Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #334: Jason Davis-Earlham College | Building Relationships Through Coaching

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#334: Jason Davis-Earlham College | Building Relationships Through Coaching · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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  with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world UNL tuned
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  in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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  extraordinary message on Gil Athletics connections.
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  We're back here on the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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  again. Always so humble that you press
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  play today here on the show. I'm so humbled to be your host,
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  Mike Cunningham, National Business Development Manager for
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  Gil Athletics and just always pumped, man.
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  You know, as we are staring season 7, I believe it is in
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  2026, feels like it's going to be tomorrow and we have no plans
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  on stopping. In fact, we have plans to
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  continue to grow the podcast, to continue to grow the value that
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  we bring you guys and gals that listen to us and bring value to
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  our guests. And Speaking of our guests, man,
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  this is a fun one. I'm, I'm excited about this.
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  You know, we've talked about this in the past where there's
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  kind of several different types of guests on the show.
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  Some of them I know extremely well.
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  I've known them forever, maybe coached with them, maybe coach
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  them. I'm getting that age.
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  And then there are other guys and gals that come on here I've
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  maybe met once or twice or maybe an e-mail here in there.
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  And those are always a lot of fun to me too, cuz I get to
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  learn about a new person. So help me welcome from Earlham
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  College. We're gonna find out where that
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  I actually know where that is, but we're gonna make sure
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  everybody knows where that is. Mr. Coach.
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  Mr. Coach. Mr. Whatever.
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  Jason Davis. Jason, how are you, Sir?
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  I'm doing well. How are you doing today?
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  Man, you know, I love when people ask me that question
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  because I get to say, man, this is what I do for a living.
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  So I'm doing awesome, man, this is great.
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  This is work for me and I and I absolutely love it, man.
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  How about you? How's everything in the early?
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  So for those who don't know, because I know because I used to
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  coach at Ball State, so I know early very well.
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  Tell us a little bit about early and where we're located.
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  And and then don't tell us the mascot because I want to guess.
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  I actually don't know this, but I want to guess.
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  OK. Yeah.
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  So Early College is in Richmond IN town of about 50,000 people
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  in Indiana, right on the Ohio, Indiana border.
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  So it's really cool. We're about an hour from
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  Indianapolis, Dayton and Cincinnati and we can be in some
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  metro areas really, really quickly and it Earlham College
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  itself is a very welcoming place.
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  You know, it's a small school. We've got about 800 students.
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  So yeah, everybody knows everybody.
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  You're walking through campus and you know, you know, the
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  basketball players and the baseball players and really cool
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  environment, you know, very welcoming.
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  Everybody's friendly. Get that whole small town feel
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  when you when you when you walk across campus there in Richmond,
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  people say hi to you. You know, unlike some of those
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  bigger universities where they just kind of revert their eyes
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  and walk a little bit faster when you say hi, right?
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  So really cool. I'm going into my second year
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  here at at Urlem and I'm super excited about what we've got to
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  offer so. I love that.
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  You know, I know Urlem in two different ways.
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  One is because I was at Ball State, I distinctly remember and
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  we had a very successful, you know, Sue Parks was my head
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  coach back then. Amazing job.
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  We always went to nationals and for women's cross country.
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  She was great. So we got a lot of like, you
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  know, 10:50 to 11:10. That was kind of her wheelhouse,
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  10:50 to 11:10 to milers. And then she turned them into,
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  you know, amazing distance runners.
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  And there was a young lady, don't remember her name.
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  This was back. I mean, I was at Ball State O2
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  and O3. So this, you know, boy, I'm
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  getting old. That's 20 something years ago.
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  And we, we were recruiting a young lady, I think inside the
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  state of Indiana. A, a maybe a faster than a flat,
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  maybe. She was like a 10501055 kid and
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  she signed with Irlam. And we were like, dude, what the
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  heck? Like, you know, nothing against
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  Irlam, but it was like, man, we really wanted this girl.
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  And so I learned about Irlam real fast.
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  Like, holy cow, this is a place that attracts really talented
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  kids. So you know the bad taste in my
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  mouth, you know, I lost the recruit.
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  Dang it, my other way of. Preschool.
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  Yeah, exactly. By other way of knowing Irlam is
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  actually Claire Hewitt from the the Penn Relays, the director of
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  OPS up there, recent guest on the Gill Connections podcast.
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  She used to coach at Irlam and I just thought that was a cool
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  connection because it's like, how in the world is someone from
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  Philly know about Earl? And so she was down there for a
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  few years back in the day. So it's very cool.
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  All right, Jason, I love my like little nerddom is knowing every
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  school's mascot. That's like a fun thing for me.
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  Like I love the trivia question of, you know, what mascots don't
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  end in S and things like that. Like I just kind of my, you
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  know, if that's a trivia question, I'm your guy, but I'm
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  trying to think of Earl. Now you're giving me a little
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  bit of a hint because of your shirt that looks a little bit
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  like some kind of like comment or something.
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  And I guess that would make sense, but I'm going to, I'm
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  going to go, I'm going to go generic and say comet, not some
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  kind of like asteroids or something like that.
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  Are you the heirloom College Comets?
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  We're actually the Quakers. The star you're seeing is is the
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  inner light that that Quakers look for in everybody, so.
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  You know, I was going to guess because of that, that threw me
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  off. I wish I I wish I wouldn't have
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  seen that. I was going to guess something
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  like the fighting Christian. Now that's not a joke because
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  that Elon college used to be the fighting Christians.
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  And I know that because of an incident that I had when I was
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  coaching and going to school at Troy University and I do.
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  And I thought I remembered Erlin being something very more
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  towards the religious side. And so that the quake.
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  That makes so much sense. Of course you're the Quaker.
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  So I should have stuck with my gut intuition there, but I
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  didn't. I would have failed.
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  That trivia question is what? I'm ironically enough for the
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  Fighting Quakers and. See, I was really close with
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  that fighting Christians thing. Yeah, I I knew it.
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  I knew it. Well, we'll learn more about the
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  the college and learn more about how you got there through your
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  journey. So let's get started.
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  Let's get in our Wayback Machine here.
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  Jason, assuming you are an athlete.
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  Now we know what assumptions do for us because we know you don't
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  have to have been an athlete to become a great track and field
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  and cross country coach. But assuming you're an athlete,
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  where does track and field start for you it?
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  Started in high school, actually.
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  I started running actually to make the football coach mad.
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  I had a dispute with the football coach.
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  Now, now granted, I was 17 years old and he was 23 years old.
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  We both had all the answers right now, then we're right, but
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  we had them all. So he and I got into it and it's
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  like, you know what? I'm an all conference football
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  player. Tag with you.
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  I'll just go be all conference and cross country.
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  I thought it was that easy. It turns out it was.
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  So I I did make the all Conference team my senior year
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  in high school in cross country. But to be honest with you, it
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  was a small conference in the rural Ohio.
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  I wasn't very good at it and the folks at Wilmington College took
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  a chance on me and let me run on their cross country team.
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  OK, well, pause there. Don't don't, don't get ahead of
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  me too much here. We'll go to Wilmington College.
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  Also the Quakers right now that I.
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  Yeah, Yeah, OK yeah, yeah. We just did their track.
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  Cool colors. I really like Wilmington
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  College. OK, don't go to college for me
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  just yet. Like a good track coach.
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  You're already trying to get ahead of me here.
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  Let's stay back in high school because it strikes me that I
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  thought, you know, you like finish people's sentences in
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  your head before they actually do.
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  So when you said I joined cross country to make my football
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  coach and I was like, oh, to make my football coach prat,
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  like, oh, see, I can do other like I'm going to do this for
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  football. And you went completely to the
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  other side of it. And like, no, no, I did it to
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  show him to make him angry that I've never heard that story.
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  You know, 300 and something episodes.
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  I'm not sure I've heard of a story of a football coach,
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  football player joining cross country to show up the the
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  football coach. What in the world were you
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  thinking? Well, I mean, I wasn't right.
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  I just thought, Hey, one of those I can be all conference in
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  any sport because that that's the arrogance that the the
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  football player in me, right. And Fast forward 30 years.
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  Oh my God, that coach and I are now really good friends.
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  Oh, interesting. Yeah.
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  He went on to coach at D1 in at the college level.
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  He was at most recently at Colorado before he got out of it
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  and started a family and went back family business.
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  So he and I talk a lot. It's ironic.
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  The first time I broke 16 minutes in the five Ki clicked
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  the newspaper article, highlighted my name and mailed
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  it to his house. Just one of those like.
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  Dude. Stick it to you, right?
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  What are you? I love stories like that
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  because, you know, fast forwarding to our agent stage
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  where we are now, Jason, if someone were to do that to us,
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  if, if someone were, you know, to stick it to you, Jason sent
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  a, a newspaper article, which, how would they even find that
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  they'd like send you a tweet or something.
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  You'd be like, well, what the, you know, grow up.
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  You're immature. And sometimes we forgot.
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  I'm glad you have that memory because sometimes we forget.
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  Oh, yeah. We used to be 1617, eighteen
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  years old. And that immaturity, Holy cow, I
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  can't believe you did that. Yeah.
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  I mean, it's, it's it's funny now, right?
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  But I mean, if my son did something like that, I'd I'd run
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  through the ringer, right? So you we're obviously good in
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  football. You said you're all conference.
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  I mean that's that's solid go to cross country.
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  Did you track as well or just cross country?
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  Actually, I started running track before because the same
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  football coach kind of required me to run track.
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  Oh wow, nice. And I'm like, yeah, you know, I
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  don't want to run the 100 because I'm slow.
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  So I went to the distance events and did OK at that.
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  And the track coach was trying to talk me out for the cross
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  country team. And when I had to dispute with a
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  coach, it was a perfect opportunity to.
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  What position did you play in football?
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  As a linebacker. Yeah, wow.
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  A linebacker distance runner, that's a that's a unique
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  combination. Yeah, I mean, the conference I
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  played in, it was very rural, so you could get away with playing
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  linebacker at £130. Sure.
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  Yeah. Good point.
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  OK, Yeah. And I don't know that you could
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  do that now, even at that rural school because they, they, they
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  build them a little bit bigger these days.
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  Yeah, the kids have gotten bigger, that's for sure.
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  Absolutely. So were you like I love this of
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  our football slash track athletes in high school, I
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  always like to ask the question, would you have considered
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  yourself a football player who ran track or a track athlete who
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  ran football? I'm not.
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  I'm not sure I can answer that for you.
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  Based on your description so far, what would you have
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  categorized yourself? The all sports options were
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  limited where I went to high school.
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  So when I first started high school, you had golf or football
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  if you're a guy. So those were your choices.
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  They started cross country my junior year of high school and
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  that's when the coach asked me to to come out for the team.
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  Now, I'd already committed to playing football my junior year,
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  so I honored my commitment to football.
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  So now I think that same high school, E Clinton High School in
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  Lees Creek, OH, tiny little town, they still only have golf,
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  football or cross country in the fall or band.
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  And I, while I am a musician, I didn't play the traditional band
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  instruments. So that that's kind of how I
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  ended up in cross country. And you know, during football, I
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  hated running. It sucked, right?
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  They made me run, so I chose my sports punishment as revenge of.
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  The football, I know, that's what I'm saying.
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  You're completely backwards here, my man.
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  I love it. That's amazing track.
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  All four years though, or no? I started running track my
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  junior year in high school. Football coaches like, hey, you
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  need to do this. And yeah, that's right, You'll
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  be a better football player, that sort of thing.
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  And. So looking back at your sixteen
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  1718 year old self knowing, you know, spoiler alert, you become
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  a track coach. What kind of track athlete in in
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  football athlete were you? And what I mean by that is like,
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  did you, you know, hindsight, looking back now, were you the
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  kind of kid that like like paid attention to the plays that we
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  were calling and why we ran them here and why did we do this?
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  And and track did you, you know, like pay attention to the
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  workouts and why did this workout follow this one or and
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  again, I give a lot of grace to the kids.
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  I give a lot of grace to a lot of people that we always make a
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  lot of mistakes. Or as a as a kid, were you more
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  just the coach said to run, so I run, coach said C ball, hit
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  ball, I hit ball. You know, what kind of, you
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  know, looking back, what kind of, you know, proclivity to
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  coaching? Were you showing if at all as a
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  17 ish year old? Kind of different with football
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  and track football, I mean, playing linebacker, you, you're
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  instructed to basically kill everybody, right?
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  So that's what you do. You just hit anything that moves
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  or anything is holding the ball and and track, honestly, I
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  really gravitated toward the field events like throwing and
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  stuff like that and the Y and the physics of the whole thing
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  and the science behind running. I was a track nerd and I didn't
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  know it. And then of course when I got to
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  college and my degree says history.
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  But to be honest with you, I majored in track and field, just
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  kind of try to absorb everything.
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  And you know, we'll get a little bit later into some of my
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  influences probably. But it was the why, right?
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  Football for me was just, you know, a chance for that, that
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  primal outlet that, you know, beat the crap out of something
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  essentially so. And sometimes culture, right?
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  Because you talked about being in a small school, it's like, oh
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  man, if you're a boy, you're a male in that school you played
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  because we didn't have many guy like you needed everybody.
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  So sometimes it's a little bit like, yeah, I played football
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  because that's whatever all my friends did.
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  Everybody did that. Right.
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  Yeah. And I didn't want to.
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  I didn't want to play golf because the golf golfers were
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  the wimps, right? And now I'd play more golf than
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  anything. Else, yeah, it's like, little
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  did we know, right? Right.
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  Exactly. Yeah, exactly.
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  OK, Senior year, you're playing football, you're running cross
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  country, you're running track, very active, doing really well.
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  You're thinking about colleges. You kind of already gave us a
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  little bit of a spoiler alert there.
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  What did we? Yeah, I know we ended up going
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  to Wilmington. What were we looking for?
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  And what I really want to know is what were you like?
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  I'm trying to gauge where coaching was as an 18 year old
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  going into college. You you said you ended up
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  majoring in in history. Were you thinking at all about
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  becoming a a coach? And if not, what were you
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  thinking about becoming as a as an 18 year old?
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  When I first went into the college, I was, I was an
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  education major, like a social studies education major.
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  So, you know, Wilmington took a chance on me.
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  Coach Colmes, one of my big influence there, but he
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  basically told me, hey, look, you know, I give everybody one
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  more chance than they deserve. And your one more chance was
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  being on this team. So basically screw it up, right?
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  So I've realized about 3 weeks into into college that, you
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  know, coaching track and field and cross country was something
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  I wanted to do. So, you know, I dropped the
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  education from the major, ended up spending five years in
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  college. So the fifth year I was a
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  student assistant coach. Yeah.
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  So that was. What you you said fairly and
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  shout out to Ron. He's a great dude.
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  I love him to death. So I'm not hearing like June of
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  your senior year of high school coaching, but call it six months
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  later, you know, by the end of that year, coaching is what what
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  was there an influence because of Ron?
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  What what what kind of almost like a light switch.
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  I'd normally it's a, it's a fader button that, you know, as
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  we get into whatever profession we get to, this seems more like
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  a, you know, that's not even in my head to like, Oh yeah, this
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  is I'm changing majors to become this.
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  It was, it was essentially Ron, I mean, Ron's passion for the
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  sport. And Ron's great.
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  I love him. He's he's one of my best
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  friends. I talked to him probably weekly.
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  And if you hear us talking, you hear us interacting.
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  You think we don't like each other because we're just trading
• 15:52
  the ABS back and forth. But I think it's a Quaker school
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  thing, right? We can't fight with our hands.
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  We fight with our words. But it was it was Ron's passion,
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  it was his dedication to the sport that really turned me on
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  to it. And it's like, you know, he kept
• 16:07
  telling me you're never going to get rich doing this.
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  But it's, it's super fulfilling. And he wasn't wrong.
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  You know, that is amazing that we're going to stay focused on
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  you, but but we all we do like to talk about mentors and
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  influences, right? I mean, that's amazing that
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  here's another track coach who you are probably, I don't know,
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  because I kind of think things lined up no matter what, but it
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  is a much higher likelihood that you are a track coach today
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  because of his influence on you. But if you go in there, if you'd
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  gone somewhere else, who knows, you might have ended up being
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  that teacher and maybe still ended up being a track coach.
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  But that's just, I just love that influence that a guy like
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  Ron had on you as a as a young and you know, as an 1819 year
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  old now. Yeah, and it's our GA is
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  actually a Wilmington College graduate as well.
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  So he was a national qualifier in cross country and he ran for
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  Ron too. So we get trade Ron Colmes
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  stories back and forth. He's evidently mellowed out in
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  the last 30 years. As I say, you got to see a
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  development right? The kid got the the nicer
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  version right? Yeah, I remember my first cross
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  country race in college. I had come through 5 K 30
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  seconds faster than I ever had in my life and I still had 3000
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  meters to go right. Ron popped out from behind a
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  Bush and told me to quit racing like a wuss.
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  He doesn't say that stuff anymore, but.
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  I love that. That's awesome.
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  OK, I am curious and I know you said you're 130 LB linebacker,
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  but there's opportunities for everybody.
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  No thoughts of playing football in college anywhere.
• 17:42
  No, you know, after I left the football team my senior year,
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  you know, even at the school like Wilmington, you're going to
• 17:50
  get killed with 130 lbs. So maybe be the kicker or
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  something. But I wasn't any good at
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  kicking, so yeah. Yeah, I was an offensive lineman
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  much smaller than I am today. And I remember I'd already made
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  my college decision. I was coming up to Chicago high
• 18:04
  School in in Alabama. And I remember, you know, a
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  month or so after I'd made my college decision, my one of my
• 18:09
  football coaches come to me and goes, you know, Cunningham,
• 18:11
  like, do you want to play in college?
• 18:12
  Like we could find like AD three spot for you.
• 18:14
  And I was like, bro, even those kids, I'm not even AD three kid
• 18:19
  like they would crush me. Like thank God, I know where I'm
• 18:21
  going for college. No way.
• 18:23
  I wish I could like I, you know, like that would have been fun,
• 18:27
  like if I'd had the size and you know, and skill to do it.
• 18:30
  But I it's not one of those things where I look back.
• 18:32
  I don't know about you, but I don't look back and go, man, I
• 18:34
  wish I would have tried it. Nah, I'm good.
• 18:37
  Yeah, I'm good. I like my brain right where?
• 18:40
  Yeah. That's a big part of it, too.
• 18:42
  Exactly, exactly right. OK, you're at Wilmington
• 18:47
  College, good Ohio school for a good Ohio boy here.
• 18:51
  You change your major, do you? This kind of sounds like it
• 18:55
  happens in this fall semester, maybe start a spring semester,
• 18:59
  but it happens in your freshman year.
• 19:00
  Do you again, hindsight 2020, looking back now, do you
• 19:04
  remember yourself now looking at workouts differently And maybe
• 19:09
  like some people are, we talk about the athletes and athletes
• 19:11
  need to be gym rats to be good. Well, coaches need to be office
• 19:15
  rats. That's to be good.
• 19:15
  Meaning the lots of our undergrad kids come into our
• 19:19
  offices and sit and talk with us forever about why do this work
• 19:22
  out? Why do we do the not questioning
• 19:23
  like we should have done something different, but like, I
• 19:25
  want to know more. I want to know more.
• 19:27
  What was your interaction? Yeah, that was, I mean, I was in
• 19:31
  Ron's office probably more than I should have been.
• 19:36
  You know, I'd skip a class or two to pick his brain.
• 19:39
  We'd skip class to get the cross country course ready for home
• 19:42
  meets and things like that. Not that I can encourage anybody
• 19:46
  to do that these days, but yeah, I was all the time asking him,
• 19:50
  you know, you know, if we're running a marathon, you know,
• 19:53
  where do we, where do we drop the mileage off?
• 19:57
  You know, do we do a two week taper or four week taper?
• 19:59
  And, and it's getting a bit into the XS and OS, but you know, you
• 20:04
  know, reading the Arthur Ledyard book, reading the Jack Daniels
• 20:07
  book, all of that stuff. And then later in my career
• 20:11
  going into the the field events. You know, Judd Logan was a big
• 20:15
  influence on me. He taught me how to coach
• 20:16
  throwers. Wow.
• 20:18
  So. I wonder because you mentioned
• 20:20
  throwers in high school and I was like, wait a minute, you're
• 20:22
  a distance coach. OK, so we got some throwing
• 20:24
  going on here too. Yeah, I've actually coached a
• 20:27
  national champion and a national runner up in the shot, but dude.
• 20:30
  I love that that's, you know, I, I learned first of all, quick
• 20:33
  pause, you know, here recently you mentioned Jack Daniels and
• 20:37
  Judd Logan. Now Judd's not recent that we've
• 20:39
  we've lost Judd a few years ago. Super proud, by the way, it's
• 20:42
  one of the like, I feel some responsibility sometimes as the
• 20:46
  host of the show now, especially as we're getting on to year 7
• 20:48
  and things like that, of having people and capturing their
• 20:51
  journeys, right? So I was super, super proud
• 20:53
  because I called Judd a friend to have had Judd on the podcast
• 20:56
  before he passed. So, so now his story, his
• 20:59
  journey in his own words gets to live on.
• 21:01
  You can go back right now and listen to Judd and his journey.
• 21:05
  But Jack Daniels we lost recently.
• 21:07
  Al Karius, we lost here recently.
• 21:10
  I'm forgetting a couple people. Somebody reminded me there was a
• 21:13
  really big influential high school coach here in the state
• 21:16
  of Illinois that's passed recently.
• 21:18
  We're we're we're losing. And you know, before we hit
• 21:21
  record, Jason, we said, you know, Father Time is undefeated,
• 21:24
  right? We're all going to pass.
• 21:26
  What is it? We're all going to shuffle off
• 21:27
  this mortal coil. But you know, our legends out
• 21:30
  there, man, they are amazing for a reason.
• 21:34
  The influence that they had, you're talking about the books
• 21:37
  that they read, that they wrote, things like that.
• 21:39
  Just Just love those guys and gals in life and in death.
• 21:43
  And just want to encourage listeners.
• 21:45
  You, Jason, everybody, you know, you all were influenced.
• 21:48
  You stand on the shoulders of someone else, another man or a
• 21:51
  woman who was a track coach or teacher or parent, etcetera.
• 21:54
  I just want to highly, highly encourage everybody right now,
• 21:57
  like press pause on this podcast and do it like literally right
• 22:00
  now. Go tell your mentor, tell
• 22:03
  someone that means a lot to you. And I'm speaking specifically in
• 22:06
  the track coaching world here, obviously, but tweet them, text
• 22:10
  them, e-mail them, call them. I don't care.
• 22:12
  Whatever your style is, write a letter, I don't care.
• 22:15
  But don't lose the opportunity to say thank you today because
• 22:20
  we might not have that opportunity tomorrow.
• 22:21
  So sorry, I'll step off my soapbox there.
• 22:24
  But Jason, as you mentioned, Jack Daniels and then you
• 22:27
  followed up right with Judd Logan, I was like, holy cow.
• 22:29
  It just kind of hit me there for a minute.
• 22:32
  OK, so you you're becoming kind of a coach nerd.
• 22:36
  And I mean that with all respect, you know, of sitting in
• 22:39
  coaches Ron's office a lot asking questions.
• 22:42
  Now you mentioned something that I don't understand this, so help
• 22:45
  me understand. You mentioned if we're going to
• 22:47
  run a marathon now that's foreign to me as an
• 22:49
  undergraduate. What do you why were you or why
• 22:51
  were you running marathons as an undergrad?
• 22:54
  I wasn't. I wanted to and Ron actually
• 22:57
  threatened me. He said I he but his foot would
• 23:00
  be so far at my rear end if I ran a marathon in college.
• 23:03
  Yeah, yeah, OK. But it was more theoretical than
• 23:07
  anything else. Just talking about, you know,
• 23:09
  distance running, the science behind it, you know, what
• 23:12
  workouts to do when. And I actually have weekly
• 23:16
  meetings with with all of my distance athletes talk about
• 23:19
  workouts. They can they they come in and
• 23:21
  they question what we're doing, right?
• 23:23
  Not in a bad way. Just say, why are we doing this?
• 23:26
  And I'll share it with them, right.
• 23:28
  I mean, I don't think coaching should be a big secret.
• 23:32
  You know, every track coach and cross country coach that I've
• 23:35
  talked to, if you have questions, they're happy to
• 23:37
  answer it a little bit different on the on the football side of
• 23:40
  things, right? You ain't, Yeah.
• 23:42
  It's a little more closed, my experience.
• 23:43
  Yeah. Yeah, that's right.
• 23:46
  So, and that, that's one of the reasons why I coach is, is the
• 23:49
  community of people that you're with.
• 23:50
  I mean, generally they're not jerks.
• 23:54
  So you'll get a few here and there, yeah.
• 23:57
  It's a spectrum, right? There's a thousand of us,
• 23:59
  thousands of us. There's going to be both
• 24:01
  extremes, by the way. Yeah, I didn't know about the
• 24:04
  marathon because I know like JUCO and JCAA, they have a
• 24:08
  marathon or, or maybe they moved it down to the half marathon and
• 24:11
  I thought doesn't or didn't the NAIA have a marathon?
• 24:15
  They still do. Yeah, still do.
• 24:16
  Right. That that's what I was
• 24:17
  wondering. I was like, man, you doing that
• 24:19
  just, it seems crazy to me. I, I can't get behind undergrads
• 24:23
  doing marathon. Sorry.
• 24:24
  I just I just can't and it's not track and field to me.
• 24:27
  You know, I barely, no offense here, Jason.
• 24:30
  I barely like the 10,000 being in track and field.
• 24:32
  I think I've gone on record and I'll say it till the day I die
• 24:35
  and it doesn't matter because I'm not going to have any
• 24:37
  influence on this. But I think the 3000 steeple
• 24:39
  should be the longest that we do on the track because I love the
• 24:42
  steeple. That's an that's a great event,
• 24:44
  an amazing event. But anyway, well, I love that
• 24:48
  Ron modeled that for you. Like talking about going in and
• 24:51
  asking questions and, and hearing answers and be able to
• 24:54
  just pick his brain and be curious about it.
• 24:57
  That has, I mean, that is certainly a major influence on
• 25:00
  you and your career path. Yeah, I mean it was, it was
• 25:04
  great. I mean, he never kept see any
• 25:07
  secrets and when he made mistakes, I mean, when I first
• 25:11
  got there, we were doing static stretching before we worked out.
• 25:15
  And then the next year he's like, hey, I'm sorry I made a
• 25:18
  mistake. We're going to change it this
• 25:20
  way. Wow, yeah.
• 25:22
  So I mean, and that's again, one of the great things about
• 25:25
  coaching is, I mean, you messed it up.
• 25:27
  You're going to admit to it. Did that, that transformation
• 25:30
  from what year to the next static to dynamic, I'm assuming
• 25:34
  did that happen to you like you as an athlete?
• 25:36
  So like sophomore year you were static and then sophomore,
• 25:39
  junior year you dynamic. It was between freshman and
• 25:43
  sophomore year. So here's what I'm curious about
• 25:45
  because I love the way you described it, that Ron came and
• 25:48
  said, hey, boys and girls, boy, I'm sorry, I was wrong and
• 25:51
  here's why, blah blah blah. What did because, because I
• 25:55
  wonder sometimes change is hard because we are concerned about
• 26:00
  judgement, whether that's from fellow coaches, our spouses, our
• 26:05
  kids, I mean NSA, our kids are athletes.
• 26:07
  You know, we 18 to 22 year olds, we a lot of times we, I think
• 26:10
  we're making decisions because we don't want to be judged by
• 26:14
  them. You know, we all say we all want
• 26:16
  to be liked by them and you have a relationship.
• 26:18
  So I'm curious, give us your take.
• 26:22
  You said between freshman and sophomore year.
• 26:23
  So freshman year you're doing it.
• 26:26
  I'm going to call it the traditional way.
• 26:27
  The I don't necessarily call it the old school way.
• 26:29
  I would call it the wrong way. And from when I coach static
• 26:33
  stretching, your coach comes in, you've got a great relationship.
• 26:35
  You're you're in his office, you've you've decided you're
• 26:38
  going to become a coach because of in part because of this guy.
• 26:42
  Sophomore year, he comes in and says I was wrong and he changes
• 26:47
  up pretty dramatically. I mean, you probably were static
• 26:49
  stretching your whole life, probably in football and high
• 26:51
  school track as well. It's just the way it was, right?
• 26:54
  What did you as a 1920 year old kid think about coach when he
• 27:00
  said that? It gave me more respect for him
• 27:04
  because he, you know, said, hey, look, you know, this isn't the
• 27:08
  right way to do it. The new research shows this.
• 27:10
  And it's, again, one of the reasons why I went into
• 27:16
  coaching, because, you know, if new research comes out that
• 27:18
  proves you wrong, you need to be willing to adapt to that.
• 27:23
  If you don't, I mean, coaching's kind of adapt or die, right?
• 27:28
  So that was, you know, one of the things that hit me really
• 27:30
  hard being a history major, right?
• 27:33
  You can't change July 4th, 1776, right?
• 27:37
  That was what it was. But with something that's living
• 27:41
  and breathing like athletics, new research coming out and all
• 27:45
  that kind of stuff, you know, it's it just shows that you
• 27:49
  should be willing to adapt or maybe find something else to do
• 27:52
  go answer phones, the spectrum or something.
• 27:54
  But. Do you do you remember the
• 27:56
  consensus of the other, the rest of the team?
• 27:59
  So you had, you know, some amount of other kids, 20 plus
• 28:02
  other kids. Was the sentiment more towards
• 28:05
  your side of like, wow, man, coaches continuing to make
• 28:08
  himself better? That's awesome.
• 28:09
  Or was there a consensus of like, oh man, I can't believe my
• 28:12
  coach was what do you mean here? First of all, you're wrong now
• 28:15
  because I can see people always wanting to go back to static.
• 28:18
  What was the consensus amongst the team in regards to this
• 28:21
  decision? I mean, kind of the whole
• 28:23
  spectrum. I mean, some people, you know,
• 28:25
  like it like any coaching relationship, not everybody's
• 28:27
  going to love you. So it's one of those things
• 28:30
  where some people are like, man, this guy's full of crap.
• 28:33
  Other people are like, well, just do it because coach said to
• 28:35
  do it. Other people were kind of like
• 28:39
  me. And it's like, OK, you know,
• 28:40
  let's let's do it, right? Can't change it.
• 28:44
  Let's be can't fight City Hall. Let's just, let's just go with
• 28:46
  the program. And, you know, and then you had
• 28:50
  a couple of people who are more cerebral.
• 28:52
  It's interesting that a lot of the people I ran cross country
• 28:55
  with in college, my classmates all became college coaches.
• 29:00
  So Ron's got this huge coaching treaty.
• 29:04
  And, you know, those people, the people who are more cerebral
• 29:07
  about it, we're the ones who went into coaching.
• 29:08
  Interesting. I love that perspective because,
• 29:12
  you know, one of the, there's, there's two main goals of the
• 29:15
  podcast. 1 is the uplift and honor your journey in this great
• 29:18
  profession. And the other is to, you know,
• 29:20
  bring value to those guys and gals who listen to the show.
• 29:23
  And so, you know, like when I hear stuff like that, Jason, I
• 29:26
  like, I just know like someone's listening right now and they
• 29:29
  want to do what is considered a, a dramatic change, whether
• 29:33
  that's, you know, they've always been a long to short Sprint
• 29:37
  coach and now they want to go short to long or they want to do
• 29:40
  over weight implements and they never had they have to change
• 29:45
  something. And they're, they're they're
• 29:46
  scared. They're scared of the 18 to 22
• 29:47
  year olds that are like, what are they going to think?
• 29:49
  What are my other coaches going to think on my staff and you
• 29:52
  know, my my social group, etcetera.
• 29:54
  So I love that perspective of a guy like Ron coming in and
• 29:58
  saying, my boys and girls, Well, I was wrong.
• 30:00
  Here's why and let's move forward.
• 30:03
  And you know what? The world still spun around.
• 30:05
  His coaching career continued on and continued on successfully.
• 30:07
  Like nothing bad necessarily. Like half the team didn't
• 30:11
  transfer out and leave. Like we kept working together
• 30:15
  and moving forward. So I love that perspective of
• 30:17
  that. Yeah, it's, it's always fun to
• 30:20
  to, you know, talk about things that that happened while 30
• 30:24
  years ago we were getting old. We are getting old man.
• 30:26
  Father Time, baby. That's going to be the theme of
• 30:28
  this one. Father Time does not lose, OK?
• 30:31
  You go through four years at Wilmington, and you mentioned
• 30:36
  your fifth year, you were actually a student assistant, An
• 30:39
  undergraduate student assistant coach.
• 30:41
  Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, how does?
• 30:43
  How does that work out? Because I actually have an
• 30:44
  experience with this and that because I don't think very many
• 30:46
  people know about undergraduate student assistant coaches.
• 30:48
  Talk to us about that. Yeah.
• 30:50
  So I mean I changed my major. It cost me a fifth year.
• 30:55
  And believe it or not, back then you could get a paid assistant
• 30:58
  coaching position while being a student.
• 31:01
  So. And I want to make a shout out
• 31:04
  to Ron. They haven't won an OAC title in
• 31:06
  men's track and field since I was on coaching staff there.
• 31:10
  So test into my coaching prowess, right?
• 31:15
  But yeah, I mean, so I was able to be an undergraduate assistant
• 31:20
  coach and it was kind of weird, you know, the guys that we're
• 31:23
  part I was parting with six months before, Now I've got to
• 31:26
  be like, hey, look, you can't go to this party.
• 31:29
  That's my. Number one concern, it's usually
• 31:31
  about an undergraduate who does their GA position at the same
• 31:35
  school. And that's where I was going to
• 31:36
  go out with you. It's my number one.
• 31:37
  Like, I almost think it should be a rule.
• 31:39
  You're not allowed. Now undergraduate is a little
• 31:41
  different maybe, but yeah, how did you handle that?
• 31:44
  On in May of one year, you were hanging out with your boys
• 31:48
  playing Xboxes even though we didn't have Xbox back then.
• 31:51
  And then in September you were coach.
• 31:54
  That seems a little little hard. It was hard.
• 31:58
  It was difficult. Ron actually sat me down and
• 32:01
  he's like, look, you know, here are the rules.
• 32:03
  If you can't live with it, you can't do this.
• 32:07
  And, you know, and it was awkward, right?
• 32:10
  I was roommates with some of those guys.
• 32:11
  We had an apartment and, you know, it's those things that I
• 32:17
  was participating in six months before.
• 32:20
  Now I can't, but I was but sure enough and had Ron, you know,
• 32:27
  threatening, threatening my life, right?
• 32:30
  Not really, but you know, saying, hey, look, if this is
• 32:34
  what you want to do as a career, these are the things you have to
• 32:36
  do. And you know, I bring him up a
• 32:40
  lot, but he's was a big influence early in my career and
• 32:43
  still today because he's like, you have to do this, this and
• 32:46
  this. And this is the way it's got to
• 32:48
  be. And God love him, right?
• 32:52
  I wouldn't be where I am without him so.
• 32:55
  How how did the like, I love the because maybe my fear of the
• 33:01
  stuff that happens within typically we're talking about
• 33:03
  the grad assistance. And like I said, I think it
• 33:05
  should maybe be a rule that you're not allowed.
• 33:07
  Maybe that can be overcome with strong leadership from your head
• 33:10
  coach. So, you know, Ron, having those
• 33:12
  discussions certainly helped. I mean, there was did not help.
• 33:15
  I just don't know that those type of conversations are
• 33:19
  happening a lot in in a serious manner.
• 33:22
  Like I think probably every head coach tells their, you know, now
• 33:27
  GA, hey, look, you're not an undergrad anymore, you know, you
• 33:31
  got to be a coach. But I think that's like as far
• 33:32
  as the conversation goes, this sounds like Ron set you down
• 33:35
  with a little bit more of an in depth conversation.
• 33:38
  Yeah, and I do the same thing with all of my assistant
• 33:40
  coaches, particularly younger ones.
• 33:43
  Everywhere I've been, it's like, hey, look, you know, first of
• 33:45
  all, the student body is not your dating pool.
• 33:48
  You know, you want to, you want to date the coeds, you got to go
• 33:50
  down the street to the next college and you know, just, hey,
• 33:55
  you can't, you can't be doing this.
• 33:56
  You want to drink beer, you got to do it with me, not with, not
• 34:00
  with the with the team and, and things like that.
• 34:04
  So those are conversations that I do have, probably because Ron
• 34:08
  had those conversations. That's right.
• 34:10
  We, we typically coach how we were coached and, and I usually
• 34:14
  when I say that sentence, I mean the XS and OS of like, you know,
• 34:16
  how many 400 repeats or all that kind of stuff.
• 34:19
  But also culturally, that's exactly right.
• 34:21
  If Ron would have had a different attitude towards you
• 34:25
  as an undergraduate assistant coach, you would have grown up
• 34:28
  with a different attitude towards assistant coaches until
• 34:31
  you learned, until something bad happened and you're either out
• 34:34
  of their career or someone's out of a career sometimes and that
• 34:36
  stuff. So yeah, I love that modeling
• 34:39
  that Ron did for you there. Right.
• 34:41
  And I want to credit my parents with some of that, too.
• 34:43
  They were. 100%, that's right. They were a lot more traditional
• 34:48
  and there are upbringings. I mean, you know, dad wasn't a
• 34:51
  spare of the rod or dad was, was kind of a, you know, you get out
• 34:55
  of line, I'll put you back in line.
• 34:57
  You don't see a lot of that these days.
• 35:01
  And we can debate the values of of traditional parenting or not,
• 35:05
  but you know, they, that's my parents always raised me to be
• 35:09
  yes or no Sir kind of guy. And then going to a Quaker
• 35:12
  school when everybody's on a first name basis was a little
• 35:16
  jarring for the first couple. But yeah, I mean, it might, you
• 35:21
  know, Ron and my parents and, and the folks around me did a
• 35:24
  very good job of keeping me grounded and putting me back in
• 35:27
  line when when I needed to be. And there were times my teenage
• 35:32
  years that I needed to be put back in line so.
• 35:34
  Absolutely. I love that.
• 35:36
  Were you coaching primarily distance during this year?
• 35:41
  My first year I was super excited.
• 35:43
  I wanted to coach distance runners.
• 35:44
  That's all I wanted to do. But Ron did a good job of
• 35:48
  exposing me to pretty much everything, you know, throats,
• 35:50
  jumps, sprints, hurdles. And he had a pretty good staff
• 35:54
  at the time of, you know, people who could show me those things.
• 35:58
  And then years later, I got in with Judd and he really
• 36:03
  expounded on the throws for me and didn't ask anything in
• 36:07
  return, just, you know, showed me what to do.
• 36:09
  And when I had a guy beat his guy for the national
• 36:13
  championship, Judd shook my hand and said, you're a hell of a
• 36:15
  throws coach. And it's like, well, you did
• 36:18
  this, right? I mean, you told me how to do
• 36:20
  this. And he didn't want any credit
• 36:23
  for that. Yeah, that sounds like Judd.
• 36:26
  Yeah, that's just that's who he was so.
• 36:29
  So one year as the undergraduate coach.
• 36:33
  One year there and then I went to be the head cross country
• 36:36
  coach at Mount Saint Joseph, Yeah.
• 36:37
  Oh, yeah, All right. 23 years old, head coach of a college
• 36:42
  program. Yeah, so, you know, normally and
• 36:45
  but I can't at this age because I already know the answer.
• 36:48
  I typically on the first head coaching job will ask a guest,
• 36:51
  you know, so like, were you prepared?
• 36:53
  And you know the answer always the correct answer is always no
• 36:56
  because you're never prepared to actually sit in the seat.
• 36:58
  I know as a 23 year old straight out of college, you definitely
• 37:00
  weren't prepared. What were some of the challenges
• 37:02
  for you? Well, I was the same age as the
• 37:05
  kids and at the time it was a women's only program.
• 37:08
  They didn't have track and field, nor did they have immense
• 37:12
  cross country team at the time. So it was difficult for me, you
• 37:18
  know, to be the heavy, you know, I had to be.
• 37:21
  And I'll be the first to admit I screwed that job up royally.
• 37:25
  You know, in order to separate myself, I became the biggest
• 37:29
  jerk imaginable. You went so far to the one side.
• 37:34
  Yeah. Oh, interesting.
• 37:36
  What? Why do you think you did that?
• 37:38
  You had some really good examples, like Ron doesn't sound
• 37:41
  like he did that. Where?
• 37:43
  Where does that come from? Probably because I was the same
• 37:47
  age and I put a lot of pressure on myself and, you know, this
• 37:50
  is, you know, the youngest head coach in the country as far as I
• 37:53
  know, right? So, you know, I I've got to make
• 37:55
  an impact and I've got to do it right now.
• 37:59
  Over the years, I've learned some patience and to offer
• 38:02
  people grace oftentimes when they aren't always doing the
• 38:06
  right thing because nobody always does the right thing, so
• 38:12
  I am, That's my reasoning for it.
• 38:14
  I mean, and that was man O one. September 11th happened when I
• 38:19
  was at Mount Saint Joseph. Oh wow.
• 38:22
  So that was, you know, quite some time ago, one of the
• 38:27
  athletes on the team actually married one of my training
• 38:29
  partners from from Wilmington and she wouldn't talk to me for.
• 38:35
  Several years because of your fault attitude.
• 38:39
  Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was probably 15 years
• 38:42
  later that Jenny started talking to me again.
• 38:44
  That that's hurtful, right? And when I mean hurtful, like,
• 38:47
  because you know, you only have yourself to blame, it's like,
• 38:49
  man, that's not who I set out to be.
• 38:51
  Right. It's not who I am.
• 38:54
  And you know, I, I kind of, like I said, I screwed that job up
• 38:57
  royally. And I mean, you learn.
• 39:01
  Some days you win, some days you, some days you learn.
• 39:04
  How many years there? I was there one year.
• 39:07
  OK. So all right, quick question.
• 39:11
  Where did you go after that? I was at Lee's Mcgrae College
• 39:14
  down in North Carolina. And all these great schools, you
• 39:17
  said you you learned. Did you learn during that year?
• 39:22
  Or do we go to Lee's McRae and learn?
• 39:26
  I think it was probably at Lee's Mcgrae and Learning.
• 39:28
  OK, so a year at Mount Saint Joseph Grade School in the
• 39:32
  Cincinnati area, you find your I find this fascinating.
• 39:37
  I kind of want to double click in here because I think I think
• 39:40
  this is a not uncommon. That's a terrible way of saying
• 39:45
  common thing that happens to coaches.
• 39:50
  I think sometimes we go in because I can remember my like
• 39:52
  I'm, I'm picturing my first time coaching and I was exact same
• 39:55
  thing as like, Oh, I've got to be that heavy.
• 39:57
  You know, it's easier to to put the boot down and less than and
• 40:00
  and lift it up a little bit than it is to come in and be the the,
• 40:03
  you know, the other extreme, the, you know, free will and
• 40:06
  love and every blah, blah, blah. And then try to incorporate
• 40:09
  rules and on timeless and things like that.
• 40:11
  And, and so both sides are have a lot of credence, right?
• 40:15
  Like, yeah, you are the disciplinarian, you are the
• 40:18
  coach, you are the leader, But that doesn't mean we need to go
• 40:20
  all the way over to. Too far right.
• 40:23
  So I think this is very common. So, so you go to Lise McRae, you
• 40:28
  continue to develop as a coach. What, what, what influences
• 40:33
  what, what helped you to I don't want to say lighten up because I
• 40:37
  don't think that's the the problem here.
• 40:39
  You know what I'm saying? I think the problem is
• 40:42
  communication. That wasn't a great communicator
• 40:45
  at 23 years of age. OK.
• 40:48
  So. Forgiven for that, By the way,
• 40:49
  you're 23. That's still a kid in my book.
• 40:51
  You know, especially at my age, right?
• 40:52
  That's a That's a kid. Yeah, I mean, I mean, my kids
• 40:56
  about that age now. He's God.
• 40:58
  He's going to be 20. But you know, I, I learned how
• 41:03
  to communicate and we have so many avenues to communicate
• 41:05
  these days. And that's what I do now.
• 41:08
  And I learned a lot from the the folks at Lees Mcgrae.
• 41:10
  I mean, Craig McPhail, I think he just left there to join it to
• 41:15
  run a conference office or something.
• 41:18
  You know, he and I didn't always see eye to eye on many things,
• 41:22
  but he was a good communicator. So he did help me, help educate
• 41:27
  me on the the importance of communication.
• 41:30
  The guy by the name Scott Myers was there, same thing.
• 41:35
  He's a good friend of mine to this day.
• 41:36
  He's not coaching anymore, but he's big on communication.
• 41:41
  You know, the guy who followed in there, Lee Fletcher, same
• 41:44
  thing, all about talking to people, communicating what your
• 41:48
  expectations are. And you don't have to be a jerk
• 41:52
  if you put those expectations up front, you know, be on time, go
• 41:56
  to class, do this sort of thing. Then when they get sideways of
• 42:01
  you, they know and they know what the dominances.
• 42:04
  Are that that's a communication is a great word there because I
• 42:07
  was trying to think of something like, you know, whether it's
• 42:09
  anger issues or just over domineering or, you know, you
• 42:14
  weren't coached this way because sometimes it happens because
• 42:16
  that's how we were coached. Communication.
• 42:19
  I think that's the right keyword here.
• 42:22
  So do you remember how many years at Lees McRae?
• 42:26
  Oh man, I was there from like O2 to O9 so 6 or 7.
• 42:33
  Can you think of it? And it's not necessarily that
• 42:36
  the answer is yes, that this would have occurred.
• 42:38
  But was there an aha moment for you?
• 42:40
  Like whether it was, you know, one of your head coaches that
• 42:44
  the way they spoke to someone and you're like, wait a minute.
• 42:47
  And that worked. Maybe I should be doing that or
• 42:50
  a book you read or, you know, when we're in, in any of our
• 42:55
  professions where we're a coach in high school or college,
• 42:57
  there's professional development.
• 42:59
  You know, we'll have speakers come in, things like that.
• 43:01
  Can you think of like an aha moment of like oh man I think
• 43:05
  I'm doing this wrong? Well, I mean, I think it was a
• 43:08
  confrontation that I had with Craig because, you know, I was
• 43:11
  all about the XS and OS and the science and that kind of stuff.
• 43:15
  And he came in one day and he's like, I feel like I'm talking to
• 43:18
  the back of my head. I'm like, what are you talking
• 43:21
  about? Right.
• 43:21
  And he wasn't right. I just wasn't great at.
• 43:25
  I wasn't exactly Ronald Reagan. He was known as a great
• 43:29
  communicator, and you know that. That's not something I was good
• 43:32
  at. So you, but I don't want to put
• 43:36
  word in your mouth, so I'll ask as a question.
• 43:38
  Up to that point would you have said you were a good
• 43:42
  communicator though? Yeah, I had all.
• 43:45
  Yeah. Yeah, you, you were thinking
• 43:47
  communication was having the right answers.
• 43:49
  And here he comes in, says, dude, it's like talking to the
• 43:53
  back of my head. I there, there is no
• 43:55
  communication here. You got the answers, but you
• 43:57
  have no communication for those answers.
• 44:00
  Right, right. And you know, I didn't like to
• 44:02
  hear that at the time. It made me mad.
• 44:04
  And yeah, I resented him for quite some time, but he wasn't
• 44:09
  wrong. And, you know, I would like to
• 44:13
  say that Craig and I have a great relationship now, but we
• 44:16
  do remember those conflicts, right?
• 44:18
  And we talk about it now, you know, 20 years down the road.
• 44:22
  But it's, you know, it, it was hard to hear.
• 44:26
  But sometimes as a coach and a mentor, you have to deliver
• 44:29
  those messages that maybe aren't real comfortable to deliver so.
• 44:33
  So how did you I I love that there was an inflection point of
• 44:37
  like, whoa, what does he mean? Like I thought we were fine
• 44:40
  communication. What did you do going forward?
• 44:45
  Now you said you had a little bit of resentment towards them,
• 44:47
  which that's a that's a fair emotion.
• 44:48
  To be honest with you. I, I almost appreciate that more
• 44:53
  than if it would have been like an automatic like, Oh, I flipped
• 44:55
  right there. Because then if you flipped that
• 44:57
  fast on something, it always feels to me like, oh, well,
• 44:59
  you'll just flip to something else or back just as quickly,
• 45:02
  right? Like we need processes.
• 45:04
  Sometimes it has to take time. So was there.
• 45:09
  How did you continue to evolve Then when this you know, I'm a
• 45:11
  call it a punch hit you right. We all have a plan until you get
• 45:14
  punched in the mouth. Thank you for that quote, Mike
• 45:15
  Tyson. You start realizing like, oh,
• 45:18
  maybe maybe he's right. What do you do to improve?
• 45:23
  Well, I mean, he actually put me on kind of an improvement plan.
• 45:26
  You know, you needed other things and probably why I
• 45:30
  resented the hell out of it. But I mean, looking back, I
• 45:36
  think it was more one of those tough love kind of things
• 45:39
  because he's a great guy. He's not a bad dude.
• 45:43
  I'm sure he didn't want to deliver that message.
• 45:44
  Right. That's right.
• 45:47
  But you know, as as a supervisor and and a mentor, somebody who
• 45:51
  is telling you, hey, you need to do this, this and this, you
• 45:55
  know, it's probably one of the biggest favors he could have
• 45:58
  done for me. And you know how those lessons
• 46:01
  go, right? Dad punishes you for something,
• 46:03
  and 20 years down the road it's like, man, he was right.
• 46:06
  Yeah, yeah, I, you know, in workspaces and that includes our
• 46:11
  coaching Staffs, you know, we, there's a big prevalence of not
• 46:16
  having conflict. We think if we're not having
• 46:17
  conflict then we're all copacetic, We're we're
• 46:20
  communicating well, etcetera. And we forget that you know what
• 46:23
  any like deep meaning relationship.
• 46:26
  So with your parents or with a spouse, your children, conflict
• 46:31
  happens and that's how you resolve things and move forward.
• 46:34
  It's how you grow together, right?
• 46:35
  Yeah. I, I assume you said you have a
• 46:37
  20 year old. I assume you have a 20 year old
• 46:39
  that throughout those years you've had some, I'm gonna call
• 46:43
  them knockout track out, you know, however you want to define
• 46:44
  that. But you've had some real serious
• 46:46
  disagreements and they, we need to talk.
• 46:48
  And maybe with a spouse, maybe with your parents.
• 46:50
  I know I certainly can't think of that.
• 46:52
  But that's how we've grown. That's why I love my parents.
• 46:54
  That's why I love my wife. I love my kids.
• 46:56
  That those healthy conflicts grow us together.
• 47:00
  And when we get into an environment where it's like, oh,
• 47:03
  I don't want to say anything to Jason because that that he's
• 47:06
  going to disagree with that and we're going to have conflict and
• 47:08
  that's not going to be good for us.
• 47:09
  So I'll just tell him, yeah, Jason, you're doing a good job.
• 47:10
  Pat you on the back. We forget one of the greatest
• 47:13
  loves we can give people. I don't even say we forget it.
• 47:16
  We don't even know it. Sometimes one of the greatest
• 47:18
  loves we can give other people is healthy conflict.
• 47:21
  And and really all that is is accountability.
• 47:23
  Like, hey, Jason, I see you in the way you communicate.
• 47:27
  It's it's not healthy that that was a lot of love from Craig to
• 47:31
  you to say that because you could easily just fired you
• 47:35
  ignored you let you keep going. There's a lot of things and
• 47:38
  that's not, that's not love. That's not, that's not a
• 47:40
  relationship between A2 coaches on the staff.
• 47:42
  Like I, I commend him for that. And you're right.
• 47:46
  It's not like he wanted. It's not like, oh, you know
• 47:48
  what, today I'm going to piss Jason off.
• 47:50
  It was like, you know, probably finally came to a head is like,
• 47:52
  you know, this might this might piss Jason off, but he he needs
• 47:55
  to hear the truth so he can get better and we can get better.
• 47:59
  Yeah. And I mean, you know, we have
• 48:01
  discussions amongst our staff here at Irlam.
• 48:03
  I mean, and you know, Chris Christofiak, the head track
• 48:07
  coach here, he and I have some some differing opinions on how
• 48:11
  we coach sprinters, but you know, it's his ship and and we
• 48:14
  talk about it and you know, with with George, he's our he's our
• 48:19
  GA. You know, he's learning about
• 48:22
  all I'll see him pop into throws practice and learn stuff about
• 48:25
  that. And you know, he and I don't
• 48:27
  always agree on distance running philosophy and you know, how how
• 48:30
  we're doing things. And so we have those open
• 48:33
  discussions. One of the reasons I love the
• 48:35
  staff that we have is, you know, we have those discussions, we
• 48:38
  have those conflicts. And then when they sometimes the
• 48:42
  athletes will hear that there's discussions and they're like,
• 48:45
  why are you guys beefing? It's like we're not.
• 48:48
  We're absolutely not. We're just having a spirited
• 48:50
  debate on how to coach a 400m runner.
• 48:55
  And you know, that that's something that that too often
• 48:58
  probably doesn't happen with a lot of staff.
• 49:01
  So yeah. Well, we, we see the, yeah, I, I
• 49:04
  call it healthy conflict. We see.
• 49:06
  And sometimes it's born out of, you know, trauma as a big word
• 49:09
  of ourselves, as with our parents, we see unhealthy
• 49:12
  conflict, you know, when things go too far, whether it becomes
• 49:15
  physical or demeaning, etcetera. And so we then just cut off all
• 49:19
  conflicts like, well, I don't want that.
• 49:20
  I don't want that to happen to me in my relationship with
• 49:23
  whatever relationship that might be.
• 49:24
  So I'm just not going to confront it at all.
• 49:26
  And it's like, no, there is a almost like we talked about the,
• 49:29
  the coaching side of it, like there is a, a better side to it.
• 49:33
  You don't have to go to the extremes, no conflict or beating
• 49:37
  someone or demeaning someone. There is a healthy conflict in
• 49:40
  the middle of that as you and by the way, you you should and
• 49:44
  could not not could you are. I'm going to give you right now
• 49:46
  be commended to being open to receiving that and having some
• 49:51
  self-awareness because you easily could have put your heels
• 49:54
  in the ground and be like you are.
• 49:56
  You have brought something wrong with communication.
• 49:59
  Not me. I'm doing great.
• 50:01
  I'm 2425 years old. I'm doing the, I'm a coach.
• 50:03
  Where were you at 25? You know, you easily could have
• 50:06
  put the walls up and kept going down in a negative way.
• 50:10
  You know, it hit you and you were able to receive that
• 50:13
  through your seven years. As you start this journey of
• 50:17
  increasing and better communication, did you see your
• 50:20
  relationship with athletes change for the good?
• 50:24
  Yeah, I mean, you know, some of those athletes from Lees Mcgrae,
• 50:28
  they still talk to me every day or not every day, but quite
• 50:31
  often, you know, kind of Fast forward to when I was at
• 50:34
  Marietta, one of my high jumpers at Lees Mcgrae walks into my
• 50:37
  office and he's like, hey, old man, what's up?
• 50:40
  I'm like, Danny, what are you doing here?
• 50:42
  Right. He was the football referee for
• 50:46
  the game the next day. So, you know, I texted the
• 50:50
  football coach and it's like, hey, how many points do you want
• 50:52
  to I got? I got a guy.
• 50:58
  And so, you know, you see these people years later and there's
• 51:01
  they're still talking to you, they send you birthday cards,
• 51:04
  you know, they tell you, hey, you know, my wife is pregnant,
• 51:07
  I'm going to have a kid. You get invited.
• 51:09
  I've been to more weddings than I can count at this point.
• 51:13
  So it's always fun when when you make those kind of connections
• 51:17
  with people, you know, because at first there's just some, you
• 51:19
  know, snot nose, 18 year old kid, right?
• 51:22
  And then, and then you get them at them, right?
• 51:25
  You got to jump higher, run faster or something like that.
• 51:28
  And now you're, you're friends with them.
• 51:30
  You have relationships with these people.
• 51:31
  And at the end of the day that, that that's what it's about for
• 51:35
  me is, is the relationships that you establish with people and
• 51:39
  not necessarily the difference. Well, I guess it is the
• 51:41
  difference that you make in their life, right?
• 51:43
  You're not, you're not doing, you know, heart transplants or
• 51:46
  brain surgery or anything like that.
• 51:49
  Yeah, but then you go to the but you talk about the extreme
• 51:52
  there, Jason, you know, the extreme or people who can do
• 51:55
  heart transplants and brain surgeries and stuff like that,
• 51:58
  right? You know, 99.9% of the kids you
• 52:00
  have coached and will coach for the rest of your life are not
• 52:03
  going to go pro in track and field.
• 52:05
  It's just a, it's just a fact, right?
• 52:06
  But 100% of those kids are going to go on to become moms and dads
• 52:10
  and business owners and coaches and teachers and members of
• 52:13
  society. That is your greatest impact as
• 52:17
  a track coach that you can make them as great a high jumper
• 52:20
  grade as distance runner as possible.
• 52:23
  But there is a ceiling to to 99.9% of us in regards to, you
• 52:27
  know, becoming that as a, as a, as an adult.
• 52:31
  But we have no ceiling when it comes to how good of a parent
• 52:33
  can you be, How good of a member of how good of a neighbor can
• 52:36
  you be? How good of a business owner can
• 52:38
  you be? And that is what track coaches
• 52:40
  like yourself are doing by establishing these
• 52:43
  relationships. That is an impact.
• 52:44
  It makes it more fun for both of you.
• 52:45
  By the way, you know, as a, as a coach, it's more fun when kids
• 52:49
  walk into your office, you know, five years later or you get the
• 52:52
  wedding invitation That, that that's whether you go or don't
• 52:55
  go, whether you like or don't like to go to those kind of
• 52:57
  things. There is to your point, there's
• 52:59
  a smile. There's like, oh man, they
• 53:01
  thought enough of me. The reverse is true that that
• 53:05
  young man or young woman that is A253035 year old adult can look
• 53:10
  back at their time at Earlham today or Lisa McRae yesterday
• 53:14
  with you and say, wow, you know what, that was a positive part
• 53:18
  of my college experience because not everything is positive.
• 53:23
  They may have just a absolutely terrible major.
• 53:25
  They picked the wrong major and their professors are they don't
• 53:28
  get along or they they're homesick because they're
• 53:30
  whatever. There's many things that can
• 53:32
  make an experience negative. You having a positive experience
• 53:36
  with them is a is a much greater thing for them as they grow up
• 53:40
  to become non professional track runners.
• 53:41
  Because again, that's we're not, we're not Division One football,
• 53:45
  baseball, whatever, where it's like, oh, you know, part of my
• 53:47
  responsibility to help these kids make it to the, to the
• 53:49
  league or whatever. It's like, man, we don't, we
• 53:51
  don't have that. I'm sorry, that's that's I can't
• 53:53
  even make my fingers that small, but 100% are going to the league
• 53:57
  called life. They're going into society and
• 53:59
  that positive experience is a major, major, major factor in
• 54:03
  their quality of life. Right, right.
• 54:05
  And the wall behind me, we mentioned that before we got
• 54:08
  recorded, all of those things were given to me by athletes.
• 54:12
  The painting, the blocks on it, you see, was actually painted by
• 54:16
  an athlete at Marietta. She had an art showing and I saw
• 54:22
  the painting. I'm like, that's really cool,
• 54:24
  right? So a week later she comes in,
• 54:26
  it's wrapped up and on the back of it.
• 54:28
  It's got dinosaurs on it and she autographed.
• 54:30
  It's like you're a dynamite coach and like, come on, is is
• 54:38
  stuff that athletes have have shared with me.
• 54:41
  That's huge, dude. I love that story that the
• 54:45
  impact you made on her goes beyond track.
• 54:48
  By the way, you you gave her confidence in a in an attaboy in
• 54:52
  her with her. I don't know if she ended up
• 54:54
  becoming as a career, but as her in her passion, her hobby of
• 54:57
  painting. That was huge.
• 54:59
  You know how many people have ignored her paintings?
• 55:02
  100. Percent and you said something
• 55:06
  positive her that that made her day, made her her year.
• 55:09
  Bro that's so cool man I love that.
• 55:11
  She's she's actually doing really well for herself.
• 55:13
  She's working for the Diet, the Catholic diocese in Columbus.
• 55:18
  Ohio dude, OK. Doing like 9 and all that kind
• 55:20
  of. Stuff I wondered.
• 55:22
  Yeah. So she kept that.
• 55:22
  I love that. OK, Seven years at Lees McCray,
• 55:25
  you're on this journey of much better communication.
• 55:27
  It was just positively affecting the relationship you have with
• 55:30
  kids. Where do we go and why?
• 55:32
  Why'd we leave? We actually went to my my
• 55:36
  ex-wife had taken a job in Pennsylvania and our son was 3.
• 55:41
  So it's like, well, I guess we're moving to Pennsylvania,
• 55:43
  right. So I get on at Bloomsburg
• 55:46
  University coaching the the pole, the pole vaulters and the
• 55:51
  jumpers. Yeah, so.
• 55:54
  OK, thank you for saying that. So where is this coming from?
• 55:57
  And what I mean by that is the majority of our coaches are very
• 56:00
  singular focused. I'm a distance coach, I'm a
• 56:03
  throws coach, etcetera. One of the more important
• 56:06
  lessons, and there were many of them, that another person that
• 56:10
  has shuffled off this mortal called Brooks Johnson, he was a
• 56:13
  guest on the podcast. Brooks and a few other coaches,
• 56:16
  Harry Mayer and the like have really taught me and I did not
• 56:20
  when I was a coach, I did not subscribe to this.
• 56:22
  I hope I would have gotten there, but I certainly do now as
• 56:25
  a coach of coaches that you are not a distance coach, a pole
• 56:28
  vault coach, a throws coach, you are a track coach.
• 56:31
  All the events I remember Brooks and I'm paraphrasing a little
• 56:34
  bit here, said, you know, all the events are have the same
• 56:36
  goal move the center of mass, a specific, you know, some do it,
• 56:39
  you know, by going around and around like a discus and some do
• 56:42
  it by going down the runway and then popping up for a long jump.
• 56:45
  Distance runners do it, you know, for 25 laps, that's too
• 56:48
  many. But but you're a track like you
• 56:52
  should be a track coach first and foremost.
• 56:53
  I'm starting to hear this from you because I've I already knew
• 56:56
  throws and distance. That's an odd combination.
• 56:58
  I love that. And now you're adding pole vault
• 57:00
  and stuff into it. Where's this coming from?
• 57:03
  I mean, that was one of the things that Ron taught me,
• 57:05
  right? You can't just have your
• 57:07
  pigeonhole, right, Right, right. So it was, and it sounds bad
• 57:12
  now, but he's like, look, you know, you're, you're, you're a
• 57:15
  short white distance coach who's a guy.
• 57:19
  So you better learn how to do something else as far as that
• 57:22
  goes. And he really pushed me to
• 57:25
  broaden my horizons and expand stuff.
• 57:27
  And, you know, Ron really taught me a lot about the high jump.
• 57:32
  We disagree philosophically on a lot of stuff about the high
• 57:35
  jump, but that's where I got my start with the jumps was, I
• 57:38
  mean, Ron's arguably one of the best high jump coaches in the
• 57:40
  country. So, you know, learning a lot
• 57:44
  from him there and just, you know, not just pigeonholing
• 57:48
  yourself in the distance. Now, don't get me wrong, I love
• 57:50
  the distances, but, you know, I've also coached all Americans
• 57:55
  in the hurdles, high jump, things like that.
• 57:59
  So the important part is, you know, to do your research.
• 58:02
  And when I told you I was a track nerd, I mean, I'm always,
• 58:07
  you know, I've got the Jack Daniels book open on my desk
• 58:09
  here. You know, I've got some some
• 58:12
  articles and some paperwork that Judd and I shared over the years
• 58:16
  on the other side of the desk about throws and you know.
• 58:20
  What you know, again, I, I truly believe in, in the majority of
• 58:25
  cases we coach how we were coached until we learn more
• 58:29
  etcetera. And that boils down to what we
• 58:30
  coach as well, right. So you were a distance and now
• 58:33
  you had a strong influence with Ron about these other events,
• 58:36
  but you were you were a distance kid as an athlete, you were a
• 58:38
  distance kid. But to learn these other events
• 58:41
  can sometimes be daunting for a couple reasons.
• 58:44
  One, right, we never did them. Or maybe, you know, you're on a
• 58:47
  college team. You had some buddies that are
• 58:48
  long jumpers and you're like, oh, I could do that.
• 58:49
  And you go try and you're like, holy crap, that's hard.
• 58:51
  And now that becomes intimidation of like, I couldn't
• 58:53
  even do the long jump, triple jump, whatever.
• 58:55
  What have you done up to this point?
• 58:58
  As we get to Bloomsburg for coaching education, I'm hearing
• 59:02
  I, I, I tend to take coaching education in two ways, formal
• 59:06
  and informal. Formal being our USATF
• 59:08
  certifications, USTFCA, Altis, things like that.
• 59:12
  Informal, and neither is more important by the way, is
• 59:16
  mentorship and I'm hearing a lot of that with Ron and Judd and
• 59:19
  things like that. What, what are you done up to
• 59:21
  this point to learn these pole vaults and throws?
• 59:23
  What else have you done at this point coaching education wise?
• 59:27
  It was more informal, you know, so asking people.
• 59:31
  And there's a guy in, in Cincinnati, OH, Andy Wolf, his
• 59:35
  son pole vaulted at at Wilmington, kind of the
• 59:40
  correspond of my time there. He was one of the best high
• 59:42
  school pole vault coaches that I knew.
• 59:45
  So I absorbed a lot from Andy, absorbed a lot from Lou over
• 59:50
  there at Grand Valley State. Lou Andreas, He was, he was also
• 59:54
  coached by Andy Wolf. So kind of a kind of a big
• 59:58
  connection there, you know? I knew he was a Cincinnati kids.
• 1:00:01
  That makes sense, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:00:02
  So you know, talking a lot with with those folks, you know,
• 1:00:06
  talking with Judd and asking coaches that meet.
• 1:00:09
  So, you know, hey, what do you do, you know, how talk about the
• 1:00:13
  foot position and at triple jump and just all of this stuff.
• 1:00:16
  And then of course, going to coaching clinics and, you know,
• 1:00:19
  absorbing that stuff. I do have my level 1
• 1:00:22
  certification, but I find it less important than the informal
• 1:00:27
  stuff. You know, kind of like, have you
• 1:00:29
  ever seen the movie Goodwill Hunting?
• 1:00:31
  You know, I can get an education on $5 worth of the library.
• 1:00:37
  That's kind of my philosophy on that, right?
• 1:00:39
  I mean, I, I think the way you learn things in an informal,
• 1:00:42
  real world setting are more important than, you know, that
• 1:00:46
  piece of paper you've got hanging on your wall.
• 1:00:48
  Yeah, I, I, I don't know if I'd hard push back on that.
• 1:00:51
  I think the, the certifications, whether it's USATFUSTFCA, Altus,
• 1:00:56
  etcetera play into it. However, there are high value.
• 1:01:02
  However, I'm kind of contradicting myself cuz I think
• 1:01:05
  about like, I guess what I'm saying is like these
• 1:01:06
  certifications be like a level 1 because it is every event.
• 1:01:10
  I'm like, you know, I think a throat code should know about
• 1:01:12
  distance and, and things like that, even though they may not
• 1:01:14
  ever use them. But on the same hand, I'll tell
• 1:01:16
  you, I don't, I'm not necessarily agreeing with
• 1:01:18
  college that they have to study all these Gen.
• 1:01:20
  Ed stuff. Like, you know, if you want to
• 1:01:22
  be an English major, you should probably just do English in my
• 1:01:24
  opinion, you know, or maybe not as much as the other.
• 1:01:27
  I don't think you need math and things like that.
• 1:01:28
  So I'm kind of speaking out of both sides of my mouth.
• 1:01:30
  However, level ones and such extremely valuable for our high
• 1:01:35
  school coaches who are typically going to coach a lot of
• 1:01:37
  different events, but also for our college coaches.
• 1:01:41
  Even if you're never going to coach, if you're a throws coach
• 1:01:43
  and you take level 1 and you, you, you think you're going to
• 1:01:45
  sleep through the distance portion.
• 1:01:46
  It's like, you know, but it gives you respect for the
• 1:01:48
  distance guys and gals like, so you understand, you have more
• 1:01:51
  empathy for your distance coach when you're on staff and your
• 1:01:54
  distance athletes of like, oh, you know, you the other kids are
• 1:01:57
  making fun, but guys, they're working hard.
• 1:01:59
  They're, they're, they're, they're working differently, but
• 1:02:01
  they're working hard. So I think that base of level
• 1:02:03
  ones and stuff are important. And then as you get more into
• 1:02:05
  level twos and things like that, I think those are highly
• 1:02:08
  important. I don't discount the informal
• 1:02:10
  though. I think that's very, very
• 1:02:12
  important. We talk about hallway talks all
• 1:02:15
  the time at convention and level twos and things like that.
• 1:02:18
  Many, many of good things have been learned by late nights and
• 1:02:22
  1:00 in the morning. Yeah.
• 1:02:24
  And that's, I mean, I remember when I had a a thrower at I was
• 1:02:28
  at Lake Superior State up in Michigan and this kid was 6 foot
• 1:02:31
  10 inches tall, shot put into my door.
• 1:02:37
  His dad was even taller. So I asked dad if he want to
• 1:02:39
  come throw for me too. But this kid was a glider.
• 1:02:43
  He was a state champ in Michigan.
• 1:02:46
  And you know, here I am sitting in a bar.
• 1:02:48
  My wife was my ex-wife was watching a beauty pageant on TV.
• 1:02:51
  So I walked to the local bar and I'm texting Judd Logan, doing
• 1:02:55
  the math on a bar napkin, right, trying to turn this kid into a
• 1:02:58
  rotational shot putter. So the text I sent John is, hey,
• 1:03:02
  you got this kid who's 610, thinking about switching him to
• 1:03:05
  rotation. Will it work?
• 1:03:07
  And he texted me back. Ryan Krauser, 6-7.
• 1:03:11
  OK, that's all I need to know. That's.
• 1:03:13
  Right, that's a good answer. So, you know, he's like check
• 1:03:17
  into the their technique and and see what you can transfer over.
• 1:03:22
  So he didn't give me the answer, but he put pointed me in the
• 1:03:25
  right direction. And you know, we, we ended up
• 1:03:28
  switching him to be a, a rotator in the shot put and he added
• 1:03:32
  three meters to his throw. So I mean, you know, it not, not
• 1:03:38
  initially, right? Initially it got worse.
• 1:03:41
  And you know, I had to keep hammering to him.
• 1:03:43
  Hey, look, you got to get stick with it, right?
• 1:03:44
  You got to pick your girl and marry her and you, you got to be
• 1:03:47
  committed to this. And, you know, when we, we took
• 1:03:51
  that step back, it was frustrating ultimately knowing
• 1:03:54
  that we're going to take three steps forward.
• 1:03:58
  And you know, credit to the kid, he was super patient and, you
• 1:04:02
  know, really, really took on to it and and did well with it.
• 1:04:06
  And 610 thanks for being tall, because that's the one thing you
• 1:04:09
  couldn't coach. Yeah, he was big and strong.
• 1:04:12
  There's two things I can't. Teach, right?
• 1:04:13
  That's amazing. Holy cow.
• 1:04:15
  So Bloomsburg to Lake Superior. Went from Bloomsburg to
• 1:04:19
  Susquehanna. OK all.
• 1:04:21
  Right. The Hornets or something like
• 1:04:25
  that. They were The Crusaders when I
• 1:04:27
  was there. Oh, I didn't know this one.
• 1:04:30
  They're the River Hawks now. River Hawk?
• 1:04:32
  I thought they were some kind of, well, obviously not.
• 1:04:35
  I'm thinking of someone else then.
• 1:04:36
  OK. Yeah.
• 1:04:38
  River Hawks though, I like river Hawks.
• 1:04:40
  Yeah, the whole controversy over the mascot after I had left.
• 1:04:43
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, they were The Crusaders.
• 1:04:46
  They were The Crusaders. Yeah.
• 1:04:48
  Is that your history major? Teach me, is that because the
• 1:04:52
  conquerors of of Native Americans, is that what that is?
• 1:04:54
  Because they're The Crusaders, not a Native American.
• 1:04:58
  No, the Crusades were, something happened in the Middle Ages when
• 1:05:03
  we're fighting the Muslims because we're fighting the
• 1:05:06
  Muslims over in the in the Middle East and stuff.
• 1:05:09
  OK. Root of that conflict has been
• 1:05:12
  going on for hundreds of years, right?
• 1:05:16
  But yeah, we were The Crusaders at the time.
• 1:05:19
  And so that became the controversy, what the Crusades
• 1:05:22
  and Crusaders did. Right.
• 1:05:24
  Yeah, that was the time everybody was changing the
• 1:05:26
  mascots because of the political correct stuff.
• 1:05:29
  Yeah, yeah. But it's interesting because you
• 1:05:31
  typically hear about it for schools that had Native American
• 1:05:34
  mascot, you know, RedHawks and you know, Indians and all that
• 1:05:38
  kind of stuff. I don't know that I've heard it.
• 1:05:41
  I mean, I will, you know, we start at the beginning, Elon,
• 1:05:43
  change from the fighting Christians.
• 1:05:45
  So I guess there have been some religious changes as well.
• 1:05:49
  You know, religious mascots may be changing too.
• 1:05:51
  That's interesting. I never really heard about that.
• 1:05:54
  Yeah, as our sensitivities change, I mean, obviously have
• 1:05:58
  to soften some of our language to be more inclusive, right?
• 1:06:02
  Yeah, I don't find anything wrong with that.
• 1:06:04
  To be real frank with you, societies changed.
• 1:06:07
  And if they don't, well, that's not a good thing either, in my
• 1:06:09
  opinion. So, OK, Bloomsburg, how do you
• 1:06:13
  I? I think I pronounced it wrong
• 1:06:15
  every time. Susquehanna.
• 1:06:17
  Susquehanna. Susquehanna.
• 1:06:19
  OK, so Susquehanna, what did you coach there?
• 1:06:23
  Because you seem to be coaching something different every place
• 1:06:25
  you go to. I was coaching the jumpers
• 1:06:27
  there. Yeah, of course you were.
• 1:06:30
  Coached a lot of, I think we said almost every school record
• 1:06:34
  in the jumps when I was there. They have since been eclipsed.
• 1:06:38
  Great, thankfully, right, Because you always want the
• 1:06:40
  program to move forward. That's right.
• 1:06:42
  But I, I coached a young lady there, Kristen Stam.
• 1:06:46
  She's now the jumps coach at Bloomsburg University.
• 1:06:50
  Wow. She's been there for, Oh my,
• 1:06:52
  about 10 years now. Does this make you have coached
• 1:06:56
  every event as we're at Susquehanna?
• 1:07:00
  Does this make every event you've coached now?
• 1:07:02
  I've coached every event except the race walk.
• 1:07:05
  Yeah, OK. Do you have a favorite?
• 1:07:08
  Honestly love the throws. Yeah, why so?
• 1:07:13
  It's just, if it's done right, it's a thing of beauty, you
• 1:07:16
  know, particularly the hammer throw.
• 1:07:17
  It's, it's just something that you know, it's, it's beautiful
• 1:07:21
  to watch. And if it's done wrong, it's
• 1:07:25
  kind of a crap show, right? Yeah, that's a good boy.
• 1:07:29
  Yeah. I used to go early to practice
• 1:07:31
  every institution I've been at just to watch hammer throwers.
• 1:07:34
  It's just a it is a work of art. It's it's amazing.
• 1:07:37
  That's it's a fun event. I love it.
• 1:07:41
  Least favorite event to coach? Honestly, probably the 100 meter
• 1:07:47
  dash. Yeah, what's that?
• 1:07:50
  Because it's, to me, it's the most simple, right?
• 1:07:52
  And there's a lot of things that go into the 100.
• 1:07:54
  You got your start, you got your drive phase, you got all of that
• 1:07:56
  stuff. It's just over so fast now, to
• 1:08:01
  be honest with you. As if I were going to run an
• 1:08:04
  event and I didn't want to get embarrassed if I did bad, it'd
• 1:08:07
  be the 100. You're only in front of people
• 1:08:10
  for 15 seconds, right? You know you're running the 10K,
• 1:08:14
  you've got 25 laps to show everybody that you're having.
• 1:08:17
  That, you know, I love that you said that because you know, my
• 1:08:21
  experience being especially when I coached high school, but my
• 1:08:23
  experience is that, you know, when you have an athlete in high
• 1:08:26
  school specifically that maybe, you know, depending on where
• 1:08:29
  they are, whether it's I was going to say God-given, but God
• 1:08:33
  not given, you know, they don't have the genetics for it or what
• 1:08:36
  not. People always tend to throw them
• 1:08:38
  into the mile or the two mile, right?
• 1:08:39
  And they and you know, they're out there forever and they're
• 1:08:42
  getting lapped. It's not a good experience.
• 1:08:43
  And I've always said if you, if you have a kid that just doesn't
• 1:08:46
  have an event meet, you know, there's, you know, getting
• 1:08:49
  talent, genetics or genetics, put them in the 100.
• 1:08:51
  Because even if they get blown out by a second, which, you
• 1:08:54
  know, it's a big deal in the 100, it doesn't look that bad.
• 1:08:58
  And they're not getting lapped. They're off the track in 15
• 1:09:02
  seconds. They're not.
• 1:09:03
  I, I remember we used to, when I was at Troy University, we used
• 1:09:06
  to host the small school state meet in, in Alabama, the one A2A
• 1:09:09
  and 3A. And I, I, this is a memory just
• 1:09:13
  burned into my head. You know, it wasn't that hard,
• 1:09:15
  especially for the smaller schools to qualify for the state
• 1:09:18
  meet. Now it's still, you know, I
• 1:09:20
  always say, I don't care. Well, you know, you talked about
• 1:09:23
  being all conference and you started caveatting it a little
• 1:09:25
  bit from high school going, well, you know, it's a small
• 1:09:27
  area, blah, blah. You don't have control over
• 1:09:28
  that. You don't have control over who
• 1:09:29
  lives in your area. You only have control to beat or
• 1:09:32
  not beat the kids that are in front of you.
• 1:09:33
  And you did that to make all conference.
• 1:09:35
  So so when someone says like, Oh, I was, you know, I made to
• 1:09:38
  the state meet, but you know, it was in Alabama or whatever, I'm
• 1:09:41
  like, bro, you didn't you couldn't control that.
• 1:09:43
  You could have not. By the way, a lot of people
• 1:09:45
  didn't make all conference. A lot of people didn't make it
• 1:09:47
  to state. That's an opportunity as well.
• 1:09:50
  But you did it. You made it to state.
• 1:09:52
  So, yeah, wasn't all that hard to make it to state in these
• 1:09:54
  small school divisions. And I remember this one is a 2
• 1:09:57
  mile and this young lady, you know, she's getting laughed.
• 1:10:01
  I mean, just it was bad and and she's passing the home stretch
• 1:10:05
  every time she's waving to her family.
• 1:10:07
  And I remember, yeah, I was a little bit like you early in my
• 1:10:10
  coaching career of like, you know, you know, just I don't
• 1:10:13
  want to call it anger issues, but I was like, you know, the
• 1:10:15
  letter of the law, the spirit of the sport, like you're
• 1:10:17
  disrespecting the sport. I remember getting so angry.
• 1:10:19
  Like, I don't care that she was slow, but race like be in the
• 1:10:24
  not this isn't Showtime with your parents every time you come
• 1:10:27
  around. And like, and then, you know, I
• 1:10:29
  look back, you know, 20-30 years later and I'm like, what did it
• 1:10:31
  matter? Even if she had a race, she
• 1:10:33
  wasn't going to like she wasn't going to win because of that.
• 1:10:36
  That would have changed her life or her station in the in the
• 1:10:39
  race. It's like, you know, just rely.
• 1:10:41
  That's what the rules were. So that's that's where they
• 1:10:44
  were. This young lady got to go to
• 1:10:45
  state. I don't know where I'm going
• 1:10:46
  with any of this, Jason, I just I agree with you in the 100
• 1:10:51
  meter dash. That's where maybe we should put
• 1:10:53
  some of our, you know, kids who just don't have a an event.
• 1:10:58
  Let's not have a bad experience with them.
• 1:10:59
  Don't put them out there and get lapped 100 times.
• 1:11:01
  I'm with you on that. I think I think that was my
• 1:11:03
  point. Yeah, well, I mean my athletic
• 1:11:05
  journey, I thought I was an 800m runner starting now.
• 1:11:09
  Turns out I was a 10K marathon guy so I was blessed with a big
• 1:11:14
  aerobic engine that seems like. That seems like a bunch of bad
• 1:11:17
  ideas kept stacking on themselves and you're like, you
• 1:11:20
  know, 10K not enough, let's keep going.
• 1:11:23
  I mean, yeah, I mean we used to get, I used to get up every
• 1:11:26
  morning, every Sunday morning and go for a 20 mile run and get
• 1:11:32
  up, take a shower, go run 20 miles, take another shower and
• 1:11:34
  hit the buffet and right eat everything at sight.
• 1:11:37
  So. Yeah, what?
• 1:11:38
  How many marathons have you run? 3.
• 1:11:41
  That's crazy. What?
• 1:11:42
  What kind of time? My first one was 2 hours and 40
• 1:11:46
  minutes dude and I got down to like 221 so.
• 1:11:50
  Yeah, Holy my, our our CEO who's been on the show, David Hodge,
• 1:11:54
  his son ran for Baylor, was a 10K kid there, you know, solid.
• 1:11:58
  But you know, he's in the Big 12, which, you know, Oklahoma
• 1:12:00
  State and those guys. It's just silly.
• 1:12:02
  He ran his first marathon. He lives in and works in Little
• 1:12:05
  Rock now and ran. I think he's, I think it was 231
• 1:12:09
  or something like that. And I was like, bro, that's
• 1:12:11
  pretty, that's what I'm saying for your initial marathon for
• 1:12:13
  not being a, you know, he wasn't a all American or something like
• 1:12:17
  that. You know, he was a solid college
• 1:12:19
  10K kid. I'm like, bro, 2:31, that's
• 1:12:22
  that's pretty solid, man. I'm impressed with that.
• 1:12:25
  I couldn't do 2:30 for well, I mean, not even for half.
• 1:12:28
  Like I wanted to joke say the half marathon, but not not even
• 1:12:30
  close. Maybe a 10K maybe, maybe.
• 1:12:32
  OK, let's keep going. Bloomsburg.
• 1:12:35
  Susquehanna. Did I say it right?
• 1:12:37
  Susquehanna. Susquehanna.
• 1:12:37
  Yeah. Susquehanna.
• 1:12:39
  Dang it. Susquehanna.
• 1:12:41
  Susquehanna to Lake. Superior state.
• 1:12:44
  Lake Superior State, I was pointing to northern Ohio.
• 1:12:47
  I don't know if you caught that. Lake Superior State, which
• 1:12:50
  that's had a lot of success. There's been some great high
• 1:12:52
  jumpers come through there as well.
• 1:12:54
  Speaking of high jump. Yeah, I actually coached the pen
• 1:12:57
  relations champion up there in the high jump.
• 1:12:59
  Is that right? Dude, and you get a, if you
• 1:13:03
  wouldn't like a field of it, you get a gold watch.
• 1:13:06
  And the kid didn't keep the watch.
• 1:13:08
  He sent it home to Texas with his dad.
• 1:13:10
  Wow. So this kid was a great
• 1:13:13
  individual. He is a mechanical engineer now,
• 1:13:16
  works for the automotive company.
• 1:13:19
  And he, I missed my son's birthday.
• 1:13:21
  It was like my son's 8th birthday.
• 1:13:24
  And he's like, well, what size T-shirt does your son wear?
• 1:13:27
  So he goes to the vendor, buys AT shirt and signs the shirt.
• 1:13:30
  Hey, Ian, sorry, sorry your dad missed your birthday.
• 1:13:34
  Pen Relays champion signed his name.
• 1:13:37
  That's cool. Again, you talk about
• 1:13:39
  relationship with people and shout out to that kid because he
• 1:13:43
  was a kid. It's easy for him to that this
• 1:13:47
  doesn't register that you missed your kids birthday.
• 1:13:49
  You know, it's easy for him to be like, yeah, OK, well, my dad
• 1:13:51
  missed mine too. But to understand like almost
• 1:13:54
  like I was a father himself at that point, like, oh man, that's
• 1:13:56
  a big deal. I'm and you're doing that
• 1:13:58
  because of me, by the way, I'm sorry about that.
• 1:13:59
  What's what's a small gesture I can do?
• 1:14:01
  And he did that. That's so cool, man.
• 1:14:03
  Again, the leadership of the coaches, that's you're part of
• 1:14:06
  that man, that is so cool. Yeah, I've been blessed to have
• 1:14:09
  some, some really good people. Every stop.
• 1:14:13
  I've been, you know, people who are receptive to new ideas
• 1:14:17
  because I don't do things the conventional way.
• 1:14:20
  You know, people look at some of my workouts and they're like,
• 1:14:22
  you know what? What is this guy thinking?
• 1:14:24
  I always like to challenge that and and because I'm the host, so
• 1:14:27
  I get to do whatever I want without getting into X's and
• 1:14:30
  O's. And maybe this conversation
• 1:14:31
  can't happen without X's and O's.
• 1:14:32
  What do you mean you, you do, you don't do things the the
• 1:14:36
  conventional way. What is that?
• 1:14:37
  I, I was like when people say that, like I, I had a, we had a
• 1:14:40
  guest on the show that it was a club coach and, and you know,
• 1:14:44
  we're talking about the relationship between high school
• 1:14:46
  and club coaches and the club coaches.
• 1:14:47
  Well, you know, I do more college style workouts.
• 1:14:49
  I was like, what the hell does that mean?
• 1:14:50
  What do you mean? You tell me the high school
• 1:14:52
  coach didn't do some things because like, well, that's what
• 1:14:54
  the college do. Like that doesn't make sense at
• 1:14:56
  all. And, and you know, he, he
• 1:14:57
  backtracked. He's like, you know, you're,
• 1:14:59
  you're right. Because maybe we did more film
• 1:15:01
  study than my high school coach could do because, well, because
• 1:15:04
  they're a teacher, for crying out loud.
• 1:15:05
  I was like, OK, that makes more sense.
• 1:15:07
  So when I hear a coach say I don't do things the conventional
• 1:15:10
  way, first of all, that scares me because I'm like, well, I do
• 1:15:12
  believe there is a way to coach athletes.
• 1:15:14
  So I'm like, what are you doing here?
• 1:15:16
  What does that mean when you say that?
• 1:15:18
  Well, for example, when when you're talking distance running
• 1:15:21
  in particular, since that's what I'm currently doing, you know, a
• 1:15:25
  lot of times you'll do tempo tempo runs like you know, a a
• 1:15:29
  straight four mile tempo or you know, a 222 by 2 1/2 mile tempo.
• 1:15:35
  I'll break it down into minutes. You know, we do what's called a
• 1:15:38
  7 and down tempo. So you do your continuous motion
• 1:15:41
  thing, you do your warm up and then go right into your 7
• 1:15:44
  minutes of tempo, a minute jog, 6 minutes of tempo, a minute
• 1:15:48
  jog. It kind of you get the same in
• 1:15:52
  the same impact that you want out of the the straight four
• 1:15:54
  mile tempo, but you might be able to get more distance out of
• 1:15:57
  it because you got that minute jog in between.
• 1:16:01
  I do have to caution my athletes once you get down to that three
• 1:16:04
  minute, 2 minute, one minute window, not to go too fast.
• 1:16:07
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, to stay at the same
• 1:16:09
  tempo you're doing at 7 minutes. Easy to do, yeah.
• 1:16:13
  So and a lot of athletes have never seen that.
• 1:16:18
  I don't. Know if that's unconventional,
• 1:16:20
  right? But that's a style.
• 1:16:22
  I think that and it may be unique to you.
• 1:16:25
  I'm sure you know, let's Boy, I hate to tell.
• 1:16:28
  So. What'd you say?
• 1:16:30
  I said I'm sure I'm not the only one doing it.
• 1:16:31
  OK. That's what I was about to say.
• 1:16:32
  Because sometimes I have to remind people, myself included,
• 1:16:35
  we're not special in the scheme of things.
• 1:16:37
  We're typically average, right? You know, and what I mean by
• 1:16:40
  that here with you, Jason, is like, I'm sure someone, I was
• 1:16:42
  going to say the exact same thing you said.
• 1:16:43
  I'm sure someone is doing that. But you're still, that is still
• 1:16:48
  following the air quotes here. Letter of the law of a tempo,
• 1:16:51
  though, like here, you don't say, hey, you know, some people
• 1:16:53
  do tempo by doing XY and Z. You know how I do tempo?
• 1:16:56
  I do 100 meter repeats. You know, it's like, well, OK,
• 1:16:58
  well, first of all, that's not tempo, bro.
• 1:17:00
  That's not unconventional. That's just wrong as your naming
• 1:17:04
  scheme. So so you have a style and but
• 1:17:07
  your but your style seems like it's it's rooted in like the
• 1:17:12
  fundamentals, if you will, like it's that's real thing.
• 1:17:14
  You you tell me that seven, you know, cut down and I'm like, oh,
• 1:17:18
  OK, well, you know, we're not putting anybody in danger.
• 1:17:20
  You're not you're not again, you know, bashing the law of physics
• 1:17:24
  and biology like that. That makes sense to me.
• 1:17:26
  So it's rooted in the fundamentals of how to coach the
• 1:17:29
  event. Yeah, it's, it's rooted in
• 1:17:32
  fundamentals and you know, I've done things, you know, with,
• 1:17:35
  with the throws, if you don't have the resources to get, you
• 1:17:38
  know, certain equipment, I've done hammer throw technique
• 1:17:41
  using a folding chair, right. And you get around with the
• 1:17:43
  chair, you get good enough at it.
• 1:17:46
  I'll let you throw the chair across the arena.
• 1:17:47
  But but you know, it's just sometimes when you, when you
• 1:17:53
  come from programs that don't have the resources or you don't
• 1:17:55
  have the facilities, you, you get real creative real fast.
• 1:17:59
  That's right. Resourcefulness, absolutely.
• 1:18:01
  That's exactly right. I agree.
• 1:18:03
  With that, our assistant AD here, coach track here for a
• 1:18:07
  time. So I competed against him.
• 1:18:10
  He's a, he's an Earl grad. So and he came here in 1997 and
• 1:18:16
  hasn't left. But I remember seeing him and
• 1:18:19
  when I interviewed for the job here at Earlham, he's like, man,
• 1:18:21
  I don't remember you. And it's like, well, back then I
• 1:18:23
  had really long hair and wore sunglasses a lot.
• 1:18:28
  So he's like, oh, I remember that guy.
• 1:18:33
  But he, you know, he, he always says, you know, it's track and
• 1:18:35
  field. You find a dusty corner
• 1:18:36
  somewhere and you make it work. That's right.
• 1:18:38
  That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
• 1:18:40
  So Bloomsburg, Susquehanna, Lake Superior, Irlam.
• 1:18:47
  Marietta. That's right.
• 1:18:49
  You did mention Marietta Irlam. Yeah, OK.
• 1:18:52
  You have gotten me beat in the number of institutions that
• 1:18:55
  you've coached at. Why so many institutions?
• 1:19:00
  And, and I'm not judging when I say that, that there's a reason
• 1:19:03
  why you moved. And, and by the way, 0 judgement
• 1:19:06
  on people that move jobs, by the way, because there is always
• 1:19:09
  some reason. And by the way, higher pay is an
• 1:19:11
  extremely positive reason in my opinion.
• 1:19:15
  Like I, I'm tired of our, in our sport, our profession of
• 1:19:18
  coaching track and field where people say it's not, I'm not in
• 1:19:21
  it for the money and I don't do it for the money.
• 1:19:22
  And it's like, yeah, you know, I don't want that to be your
• 1:19:24
  number one thing necessarily for any job, sales, etcetera.
• 1:19:28
  But money makes the world go round.
• 1:19:30
  Money buys your house, money buys your charities, your
• 1:19:33
  passion, your life outside of work.
• 1:19:36
  So we need to be making money. So if you can go from one
• 1:19:38
  institution to the next and raise your pay scale, brother, I
• 1:19:41
  am all for it. So I don't judge when I say why
• 1:19:45
  the the you've got a lot and you're not that old, Jason.
• 1:19:48
  I'm not talking to an 80 year old Jason Davis yet.
• 1:19:50
  Yeah, that that's a lot of schools.
• 1:19:53
  Yeah, it is so Wilmington, obviously that was the first
• 1:19:56
  stop and it was a temporary thing to get my foot in the
• 1:19:59
  door. And then of course, Mount Saint
• 1:20:02
  Joseph, the disaster that that I made it.
• 1:20:05
  That's right. So I mean, I made myself so
• 1:20:09
  miserable I had to quit that job, right?
• 1:20:12
  So my my ex-wife had moved down to took a job as an athletic
• 1:20:18
  trainer, at least McRae. Right, right.
• 1:20:21
  By the way, I'm sorry to interrupt.
• 1:20:23
  You know, I do think things happen for the right reasons and
• 1:20:27
  that you are you are where you are supposed to be right now.
• 1:20:30
  Doesn't mean that's a good situation or a bad situation.
• 1:20:32
  It doesn't mean that's the, the, the, the situation for the rest
• 1:20:36
  of your life. But I think like, as you were
• 1:20:39
  talking about your time at Mount Saint Joseph, I was like, oh
• 1:20:42
  man, you know, I wish you'd been able to learn earlier.
• 1:20:44
  You could have, you know, maybe you'd be at Mount Saint Joseph
• 1:20:46
  today in a 30 year career or there and all that kind of
• 1:20:48
  stuff, right? But then I started thinking is
• 1:20:50
  like, oh, wait, if you don't have that experience at Mount
• 1:20:54
  Saint Joseph. And by the way, I really
• 1:20:56
  appreciate and I got to make sure we call this out.
• 1:20:58
  I love you pointing thumbs, not fingers.
• 1:21:00
  You didn't say, you didn't let anything get in the way of what
• 1:21:04
  happened there. You didn't say the environment,
• 1:21:05
  the school, the they only had women's cross.
• 1:21:07
  What you said I made that environment bad.
• 1:21:09
  So I appreciate that. That is a strong statement, a
• 1:21:13
  strong leadership statement. But then you go to Lee's McRae.
• 1:21:16
  I think you had to have that situation at Mount Saint Joseph
• 1:21:21
  to go to Lee's McRae and then for for coach to say, Hey, man,
• 1:21:25
  I feel like I'm talking the back of my head when I talk to you.
• 1:21:28
  Like I think that I think it's a big inflection point for your
• 1:21:30
  life, brother, as a specifically in your profession here.
• 1:21:33
  I think it's a big inflection that had to happen or you may
• 1:21:37
  not be here today, meaning you might not be in the profession,
• 1:21:40
  you might not be at Herlum, etcetera.
• 1:21:42
  So I think what happened about Saint Joseph, I'm glad it
• 1:21:44
  happened. I hate that it happened, but I'm
• 1:21:46
  glad it happened because that enabled you to OK, I got to get
• 1:21:48
  out of here. I'm this is not healthy for
• 1:21:51
  anybody. You go to Lisa McCray and you
• 1:21:52
  kind of get hit in the head and that starts a journey of better
• 1:21:55
  communication, etcetera. So I just want to point out, I
• 1:21:58
  think wherever you are today, where your feet are is exactly
• 1:22:01
  where you're supposed to be today.
• 1:22:02
  So make the absolute best of it, learning etcetera.
• 1:22:06
  And it may be something else tomorrow that's different, you
• 1:22:08
  know, different location, etcetera.
• 1:22:10
  But I think where you are today, good or bad, is exactly where
• 1:22:12
  you're supposed to be. So sorry to interrupt, but I
• 1:22:14
  just that really hit me when you were talking about that.
• 1:22:16
  I love that. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:17
  I mean, and that's, I mean, and a lot of my, you know, when I
• 1:22:21
  went down to Mount Saint Joseph, Oregon, none.
• 1:22:23
  Or when I went down to Lee's McRae, I moved back down to an
• 1:22:27
  assistant coach. So.
• 1:22:30
  That's right. You were a head coach at 23.
• 1:22:32
  No business being a head coach there.
• 1:22:34
  Yeah, honestly, God. No, no, No 20. 3 year old
• 1:22:36
  administration, that's a you know, they should be pointing
• 1:22:39
  their own thumbs, not fingers of they made a mistake with that,
• 1:22:42
  I'm sorry. And if you're listening, you're
• 1:22:43
  a 23 year old head coach. God bless you.
• 1:22:45
  You're not ready. You're not, you're not.
• 1:22:47
  I challenge that you're doing it right and I hope you're not
• 1:22:49
  doing it right because that means you have room to grow.
• 1:22:51
  If you're already doing it right, which no one is, there's
• 1:22:53
  no room to grow. So you'll, you'll grow.
• 1:22:55
  But man, get, if you are a young, young head coach, you
• 1:22:59
  know, not a lot of experience, I just implore you to get a
• 1:23:03
  mentor, get someone, you know, get an accountability buddy out
• 1:23:07
  there that's going to hold your feet to the fire or else you're
• 1:23:10
  going to make the experience of those athletes atrocious.
• 1:23:14
  And that's, that's, that's bad for you and them, by the way,
• 1:23:16
  that's nothing good is coming from that.
• 1:23:18
  So, So, yeah, you, you go to an assistant coach.
• 1:23:21
  So you get to get much, much smaller responsibilities and you
• 1:23:25
  get a head coach and other coaches around you to help with
• 1:23:27
  accountability. Yep.
• 1:23:29
  Yeah, and a lot of my movement was, you know, when, when my
• 1:23:33
  ex-wife, ex-wife would find a new job, we would.
• 1:23:35
  We would. She was a trainer, an athletic
• 1:23:38
  trainer. She's an athletic.
• 1:23:40
  She was an athletic trainer. She's currently a Wellness
• 1:23:42
  coach. And your athletic training
• 1:23:44
  skills. So lot, lot less hours, a lot
• 1:23:49
  more money. Yeah, sweet.
• 1:23:50
  It was always good. You know, me just being a track
• 1:23:54
  coach, right, would follow the money essentially, which which
• 1:23:57
  would have been her. Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:23:59
  So that's what precipitated the move to Pennsylvania, moved to
• 1:24:03
  Michigan was me. And then the move down to Ohio
• 1:24:08
  was again pursuing her career. She got an opportunity at
• 1:24:11
  Muskingum University. Oh yeah, and she's like, that's
• 1:24:15
  one of the cooler mascots too, by the way.
• 1:24:17
  I can't think of the name, but I can see the the image.
• 1:24:21
  It's like a mud shark or something like that or.
• 1:24:23
  It's a musky. Yeah, that's it.
• 1:24:26
  Yeah. It's a pool.
• 1:24:26
  The way that graphic is pretty cool.
• 1:24:28
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. How do you like Marietta?
• 1:24:30
  I've had a lot of experience with Marietta.
• 1:24:31
  A lot of good coaches have come through there.
• 1:24:33
  Yeah, I, I, I like the experience at Marietta.
• 1:24:38
  You know, the, the, the, the athletes were wonderful.
• 1:24:42
  You know, some of the support structure that that has
• 1:24:44
  traditionally been there has, has evaporated due to financial
• 1:24:50
  reasons at the school. A lot of schools are struggling
• 1:24:54
  right now. So, you know, when I left
• 1:24:58
  Marietta, it was going into my son's senior year of high
• 1:25:01
  school. I'm in doing what I do for a
• 1:25:03
  living. I've missed all of his first
• 1:25:04
  stuff. So it's like, you know what, I'm
• 1:25:08
  going to take a step back. I'm going to come out of
• 1:25:09
  coaching for. I've had a coaching for a year,
• 1:25:12
  yeah, and ended up taking a job at working at Spectrum,
• 1:25:17
  answering phone calls and people.
• 1:25:19
  Said that earlier and I was like, that was an odd reference
• 1:25:23
  and now it's not odd. This makes sense, OK.
• 1:25:26
  I mean, they were Saturday mornings, right?
• 1:25:28
  Or Saturday's days when I'd get cussed out like 27 or 30 times a
• 1:25:32
  day because somebody didn't want to pay their cable bill.
• 1:25:38
  And so I did that so I could I could see my son's final.
• 1:25:41
  So I'd go to his graduation so I could see his final cross
• 1:25:44
  country and track meets. And, and then the opportunity
• 1:25:49
  came up at Earlham. I was talking with Ron Collins
• 1:25:51
  and he's like, what are you doing?
• 1:25:52
  I'm like, well, I'd rather be coaching.
• 1:25:56
  And he said, well, Earl is open. And he said, you know, one of my
• 1:26:01
  alumni is coaching there. He's like a guy named George's
• 1:26:03
  coach in there. So I called George and I'm like,
• 1:26:06
  hey, what's going on? Right.
• 1:26:07
  He's like, well, we need a cross country coach.
• 1:26:10
  So I applied. This is on Thursday.
• 1:26:13
  I get a call on Friday saying, hey, can you come for an
• 1:26:15
  interview on Monday? Interview on Monday, get back
• 1:26:20
  home. They call me on Tuesday.
• 1:26:21
  It's like, hey, you want the job?
• 1:26:23
  Dude. One of those things is like, and
• 1:26:26
  you got 10 days to be here. Holy.
• 1:26:31
  So you know, kind of a roller coaster, but to be honest with
• 1:26:35
  you, I said I set foot on Earlham's campus.
• 1:26:37
  I was here for 5 minutes and I knew this is where I needed to
• 1:26:39
  be. Is that right now?
• 1:26:41
  And you have a lot of campuses to compare to, and it was
• 1:26:45
  immediate. Yeah, it was within 5 minutes I
• 1:26:49
  met. I met with Nick Johnson.
• 1:26:50
  He's assistant athletic director here, coach football here, he's
• 1:26:54
  coached track here. Great guy.
• 1:26:57
  And you know, when we were talking, I'm like this, this is
• 1:27:00
  where I need to be. This is a good fit.
• 1:27:03
  Went to a Quaker school initially.
• 1:27:06
  This started my career. So I figure I started my career
• 1:27:08
  as a Quaker. I'll end it.
• 1:27:09
  Yeah. That's.
• 1:27:10
  Right. That's right.
• 1:27:11
  And you said Earlham, you said 8 to 900 students.
• 1:27:14
  Yeah. We got about 800 students right
• 1:27:17
  now. How many kids on the track cross
• 1:27:19
  country roster? We've got about 20 cross
• 1:27:22
  country, close to 40 on the track roster.
• 1:27:26
  We want to make that bigger. 40 total men.
• 1:27:29
  Do you have just women? Men and women both.
• 1:27:32
  So 40 total on men and women or 40 each. 40 total. 40 total, so
• 1:27:39
  roughly. 5% of the entire student body is on track and
• 1:27:42
  field team. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:27:44
  That's. Huge.
• 1:27:44
  That's huge. And you know, we're obviously as
• 1:27:48
  an institution, we want to get bigger.
• 1:27:50
  We want to be around 1100 students.
• 1:27:52
  So we're making a push for that. Tracks a place to do it.
• 1:27:56
  The highest participation sport in the country, Yeah.
• 1:27:58
  Yeah, yeah. And the cool part about Irlam is
• 1:28:00
  about 20% of our student body are international students.
• 1:28:04
  Oh, is that right? So I've got a guy from Pakistan
• 1:28:07
  on the cross country team, a guy from Croatia on the cross
• 1:28:11
  country team as well. Yeah, I I love that.
• 1:28:13
  You know, right now there's a big push back on international
• 1:28:18
  students in, you know, I'll say NCAA, but you know, all, all
• 1:28:23
  levels in, in a etcetera, right? And, and you know, I don't
• 1:28:28
  understand the push back because for one, I'm like, well, it's
• 1:28:30
  legal. So they're not no one's doing
• 1:28:32
  anything illegal here. Why, why are we complaining?
• 1:28:34
  If you don't like that, go change the rules, then, you
• 1:28:37
  know, maybe you can shake your fingers at someone.
• 1:28:39
  But I've always thought about the enrichment of the athletes
• 1:28:43
  and the coaches of having people from other parts of the world
• 1:28:48
  like you just learn so much. But you get out of your own
• 1:28:51
  little bubble that everything happens in Richmond IN Like,
• 1:28:53
  this is all I know. You know, think about a kid like
• 1:28:55
  grows up there and goes to Irlam.
• 1:28:56
  It's like, man, all they know is Richmond IN they barely know
• 1:28:59
  Indy, right? And like, here it comes a guy
• 1:29:00
  from Croatia or Pakistan. You're like, oh, wait, your
• 1:29:03
  culture. Like you eat these kind of
• 1:29:04
  foods. I never thought about eating
• 1:29:06
  those kind of food. You know, you guys, your
• 1:29:08
  relationship with parents are like this.
• 1:29:10
  I've never thought about that kind of respect or whatever.
• 1:29:12
  You know, I just think it the experience of a kid in college,
• 1:29:16
  it just opens up so much more when there are some
• 1:29:19
  international teammates to learn from and and vice versa, by the
• 1:29:23
  way, they get to learn about the American culture through you as
• 1:29:26
  the American teammate. Yeah, I mean, and the cool thing
• 1:29:30
  about it is, you know, you see so much divisiveness outside of
• 1:29:33
  college campuses, right? And on my team alone, I've got
• 1:29:37
  Christians, Muslims, Jews all competing for the same goal.
• 1:29:42
  And, you know, they're asking questions and they're
• 1:29:44
  challenging each other and they're doing respectfully.
• 1:29:48
  You know, I think we can take a page from Earlham College and
• 1:29:50
  our cross country track team and apply it to the rest of the
• 1:29:53
  country. You don't have to be the same to
• 1:29:56
  to get along. That's right.
• 1:29:58
  That's exactly right. And I I think.
• 1:30:01
  That's one of the things about any college team, you know, You
• 1:30:05
  know, we talk about diversity and we talk about, you know,
• 1:30:07
  cramming that stuff down people's throats if you just let
• 1:30:10
  it happen on its own and work toward the same goal.
• 1:30:14
  Yeah. Might be a little better served.
• 1:30:16
  That's right. Amen.
• 1:30:17
  I love that. I love that.
• 1:30:18
  What? Yeah.
• 1:30:20
  We're recording this in what is this?
• 1:30:21
  September. Yeah.
• 1:30:22
  September what? How many years are you at Irlam
• 1:30:25
  now? Or did we just finish our first
• 1:30:27
  year? Year too, so I just finished my
• 1:30:29
  first year. Yeah, that's what I thought.
• 1:30:30
  OK, what as you look for, you know, the first year, no matter
• 1:30:36
  when you join, whether in January or even during the
• 1:30:38
  summer, there's just so much catching up.
• 1:30:41
  Like, you know, what recruits have we recruited?
• 1:30:43
  Do I need to continue recruiting them?
• 1:30:45
  Where's the cafeteria? You know, there's just so much
• 1:30:47
  to learn Your second years, where you kind of OK, I got my
• 1:30:50
  feet underneath me. I've got a a database of kids
• 1:30:53
  that I'm recruiting. I'm already looking to what I'm
• 1:30:54
  a recruit next year, etcetera. How are you continuing to
• 1:30:58
  develop as you look at your cross country team?
• 1:31:00
  How are you continuing to develop and improve yourself?
• 1:31:02
  You seem like a guy who's always improving.
• 1:31:03
  So how are have you been improving over this past year,
• 1:31:07
  year and a half? Well, I mean, you know, a lot of
• 1:31:10
  us following the current research, you know, talking with
• 1:31:13
  coaches got a huge compliment last week.
• 1:31:16
  We're at Autobahn University running a cross country meet.
• 1:31:20
  Somebody's like, hey, man, your, your team is so much better this
• 1:31:22
  year. And it's right.
• 1:31:25
  And it's like, well, I mean, it's credit to them.
• 1:31:27
  Maybe they wouldn't put in their summer mileage and they did what
• 1:31:29
  they needed to do. But that's great to hear.
• 1:31:33
  And then you and as far as improving myself, you know, I'm
• 1:31:36
  talking with these other coaches.
• 1:31:39
  I've got a whole box of workouts from the last oh God, from O1
• 1:31:44
  on. So the last 25 years of workouts
• 1:31:48
  and they're handwritten and it's got pin slashed through and
• 1:31:52
  we're never doing this again. This sucks more than it does
• 1:31:57
  Well, and it, it's funny reading the notes of me critiquing
• 1:32:01
  myself. It's like, you know, what, what
• 1:32:03
  the hell were you thinking sometimes, But that's, you know,
• 1:32:08
  kind of the self inflection that the self self reflection.
• 1:32:12
  I guess I should say, you know, of what can we do better?
• 1:32:15
  You know, what worked, what didn't work?
• 1:32:18
  You know, training logs from I've got still got training the
• 1:32:23
  notebooks of the training logs at Lake Superior State and I
• 1:32:26
  still use the same template. Oddly enough, we live in a
• 1:32:31
  Society of technology and I can get these athletes to do
• 1:32:34
  everything electronically except for their training logs.
• 1:32:38
  They won't get on Strava. They won't.
• 1:32:40
  Yeah, is that? Right.
• 1:32:41
  So I hand them paper training logs and it's like, I need these
• 1:32:44
  every two weeks. And they're like, well, coach,
• 1:32:48
  why do you need this? It's like it's data, right?
• 1:32:50
  If we get hurt halfway through the season and we're doing 100
• 1:32:53
  miles a week, I need to know that.
• 1:32:54
  But we cannot do that. And that's the one thing that I
• 1:33:00
  that I do differently now than I did in the past is, you know,
• 1:33:04
  keep a record of it. That way you don't just randomly
• 1:33:07
  show up with a stress fracture. I'm surprised that hasn't gone
• 1:33:10
  more technology and I can see an app or you know, thing and I
• 1:33:14
  know there are those things out there, but I'm surprised, you
• 1:33:16
  know, stereotyping every 18 to 22 year old right now that they
• 1:33:20
  don't that they don't reject your paper copies honestly and
• 1:33:23
  say, yeah, coach, come on, let's get with Strava or whatever.
• 1:33:25
  That's that's surprising, especially a distance runner.
• 1:33:27
  You're very all athletes and coaches should be, you know,
• 1:33:31
  journaling and and keeping, you know, information on their
• 1:33:35
  training and things like that. But distance runners are famous
• 1:33:38
  for, you know, their mileage and workouts and things like that.
• 1:33:41
  I'm surprised that they accept the paper that they want the
• 1:33:44
  paper side of life. Interesting.
• 1:33:46
  Yeah, they reject the technology side of it on that one and
• 1:33:48
  thought it's odd. And you know, I'm all the time
• 1:33:51
  complaining to George. It's like, OK, we should be the
• 1:33:54
  most informed generation but we can't fill out our stupid
• 1:33:59
  training. Laws, right.
• 1:34:00
  Yeah, that's that's, that's interesting and it's.
• 1:34:05
  I don't know why it is, I just know that it is so well.
• 1:34:08
  You have to adapt then, right? You got to do it the way they
• 1:34:11
  they want to, right? If you want that data, yeah.
• 1:34:14
  Yeah, So adapt a shall. I mean, that's right.
• 1:34:16
  Let's go away. That's right.
• 1:34:19
  You know, I've still got my old training log from college.
• 1:34:21
  I've got these books and it's like all handwritten, right?
• 1:34:25
  And nothing's changed in the 30 years at that point, so.
• 1:34:30
  You know, I want to give a quick shout out to that coach at the
• 1:34:33
  Otterbein meet that you mentioned that, you know, came
• 1:34:35
  by and gave you a compliment. You know, I think that's
• 1:34:37
  something I mentioned earlier. I challenged listeners and you,
• 1:34:40
  Jason, to, you know, reach out to a mentor of yours and say
• 1:34:44
  thank you. I think, you know, in our
• 1:34:47
  profession of coaching track and field, you know, I know why it's
• 1:34:52
  it's cute to say, you know, we don't do it for the money.
• 1:34:56
  And again I push back on that, that, that language again, I'm
• 1:34:59
  glad that's not your number one thing, but you, you need to be
• 1:35:01
  getting paid. I want I want you to get paid
• 1:35:03
  more. But we, you know, we, we live in
• 1:35:06
  a sport. You mentioned the in AD that
• 1:35:09
  said, you know, it's track, you know that you find a dusty
• 1:35:11
  corner, you get it done. And I love that get it done no
• 1:35:13
  matter what attitude you reminds me of.
• 1:35:16
  Was it Louis Simmons, you know, West side barbell, you know, in
• 1:35:19
  the, you know, in the basement, dirty and dungy getting it done.
• 1:35:22
  I, I love all that, those aspects of our sport of, you
• 1:35:25
  know what, we're the best sport there is with human performance,
• 1:35:31
  but we, we need to, so it can be easy to be down as a track
• 1:35:35
  coach, you know, you're not getting paid maybe as much as
• 1:35:37
  your football coaches and things like that.
• 1:35:39
  And you know, you're doing 6 jobs if you're doing, you know,
• 1:35:42
  mini women's cross, mini women's indoor and mini women's outdoor.
• 1:35:46
  But that doesn't mean, but we can help each other by being
• 1:35:49
  good people to each other. And so I love that that coach,
• 1:35:53
  that coach, he or she could have not said anything to you and no
• 1:35:57
  one would have said, you know what, no one would judge them
• 1:35:58
  for that. Like, oh, well, OK, you're busy,
• 1:36:00
  he was busy, you're busy, whatever, yadda, yadda.
• 1:36:02
  But they took the time to, you know, seek you out, find you and
• 1:36:07
  in a small color, they didn't give you like some diatribe.
• 1:36:10
  They didn't write you a book that you know, they just said,
• 1:36:12
  Hey, your kids are they're a lot better than last year.
• 1:36:15
  What on its face, what a very simple compliment because you,
• 1:36:19
  you know, you hope that's table stakes, right?
• 1:36:21
  Like I hope my teams are better every year, right?
• 1:36:23
  But a very simple compliment. Hey, your kids are better this
• 1:36:26
  year than last year. And it's that that statement
• 1:36:29
  says a lot, right? Because you're the leader,
• 1:36:30
  you're the coach. It's like, well, you, you are,
• 1:36:32
  you are doing a good job is what that person was saying.
• 1:36:34
  And I just think that we could do more of that as our coaches.
• 1:36:38
  I see a lot of what's the word? I think, I don't think I'm going
• 1:36:40
  to pronounce it right, the collegiality, the collegiality,
• 1:36:43
  collegiality of of track coaches.
• 1:36:46
  But I see a lot of infighting and jealousy with us too, and I
• 1:36:50
  just want to be mindful and helpful and and be a leader in
• 1:36:54
  this scene. And Jason challenge you to be a
• 1:36:56
  leader in the scene of being good to our fellow coaches.
• 1:36:58
  And just given that small compliment, there is no there is
• 1:37:00
  no too small compliment. Hey, your I saw your kid through
• 1:37:04
  APR last weekend. Great job.
• 1:37:06
  Hey, boy, you guys put in a good track meet.
• 1:37:10
  Good cross you you hosted, man. Thanks for hosting.
• 1:37:12
  Just say thanks for hosting. For crying out loud.
• 1:37:14
  That's a that's a, you know, you hosted cross country meets and
• 1:37:17
  and stuff that that's a lot of work to do.
• 1:37:18
  So just challenge everybody's listening.
• 1:37:21
  Just let's let's be cognizant of being complimentary to our
• 1:37:25
  fellow profession, fellow people in our profession.
• 1:37:28
  I think we could, we could change the culture of coaching
• 1:37:31
  track and field to not only be about the kids and what we do
• 1:37:34
  and that's awesome. But you know, one that we hang
• 1:37:36
  our hat on at the other day, it's like, man, I'm making an
• 1:37:39
  impact and people are are noticing that.
• 1:37:40
  So again, another one of my soap boxes here with that Jason, I
• 1:37:46
  love what you're doing there at Earl.
• 1:37:48
  I love what you've done in a lot of different places you've done,
• 1:37:50
  you know, you've you've grown, you continue to evolve.
• 1:37:52
  And I think that's a really important lesson for young
• 1:37:55
  coaches to hear that what you are as a 2324, you are not the
• 1:37:58
  same Jason as 25 year old Jason. You're not the same Jason as 25
• 1:38:02
  year old Jason. You've continued to evolve, not
• 1:38:05
  only technically learning all these different events.
• 1:38:08
  Bravo, that's amazing. You have a lot of really
• 1:38:11
  legendary coaches, Brooks and Harry Merritt, etcetera, that
• 1:38:16
  would agree with you. I think that they think that's
• 1:38:17
  what a track coach is supposed to be.
• 1:38:18
  And I think you're, you're on that, that mark and you've grown
• 1:38:22
  in your communication style, your relationship building with
• 1:38:25
  your Staffs and with your athletes, man.
• 1:38:27
  And I think that's, I think that's super cool, man.
• 1:38:29
  It's, it's always scary to me when someone says, Oh yeah, I
• 1:38:33
  coached the exact same way as I did when I first started.
• 1:38:35
  It's like, I feel bad for the kids now.
• 1:38:38
  Like, you know, I don't know that that's true.
• 1:38:40
  I don't know how you could do that, but that's not good.
• 1:38:44
  As you sit there in your seat now and you look at Urlem and
• 1:38:48
  the rest of the 2526 season and maybe even have your eyes
• 1:38:51
  towards 2728, etcetera, what's got you excited there at Urlem
• 1:38:55
  College? Just the potential that we have.
• 1:38:58
  I mean, you know, we've got kids who show up every day and
• 1:39:02
  they're the fire they've got. You know, we talk about being a
• 1:39:06
  Quaker school and not being Quakers are non confrontational
• 1:39:10
  and non non competitive and stuff.
• 1:39:12
  That's not what I see, right? We're looking at the opposite.
• 1:39:16
  You know, people come in coach, I want to, I've got big goals
• 1:39:19
  and here's what I want to do. And I have them write those
• 1:39:22
  goals down and put it on the door.
• 1:39:25
  So it's the last thing they see when they walk out.
• 1:39:27
  You know, I've got a kid who wants to run.
• 1:39:30
  He was a 30 minute AK guy last year.
• 1:39:32
  He wants to run 27 something this year.
• 1:39:35
  So I mean, that's that's a big jump, right?
• 1:39:38
  3 minutes is a big ask. Yeah, over the course of 8000
• 1:39:41
  meters. But he went in the summer and
• 1:39:44
  he's putting in the work. And the first two races we ran
• 1:39:47
  were 5K SAPRD and both of them. So Saturday at Otterbein we kind
• 1:39:54
  of laid an egg, but it was the third week in a row we were
• 1:39:56
  competing. It was 90°.
• 1:40:00
  So, you know, not Otterbein's fault.
• 1:40:02
  They can't control the weather. They put on a great meat.
• 1:40:06
  But you know, I really wish we could have.
• 1:40:08
  You know, brought an air conditioner out or something for
• 1:40:10
  all of them. But yeah, I mean, so that's,
• 1:40:15
  that's what I'm excited about. It's just the, the, the passion
• 1:40:18
  and, and the drive that these people are bringing.
• 1:40:20
  We've got a number of dual sport athletes, some people coming
• 1:40:23
  over from basketball, some people coming over from soccer
• 1:40:26
  this year for the first time. So, you know, that's, that's a
• 1:40:29
  cool thing. You know, I wish I could kind of
• 1:40:33
  young lady who plays soccer is pretty good distance runner in
• 1:40:35
  the spring. You know, I'm trying to talk her
• 1:40:37
  out of that soccer nonsense, so to speak, but not that I want to
• 1:40:41
  see you any of the soccer athletes, but you know, she's
• 1:40:45
  she's great to have around. So just across the board, you
• 1:40:49
  know, the people that I'm working with here at Irwin, I
• 1:40:51
  mentioned I was here for 5 minutes and I knew this is ready
• 1:40:53
  to be, you know, the people we have here, they're, you know,
• 1:40:58
  they're, they're excited. They're, they're, they're
• 1:41:00
  grateful for the opportunity. I think that's what I'm looking
• 1:41:04
  for the most is, you know, too often you hear everybody say
• 1:41:08
  every kid is entitled these days.
• 1:41:09
  They expect everything. And those aren't the kids we
• 1:41:12
  have here. Yeah, I'd say I push back on
• 1:41:14
  that. I agree with you there,
• 1:41:16
  absolutely. And yeah, there are some right
• 1:41:19
  there, your generation there. There are some people who are
• 1:41:21
  entitled. But the people we have here are
• 1:41:23
  grateful for the opportunity. They're hungry to learn.
• 1:41:27
  They challenge me to be a better coach, a better person every
• 1:41:29
  day. That's cool.
• 1:41:31
  So and that's, that's really what I'm looking for.
• 1:41:34
  I was talking with a recruit and he said, well, what are you
• 1:41:36
  looking for in a recruit? I'm like, somebody's going to be
• 1:41:38
  here, somebody's going to be engaged, somebody's going to
• 1:41:40
  challenge me in a respectful manner, of course, but and
• 1:41:45
  that's that's what we have here and it's something that that
• 1:41:49
  that's truly special. I've had glimpses of that in
• 1:41:53
  other places I've been, but you know, kind of universally here,
• 1:41:57
  it's it's a it's a little different.
• 1:41:59
  That's cool. I don't know how.
• 1:42:02
  I don't know how to word that. I don't have to put my finger on
• 1:42:05
  what makes it special, but if you're ever in Richmond, set
• 1:42:09
  foot on Earlham's campus, you'll feel that welcome.
• 1:42:11
  So. Well, that's exciting man.
• 1:42:13
  And I think, you know, to your point about I can't put words to
• 1:42:15
  it, I think most of the exciting things that we fall in love with
• 1:42:19
  that we have a lot of passion around where it's hard to put
• 1:42:21
  those words because there's it's like the lofty words.
• 1:42:24
  I can't even think of the lofty words for it.
• 1:42:25
  So I'm, I'm excited for you for that brother.
• 1:42:28
  You've had a lot of different experiences.
• 1:42:30
  You've got to see, you know, highs and lows in our, our
• 1:42:33
  coaching profession, personal life, etcetera, to see you
• 1:42:38
  happy. You smiled when I said what's
• 1:42:39
  got you excited? That was like the first like
• 1:42:41
  indicators like, oh, this is, this is genuine, this is real.
• 1:42:43
  Like just thinking about that topic of what's got you excited,
• 1:42:46
  Earl and you're like, yeah, I can't wait, man.
• 1:42:48
  We're moving forward and that's a positive thing.
• 1:42:50
  So I'm just super excited for you, the entire staff and, and
• 1:42:53
  the, the program there. It sounds like it's going to be
• 1:42:56
  a lot of fun. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of
• 1:42:58
  fun. I was expecting the guys to come
• 1:43:00
  barging in at. Some point, you know, Right.
• 1:43:04
  Yeah. You see, before we hit record,
• 1:43:06
  the, the track head coach, you know, was in there and I was
• 1:43:08
  like, hey, I love cameos. Pop in.
• 1:43:11
  I'm a little disappointed he didn't pop in, to be honest with
• 1:43:14
  you. So we'll have to get on to him
• 1:43:16
  for that. Well, Jason, my friend, you
• 1:43:18
  know, one of the most valuable things you can give me is your
• 1:43:20
  time, man. I know you're in the middle of
• 1:43:22
  cross country season, so there's never a good time.
• 1:43:24
  So I'm really grateful for you sitting down with us being very
• 1:43:27
  open and authentic. You know, this podcast, you
• 1:43:30
  know, it continues to develop from episode 1 to 334 probably,
• 1:43:34
  I think for this one. And and I love that, you know,
• 1:43:38
  continues to develop where, you know, when people come here and
• 1:43:41
  be, you know, what kind of strip bare and be open and authentic.
• 1:43:45
  I think that is the most valuable that we can get for
• 1:43:48
  both parties by the way, you and the audience, right?
• 1:43:52
  I think there's some catharsicism of being able to
• 1:43:55
  talk about your journey and what you've grown and what you, you
• 1:43:58
  know, get in hindsight can think about how it's affected you
• 1:44:01
  today. It's sometimes hard for us to
• 1:44:02
  see in the moment and how it's a good thing, but we can see maybe
• 1:44:06
  1020 years later that it's a good thing.
• 1:44:08
  And I think that helps listeners, which, you know,
• 1:44:10
  primarily track and field coaches love you guys.
• 1:44:12
  Shout out to you guys and gals out there that they can see
• 1:44:15
  that, you know, when they have setbacks where they maybe not be
• 1:44:18
  able to see it in the moment, maybe they can recall back.
• 1:44:21
  Oh, man, I'm everyone. You know, I heard Jason on the
• 1:44:23
  show, he had to go through something similar to this.
• 1:44:25
  And, you know, he made it out really well.
• 1:44:27
  So maybe it's not the end of the world for me and this is going
• 1:44:30
  to be a positive thing. So I'm just grateful for you
• 1:44:33
  just being open, authentic, and humble with us today, my friend.
• 1:44:37
  All right, thank you. It's great to be here.
• 1:44:39
  So next time I do it, I'll give you a rock'n'roll show.
• 1:44:41
  I'll pull my guitar out so. That's right.
• 1:44:43
  Yeah. I knew when you said you're a
• 1:44:44
  musician, you're like, but not traditional.
• 1:44:45
  I was like, oh, he's a guitarist.
• 1:44:46
  Of course. I didn't know exactly where you
• 1:44:48
  are there. All right, Jason, appreciate you
• 1:44:50
  being here today, guys and gals. Thank you guys for being here
• 1:44:52
  again. What a great journey Jason
• 1:44:55
  showed and modeled for us here today.
• 1:44:57
  I think it's, it's, it's inspirational because I do, you
• 1:45:01
  know, when I talk about different universities and
• 1:45:03
  different programs, that was not a judgement for Jason.
• 1:45:05
  I, I, I was, I coached for 10 years and I was at 5 different
• 1:45:07
  places. So I'm certainly not one to
• 1:45:09
  point a finger. Not, not no, I almost said
• 1:45:13
  button, but erases everything in front of it.
• 1:45:14
  I'm not one to point a finger. I just think it's always
• 1:45:16
  interesting for us to learn that this can be part of your career.
• 1:45:19
  By the way, we don't, we don't judge when a, a, a, a, a
• 1:45:22
  computer programmer jumps from job to job.
• 1:45:25
  But why do we do that with coaches?
• 1:45:26
  I, I think that's ridiculous that they move, coaches move.
• 1:45:30
  Jason moved for very specific reasons that are his reasons.
• 1:45:33
  And that's all that matters to me and all that should matter to
• 1:45:36
  you. So if you're out there
• 1:45:37
  contemplating to move and you're scared about judgement, things
• 1:45:39
  like that, don't. It's your life, your positive
• 1:45:41
  experience at your job and for the kids that you're coaching
• 1:45:45
  and going to coach at new places.
• 1:45:46
  So thanks for being here, Jason. Appreciate you joining us next
• 1:45:49
  week, guys and gals. We'll do it all over again.
• 1:45:51
  See you guys. Right for you.
• 1:45:55
  If it goes to appreciate the coach the ones that point people
• 1:45:58
  most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth
• 1:46:02
  you got to prep before you carry the load ice coffee to the soul.
• 1:46:05
  For those of us who stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
• 1:46:08
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:46:10
  There's more than one way to go taking those sass paying you're
• 1:46:13
  told it ain't practice if your purpose Saint Clair it can't
• 1:46:16
  happen until you listen with both is you can't mentor without
• 1:46:19
  a mentor of years of experience. You can reinvent those years
• 1:46:23
  Every plan's got to stand and deliver to and the price
• 1:46:26
  sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and the fight not
• 1:46:29
  to win all those. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 1:46:31
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to, it's all
• 1:46:34
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside
• 1:46:37
  6,000,000 waste of time, choose none.
• 1:46:40
  So y'all of course finish line the work ain't done so we learn
• 1:46:43
  from the experts but y'all got to put in the leg work.
• 1:46:45
  Guil Athletics is the network. It's all about connections put
• 1:46:49
  together for the profession. To every track coach could be
• 1:46:52
  blessing.