Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #140: Gill1918 Presents Coach Mike & Cheryl Etheredge “More Than Just a Track Club” Powered by Coach O

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#140: Gill1918 Presents Coach Mike & Cheryl Etheredge “More Than Just a Track Club” Powered by Coach O · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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  coaches for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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  Think of it as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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  Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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  you grow as a coach. This episode is part of the
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  Youth and Beginner Series, brought to you by Coach O.
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  In this series, we focus on topics relating to coaching
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  youth athletes, coaching beginner athletes of any age,
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  and supporting brand new coaches as they find their way.
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  With that in mind, let's grow. Hello, I'm Michael Etheridge AKA
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  Coach Mike. And I'm Cheryl Etheridge.
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  And we are. Golden Elite.
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  Out of Pensacola, FL. And today we are going to be
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  talking about more than track building, discipline, identity
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  and future leaders through sports.
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  Now, as we all know, track and field I consider to be a
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  individualized team sport and I know as you as coaches, y'all
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  know what I'm talking about. You have an athlete they run the
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  one and the two and the four, but yet and still they're part
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  of a program that unifies everybody together as a team.
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  But the accomplishments from what they do on the track comes
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  from individuality. A lot of times we find ourselves
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  focusing on the opportunities for athletes to excel on the
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  track and you know, we forget about excelling them off the
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  track. And so, you know, that's to me
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  Dublin importance. That's the thing.
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  We have a slogan here at Golden Elite where we say we're more
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  than just a track club. And it is essential that
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  everyone that participates in our program, as far as whether
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  you're the person checking kids in at practice at the gate, or
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  you're the coach or you're the therapist or the the team
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  doctor, you understand that. That's that's good and correct,
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  Coach Mike. I think a lot of people that
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  have sports program miss the opportunity for the community to
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  know that you're there to do more than just train their child
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  in whatever sport they are participating in.
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  You're actually there to shape their mindset structure, you
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  know, the course in their lives and help them, you know, really
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  gain their identity. So one of the things that we do
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  at Golden Elite is we have a slogan that really isn't a
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  slogan. Academics over athletics because
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  real life happens and you have to have more than just athletic
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  abilities to fall back on once you have, you know, graduated
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  high school and or college. And that takes place at at the
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  beginning of practice. That's something we can
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  establish in the track and field or as an organization.
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  Not just us, anybody. You know, once success comes to
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  that athlete, it has to be established from the ground up.
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  One thing we make sure that we do is we treat everybody the
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  same. You know, we have young people
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  that come through our program, parents are millionaires.
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  They making, you know, they got $1,000,000 a year, they bring it
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  into the household. And then we have those parents
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  that kids are bringing $30,000 a year into the household.
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  But when it comes to individuality, that doesn't
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  exist as a person. When it comes to our
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  organization, everybody's treated the same.
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  We're going to get phone calls. We we make phone calls to these
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  kids how the grades are going and how you're acting at home.
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  There are two things we teach our athletes when they join our
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  program that they have to take care of #1 is home and #2 is
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  school. We teach our athletes,
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  regardless of how great you are, how great you not are, you got
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  to take care of home and you got to take care of school.
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  Once again, we got athletes that have parents that are lawyers
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  and judges and doctors. And in that same setting, we
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  have kids that have never seen their parents and they still,
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  they stay with their grandparents.
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  And you know, and so, but yet and still the, the, the surface,
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  everybody's the same when it comes to respect, character
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  integrity, You know, as coaches, if you want to get a part of a
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  program to where you just want to deal with superstars and All
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  Stars and Golden Elite wouldn't be that program for you.
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  We're here to make sure that we teach, instruct God, educate,
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  encourage and equip these young kids for what's coming next.
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  Regardless if they're six or they're 16, they have something
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  next coming in their life. And so, you know, we do
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  constructional things here in our program.
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  My wife can tell you a whole bunch of things that we do.
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  Yeah. So we're we're not the typical
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  sports program. Of course we teach nutrition.
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  But with that we don't just teach the athlete, we teach the
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  entire family. If we are learning how to make
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  smoothies, the families are going to be involved at practice
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  making smoothies because let's be real, the parents are the
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  ones that are going to the grocery store paying for the
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  food. So if you can start implementing
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  through the whole, you know, household that you know, helps
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  the whole entire family with their, you know, health journeys
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  to make sure they're doing what they need.
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  We have tutoring services for our athletes because we monitor
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  our athletes grades every couple of weeks.
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  We make sure like they're not getting referrals and if we see
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  that their grades are slipping, we immediately get with that.
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  Parents set up the tutoring and tell them like they're going to
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  focus on their grades. They can come to practice, but
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  if they do, they're going to be doing some type of class work
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  because that is what is most important.
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  We do speakers that will come in just so kids can see from mental
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  health to how to budget, certain banks coming in talking about,
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  you know, saving money. And we also make sure the whole
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  family is involved with that and just giving them real life life
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  skills. So you know, in a nutshell, if
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  the program is not adhering to the athlete as a whole person,
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  because eventually track and field is going to end, football
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  is going to end, basketball it's going to end regardless if they
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  play for the Lakers or they plan for the pickup team as they
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  don't track football. All the sports eventually we're
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  in. And what do you have after that?
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  You know, a lot of times I know we all can look back on some TV
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  story or some type of news report where this multi
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  $1,000,000 athlete now is homeless and on drugs and in
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  trouble. Da, da, da, da, da.
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  It's because through, I believe through the process of coming
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  up, the talent outweigh the opportunities to become a better
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  person, not a better athlete. You know, hey, you're number one
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  in the county and you're going to help our team go to state
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  and, you know, so yeah, we're going to pass you on these
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  grades and you got in trouble, but we're going to push that
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  under the rug kind of thing. No, no, we have to be honest
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  with these kids and care about them as a person moving forward
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  in society so that they're having.
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  And so, you know, off the track when it comes to what we do is
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  more important and just as important as what happens on the
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  track. We teach our kids.
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  You don't become a champion at a track meet before you get to
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  that track me and you lined up to do what you're going to do
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  rather's jump run a throw. You already have established
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  your championship abilities throughout the week or the month
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  of whatever prior to that. That's just everything coming
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  together at that time. That includes how you think, how
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  you react to situations, you know, and so when that
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  opportunity presents itself to take full advantage of it.
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  So if if you're a parent and you listening to this and your child
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  is exceptional in a sport, regardless if it's track or any
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  other sport get, you know, you got to be part of this too.
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  You got to be a very intricate part of the success that your
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  child will bring. You know, we have a great
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  relationship with Olympian Justin Gatlin and his parents.
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  And, you know, in the process of us getting together and talking
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  with kids in the community, we also let parents know that, you
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  know, from the aspect of his parents, they tell them how
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  tough it was in the sacrifice that had to be made in order for
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  an individual like him to get to where he was and to accomplish
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  what he did. And in that.
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  And that's all work. And in our program, you know,
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  like Coach Mike is saying off of the, you know, field, we have
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  numerous stories that we can tell you of children that came
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  through our program, where they started and like where they are
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  now. Coach Mike, would you want to
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  tell them about the young athlete that couldn't make it
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  around the track? Well, just for name purposes,
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  because we hadn't talked to his parents and got the permission.
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  So I'm going to just say TT, You know, TT came out and they
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  wanted to find something for TT to do, just to have some type of
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  physical activity, just be part of something constructive.
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  And they had heard about Golden Elite, our program, and people
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  were raving about, oh, it's a great environment, is safe, so
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  forth and so on. So they brought TT out and you
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  know, TT really didn't come out to be part of the track team.
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  His brother did. But TT came out and say, I want
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  to go out there too. So the parents were really
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  literally, and they were literally because of the fact
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  that when TT was born, he had a heart condition that doctors
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  told him that he would never be able to get into any type of
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  strong physical activities through his life because it
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  would put him in a position to where his heart would fail.
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  And so TT started coming out and when he first came out, he
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  couldn't even do a 110. He couldn't get a quarter around
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  the track. And you know, we knew about it a
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  little bit and we just like any other person that comes out,
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  hey, if you got to walk, walk. It's your first day out here so
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  far, but week after week after week after week and we did not
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  know the intensity of what the situation was at that time.
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  And so week after week and all of a sudden TT is making two
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  laps and going through the entire practice and had his
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  first ever track me come up. We were in.
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  I never forget as we were in Mobile, AL and the parents was
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  seeing their child come down to the track and came across the
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  front of the line. TT was in lead last place, dead
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  last. Dead last.
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  I'm talking about last. I mean one, no doubt about it,
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  one close. And his parents were just crying
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  and you know, you would have thought of them like everything
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  all right. They say Coach Mike, you don't
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  understand. And it they went into the
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  situation of the story about the doctors, told them that his
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  heart was going to fail if he never made it.
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  And they took him back to the doctor after that, tried me a
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  couple of weeks and they looked at it and the doctor told him
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  whatever they were doing with him at the time with TT, keep
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  doing it. And they came back and gave a
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  testimony. So again, TT was treated like
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  every other athlete that was treated in our program.
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  We didn't look at TT to say, hey, you ain't going to be that
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  good, go sit down. It was week after week,
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  encouragement after encouragement to get TT to
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  understand there's something in you.
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  We want you to start and finish, That's it.
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  And you have done something great.
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  So again, our program is not built around we have superstars.
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  We've been on Good Morning America and we have national,
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  you know, Jo, medalist, gold medalist and athlete that signed
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  with Nike. We have done all that and it's
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  great. Don't get me wrong, it is
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  exceptional. But that kid that comes out and
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  the parents say there's no hope for him.
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  And they say what we heard about your program when we just wanted
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  to see if we could bring him here or bring her here.
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  And then two or three months later, those grades are up.
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  That attitude is better than not cussing mom and dad out at home.
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  They're waking up in the mornings on their own, doing
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  exercises. They're trying to eat better and
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  implanting something in that child's life to make them a
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  better person. And I would just kind of leave
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  with coaches if you know you have that passion and we know
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  it's not easy and you have to have a good team behind you, but
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  go into the mindset that you're building a youth development
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  organization, not a track club. So I think when we can have
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  coaches and parents shift their mindset to that, a lot more
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  programs will be successful. So again, I'm Cheryl Etheridge,
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  if you want to learn more about Golden Elite track and field,
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  you can visit our website, which is Golden Elite dot Club.
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  We have several events coming up in May.
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  On May the 23rd, we will be hosting our third annual Gulf
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  Coast Primary and Intermediate Championship.
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  Yes, and this is for our kiddos, ages 4 to through the 8th grade
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  to give them that time to shine. And this year we're hosting the
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  AAU Junior, I'm sorry, AAU District Qualifiers on June the
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  6th here in beautiful Pensacola, FL.
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  We have a great Pensacola Beach, home of the Blue Angels, and
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  we're also hosting the AAU Junior Olympic Regional
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  Qualifiers here in Pensacola. This has never been done and
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  ever in the history of the Florida part of AAU.
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  So we're super excited and we're just thankful for Coach O having
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  this platform that we can learn and grow from other coaches and
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  admin like ourselves. Thank you again for this
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  opportunity. Thank you.
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  Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Thanks for joining us for this
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  episode in the Youth and beginner series Powered by Coach
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  athletes, parents, officials and event directors in countless
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