Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #298: Shelia Burrell-San Diego State University

Transcript

#298: Shelia Burrell-San Diego State University · 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 for Gil Athletics Connections.
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  All right here we go back on the Gil Athletics connections
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  podcast. I was doing some editing not too
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  long ago and I realized I say every time all right here we go.
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  That's kind of my intro to it. And so I'm excited.
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  I'm excited for you guys and gals to be here.
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  Thanks for pressing play. My name is Mike Cunningham.
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  I am your host here at the Guild connections podcast and I just
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  get the I'm like, I got the greatest job in the whole world.
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  I get to bring you men and women from around the country around
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  the world at times that are in this amazing profession of
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  coaching track and field. And today is, much like the
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  others, a really amazing, fun one.
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  I've known today's guest for a while.
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  She's just one of the real estate people in the world.
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  I think that's how we kind of went beyond just business and
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  actually became friends in this crazy world to help me welcome
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  the head coach of San Diego State.
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  The Aztecs, right? Did I get that right?
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  The Aztecs. The Aztecs.
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  Love it. Help me welcome the wise, the
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  wonderful Sheila Burrell. Sheila, how are you?
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  Good Mike, thank you for having me on the day after Christmas.
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  That's right. Yeah.
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  Hello. Hope you got all your gifts
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  opened and all that kind of good stuff, man.
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  You know, you live in San Diego, though.
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  Isn't every day like Christmas? I mean, this is like heaven on
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  earth here. Most days are pretty, pretty
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  cool, pretty nice sunshine. Unfortunately, like, I don't
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  know, I was in Sandy. I was on Monday.
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  It was nice and Tuesday, Wednesday was a little overcast
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  and cloudy and I hope the sun comes out today.
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  We've had some, every day is nice, but we've had some days.
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  But for us, understand, you have to understand that for us, what
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  is a cloudy day is warm in other places.
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  Yeah, that's what I was going to say.
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  Did it get down to 60? Did you have to put?
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  Yeah, it's like, like it was 60, it was 63° and one of my
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  athletes called to coach. It's cold.
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  Where's that indoor facility? Yeah, I mean, you're, you're, I
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  think you're wearing a long sleeve now, for crying out loud.
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  Oh yes, I'm always. Talking, Oh my Lord.
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  It's 70° and I'm freezing. That's not a joke.
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  My athletes make fun of me all the time.
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  It could be sunshine. I'm always wearing long sleeve.
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  I'm covered up all the time. My favorite memory, it was kind
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  of a surreal moment. It was.
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  It was actually Christmas Day 1999.
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  Brent McFarland, the head coach of Canada Canadians national
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  team, invited me over to work with the junior team.
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  Yeah, in San Diego and we're on the beach.
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  It's Christmas Day. Literally in this little Cove
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  are dolphins. I mean, yeah, I'm a bumpkin from
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  Alabama. So I'm just like, what in the
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  world? And then it's raining, but it's
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  raining ash. There was a fire.
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  And so here I am, Christmas Day, we're working out on the beach.
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  Dolphins. I was like, I don't think it
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  gets any better than right here at San Diego.
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  I I fell in love at at that exact point.
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  I I can't complain. Which is, you know, probably
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  part of the reason why I've been here for so long.
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  Yeah. That's.
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  Right. Is that, you know, for as
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  expensive as it is to live in San Diego and it makes no sense
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  to me, they do make us pay to pay that sunshine tax.
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  You know, it's a, it's a, it's a pretty, it's a pretty good life.
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  It's a pretty I say it's a good easy life living here in San
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  Diego outside of how expensive it is.
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  Yeah, no doubt. Well, you deserve that.
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  And let's find out how you got to San Diego.
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  Sheila, my favorite question is literally my very first question
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  here. We kind of get in our Wayback
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  Machine and I just like to start with, you know, for track and
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  field, where does that even start for you as far as, and you
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  get to pick where it starts as an athlete, wherever, where does
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  that start for you in track and field?
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  I've probably told this story a million times in different
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  interviews. So Mike, I like you a lot.
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  I've known you for a long time, so I'll probably tell the, the
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  not so, you know, canned answer to this question of like how it
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  all started and the whole 12 years old.
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  I saw the Olympics on TV and wanted The Olympian after that.
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  You know, that was my, that's pretty much my, my story in a
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  nutshell about my exposure to the Olympics was seeing a female
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  athlete on TV playing a sport and knowing like, oh, I, that's
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  the first time I've ever seen women on television playing a
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  sport. And I was very athletic and I
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  thought that was, oh, I want to do that or I think I can do that
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  one day when I was at the age of 12, that was 84, that was the 84
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  Olympic Games when I saw Olympic Games.
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  But my exposure to track and field is a little different
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  because I, I was a really shy kid growing up.
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  You know, I was that teacher's pet, teacher's pet kid that
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  didn't talk a lot, but was bright.
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  You know, I would say that I was, I was good in school and I
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  was, you know, a little bit of an introvert as a, as a young
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  kid. And so, but I was always very
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  good at sports. So PE was one of my, you know, I
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  love PE and my exposure to the sport, track and field probably
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  came in middle school. I was living at that time,
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  living with my, with my grandparents.
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  I had some back and forth in my younger years between my, my mom
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  and my grandparents. And so not the most stable
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  situation when I was young. And so I was in middle school
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  and I was always, you know, I remember being in grade school
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  like they'd be playing kickball and, you know, I'd be the first,
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  you know, the beginnings like the first girl pick and then
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  eventually become the first person picked, you know, just
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  because you're fast. And so that kind of proceeded
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  where I kind of had a little bit of my confidence in that one
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  aspect of like, oh, I'm, I know I'm fast.
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  Was there, but I had no exposure to track and field at that time.
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  Got to junior high school and I was in my, I don't think it's my
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  eighth grade, 7th or 8th grade history class or something.
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  And one of the girls in my class, you know, I went to
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  school, by the way, in Albuquerque, new in junior high
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  in Albuquerque, NM Is that right?
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  Yeah. So I'm a Valley girl, meaning
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  that we're a military family. And so the Kirkland Air Force
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  Base was very big. My family retired there in
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  Albuquerque, right, Right around when I was born.
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  And so I, my younger years were spent between, well, primarily
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  in Albuquerque. My grandparents were there as
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  well. And, and so I grew up around a
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  bunch of like cholos and, you know, and, and Chicanos, I won't
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  say Mexicans, because in New Mexico they're Chicanos and
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  they're cholos. And so, you know, my, you know,
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  I'm eating, you know, enchiladas.
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  So I'm growing up around a very, you know, Latino econo culture
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  outside of my home always, you know, we, we are who we are.
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  And, and so one of my friends in in class one day, you know, we
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  PE it's always that, you know, I'm getting picked for sports
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  and playing different things. And one girl just said, Hey,
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  Sheila, you know, Sheila, you should, you know, you should
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  come to my track team, you know, you should come out and run.
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  And, and that was my first, like, OK.
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  And she took me out to to visit her, her track club, which at
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  the time was called Albuquerque Olympic Club, which was the
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  probably the oldest besides the Duke City Dashers.
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  They wanted. No, the older than Duke City
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  Dashers, oldest track club in, in Albuquerque at a time you
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  might know my boy that used to work at Mondo.
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  Gosh. Neil.
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  Neil Silva. Do you know Neil Silva?
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  Yeah. Neil.
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  Do you know Neil? Neil is, is from Albuquerque and
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  he coached the Duke City Dashers when I was a kid.
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  And he's actually still coaching there right now at Saint Pius
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  High School. So I still talk to Neil.
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  Love Neil, but she invited me out to this practice.
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  AOC we called it. And AOC was the track club where
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  we practice in the valley with, you know, all the quote UN
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  quote, poor kids and we had no sidewalks.
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  We had a dirt track. Everybody had a dirt track back
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  then. But like, you can't say that we
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  were the most affluent track club at all.
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  But we, we trained hard, we had fun and we, we, we went places.
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  And so that was my first exposure of of to track was that
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  my friend invited me out must be my 7th grade year and I went out
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  to the track team and you know, my grandparents, you know, got
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  me the uniform, everything We and I started started competing.
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  I didn't got my butt kicked all the time the first the first
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  year. We OK, so I, I was going to ask,
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  did you initially like it? But that's kind of a, a not a
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  great question sometimes because when we succeed at a sport,
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  especially at a young age, right off the bat, well, we tend to
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  like because we like winning, especially at 7th graders, 8th
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  graders, But you got your this is hard to believe.
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  You got your butt kicked. Well, when you're like, I didn't
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  know, like my first exposure to track was that I didn't, I just
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  knew that was fast. I just know that I could beat
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  the boys and so and the boys didn't.
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  Sometimes the boys didn't like me because I could beat them.
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  You know, there's all that had all that kind of like I'm a shy
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  kid that, you know, they try to hit you hard and do all these
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  things when you're playing football.
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  But yeah, I didn't know. So I was, I was running.
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  You know, they have to put me in the 100.
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  They put me in 200. Heck, I used to get my butt
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  kicked every week in in my first, my first, not in my
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  first, my first year, but not the full year in club track by
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  somebody from the Duke City Dashers.
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  And every weekend, you know, we'd go to practice.
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  And I don't know what we did to practice at that time, but we go
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  to track meets on the weekends and you know, I get second
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  place, get 2nd, 2nd place, second place.
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  And and then I remember the first time I won, when I finally
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  beat this one girl, I never lost again.
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  Of course, you know, when you finally, when you finally beat
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  that one girl and you kind of then the light switch goes off
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  like, oh, you know, oh, I'm good.
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  And mind you, I'm still not. I'm still a very much a
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  introverted, shy kid, except around the people that I know.
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  And so it was always pretty cool because I was always nervous at
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  the same time, Like I was always very nervous and scared, but at
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  the same time my confidence was growing.
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  So when I finally beat this girl from, from Duke City Dashers,
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  you know, the whole club was excited of course.
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  And then from there on, I started to really kind of get
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  into track when I won. I love that you have this time
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  at Albuquerque because I am fascinated with Albuquerque and
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  New Mexico track history and I have no attachment to it.
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  I've never, you know, I've been there several times obviously,
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  but never lived there. But when I first went there for
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  the New Mexico Track and Field Cross Country Coaches
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  Association with the Spencer Seal shot and I started looking
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  at like the Hall of Fame of New Mexico.
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  And I was like, wait a minute. Yeah, there are some dudes in
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  our sport that are from New Mexico, from the Mario Satanas.
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  Obviously, the Henry family obviously has a huge influence
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  there. Curtis BI Mean.
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  It was just like there was such a list.
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  And I was like, wait, this is not the most populated state in
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  the world. There's Cruise Beach, there's
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  she's a friend of mine now There's a lawyer.
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  Gosh, she's a lawyer. She's a judge.
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  She's a retired judge. Lives in Arizona.
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  Not right. I'm thick.
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  I hope she doesn't see that She's playing every name.
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  She just came to visit me a few months ago.
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  But yeah, there's there's a, there's quite a few.
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  It's amazing. Go to the gay, there's an
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  golfer, there's lots of there's the Unser family is from there.
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  When you think of Texas and California and Florida, it's
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  like, well, of course, you know, such and such came from theirs.
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  But New Mexico, again, I've just blown away because the
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  population, it's amazing. I just, so as soon as you said
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  Albuquerque, I lit up 'cause I was like, of course, that's
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  awesome. I, I really love that.
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  Did you go through high school in Albuquerque as well?
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  I did. Is that all right?
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  What high school did you go to there?
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  I went to Rio Grande High School.
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  I'm a real grand aven. I used to joke when I got to San
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  Diego, it's it's live in the five O 5 'cause I used to take
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  my kids back there to compete at at the UN, at the UN Ms. Tractor
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  Convention Center. But yeah, I I'm a valley girl.
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  I'm a very proud when I say a valley girl.
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  I'm a very proud valley girl from Albuquerque because my
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  first medal, my first medal was a Pan American Games medal that
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  I won. I actually dedicated that back
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  to my high school. And the reason why I'm such a
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  proud, proud of my community that I came from, it was like I
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  said, we were probably quote UN quote, the worst high school in
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  the city kind of thing. You know, when I say we're in
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  the valley, it's like, you know, predominantly a Chicano, you
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  know, low, mid, mid to lower income family.
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  We're a military family. So we were, you know, we were
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  OK, but but it was such a community.
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  I will tell you that all the teachers that I had at in my
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  high school were my role models. I've never had an athlete or a
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  celebrity or someone famous be somebody that looked up to.
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  I always remember very distinctly looking up to the
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  people that were like in my community and that were around
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  me or like my friend's mom who helped me because because I was
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  such a kid that, you know, like I said, I was athletic and ended
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  up ended up becoming popular in high school, of course.
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  And then growing in confidence because I was introverted and
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  kind of had a struggle as a, as a child in terms of my, you
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  know, how I connected with people that people took care of
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  me. Like I had so many people that
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  helped me along the way in that community that I'm extremely
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  proud of. You know, you know, when people
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  talk about people from the Valley and in New Mexico and
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  Albuquerque and I'm I'm, I'm a standout person, they'll say no,
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  That's it was a great community for me.
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  Yeah. That's I love that you you you
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  mentioned, you know, being very localized with your heroes and
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  things like that, but you mentioned as a 12 year old
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  seeing another black female win a race and that was a big deal
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  to you. That's something I actually
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  think about here with the podcast.
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  You know, I'm a big advocate of female coaches and a big
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  advocate of minority coaches because I look at our sport and
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  this, these are big blanket statements here.
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  Obviously there's some more nuance into it, but I look at
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  our sport and we're roughly 50% male and 50% female.
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  And then I look at our coaches and we're not close to 5050 at
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  all. And same thing I look at our
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  sport and we're and again, don't come at me for the nuances here,
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  people. I'm being very blanket when I
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  say these statements, but we're 50% white and 50%.
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  I used to say black. I probably should say minority
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  because you know, again, there's other minorities in there.
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  But then I look at our coaches and I don't see 50% white, 50%
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  minority. So, but what, what I found
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  fascinating at through some of the amazing women and minority
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  coaches that I've had here on the podcast from Karen Dennis,
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  Sue Humphries, A lot of them have a very similar story to
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  what you said there of specifically with coaching of
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  like I either was coached by a female or a, a black female or,
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  or black coach in general, or I didn't.
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  And then when I finally saw one, it was like this light bulb of
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  like, oh, wait a minute, that means I can become that.
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  It, it's, I think it's more powerful than sometimes we give
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  credit for, of seeing someone that looks like you in a
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  position to make you even believe that you could obtain
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  that kind of position. Whether it's a, you mentioned a
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  judge, a judge, a lawyer, a coach, a teacher, etcetera.
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  It's really that's it's, it's dawned on me here in the last
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  few years just how important that really, really is.
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  I think for sure, especially, you know, I'd say back more back
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  in those days, you know, Karen's day for sure in mind the sport,
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  sports and women in sports and just in leadership position has
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  changed so much. I can tell you from the time I
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  was 12 years old now, I was 12 years old watching the 84
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  Olympic Games. I had not gone out for club
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  track yet. My friend in my classroom had
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  not invited me to come out yet. I was still just a kid at my
• 15:31
  grandma's, you know, Dan, watching the Olympic Games and
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  going, oh, there's AI knew I was athletic.
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  Oh, there's whoa. It's the first time I'd like
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  seen women on TV playing a sport because there was no WNBA.
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  There was no like volleyball, beach volleyball, There was no,
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  you know, there may have been tennis, but I wasn't like really
• 15:51
  watching tennis. But there was no representation
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  of women playing sports on TV professionally at that time.
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  I thought, oh, it's a, it's a possibility.
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  And then my friend invited me out, you know, in that 7th
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  grade, 13 year old year, invited me out to run track.
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  And I really gravitated toward toward it.
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  But in 10 years, Mike, I would say from the time I was probably
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  12 until the time I was 22, graduate, 21, graduating
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  college, women sports in general had changed completely.
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  Like by the time I graduate from college, there was major record,
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  much more than there was when I was 12, representation of female
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  athletes on sport. And I talk about black.
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  I'm just talking about women, period.
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  Right, right, right. Yeah.
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  I love that. It's so cool.
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  Did you so you mentioned being a sprinter and you know, spoiler
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  alert if you don't know Sheila Burrell at all athletically, you
• 16:43
  know was I almost had a multi multi time multi.
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  She was a great hit athlete multi events here.
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  Did you do any of those in high school or did you stay sprinter
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  and multis came later, but. I didn't, I didn't learn how to.
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  I was in high school, you know, I'm my state record just got
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  broken two years ago by this girl named Tatum who went to
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  Arizona State. He runs for Dion right now.
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  He's doing a fantastic job. And so I, I ran the 100.
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  I ran the 200I high jumped. I long jumped.
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  And on occasion, you know, I ran a 400 probably once or twice.
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  Mario Satania. Mario Satania, who, by the way,
• 17:23
  I used to have a big crush on in high school.
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  Shut up. To Mario, he knows this.
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  Like we've joked about it. We've joked about it for years.
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  He went to he went to LSUI, went to UCLA.
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  His parents were big in the New Mexico High School Association,
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  Athletic Association. His mom was a was a volleyball
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  coach and she coached our NS All Star team.
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  His dad when I think was in administration, but his dad was
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  involved in athletics as well. And so the the the Satanias will
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  tell you the 1400 they saw me run in high school where I was
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  like, you should be at 400 meter.
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  And I was like no but. Yeah, I did that.
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  I did a. High jump had a long jump Yeah,
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  I didn't even know what I have Tathon was.
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  Right. Sure, Yeah, sure, sure, sure.
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  Did you any other sports? I mean, you were athletic, so.
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  I played. No, I I actually was recruited
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  in three sports. Recruited for college.
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  I was recruited for College in three sports, so.
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  Hopefully. To play volleyball, track and
• 18:24
  basketball. Wow.
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  Two that I was most recruited for were volleyball and track.
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  Basketball, I was probably not not D1 level in basketball
• 18:33
  because I was just fast and I missed a bunch of shots.
• 18:35
  I hit some layups. So I don't say I was, I was, I
• 18:38
  can say I was athletic and probably could have became a
• 18:39
  better basketball. That's my favorite sport was
• 18:41
  basketball. But I was probably in terms of
• 18:44
  recruitable at a higher level was it was volleyball and track
• 18:48
  that I got the most, the most interested.
• 18:52
  So what did as you were looking to go into college and you're
• 18:56
  being created for volleyball, you're created by track.
• 18:58
  Talk to us about how you ended up choosing UCLA and one of my
• 19:03
  my second favorite question, you know, my first one's always how
• 19:05
  did you even get in track is what were you thinking about?
• 19:07
  As you know, as an 18 year old, still baffles me that we make 18
• 19:11
  year olds pick majors that are, you know, to affect their whole
• 19:13
  lives. It's crazy, Yeah, but what were
• 19:15
  you thinking about majoring in as far as like, oh, I'm going to
• 19:17
  become a journalist, a business owner, a doctor.
• 19:20
  What were you thinking about 18 as you're going through the
• 19:22
  recruiting process 1718? Well, let me tell you who
• 19:25
  recruited me, and then I'll tell you a kind of.
• 19:29
  So I started getting volleyball interests probably my junior
• 19:34
  year in high school. You know, my volleyball coach
• 19:38
  who passed away was basically a mother to me who stayed in high
• 19:43
  school coaching until I graduated from high school just
• 19:45
  so she can kind of help me through the process.
• 19:47
  Sandra Diek called her. And so from volleyball,
• 19:52
  basketball and track, my track, you know, it's just too much for
• 19:59
  me. I was my recruiting process was
• 20:01
  horrible. First of all, let me say it was
• 20:02
  very it was my recruiting process was not the best
• 20:06
  experience for me. And it wasn't the best
• 20:09
  experience for me because I was doing it on my own, meaning that
• 20:12
  my family had no idea what this was about.
• 20:16
  Are you first? I don't know what you call it
• 20:18
  generation. Are you first college student in
• 20:20
  in your? Yeah, I get it.
• 20:22
  Yep. I mean, my, my grandparents
• 20:24
  raised me. I was living with my
• 20:25
  grandparents. My mom.
• 20:26
  My mom was around, but she was there on some of them.
• 20:28
  But my family was not, you know, invested in, you know, yeah,
• 20:34
  you're going to college. But what does all this mean?
• 20:37
  Right? And my my main source of support
• 20:44
  was someone made by Nicolette Dennis, you know, woman in
• 20:47
  Glenabout and was my high school teachers.
• 20:51
  Those were my because our AD those were the people that I was
• 20:54
  talking to. But other than that, like, I was
• 20:56
  torn between like, you know, I was recruiting, recruited by Bob
• 20:59
  Kersey at UCLA, Gary Winkler, Pat Henry at LSU.
• 21:08
  I took one visit where they're going to play volleyball and run
• 21:11
  track because I was smart enough to know they need to run track
• 21:13
  instead of play volleyball. But I took one visit where I
• 21:15
  took a visit to a school that wanted me to recruit to go to
• 21:17
  both places. And then I stopped visiting
• 21:19
  schools. Well.
• 21:20
  Hold on there. Why did you say you were smart
• 21:22
  enough to know track versus volleyball?
• 21:24
  You're talking about like, you know, highlights 2020.
• 21:26
  Look what track did. No, no, no.
• 21:28
  At the time I was, I was, I was a little.
• 21:31
  I was, I would say that I was very intentional and practical
• 21:36
  about how I, I had to take care of myself a little bit when I
• 21:40
  was younger. And so I was very, very
• 21:45
  intentional and practical what I wanted my life to be.
• 21:47
  I knew what I didn't want to do in my life and I know what I
• 21:49
  wanted in my life, what I didn't.
• 21:51
  And so when I took that, I stopped taking visits after
• 21:54
  four. I was like, I don't take any
• 21:55
  more. I knew between choosing between,
• 21:59
  let's go back to when I'm choosing between sports.
• 22:02
  You know, you want basketball, volleyball, track.
• 22:03
  I knew this even before, you know, I decided to go.
• 22:08
  I knew this, that if I wanted to be a professional athlete in any
• 22:12
  way, that the only sport that I saw on TV where I saw a
• 22:16
  professional athlete or a woman on TV was track and field,
• 22:20
  right? So that always been in my mind
• 22:23
  from being a young kid. So I knew that, hey, I can go
• 22:25
  play basketball. I said this logically in my
• 22:28
  head. I can go play basketball, but
• 22:31
  after I finished college, what am I going to do?
• 22:32
  Yeah, right. Done.
• 22:34
  I can go play volleyball, but after college, what am I going
• 22:36
  to do? If I go to college and I run
• 22:39
  track, I have the possibility opportunity to be to go to the
• 22:44
  Olympics. And so immediately I already
• 22:46
  knew that I wasn't going to play any other sport in college
• 22:51
  except track. But I went to the one school
• 22:53
  that made me, that gave me the option of doing both.
• 22:55
  I visited that school and so I already knew that like I was
• 23:00
  going to go to the track path. And then once I took those four,
• 23:04
  those four visits from Illinois, UCLALSU at the school, the
• 23:08
  school is Wyoming. I went to visit Wyoming.
• 23:10
  They had a decent, they had a decent volleyball team at the
• 23:12
  time. Yeah, yeah.
• 23:14
  Yeah, and but I couldn't go to Wyoming.
• 23:16
  One of my one of my high school, you know, one of the girls from
• 23:19
  my state who I played volleyball with went to went to play
• 23:22
  volleyball there and I couldn't go to Wyoming, Mike, because
• 23:26
  like I may have grown up on a bunch of Chicanos and Latinos
• 23:28
  and stuff like that, but I didn't see a single black person
• 23:30
  when I went there on a visit. I was just, I went to visit
• 23:35
  there and they were really nice people.
• 23:36
  I just was like, this is the most uncomfortable that you
• 23:39
  ever. I was like not going there.
• 23:42
  So after that was my last visit. I was like, you know what, I
• 23:44
  don't need to visit anyplace else.
• 23:46
  And so my thought process, because, you know, I think this
• 23:49
  is I'm still like this very much my thought process is this.
• 23:52
  I said, OK, I went to, it was hard.
• 23:55
  Let me tell you, my recruiting process was difficult because
• 23:57
  they didn't have the support. And I had all this, you know,
• 24:00
  chatter back and forth, you know, people hated, you know,
• 24:03
  during that time there was the the negative recruiting was was
• 24:06
  strong. So how do you handle the
• 24:08
  negative recruiting? Like people tell me bad things
• 24:10
  about this coach. People tell me people told me
• 24:12
  bad things. Everybody told me bad things
• 24:14
  about the same. Yeah.
• 24:14
  Everybody was terrible, right? Yeah, except for the person
• 24:17
  talking to you at the time. Right?
• 24:18
  Right. And, you know, you're getting
• 24:21
  phone calls at night, you're getting people telling you what
• 24:23
  you what they think you should do and what you should do.
• 24:25
  And then the little information my family did have wasn't, you
• 24:28
  know, I don't know if it was, you know, misinformation or, you
• 24:33
  know, it was just. And and and don't forget for
• 24:35
  everybody listening, this is a pre Internet.
• 24:38
  So this is you're not Googling anything.
• 24:40
  You are to to your point there, Sheila phone calls other people
• 24:44
  that that's your information. A letter every once in a while
• 24:47
  that that's all the information you get.
• 24:49
  That's all the information you get and it's, you know, it's,
• 24:52
  it's just the, the phone calls were overwhelming.
• 24:58
  You know, the home visits were were OK, but overwhelming for
• 25:04
  me. Now, mind you, I'm, you know,
• 25:07
  I'm just, you know, I'm just track athlete who, you know, in
• 25:09
  my state who's very, everybody knows who you are.
• 25:11
  And I've got a little bit of swag, but I was still the same
• 25:14
  kid, still very, you know, somewhat introverted, but
• 25:20
  everybody knows my name. And so it was, it was, it was
• 25:26
  emotionally hard for me because I didn't know what to do.
• 25:29
  And it was like people were calling me telling me you have
• 25:31
  to make a decision. You know, you're telling me you
• 25:32
  have to make a decision like you got to do.
• 25:34
  And I'm thinking myself, well, I don't know what to do because
• 25:36
  you're saying this about this coach.
• 25:37
  You're saying this about that coach in this school now.
• 25:38
  It was hard. So my very good friend to this
• 25:42
  day, Nicolette Dennis, Nicki Dennis, who was my English
• 25:44
  teacher, my freshman English teacher, becoming like my best
• 25:47
  friend, becoming my sister, You know, we're still like, you
• 25:49
  know, the babysatter kids, the whole thing, how sad.
• 25:52
  And so me and Nicki are still pretty close.
• 25:56
  And so my, my, my friend, I call my friend now Nicki Dennis.
• 25:59
  And I really, she really, really, really help me figure
• 26:03
  this out. And so I was very logical.
• 26:07
  I'm very logical about a lot of things, very logical about it.
• 26:10
  So it came down to this, OK, if I go to this school and I don't
• 26:15
  do well on track, where would I want to be?
• 26:18
  I want to be in Baton Rouge, LA Probably not, right?
• 26:26
  I'm a military kid from Albuquerque, NM.
• 26:30
  I speak proper English like I articulate my words.
• 26:35
  I'm exposed. I have a lot of exposure.
• 26:37
  I believe in exposure as a young.
• 26:38
  My teachers, one thing, one thing my teachers taught me.
• 26:39
  This is why I love them so much. And I always tell this, my kids
• 26:43
  were in this situation that it's not necessarily where you're at
• 26:46
  right now. What you're doing right now is
• 26:47
  not who you are. And so the more I can expose you
• 26:51
  to different ways of thinking and seeing the world, the
• 26:54
  better. Because if I would have kept my
• 26:55
  mindset where I was in that part time of my life, I don't know
• 26:58
  where I would be. But unfortunately, I had people
• 27:00
  around me who exposed me to so many different things, like even
• 27:04
  foods. I was amazed the first time I
• 27:05
  went and had had sushi, Nikki took me sushi like these
• 27:10
  Japanese. It was such a it was, it was for
• 27:11
  me. It was like as a young kid
• 27:13
  coming from where I from, where I'd come from, was coming from,
• 27:16
  it was like a big deal. Like, oh, wow, people eat
• 27:18
  different foods with different like it was that simple for me.
• 27:23
  And so, and just in in in arts and reading books, I was a big
• 27:26
  reader. You know, I end up being an
• 27:27
  English major in college. I had a teacher who exposed me
• 27:29
  to reading books. So I read a lot.
• 27:33
  And so I had a lot of I read literature, I read novels, I
• 27:36
  read teen novels. I read a lot as a as a young,
• 27:39
  young adult, you know, teenager. And so I, my exposure to like
• 27:42
  there is a much a world much bigger than what I'm living
• 27:45
  right here. That when I went to when I was
• 27:48
  going to college, I was thinking to myself, OK, if I go to Baton
• 27:50
  Rouge, Pat Henry was great came, you know, I know the Henry
• 27:53
  family. There was definitely a
• 27:55
  connection there. You know, I know Matt and Matt,
• 27:58
  you know, every time I see Matt give him a hug, you know, the
• 28:01
  whole family, his, his, you know, one of the one of his
• 28:05
  sister in law's works at the airport, the whole thing, right.
• 28:07
  So I knew the Henry's well enough.
• 28:10
  And Pat was at LSU at the time. Gary Winkle.
• 28:14
  I loved, actually really, really liked Illinois.
• 28:16
  Like if I I wouldn't say I'd do it again differently, I don't
• 28:19
  think I'd go back and do it. But I really, really did like
• 28:22
  Gary Illinois and I like the team.
• 28:26
  And the thing about Illinois for me wasn't that it had nothing to
• 28:28
  do with coaching. None of my decisions had
• 28:30
  anything to do with coaching or the team.
• 28:31
  The reason I went to college or the culture, which had nothing
• 28:33
  to do with how good the team was or the coaching.
• 28:36
  And all had to do with how I saw myself in the future.
• 28:38
  And so I thought, you know, this is me and my mind.
• 28:42
  Thankful, thankful, Nikki. Like if I go to Champagne, it's
• 28:45
  OK, but I didn't like that flight.
• 28:46
  You had to catch one flight and another flight to get to
• 28:48
  Champagne. That has not changed.
• 28:51
  They get on a smaller airplane to get to get to college.
• 28:55
  And I thought, like, what am I going to do in Illinois if if
• 28:57
  track doesn't work out? Like, who am I going to meet?
• 28:59
  Like where am I going to get to people right?
• 29:03
  This is my this is my my eighteen 1718 year old brain.
• 29:07
  And so the only school and even though, like I went to my
• 29:09
  recruiting visit, I met Bob Kersey, I met Jackie Jonah
• 29:11
  Kersey did all things in Lai was not at all impressed with the
• 29:15
  fact that JJKI didn't know who JJ was really.
• 29:18
  She was an Olympian, but I didn't, I didn't grasp the
• 29:20
  magnitude. Of JJK, Right, right, right,
• 29:22
  Jackie. Was and I just knew everybody
• 29:24
  hated Bobby. Every coach, every college coach
• 29:26
  in the country hated Bobby all the time.
• 29:27
  That might not have changed too much in Today in 202425.
• 29:30
  I think people love him now, but back.
• 29:32
  Then you, Bobby, if you're listening, you know I love you.
• 29:34
  You know what? I'm talking about yeah, yeah.
• 29:36
  We love to respect Bobby's and Jackie, like Jackie's.
• 29:38
  You know, Jackie's probably. The greatest people in.
• 29:40
  The world in my career than I talk to anybody else, but
• 29:42
  everybody hated Bobby. Every college coach and country
• 29:44
  hated Bobby at the time. At least I was recruiting
• 29:46
  against him. And so I wasn't that that much
• 29:50
  impressed with the whole like, it's UCLA and they wanted to Bob
• 29:53
  Kersey the coach. That's all.
• 29:54
  It's a plus. LA the whole thing, yeah.
• 29:57
  But in my mind, my little like thinking about my life blind and
• 30:00
  wanting to change my life was like, OK, if track doesn't work
• 30:04
  out and I just get a degree, where in the United States do I
• 30:09
  want to be where I have an opportunity to be successful?
• 30:12
  And I thought in my mind, if something doesn't work out, I
• 30:15
  get hurt or, you know, I just, I'm not good and don't make an
• 30:19
  Olympics da da da, then you know, if I'm in Lai can at least
• 30:23
  meet people who can help me get to where it is.
• 30:26
  I want to be in life. And that's why I chose UCLA.
• 30:29
  That's a maybe not in common thought process for a 17 year
• 30:34
  old. Probably not.
• 30:38
  Yeah. Like probably not like I didn't.
• 30:41
  I really. And I can't tell, I can tell you
• 30:44
  this, I don't know that that LA was the right.
• 30:47
  I talked about this when I'm recruiting now.
• 30:49
  Was this already the right fit for me personality wise?
• 30:53
  I probably should have went with Gary Winkler in Illinois if I
• 30:56
  was going to, if I was going to the way I tell kids.
• 30:58
  The way I talk, right? Now, the way I talk to kids
• 31:01
  right now about choosing your school, you know I talk.
• 31:05
  But it's got to be a good fit. I should have went to Illinois
• 31:08
  if that was. The case.
• 31:09
  That's a good point, Knowing your personality, knowing Gary.
• 31:12
  That's a great point, actually. I should have went to Illinois.
• 31:14
  Yeah. But I chose UC and I chose UCLA
• 31:19
  and you choose when to choose the school, you choose which you
• 31:22
  want out of it. You're going to get out of it.
• 31:23
  I wouldn't say necessarily that UCLA was my was the right fit
• 31:31
  for me in terms of like, I can just naturally grow because I
• 31:35
  struggled at UCLA the first couple years.
• 31:38
  Like I really struggled. I struggled socially, you know,
• 31:41
  I struggled socially at UCLAI struggled, you know,
• 31:45
  athletically, you know, I knew I had I had a very big I had
• 31:48
  serious imposter syndrome for the first couple years.
• 31:52
  You know, of course they don't. They wouldn't know this, but I
• 31:54
  felt like God, all these people are really Angela Burnham was on
• 31:56
  my team, Janette Vickers was on my team, Tonya Sebick was on my
• 31:59
  team. Godina was a was a freshman the
• 32:02
  same year I was MEB Meb was a freshman the same year I was
• 32:05
  Karen Hickox was NC double AI mean.
• 32:07
  I had serious imposter syndrome the first couple years.
• 32:12
  Talk about that a little bit because that's an interesting
• 32:14
  concept. Imposter syndrome is beyond
• 32:17
  athleticism. It's it's our whole world.
• 32:19
  It goes into what kind of partner you are, a parent,
• 32:22
  business person, whatever, whatever your job teacher, they
• 32:26
  have imposter syndrome. I mentioned before we hit record
• 32:30
  here. So by the time you listen to
• 32:32
  this is probably the the week before, we had Michelle,
• 32:35
  Michelle Freeman, the women's relays coach on and she was
• 32:39
  talking about the recruiting class.
• 32:40
  She went to South Carolina and like all these studs, you know,
• 32:43
  the Lashinda Demas and I mean just, you know, she was naming
• 32:46
  names. I was like, Oh my God, that's
• 32:47
  right. I forgot about her and her and
• 32:48
  her and her and I was like, you know, how did you and her sister
• 32:51
  who was equally as good athletically, you know, like
• 32:54
  that can be intimidating. I, I mentioned I wish so this is
• 32:58
  probably 2 weeks in a row. You've heard me tell this study
• 33:00
  that I can't, I need to go actually find the study.
• 33:02
  I remember reading an abstract of a study about really, really
• 33:06
  smart kids that go to Ivy League, right?
• 33:08
  If you go to Harvard, Cornell, Yale, that you're the top year,
• 33:12
  you're valedictorian and all these kind of things.
• 33:14
  And that the instance of, of dropout and, and there's no
• 33:22
  other better way of suicide was higher because these kids were
• 33:25
  all the big fish in whatever pond doesn't even have to be a
• 33:28
  small pond, but they were the validator.
• 33:29
  They were all the smartest. And then they go to a Harvard,
• 33:31
  etcetera at Ivy League school and they're surrounded by a
• 33:34
  whole bunch of genius. I mean, they're all geniuses
• 33:36
  that are at these schools. And sometimes you can and can't
• 33:39
  have that. You're now the 100th person in
• 33:40
  your class versus #1 because those other 90 nines are
• 33:43
  geniuses like you. Michelle talked about like I
• 33:47
  want the iron sharpens iron was one of her quotes.
• 33:49
  Like I wanted to be, I wanted to get beat at practice all the
• 33:51
  time. So she didn't doesn't
• 33:53
  necessarily have imposter syndrome that I'm more in in
• 33:56
  line with you of like when I get around other like coaches when I
• 34:00
  was a coach, when I get around Pats and Bobby and I'll be like,
• 34:03
  who am I? Come on, these dudes are they're
• 34:06
  the best. How did you handle you?
• 34:10
  You mentioned the people that you're in you're you're you're
• 34:12
  you're in Hollywood, USA for track and field at this time.
• 34:15
  This was an amazing. Time, yeah, I mean, I mean, of
• 34:17
  course out there there's when I went to college, you know, it
• 34:20
  was Jackie already set the world record.
• 34:22
  She was there. GAIL, GAIL, GAIL.
• 34:24
  GAIL did the homeless. GAIL was a voluntary assistant
• 34:26
  with Bobby in my when I was a senior in high school, she did
• 34:28
  my home visit. So GAIL divers and Bobby came
• 34:30
  out, did my home visit for UCLA. And so there was still, you
• 34:34
  know, Kenny Harrison was there when they were still all the
• 34:37
  who's who have tracked. It was amazing, right?
• 34:40
  Yeah, and and John was down there coaching everybody.
• 34:42
  Otto's the same year as I am, you know, so it was who's who
• 34:46
  have track and field back then in my when I say I had imposter
• 34:49
  syndrome, it wasn't that I didn't think I was good enough.
• 34:51
  I had, I really had a different perspective when I say UCLA was
• 34:55
  I'm very proud of, of, of going to UCLA and I'm, I'm grateful
• 34:58
  for it and I don't regret it all.
• 34:59
  But I wasn't, it wasn't like a natural fit for me in the sense
• 35:03
  of my imposterism. Imposterism wasn't that I wasn't
• 35:06
  good enough because I knew I was talented.
• 35:11
  Like still this introverted, but yet, you know, everybody knows
• 35:15
  my name kind of kid. I knew that I was talented.
• 35:19
  My confidence was shaken because I don't like being the
• 35:23
  spotlight. 1 I don't like attention.
• 35:25
  I didn't like attention at the time. 1 But it was more so from
• 35:29
  the perspective of I thought that.
• 35:32
  And I remember thinking this because Bobby used to like talk
• 35:35
  shit and like try to get me, try to get me going.
• 35:39
  Like he, you know, try to play those mind games with me, which
• 35:43
  intimidated me. I was scared of body for I would
• 35:46
  tell you I was scared of body for two years at least.
• 35:48
  Like, I was just scared straight up.
• 35:50
  I think my kids, some of my kids might feel like I know, but I
• 35:51
  was just scared. Is that it was that I thought
• 35:59
  that I'm not supposed to be good yet.
• 36:02
  Like I needed time. Like I'm supposed to come in and
• 36:05
  I'm supposed to be like the, you know, I'm supposed to be going
• 36:08
  to learn the first couple years. It's just not my time yet.
• 36:14
  Like Janine Vickers was a bronze medalist my freshman year in
• 36:18
  college. By the time I was a junior, I
• 36:21
  was like, OK, I belong. I'm ready now.
• 36:22
  I belong here or I'm supposed to be here.
• 36:24
  It's my time. But my first couple years, you
• 36:27
  know, they were testing me. I've never done, I've never done
• 36:29
  the heptathlon before. Bobby was teaching me how to
• 36:32
  throw, shot put, throw javel. I've never hurled before.
• 36:34
  I had to learn how to hurdle. I went to hurdle.
• 36:37
  I actually made it to nationals by my junior year in college,
• 36:40
  but I didn't hurdle till I got to college.
• 36:42
  So the events, there were events in the multi that I had not done
• 36:46
  till I got to college. And so it was still this kind of
• 36:50
  like I'm this, I used to think, I used to say this, I'm this,
• 36:53
  I'm there's a totem pole, you know, all the professionals that
• 36:56
  were there and there's, I feel like I was the lowest person on
• 36:58
  the totem pole and I had to wait my turn.
• 37:00
  Right. And so I acted like that.
• 37:05
  Yeah, because, because there's a fine line between Sheila going
• 37:09
  in there going, oh, I'm going to beat all of y'all.
• 37:11
  I'm I'm going to be the top of the totem pole, whether you are,
• 37:15
  whether it works out that way or not versus.
• 37:17
  So there's a fine line between humility and bad ego and is it
• 37:21
  my time? But I mean, you know, you've
• 37:23
  you've seen it there. Luckily there's some freshmen
• 37:25
  you've had that. Thank God they didn't think I
• 37:26
  had to wait and they went on and did great things as a freshman.
• 37:29
  It's a imposter syndrome. Is it fascinated me.
• 37:31
  It's a very complex. It's not just I was good enough
• 37:34
  or not good enough. It's timing like, oh, I'm a
• 37:36
  freshman, my time will come, blah, blah, blah.
• 37:39
  Yeah, it's it's a very complex. Thing no, I seriously had that
• 37:41
  because I'd be like, Dang, all these people are out here on my
• 37:43
  track and you know, I'm just, I was happy to like, let me just
• 37:45
  do it. And I was also, I also struggled
• 37:47
  socially in LA my first couple years because, you know, I come
• 37:51
  from a, came from a community that was a community.
• 37:55
  Like I remember being in the, in the car with one of my team
• 37:57
  mates driving one time and we saw a car accident on the side
• 38:00
  of the road. And you know, the P, the police
• 38:03
  hadn't gotten him. And I was like, how come
• 38:04
  nobody's stopping to help this person?
• 38:06
  He's like, well, shouldn't, shouldn't somebody stop and help
• 38:10
  them? Like why isn't nobody helping?
• 38:11
  Like that was me. Like, what are these people?
• 38:14
  Who are these people? That was one.
• 38:18
  And then two, I struggled because, you know, I'll tell you
• 38:22
  my, my, my good friends, my close friends in college were
• 38:25
  like from one was from Michoacan and one was from Osaka was a 2
• 38:29
  or from that were Mexican. The other one was from
• 38:31
  Nicaragua. And the other one was from
• 38:33
  another one was Raquel, who was black and spoke Spanish.
• 38:37
  You know, and so, you know, just kind of growing.
• 38:42
  I just hadn't really was still growing into my identity as well
• 38:47
  as first couple years. And so I think that LA was the
• 38:52
  best, best place for it to be long term, but at the time it
• 38:55
  took some adjustments. So if I'm recruiting a kid right
• 38:57
  now, I wouldn't tell a kid to go.
• 38:58
  If it was me, I'd be like, you know, I think Champaign IL would
• 39:01
  probably a better smaller environment, you know?
• 39:03
  Did you ever, you know, it fascinates me, today's world of
• 39:07
  sports in general for college, you know, the whole transfer
• 39:10
  portal and things like that. But you know, kids have
• 39:12
  transferred from jump from the day one, right?
• 39:15
  Did you ever think about transferring?
• 39:17
  Did it ever get overwhelming? Never.
• 39:18
  Let me tell you something about Bob Cursey is that I don't care
• 39:22
  what with I mean, Bobby may have is very may have done some like
• 39:27
  I can't believe that. But I will say this that my time
• 39:33
  at UCLA was great and being able to work with Bobby.
• 39:41
  And of course, I look, the person I ended up looking into
• 39:43
  is Jackie. Jackie became like my like one
• 39:45
  of my idols, I would say over those years is that he always
• 39:50
  took care of me. He might cuss you out one
• 39:54
  minute, but let me tell you, I will, I say this, I appreciate
• 40:00
  the fact that I don't, we never, we never had a conversation
• 40:03
  about it, I don't think. But even as I struggled, you
• 40:06
  know, he he never let me struggle to the point in college
• 40:11
  to the point of like, I want to leave this place.
• 40:16
  And so I will, I will say that. And the other thing I'll say
• 40:18
  about that experience at UCLA Lake?
• 40:22
  I don't know if I should say this, but like I used to tell
• 40:24
  people I had PTSD for the first couple of years.
• 40:26
  I didn't like, I didn't want to go back because it was it was
• 40:28
  hard. Like it was, it was hard.
• 40:31
  We yeah, we got, you know, came in all American, learned how to
• 40:34
  go internationals in the multis. Our team got second or third
• 40:37
  NCAA's. We had a great team, great
• 40:38
  athletes on our team did fantastic.
• 40:39
  But it was hard, like these kids don't know, like it was hard.
• 40:44
  I, I'm a PAC10, I'm a PAC 10 champion in 100 meters because I
• 40:48
  got my ass cussed out right before the race.
• 40:49
  And if I didn't win, I don't, I'd rather, I'd rather have the
• 40:52
  consequences. I didn't want to have the
• 40:53
  consequences. Of not winning.
• 40:56
  As opposed to winning. Right, right, right.
• 40:58
  Right. I was not like I was not.
• 40:59
  I was not. I was not built like a sprinter,
• 41:01
  you know, all these sprinters all up.
• 41:02
  I was like, I just, I know I better score points and I better
• 41:04
  win. So, you know, I didn't want the
• 41:09
  blue rings and the spit and I didn't want any of that because
• 41:11
  I'm, I was too sensitive for that stuff.
• 41:13
  I didn't want to get cussed out but.
• 41:17
  Did, did you, you know, I, I think you know, your identity
• 41:20
  for me becomes what I just know of people, right?
• 41:22
  So like for me it's like, oh, you're from San Diego because
• 41:25
  I've always known you from San Diego State and you're a multi,
• 41:27
  right. But you just mentioned you won
• 41:28
  the 100 meters at PAC 10, but you were training as a
• 41:32
  heptathlete. What was and you had the
• 41:34
  greatest heptathlete. By the way, JJK, how did all
• 41:36
  that? I was, I did everything.
• 41:38
  Everything that man told me to do.
• 41:41
  He was like running four out. I was a four by four.
• 41:43
  I mean, if I split 52 seconds on the 4 by 4, you want to run 4x4,
• 41:45
  OK, she looked good. You need somebody to go and run
• 41:48
  the four by one. I get it if you want to.
• 41:50
  I did it. I did whatever you told me to
• 41:52
  do. As opposed to these kids
• 41:53
  nowadays. I was that person.
• 41:54
  Like I was a good athlete. I was a good all around athlete,
• 41:57
  right? It took me a while to grasp some
• 42:00
  things like high jump. Just high jump under Bobby just
• 42:03
  never clicked for me. This guy named Dan Alan, Alan
• 42:07
  Hinkle, who's down to LA right now, who he brought in his a red
• 42:11
  shirt of the year who really had had some success in high jump
• 42:14
  with him, but it never clicked for me.
• 42:15
  Even the body coach Amy Acuff. You know Amy is doing.
• 42:17
  Oh, is that right? Oh, I didn't know that.
• 42:19
  Oh wow. He has a team with Amy and so
• 42:22
  and so here. There's so many certain events I
• 42:25
  didn't click with me and him, but overall, like I am, I am I
• 42:30
  became a bad ass because of Bobby.
• 42:34
  You know, there's just that. Do you have?
• 42:36
  No, there's no option. And you mentioned, I think you
• 42:39
  said you either got an English degree or you started.
• 42:41
  So England were you? What was the thought, English.
• 42:44
  Teacher or no, I thought when I went into college, I thought,
• 42:47
  OK, I want to go into business because I knew I wanted to
• 42:50
  travel. So let me see if I get into
• 42:52
  business. But as a kid, you know, I told
• 42:54
  you I did a lot of reading, did a lot of writing, so on and so
• 42:56
  forth. Highly influenced by some of my,
• 42:58
  my, my English and teachers in, in high school ended up becoming
• 43:02
  a English major, got my degree in English researcher.
• 43:07
  I thought I was going to become a professor.
• 43:08
  My goal at that point was I'm going to become AI.
• 43:10
  Don't want to teach kids. I was like, I want to teach
• 43:11
  adults because, you know, I'd rather communicate with people.
• 43:15
  And so I thought I was going to become a professor.
• 43:17
  I was going to make. I'm going to go to my PhD and
• 43:19
  I'm. Going to be a right.
• 43:20
  So it was almost it was going to be Doctor Braille talking about
• 43:24
  the classics, the Latin class. What?
• 43:25
  What? I assume people in that realm of
• 43:28
  studies like you, you very niche.
• 43:30
  I would go and I was going to do poetry.
• 43:32
  Mine would be poetry. Is that right?
• 43:34
  So you have written poetry? I've I used to write.
• 43:38
  I used to write a. Lot.
• 43:38
  I love that, so cool. You used to write a lot.
• 43:42
  Yeah, that's awesome. That's really cool.
• 43:45
  I love that. What changed?
• 43:49
  You know what ended up happening, I'll tell you tell
• 43:50
  you what changed is very clearly while while at UCLAI ended up I
• 43:58
  liked you know, I was I liked teaching.
• 44:00
  I was pretty good at explaining things and kind of and I ended
• 44:03
  up one year. You know it back then he said,
• 44:06
  well, you're not allowed to make money, right?
• 44:07
  But I ended up personal training.
• 44:10
  I ended up doing a lot of personal training.
• 44:12
  I did a lot of personal training because I ended up meeting this
• 44:14
  guy. The guy I was dating at the time
• 44:17
  was a trainer at a really, you know, at a Golf Club, a resort
• 44:24
  over in Brentwood, CA where he ran the gym there.
• 44:28
  And so he and I dated and then he sort of taught me how to, you
• 44:32
  know, train people. And then from there, I started
• 44:35
  getting all, and I started teaching this thing where I can
• 44:36
  teach you how to fly. So I take all these like
• 44:39
  Hollywood executives, wives and stuff like that out to UCLA's
• 44:42
  track and teach them how to Sprint.
• 44:44
  And so I'd make my $30, you know, I'd just be stashing $30 a
• 44:47
  session, you know, all cash, you know, in my room, basically
• 44:54
  teaching people how to run. And then in the gym, I'd go in
• 44:58
  the gym with him in the mornings and I'd teach people how to lift
• 45:00
  weights. And then maybe of my freshman
• 45:02
  teammates I saw struggling on the track, I'd like bring him
• 45:05
  out of the track, like without the coaches knowing, saying this
• 45:06
  is what this is what this is what because Jeanette Bolden
• 45:09
  becoming our head coach my my fifth year.
• 45:12
  And so I was team captain. I was team captain that year, my
• 45:16
  last year, last year, college, I think I was team captain.
• 45:20
  And so, you know, along the way there'd be like people who
• 45:23
  didn't quite get it. And so I'd be like, OK, come on,
• 45:25
  I'm going to show you what you're talking about.
• 45:27
  And so I, you know, I began coaching, basically teaching
• 45:30
  coaching in college. Did you find yourself knowing
• 45:34
  your experience your first couple years at UCLA?
• 45:37
  Did you find yourself as you started finding yourself junior
• 45:39
  and senior year, gravitating towards freshman and sophomores
• 45:42
  that like, oh, they're, they're struggling a little bit, whether
• 45:45
  it's what Bobby or Jeanette wanted or the no, it's.
• 45:48
  Kind of happened, yeah. It just kind of happened
• 45:50
  organically because at that point, you know, I was, you
• 45:56
  know, life, life is life thing. But like it's only be in a
• 45:58
  situation where, you know, I had I'd take on the role.
• 46:00
  I think it was my senior year when I came the team captain and
• 46:05
  it was Jeanette's first year as a head coach.
• 46:08
  So there's some Bobby was still around.
• 46:10
  There are some definitely some transitional things that that
• 46:12
  were going on and it just became like somebody had to lead by
• 46:16
  example. Even if you have the best person
• 46:20
  on the team, you got to lead by example.
• 46:21
  Right. And and so it just sort of, I
• 46:25
  didn't intentionally gravitate toward the freshman because we
• 46:27
  had some good freshman God, Camille Noel, who's from Canada,
• 46:31
  was on her team as a freshman. And she was, she was, she didn't
• 46:34
  need any help, you know. And so it was usually just the,
• 46:41
  you know, it was, it was not us, us, It was the ones who came in
• 46:45
  like we're trying to make the team kind of situation so.
• 46:48
  Well, instead of becoming a doctor of poetry, you got really
• 46:52
  good at track and ended up having a really good
• 46:55
  professional career. How did you tell me about the
• 47:00
  transition? Because again, you know, I
• 47:02
  pigeonhole people, right? So to me, you are a Cliff
• 47:04
  Rubeldo disciple. I love that Bobby was there
• 47:06
  because Bobby's on my bucket list.
• 47:08
  I really would like to be able to put Bobby's journey on wax
• 47:11
  for what he's been through in this great profession.
• 47:14
  But Cliff, who has been on the podcast, you know, that's how I
• 47:18
  think. I think I first met you at like
• 47:19
  a level 2, I think, or maybe at the Olympic Training center
• 47:22
  somewhere. I met you was.
• 47:23
  I with Cliff. You were with Cliff and so it's.
• 47:25
  Like was he assistant? I was, I was being cliffs.
• 47:26
  I was following Cliff around everywhere learning.
• 47:29
  I was actually learning from Cliff because I was following
• 47:31
  him around to all of his to coach his education stuff.
• 47:33
  Cliff coached you. Yeah.
• 47:35
  OK. So how did you transit?
• 47:36
  Like, how did you find Cliff and why work with him?
• 47:39
  And then tell us a little bit about the influence of Cliff,
• 47:41
  because, you know, this is one of my my top five mentors for
• 47:44
  me. I'm going to tell you one more
• 47:45
  story about to get to that point so that because I don't think
• 47:48
  I've ever said this in an interview.
• 47:51
  So it could be, it could be documented, it could be recorded
• 47:53
  at some point. So I was looking for something
• 47:55
  is that I remember after I made my first Olympic team, I mean my
• 47:59
  first Olympic team with, with Coach Ravalto, with Cliff
• 48:01
  Ravalto in 2000. I was had gone and started
• 48:07
  training down the Olympic training center here in San
• 48:08
  Diego, back and forth between Manhattan and and San Diego for
• 48:12
  a little bit. Al Joyner.
• 48:13
  Al was down at, at San Diego coaching.
• 48:17
  I'm down here at the Olympic trains for coaching at the time.
• 48:20
  And I will tell you I left, but after college, I was still
• 48:23
  trying to make it like the 96 Olympic trials that come up.
• 48:26
  And I was, you know, still in that space of like I'm in Lai
• 48:29
  don't have any money. I don't know, I'm living.
• 48:31
  I'm, you know, I'm working in Hollywood Gold's Gym and I'm
• 48:33
  working in here and there. I'm just trying to hustle.
• 48:35
  I'm hustling in San Diego. I mean in LA.
• 48:37
  So in LA for 14 years, I'm just hustling, trying to make ends
• 48:39
  meet, but I'm still want to run. So I remember leaving UCLA
• 48:45
  Aggression. UCLAI went and trained with Jane
• 48:47
  Frederick and Kim Carter for a year in Santa Barbara.
• 48:52
  Jane Frederick, who was a former Olympic Olympian in the
• 48:55
  Pentaphon before Kim Hetaphon, and Kim Carter, who at the time
• 48:58
  was one of the top five multis in the country.
• 49:02
  She'd made teams in Santa Barbara.
• 49:05
  I went to train with Jane Frederick, had no money, was
• 49:08
  living very roguish. Like my life was just roguish.
• 49:12
  I'm not even not even trying to cover it up.
• 49:13
  Like I was just living very roguish and like no registration
• 49:19
  on my car could barely get my life.
• 49:21
  I mean, just just living, just getting by in LA, you know, in
• 49:24
  LA was a hustle. And so I had gone back to Bobby
• 49:30
  because Jane got fed up with me and she basically kicked me off
• 49:32
  the track. You know, I was always late and,
• 49:35
  you know, traveling back and forth trying to still trying to
• 49:37
  be in LA to get to Santa Barbara to practice on time.
• 49:39
  And, you know, I'm living with this old woman for 500 bucks a
• 49:41
  month who I couldn't afford to pay rent.
• 49:43
  She just let me slide because I kept her company.
• 49:45
  You know, it was just just young in LA and, and I tried to get, I
• 49:53
  tried. I was like, I had this thing in
• 49:54
  my head that if I'm going to make a lipid team, Bobby has to
• 49:57
  coach me. Like I'm not, if Bob Cursey
• 50:00
  doesn't coach me, I'm not because I because he coached all
• 50:02
  the Olympians. This is what was stuck in my
• 50:03
  head after a while being in UCLA.
• 50:05
  If he doesn't coach me, you know, how am I going to make the
• 50:08
  Olympics? And so I went back to Bobby and
• 50:13
  you know, of course, talk to him.
• 50:15
  Hey, please, can you coach me? And you know what Bobby told me,
• 50:19
  this became this became this became a very strong motivation
• 50:21
  for me for a while. Bobby said to me, and I want to
• 50:25
  say this out loud because I have such a such admiration and
• 50:27
  respect for him now and kind of where how how he influenced me,
• 50:35
  probably not even knowing it. Bobby said to me, we're going
• 50:40
  back up to Drake Stadium and sitting on the in the stands and
• 50:44
  he was coaching whoever else was there.
• 50:46
  The new generate, new wave of athletes were there.
• 50:49
  He basically said to me, Sheila can't coach you because you
• 50:53
  don't believe you're good enough.
• 50:57
  He basically said you don't, you know, you don't believe that
• 50:59
  you're good enough. And in a sense, I took it as he
• 51:03
  didn't think I was good enough. So in my mind I was like, he
• 51:08
  doesn't want to. Oh, this is what he said to me.
• 51:09
  Actually, I remember now he says he doesn't want to waste his
• 51:12
  time coaching someone to score 6000 points.
• 51:14
  Those are exact words because I use them like it wouldn't be
• 51:17
  worth his time because he had all these other like body was
• 51:21
  loaded at that time, loaded with athletes and he and he and his
• 51:25
  words said to me it wouldn't be worth his time to coach someone
• 51:32
  to score, to only score 6000 points in that tough one.
• 51:38
  So that hurt my feelings. Yeah.
• 51:42
  It hurt my feelings because the next year he then began coaching
• 51:47
  this girl who I thought I was better than to only score 6000
• 51:52
  points. So can I tell you for a number
• 51:56
  of years, and Bobby may not know this for a number of years, you
• 52:00
  know, I was training in Northridge with got another guy
• 52:02
  that was used to coach at Northridge for a few years and
• 52:05
  I've been made my first team that it was my mission for a
• 52:10
  number of years, of course, to prove Bobby wrong.
• 52:13
  Right. Like to prove to him that I was
• 52:18
  good enough. And so those early years of
• 52:22
  like, you know, my first pen, my first Pan American gave my first
• 52:25
  world championship game for team, you know, first US
• 52:28
  championship. Those first few years was to
• 52:31
  prove to Bobby that, you know, I was worth his time, but I could
• 52:35
  score more than 6000 points and have to have one.
• 52:39
  And to, to, to bring that full circle is I remember after
• 52:44
  making my first team, I had come down to San Diego, back and
• 52:48
  forth between Manhattan, KS and San Diego to train from Cliff to
• 52:53
  here, Cliff to here. And Al was down at the training
• 52:56
  center. And Alec come up to me one time
• 52:59
  because they saw I had, I had strong.
• 53:00
  I have a very strong work ethic. No one could ever say that I
• 53:02
  don't work my ass off. You know, I, I'm a very strong
• 53:05
  work ethic because I had to be good.
• 53:07
  That was my mentality. Like I had to be good.
• 53:10
  And so I, it was working, working, working hard was never
• 53:12
  a problem for me. And so Alec told me one time he
• 53:17
  had asked Bobby a question. And Bobby, can you name 1
• 53:21
  athlete that you feel like you just, you know, you missed, like
• 53:26
  you just you misjudged. I don't know what the word, I
• 53:28
  don't know what the conversation to work with, but you misjudged.
• 53:31
  And at that time, early 2000, Bobby said the one athlete he
• 53:36
  misjudged was me because I had already had won a few national
• 53:42
  US championships that gone on. I was with Cliff and, you know,
• 53:45
  successful and, you know, made some teams and whatnot.
• 53:47
  And the one athlete that he misjudged was me.
• 53:53
  Because, you know, basically my motto at that time is like, I
• 53:57
  won't fail unless I quit. So the only way I fail is if I
• 54:01
  quit. And because I didn't quit.
• 54:03
  And so for that, that was a full circle moment for me in the
• 54:06
  whole Bob Cursey relationship where I was just like held a
• 54:09
  grudge and was like, I'm going to prove.
• 54:10
  Them wrong from. Them to come back and maybe not
• 54:13
  tell me directly, but acknowledge that hey, you know
• 54:15
  what? I missed that one.
• 54:17
  I probably needed that, but and so that's the full like Bob
• 54:21
  cursing where I took it as like, not as like, oh, it crushed me.
• 54:23
  It motivated me to like, really strive to be better.
• 54:28
  Yeah. One of the things that's
• 54:30
  interesting when you do an interview style like this is you
• 54:33
  know, you have clarity now, you know you have 2020 vision behind
• 54:38
  you, right? Do you think, and I don't know
• 54:42
  if you can do these two things at the same time.
• 54:43
  I don't know. I've never been anywhere
• 54:45
  remotely close to an athlete like you and your peers during
• 54:48
  that time. But what I heard you describe
• 54:50
  was, is I was working to prove him wrong And, and maybe on the
• 54:54
  other side is I'm working to prove myself right.
• 54:59
  And again, I'm not sure you you tell me.
• 55:01
  I'm not sure those two can be done at the same time.
• 55:03
  No, at some point there has to be a flip of a switch.
• 55:05
  What what's better? Like you always had success
• 55:08
  would be I'm going to prove him wrong, but then you also had
• 55:10
  success maybe on the other side that of all kind of proving
• 55:13
  myself right here. I think that two things you need
• 55:16
  this is cliche things. I think that two things can be
• 55:18
  true. True, I agree with that.
• 55:22
  And I think that in the beginning it was I had a chip on
• 55:25
  my shoulder, like seriously had a chip on my shoulder.
• 55:28
  Like I was out to just destroy everybody.
• 55:30
  And part of that part of the, the, the, the arsenal I had in
• 55:33
  my bag was Bobby's words for a long time.
• 55:38
  And at a certain point it switched.
• 55:43
  At a certain point it switched to like, I just want to be good.
• 55:51
  You know, back in the day, Mike, don't forget back in the day, we
• 55:54
  didn't get paid for this. The way these kids are right
• 55:57
  now, like I was training and competing, having my uniforms.
• 56:00
  I could my one of my best friends at the time.
• 56:02
  We like make up my uniforms. We go get them sewn and made.
• 56:05
  You know, there's no, I don't know.
• 56:06
  I wasn't sponsored. I like spent my own money, you
• 56:08
  know, for entry fees and to get here and there.
• 56:11
  I wouldn't beg ask people to help me.
• 56:14
  You know, I was still personal training.
• 56:16
  My personal training clients helped me get to track me to
• 56:18
  help me get here or there. There was no, I wasn't doing
• 56:21
  this for, you know, my sponsor. I was just because I wanted to
• 56:24
  be an because I had that 12 year old kid.
• 56:26
  So they became a little kid again, you know, so you go back
• 56:30
  to, oh, this is what I want to do one day, you know, after I
• 56:32
  got over the you know, I proved Bobby wrong thing and I've kind
• 56:35
  of come to peace, come at peace with that.
• 56:37
  But you know what? This is what I want to do with
• 56:39
  my life and I feel like I'm doing, I'm supposed to be doing
• 56:41
  at this time. Did you and?
• 56:45
  Not it should be fun, but work is not always fun, right And
• 56:49
  what you're doing, even as in athletics, being a athlete is
• 56:52
  not always fun. But you know, you talk about
• 56:56
  cliches, you've heard this about, you know, holding a
• 56:57
  grudge against someone is like poisoning yourself or holding
• 57:00
  your own breath and hoping it hurts them.
• 57:01
  Did you? What I'm curious about is when
• 57:03
  you got, I love that you got a, a, a full circle where Bobby
• 57:06
  said, yeah, you know what? The, the person I missed out on.
• 57:09
  Yeah, yeah, I, I, I misjudged that one.
• 57:11
  I like that you got that kind of closure, if you will.
• 57:13
  And then there's the rest of your career.
• 57:15
  Did you have more fun in the rest of your career or in the
• 57:18
  you know what? I'm going to be on that track
• 57:20
  every day because I'm going to prove him wrong.
• 57:22
  No, I had, I had. I would say that I had.
• 57:25
  I didn't. There was never a point in the
• 57:28
  process that I was like this. This thing with Bobby was like,
• 57:34
  I was so focused on it that it just, it negatively impacted me.
• 57:40
  I'm a pretty still the same person, still introverted, but
• 57:44
  everybody knows my name. I'm a pretty thoughtful person
• 57:49
  and strategic in many ways. And so I would use it when I
• 57:54
  came to point where I'd use it when I needed it because there's
• 57:58
  so many other things. And I honestly, like I was
• 58:00
  having fun, like I told you, my, my life was roguish for a while.
• 58:06
  So it was like, it was just like, you know, it was, you
• 58:13
  know, I was doing my thing in LA until I got out of LA.
• 58:15
  And when I got out of LA, when I went to camp, I left LA, went to
• 58:18
  Manhattan, KS with Cliff. It was like a total like life
• 58:23
  change. I don't think I grew up until I
• 58:25
  got to Manhattan, KS. I actually don't think I grew up
• 58:27
  and became a mature person until I got to Manhattan, KS.
• 58:31
  Yeah, I love that you went to Manhattan, KS after drubbing my
• 58:35
  now hometown of Champaign, IL, by the way, because you can't
• 58:37
  get to Manhattan without. Either a little.
• 58:40
  Crop duster just like we do here in Champaign or a very long
• 58:44
  boring. I've done it many, many times,
• 58:47
  drive from KC to Manhattan. What I'm curious about, so I
• 58:51
  some of the, you know, however you want to define top coaches
• 58:55
  and such that we've had here in the podcast, the ones I think
• 58:58
  about like Cliff Brooks Johnson, they all describe themselves not
• 59:03
  as sprint's coaches, jumps coaches, throws coaches that
• 59:07
  they're they're track coach. I remember it, it kind of not
• 59:10
  kind of it changed my perspective when Brooks walk
• 59:13
  through, he's like every event's the exact same mic.
• 59:15
  You're, you're trying to move the mass one way or the other.
• 59:17
  And some are shorter and some are longer.
• 59:19
  But once you understand that, then you can coach all the
• 59:22
  events. And it really kind of, you know,
• 59:24
  I, I kind of wish I'd heard that when I was a coach back in the
• 59:26
  day, 'cause I was very much, I was a Sprint turtles coach.
• 59:28
  I also coach jumps that that was my secondary.
• 59:30
  I think that was it. I was Sprint turtles and jumps
• 59:32
  coach. How was it with a guy like
• 59:34
  Cliff? And I'm not in, by the way, this
• 59:36
  is not a comparison of like Bobby versus Cliff because I
• 59:39
  don't know Bobby well enough until I get him on the show 1
• 59:40
  day. But I know Cliff real well
• 59:42
  because he affected my life as a coach tremendously.
• 59:45
  And we've had him here on a show on the show.
• 59:47
  How was it with Cliff, who, you know, Self describes himself as
• 59:50
  a generalist. He won't tell you that he's a
• 59:52
  high jumps coach or a multi or even a multis coach.
• 59:55
  He's a generalist. How was it working with him?
• 59:59
  And, and what I mean by that is in the context of like, we know
• 1:00:02
  you've become a coach where there were you picking up things
• 1:00:06
  of like, oh, maybe I should be a like, I like this style or how,
• 1:00:09
  you know, how was this mixed during that time frame?
• 1:00:11
  I probably learned. I I, I am the coach.
• 1:00:20
  I am the kind of coach that I am.
• 1:00:22
  I can probably listen. I've coached my cross country
• 1:00:24
  team. I coach any event on the track
• 1:00:27
  except discus and hammer, and I can understand it, can
• 1:00:34
  conceptualize and theorize how to, maybe not at the highest
• 1:00:39
  level, at some level to do efficient enough job.
• 1:00:41
  There aren't many people who can do that now anymore.
• 1:00:47
  Is that Cliff? For me, I didn't understand it
• 1:00:51
  first. My first year with Cliff, I had
• 1:00:52
  no idea. I didn't think I was.
• 1:00:54
  He'll tell you. He looks to laugh at me because
• 1:00:57
  I used to tell them every time I was like, I'm not working hard
• 1:00:59
  enough. Because my whole experience
• 1:01:01
  before Cliff was like, if you're not working hard, what are you
• 1:01:05
  doing? Like, I should be dying at the
• 1:01:07
  end of practice every day. I should be like dragging
• 1:01:09
  myself. I should, I should be in pain
• 1:01:11
  all the time. And with Cliff, I'd be like, I'm
• 1:01:16
  not doing enough work. I don't feel like I'm running
• 1:01:18
  enough. I don't feel like I'm doing
• 1:01:19
  enough. I don't feel like I think my
• 1:01:20
  kids will feel like that with me sometimes too, Like I'm not
• 1:01:23
  doing enough. I don't, I'm not working hard
• 1:01:25
  enough. We're not, I'm not practicing
• 1:01:26
  long enough. And so I had a real like anxiety
• 1:01:28
  about I'm not doing enough work. And, and I think Cliff and so I,
• 1:01:35
  I wanted to understand what was like, how did I go in PR and
• 1:01:40
  scores? How did I go in PR?
• 1:01:42
  My first heptathlon after being with him?
• 1:01:44
  And I didn't feel like I did anything.
• 1:01:47
  Like I don't really feel like I did anything that first year.
• 1:01:52
  And I ended up going out making the team, I made the Olympic
• 1:01:54
  team, so on and so forth. PR and I didn't feel like I did
• 1:01:57
  anything. And so from there, Cliff and I
• 1:02:01
  used to have a lot of, and he probably has.
• 1:02:03
  Cliff loves to talk. First of all, this man can talk
• 1:02:05
  track for like 4 hours straight. Ever.
• 1:02:07
  Yeah. You want to talk track?
• 1:02:10
  Call Cliff Ravalto because I can talk track forever.
• 1:02:15
  And so whenever we'd be driving to the airport, it would be on
• 1:02:17
  trips or whatever, or we'd be wherever.
• 1:02:19
  I was always asking him questions.
• 1:02:21
  And so I had it. I wanted to understand what it
• 1:02:25
  is like what's happening. Like I read Tutor Bumpa while I
• 1:02:29
  was with Cliff because I was trying to understand what's, you
• 1:02:34
  know, for me in training, you know, but also like have some
• 1:02:39
  understanding of what it is. And I was interested.
• 1:02:42
  I'll say I was, I was, I was interested in it.
• 1:02:45
  And so I learned a lot from Cliff.
• 1:02:46
  I got to the point where, you know, that first year I'm
• 1:02:49
  bumbling around kind of like going to practice and being
• 1:02:52
  bored out of my life every single day.
• 1:02:54
  Mike, I would go home and I would pray.
• 1:02:57
  I was, I was a praying woman during this time in Manhattan,
• 1:02:59
  KS. I don't think I ever prayed so
• 1:03:00
  much and fasted so much in my life except the time I was in
• 1:03:03
  Kansas because I would literally driving around in my car asking
• 1:03:09
  God why am I here? Like I would be like how?
• 1:03:12
  I hate to say that a lot of people in Manhattan, KS ask
• 1:03:14
  that, but maybe. Like I didn't understand how I
• 1:03:17
  got to Manhattan, KS. Like what am I doing here?
• 1:03:23
  Get up every day, go to practice.
• 1:03:24
  My life was peaceful because my life was chaotic.
• 1:03:28
  Like my life was in LALA. To Manhattan was two different
• 1:03:32
  worlds. Oh my.
• 1:03:34
  Lost a lot of friends, changed a lot of things about myself and I
• 1:03:38
  was like, what am I doing in Manhattan, KS?
• 1:03:41
  Ended up buying a house there. I ended up buying a home before
• 1:03:43
  I left there. And so with, with Cliff, it was
• 1:03:49
  like I was coaching and learning and I'm like, I'm not working
• 1:03:53
  hard enough, but I was working hard.
• 1:03:55
  And so at some point I was like, you know what?
• 1:03:56
  I just began to like when he, I'd ask so many questions, he
• 1:03:59
  would do coach's education, he'd teach me.
• 1:04:01
  I'd like go and be his assistant.
• 1:04:03
  So I'm going to go with Cliff. He's going to this place to, you
• 1:04:05
  know, he's going here to teach level two.
• 1:04:08
  Well, I'm going to go to level 2 with Cliff too.
• 1:04:10
  You know, it's his assistant and sitting on classes and stuff.
• 1:04:12
  And then eventually he let me teach one second.
• 1:04:14
  He let me teach, do 11 segment, I think on nutrition for him in
• 1:04:20
  a part of his section, but a little section on nutrition.
• 1:04:24
  And then, you know, I got to, you know, Boo, I failed Boo's
• 1:04:27
  bio mechanics class. I think the first time I went,
• 1:04:29
  when I first level level 1, I failed bio mechanics with Boo
• 1:04:32
  and just, you know, just kept sitting.
• 1:04:34
  I would literally sit with Cliff with his coaching friends and
• 1:04:38
  they're talking and I would just not say anything.
• 1:04:40
  I should be sitting there and have nothing to say.
• 1:04:42
  Just kind of like I'm just hanging out.
• 1:04:44
  I remember those times, you know, just kind of like, and
• 1:04:48
  then Cliff would drop things and I'd go read.
• 1:04:49
  And then the thing about Cliff is like what I learned from him
• 1:04:53
  so much is training theory. What I learned from Cliff is
• 1:04:59
  training theory, and that was from the conversations we had.
• 1:05:04
  And then when I became a coach, things began to make sense.
• 1:05:08
  Like when I became a coach, I was like, oh, that's why we did
• 1:05:11
  that or that's why he did that. So I became a coach.
• 1:05:14
  I then began to study everything that I could.
• 1:05:18
  And so my first year coaching without Cliff, because I was his
• 1:05:22
  assistant, I was a volunteer assistant for a year or two.
• 1:05:25
  You know, like I've actually, yeah, I was on staff with him
• 1:05:28
  for a couple of years there when it became at my first college
• 1:05:31
  coaching job without Cliff, without being an assistant
• 1:05:33
  assistant, because my nowadays it's different.
• 1:05:37
  I was a volunteer. When I. 1st, but I was an
• 1:05:39
  assistant assistant. I was Cliff's assistant.
• 1:05:43
  I there was, I was nobody doing work because I wanted to learn.
• 1:05:52
  Doesn't happen anymore. When I became my when I got my
• 1:05:55
  first coaching job on my own at Georgetown University, I called
• 1:05:58
  Cliff every single week and I wrote every week.
• 1:06:00
  I wrote workouts. I called Cliff OK this is the
• 1:06:03
  last week and I watched a ton of videos and I read everything he
• 1:06:06
  told me to read. Smart move.
• 1:06:10
  He, he mentioned something. Oh, this is straight training
• 1:06:13
  for women. You know, you got to make sure
• 1:06:14
  you keep, you know, you keep the strength, strength of women
• 1:06:17
  longer in the season they do for men because they lose strength
• 1:06:19
  faster. Oh, really?
• 1:06:20
  Why? I don't know.
• 1:06:21
  I went to study that. I went to figure out, OK, This
• 1:06:22
  is why. Oh, no, I understand why.
• 1:06:24
  Oh, This is why we don't do this.
• 1:06:25
  And so I began to like, just become like a Cliff, like
• 1:06:28
  everything that he said before, I'd be asking all kinds of
• 1:06:31
  questions about it or we'd have these long conversations about
• 1:06:33
  training, like long conversations about training.
• 1:06:36
  Literally, he doesn't know this, but I'm sure I got on his
• 1:06:38
  nerves. I took notes when I was talking
• 1:06:39
  to Cliff. I'm sure I got on his nerves
• 1:06:43
  because I called him every. It seemed like to me at the
• 1:06:45
  time, every week, that I was writing a training at Georgetown
• 1:06:48
  my first year. You're how does the transition
• 1:06:54
  to actually like I'm going to go, we're a lot of times our
• 1:06:57
  transition to coaching that we've learned here on the
• 1:07:00
  podcast is it's not like a light switch.
• 1:07:01
  Sometimes we think it's like, oh, it's on or off.
• 1:07:03
  Like, oh, all of a sudden on June 1st, I'd be I decided I'm
• 1:07:05
  going to become a track coach. It's actually more of like a
• 1:07:07
  fader bar. You're you're getting a great
• 1:07:09
  education about how to coach with one of the greatest coaches
• 1:07:12
  of coaches, Clifford Velto, but you still have a an amazing
• 1:07:16
  degree from UCLA. You're a curious person.
• 1:07:19
  So there's still a lot of avenues as far as careers you
• 1:07:21
  could have gone through. You know, you have a lot of
• 1:07:23
  experience with travel and competing at a high level,
• 1:07:26
  things like that. How did the actual transition of
• 1:07:29
  like, because you mentioned, OK, my first job, first full time
• 1:07:33
  job is at Georgetown. How did that?
• 1:07:35
  How did we go all the way to there?
• 1:07:38
  Well, I was, I would say this, I I totally say it this way.
• 1:07:41
  I think I've always been coaching the early years.
• 1:07:42
  I didn't coach where were Olympic years, Right, right,
• 1:07:45
  right. At some level.
• 1:07:46
  Yep. Why?
• 1:07:48
  Because I coached high school. I volunteer coach at high
• 1:07:51
  school. I volunteer coached age group
• 1:07:53
  track. I've coached junior college, you
• 1:07:55
  know, I, when I was with Cliff, he, if he had me, I coached
• 1:07:57
  whoever he told me to coach when he wanted me to help him out
• 1:07:59
  here or there. When I left Kansas and came back
• 1:08:02
  to San Diego, I made I made the 2004 Olympic team from here in
• 1:08:05
  San Diego, the Olympic training center.
• 1:08:07
  I began to travel back and forth.
• 1:08:08
  How? Many Olympic How many Olympic
• 1:08:09
  teams did you make? I made 2.
• 1:08:11
  Dude, that's amazing. You know, I always have to give
• 1:08:13
  props. Making one Olympic team is, you
• 1:08:16
  know, you're in a fraternity of like nobody.
• 1:08:18
  There's, you know, two of them. Come on, man, That's that's
• 1:08:22
  amazing. Bravo to you.
• 1:08:23
  That's that's I just have to give a props because that's
• 1:08:25
  amazing to me. Entire life, things which are
• 1:08:27
  different now, like it's a lot, it's different now than it was
• 1:08:29
  then. So it was like everything had to
• 1:08:31
  be done to make a living team that's.
• 1:08:32
  Sure, yeah. Like I was poor and then not
• 1:08:35
  poor and then you know, so that transition I so when I left
• 1:08:44
  Kansas, I came back to San Diego for I made the 2014 from San
• 1:08:47
  Diego, but I was traveling back and forth.
• 1:08:50
  Cliff was still riding my workouts here.
• 1:08:51
  So I began to sort of coach myself.
• 1:08:54
  Cliff was riding workouts. I was here and say I just true
• 1:08:56
  story. I couldn't take it anymore.
• 1:08:58
  Being in Kansas, I just I didn't understand the weather.
• 1:09:02
  I never understood freezing rain was like what is this and sweet
• 1:09:05
  I? Always say, well, it's the ice
• 1:09:08
  in Kansas that got me, not the snow.
• 1:09:10
  At the same time, I was like, I don't have to be here anymore.
• 1:09:16
  And I had bought AI had bought a duplex there.
• 1:09:18
  Wow. Yeah.
• 1:09:19
  And so Gwen Wetland, who's another Gwen Wetland, managed
• 1:09:24
  the property when I left and then eventually sold it.
• 1:09:26
  That's awesome. But so Gwen's in Arizona.
• 1:09:28
  She and I are still friends. And so it's like, I love Kansas.
• 1:09:33
  I came back to San Diego, back to San Diego.
• 1:09:35
  And I would go back and forth, travel back and forth between
• 1:09:37
  here and and Kansas. And the transition for me was
• 1:09:42
  like when I came to San Diego and I was my my spare time, I
• 1:09:47
  coached. So while I was an athlete,
• 1:09:50
  remember, while I was an athlete, I was doing coaching
• 1:09:52
  education while still competing, right?
• 1:09:54
  I didn't wait till I finished competing to start doing
• 1:09:56
  coaching education, right? So I got level 1, level 2.
• 1:10:00
  I ended up getting Level 3, the I double AF, whatever.
• 1:10:03
  I got level 1, level 2 with Cliff.
• 1:10:09
  And you know, when I stop coach, she stopped competing.
• 1:10:13
  Then I went and did. I went to the throws something
• 1:10:15
  throws, the throws clinics at Georgetown, at Georgetown.
• 1:10:19
  Like I was the sprints, hurdles, jumps, multis and throws coach
• 1:10:23
  for men and women. Oh man.
• 1:10:26
  For men and women, my first job. So I had to coach everybody, men
• 1:10:32
  and women, on the track because Georgetown was a predominantly
• 1:10:36
  distance program, right? What what was that like?
• 1:10:41
  It's it's one thing like this always fascinates me when it's
• 1:10:45
  not always, it's a lot of times it's, it's our more elite
• 1:10:48
  athletes. You do get into some kind of
• 1:10:50
  coaching, right, Because there's a lot of people that pull on you
• 1:10:51
  in regards to like, oh, you're awesome, you're the Olympic
• 1:10:53
  team. Hey, will you come help my kids
• 1:10:54
  and things like that. But the first full time job,
• 1:10:58
  specifically college, it's different.
• 1:11:01
  You're still coaching, certainly, but there are other
• 1:11:03
  things you're learning a little bit of like, wait a minute,
• 1:11:06
  'cause you went to UCLA and and then Kansas State, you know,
• 1:11:08
  with Cliff and down in San Diego in some places, but Georgetown
• 1:11:13
  being a predominantly distance. And then, yeah, we're going to
• 1:11:16
  give you a little support for Sprint jumps, hurdles, throws,
• 1:11:18
  multis. There was a little bit maybe of
• 1:11:20
  a wake up call of like, oh, wait a minute, UCLA, we had
• 1:11:23
  everything. What are you talking about?
• 1:11:24
  It Kansas State that everything, what are you talking about?
• 1:11:26
  There's a little bit of like reality, if you will.
• 1:11:28
  Of I loved it. Coaching.
• 1:11:29
  Really. Georgetown was my to this day,
• 1:11:31
  as much I love saying, Georgetown was my favorite job.
• 1:11:34
  How so? That's awesome.
• 1:11:36
  I loved Georgetown. No, I'll put this way.
• 1:11:39
  I loved coaching at Georgetown. I'm not an East Coast girl,
• 1:11:42
  Don't like DC. Yeah, it's a.
• 1:11:43
  Little West Coast girl. But Georgetown was my, was my
• 1:11:48
  funnest job because I got to just make stuff up.
• 1:11:54
  Like I got to try, like I learned so much in my time at
• 1:12:00
  Georgetown and I got to try everything I learned.
• 1:12:06
  We had a, we didn't have a, we didn't have a track at
• 1:12:08
  Georgetown. We still don't have a track.
• 1:12:09
  We had a 320 meter track. I had 4m hurdle workouts there
• 1:12:13
  where I had, I had, I made-up how he got around the track and
• 1:12:17
  you know, run, come back, run, come back, run, come back.
• 1:12:19
  I mean, I made-up all kinds of stuff.
• 1:12:21
  I had the weight room. Was it the weight room wasn't
• 1:12:23
  even a weight room. It was this area in the indoor
• 1:12:26
  facility with a tarp. And so we're doing, you know, I
• 1:12:29
  learned, I learned all the like. I learned all the Tony I I can't
• 1:12:32
  tell you how many times I watched Tony Wells videos of
• 1:12:35
  training all at Georgetown. So I watched or spent my money
• 1:12:42
  on Lyle, Lyle Knutson. Lyle Knutson.
• 1:12:44
  Yeah, Yep. To this if I were to show you
• 1:12:46
  right now. The tapes that had like the the
• 1:12:48
  100 meter hurdles, it would have front back, right, Yeah.
• 1:12:51
  Probably ace, Yeah, to to this day, like I can my coaching
• 1:12:57
  library to this day of how many of those CDVDS I was like, I was
• 1:13:05
  like I was emailing Lyle, right? Yeah.
• 1:13:08
  Oh yeah. Yeah.
• 1:13:10
  Of those DVDs that I would just spend all my free time watching
• 1:13:15
  while I was at Georgetown. And like all my, you mentioned
• 1:13:20
  Brett McFarland and you know, there's, there's the East Coast
• 1:13:23
  Hurdle coach. Back then they'd written a book
• 1:13:25
  that the hurdle, the Hurler Bible or something like that.
• 1:13:28
  Because Hurdle became my favorite event all while I was
• 1:13:31
  at Georgetown. Yeah, that was Wilbert Ross.
• 1:13:34
  Will the Russ. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:35
  That was the that was the Bible of hurdling.
• 1:13:38
  And then Bill McFarland wrote the one of the hardest books in
• 1:13:41
  the world to find today, by the way, The Spiral Bounce.
• 1:13:43
  Yeah. Can find it.
• 1:13:44
  I wish I knew what I did with mine.
• 1:13:46
  I love that book. Yeah.
• 1:13:47
  Yeah, can't find it. I at Georgetown, I went back and
• 1:13:50
  read like I was like, don't this sounds this sounds not crazy.
• 1:13:54
  That's how I told you. I'm still a little bit.
• 1:13:57
  It's like I watched all that Tony Wells stuff, right?
• 1:13:59
  I was like, I saw his junior clinic and then I ordered the
• 1:14:01
  videos and I'm understanding, you know, velocity intermuscular
• 1:14:07
  training and shorter than longer than da da da da da.
• 1:14:09
  Then I'm like, then I started reading all this, this, these
• 1:14:12
  articles on Italian sprinting and, and going back and I was
• 1:14:16
  like, oh, he didn't, this is a, he didn't, he got this from
• 1:14:19
  here. So I started to make all his
• 1:14:20
  connections like this ain't new. Like it's new to me.
• 1:14:23
  You're. Not like, OK, he's doing this,
• 1:14:25
  but you know what? This person in this country did
• 1:14:27
  it before he did it. And This is why.
• 1:14:29
  So I spent all that time at Georgetown, literally, Mike,
• 1:14:34
  like I may not talk a lot about or I spent all the time at
• 1:14:37
  Georgetown learning how to be a good coach, like all the 20 well
• 1:14:43
  stuff. And I may not execute it in a
• 1:14:45
  way that I executed in a way that makes sense to me because I
• 1:14:47
  believe there's certain things that, you know, my style.
• 1:14:49
  But I was like, Oh, I wouldn't figure out where he got it from.
• 1:14:56
  And then it started, you know, then you start just reading my
• 1:14:57
  coaching library from back in those days at Georgetown and
• 1:15:00
  it's like I have two computers and both computers are full of
• 1:15:04
  like it says, coaches education. They have to transfer from
• 1:15:08
  computer to computer to keep up with it.
• 1:15:10
  Do you do you remember all of it?
• 1:15:11
  No, but if I wanted it to there. But my coaching library grew so
• 1:15:14
  much during those times at Georgetown, so much so like my
• 1:15:16
  my second year at Georgetown, I became the I didn't even know
• 1:15:19
  what it was my first, second year at Georgetown, I got, I got
• 1:15:23
  nominated or got voted the men's Mid-Atlantic Regional Coach of
• 1:15:27
  the Year. Oh wow.
• 1:15:30
  So as the men's Mid-Atlantic Coach of the Year, I remember
• 1:15:33
  going to regionals that year and I had to call Cliff.
• 1:15:34
  I was like, Cliff, what is this? I was like, I got this award but
• 1:15:38
  I don't know what it is and so he explained.
• 1:15:41
  I mean, that's impressive because again, Georgetown was a
• 1:15:44
  distance program that happened there.
• 1:15:47
  No, I say that too. They had, I remember like first,
• 1:15:50
  I can't remember the name, but there was a really good quarter
• 1:15:52
  miler I think from there one year they've had.
• 1:15:53
  All the good athletes, yeah, they've.
• 1:15:54
  Had some other athletes, but it was.
• 1:15:57
  Small distance, it was 800 meters enough, 800 meters up.
• 1:15:59
  Yeah, 800 and up, You know, the Reebok enclave came kind of came
• 1:16:02
  out of that. And you think about the coaches
• 1:16:04
  that were there, Yeah. True story at Georgetown that
• 1:16:08
  first year. Now, Georgia is a very elite,
• 1:16:10
  academically elite school. Absolutely, yeah.
• 1:16:13
  Which I, which I appreciate it. I actually, I actually liked
• 1:16:17
  that. And I did like that environment
• 1:16:21
  and I like. And so Georgetown being an elite
• 1:16:23
  school, I went my first year there coaching and excuse me
• 1:16:27
  there, I recruited every smart black kid I could find in the
• 1:16:30
  country. And I shouldn't say black kid,
• 1:16:32
  every smart, fast kid I could find in the country because it
• 1:16:36
  wasn't just black kids. But as a result of that, I
• 1:16:38
  brought in a lot more black kids than they were used to having.
• 1:16:40
  There, right? Sure.
• 1:16:41
  As a result, and and and and Sarah, if she ever hear she ever
• 1:16:46
  hears this, that's one sprinter, 1 white girl sprinter who
• 1:16:49
  probably ran 2526 seconds before I got there, you know, ended up
• 1:16:53
  PR and running fast, you know all that.
• 1:16:54
  But I spent my first year there. I was sick.
• 1:16:58
  I recruited everywhere because because he didn't give me no
• 1:17:01
  money. First of all, I'm not getting
• 1:17:03
  any money and I still want to be good.
• 1:17:07
  Right. So if you go get these private
• 1:17:10
  school smart kids, Georgetown's great endowments at the time.
• 1:17:14
  Right they. Can go to Georgetown for 500
• 1:17:16
  bucks a year or 1000 bucks or 1500 bucks a year because of
• 1:17:19
  their comments and they've got good yeah, just a SEC high SAT
• 1:17:24
  scores, good students. And so so I went out and
• 1:17:28
  recruited some really good athletes and in my second year
• 1:17:34
  there and hurdles became one of my favorite events to coach My
• 1:17:36
  second year there. I qualify like 4 kids, the
• 1:17:38
  nationals in the hurdles. Wow, that was unheard of back
• 1:17:42
  then. It's unheard of now.
• 1:17:44
  And I'm not showing throwing shade at Georgetown, but.
• 1:17:46
  I'm sure that hitter didn't like it very much, but we went to
• 1:17:50
  conference, I think the next year and the distance team
• 1:17:52
  always outscored the Sprint squad.
• 1:17:53
  Always, always, always, always. The sprinter scored more points
• 1:17:56
  in the distance squad. And I was like, and I didn't
• 1:17:58
  feel like we got our, I didn't feel like we got much, you know,
• 1:18:02
  we, we, we didn't get anything. You know, we had to, we had to
• 1:18:05
  earn it. We we didn't get any, we didn't
• 1:18:07
  get any love. Right, right.
• 1:18:08
  I just kind of like in part of my coaching philosophy that I
• 1:18:11
  have now as a head coach was born out of my experience in
• 1:18:14
  Georgetown. How so?
• 1:18:19
  Because my concept of, of team was born out of my, my, my
• 1:18:29
  experience at Georgetown of not being a team because the
• 1:18:33
  Georgetown culture was very much set.
• 1:18:36
  It's like this is the distance program.
• 1:18:38
  This is the rest of the program. And the rest of the program was
• 1:18:42
  left up to me at the time I was there.
• 1:18:46
  Like I still head coach. I had to, in my philosophy, very
• 1:18:51
  much different from Henner's philosophy.
• 1:18:54
  Henner believes sprinters should run 8 hundreds or you know, he
• 1:19:00
  believes sprinters should run Like my first year there, I had
• 1:19:04
  girls running 32 seconds in flats and you're like, this is
• 1:19:07
  so fast. Oh my God, like this is not
• 1:19:09
  fast. And so our philosophies on speed
• 1:19:14
  were very different. And so I had to really defend
• 1:19:17
  what I believed or my my coaching philosophy came while I
• 1:19:20
  was at Georgetown, which is another reason why I really
• 1:19:22
  appreciate hitter. Oh yeah.
• 1:19:24
  I appreciate Henry, because I really had to defend my my
• 1:19:28
  approach to what I was doing because I was testing all 20
• 1:19:31
  well stuff in Georgetown. People come out and drilled it
• 1:19:34
  and they run 1 * 450 and go home for the quarter miles.
• 1:19:38
  Go home and you'd be like, they're not running enough.
• 1:19:41
  Yeah, Funny that you went to that way when you first came to
• 1:19:45
  Ravellto and you're like, we're not doing enough.
• 1:19:48
  It's it's interesting to see this transition of Sheila as far
• 1:19:51
  as philosophy of coaching there. And I, and I got, that's why I
• 1:19:54
  love, that's why my funnest place to coach because I had all
• 1:19:57
  of cliffs, like especially strength conditioning.
• 1:20:00
  Like I probably learned a lot of strength conditioning from
• 1:20:03
  Cliff, all the whole training philosophy and understanding,
• 1:20:05
  you know, biomotorabilities and all the stuff we talked about
• 1:20:07
  and so on and so forth. I had that.
• 1:20:10
  Then I had, I got to try, oh, does this work OK?
• 1:20:13
  It does work OK. I can come and I can sort of
• 1:20:16
  like get the results I wanted based of how I processed and
• 1:20:20
  understood. But so based on what I wanted to
• 1:20:22
  get out of it with the athletes I had, because mind you, I don't
• 1:20:25
  have top tier, I don't have number, I don't have top tier
• 1:20:26
  athletes, so. I.
• 1:20:28
  Still got to take those developmental lower level
• 1:20:30
  athletes and get them better. And I was getting good at it,
• 1:20:32
  doing what I was doing, and not just, and not just in like
• 1:20:36
  sprints, yes, but I had everybody, the entire team.
• 1:20:40
  So the interest of time do we go from Georgetown to San Diego
• 1:20:43
  State? Easy.
• 1:20:45
  That was easy. I was at Georgetown.
• 1:20:46
  I just got nominated regional coach of the year.
• 1:20:50
  I was in the middle of getting ready to move Dixon Farmer.
• 1:20:54
  I guess Ron Shuffle was Ron Shuffle was the coach here at
• 1:20:56
  San Diego State at the time. I actually, I called, I called
• 1:20:59
  Ron. I was at San Diego State at the
• 1:21:00
  time. I called, I called Vince
• 1:21:02
  Anderson while I was at Georgetown.
• 1:21:04
  I probably called. I was that kid, that coach, that
• 1:21:06
  young coach back in the day that was just called everybody and
• 1:21:08
  said, hey, can you tell me? You know, that would be as a
• 1:21:11
  female coach, right? Like I just needed to understand
• 1:21:15
  what people were doing. I didn't have to call you all
• 1:21:17
  the time. I don't need to call you every
• 1:21:18
  time. Just give me a little
• 1:21:19
  understand. I'll go figure it out.
• 1:21:20
  But so I got to San Diego State because Ron had they were
• 1:21:26
  looking for someone to replace Ron Sheffield here at San Diego
• 1:21:30
  State. And I guess there was the the
• 1:21:33
  search committee. Dixon Farm have to be in the
• 1:21:34
  search committee and remembered that, you know, hey, Sheila
• 1:21:37
  Burrell was here at San Diego. She knows the area da, da, da.
• 1:21:39
  She's not coaching there. And they called me to ask me if
• 1:21:42
  I'd be interested in applying. And I'll tell you, I said no, I
• 1:21:46
  was like, apply. I just recruited this guy named
• 1:21:49
  Justin Crawford, who's number 5 hurdler in the country.
• 1:21:51
  You know, I had this kind of Chris Kinney coming in.
• 1:21:53
  I had this kid from from San Diego coming in as a good
• 1:21:56
  sprinter. And this other guy.
• 1:21:58
  I'd like a great recruiting class for Georgetown, right?
• 1:22:01
  I'm like, I'm about to tear this conference up and go to
• 1:22:04
  Nashville's, right? This is my thought process.
• 1:22:06
  It's like, of course I'm not leaving.
• 1:22:09
  So I tell, you know, I told me to think about it.
• 1:22:10
  I called Coach Rebelto and I called Cliff and I was like,
• 1:22:13
  well, this happened and so then Cliff gave me some perspective,
• 1:22:19
  he said. He's good at that.
• 1:22:21
  He gave me some perspective. I was 30, 30, so I think I may
• 1:22:28
  be 36 maybe. At the time I said 30.
• 1:22:31
  I think I was 36. I can't tell him I'm 36, but I
• 1:22:33
  may have been 30. No, I was 36, OK.
• 1:22:37
  I was 36 years old at the time. And Cliff said to me, well,
• 1:22:42
  listen, you know, you get an opportunity to be a head coach,
• 1:22:50
  right? You, you have the opportunity.
• 1:22:56
  I was like, but I don't have experience and I have this kid.
• 1:22:59
  I have these kids. And this is what he said.
• 1:23:00
  He said, Sheila, you will always have kids.
• 1:23:02
  Like you're always going to have an athlete.
• 1:23:05
  You're always going to have somebody.
• 1:23:06
  But if you have an opportunity to be a head coach, you should
• 1:23:09
  take an opportunity to be a head coach now and then you can, you
• 1:23:13
  know, move from there. So my thought process was like,
• 1:23:15
  OK, I'll apply. So I applied with the with the
• 1:23:18
  sense of like, if I don't get it, I don't care because I got a
• 1:23:22
  good recruiting class coming in. I'm so excited to work with.
• 1:23:24
  I had some really good male hurdlers coming in and a couple
• 1:23:26
  freshmen. I was like, oh, my guys, hurdles
• 1:23:28
  are going to be good. I didn't care if I got the job.
• 1:23:32
  And lo and behold, the middle of moving, my house is all packed
• 1:23:35
  up, Sango State calls, like I'll come out for the interview.
• 1:23:38
  I'm like, hey, can you tell me if I get the job or not?
• 1:23:39
  Because I'm in the middle of moving and signing a lease to
• 1:23:41
  another apartment, like I'm ready to move.
• 1:23:45
  And I finally called him, said I got the job.
• 1:23:46
  I was like, OK, great. So I'm coming back to San Diego.
• 1:23:49
  My thought process as a coach, I thought that it would go like
• 1:23:51
  this. I thought I'd be in Georgetown
• 1:23:53
  for a few years coaching, then I'd have to go someplace South
• 1:23:57
  and get a coaching job before I can come back to the West Coast.
• 1:23:58
  Because my goal was always to come back to California.
• 1:24:01
  And that was the other thing was like, OK, I can come back to
• 1:24:03
  California now, or I can wait and go through that whole
• 1:24:06
  process of like, I've got a coach here and pay my dues here,
• 1:24:10
  then go there, pay my dues there.
• 1:24:11
  Because I had a thing to prove for interest of time.
• 1:24:14
  One thing I had to prove when I went to Georgetown, this is what
• 1:24:18
  I had to prove at Georgetown to me.
• 1:24:19
  And to like, I always have to prove something is that I'm a
• 1:24:22
  former athlete. And I didn't want anybody to
• 1:24:24
  think that I got the, that I'm, I'm, because I, I'm a former
• 1:24:27
  athlete that, you know, I got the job or I would do that.
• 1:24:30
  Can't coach. So my thing was I had to prove
• 1:24:32
  that I can coach. I had to prove that I can coach
• 1:24:33
  by being a good coach because I'm a former athlete, an
• 1:24:35
  Olympian. Me being an Olympian, did it
• 1:24:37
  help me get the position? Absolutely, yes.
• 1:24:40
  But then once I got the position, in my mind, I had to
• 1:24:42
  prove that I deserve the position. 2 I'm a black female.
• 1:24:46
  So at that time when I was getting hired, it was this whole
• 1:24:48
  thing and there was the, you know, there was the diversity
• 1:24:50
  hire was going on through all, all NCAA athletics at the time.
• 1:24:53
  Like, OK, I fit the quota. I'm black and I'm female.
• 1:24:55
  They, they filled that position. Did I want a position because I
• 1:24:59
  was a black and female? No, but I'd take it because I
• 1:25:00
  was absolutely. And I had to prove that I was a
• 1:25:03
  good enough coach, even though I was a black and a female because
• 1:25:06
  I didn't want to get a job. I'm most people, I didn't want
• 1:25:07
  the job because I'm because of these things, I would actually
• 1:25:10
  deserve the job. Prove at Georgetown, one of my
• 1:25:13
  things I had the other chip on my shoulder was prove to you
• 1:25:16
  that I'm a pretty good that I'm a good coach.
• 1:25:19
  And so my time at Georgetown was my was the funnest job I had
• 1:25:21
  because I proved that I was a good coach.
• 1:25:25
  I had nothing. I had zero.
• 1:25:28
  I begged for money, got these kids in school, did the whole
• 1:25:31
  waivers, did the whole like go sit before the committee to get
• 1:25:33
  kids in school, Messed up a few times, you know, got in trouble
• 1:25:37
  because I didn't go to the office.
• 1:25:38
  You know, Hannah didn't like, they didn't go to the office all
• 1:25:39
  day because I was on track all day.
• 1:25:41
  You know, I dealt with the the elitism and and all that, but it
• 1:25:46
  was my funnest job because I just learned so much.
• 1:25:52
  Do you your experiences are reals?
• 1:25:56
  This this question might sound like I'm poo poo and those
• 1:26:00
  putting those to the side, but you know, I'm hearing when he
• 1:26:03
  talked about Bobby cursing, there was that chip on my
• 1:26:05
  shoulder and then I had to prove that it just because I'm an
• 1:26:08
  athlete and a good athlete or great athlete, I deserve this
• 1:26:11
  job and I'm going to show you because I'm going to do the job
• 1:26:13
  really well. I'm black.
• 1:26:14
  I'm going to show you that that's not a hindrance.
• 1:26:17
  I'm a woman. I'm going to show you this not a
• 1:26:18
  hindrance. All these chips on.
• 1:26:20
  Are you the type of person that needs a chip on their shoulder?
• 1:26:25
  I like it. What?
• 1:26:30
  Does that say I don't? I don't.
• 1:26:32
  I'm going to say this. I like it because like, here's
• 1:26:37
  my thing right now. I don't consider myself a Sprint
• 1:26:40
  coach. I enjoy coaching sprints.
• 1:26:44
  I think I'm a decent coach, but I love beating people who are
• 1:26:46
  Sprint coaches, like who are Sprint coaches.
• 1:26:50
  Like I have like having athletes that are that are maybe not, you
• 1:26:55
  know, because I'm at San Diego State, you know, but I'm at the
• 1:26:58
  show. But I'm not a quote UN quote
• 1:27:00
  Sprint coach, even though I am a Sprint coach.
• 1:27:02
  I'm a coach. I love beating coaches who are
• 1:27:04
  quote UN quote Sprint coaches because I'm not suppose I'm
• 1:27:09
  supposed to be a multi coach, right.
• 1:27:10
  Yeah, You know, I love, I love, I love, I love coaching hurdles
• 1:27:16
  and I like, I like being beating hurdle coaches because I'm
• 1:27:19
  supposed to be a multi coach. Do you think, and we're going to
• 1:27:22
  get into San Diego State here in a second?
• 1:27:25
  So we're kind of compass in the whole career up to this point.
• 1:27:29
  Do you it feels like you need an adversary.
• 1:27:32
  That's another way of saying chip on the shoulder.
• 1:27:34
  An adversary is not necessarily a person.
• 1:27:36
  It could be the image of a person.
• 1:27:38
  You described it there of like, oh, I like being Sprint coaches.
• 1:27:41
  You know, that's that's an adversary.
• 1:27:42
  Do you think, you know, Sheila, you're an amazing coach, doesn't
• 1:27:46
  matter the event, you're an amazing person.
• 1:27:49
  You could lead whatever you want to call big universities,
• 1:27:53
  Oregon, Texas, Florida, Georgia, I mean, but do you think you
• 1:27:57
  could succeed there? And what I mean by that is
• 1:28:01
  there's less excuses at some of those places, right?
• 1:28:03
  And and you know, we can get into the debate of resources and
• 1:28:07
  you know, you know it better than I do.
• 1:28:09
  Or or would you have to always figure out an adversary that
• 1:28:13
  that's that's that's not? A bad thing.
• 1:28:15
  That's that's a good question. And I think that there are
• 1:28:19
  adversaries at that level as well.
• 1:28:21
  Absolutely. Absolutely, and I think that
• 1:28:25
  even where I'm at right now, I don't I don't want to like I try
• 1:28:33
  to compete as if those are those are the people I'm competing
• 1:28:42
  against or the schools I'm competing against.
• 1:28:45
  But I, I will say this, that what I enjoy, not enjoy, but
• 1:28:55
  what the, the joy of being in the position that I'm in now,
• 1:29:02
  even in all of my, my, I guess now that you made that, that
• 1:29:05
  connection made that parallel in my career, is that if I go back
• 1:29:12
  to my childhood, yes. You know, I had to overcome some
• 1:29:17
  things to, you know, I had to overcome some things in order
• 1:29:22
  to, to have some sense of security, let's put it that way.
• 1:29:30
  And in getting that security, holding on to that security
• 1:29:35
  professionally, not having not having always thought that I
• 1:29:43
  always had to kind of work a little bit being at a
• 1:29:46
  disadvantage from the beginning, you know, coming from a
• 1:29:51
  disadvantaged position has been pretty common in my it's a
• 1:29:55
  common theme, I guess I could say in my upbringing and even
• 1:29:58
  now in my career. Now she brought that up.
• 1:30:00
  It's like, I don't mind that it like, let's let's do it.
• 1:30:03
  Let's, let's, let's OK. I'm comfortable in that
• 1:30:05
  position. Now.
• 1:30:08
  You said something interesting is that if you were at a school
• 1:30:11
  of more research, do you think you'd need an adversary?
• 1:30:12
  I think I would be fine. I would be just, I would be OK
• 1:30:15
  at a school with more resources. I think where I would struggle
• 1:30:19
  is I wouldn't enjoy it and I wouldn't enjoy it as much.
• 1:30:25
  And I've thought about this. I thought because, you know,
• 1:30:27
  sometimes, you know, every school, sometimes you, like, I
• 1:30:30
  got to eat out every nobody's, nobody's.
• 1:30:32
  No situation, no school, no university is like utopia.
• 1:30:35
  Yeah, 0 by the way, zero schools.
• 1:30:37
  That's exactly right. And I'm going to mid major.
• 1:30:39
  So there's there's lots of struggles and limitations that
• 1:30:41
  are happening here and mindsets that are different from mine.
• 1:30:45
  However, I have a greater impact, I think on student
• 1:30:50
  athletes in the position I am now because of who I am that I
• 1:30:56
  would at one of those schools because I tell the people I
• 1:30:59
  recruit is that this thing is a business, right?
• 1:31:03
  Track and field is a business. You got to score points.
• 1:31:10
  My job is to score points and to win championships, and so I
• 1:31:15
  think that at San Diego State I've got to do business, but the
• 1:31:18
  difference is I can do good business.
• 1:31:22
  Interesting. Is that I want to be able to do
• 1:31:24
  good business and I want to do good business in this way.
• 1:31:27
  I want my athletes to graduate, go on in life and come back and
• 1:31:29
  invite me to their weddings or let me know when I have kids or
• 1:31:32
  I want to have this relationship.
• 1:31:35
  So the relationship piece where the kids with athletes end up,
• 1:31:37
  you know, feeling I did right, like me or not.
• 1:31:40
  And in the big picture, I want to have a, you know, this is the
• 1:31:44
  the part of me being an old school track and field head and
• 1:31:47
  what track and field meant to me.
• 1:31:50
  You know, my press, my development in the sport as an
• 1:31:53
  athlete and coach is that somebody always helped me.
• 1:31:58
  And so me being able to give back, I think I do I with my
• 1:32:02
  personality and who I am, I'm able to do that more in this
• 1:32:06
  environment with these athletes then I would at a school works
• 1:32:15
  just business because I get to teach Mike, I get to teach.
• 1:32:23
  And if you ain't, you got to come into I'm just going to
• 1:32:27
  throw it. I don't care.
• 1:32:28
  You got to come into Florida. I know how to do some things.
• 1:32:30
  If you can't do some things, you you might get chopped.
• 1:32:32
  You ain't making it. You're put on the shelf like you
• 1:32:37
  got to come in like doing these things.
• 1:32:39
  I actually like teaching. And so there's my chip on my
• 1:32:42
  shoulders. I bring these kids who don't
• 1:32:43
  come in having that skill, and I get them to be able to do that.
• 1:32:46
  And they're beating those kids that who didn't get taught
• 1:32:49
  anything, who just come out and do.
• 1:32:52
  And I believe that was me. You know, I believe that I was a
• 1:32:55
  developmental kid out of high school that went to a school
• 1:32:59
  that, you know, had Olympians on it.
• 1:33:01
  And I need some time to develop. Yeah, I think that's a common
• 1:33:05
  thing amongst multis. You have athletes and
• 1:33:07
  decathletes. Rarely, if if ever, are you
• 1:33:11
  coming out of high school as the next Olympian.
• 1:33:14
  It's like, oh, you got to learn so much before you can get
• 1:33:16
  there. So it's kind of that, you know,
• 1:33:18
  I've heard combined inventors called gym rats.
• 1:33:20
  You've got to just be in there all the.
• 1:33:22
  Time I think multis make great coaches.
• 1:33:24
  I, I, I think multis. What's the coach from?
• 1:33:27
  That was at Tennessee. Bill Webb.
• 1:33:30
  Webb. Yeah, he put out a few multis,
• 1:33:33
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I think, I think
• 1:33:35
  Webb had said this to one of my assistants at one point where
• 1:33:39
  like he came to work for me and and he was like, well, you know,
• 1:33:46
  Webb said that, you know, working for a head coach that's
• 1:33:48
  a multi is probably the best, you know, the best coach because
• 1:33:52
  like, dude, I can coach. I'm a coach.
• 1:33:54
  I can coach everything. I'm gonna let you coach.
• 1:33:55
  We get to coach and we'll let you be good at it.
• 1:33:58
  I'm OK, but I can do it too. Right.
• 1:34:01
  Hang on one second, my contractor is at the door.
• 1:34:03
  Yeah, please do. Please do.
• 1:34:04
  Yeah. Absolutely.
• 1:34:06
  It's true. What she's talking about with
• 1:34:09
  multis, it's it's really phenomenal.
• 1:34:12
  And I think what she's talking about there about, you know, an
• 1:34:14
  assistant can catch coach their event, but she's you don't
• 1:34:17
  always necessarily have the support at your school.
• 1:34:19
  You have support from your peers, but to have your head
• 1:34:21
  coach actually be able to support you because he or she in
• 1:34:23
  this case, knows how to do it, I think, I think.
• 1:34:26
  At San Diego State, Mike, I coached.
• 1:34:27
  I started off coaching the jumps and the multis my first year.
• 1:34:31
  Couple years here, jumps multis and I had to coach the cross
• 1:34:33
  country team because I fired my cross country coach after the
• 1:34:35
  first semester 3 years ago. You say three years in a row.
• 1:34:39
  Yeah, The first guy I didn't like him.
• 1:34:41
  The second guy, I didn't like him.
• 1:34:44
  So I thought I could do better. And you know, for a couple years
• 1:34:46
  I could. It just takes too much time.
• 1:34:48
  I was at Georgetown, so I called all my Georgetown.
• 1:34:49
  Oh yeah, sure, you got the connections right.
• 1:34:51
  I read, I read, I read the Jack Daniels book with that Jack
• 1:34:54
  Daniels, the Daniels running formula.
• 1:34:55
  It's on my shelf right there. I coach from Jack Daniels
• 1:34:57
  running formula for the first year.
• 1:34:59
  No joke. That's how I coached.
• 1:35:03
  And I called my boys back at, at a, at A at UConn to help me.
• 1:35:09
  So that's how I coached the cross country distance team my
• 1:35:11
  first couple of years. But I, I, what was my point?
• 1:35:18
  What would you just ask me? No, no, I coached.
• 1:35:21
  I coached the jumps and multis. Have a young Sprint coach, did
• 1:35:26
  his thing. He moved on.
• 1:35:28
  When he moved on, I was like maybe I should coach the
• 1:35:30
  sprinters. I can't coach the sprinters.
• 1:35:32
  Hired another Sprint coach, let her coach sprinted hurdles.
• 1:35:34
  I coached everyone else and they eventually got she moved on.
• 1:35:36
  Now he became a Sprint coach. Now I'm a Sprint coach, sprints
• 1:35:38
  and multis. And then last year coach, I
• 1:35:40
  meant sprints, multis, jumps coach.
• 1:35:41
  I coached everybody on the track last year because my jumps coach
• 1:35:43
  moved on. I love how you you made a
• 1:35:47
  distinction there that has, you know, some fuzzy lines, meaning
• 1:35:51
  that not everything is black and white, but you talked about
• 1:35:53
  doing good business. You're a you're you're an
• 1:35:58
  athlete's coach, meaning I've seen kids go into your program
• 1:36:01
  and let's not kid ourselves here.
• 1:36:02
  You talked about like you, I'm a mid major.
• 1:36:04
  You get some really talented kids here at this DSU, but they
• 1:36:08
  all have to be to get to where you're trying to get them to to
• 1:36:11
  nationals. They they've got they got to get
• 1:36:13
  better. I mean, they're just I don't
• 1:36:15
  know that anybody comes in right off the bat and their national
• 1:36:17
  qualifier for you. They got to get better.
• 1:36:19
  Do you think I want to touch on a little bit what's going on
• 1:36:22
  with NCAA now? You know, we're we're going to
• 1:36:24
  these caps of 45 for the roster and I I don't know, you may
• 1:36:28
  carry 30 people on your team, so maybe it doesn't affect you at
• 1:36:30
  all. But do you feel like that's
• 1:36:31
  going to hinder coaches like yourself of like how many kids I
• 1:36:35
  can actually give a shot to, if, if you will?
• 1:36:38
  No, it actually the only we I'm under we already, we already we
• 1:36:41
  are already under that. Yeah, 4045 is a lot.
• 1:36:44
  I I know it came, it came as a shock to the system.
• 1:36:47
  Yeah, it came as a shock to the system.
• 1:36:49
  But 45 is a good amount of of. Kids, most people carry 60.
• 1:36:52
  Why? Because the distance side of
• 1:36:54
  things. Yeah, you.
• 1:36:54
  Just sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:36:56
  Yeah. But no, So what it changed the
• 1:36:59
  what that changed then we instituted that a couple years
• 1:37:01
  ago. What it changed for me is I have
• 1:37:02
  less room to develop with a with a smaller roster.
• 1:37:06
  And so I can't take that walk on kit anymore that I know is going
• 1:37:09
  to take me two years. You know, I can't take those two
• 1:37:11
  year projects anymore. I used to be able to do that,
• 1:37:15
  but I can't take a two year project where it's and it's and
• 1:37:18
  it's a conference level project, right.
• 1:37:21
  So now we've got a, you know, we're just recruiting like my
• 1:37:23
  recruiting standards had to, or my roster spots to get a roster
• 1:37:27
  spot. The the standard had to go up
• 1:37:30
  because, you know, I, we don't have the I can't, I can't have,
• 1:37:36
  I have 20 outside of distance. I only have 20 something 2626
• 1:37:40
  athletes to cover all the track and I can't.
• 1:37:43
  I don't have time or resources to sit a kid for two years a
• 1:37:47
  year. My two year project.
• 1:37:48
  So with that, yeah, I'm, I'm really concerned about the the
• 1:37:52
  events that have to be developed the most.
• 1:37:54
  So I think about the hammer and the javelin, right?
• 1:37:55
  Because we don't have as many high schoolers coming with it.
• 1:37:57
  Yeah, we have. To make choices.
• 1:37:59
  One of the events that I think is really, you know, outside
• 1:38:02
  looking in that I'm really concerned about it is the
• 1:38:04
  multis. I mean, that's typically, again,
• 1:38:06
  a kid that has to get to their junior year before they can
• 1:38:09
  actually start doing things because they got to.
• 1:38:10
  Learn more Have you seen, have you seen the results for the
• 1:38:12
  multis over the years? I used to think that like, you
• 1:38:14
  know, when Reezer got second at nationals and you know, I had
• 1:38:17
  like 5 multis on my team, I thought I was like, I was in
• 1:38:19
  that sweet spot. Like nobody was paying attention
• 1:38:21
  to the multis. Like, Oh yeah, that's probably
• 1:38:23
  why people think I'm a good multi coach.
• 1:38:25
  Because there was a sweet spot at a certain time where no one
• 1:38:27
  was putting a lot of money or effort into the multis.
• 1:38:30
  And then suddenly they called on and the, the, the marks in the
• 1:38:34
  multis have gone up significantly.
• 1:38:38
  Decathlon and heptathlon have gone up where people are now
• 1:38:40
  investing in the multis because you know what, that's 10 points
• 1:38:43
  there. That app that can score their
• 1:38:44
  points well. And the answer, it's my favorite
• 1:38:46
  event to coach. You know, it's my favorite, my
• 1:38:47
  favorite group of people to work for sure.
• 1:38:52
  Love my spiders. My multis are my favorite group
• 1:38:53
  of people. But it's, it's now where the
• 1:39:00
  multis, I don't think the multis are in trouble.
• 1:39:01
  I really don't. I my opinion of what I think is
• 1:39:05
  going to happen is that schools are going to not be able to be
• 1:39:07
  complete teams anymore. OK, good.
• 1:39:10
  I initially thought, oh, this will help build better teams.
• 1:39:13
  I'm now on on this track. I I think it's actually going to
• 1:39:16
  make it worse as far as the the, the single focus, if you will.
• 1:39:20
  Yeah, I don't, I don't think that we're going to be like we
• 1:39:22
  with with the roster limits that we have right now.
• 1:39:26
  It's I used to be a complete team.
• 1:39:28
  I used to believe I'm, I'm a Clifford Alto.
• 1:39:30
  Like I'm going to have throwers, jumpers, pole vaulters.
• 1:39:35
  But with what's happening with roster caps and in IL and kind
• 1:39:40
  of the things are, it's going to be I can't be a complete team
• 1:39:43
  anymore. Like I can't put money in every
• 1:39:46
  single event or even put bodies in every single event because
• 1:39:50
  I'm limited on the number of bodies I have on the team.
• 1:39:52
  And I have to figure out where can, where can our team be
• 1:39:56
  successful in what event areas to the strengths of my coaching
• 1:40:00
  staff. So I was recruited to the
• 1:40:01
  strength of my coaching staff. And so I can't, I have to, you
• 1:40:06
  know, what's the strength of my coaching staff And that's where
• 1:40:08
  I'm going to put like my throws are not very strong right now.
• 1:40:13
  It doesn't make sense for me to put money in throats.
• 1:40:15
  I had a volunteer assistant for a, for, for distance for a
• 1:40:18
  while. So it didn't make sense for me
• 1:40:19
  to put money in distance. You know, I'm a full time coach,
• 1:40:22
  so now I'm putting money in distance.
• 1:40:23
  So it's it's, it's those types of things.
• 1:40:25
  Yeah. So let's spend the little time
• 1:40:28
  we have left here. How long have you been to San
• 1:40:30
  Diego State? Now, what would we say?
• 1:40:31
  16 years? So relatively, you know, we talk
• 1:40:36
  about training age with athletes, relatively young
• 1:40:39
  coaching age for you to become a head coach of a big city program
• 1:40:44
  here. This ain't, you know, I'll throw
• 1:40:45
  my school under the bus. This ain't Troy University.
• 1:40:47
  I love you guys. You know I love you this.
• 1:40:50
  You know, you're in San Diego, CA, you know there's a lot of
• 1:40:53
  athletes when you're in California, things like that.
• 1:40:55
  My I love this. You know, one of my top three
• 1:40:57
  questions. This is my number three
• 1:40:59
  question. When you first become a head
• 1:41:00
  coach, were you ready? Listen, make an Olympic team is
• 1:41:05
  harder than this job. Really.
• 1:41:07
  I'm not a poopoo in an Olympic team.
• 1:41:10
  There's more head coaches out there.
• 1:41:11
  Than our Olympics when I first got this job and I thought, you
• 1:41:15
  know, OK, you're a head coach. I thought making Olympic team
• 1:41:18
  was harder than was way harder than this job from from this
• 1:41:23
  perspective. I've done listen, I've before I
• 1:41:27
  even became a head coach and be a coach, I did all the USOC
• 1:41:30
  leadership, women leadership conferences like I did all that
• 1:41:33
  stuff as an athlete, Mike or is it, you know, very beginning.
• 1:41:36
  So I did all of the let me learn how to let me be prepared.
• 1:41:41
  That's my, you know, my personality.
• 1:41:43
  Right. Let me learn what I need to
• 1:41:45
  learn so I can make sure I'm going to be do a good job.
• 1:41:48
  And I remember being in one class and or one of these
• 1:41:52
  sessions and someone was like, well, I was like, I would never
• 1:41:54
  take AI would never take a job I'm not prepared for.
• 1:41:56
  I feel like it sets me up to fail.
• 1:41:58
  Like why would I accept a job because I'm a black female who's
• 1:42:01
  at the time when this diversity thing was going on?
• 1:42:02
  As a black female, when I know that I'm not prepared to the
• 1:42:05
  job, I feel like I'm set being set up for failure because there
• 1:42:08
  were so many of us at the time in my, in my vision that I saw
• 1:42:11
  were getting these jobs and then doing not doing a great job.
• 1:42:14
  And so you look at women in coaching, like, why aren't the
• 1:42:16
  women in coaching doing? You're like, how many do the
• 1:42:18
  women in coaching? And I was like, because you're
• 1:42:19
  giving U.S. jobs like we're not like we, we, we, we should be
• 1:42:24
  able to do, but you're not equipping us well enough to be
• 1:42:27
  able to do the job. That's how I thought, right?
• 1:42:29
  I didn't want to be one of those women.
• 1:42:32
  So I made sure I was prepared. And this is me and and so when I
• 1:42:38
  got the job, it's like, OK, paperwork, I can do paperwork.
• 1:42:43
  I can I can learn. And so getting the job was like,
• 1:42:46
  I'm going to make mistakes long way.
• 1:42:47
  I got my first violation my first year recruiting some
• 1:42:49
  Nigerian kid, right. So, you know, it's like I'm, I'm
• 1:42:51
  learning the rules and recruiters from Nigeria and, you
• 1:42:54
  know, figuring out what to do with her and how to I messed up.
• 1:42:57
  My bad, you know, so you go through all of that stuff, but
• 1:43:00
  like, and then athletes, you know, you're first, you're
• 1:43:03
  taking over somebody's team. They all hate you.
• 1:43:05
  They all think that, you know, they all want their old head
• 1:43:07
  coach, but we're unhappy with their old head coach or
• 1:43:08
  situation. And you know, so I lined them
• 1:43:10
  all up and done, let me tell you who I am and this whole speech,
• 1:43:12
  but let me tell you who I am and what I've done so that you can
• 1:43:15
  got rid of everybody start over again.
• 1:43:16
  I had no problem with that stuff because making an Olympic team
• 1:43:19
  back then when you had to do it with zero help or resources
• 1:43:22
  until you got resources like I had to figure that out.
• 1:43:26
  I had to figure it out, being an athlete and then being an
• 1:43:31
  athlete who was basically in charge of my, in charge of me.
• 1:43:36
  Right, right. And so, and then the, the, the
• 1:43:38
  amount of emotional, spiritual, mental and intellectual effort
• 1:43:43
  that went into making those two Olympic teams for me and the ups
• 1:43:47
  and downs, the adversity and the successes.
• 1:43:48
  And this job was like, let me if you know how to like, I, I
• 1:43:53
  understand how to win. So like, let's just go from
• 1:43:56
  there. I wasn't overwhelmed by the
• 1:43:58
  like, Oh my God, I got it. Now being a head coach is more
• 1:44:02
  than coaching. Like no one likes the paperwork
• 1:44:04
  side of it, but I happen to be pretty decent at it.
• 1:44:07
  So it wasn't. I was an English major.
• 1:44:10
  I could write. Used to paper, so a lot of the
• 1:44:13
  aspects of a head coach, they're not hard.
• 1:44:17
  There's some that you know, maybe you don't want to do like
• 1:44:19
  you said in the. Paper like that, yeah.
• 1:44:22
  Sure, and and there's nothing that's going to prepare you for
• 1:44:24
  that, right? There's no, you know, Cliff
• 1:44:26
  doesn't sit you down one day and say, Hey, here's so here's what
• 1:44:28
  politics looks like when you're head, you know, there's no
• 1:44:30
  class. You just kind of have to learn
• 1:44:32
  that, you know, budgeting. That may be something you got to
• 1:44:35
  learn like, but you have your own, you've had a personal
• 1:44:37
  budget for your whole life. So you know, you can understand
• 1:44:39
  those things. But one of the things that I, I
• 1:44:41
  see that isn't discussed very often and I, and I see a lot of
• 1:44:44
  people make these kind of mistakes is the now that you're
• 1:44:47
  the head coach, you, you hire and fire people and there's no
• 1:44:52
  class, no one sits you down. I don't think Cliff or Hen or
• 1:44:54
  anybody sat you down, said, Hey, here's how I hire and your why
• 1:44:56
  and things like that. And, and I just heard, Oh my
• 1:44:59
  gosh, good news, bad news. I talked to so many people.
• 1:45:03
  I sometimes not forget who I'm actually talking to.
• 1:45:05
  So I can't remember if this was at convention a week ago or if
• 1:45:08
  this was an interview. I just did.
• 1:45:10
  But they said hiring your friends is easy.
• 1:45:12
  Firing your friends is hard. And I was like, oh, man, that's
• 1:45:14
  really, you know, that's that's a point.
• 1:45:16
  You think, how have you developed as someone who has,
• 1:45:20
  you know, a review process and and there's laws and things like
• 1:45:24
  that. How have you made mistakes or
• 1:45:27
  corrected or how have you figured that part out as the
• 1:45:29
  head coach? I've been very fortunate, very
• 1:45:34
  fortunate when I said earlier that that my experience at
• 1:45:38
  Georgetown helped develop my my coaching philosophy as a head
• 1:45:43
  coach. It has to do with this.
• 1:45:46
  It has to do with this right here, because I learned that
• 1:45:49
  lesson while I was at Georgetown.
• 1:45:51
  Then I saw it in my own staff at some point.
• 1:45:55
  Is that one I had a friendship with somebody who probably
• 1:45:58
  thought I should have hired him and I was not going to hire him.
• 1:46:00
  That could put a strain on our friendship.
• 1:46:01
  I knew off the bat that I should not hire this person, even
• 1:46:04
  though she was a friend of mine and was willing to take the risk
• 1:46:08
  of, you know, seeing trying to see a head.
• 1:46:12
  But one in a program like there should only be one head coach.
• 1:46:16
  I have a small, small enough group.
• 1:46:17
  When I was in Georgetown, I would tell my team, sorry,
• 1:46:21
  Henner. I would tell my, my, my group.
• 1:46:24
  Listen, I'm your coach. He was my boss, but I'm your
• 1:46:31
  coach. And so I ran my little Sprint
• 1:46:34
  hurdles, jumps, multi throws group, men, women, like I was
• 1:46:36
  the head coach, organized practices, expectations,
• 1:46:41
  standards, rules, all that stuff.
• 1:46:44
  I ran my little group like I was head coach.
• 1:46:46
  Now, as a head coach, I would never allow that to happen.
• 1:46:52
  As a head coach, I would never allow that to happen, right?
• 1:46:55
  So when I got the head coaching job here, I knew already I'm
• 1:47:00
  not. Going to let someone do do to me
• 1:47:02
  what I did to him, what I did I should.
• 1:47:05
  Say and when I and when I saw that happening, young coaches
• 1:47:07
  are like that. When I saw that happening three
• 1:47:10
  years in this head coach has to move on.
• 1:47:12
  That was the hardest thing I had to do my first time firing
• 1:47:14
  somebody was very hard, very difficult for me, but it needed
• 1:47:19
  to happen. And kind of I didn't.
• 1:47:20
  I don't, I don't like it. And he and I had some, you know,
• 1:47:22
  it lasted a while of the, you know, it was, it was not pretty.
• 1:47:27
  But as a head coach now I try to hire coaches or find people who
• 1:47:32
  are willing to be a part of my team, understand that there's
• 1:47:34
  whether I'm right, wrong or whatever.
• 1:47:36
  There's only one head coach in SP.
• 1:47:39
  And so being able, and I've been fortunate because I hadn't had
• 1:47:41
  to hire and fire a lot of people.
• 1:47:44
  I've had Michelle Freeman, who was my, my Sprint coach, ended
• 1:47:47
  up moving on for another job that was a better opportunity
• 1:47:49
  for her. I love her, absolutely love her
• 1:47:53
  and you know, we had some great success when she was here.
• 1:47:57
  My first, I hired my two first hires.
• 1:48:00
  My two first hires, Mike, were intentional.
• 1:48:03
  I want to hire young first time coaches.
• 1:48:07
  So I went and hired young first time NCAA coaches on purpose.
• 1:48:11
  And the reason why because we're we're still making phone calls
• 1:48:13
  to recruit back then, right? Because I said, if I'm going to
• 1:48:16
  be in this office late and recruiting into whatever, I need
• 1:48:20
  to grind. I need two young guys that ain't
• 1:48:21
  got nothing else going on in their life except this.
• 1:48:23
  And I want them to grind too. So me and my first Sprint
• 1:48:26
  assistant, we traveled every like he and I had.
• 1:48:28
  He had flight benefits, I had flight benefits.
• 1:48:30
  We were recruiting our asses all all over the place.
• 1:48:33
  Anybody, everybody, didn't matter who, because he had the
• 1:48:35
  time, I had the time. And you got enough to do have
• 1:48:38
  another celebrity to recruit. And then eventually my staff got
• 1:48:40
  more mature and older. But in the beginning, I knew I
• 1:48:43
  needed two guys. This is all we're doing.
• 1:48:46
  See, I, I, I think that's important.
• 1:48:49
  And, and I remember having a discussion with someone on the
• 1:48:51
  podcast too, about the makeup of your staff, not just, oh, I need
• 1:48:55
  a Sprint or a throws or, you know, just the, and I think
• 1:48:57
  that's how most hires are probably done.
• 1:48:59
  You called the 8020 rule. Maybe 80% of like, Hey, I need a
• 1:49:01
  throws coach. What's the best throws coach
• 1:49:03
  that I can get that'll work with me and things like that.
• 1:49:05
  And I think there's a different level, a higher level of
• 1:49:09
  strategy of like, oh, in this age and stage of my program and
• 1:49:13
  me, I need some people who don't necessarily have family at this
• 1:49:17
  point, you know, you're not hiring because of that.
• 1:49:19
  But I need people that are going to be in the office 8/9, 10:00
• 1:49:22
  because this is what we need today at this point.
• 1:49:25
  And we adjust as we move along. So I don't think that part's
• 1:49:28
  discussed enough. And I and I just, you know, I
• 1:49:30
  probably, you know, in in those in that day, I was, I was
• 1:49:34
  probably miss misguided in my thought process when I first
• 1:49:37
  became a coach. I knew I wasn't going to hire
• 1:49:39
  another female coach. Like I purposely didn't hire
• 1:49:42
  another female coach. Like I knew that in my thought
• 1:49:45
  process at the time in, you know, I wouldn't, I don't feel
• 1:49:50
  that way now. Wouldn't do it.
• 1:49:51
  Like now is totally different because I've, you know, grown,
• 1:49:53
  mature and I know more. But at the time, I thought that
• 1:49:57
  because if anybody's going to have a bad day, it's going to be
• 1:49:59
  me. Because I knew how I am, right?
• 1:50:04
  I knew me well enough to know I'm not.
• 1:50:07
  I'm not arguing with you about your feelings about how you you
• 1:50:09
  know I'm not. I can get these two guys, OK?
• 1:50:13
  Just leave her alone, OK? Leave me alone all.
• 1:50:18
  Right, Sheila, we are past time. Thank you so much for giving me
• 1:50:21
  extra time. So I've got one last question
• 1:50:23
  and then I'll give you back your day, what have you in 16 years
• 1:50:29
  of a head coach here at Sandia. One program I remember a couple
• 1:50:33
  years back at the convention, a group of us, we're talking about
• 1:50:35
  coaches that had been at a university for any significant
• 1:50:38
  amount of time. We got through some of the maybe
• 1:50:42
  more top ahead, you know, Mouse and Curtis Frye at the time
• 1:50:45
  who's now retired, things like that.
• 1:50:46
  But we, we didn't get really past 10 until we had to really
• 1:50:49
  struggle to start thinking about coaches that had been there for
• 1:50:52
  10/15/20 years. You've been there for 16 years.
• 1:50:55
  I want to know. So we, we've got there's a group
• 1:50:57
  listening right now that are either they're, they're one or
• 1:51:00
  two or three years away from becoming a head coach for their
• 1:51:02
  first time, or they're in their first one 2-3 year of head
• 1:51:04
  coaching. How have you?
• 1:51:06
  And maybe a little bit of tactical of like, what have you
• 1:51:09
  done? Possibly, how have you changed
• 1:51:12
  from head coach 16 years ago to your staring at the 2025 season
• 1:51:17
  right now? How have you changed to make
• 1:51:19
  yourself a better head coach? And any kind of tactical like,
• 1:51:22
  oh, I took this leadership class or I did this or whatever might
• 1:51:25
  be helpful as well. I think that I, you know, I got
• 1:51:30
  the opportunity to spend some time talking to 1 Cliff, you
• 1:51:33
  know, talking to him about the coaching professional.
• 1:51:37
  He had had plenty conversations about that, had conversations
• 1:51:40
  with Beth Kearney, you know, whatever people think.
• 1:51:45
  That was a huge influence on me being the one of the dominant
• 1:51:51
  and predominant female coaches in the country for a while.
• 1:51:54
  And then having, you know, had to deal with and manage with
• 1:51:57
  some of the politics of being in that position she's in over the
• 1:52:01
  years and had some conversations with her that really stuck with
• 1:52:03
  me. And I think that, you know,
• 1:52:06
  aside from being able to manage people, I don't think I'm a
• 1:52:09
  great coach. First of all, I don't I'm not
• 1:52:11
  that great of a coach. I'm a good coach, but I'm not,
• 1:52:14
  you know, not that great of a coach.
• 1:52:16
  I'm good at coaching people in not necessary systems.
• 1:52:22
  I can, I can adapt, I can change.
• 1:52:24
  And that leads me to one thing. I think that has helped me over
• 1:52:30
  the years because of the mentors and the people that I've been
• 1:52:35
  able to discuss, you know what, what I'm dealing with or you
• 1:52:39
  know, the advice I've been given over the years and is that you
• 1:52:43
  have to be able to maintain the same Like my philosophy, my core
• 1:52:50
  belief about who I am and what I do and why I do it does not
• 1:52:53
  change. However, I've had to adapt to
• 1:52:59
  the people that I'm working with and managing that to adapt to
• 1:53:03
  the athletes. And I've had to, I've had to
• 1:53:06
  adapt to who's on my staff as time changed.
• 1:53:10
  And I'm the one who, if I'm going to lead the group, in
• 1:53:14
  order to be that leader, has to make that change that that
• 1:53:17
  adaptation, meaning that, you know, my coaching staff now is
• 1:53:22
  much more mature, which I like, right?
• 1:53:25
  And so I give those guys a little more leeway than I would
• 1:53:28
  give a younger coach. When I first started coaching, I
• 1:53:32
  gave my young coach way too much freedom, way too much leeway.
• 1:53:36
  I'm, I believe that if you're going to be a good coach, be a
• 1:53:37
  good coach. I don't care if you're a better
• 1:53:38
  coach than me, But I learned with young coaches, let them be
• 1:53:42
  a good coach, but you got to, you got to keep them, let them
• 1:53:45
  grow, but you got to put some guard rails around them these
• 1:53:48
  days. I also learned that with
• 1:53:52
  athletes, it's like this is a totally different time and age
• 1:53:56
  that we're, you know, this is different landscape, different
• 1:53:58
  culture that we're in with, with athletes.
• 1:54:00
  And so you got to hold on to look, I hold on to standards and
• 1:54:04
  expectations. These are standards.
• 1:54:06
  These are expectations. We hold on those and you should
• 1:54:08
  be afraid of me at some point, you should be a little afraid, a
• 1:54:10
  little concerned, a little worried, but at the same time
• 1:54:14
  allow people to be who they are. It's very difficult.
• 1:54:19
  It's, it seems like the paperwork is the paperwork,
• 1:54:21
  right? Administration stuff,
• 1:54:22
  leadership. Leadership is being able to
• 1:54:24
  connect with, communicate and really give people a sense of,
• 1:54:30
  you know, empowerment with with some with your standards and
• 1:54:34
  expectations. So they're always wanting to
• 1:54:36
  meet with your standards and they respect you.
• 1:54:38
  I think that the one time I lost respect from one of my assistant
• 1:54:42
  coaches is when was probably the hardest firing I had to do like
• 1:54:49
  me, just like me. The disrespect that you can't
• 1:54:51
  handle. And so it's not like, you know,
• 1:54:53
  I went and took some class or what not just because of the way
• 1:54:56
  I am and the way I work. I remember coach Craig Poole
• 1:54:59
  said to me one time, you know, people really coach out of their
• 1:55:01
  personalities. You know, how you process
• 1:55:04
  information, how you take information, you really coach
• 1:55:06
  out of your personality and, and my personalities.
• 1:55:09
  I'm pretty, I think I'm just pretty cool and pretty chill.
• 1:55:11
  There's no reason for you to like, I want to be good.
• 1:55:13
  I want to want to be very clear. I'm very upfront, I'm very
• 1:55:15
  direct, very transparent about who it is, what I'm doing and
• 1:55:17
  what I'm why I want to do it. If we can do that, we can move
• 1:55:20
  together. We can't.
• 1:55:20
  Then we got to separate. And I tell you that upfront.
• 1:55:23
  That's what athletes and and assistants and so I'm very clear
• 1:55:26
  about who I am so that I can then build my my team around
• 1:55:31
  that. If you're listening, I recommend
• 1:55:35
  you hit the rewind button because you know, I set the
• 1:55:38
  question up of like if you might be a head coach in the next year
• 1:55:41
  or two or if you're a young head coach right now.
• 1:55:43
  As she was explaining that I'm thinking about that first time
• 1:55:47
  assistant coach, you're trying to figure out how do I operate
• 1:55:49
  with my head coach. She kind of gave you the game
• 1:55:51
  plan. If you're a 10 year head coach
• 1:55:53
  and you're trying to figure out how do I become better in the
• 1:55:55
  year 15, She kind of gave you the game plan right there.
• 1:55:58
  Setting the expectations that I'm going to boil it down to my,
• 1:56:01
  you know, slow Alabama brain setting the expectations up
• 1:56:05
  front. I, I think those those have to
• 1:56:06
  work together. I don't think you get to do 1
• 1:56:08
  without the other. So Sheila, thank you so much.
• 1:56:12
  You know, the most valuable thing you can ever give me is
• 1:56:14
  your time. And you know, I we're we're
• 1:56:16
  literally, like I said, you're listening to this probably in
• 1:56:18
  February and of 2025. We're recording this the day
• 1:56:21
  after Christmas. And Sheila was and she's in the
• 1:56:24
  middle of a project. I mean, yeah, we.
• 1:56:26
  Can find out and remodel. Yeah, I'm just so grateful.
• 1:56:29
  Thank you so much. You know, your journey matters.
• 1:56:31
  It's important. And I think people hearing what
• 1:56:35
  you came up through and what you've done and adversities and
• 1:56:38
  positivities, right. I mean, there is there is a
• 1:56:41
  privilege to be in a UCLA grad versus, you know, again, I'll
• 1:56:43
  pick up my university, a Troy grad, etcetera.
• 1:56:45
  But at the end of the day, yeah, I think we talked about this in
• 1:56:48
  one of our interviews a week or so ago.
• 1:56:50
  Who, you know, might get you there, might get you the job,
• 1:56:53
  but what, you know, keeps the job.
• 1:56:55
  And I think, you know, your story of like the mentors you've
• 1:56:58
  had from the bobbies, your English teacher that might be
• 1:57:02
  the most unsung hero in this whole thing.
• 1:57:03
  I love that she became friends, not just, you know, teacher.
• 1:57:07
  I really do love that. Please tell her, you know, thank
• 1:57:11
  you. Because without her influence,
• 1:57:12
  we don't have Coach Burrell. I think so.
• 1:57:14
  So I love that. I love that very much.
• 1:57:16
  And I'm really just grateful for you and thank you so much for
• 1:57:19
  for sharing your journey with us today.
• 1:57:21
  Mike, appreciate you. Thank you for having me and
• 1:57:23
  thank you for your support as well.
• 1:57:24
  Always. You deserve that.
• 1:57:25
  You deserve it guys and gals. Thank you so much.
• 1:57:28
  Season 6 is a banger. We've just had like, I can't
• 1:57:30
  remember if this is 6 or seven in a row here of just amazing,
• 1:57:33
  amazing human beings. I'm just so blessed that they
• 1:57:35
  would spend time with us and spend time with you.
• 1:57:37
  And hopefully you're, you're learning from them because
• 1:57:39
  that's, that's the end of the day.
• 1:57:39
  That's what we got to do when we spend this time together.
• 1:57:41
  So thank you so much for being here.
• 1:57:43
  Join us next week. We'll do it all over again.
• 1:57:44
  Thanks guys. If it goes to appreciate the
• 1:57:47
  coach, the ones that point people most every season needs a
• 1:57:50
  voice of reason speaking the growth got to prep before you
• 1:57:53
  carry the load. Ice coffee to the soul.
• 1:57:55
  For those of us who stay on the go proper hand off to stay in
• 1:57:58
  the zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:58:00
  There's more than one way to go. Taking those SP and you're told
• 1:58:04
  it ain't practic with your purpose Saint Clair it can't
• 1:58:06
  happen until you listen with both is you can't mentor without
• 1:58:09
  a mentor is of experience. You can reinvent those years.
• 1:58:13
  Every plan's got to stand and deliver to and the price
• 1:58:16
  sacrifice. Can you give up you It's a
• 1:58:18
  choice and the fight not to win all those It's not a ploy boy
• 1:58:21
  device y'all can make more moves.
• 1:58:23
  It's not about how to it's all about why you don't know till
• 1:58:26
  you know who you are inside 6,000,000 waste of time choose
• 1:58:30
  none. So y'all cross finish line.
• 1:58:31
  The work ain't done so we learn from the experts, but y'all got.