but that's another story from any.
31:37
Day. Exactly.
31:39
But I do, you know, my roots are at Ball State and Troy
31:42
University and JUCO, you know, that's where my roots are.
31:44
So I do love seeing the Southwest Louisiana, All
31:47
American or national champion Middle Tennessee, those kind of
31:50
schools. It just, I don't know.
31:53
I don't know that it means more. I just know that it's a lot
31:56
under resourced there and the expectations are lower.
31:58
So to overcome those, it's just phenomenal to me.
32:01
I love seeing that. And I enjoyed it.
32:04
It was one of the I was broke coaching there financially, but
32:08
it, you know, because I took a pay cut to go there.
32:10
You know, you talk about paying dues and whatever, but to go
32:12
from high school, whatever to go there was a big pay cut because
32:16
all I really got was a stipend to coach there.
32:19
And I was kind of hustling money on the side.
32:20
But I decided if I wanted to do this, you pay dues, you know,
32:23
and that's, you know what it is you at some point in time, you
32:26
step backwards. And that was my point at which I
32:28
stepped backwards. But it was a really fun level to
32:31
coach at because you know that you could, you could get
32:34
sometimes they were athletes, good athletes that you would had
32:37
an asterisk on it that you could get into your school that might
32:40
not be able to get into another school.
32:42
Or sometimes one of the things is because you're regional, you
32:46
don't make recruiting mistakes, you know, because you're always,
32:50
you know, I'm there in Louisiana, so I'm seeing high
32:52
school athletes compete all the time in that area.
32:55
So you pick out these gems that are kind of underdeveloped and
32:58
you know, the kids you're getting better than when are,
33:02
you know, when I'm recruiting at LSUI, know the kids, Mark, I
33:06
meet them on a visit, but I haven't seen them run over and
33:08
over again, you know, you know, it's because the recruiting is
33:12
regional based. It's a lot more efficient and I
33:14
think you make less mistakes, to be honest with you.
33:17
So in, in that way, shape or form, you kind of end up being
33:20
efficient and every once in a while you, you know, you can
33:23
kind of slay the slay the giant a little bit, you know.
33:26
So since you're not trying to recruit quote UN quote, 50
33:29
states or even the whole world, right?
33:31
In today's world, you're getting a little deeper because you're
33:34
basically recruiting 100 miles from campus.
33:35
So I get to see the kids repeatedly and do other events
33:38
and things like that. So I get a little bit more
33:39
knowledge of each kid. Yeah, absolutely.
33:42
And even when I went to LSU to some extent, that was still a
33:45
little bit of my MO because I knew the Louisiana kids by
33:49
heart. Like I, you know, I'd seen them
33:50
come up and, and everything and I knew which ones were really
33:53
good and which ones I needed to get.
33:55
And I knew which ones, if they didn't qualify, I had to get to
33:58
a JUCO and then try to get them on the on the after, you know,
34:00
that type of thing. So if you look at my collegiate
34:04
career, a lot of the good ones I had were Louisiana kids.
34:06
Yeah, right. At this point, is it fair to say
34:09
football coaching is done? You're all in on track at this
34:13
point. Pretty much, yeah.
34:15
Yeah, I'm done. I've never lost my interest in
34:17
football though. Like even to this day, if
34:20
there's a football clinic in Baton Rouge and I'm off, I'm
34:23
going to go sit and listen to the lectures in the football
34:25
clinic. So I've never completely gotten
34:27
out of it. There's nothing I enjoy better
34:29
than going to watch high school football on like there is the
34:32
night or Friday night because I still have a lot of because I
34:35
enjoy watching the good players play and I still have a lot of
34:38
friends who coach high school football.
34:40
So I like to go watch their teams and that type of stuff.
34:43
So football is still a passion of mine even to this day.
34:46
And I can still actually know with the with the best of them.
34:50
But I know it's nice because I don't have a team on the field.
34:52
I never lose anymore. No, no armchair quarterbacks for
34:57
me. I I.
34:57
Haven't lost in years, man. Do do you have an affinity
35:01
towards one level over the other where it's high school versus
35:04
college versus NFL? I really love high school
35:07
football. Is that right?
35:08
You know, yeah, during the little time when I was out of
35:11
collegiate coaching all together and I was doing consulting work
35:15
and such and I could pretty much make my own schedule.
35:18
It was a game on Thursday, a game on Friday, maybe a game on
35:21
Saturday. If the game on Friday wasn't any
35:23
good, I leave at half time and go to a different game on
35:25
Friday. It's just what I like.
35:27
I I really like athletes doing their watching athletes do their
35:31
thing. That's what I really like.
35:33
You know, I just love seeing young kids do things.
35:35
You know, when I was coaching at LSU, the most fun days were the
35:39
days when we hosted a high school meet there on the in the
35:41
indoor track or whatever. And you could just, I could just
35:44
sit by that wall and just watch kids run and watch kids jump and
35:47
watch kids throw and just watch them happy when they did well
35:50
and watch them pissed off when they lost.
35:52
And just see not only the competition and athleticism, but
35:55
the whole drama unfold, you know?
35:58
So where does that come from, Boo?
36:00
Because, you know, you've coached at the highest level.
36:03
You mentioned, you know, coaching on the Olympic team.
36:05
You've coached umpteen million NCAA All Americans and national
36:09
champions. But I mean, your fate, I mean,
36:12
I've known you for quite a while now.
36:14
Your face lit up when you were talking about going to the game
36:17
on Thursday, going to the game on Friday, going to another game
36:19
on Friday. Like where does that level of
36:22
passion come from? I.
36:24
Don't know. I I just, I like athletes.
36:26
I like watching athletes do their thing, you know, I just
36:28
love athletes from the standpoint of athletes are risk
36:32
takers. Athletes are people who take
36:34
risks and to try to do things, you know, and, and they, they
36:37
kind of forget about themselves and they give themselves.
36:39
I just like the whole human drama of and just the athletic
36:42
mindset, so to speak, you know, and I, I just like that, you
36:46
know, I, I, I love watching the, the, the mean and watching the
36:49
kid get pissed off because they lost or pissed off because they
36:53
ran bad or whatever. You know, I, I, I, I love
36:56
watching the agony in their faces when they get hurt and,
36:59
you know, they've felt like they could have done, you know, I
37:01
just all of that human drama, whatever.
37:03
I find it extremely intriguing, you know, and, and I just have
37:08
tremendous respect for anybody who goes out there and lays on
37:13
the line, so to speak, you know, and it is out there trying to
37:16
win something and competing just for the sake of competition, not
37:21
winning, you know, just just to say I'm the best just to do as
37:24
well as I can do. And I mean, that's something
37:27
that I, I sometimes I worry that we lose this society is, I mean,
37:31
is there, there's value in doing your best just because it's your
37:35
best. And sports are just where that
37:38
still happens. And that's why I'm such a big
37:40
fan of sports, you know? So where do we go from southwest
37:44
Louisiana? LSU.
37:47
Straight to LSU. And you went from there to LSU?
37:50
And you must have known somebody or how'd you get, how'd you get
37:53
that job? Well, I, I mean, I've been
37:55
around the LSU program and I knew Coach Henry well.
37:57
I never dreamed that he would offer me a job, but he did.
38:00
And so I'd had success at USL and, you know, he, he knew me
38:08
because back in my high school days, I was even officiating
38:11
some meats at LSU, you know, working meats and that type of
38:13
stuff. So he kind of knew me and he
38:15
called me and offered me a job. So, you know, I didn't want to
38:18
go. I quit LSU twice.
38:21
You know, like I said, I quit as a student.
38:23
I started a PhD at LSU one time. I quit that I tell people I've
38:28
only I've only quit two times in my life, LSU the first time, LSU
38:32
the second time. So now do I want to go to LSU?
38:36
So I went to Usli said look if y'all make me full time, I'll
38:39
stay. And they said no go because you
38:42
know, the finances just weren't good there, right?
38:45
So anyway, so so I ended up at LSU.
38:48
There there wasn't any you guys didn't you and coach Henry
38:52
didn't pass through at blend like right there was a
38:56
separation right OK, we. Did not.
38:58
If I had to guess, I would say Coach Henry, probably the the
39:03
fact that I coached in junior college and he had he probably
39:08
like that, but I'm not going to say that's why I got the job,
39:11
but I but I think that probably, you know, he I think he likes
39:15
JUCO people. I just think he thinks JUCO is a
39:17
good level and you learn and type of kids, you deal with
39:20
them. You know, the ability to do
39:21
without sometimes or whatever I think he thinks is a positive
39:24
and I think that's probably was part of it.
39:27
Well, and you know, coach and he's a winner, right?
39:29
He likes to see people develop positively.
39:31
So I'm going to go out on a limb and say those kids, you got it,
39:33
Southeast Louisiana weren't number one kid in the nation
39:36
coming out of high school and yet they go on and win the
39:38
national title and All American. So I'm.
39:41
Sure. Yeah.
39:41
He's, he's all those kids doing well.
39:44
If I'd been failing, I'd doubt that he would offer me a job.
39:47
In fact, I'm pretty sure, you know.
39:48
Yeah. Yeah.
39:49
He's, he's a smart guy. He.
39:50
Talent. Talent identification and
39:52
athletes and coaches. That's one thing about Coach
39:56
Henry. He's, you know, that's, that's
39:58
one thing is surrounding himself with good coaches has always
40:01
been his deal. Yeah.
40:03
So what was it like going to LSU?
40:05
So you're from Louisiana. So LSU is the mega flagship of
40:10
the state. You'd started school there.
40:13
Coach Henry's there. So can I assume they're winning
40:15
titles at this point? What what?
40:16
What year was this? 90. 595 S are are you winning?
40:20
Is LSU winning titles at that point?
40:23
Yeah, OK, They won like, you know what, 25 in a row or
40:26
something, 100 in a row, whatever it was, they were just
40:28
winning. So what's it like expectation
40:30
wise for you? Do you get a little nervous
40:32
like, oh man, that now this is the big boys stage, I've got to
40:35
step up or is this just coach I got?
40:37
I'm the coach, be the coach. I went through about a six month
40:43
phase where I did a very poor job.
40:45
I, I kind of thought I had to be a certain way and it didn't work
40:51
well and my athletes didn't perform well when when the kid I
40:54
got at midterm was the kid that was doing the best and the one I
40:56
had through all the fall weren't doing as well.
40:58
I realized I needed to kind of figure it out.
41:01
So it took me a little bit of adjustment, to be honest with
41:03
you. It shouldn't have what it did,
41:06
you know? So, and I'll be frank with you,
41:08
like I've been coaching track a long time.
41:11
By the time I got there and I was sitting in staff meetings
41:14
listening to the other coaches talk and these other coaches are
41:18
have been in Division One a long time.
41:20
And there were times I didn't know even know what the hell
41:22
they were talking about. Like, because this level is like
41:25
totally foreign to me, you know. So I, I think I was a little bit
41:30
overwhelmed and it took me a little while to get it going.
41:32
My first, you know, semester or whatever wasn't good and it was
41:36
until kind of the end of outdoor where I kind of got some
41:39
traction. And then the next year I just
41:41
came out and just was myself. Like, you know, you know, if I,
41:44
if I was mad, I screamed. If I was happy, I laughed.
41:47
You know, I, I just, I just was myself.
41:50
And then everything pretty much clicked real well after that.
41:53
That's a great lesson because when whether it's a a school's
41:57
name or a boss, you know, Pat Henry in this example, sometimes
42:02
we do get caught into this. Well, what do they expect?
42:05
Like, how am I supposed to act when really what got you the job
42:09
for you specifically was you being you.
42:11
And so there was a little bit of like, oh, now I'm OK, Coach
42:14
Henry, maybe I need to do this or I'm at LSU, so maybe I need
42:17
to do this. In reality, you needed to take a
42:19
deep breath and continue what you're doing and continue to
42:21
improve and how you were doing it.
42:23
Yeah, I've never been the most confident person in the world,
42:26
to be totally frank with you at least, and I surely wasn't in
42:28
that situation. But again, like I said, I just
42:32
at some point in time, it just kind of clicked.
42:33
I started feeling a little more comfortable.
42:35
I could just be myself. And from that point on,
42:37
everything right we're well. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense
42:40
because I know you, so you being yourself, that makes a lot of
42:42
sense of that. That's what would actually work
42:45
out. So you get to LSU in 95, right?
42:49
95 through. When did you leave LSU?
42:52
I stayed there through O 7. O7 right?
42:55
So what an unbelievable time talk to us about.
43:00
So how did you guys gel as a coaching staff?
43:04
Cuz I mean, you're winning titles left and right.
43:07
It's kind of like the old blend days, if you will.
43:09
You're winning every title's hard, but I mean, you're, you're
43:11
winning a lot. You're specifically in your
43:13
category. Lots and lots of All American
43:16
certificates are coming your way.
43:18
No, it was great because you had great athletes, you know, and
43:21
you're working around great coaches.
43:23
And I'll give Coach Henry tremendous credit because he is
43:28
the person who, to me was the absolute master as far as like,
43:32
setting up a culture, like a team culture.
43:35
And I don't even know if he could, you know, say exactly
43:39
what he did. But you just have this thing
43:41
used to say all the time, just do the right thing every day.
43:43
Just do the right thing every day, you know?
43:46
And anyway, under him, frankly, it was easy to coach Winters,
43:50
you know, because the culture was there.
43:52
You know, he was pretty much supportive of what you did.
43:54
Now, if you didn't do your job, you wouldn't be there very long.
43:57
But you know, if you were good, if you're, you know, if you were
44:00
successful and whatever, he would support you.
44:02
And you know, there's a couple times, not very often, where kid
44:06
would come in and you know, I'm not really happy with coach so
44:09
and so. Well, where do you want to
44:12
transfer? So I don't want to transfer.
44:14
Well says, well, you need to work it out with coach so and so
44:17
you know, so it was a very supportive kind of atmosphere,
44:21
you know, and anyway, so working for him, you know, everybody you
44:26
have UPS, everybody you have downs.
44:27
But that was one thing was that the climate was of the culture
44:31
of the team was a a good one. You could, you could, you know,
44:34
you could produce their whatever you know.
44:37
And as you're going through 95 through O seven, yeah, I I pick
44:42
you up around I'd say O2 O 3IN my career is when I know who Boo
44:47
is and Boo's teaching level 2, etcetera.
44:50
Are you doing during this time frame more?
44:52
I don't know how you could, but are you doing more clinics and
44:55
coaching education? Are you doing more curriculum
44:57
writing? What's that side of it look like
44:59
for you? I'm.
45:00
Doing a lot of that stuff, you know, and pretty much had to
45:03
type, you know, typing anytime I was on a plane, dead times in
45:06
the hotel room, pretty much had the computer, you know, going
45:10
all the time. And of course, Pat left in O
45:12
four and Coach Shaver took over and that at that point I decided
45:17
not to pursue that job. I felt I was more of an
45:19
assistant coach. I was more of on the track
45:21
coaching and administrator. I didn't have confidence in my
45:24
abilities as an administrator, to be very frank with you.
45:28
And anyway, so I got to work for him for three years and I'll be
45:31
very frank with you. It got to the point where I was
45:35
kind of experiencing some burnout, you know, I remember
45:38
one time I went to one of the you probably been listen to the
45:41
same lecture, Mike, the coaching burnout lecture at level 2.
45:44
And I remember out of 19 signs, I had like 18 of them, you know,
45:49
and, and because it was encompass, all-encompassing, you
45:53
know, and it got to the point where I'm coaching post grads
45:55
the, you know, so the college kids are starting practice
45:58
around Labor Day. The post grad kids are going
46:00
through September. So you're coaching 13 months out
46:03
of the year now. And it just never stopped.
46:06
And there were years when you're coaching 30 something people or
46:08
whatever. And I could grind through it.
46:11
But what I started noticing was my eye was not as sharp.
46:16
I wasn't as perceptive about picking up signs.
46:19
I wasn't quite as discriminating in the training that I was
46:22
writing as I probably should have been.
46:25
You know, that's why I tell people, if you got my workouts
46:27
from my last couple years at LSU, those aren't the ones you
46:31
want you want to copy probably, you know, but and I'll be frank
46:35
with you, you know, expressing my own weaknesses.
46:38
Like you get to the point when you're burned out like that,
46:41
that you're like, oh, well, I don't really need to call this
46:43
recruit this week. I can maybe skip this week and
46:45
call them next week. You know it.
46:47
And then that's when I realized that if that's what you're
46:50
doing, it's time for me to to bow out, you know, So I decided
46:55
to take my retirement at that point.
46:57
So you know, I'm going to talk about two things here, ego and
47:01
self-awareness. self-awareness is really hard, right?
47:04
Like that's one of the things we we need a lot of help on
47:07
personally. And a lot of that sometimes
47:09
comes from a coach, whether it's a athletic coach and you're an
47:12
athlete, maybe a fellow coach on your staff, even in the business
47:16
world. We, we have coaches out here
47:18
that, you know, it's called a blind spot for a reason, right?
47:21
It's it's blind. So you need others.
47:23
How were you able? You talk about the burnout?
47:26
And maybe I wasn't doing all the things that I should, the
47:28
recruiting, my workouts weren't as sharp.
47:31
I wasn't seeing things in the curriculum writing.
47:34
Was there a coach of you that was helping you see this, or how
47:37
did you come to that self-awareness?
47:40
I think I came about it myself, but I'm not saying that they
47:43
weren't people who saw it before me, you know that.
47:48
So I'm, I'm not going to be conceited enough to think that
47:50
I've done my way out of it or picked it all up myself.
47:53
Yeah. You know, and, and my reputation
47:55
might have worked against me in that respect because probably if
47:58
I'd have been a little less developed as a coach or a little
48:00
less established as a coach, maybe somebody would have
48:02
grabbed me and pulled me on the side and shook me up a little
48:05
bit. Whatever.
48:06
Absolutely. Right.
48:07
Talking, speaking truth to power is tough, right.
48:10
And you know, I, I think about like when you give that example
48:13
there and I think about, you know, I'm at Mississippi State,
48:15
you're Boo and I see you do something like, well, that's
48:18
not, that's uncharacteristic. I I probably would have written
48:21
it down like, oh, I guess I got to start doing that.
48:23
That's that's how you perpetuate mistakes, right?
48:28
So. So sadly, Coach Shaver didn't
48:30
get the best, and that's why I tried to really make it up to
48:35
him this second time around, yeah.
48:37
Absolutely. So the other word I wanted to
48:40
talk about was ego. And ego is not necessarily a bad
48:43
ego is is bad. But ego and self worth and self
48:46
esteem can go hand in hand. You mentioned, you know, you're
48:50
at LSU for a long time. You've got a million accolades
48:53
at this time. Was there ever a desire to be a
48:56
head coach? You kind of expressed some of
48:58
that self-awareness of like, yeah, I don't know that I was
49:00
really strong administratively anyway, but was there ever a, a
49:02
thought of leading your own program?
49:05
No, I didn't in in fact, sometimes I think that I made a
49:10
mistake not trying to pursue the LSU job, you know, cuz, but I
49:14
just, I just literally did not feel prepared at that point for
49:18
some reason. And you know, it's honest,
49:21
honestly, I don't know that I have the desire to do that at
49:24
this stage in my life, but now I feel like I can handle it
49:26
easily. But it's funny, you go through
49:29
those stages, you know, and, and again, I didn't, I just saw
49:32
myself more as a person who was going to be on the track and,
49:36
you know, more of the the guy Friday kind of person, you know,
49:39
right hand to the head coach as opposed to the head coach.
49:42
Whatever. In some ways I regret that
49:45
decision because financially, you know it, I'm I'm behind the
49:48
8 ball, you know, and that's why I advise everybody I talked to
49:51
at this point forward to do, don't do what I did.
49:54
You know, if you have an opportunity to move up, you do
49:57
what you have to do. And because ultimately, you
49:59
know, financially you have to take care of yourself.
50:01
You don't know what you have. You know, financially, frankly,
50:04
I'm not where I'd like to be. I'm OK and we'll be OK Julie and
50:09
I'll be fine, but I'm not. I wish I had more for her.
50:15
Yeah, that. I'm glad you brought that up.
50:16
You know, that's a real passion of mine for coaches.
50:19
As much as I loved the coaching education side and it definitely
50:23
changed my career and so much in fact, that I started teaching
50:26
levels level ones, I thought, I don't know, maybe 30 of them
50:29
and, and loved it, enjoyed being able to help other coaches.
50:32
You know, my real passion now with coaches is that off the
50:35
track stuff, your financial health, your, your own physical
50:39
health, your relationship health.
50:41
So you know, I appreciate you being open and authentic.
50:43
They're like, man, I'm, I'm behind the 8 ball here because
50:46
when we're 2530 year old, 35 year old coaches, we're not
50:49
thinking about about our four O 1 KS and Iras.
50:51
We're thinking about the next job or the next track meet or
50:54
the next recruit. We're thinking about everything
50:56
except what's life going to look like when I'm 65 or 7.
50:59
Do I, do I want to retire? Can I retire one day or am I
51:02
literally going to have to coach?
51:04
It's one thing if you get the coach to be 80 and 90, but
51:08
there's a different fact if you have to coach to 80 or 90
51:12
because of retirement and lack of funds there.
51:15
No, you're totally correct. You know, I was, I was a coach
51:18
called me the other day and somebody I've kind of mentored a
51:20
little bit and had a dilemma. I've been offered a job that is
51:25
better, you know, and I'd like to take it, but there's another
51:30
job that I'm up for that's even better than this one.
51:33
So I'll say we'll take the one that you just got offered.
51:35
And then if you, the other one comes through, will you leave
51:38
and go? What?
51:38
So I would only be there a couple of weeks.
51:40
Like So what you know, I mean, I understand and I really
51:45
appreciate your ethics in that situation.
51:48
But I tell coaches now, the bottom line is no one is going
51:52
to take care of you but you, you know, that's the nature of that,
51:55
that business, you know, and you ultimately your responsibility
51:59
is not, it is to your family, you know, to do the best for
52:03
your family. You know, and sometimes I hear
52:04
coaches say things like, oh, I don't want to leave the kids I
52:07
have and all that. Well, yeah, but how, you know,
52:09
they want to hire a better coach, you know?
52:12
So don't be so selfish to think that this because you're
52:15
leaving, everything's going to fall apart.
52:17
You, you know. What?
52:19
Hey, that's, that was a really interesting way you just said
52:23
that. So I, I've talked before about
52:26
the selfless versus selfish aspects, right?
52:30
And that, you know, coaches are so selfless, right?
52:33
Like they spend all this time 24/7 with other people's kids,
52:37
but yet that's also selfish, right?
52:38
Because they're they're neglecting their family and
52:41
friends and their lives, etcetera.
52:42
I love how you said, how do you know?
52:45
I mean, this is real. You talk about ego here.
52:46
This is ego. How do you know by you leaving,
52:49
they're not going to get someone better for these kids?
52:51
Wow, Like that's kind of like truth bomb right there.
52:53
Like like sit back and think about that.
52:55
Holy cow. That's a lecture I give young
52:57
kids all the time, a fork in the road.
53:00
You know, it's not like there's always a right fork in the wrong
53:02
fork. Most of the time you can make
53:03
them both right. You could make them both wrong
53:05
by looking at your attitude and the way you handle it, you know,
53:08
in those kind of situations. So I just kind of recommend
53:11
people, you know, just as you move through the profession,
53:13
just kind of take care of yourself, take care of your
53:15
family because ultimately, you know, nobody else is going to,
53:19
nobody else is going to going to do that.
53:21
You know, everybody's got their own set of interests and that
53:23
doesn't make anybody a bad person.
53:25
But that's just the way the world works, you know?
53:27
Yeah, the number one excuse you here is I don't want to leave
53:29
the kids. Well, if that's the case, then
53:31
you're never going to leave ever.
53:33
And I hate, you know, sometimes somebody will worry about that
53:35
and go, well, the kids will leave, especially in today's
53:37
transfer portal world, right? But it's like, that's actually,
53:39
that's not the same. You're putting apples and
53:42
oranges together there. It's more about you got into
53:46
coaching to coach. You didn't get into coaching to
53:48
coach at LSU specifically. You got into coaching to coach.
53:51
So whether that's a local high school, a Power 5A JUCO, that's
53:58
the profession and the passion you have take care of yourself
54:01
along the way. So you're taking care of your
54:02
family and your future. Yeah, exactly.
54:05
And I understand that and I appreciate it.
54:08
I mean, I'm the person who tried to stay at USL rather than going
54:12
to LSU, as stupid as that might sound.
54:15
I tried to stay, so I get it. But I'm beyond that.
54:21
I've been on the other side of that now and I, I understand,
54:25
you know, ultimately nobody's going to take care of you but
54:27
you. And it bothers me because if
54:29
you're going to coach, you're going to pay a price in your
54:31
family life, you're going to pay a price and everything, you
54:33
know, And that's why you got to like it.
54:35
That's why you got to love it. And I, and I'll say to this day,
54:38
if, if I was 40 again, the thing I would probably do honestly is
54:43
not start a track and field Academy.
54:46
I would probably start a coaches union because just to make
54:51
working conditions better for coaches and whatever, because
54:54
it's gotten to the point, you know, where so many people are
54:56
telling coaches what to do. And in some situations they've
54:59
lost control of the process, but they're still responsible for
55:02
the product, you know, and, and, and I, I, I sympathize with that
55:08
because in many cases coaches put up, I think with way more
55:12
than they should and some, some working scenarios, you know, and
55:15
if you say that, that's not a popular thing because
55:18
immediately somebody thinks of what coach Saban has or what
55:22
coach Schefsky has or whatever, but they're not understanding
55:25
that the typical NCAA coach, coach is an assistant soccer
55:29
coach who makes $45,000 a year. And all it takes is 1 athlete
55:33
who gets kind of angry with them and goes to an athletic director
55:36
to complain. And they're out the window, you
55:37
know, with no recourse, whether they're, you know, even though
55:41
the, the, the, the accusations or whatever it might be, you
55:44
know, so, so I, you know, that kind of bothers me.
55:47
And it bothers me because coaches do so much for young
55:50
people, you know, and, and they're bad apples in every
55:53
profession. But I just a firm believer that
55:55
as a coach, you are, you're, you're an extremely important
56:01
person in an athlete's life because, you know, the coach is
56:04
still the person who's kind of making athletes understand how
56:07
to win with grace and lose with dignity.
56:09
And, and sometimes a coach teaches the lesson that the
56:12
problem with you is you, you know, and there aren't many
56:14
people who are still doing that anymore, you know, So I would
56:18
hate to think where we are without the coaches.
56:20
And I just don't want to make coaching any harder than it is
56:22
already. Yeah, agree 100%, right.
56:25
I mean, the positive impact a coach makes on young people
56:27
today and right where your feet are.
56:29
So whether you're in Chanute, KS or New York City, it doesn't
56:33
matter. You have young people right
56:35
there in front of you and you're making a positive impact.
56:37
That's the power of a coach, bar none.
56:41
So I'm going to put coaching education to the side for a
56:43
second. You go through O 7 and you take
56:46
an early retirement. You couldn't have been.
56:49
You mentioned about if you could go back to be 40 again, you
56:51
could have been 45. I think it was 46.
56:53
Yeah, OK. As I say, that's year round.
56:55
It was my age. I I'm not thinking about early
56:57
retirement. How are you able to early
56:58
retire? Well, I had a lot of years.
57:00
Remember, I taught high school many years in the same
57:03
retirement system I was in at LSU.
57:05
That's why you, that's why you couldn't have pulled me out of
57:08
LSU with a tractor and a crew bar, because the retirement
57:11
years were all the same as the high school, you know.
57:13
So I got lucky in in that regard, you know, and I just did
57:16
the math. I crunched the numbers and I
57:19
said, well, yeah, if I hang in there longer, I can up my
57:22
retirement benefit. But I started looking at the
57:24
money I could collect and I did number crunching and whatever.
57:27
And I said the financial play here is to take the retirement
57:31
and just go do something else. And that's what I did, you know?
57:34
So what does a 46 year old highly successful track coach do
57:39
at retirement at 46? What was the something else?
57:42
Well, what I did was this guy had offered me an opportunity to
57:45
run a training center and I said OK, well this will work,
57:49
although that wasn't something I really wanted to do long term or
57:51
whatever. And that's what I did.
57:53
And anyway, but what was interesting was when I left the
57:57
LSU, the phone ran off the that's when the clinics and the
58:00
consulting and all blew up, you know, because, you know, the,
58:04
the phone just started ringing off the hook.
58:06
Look, you could never do my clinic because you were at LSU.
58:08
Now you're coming up, all right. I want you to come watch
58:12
practices for two days and debrief us or whatever.
58:14
You could never do that because you were at LSU.
58:16
I want you to come now. And that's when all of that
58:18
happened. So I was extremely fortunate.
58:20
And I tell that to this day that you took a lot of coaches, you
58:23
know, we're kind of worried about what the next step might
58:25
be is you never know who wants you right now, who thinks you
58:29
won't go because of the job that you have now, You know, so, so
58:33
anyway, that's what happened And that developed into a pretty
58:36
good business as far as consulting work and that type of
58:39
stuff, clinics and such. And then right around that time
58:43
was when track and field Academy, we kind of started, you
58:45
know, getting that going. I think that was it was 09 when
58:48
we kind of made the decision to, to, to, to get that going.
58:53
Yeah, there's not a, you know, there there's a a collection of
58:56
I'm gonna call them post collegiate coaches, but I don't
58:59
know that there's a lot that I'm gonna call travel and consult,
59:02
right. They have their training group
59:03
and they stay there and maybe they do some camps and clinics
59:05
and and such, but they don't they would never that I've seen
59:09
that maybe just be out of the picture, don't go to another
59:12
program and evaluate and help that coach move on or, you know,
59:16
advance, I should say, not move on.
59:18
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, I, I learned that
59:21
financially it could work. At least it could for me because
59:24
I was fortunate to have a good reputation and some success
59:27
behind my belt. But I learned that it could work
59:30
because in all of these so-called performance training
59:34
businesses, the, the facility is a huge overhead.
59:38
So I, I learned that if I just deal with the coaches and just
59:40
help the coaches, I have no overhead.
59:42
And, and so it ended up working out pretty good.
59:45
I had some really good months financially doing that stuff.
59:48
When I had a bad month, I had a retirement check.
59:50
So the retirement check kind of gave me the flexibility to kind
59:54
of take some risks professionally in that regard,
59:57
you know? That's interesting.
59:59
So are you coaching at all at this point?
1:00:01
Are you just coaching coaches? Pretty much just coaching
1:00:04
coaches now. There are some situations where
1:00:06
I was spot coaching like fly me in to work with so and so for a
1:00:11
couple of days because of a particular problem or whatever.
1:00:14
I'm, you know, I made a couple trips up to Canada to kind of,
1:00:17
you know, troubleshoot particular athletes or whatever.
1:00:20
Might have been a couple of instances where athletes came in
1:00:23
to me for training camps or whatever.
1:00:25
So I'm spot coaching, but I'm not coaching anybody on a like
1:00:28
day-to-day. You're my athlete basis.
1:00:31
So they say it's like riding a bike in regards to a lot of
1:00:34
things, right? Like you learned how to ride a
1:00:36
bike as a kid and maybe you take 10 years off, you can hop riding
1:00:39
a bike and ride. And that might be true.
1:00:41
I haven't rode a bike in a while, but I bet if I got on, I
1:00:43
probably could ride that bike, but I wouldn't be as good
1:00:46
because I didn't have the practice.
1:00:48
Are you getting out of practice during this time?
1:00:52
No, you're going to ride the bike better getting away from
1:00:56
it. You come back to it, you see it
1:00:58
so much more clearly. You, you really see it clearly.
1:01:01
You know, you remember I, I, I threw in the junk pile, you
1:01:07
know, all of these years of burnout and everything that I
1:01:09
had with me and all of a sudden, like my eyes are working better,
1:01:13
my perceptions working better. I'm much more into.
1:01:16
So everything is much sharper. Like I, I, I can now go to a
1:01:21
coach and watch that coach work and pick up 3 or 4 things that I
1:01:23
might have never seen before. Yeah, believe it or not, you get
1:01:26
out of it and come, come back in and you see it.
1:01:28
And much, much more clean of the education.
1:01:30
People figured it out years ago. That's why sabbaticals are
1:01:32
there, you know, for that opportunity, you know, and
1:01:36
there's something to be said for that.
1:01:37
But anyway, just being in a different scenario, different.
1:01:41
And there's some people who are like that.
1:01:43
Like there's a couple coaches I know who can't coach a lick, but
1:01:46
they'll come and watch your athletes training.
1:01:47
They'll point out three or four key things that you're missing
1:01:50
because some people have that gift.
1:01:52
And I think that I became a lot more perceptive in that
1:01:56
particular regard at that at that time.
1:01:59
So I think you'd ride that bike better, Mike.
1:02:02
My, my, my kids will be so happy when I tell them this.
1:02:07
So where OK, you're doing this and, and doing really grasping
1:02:12
the coaching of coaches at this point.
1:02:14
What do you go? You come straight back to LSU,
1:02:17
is that correct? Well, I came back to LSU.
1:02:20
I was gone for 10 years. Yeah, that's going to say what?
1:02:22
So what? Yeah, Yeah.
1:02:23
What was the drawback? They call me.
1:02:27
They can't be the only people that called you, and probably
1:02:29
not the only time they called you specifically.
1:02:31
Well, I think most people realize I wasn't going to just
1:02:34
go anywhere, you know, and so I, I got a couple of offers, but
1:02:38
nothing but it it was just cool. Shaver.
1:02:42
He he lost his he had a really good throws coach who left them
1:02:46
kind of abruptly in September and he just felt like I can't
1:02:50
hire somebody in September. Can you just fill in, so to
1:02:54
speak, you know, can you just fill in the year for me?
1:02:57
I said, OK, here's how much it's going to cost you.
1:02:59
And they well, she was willing to do it.
1:03:01
So I did it and I like being back in it.
1:03:03
He says, how can we keep you involved or do you want to
1:03:06
continue? I said, coach I, I can coach
1:03:08
throws, but I, I can't go to Europe and recruit throwers.
1:03:11
I don't have those connections that those throws guys in.
1:03:14
And So what, what if I was the strength coach for the program,
1:03:18
then I can kind of continue to be involved and you know, and
1:03:21
maybe even touch on other kids and other event areas and so
1:03:24
forth. So he says OK, so he goes equals
1:03:27
to administration and he they created a position and here I
1:03:31
am. So 2 unique things in that story
1:03:34
right there. Boo.
1:03:34
One that you you came back to coach throws and coach Shaver.
1:03:39
It was an automatic like, hey, I need can you come coach throws?
1:03:42
It wasn't like, I don't know, I think Boo can do it for a year.
1:03:44
It was like, hey man, I need help come help me.
1:03:47
What has LED you to be able to coach throws at this point?
1:03:51
Is it just a transference of all the other things that you know
1:03:53
biomechanically or? Well, I'd always handle throws.
1:03:57
You know, I coached throws in high school.
1:03:58
I coached the athletes and the throws.
1:04:00
I coached up athletes and the throws and I'm a high school
1:04:03
coach. I can coach anything from
1:04:04
scratch, you know, and I'm not I'm not saying that I have the
1:04:08
level of sophistication in the throws or whatever, but I know
1:04:11
how to train athletes and I got an eye for basic bio mechanics
1:04:14
and you know, most people complicated too damn much
1:04:16
anyway. So, so I, so it worked out OK.
1:04:19
I had a couple kids did real well, you know, So in any case,
1:04:23
and, you know, and I came back and, you know, Coach Shaver was
1:04:26
just phenomenal as far as accommodating me.
1:04:29
I had a couple of obligations that I couldn't get out of.
1:04:32
And I said, Coach, I'd love to do it, but here are these
1:04:35
obligations I have. He says no problem, you know,
1:04:37
and anyway, he was extremely flexible and continues to be
1:04:41
work with me great, You know, like you know, I paid some
1:04:45
compliments to Coach Sylvia, but I've been blessed to have some
1:04:48
really good bosses for sure. Coach Shaver for the last five
1:04:52
years has been phenomenal to me. I you could, I could not ask for
1:04:57
anyone to be any more helpful and supportive than he's been
1:05:03
for these last few years. It's been incredible.
1:05:05
Yeah, I will say I love Coach Shaver.
1:05:07
He is one of the most upfront and I mean, it's all in the
1:05:10
positive ways. Upfront, honest, what you see is
1:05:13
what you get. He's going to tell you the
1:05:15
truth, even if it's to his detriment.
1:05:17
I think he's such a truthful, truthful guy.
1:05:20
He taught my level 2 sprints the year after I I did jumps with
1:05:24
you and at the end is so in the middle of level 2, Al Schmidt
1:05:28
came to me and told me I was officially hired at Mississippi.
1:05:30
State so at the. End, you know, we were going
1:05:33
down and shaking the instructors hands and all that.
1:05:35
And Dennis takes my hand. He pulls me in real close and he
1:05:39
goes, you're the enemy now. And I, I remember thinking, oh,
1:05:43
welcome to the SEC buddy. So the other aspect that was
1:05:50
interesting of that story, Boo, was you.
1:05:53
Are you the only track and field specific strength and
1:05:56
conditioning coach in the country?
1:06:00
I doubt it. But I can't tell you 5 other off
1:06:04
the top of my head. I don't know.
1:06:08
I, I don't think that's the case.
1:06:09
I, I, I think there are some other schools that have somebody
1:06:12
that only does track and field. I'm probably the most, I'm
1:06:15
probably just the most notorious.
1:06:16
One, yeah, you were starting to say Jimmy Radcliffe, I think,
1:06:20
and I think it was it for a while.
1:06:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, right. That that'd be one that I could
1:06:24
have come up with. But it's an extremely unique
1:06:27
position and really maybe forward thinking by you and
1:06:30
Dennis in regards to this as well.
1:06:32
So there's a lot of, I shouldn't say a lot, There's a a
1:06:36
stereotype of conflict between the traditional strength and
1:06:39
conditioning coach and the track and field coach.
1:06:42
This seems to solve any of that potential conflict or prejudice
1:06:47
of conflict, if you will. Yeah, I think so.
1:06:50
You know, I during my 10 years out, I probably refereed more
1:06:54
catfights between track coaches and strength and conditioning
1:06:57
coaches than than anybody out there.
1:07:00
In fact, that, you know, there was 1 university who wanted to
1:07:03
bring me in as a consultant and their whole purpose was to
1:07:07
gather mode on the track coach so they could fire the track
1:07:10
coach. You know, I didn't take that
1:07:11
paycheck, you know, but but yeah, the athletic
1:07:16
administrators can be pretty devious at times.
1:07:19
But anyhow, yeah, that unfortunately that the reason
1:07:22
that stereotype exists is because almost all stereotypes
1:07:25
have some basis in fact. You know, and so often you got a
1:07:29
strength coach who has a football background or whatever
1:07:32
and really doesn't understand the speed side of things.
1:07:35
And you got a track coach who kind of has a hunch of what
1:07:38
needs to be done but isn't good at verbalizing or doesn't maybe
1:07:41
get the science behind it or whatever.
1:07:43
And I think I can maybe make those things mesh to to some
1:07:47
extent. And the other thing that really
1:07:49
helped us at LSU this time around was I'm not doing it
1:07:53
quite as much now, but during, you know, during the little nice
1:07:57
little run we've had with some really good athletes here is
1:08:00
that I've been extremely involved with the sports
1:08:02
medicine stuff. You know, for a while.
1:08:04
I, when I was working with the hospital in Thibodaux, I had a
1:08:10
lot of opportunities to do rehabs and I've developed some
1:08:13
philosophies on rehab and things like that that are much more in
1:08:16
line with training than the orwit traditional rehab.
1:08:19
And some rehab people consider me a pariah.
1:08:23
Some of them consider me lucky. And, you know, a few of them
1:08:25
consider me a genius. So I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the
1:08:28
whole end of this all ends of the spectrum, you know, But to
1:08:32
make a Long story short, what I, when it, when it comes to rehab,
1:08:37
I just try to take the things that I've learned as a coach of
1:08:41
healthy athletes and just try to apply those principles in the
1:08:44
rehab setting. And it just seems to go a lot
1:08:46
better than a lot of traditional rehab does, to be honest with
1:08:50
you. And the sports medicine people
1:08:52
that I work with or have been pretty open to involving me in
1:08:57
the rehab process and making suggestions in the rehab
1:09:00
processes and so forth, and maybe even making some advice as
1:09:04
far as referrals and who to refer people through.
1:09:06
And it's made a really big difference in our program, you
1:09:10
know, So make a Long story short that's been helpful.
1:09:14
So on the strength and conditioning side for the LSU
1:09:17
track team, how much are you enjoying that aspect?
1:09:21
Because I'm, I'm guessing you get to touch, if not all the
1:09:24
majority of the event groups you get to see.
1:09:27
You talked earlier about, you know, sitting up against the
1:09:30
wall watching the high school athletes compete.
1:09:32
You kind of get that same viewpoint now for all of the
1:09:35
athletes on the LSU track team. Yeah, I get to be involved with
1:09:38
everybody, you know, and you know, because I'm involved with
1:09:41
the rehab and that type of stuff.
1:09:43
And I'm kind of a go between between the athletes and kind of
1:09:46
an advocate for the athletes with the sports medicine people,
1:09:49
whatever. At times I get to be involved
1:09:51
with just about everybody at some point in time.
1:09:54
So it's it's it's a good and it's a good thing.
1:09:57
It's coach Shaver has been really great because and some of
1:10:01
our sports medicine people have been really great because they
1:10:04
kind of almost allowed me to take this position and almost
1:10:07
tailor it to my strengths, so to speak, where I can kind of
1:10:11
interject when I need to interject.
1:10:13
And they might say that I interject a little too much or
1:10:15
whatever, but, you know, so, so be it.
1:10:18
I, I, you know, I always, I can be, I can be painfully blunt.
1:10:21
I don't, I don't know if you know this, but I can be
1:10:22
playfully blunt. And, you know, sometimes I just
1:10:25
tell them I'm not going to, I'm not going to pretend to be
1:10:28
stupid. So you can feel better about
1:10:29
yourself, you know, And that's, that's one of the things that I
1:10:33
live by. And every once in a while it'll
1:10:34
rub somebody the wrong way. But that's how the real world
1:10:37
works, you know, and kids are going to go where they can get
1:10:41
answers. And ultimately that's the way it
1:10:43
is. You know, I spent a lot of time
1:10:45
mentoring young coaches and sometimes now I mentor young
1:10:48
therapists and trainers and I tell them all the time that your
1:10:52
title has nothing to do with what what with anything, you
1:10:57
know, just because you are the trainer at this school or the
1:11:00
coach of this at that school, kids are always going to look
1:11:03
for answers, you know, and if you're not providing answers to
1:11:06
them, they're going to seek elsewhere.
1:11:08
And it doesn't matter if you have that title or not.
1:11:11
So basically, if you know, if they're not coming to you for
1:11:15
the answers, then you have to raise your game, you know,
1:11:18
because the title doesn't entitle you to anything.
1:11:21
Ultimately, you know, that's the way it works.
1:11:23
You know, even when I had really, really good athletes and
1:11:26
I was respected as a coach, you know, there are people in you
1:11:29
know this Mike, there are people in your athletes ears all the
1:11:31
time. I can coach you better, I can
1:11:33
make you do better or whatever. Well, if they're doing pretty
1:11:35
good, they're they're with you. But if they're not doing well,
1:11:38
they start listening, you know, so there's always people in
1:11:41
their ear. And ultimately it's the that's
1:11:43
one of the things I love about it is it's ultimately the
1:11:46
accountability associated with it.
1:11:49
If you can produce results and produce answers for athletes and
1:11:52
athletes come to you with problems and you help them to
1:11:55
solve them, they're going to keep coming back.
1:11:57
And, you know, and, and like I said, if you feel like the
1:12:00
athletes are not doing that with you, you need to improve your
1:12:03
game. You need to improve your skill
1:12:05
level in in that regard, you know.
1:12:08
In this position, how is your relationship with the coaches
1:12:12
staff there and you get every once in a while a new coach
1:12:15
comes in and how much of a pain in your butt is Houston Franks
1:12:18
let? Me.
1:12:21
Tell you something, Lucid Franks amazes me everyday.
1:12:26
That guy is one of the most. Honestly.
1:12:29
We are so happy to have him and he's just kind of getting the
1:12:31
ball rolling in that regard that he is sharp as a whip.
1:12:36
He is a fantastic coach and he's got the personality to deal with
1:12:41
different types of people. And he can he can take a pissed
1:12:44
off kid and defuse it. He can take a kid and bring him
1:12:48
to, I mean, he can, he just knows how to do it.
1:12:50
And I'm just really looking forward to see what he does with
1:12:54
that program in the next few years.
1:12:57
You know, love Mississippi State, you know, got a lot of
1:12:59
friends over there, but we just got a different level of
1:13:02
resource and I just excited to see what he's going to be doing
1:13:05
there. The big, the biggest compliment
1:13:07
I can give him is, you know, he was my roommate for a year and
1:13:10
he survived. So he's pretty good.
1:13:13
He said he could deal with a pissed off kid.
1:13:15
Well, he could deal with me. So, you know, I feel like I
1:13:17
maybe helped him with his skill set there.
1:13:20
So let's turn as we start to wrap up today here, Boo.
1:13:25
Let's turn to coaching education and camps and clinics and things
1:13:30
like that. Yeah, I told you earlier, you
1:13:33
know, you're 1 of less than a handful of people that gets
1:13:36
mentioned on this podcast. I'm gonna say every other, but
1:13:40
it's it's it's a higher it's not everyone specifically, but it's,
1:13:43
it's a higher rate than even every other one.
1:13:45
And sometimes it's me bringing up stories of, you know, from my
1:13:49
time of education with you, which, and I've said it 100
1:13:52
times here, changed my the course of my coaching career,
1:13:55
all for the better. And then it's the guest will
1:13:58
have some comment of like, man, I saw Boo at the Louisiana
1:14:02
clinic or I went to level 2 or I went to USTFCA.
1:14:06
And it's always, I mean, literally always bat batting
1:14:10
1000% here. Always in a positive light.
1:14:13
Not, not even in a mediocre light, Boo, not even in a like,
1:14:17
yeah, I, I listen to Boo. It was OK.
1:14:19
And and I've heard that from other coaches from other clinics
1:14:22
and stuff, right. Always with you, Boo, always.
1:14:25
It is whatever the closest thing to life changing can be in the
1:14:29
profession of coaching track and field.
1:14:31
I don't want to overstate it here, so I'll keep it just under
1:14:34
life changing. What drew you?
1:14:38
We talked a little bit about it, but what has drawn you into
1:14:41
being this? Not just a coach of athletes and
1:14:44
coaching amazing 57 foot triple jumpers and 22 and 23 foot
1:14:49
female long. I mean, just decathletes, pole
1:14:52
vaulters, I mean throwers. It's one thing to be a great
1:14:55
coach and there's some amazing coaches out there and I love
1:14:58
them. You have transcended a whole
1:15:01
nother step and affected the sport unlike anybody that I can
1:15:05
even think of right now in regards to helping other coaches
1:15:09
become better coaches. Where did that come from?
1:15:14
Where is that selflessness of? I'm going to give away all my
1:15:17
secrets. I'm doing air quotes there.
1:15:19
I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to give it all to you.
1:15:21
There's no. Holding back here.
1:15:23
You're going to get it all. Where does that come from, Boo?
1:15:26
Well, I think it's some of it started with Dan, you know, just
1:15:29
the fact that he was willing to do it for me, you know, kind of
1:15:32
planted a seed and planted a little bit of obligation, you
1:15:36
know, and I think we just have an obligation to leave something
1:15:38
better than you. Then you got it, you know.
1:15:41
But that being said, a lot of it just has to do with what I feel
1:15:44
about coaches. I said earlier that I think
1:15:46
coaches are so often the most important people in athletes
1:15:50
lives. You know, ultimately they you
1:15:53
know, sports teachers lessons. I have a huge I have a huge.
1:16:01
So what I'm looking for here. I feel very strongly that
1:16:05
athletics is probably the best personality development program
1:16:10
that a person can go through. It kind of teaches you the
1:16:12
lessons you're supposed to learn.
1:16:14
If you kind of go through sports and stick to the structure and
1:16:18
whatever, you're going to come out a better person because of
1:16:20
the lessons that you learned there.
1:16:22
And ultimately, that's what coaches do.
1:16:23
Coaches provide those opportunities and it just, I
1:16:27
just feel that coaching is a hard job.
1:16:29
It doesn't pay enough. It it's difficult.
1:16:32
You're dealing with athletes that don't appreciate you now.
1:16:35
They'll appreciate you in 10 years, but they don't
1:16:37
necessarily appreciate you now, you know, and you got all those
1:16:40
issues. And I just felt that maybe my
1:16:45
way of contributing to the world is if I make the world a better
1:16:47
job for coaches and coaching or doing all this stuff, good
1:16:50
stuff, then maybe I'm making the world a better place.
1:16:53
So it's kind of become a passion in that regard.
1:16:55
I just think that coaches do more for young people than just
1:16:59
about anybody else. And if I can help coaches do
1:17:02
that, that's what I'm going to do, you know, and I'm not really
1:17:07
a, if it comes through technical knowledge or whatever, or
1:17:11
confidence building or mentoring or whatever, I'm just going to
1:17:14
do that. So I think it just, it just
1:17:18
comes from my respect for coaching as a profession and the
1:17:21
value of coaching as a profession.
1:17:23
You know, I just, I think that there's in our society that
1:17:26
there's so many fussing and fighting and all this kind of
1:17:29
stuff. But ultimately I just think that
1:17:32
coaches, you know, you hear the argument.
1:17:36
I, I don't think there's ever been a government program that
1:17:38
has ever done more positive for society than any single coach
1:17:42
has ever done for the athletes in their care.
1:17:44
You know, I, I, you know, you can, you can take all the
1:17:47
government money you want, put all the social work programs you
1:17:50
want out there, whatever. None of them will ever surpass
1:17:54
the good athletes get from playing organized sports with
1:17:58
good coaches. And I just feel that strongly.
1:18:01
And that's why I think it's a passion of mine, to be honest
1:18:03
with you. So there's a lots of coaches out
1:18:07
there that on the track working with an athlete, they're really
1:18:12
good, they're good at their craft.
1:18:14
And then you might ask them to explain something that they're
1:18:17
doing or that they saw or reasoning behind it and they
1:18:21
can't string 3 words together. It's just it's a it's a
1:18:24
different skill to be able to teach that on top of that, you,
1:18:32
and I'm sure it's not just me because I've heard the story a
1:18:34
couple times from lots of coaches.
1:18:36
You have a propensity to always communicate back with people
1:18:40
that communicate with you that are specifically that are asking
1:18:44
for help. Like I know personally, my
1:18:46
example, I emailed you out of the blue.
1:18:48
You had no clue who I was before I did level 2 and then and met
1:18:52
you personally emailed you out of the blue was like, Hey, I've
1:18:57
got I don't remember what the issue was.
1:18:59
It was something I have. What what can you recommend?
1:19:02
And really, I, I, I'll be real Frank here.
1:19:04
I sent that e-mail thinking, yeah, I'm, I might as well not
1:19:09
send it. It ain't he, he ain't reading
1:19:10
this. He ain't responding.
1:19:12
He's at LSU. You know, I had this like, oh,
1:19:14
LSU, which might actually be true, right?
1:19:17
But but like, you know, he he he's not going to e-mail.
1:19:20
I think it was at junior college.
1:19:22
I think it was at yo show over in Kansas.
1:19:24
So I'm like, he's not going to e-mail me back.
1:19:26
I don't have any athletes for him to recruit.
1:19:27
So there's no reason, you know, there's no nothing in it for him
1:19:30
to respond. And you responded in a timely
1:19:34
manner. Even I want, yeah, not even like
1:19:36
a week later, like quickly within 24 hours and not a one
1:19:40
word, two word answer, like a, a thought out response.
1:19:45
And of course, I took that advantage of like, well, I gotta
1:19:48
respond off of that. So I responded and it and it
1:19:50
became this correspondence. And I've heard that story again.
1:19:54
This is another one of those I've heard a thousand of those
1:19:56
stories. I emailed Blue, blue out of the
1:19:57
blue. It's hard to say three times
1:19:59
fast. I emailed Boo out of the blue
1:20:02
and he responded like people are like, oh, my God, yeah.
1:20:04
I couldn't believe he actually responded.
1:20:06
And I and I, I bring him down a little bit.
1:20:08
Like, I hope you don't think you're special.
1:20:10
Meaning he does that with everybody.
1:20:12
He's the special one here. How do you I mean, you do so
1:20:16
much. You're coaching, you have your
1:20:17
own private side. You're you're you're rewriting
1:20:19
curriculum and teaching curriculum.
1:20:21
And yet you seem to be able to respond to everybody.
1:20:26
Well, you got to do what you got to do.
1:20:27
I mean, it's important and you got to do what you got to do.
1:20:30
That's what's important. You know, there's something I'm
1:20:32
doing that's not as important as that.
1:20:34
I'm sure I'll just put that on the shelf.
1:20:35
But ultimately I've been in the same situation, you know, where
1:20:38
I'm grasping for answers or whatever, and I'm desperate and
1:20:42
this kid wants to succeed and they're highly motivated and I'm
1:20:45
not helping. I mean, I've been in that
1:20:46
situation. I know what it's like, you know,
1:20:48
and I'm not, you know, I can't get everybody within 24 hours.
1:20:51
But, you know, if you send me a question, I'm going to, yeah,
1:20:54
I'm going to answer it if I can, because simply there aren't
1:20:57
places for coaches to go, you know?
1:20:59
And again, I go back to what I said, coaching is hard, but I'm,
1:21:02
but I, I get a lot of credit for that.
1:21:04
But I'm going to say one thing. There's a lot of coaches who
1:21:06
give like that, you know, there are a lot, you know, Dan was
1:21:09
that way, you know, and what's funny is this is that in my
1:21:15
career, when I've reached out, the very best coaches are always
1:21:19
open, like the the when I when I contacted a really good coach,
1:21:24
you know, maybe it's a little sooner, maybe it's a little late
1:21:26
or whatever, but they always are giving.
1:21:28
They always give. Now the second tier of coaches,
1:21:31
the ones who aren't the very best, but they're a little bit
1:21:34
under. Those are the ones who will.
1:21:35
I can't tell you that. That's my secret, you know, so,
1:21:38
so I just think that when you become a good coach, there's a
1:21:42
certain level of security that you have and you understand, as
1:21:45
long as you have some athletes, you're going to be perfectly
1:21:47
fine. And it doesn't hurt anything to
1:21:49
give away secrets or, or advice or whatever because ultimately,
1:21:53
you know, you're, you're safe and comfortable in your own
1:21:56
skin, so to speak. And I think that's part of it
1:21:59
is, you know, ultimately aspiring to be comfortable in
1:22:02
your own skin. Ultimately, you know, and I tell
1:22:05
the kids all the time, you know, I told the other day, you know,
1:22:08
we were trying to talk. I was talking to this young
1:22:10
lady, long jumper, not on our team and a different one.
1:22:14
And we're trying to come up with a strategy.
1:22:15
And I want her to have some input.
1:22:17
And I told her, I said, look, I don't have a skin in the game.
1:22:21
I says, if you do poorly, nobody's going to say I'm a bad
1:22:23
coach. And if you do great, I don't get
1:22:26
to keep the trophy. You keep it So, you know, you
1:22:29
know, so that that's the way we need to look at it.
1:22:31
Ultimately, I think we always need to keep in mind that
1:22:33
ultimately the competitions are for the athletes.
1:22:36
You know, you kind of want to think that you're the
1:22:38
quarterback who's controlling everything or you're the not
1:22:41
even the quarterback, maybe the puppeteer, you know, who's
1:22:44
pulling the strings and control. But you're not ultimately you're
1:22:47
not, you know, you're what you're doing is you're trying to
1:22:49
prepare these athletes to handle their own competitions is what
1:22:52
you're trying to do here. And if you kind of look at it
1:22:54
that way, then it becomes a lot easier, I think, to be unselfish
1:22:57
in that regard. I'm.
1:22:59
Going to lie and say I've got two more questions, Boo.
1:23:01
I'm sure that's going to get 200 more.
1:23:03
But so we've talked about Dan path a lot today and what he
1:23:07
meant to you. And thank God for his mentorship
1:23:10
of in selflessness with you because that helps grow that
1:23:13
with you. And I love Dan as well.
1:23:15
He's amazing. Have several talks with him.
1:23:18
Love him to death. In fact, you 2 are when I
1:23:21
describe coaches, I'll say a lot of times like there's a lot of
1:23:23
great, great coaches and then there's just a handful that are
1:23:27
just one step above. And you and Dan are always in
1:23:30
that group that I mentioned. Well, thank you.
1:23:32
Something that is different though.
1:23:35
Dan super smart. I mean, if you've ever had a
1:23:38
conversation with Dan Path, that dude is just smart.
1:23:43
I am an untrained coach who got a public relations degree from
1:23:49
Troy University. When Dan talks to me, I won't
1:23:53
even talk about camps and clinics.
1:23:54
I'll just talk about when we have conversations, when we used
1:23:57
to have coaching conversations. I don't even try anymore.
1:24:00
Come on. I'm, I'm, I can't, I can't, I
1:24:02
can't coach myself out of what paper bag now.
1:24:04
But when I used to like, you know, soak up all this
1:24:07
knowledge, Dan would say things and I, I could tell like there
1:24:10
were things like, oh, OK, I need to pick up this and this and
1:24:12
this. But it was at such a level I
1:24:14
just couldn't grasp now. And, and that and, and obviously
1:24:19
there's brilliant coaches out there.
1:24:20
Part of it was me and my education level.
1:24:23
So there's plenty of people that Dan has affected positively
1:24:25
here. You are able to teach high level
1:24:30
stuff, but at a, I'm going to call it a, a kindergarten level
1:24:33
because that's basically where I was at.
1:24:36
You're able to help people who don't have science backgrounds,
1:24:38
who maybe have never even coached the event.
1:24:41
They just know, hey, I came to level 2 because next year I got
1:24:44
to coach jumps and I'm a thrower by trade.
1:24:46
I know nothing about jumps. You're able to simplify very
1:24:51
difficult concepts. Was that from your teaching
1:24:54
background? You mentioned teaching math.
1:24:55
Was it from that background or how did that skill develop?
1:24:59
I think that part of it does come from my teaching
1:25:02
background, you know, the the I and but I think it's also a kind
1:25:07
of a product of my personality. My personality is have organized
1:25:11
thought processes. So I'm always thinking in terms
1:25:14
of cleaning up the thought process.
1:25:16
You know, I'm always thinking in terms of trees, you know, yes,
1:25:19
no, yes, is this, no, is this And then yes, my brings you to
1:25:22
and you know, so I'm always think that's how my brain works,
1:25:25
meaning that there, you know, I, I, I, I, I think in a very
1:25:29
organized fashion. And I think the reason I can
1:25:32
bring it across as organized is because it's genuinely filed in
1:25:36
my head in an organized fashion in the same way, you know, so I,
1:25:41
I, I, it's, it's not abstract to me.
1:25:44
It's it, it, it's not like a black box thing where here's a
1:25:48
cause, here's an effect and there's no tracing in between.
1:25:51
To me, the, the routes of of cause, effect and everything are
1:25:54
very clear. And I just think that he does
1:25:57
something to do that. That's just, I think, so to
1:25:59
speak, you know? So everything to me is kind of
1:26:02
cause effect in that regard. I'm always looking for those
1:26:04
relationships. Some people might say, well,
1:26:07
that makes me not a creative person.
1:26:09
And that's probably a valid criticism, to be honest with
1:26:12
you. I'm the kind of person that
1:26:14
like, I can never write a song. I can never write a poem.
1:26:17
I can never do anything like that.
1:26:18
How the hell do you like just come up with a tune and work?
1:26:21
How do you do that? I can't do that but if but if
1:26:25
you give me an idea, I can elaborate on it and make it a
1:26:28
whole book, you know? So I'm not the creative person,
1:26:31
but I'm the person who can do logical deductions and
1:26:34
engineering problem solve and organize things and put things
1:26:38
in need folders and whatever. And that's kind of how my mind
1:26:41
works. As I'll say, you're an engineer
1:26:43
that you just described engineering right there.
1:26:47
So you say you're not the creative person, but that's
1:26:49
exactly where my second question was coming.
1:26:51
Here you are infamous. I'll go with infamous on your
1:26:56
stick figure drawing like it is. If stick figures is an art form,
1:27:03
then this is what you do. You you have.
1:27:06
I have seen you draw long jump, triple jump, high jump in stick
1:27:11
figures. That again, I'm just like, I get
1:27:13
it now. You almost had me believing
1:27:15
after level 2 jumps that I could coach the pole vault.
1:27:18
Almost, almost. Luckily for all our athletes, I
1:27:21
did not coach pole vault. But you almost.
1:27:24
I was like, man, look at that stick figure.
1:27:25
I could get that stick figure to do that.
1:27:27
Yeah. And you notice a shame, you
1:27:29
know, it's a shame like the younger generation of coaches,
1:27:31
they have no idea because everybody wants PowerPoint, you
1:27:34
know, so, so, but I can still do it.
1:27:37
You know, back when I was coaching and recruiting, we used
1:27:39
to take the recruits to one of these restaurants where they put
1:27:42
paper on the table, you know, and they used to bring out the
1:27:44
crayons, you know, and whatever the kids event was, I would
1:27:48
stick figure their event from beginning to end all the way
1:27:51
across the table. You know, I don't know that it
1:27:54
ever made a difference. But anyway, it was a
1:27:56
conversation starter and if nothing else.
1:27:58
How many, I wonder. And there's a number I know
1:28:02
athletes still have that like is in their scrapbook or in their
1:28:05
like. That's cool, man.
1:28:07
That's a good question. Because I guarantee you, no
1:28:09
other coach did that. Let me just say, but where did
1:28:14
that drop? Because that is a, you know, you
1:28:15
talk about right brain, left brain type stuff, right?
1:28:17
That is a creative thing. That's a visualization.
1:28:20
How, how did you, when did you start that?
1:28:22
And did you like did you have to learn it or was it like
1:28:24
automatically you were able to translate what you see into
1:28:27
really well figured stick figures?
1:28:30
Well, it's knowing what you see it.
1:28:32
So it to me it's not creative, it's just factual.
1:28:35
All you're doing is repeating something that you seen.
1:28:37
But the other thing is that there are rules like if you of,
1:28:41
of how the human body operates biomechanically, like when
1:28:45
you're in kind of unilateral movement, you know, single leg
1:28:49
type of patterns, one joint is going to be at maximum flexion
1:28:52
when the other joint is at maximum extension and vice
1:28:55
versa. You know, if you're working
1:28:57
bilateral, then typically similar.
1:29:00
Our joints are going to have similar extension patterns.
1:29:04
So basically there are rules as to how the body operates.
1:29:07
And when I draw the stick figures, what I'm doing is I'm
1:29:10
kind of operating by those rules.
1:29:11
I know the points at which the elbow angle and the knee angle
1:29:15
are going to match. I know the times when the ankle
1:29:18
angle and you know, so I, I understand commensurate
1:29:21
positions and those relationships biomechanically.
1:29:25
And that's the, the trick, so to speak of it is to kind of take
1:29:28
bio mechanics to a whole new level.
1:29:30
But no, that's not creative at all.
1:29:32
It's totally factual, man. If you didn't have the emotions
1:29:36
and feelings that you have, you would be the Doctor Spock of
1:29:39
coaching track and field. You're so logical.
1:29:41
Like, no, this moves here. That means this has got to move
1:29:43
here. If you want to do this, you got
1:29:44
to do that. And you asked some of the
1:29:46
athletes that coach how logical I am because I got a little bit
1:29:50
of reputation to somebody who get a little heated every once
1:29:52
in a while too. You know, I'm, I'm that person
1:29:55
that lets everything slide about 95%.
1:29:57
But when I go off, I like really go off, you know?
1:30:00
It's funny you said that because there's this memory burned in my
1:30:03
head from our level 2. And by the way, I got to give a
1:30:06
shout out to a mutual friend of ours, Mike Korn.
1:30:08
When I was signing up for my first level 2, you know, I was
1:30:11
going to be, I was a sprints and hurdles coach.
1:30:13
So I was going to go do sprints and hurdles.
1:30:15
And it was the Boise State level 2.
1:30:17
And he calls me up. He goes, hey, Mike, I'm sorry,
1:30:20
it's full. Do you want to do jumps?
1:30:22
And I was like, jumps, man, I coach jumps.
1:30:25
I was at Ball State. I coach jumps here because Sue
1:30:27
Parks makes me not because I want to.
1:30:29
I want to be. I want to be Dan Powell, be a
1:30:31
great sprints and hurdles coach, you know, and he goes, Hey,
1:30:34
trust me, man, you're you'll learn a lot from from the jumps.
1:30:38
Just do it, OK, Just consider it and do it.
1:30:40
And I was and I remember I was like, Mike, all right, fine,
1:30:43
I'll do it. And thank the Lord I did it.
1:30:47
Love my Sprint teachers. The very next year I told you,
1:30:49
you know, Dennis Shaver, Gary Winkler, maybe Rock light.
1:30:53
I think I can't remember who the other one, who the other Sprint
1:30:55
coach was, unfortunately, But I did learn so much from level 2
1:30:59
from the jumps more about the training theory of not, not
1:31:03
necessarily, you know, the technique, but how do you
1:31:05
sequence your your training? That that's what kind of like
1:31:08
really blew my mind and changed how how I coach.
1:31:11
But I remember and if you know anything about memory, it's not
1:31:15
a VCR that you just replaced. So I'm sure I have some of these
1:31:17
facts incorrect here, but here's how I remember it.
1:31:19
We were talking about triple jump and you were talking about,
1:31:23
you know, difference between training a triple jumper more
1:31:25
like a short sprinter versus 400 meters.
1:31:28
And you're like, if you want to have the best triple jumper, you
1:31:31
can't train them like a 400 meter.
1:31:32
It's, it's totally different energy systems, etcetera,
1:31:34
etcetera. And this coach and I don't, I
1:31:36
don't want to pigeonhole and say he was a high school coach.
1:31:38
I have no idea actually. But this coach gets up and says,
1:31:41
well, Boo. I like all my triple jumpers to
1:31:44
run the 400 because it makes them tough and you and threw a
1:31:48
little bit back and forth and you were really good.
1:31:51
Like this is part of your 95% where you let a lot of.
1:31:53
Things go but. Ultimately you said again, you
1:31:58
maybe didn't even say this is just how my memory is and just
1:32:00
all these statements in these these terms that you have.
1:32:04
You know, I said one earlier, you the coach, be the coach.
1:32:07
That's straight from you all the way.
1:32:09
But you looked at the guy and you said, look, when they make
1:32:11
an event called tough, I'll train a kid to be tough.
1:32:15
But right now it's triple jump in the 400 and those should not
1:32:18
mix. But I was just so impressed how,
1:32:23
you know, I knew who you were and stature and LSU coach
1:32:25
automatically you get, you know, track cred for that, right?
1:32:28
And I remember the audacity of this guy like you're arguing
1:32:30
with Boo Schecklader, what are you doing?
1:32:33
And you were just so calm, cool and click didn't let it overtake
1:32:36
the class and went right back into your stick figures.
1:32:39
It was quite amazing of how you handle people in that sense.
1:32:44
You know what, sometimes there are instructors in coaching Ed
1:32:46
and I got to encourage them, you know, because sometimes they try
1:32:49
to validate things. You know what?
1:32:50
When I taught a coaching Ed class and somebody who just
1:32:53
would voice something that's like wrong or totally wrong, I
1:32:57
wanted everybody in the class to know it was wrong.
1:32:59
Because, yeah, you know, you handle this one person with with
1:33:04
kid gloves or whatever, but I don't want the rest of the class
1:33:07
leaving with a clouded picture of what's actually correct and
1:33:11
so forth. So I just think those are little
1:33:13
stands that you kind of have to have to take to be honest with
1:33:17
you. I mean, it's right or it's
1:33:19
wrong. You know, there's there's very
1:33:21
little Gray area, you know. So that being said, you know, I
1:33:26
just sometimes you don't have the courage to confront or the
1:33:31
courage to correct or the courage to just tell somebody
1:33:33
they're wrong. And that's not right.
1:33:35
That's why even with dealing with the athletes to this day,
1:33:38
you know, I'm, I'm blunt, I'm positive to a certain extent,
1:33:42
but I'm also kind of blunt like this is where you are and this
1:33:46
is what you can expect or whatever.
1:33:47
And you know, I don't like to deal in fantasy.
1:33:51
You know, it's, it's, it's not a good betting model.
1:33:56
I'll tell you, the engineering mind is coming out every
1:33:59
sentence now. Every sentence I hear I'm like,
1:34:00
Oh yeah, right or wrong. Very little Gray, that's true.
1:34:04
Boo, man, I can't thank you enough.
1:34:07
You know, literally I could sit here for another two hours and
1:34:09
trade stories back and forth with you because you are a.
1:34:12
Man, of course, because you've done some stuff, but I want to
1:34:14
thank you because this has been so fun because normally I'm
1:34:18
talking technical stuff and whatever.
1:34:20
And to kind of take you through the journey and kind of get to
1:34:23
open up a little bit about my ups and my downs has been a lot
1:34:26
of fun and very therapeutic for me.
1:34:28
So Mike, this has maybe been the most fun thing I've ever done
1:34:32
podcast wise. So I really, I really appreciate
1:34:34
the opportunity. Thank you so much for that.
1:34:37
That's, I mean, I'm honored and these podcasts, like these
1:34:41
interviews here are really, really tough for me.
1:34:45
Mouse and Karen Dennis was another one.
1:34:48
You know, it's people that I coached for 10 years.
1:34:50
You guys and gals were the ones I looked up to.
1:34:53
Like I said, I'd e-mail you and help me out here.
1:34:54
I'd e-mail Karen, I'd e-mail Mouse and like, help me out here
1:34:57
and then get my butt kicked when I went to their conference and
1:34:59
stuff. So it's a little nerve wracking
1:35:02
because it's, you know, I put you on a pedestal, rightfully
1:35:04
so. And I'm just so happy that you
1:35:05
are human and that the things that you do matter.
1:35:09
You know, I, I talk a lot about, I said it earlier about coaches
1:35:13
and right where your two feet are right now, you're making an
1:35:16
amazing positive impact. Whether you coach 10 kids or 100
1:35:20
kids, you coach middle school, you coach professionals, you
1:35:24
have a, a real honor and ability to positively affect those kids
1:35:29
lives. And it doesn't.
1:35:30
That's, this is the great part about this is where math comes
1:35:32
in. You'll be able to explain this
1:35:33
way better than I can. Boo math, right?
1:35:36
Multiple. So if you coach 10 kids, those
1:35:38
10 kids go on to become moms and dads and doctors and lawyers and
1:35:42
coaches and they affect young people in a positive manner.
1:35:46
And they they harken back to how you treated them as a coach.
1:35:51
And they teach their children how to be that way, their
1:35:54
coworkers to be that way, their athletes to be that way.
1:35:58
You have a whole different multiple set here, Pooh.
1:36:02
So not only do you have that athletes, you know you've
1:36:04
coached for a long time and you've got many, many athletes
1:36:06
that are coaches now, moms, doctors, dads, great people in
1:36:10
society. Your web over coaches.
1:36:14
Every coach that you've taught in a positive manner has gone on
1:36:18
to affect positively thousands of athletes.
1:36:21
Your tree, so to speak, it's not even a tree.
1:36:25
It's a friggin forest here. My man.
1:36:27
You have affected so many young people's lives directly as a
1:36:30
coach and indirectly as the coach of a coach and you've
1:36:34
changed people's careers. I distinctly, I've told the
1:36:37
story 100 times. I'm not going to tell the full
1:36:39
story now. My, my career was 10 years.
1:36:41
There is a distinct 5 year mark and that five years right after
1:36:44
five years was I when I had you. My next five years, I look like
1:36:47
a genius. Maybe not so much there.
1:36:50
You know, that's that was a little far, but it's way
1:36:52
different because of the impact you had on my life.
1:36:55
And I know that is shared by literally thousands of people in
1:36:59
the coaching profession profession, my man, and I'm just
1:37:02
so I'm just so thankful thankful that Dan path saw something in
1:37:07
you and took the time to teach you.
1:37:08
I'm so thankful that you didn't go on to become the defensive
1:37:11
coordinator of the Cowboy. I guess the Saints here in.
1:37:14
Louisiana. I'm so thankful the path that
1:37:16
you've taken to get to where you are today because it has been so
1:37:19
positive in so many people's lives.
1:37:22
Man, I'm just so thankful from all of the coaching body.
1:37:25
Thank you from all of us. Thank you, Mike.
1:37:27
I think I'm going to hire you to do my tombstone, OK?
1:37:31
That is going to be one. I'm a excuse my French one big
1:37:34
ass tombstone, my man. We got a lot of a lot of
1:37:37
accolades, but man, I I am so thankful.
1:37:39
I'm so thankful you would join us here tonight man.
1:37:42
Been a pleasure. You're extremely busy.
1:37:43
I, I, I was, it was a wing and a prayer to reach out to you
1:37:46
because I'm like, man, he's going to be so busy.
1:37:47
And I also knew because I know you well enough, I was like, he
1:37:50
is going to make the time. So I had to be very careful of
1:37:53
your time, man. It's, it's, it's precious.
1:37:55
And I'm so thankful you'd be here with us today and be so
1:37:57
open and authentic and humble with us today.
1:38:00
This has been therapeutic. Appreciate you giving me the
1:38:03
opportunity. Thanks.
1:38:04
It's all all the honors mine, man.
1:38:06
Thank you so much for being here.
1:38:07
I hope you enjoyed this story. This is he's a legend.
1:38:10
And sometimes we don't get to hear and honor our legends while
1:38:15
they're here. And so it was important for me
1:38:17
personally to be able to have a mentor of mine, somebody who
1:38:20
again changed my life as it relates to coaching.
1:38:23
And I tell you what, Boo, I take the selflessness and attitude
1:38:27
of, you know, helping people. I, I take that in my daily,
1:38:30
daily life now as a, as a father and as a husband and as a
1:38:33
professional here at Gal athletics.
1:38:34
Man, you, you set a great example for all of us.
1:38:37
So thank you for being here and listening.
1:38:39
If you found value in today's podcast, I'm going to go on a
1:38:42
limb and say someone else in your network would receive value
1:38:44
as well. So share it and just spread the
1:38:47
story and then go be like, Boo, man, go out and help someone
1:38:50
else, your athletes, other coaches, give what you have away
1:38:54
because it's going to come back to 1,000,000 lbs.
1:38:56
So thanks for being here today. Join us next week and we'll.
1:38:59
Do it all with you. If it goes to appreciate the
1:39:04
coach, the ones that point people most every season needs a
1:39:07
voice of reason speaking the growth you got to prep before
1:39:10
you carry the load. Ice coffee to the soul.
1:39:13
For those of us stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
1:39:15
zone which you packing for the road.
1:39:17
There's more than one way to go. Take notes that's paying your
1:39:20
toe. It ain't practice if you're
1:39:22
perfect Saint Clair. It can't happen until you listen
1:39:24
with both is you can't mentor without a mentor of years of
1:39:28
experience. You can reinvent those years
1:39:30
every plan's got to stand to deliver to and the price
1:39:33
sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight, not a
1:39:36
win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
1:39:39
Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to, it's all
1:39:42
about why you don't know till you know who you are inside
1:39:45
6,000,000 waste of time, choose none.
1:39:47
So y'all cross finish line, the work ain't done so we learn from
1:39:50
the experts but y'all got to put in the leg work.
1:39:53
Guil Athletics is the network. It's all about connections put
1:39:56
together for the profession to where every track coach could be
1:39:59
blessed.