Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #134: Boo Schexnayder-Louisiana State University

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#134: Boo Schexnayder-Louisiana State University · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:05
  Welcome to the Orthotics connections podcast.
• 0:07
  I'm your host Mike Cunningham national sales manager for Gil
• 0:10
  Athletics. Our goal today is to connect you
• 0:13
  with coaches, from around the world, to learn their Journey.
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  Share their stories, and just figure out who they are and what
• 0:20
  they're all about. So, without further Ado, let's
• 0:23
  get on and find out what today's guest has in store for us.
• 0:31
  All right, thanks for joining us again.
• 0:33
  Here on the yellow, ethics connections podcast.
• 0:35
  I am your host, Mike Cunningham and today's guest, you know,
• 0:38
  this is actually kind of personal for me.
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  For today's guest, you've already seen his name on the
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  title. Help me welcome the wise, the
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  wonderful mr. Peru schexnayder, boo.
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  How are you sir doing fine of all the introductions I've had,
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  that was the most touching and most amusing at the same time,
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  you know. I think it's what my wife says
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  about me as well. Like you're very touched on your
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  variable using Mike. Yeah.
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  Boo A real honor to have you here.
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  Not only for, you know, I'm just so excited to bring your story
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  to the listeners and the many Journeys you've had in coaching
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  and what you're doing. Now but also personally for me,
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  I've told this story many times on the podcast, in fact, you're
• 1:17
  probably one of the maybe a handful of people that your name
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  gets brought up in almost every single podcast in some form or
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  fashion and I think that's a real Testament to the impact
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  you've made on coaching specifically We're tracking
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  feel. So I'm just super excited, just
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  to explore that and kind of just bring your full story to the
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  masses if you will. Well good.
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  I'm looking forward to it. Well, let's hop into it, man.
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  I'm so excited to have you here. I just want to get started and
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  just like, blurt it all out. So, let's get in our way back
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  machine here. Talk to us about where did track
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  start for you? Where you an athlete?
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  What where is track begin for? You wasn't much of a track
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  athlete. Oh, actually, my first interest
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  in My high school won a Regional Championship, which is not that
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  big a deal in Louisiana, to be honest with you, but I thought
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  it was a big deal and I wasn't on the team.
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  So, I went out for the team next year and I ended up throwing the
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  javelin and Gavin and some other events.
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  But, you know, are we didn't really have, it wasn't coaching.
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  Like you think of, you know, mean the coach collected
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  athletes and goddess out there and got us organized and that
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  type of thing, you know, and I'm very grateful for the fact that
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  he had that approach, you know, even to this day, I hear
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  sometimes high school athletes, will come to me and as a, in the
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  Collegiate setting and say, my high school coach didn't know
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  anything, blah blah, blah. And I immediately put a are
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  immediately curtail that conversation because ultimately
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  that's what's important is. This is a person that saw you on
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  the sport. Well anyway this person's coach
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  email. You sold me on the sport and I
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  started kind of like a drag. I wasn't great at it.
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  I was much more of a football person that attract person but,
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  you know, I Out there and I enjoyed it and so forth and then
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  I don't know why. But as soon as I finished high
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  school, I knew I wanted to coach.
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  And even though I was majoring in engineering because that's
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  kind of what everybody expected me to do.
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  I just kind of knew I wanted to coach and I started coaching
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  counterpart time and everything. And I was much more football
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  than track but because I had the interest in track, I started
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  dabbling in track immediately upon my high school graduation.
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  I'll still you know, in college, you know, taking classes My
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  freshman year and still help him start at the help out of the
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  high school and that type of stuff.
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  And and I'm just the kind of person that if I'm going to do
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  track, I'm going to try to do it.
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  Well, just like I try to football well and that's kind of
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  how I got started in track. So to speak, I was pretty decent
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  football player. But as a track athlete, I was
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  really nothing special. I just just liked it, you know.
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  So what was it about coaching that that you said it was
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  immediate like, oh yeah, I'm going to coach, was it, your
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  high school coach? Was it?
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  Did you see? Famous coaches in basketball NFL
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  at that time. You're like I want to be the
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  man. What was it?
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  That I mean it seems like this was automatic for you.
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  Yeah it was and I can answer that question accurately when I
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  think back at it my high school coach has made Athletics, a
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  positive thing for me so that was appreciated that but I think
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  it probably had something to do with personality.
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  I kind of love the chess match of coaching particularly
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  coaching football, a kind of love with chess match by Nature.
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  I'm a Um, solver you know, if you give you give me three
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  puzzles. I'm going to pick the hardest
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  puzzle and I'm going to obsess until I finish it.
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  You know, I'm kind of a problem solver by nature and that's
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  probably why I started in engineering, right?
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  And I also like the fact that there are infinite variables in
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  coaching you know, you play chess and The Rook can only move
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  this way in the night can only move this way.
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  Well, in coaching, there are there's infinite variables, you
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  know, they're, you know, there really is no single road map to
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  success and so many coaches do it in.
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  Four ways. So, to make a long story short,
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  I think it's a profession that really fit my personality and I
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  saw it as a challenge, you know, and then when you take into
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  account the different personalities, you have to deal
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  with. That's just another level of
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  complexity involved in coaching and I think I probably took to
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  it, not only because I like sports but also because I
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  appreciated the challenges that it came came along with it, you
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  know, I just found it tremendously challenging and
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  interesting. So you go to college and you're
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  studying. Being engineering.
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  But you're starting to help out from the get-go coaching track
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  at the high school. Doing some football where you
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  participating, in track at college.
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  No, we didn't even have a track team and in fact I ended up I I
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  went to LSU this this is a funny story but I got recruited to
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  play football at a couple of small schools but they didn't
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  have engineering schools. So I decided I would go to LSU
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  as a student 22. The engineering and I turned
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  down scholarships not only athletic scholarships even
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  academic scholarships but I was making like five hundred dollars
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  a week catching crawfish in commercial fishing and the
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  tuition for college. My first semester for the
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  semester was $275. So it really wasn't that big a
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  scholarship wasn't what it is. Now first of all, I love how
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  Louisiana and you are bad you pay for College by crawfish know
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  that and I hate to say it as much as I love coaching, that's
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  still the best job I ever had. To be frank with you.
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  But, but in any case, so I went to LSU as an engineering student
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  and was really miserable because my heart was really in coaching
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  and then I transfer it to Nichols and I graduated from the
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  clothes, actually played football for a short time, at
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  Nichols as old walk on, and mostly because I wanted to
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  Football's to make me a better Coach more so than the fact that
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  I was trying to go to the NFL or anything like that, but they're
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  one of the schools that it actually kind of called me, you
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  know what? I was actually you know, coming
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  out of high school and so forth. And that was the local school.
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  And since it was the local school I could, I could go back
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  to crawfishing again. Then made you honey.
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  Did you end up getting your degree in engineering or did you
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  switch to some kind of edge Amish?
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  I ended up getting my degree in physical education and yes young
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  people that one. Time you could get a degree in
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  physical education. I think my degree says physical
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  education. Recreation and safety education.
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  Only a minor with a minor in math education and I was a math
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  teacher at the high school level and math because, you know, with
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  the engineering, I had a lot of credits in math.
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  So that's what I did. And I like I Frank, I enjoyed
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  being in a classroom, high school, you know, it.
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  I found that to be kind of a challenge as well and, you know,
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  I any way to teach kids math and course I really didn't want to
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  be in, you know, become interesting and, you know, help
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  the kids succeed and all that. So I actually, you know, never
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  really taught PE. I was a coach, but I was pretty
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  much more of a classroom teacher.
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  When I got started, I should have took in taken a poll before
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  we started. And you know, what do you think?
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  Boo schexnayder? Got his undergrad degree in
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  maybe PE, they would have said, but definitely would not have
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  guessed. Just started out in engineering
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  and then went math and stars, you know, math minor and
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  everything. So you end up Graduating from
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  nickel State. Great school.
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  We've had there there. Now, head coach on the podcast.
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  Before I love nickel stay. It's a great little place.
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  Man fact, when I was at Troy University, we were in the
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  Southland Conference at least to play nickel State and football
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  all the time. Never knew where Thibodeau was
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  just new. Nickel, stay, the Colonel's so
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  you get your degree, you go in your high school teaching.
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  So are you high school coaching track and field right off the
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  bat as well immediately? I was already doing it kind of
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  pork time, you know as as a I was in college and I immediately
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  moved into the in the same school, in my alma, mater into a
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  full-time or culture and Rule. And I was a defensive
• 9:09
  coordinator and football, my very first year and I was a
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  track coach as well and we kind of had a Coke track coach kind
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  of thing to were two of us who kind of animal track together.
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  So so what is your mother call it style of coaching at that
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  point? I don't mean, you know, we don't
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  talk X's and O's and things like that but more of like Like, you
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  know, now I know of you as a very call it cerebral teaching
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  type of Coach where you that way from the get-go know, maybe a
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  football because I was well educated in football.
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  I knew defensive schemes and all that.
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  But in track, I mean, nothing, you know, I really didn't.
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  So the thing that few of my coaching then was insecurity and
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  fear of failure, more than anything else.
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  So, you know, my first season or two, which coaching track, it
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  was all about just finding, you know, Those boys track as what
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  we had and finding any kid in the hallway that you thought
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  could, maybe walk and chew gum at the same time.
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  Getting them out there and see if they had a talent to do
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  something. You know?
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  And remember the state champions were in our league where in our
• 10:15
  district and they had lots of quality athletes.
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  And anyway, I said, well, maybe we don't have a long jumper as
• 10:22
  good as this one, but we're going to have to or decent.
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  We're going to have to Triple jumpers who were decent into.
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  You know, I'm going to find two kids who don't mind hurting a
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  little bit too. Run the mile and run the two
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  mile and go, you know, so it was basically recruiting the
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  hallways and so forth. And and anyway, I was pretty
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  successful as a defensive coordinator and became
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  successful as a track coach Moore through that type of
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  effort, but what it what happened?
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  As far as trap was concerned, not long after that was when
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  path and Seagrave, and Maxwell. And all of those guys came to
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  LSU. I, you know, I was spending a
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  whole weekend working on game plans for football and I Bull, I
• 11:01
  spent about five minutes deciding what I'm going to do
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  for track track. There's got to be more to track
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  than this, you know. So so I started driving up to
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  LSU when I could and watch in track practices.
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  And I was extremely fortunate because Dan path took me kind of
• 11:17
  under his wing and he became a mentor to me.
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  I will forever be very appreciative to him for all the
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  time and energy that he put into me as a, as a coach and as a
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  person and everything, and he took me, grab me at a very A
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  very, I guess critical time in my formation as a coach because
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  I kind of started to see things and I kind of had some hunches
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  on some things and not only did Dan, teach me a lot but what Dan
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  really did for me that was the most valuable was I was getting
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  to the point where I was seeing some things a little different
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  than what common culture and culture saw, you know, I saw
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  some things differently. I said, why do we train them?
• 12:01
  We, why do we use this technique?
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  Some of that doesn't make sense. And then was the person who told
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  me no, no, no, you're seeing it clearly, you need to kind of
• 12:09
  trust yourself, you need to explore.
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  What you're seeing and so forth. And don't be afraid to go away
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  from the, the common culture. And that's what Dan really did
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  for me. I mean, I learned a lot from him
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  as far as just factual material, but the encouragement he gave me
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  take kind of not be afraid to go out on a branch or on a limb so
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  to speak technically or Any wise or whatever.
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  If I had a reason for it and if you could support it with sports
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  science and so forth. So the confidence that he gave
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  me at that point in my career was extremely helpful.
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  Was that the state of coaching education at that point?
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  Was another coach. I know we didn't have, you know,
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  obviously wouldn't have YouTube and maybe we didn't have camps
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  and Clinics and we didn't have access to a guy like you back
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  then we didn't have email and phones.
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  And what have you? What was coaching, education,
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  you're talking about Dan path, which that's amazing?
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  Is that what the state of coaching education was at that?
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  Wait, well, it was finding a mentor so to speak, you know,
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  they really weren't many, you know, at that time USA Track and
• 13:08
  Field coaching in the education was in its infancy, you know?
• 13:11
  Just getting started, right? And I kind of met Dan probably a
• 13:15
  little bit before that got started or right around that
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  time. But a little before, actually,
• 13:21
  when I think about it. But basically, there are some
• 13:24
  clinics around and you found a way to hustle and get the
• 13:27
  clinics and things like that. But there really wasn't anything
• 13:30
  that was, uh, Yes, you would sit curricular there, wasn't
• 13:32
  anything that was all encompassing and that I think
• 13:35
  was a tremendous challenge to coaches in those days because
• 13:39
  you go to one clinic and this highly successful coach said you
• 13:42
  should be running three. Hundreds and this court said,
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  no, you run 200, you know. So you have all of this stuff
• 13:48
  and there wasn't anything you have to sort it all out and you
• 13:51
  spend your whole darn life collecting workouts and
• 13:54
  collecting drills and all those things.
• 13:55
  And you never really knew why you were doing anything.
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  That's why to me coaching. Education was helpful and why I
• 14:03
  felt a passion to advance coaching education because it
• 14:07
  took all of these things that were out there and put them in
• 14:10
  context. So, now, all of a sudden,
• 14:11
  instead of all of these different workouts and we don't
• 14:13
  know what we're doing now, all of a sudden because of this
• 14:17
  curriculum. I understand exactly what I'm
• 14:19
  trying to accomplish. So I know therefore I can do
• 14:21
  this workout, this workout, this working Define.
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  I don't have to do these workouts because that's stuffs
• 14:26
  covered elsewhere, you know? So it kind of put everything in
• 14:29
  context and help. You to organize it in your own
• 14:32
  mind. So to speak, you know, as you
• 14:34
  were organizing this in your mind and you're being mentored
• 14:37
  by by Dan and maybe you're doing some of the camps and Clinics is
• 14:42
  there. I know a passion becomes
• 14:44
  coaching education for you and we're going to get into that
• 14:46
  here later. Did you see it that early of
• 14:49
  like man? If I could somehow bring all
• 14:52
  this together or were you still just you know you're still a
• 14:54
  rookie at that point. Are you still just learning
• 14:56
  trying to feel your way out? I'm trying to bring it together
• 14:59
  but bring it together for myself.
• 15:01
  I don't even think I'm worth getting in front of a group of
• 15:04
  people in speaking right now at this point in my career yet, you
• 15:07
  know, and that was another thing.
• 15:08
  Dan, you know, says you need to teach this coaching Ed stuff,
• 15:12
  you know, and he said you're going to teach this level to
• 15:14
  class. I didn't talk about total level
• 15:16
  1 class. Yeah, the teacher level 2 class.
• 15:20
  He said, you sure you can handle this.
• 15:21
  If you think I'm if you think I'm ready, I'm ready.
• 15:23
  You know, so, and that's kind of how we got started.
• 15:26
  I guess you would say yes, so diet, done, if I'd done a couple
• 15:29
  of clinics, you know, like High, Ooh, level clinics and things
• 15:31
  but that's all I had done. So, Dan really saw something in.
• 15:34
  You not just as a coach but as a coach of coaches evidently.
• 15:39
  So I surely didn't see it in myself.
• 15:42
  We rarely do, right? So we need coaches.
• 15:44
  Yeah, yeah. I read somewhere, where Nick
• 15:47
  Saban is fueled more by fear of failure than the desire to
• 15:52
  succeed and I'm not sure I'm not that same person.
• 15:54
  Hmm, interesting, you're taller than him though.
• 15:57
  So that's what we're on. A better footing right there,
• 16:00
  but his hair is better. Daddy does a good area so you
• 16:05
  continue coaching High School. Do you bounce around in the in
• 16:09
  the high school ranks or do you go on to college coaching?
• 16:11
  I thought I was a life or in high school.
• 16:14
  I thought I was going to be a life for, you know, I was a
• 16:17
  defensive coordinator, I was highly thought of I was getting
• 16:21
  some offers to coach small-time college football and that type
• 16:24
  of thing, you know, and I was there in my hometown and the
• 16:28
  track teams were doing really well, and over, A sudden, you
• 16:31
  know, the administration at the school change and I was a little
• 16:34
  disconcerted, and whatever, and all of a sudden, I got a call,
• 16:38
  you know, about possibly doing something in college track.
• 16:41
  And that's when I ended up at the junior college, you know, at
• 16:45
  Blinn junior college that, you know, I decided, I just needed
• 16:49
  to do something different or try something different and that was
• 16:53
  kind of, when that all happened. So I only kind of got into track
• 16:56
  because I don't know. Like, like I said, just I hate
• 17:01
  to say it, bad High School administration.
• 17:03
  I don't want to cause I don't want to cast that stone, you
• 17:06
  know, because nothing is totally bad, but for me personally, you
• 17:10
  know, I was growing at a rate and it was kind of confining and
• 17:13
  so forth so I'm not blaming anyone in particular, the high
• 17:16
  school or anything but I was kind of outgrowing the situation
• 17:19
  to be honest with you a little bit and needed a place to kind
• 17:23
  of spread a little and and that Lifeline came along.
• 17:25
  And next thing you know I'm I was I was a coward.
• 17:30
  To just quit my high school job. So I actually took sabbatical to
• 17:34
  go to work at the junior college, you know, kind of
• 17:37
  thinking. Well, if I don't like it, I can
• 17:38
  come back or whatever, you know, but that's how I ended up at
• 17:42
  Blinn Community College, you know?
• 17:44
  And I forget Texas, and I forget, you're a blends.
• 17:46
  This is a great opportunity because, you know, half of our
• 17:49
  listeners right now are sitting there shaking the head going, oh
• 17:50
  yeah, blind Junior College. We remember that Powerhouse.
• 17:54
  And then the other half are like blind, Junior College, where is
• 17:56
  that? I've never heard of, that's not
• 17:57
  Barton. That's not the Arizona.
• 17:59
  Junior college. Has it.
• 18:00
  That you're right. So talk to us about blind, the
• 18:04
  other coaches that were there and it's got a great coaching
• 18:06
  tree itself out of bland and just just how darn good were you
• 18:09
  guys. Yeah, we were really good.
• 18:12
  Junior college is track without rules.
• 18:14
  There's no there, no academic limitations or anything.
• 18:17
  And blind was an incredible situation because the president
• 18:23
  there of the college was very sold on track, you know, his
• 18:26
  daughter Run Track, love track, you know, and he could always
• 18:30
  find an a scholarship or whatever, you know.
• 18:32
  So it was one of those situations but the main reason
• 18:35
  was successful was a chain of good coaches came through there.
• 18:37
  You know, Coach Henry came through there and then Coach
• 18:40
  Silva came through and coast of it was the guy who brought me
• 18:43
  there and Coach Sylvia was one of the best bosses I've ever
• 18:46
  had. You know, he's known throughout
• 18:48
  the sport as you know, hard work and coach and also a little bit
• 18:51
  of a character but let me tell you, I've never had a boss who
• 18:55
  was just good to me as Steve. Sylvie was I mean he gave you
• 18:59
  gave me complete autonomy or A group of athletes that I
• 19:02
  probably wasn't really qualified to coach just yet and he threw a
• 19:05
  huge security blanket. Underneath, you know, safety.
• 19:08
  Net underneath you. And it was a working for him was
• 19:12
  a huge positive at that point in my career.
• 19:15
  I really did really did help me by just giving me the kind of
• 19:18
  the freedom to kind of never, you know, second-guessing or
• 19:21
  anything like that. Were you when you go to Berlin
• 19:25
  and even through your coaching at the high school, were you
• 19:29
  zeroing in on? On the horizontal jump
• 19:32
  specifically now knowing but that caveat you can coach.
• 19:35
  You can coach anything actually, but you're much much more well
• 19:39
  known as the long jump. Triple jump coach, were you
• 19:42
  steering that way earlier? Where you cut your coaching
• 19:44
  other events? I will talk host everything in
• 19:47
  high school. The reason I got to be known as
• 19:50
  a long and triple jump coach was because when I was in high
• 19:52
  school, every school that I had to beat would put their best
• 19:56
  athletes in the Sprints, and I found that if I took my South
• 20:01
  fleets and put them in long jump, triple, jump hurdles, and
• 20:03
  those types of events that were a little more coaching was
• 20:06
  involved and maybe even a little less athletic competition.
• 20:09
  I could get a little more bang for my buck.
• 20:10
  So I was turning out good, long jumpers, and triple jumpers and
• 20:13
  hurdlers, and people like that at that time.
• 20:16
  So I got to be known as a jumps coach, but it was strictly by
• 20:19
  accident in that regard. You know.
• 20:22
  It's not like not like you were a jumper coming out of high
• 20:24
  school. You're more Javelin, and some
• 20:26
  other events, really know. I know, I've never I got to be
• 20:29
  the Olympic coaching the event and I never even tried long,
• 20:31
  jump in a track meet. I still have a tried, it will
• 20:37
  just pipe it. We've skipped that stage then
• 20:40
  you don't don't go trying it coach.
• 20:44
  So give us some specifics here. When you say blind was good
• 20:48
  because you have heard some stories about Glenn, how good
• 20:51
  will and was, but there's other people have no context at all.
• 20:54
  What good means, you know, I coach Juco for a year, and I had
• 20:58
  to go up against my buddy, Lance Brahman at Barton.
• 21:00
  And this is when they would win, you remember.
• 21:02
  Because Walter Davis and all those guys, In the coach that
• 21:05
  was during that timeframe, you know, blind would win.
• 21:08
  I'm probably going to be way off on this because my memory.
• 21:10
  But yeah, they'd win Nationals by 100 points and they were by
• 21:14
  far the greatest team around and my understanding is blind would
• 21:17
  have beaten those teams to a pulp.
• 21:20
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 21:22
  I don't think there's any question about that and again,
• 21:25
  yeah, good coaches had a great president.
• 21:27
  You had on almost unlimited resources.
• 21:30
  It was a perfect storm kind of scenario, you know, and To put
• 21:35
  it in context, even to this day, blend with score and would be in
• 21:38
  the top five nationally in the NCAA division.
• 21:40
  One championships in any meat, you know, that we go to the type
• 21:44
  of athletes that we had back then and so forth.
• 21:47
  So it was there were really, really really good.
• 21:51
  How many years have Blain and this we're just want.
• 21:54
  Okay. And so where and why?
• 21:56
  Next well I liked it, I wanted to stay.
• 21:59
  There's a law that says if you take sabbatical and you To go
• 22:04
  back. If you don't go back after pay
• 22:06
  back all the money but I thought they would wave that for me but
• 22:09
  they didn't. So I have going back to high
• 22:11
  school for one year and then it was the year after that.
• 22:14
  I kind of had my eyes opened to leave and that year after that
• 22:18
  was one crucial also at what was then University of Southwestern
• 22:23
  Louisiana now, louisiana-lafayette gave me an
• 22:26
  opportunity to go over there and Coach the jumpers at that
• 22:29
  school. Did you meet a lot of coaches in
• 22:31
  that year at blind? Did you meet a lot of college
• 22:33
  coaches from work? Fruiting the blind athletes.
• 22:35
  Did you start kind of building Network out that way?
• 22:37
  Yeah, it did help somewhat, you know, it wasn't a lot but it was
• 22:41
  a sizable number enough to get help.
• 22:43
  You know, I had a few contacts but interestingly the contacts I
• 22:47
  made there. Weren't the ones that got me
• 22:49
  into my next Collegiate job. I guess it was an old high
• 22:53
  school. You know coaching also and I
• 22:54
  coach high school at the same time, you know cushion also, who
• 22:57
  was the head coach at ull? Was a long time Louisiana High
• 23:00
  School coach and Anyway, you know, and so was I and I still
• 23:08
  kind of had more high school routes than anything else and,
• 23:12
  and we had him, and of course, coach baton who would then it
• 23:15
  blend as well as his assistant. And again, long time, high
• 23:20
  school coach, who was a whole Nest, the High School, coaches
• 23:22
  moving up. And that's why I always say to
• 23:25
  this day, if you can coach, you can coach, you know, and
• 23:27
  everybody thinks that, you know, college coaches are
• 23:30
  automatically better part of my recruitment pitch to this day.
• 23:33
  Is that? Just because You're going to
• 23:34
  college doesn't mean you're necessarily going to get a
• 23:37
  better Coach. You know, I tell that to
• 23:39
  recruits to kind of make him stop and think sometimes when
• 23:42
  there's no I think nobody would disagree with that, you know?
• 23:45
  But any case. So I ended up there and was
• 23:48
  coaching the jumpers at ul and I stayed there for 43 years where
• 23:54
  is coaching education with you at that time on.
• 23:57
  Well I mean it these are iíve already.
• 24:01
  Yeah I've already taught a I've already taught a couple of Level
• 24:04
  two schools that I made that move and so forth.
• 24:07
  So yeah, I'm I'm kind of in a deep and I'm starting to become
• 24:11
  a fairly popular clinician in on Clinic, circuit, in that type of
• 24:16
  stuff. I-it's, you know, in this is
• 24:18
  when I'm starting to get a little more confident because
• 24:20
  I'm starting to realize because of the reaction, I'm getting
• 24:23
  from people that, you know, I must be pretty good, this Clinic
• 24:26
  stuff because people are calling me and people are once I talk in
• 24:29
  one place, I get offers to speak in other places and so forth.
• 24:32
  So that's when it all kind of Added to grow during my early
• 24:35
  years at a USL with. So you're doing now I'ma call a
• 24:40
  ton of different clinics and coaching education, are you
• 24:43
  writing any of the curriculum at this point?
• 24:46
  Are you still teaching idea? Yeah but yet but that's common
• 24:50
  one long before I started doing some rewriting kind of stuff,
• 24:53
  whether USA Track and Field stuff and everything you know
• 24:56
  and and all those guys put that curriculum together.
• 24:59
  It was pretty much, you know, they were busy and you know
• 25:01
  there was a ton of good material you remember you Seems materials
• 25:05
  back in the day, it was like tons and tons of appendices and
• 25:08
  all those types of things. But there really wasn't much
• 25:10
  text per se to kind of put it all in context or whatever, you
• 25:14
  know. So that was kind of the
• 25:16
  challenge, you know, at that point, as far as the rewritable
• 25:18
  is concerned, it just kind of take all the good material that
• 25:21
  was there and just kind of sort it all out and make it into a
• 25:24
  true curriculum rather than just a collection of materials.
• 25:27
  So to speak, you know, the stuff that Dan had done and Bob Myers,
• 25:30
  it done and local stuff, and all of, you know, just kind of
• 25:33
  getting all that. It's tough going to organize,
• 25:35
  just kind of, you know, form it into an outline, a little bit
• 25:38
  more in that type of thing. And to give full respect to
• 25:41
  those kind of pioneers of curriculum.
• 25:44
  Based coaching education rattle off.
• 25:47
  Some of the names that were part of that original group.
• 25:49
  I know you mentioned Dan, who is totally blanking, was named the
• 25:54
  distance coach up in Colorado. V hill was, he was big part.
• 26:00
  Yeah, via was kind of a driving force.
• 26:02
  In fact, I think the thing that's supported more than
• 26:05
  anything else was vehicle. If I remember correctly, did his
• 26:08
  dissertation on coaching education programs like
• 26:13
  International like a kind of a survey or research project into
• 26:17
  International coaching education programs.
• 26:20
  And I think that was kind of a Spur to the whole thing but I
• 26:24
  remember people like Al bayda and Vern gambetta were involved
• 26:28
  and of course, Dan was involved. I hate to say names because I'm
• 26:33
  leaving off a bunch of me. You know, Lauren was involved in
• 26:35
  the early stages of it as well. I remember Bill Bird being
• 26:41
  somebody who was heavily involved.
• 26:45
  It seemed like Louisiana was a nucleus Minnesota was kind of a
• 26:49
  nucleus. Anyway, I'm drawing some blanks
• 26:53
  here yesterday to leave out certain names, but it was, I
• 26:56
  would see a group of probably a dozen to 15 people who were
• 26:59
  really involved and getting all the whole coaching, education
• 27:02
  movement, going, I guess you would say Yeah, I put you on the
• 27:05
  spot there. So Winkler Winkler was another
• 27:07
  one. Yeah, that's right.
• 27:08
  Gary, right? Right.
• 27:09
  Absolutely. And you mentioned v hill, doing
• 27:12
  his dissertation on kind of the state of coaching education.
• 27:15
  The world where we behind an America in, I'ma call it
• 27:18
  formalized. Coaching education, not just.
• 27:21
  You nobody's talking at the track actual curriculum, where
• 27:24
  we behind in America that point, I guess.
• 27:26
  I think we were to be honest with you, given this number of
• 27:31
  people, we have that are certified coaches and Population
• 27:34
  of our country, some people claim are still behind, but at
• 27:37
  least now, we have good programs in place.
• 27:39
  Yeah, yeah. There's really no, excuse
• 27:41
  nowadays, I mean, even when I was coaching 2005 and prior it
• 27:46
  was, there are a lot of opportunities.
• 27:48
  We didn't have u.s. tfcc a coaching education back.
• 27:51
  Then we pretty much only had usatf, but it was still kind of
• 27:54
  hard to get to was once a year for level 2, Etc.
• 27:57
  Now, it feels like specially now, kind of, you know, as we're
• 28:00
  coming hopefully to the other side of covid.
• 28:02
  Now, it seems like, You can't help but trip over a zoom call
• 28:06
  with a good coach or, you know, education clinics all on Zoom,
• 28:10
  like you even got to go travel anymore in amazing, coaches
• 28:13
  doing these Niggas Ain't just isn't me doing a coaching
• 28:16
  Clinic. These are some amazing coaches
• 28:17
  that are sharing some of their knowledge out there.
• 28:20
  So I like that where we are in regards to that open access to
• 28:24
  coaching a jail. I hope yes.
• 28:27
  This room has been wonderful because of the access people
• 28:30
  have. I just hope that we never go
• 28:32
  completely resume because I just heard.
• 28:34
  During that the interactions? Yes, during the classes in the
• 28:37
  interactions between the classes were often.
• 28:39
  So, so, so valuable. And also as I hope that we never
• 28:43
  totally lose sight of what face-to-face education is all
• 28:47
  about 1000%, and I think about regular education in that same
• 28:52
  way, you know, getting your undergrad or your MBA.
• 28:56
  Certainly, there's some value again, access is a big deal,
• 28:58
  right? To be able to do it through a
• 29:00
  zoom type online, type education.
• 29:02
  But boy, there is a lot of extra Added value face to face in a
• 29:06
  group in a group of people that are unlike you and learning how
• 29:09
  they do things in there. Like, man, I didn't know you
• 29:11
  could coach the hammer without a hammer cage.
• 29:13
  What am I doing? I should be able to teach the
• 29:15
  hammer now, you know, so it's great to see that variety and
• 29:18
  how people, you know, coaches, just get it done in a lot of
• 29:21
  Senses. So it's great to be around
• 29:22
  fellow coaches, that are getting it done.
• 29:24
  You can learn invaluable stuff that way.
• 29:27
  So how many years at Southwest Louisiana?
• 29:30
  Is that right? Southwest?
• 29:31
  Louisiana is what it was called, diversity of Southwest Louisiana
• 29:33
  versus Some Cajun. So yeah, still the real.
• 29:36
  Yeah it was it was there three years and I my first year I
• 29:40
  didn't have too much. I was able to get a really good
• 29:43
  triple Jumper in as a recruited midterm.
• 29:45
  And then the next year, I produced a bunch of all
• 29:48
  Americans and then that triple jumper two years later, ended up
• 29:53
  winning the NCAA title. So, I was at a mid-major and I
• 29:58
  was developing all Americans, and had an NCAA Champion, a
• 30:01
  mid-major, you know, a lot of people think I ended up I'll
• 30:04
  shoot because I was from Louisiana are or I was lucky our
• 30:08
  had a connection, but I remind the mid-major people who are
• 30:11
  kind of whining, you know, that, I don't get a break.
• 30:14
  Well, I didn't really get a break.
• 30:16
  I kind of made a break, you know, when my triple Jumper in
• 30:19
  Tennessee, won the NCAA title, you know, from a mid-major
• 30:22
  school. That was something that kind of
• 30:25
  oh you know, kind of opened some eyes you know.
• 30:27
  And I already had a pretty good reputation as a jumps the coach
• 30:30
  through some of the Clinic's tough.
• 30:32
  But I think maybe people realize That it wasn't just, I wasn't
• 30:35
  just a collision nation that I could actually produce point,
• 30:38
  you know, and produce on the track.
• 30:40
  So as you were coaching those all Americans and you win a
• 30:43
  National Title, I mean that is awesome.
• 30:46
  You know, I my last coaching job was at Mississippi State in the
• 30:48
  SEC against you, by the way. So that your watch this guys,
• 30:53
  who got me out of coaching, I was like, I can't beat this guy.
• 30:55
  I'm getting, oh, you're hurt. You're hurt measuring.
• 30:57
  Pretty good. Exactly.
• 31:01
  But I do, you know, my roots are at Ball State.
• 31:04
  All University and Juco, you know, that's where my roots are.
• 31:06
  So I do love CN the Southwest Louisiana All-American.
• 31:10
  Our National Champion Middle Tennessee, those kind of
• 31:12
  schools, it just, I don't know, I don't know that it means more.
• 31:16
  I just know that it's a lot under resource there and the
• 31:19
  expectations are lower so to overcome.
• 31:21
  Those is just phenomenal to me, I love seeing that and I enjoyed
• 31:25
  it it was one of the I was broke coaching they're financially but
• 31:30
  if you know because I took a pay cut to go there.
• 31:32
  You know you talk about pandu's and what?
• 31:34
  Ever. But to go from high school,
• 31:35
  whatever to go, there was a big pay cut because all I really got
• 31:39
  was a stipend to coach there, and I was kind of hustling money
• 31:42
  on the side, but I've decided, if I wanted to do this, you pay
• 31:45
  dues, you know, and that's, you know what it is.
• 31:47
  Yet some point time, you step backwards and that was my point
• 31:50
  at which I'll step backwards but it was a really fun level to
• 31:53
  coach at because, you know, you could you could get sometimes
• 31:56
  they were athletes. Good athletes that you would had
• 31:59
  an asterisks on it that you could get into your school that
• 32:02
  might not be able to get into another school or Sometimes one
• 32:06
  of the things is because your Regional you don't make
• 32:08
  recruiting mistakes, you know, because you're always, you know,
• 32:12
  I'm there in Louisiana so I'm seeing high school athletes
• 32:15
  compete all the time in that area.
• 32:17
  So you pick out these gems that are kind of underdeveloped and
• 32:20
  you know the kids are getting better and you know when I'm
• 32:25
  recruiting it out a few I know the kids Mark I meet him on a
• 32:28
  visit but I haven't seen him run over and over again you know you
• 32:32
  know because the recruiting His Regional base.
• 32:35
  It's a lot more efficient and I think you make less mistakes to
• 32:38
  be honest with you. So in that way, shape or form,
• 32:41
  you kind of end up being efficient and every once in a
• 32:43
  while you you know, you can kind of slid that slay, the giant a
• 32:47
  little bit, you know. So since you're not trying to
• 32:50
  recruit quote-unquote 50 states or even the whole world, right,
• 32:53
  in today's world, you're getting a little deeper because you're
• 32:55
  basically recruiting 100 miles from campus.
• 32:57
  I get to see the kids repeatedly and do other events and things
• 33:00
  like that. So I get a little bit more
• 33:01
  knowledge of each kid. Yeah, absolutely.
• 33:04
  And even when I went to LSU, to some extent that was still a
• 33:07
  little bit of my Mo because I knew the Louisiana Kids By
• 33:11
  Heart. Like I, you know, I'd seen him
• 33:12
  come up and everything and I knew which ones were really good
• 33:15
  and which ones I needed to get and I knew which ones if they
• 33:18
  didn't qualify, had to get to a Juco and then try to get them on
• 33:21
  the on the after you know, that type of thing.
• 33:23
  So you know if you look at my collegiate career a lot of the
• 33:26
  good ones. I had were Louisiana kids.
• 33:28
  Yeah. Right now at this point is it
• 33:31
  fair to say football coaching is done your All in on track at
• 33:35
  this point. Pretty much.
• 33:36
  Yeah, yeah, I'm done. I've never lost my interest in
• 33:39
  football, though. Like even to this day, if
• 33:42
  there's a football clinic in Baton Rouge, and I'm off, I'm
• 33:45
  going to go sit and listen to the lectures and football
• 33:47
  clinic. So I've never completely gotten
• 33:49
  out of it. There's nothing I enjoy better
• 33:51
  than going to watch High School football on like Thursday night
• 33:54
  or Friday night because I still have a lot of because I enjoy
• 33:57
  watching the good players play and I still have a lot of
• 34:00
  friends who coach High School football.
• 34:02
  So I like to go watch their teams and That type of stuff.
• 34:05
  So football is still a passion of mine even to this day and I
• 34:08
  can still X and low with the with the best of them.
• 34:12
  But you know it's nice because I don't have a team on the field
• 34:14
  I'll never lose anymore. No, no armchair quarterbacks for
• 34:18
  me I haven't lost a man. Do you have an affinity towards
• 34:24
  one level over the other where it's High School vs college
• 34:26
  versus NFL? I really loved High School
• 34:29
  football. Is that right?
• 34:30
  You know yeah during a little time and I was out of Collegiate
• 34:33
  coaching. All together and I was doing
• 34:36
  consulting work and such and I could pretty much make my own
• 34:39
  schedule. It was a game on Thursday, a
• 34:41
  game on Friday, maybe a game on Saturday.
• 34:44
  If the game on Friday, wasn't any good, I'll leave it half
• 34:46
  done and go to a different game on Friday.
• 34:48
  It's just what I like, I really like athletes doing there.
• 34:52
  Watching athletes, do that thing.
• 34:54
  That's what I really like, you know, I just love seeing young
• 34:56
  kids do things. You know what I was coaching at
• 34:58
  LSU. The most fun days were the days.
• 35:01
  When we hosted a high school me there on the, in the indoor, For
• 35:04
  whatever. Yeah and you could just I could
• 35:06
  just sit by that wall and just watch kids run and watch kids,
• 35:09
  jump and watch kids through and just watch him happy when they
• 35:12
  did well and watch him pissed off when they lost and just see
• 35:15
  not only the competition athleticism but the whole drama
• 35:18
  unfold, you know. So where does that come from?
• 35:22
  Boo because, you know, you've coached at the highest level you
• 35:25
  mentioned, you know, coaching on the Olympic team, you've coached
• 35:28
  umpteen million NCAA all Americans and national
• 35:31
  champions. But I mean, Your fate.
• 35:34
  I mean I've known you for quite a while now.
• 35:36
  Your face lit up when you were talking about going to the game
• 35:39
  on Thursday go to the game on Friday going to another game on
• 35:41
  Friday. Like where does that level of
• 35:44
  passion come from? I don't know II.
• 35:46
  Just I like athletes I like watching and please do that
• 35:49
  thing. You know I just love athletes
• 35:52
  from the standpoint of athletes or risk-takers athletes or
• 35:55
  people who take risks and to try to do things, you know.
• 35:58
  And and they kind of forget about themselves and they give
• 36:01
  of themselves. I just like the whole human
• 36:02
  drama of in just the Mindset, so to speak, you know, and I just
• 36:07
  love that, you know, I love watching the the mean and
• 36:10
  watching the kid get pissed off because they lost or pissed off
• 36:14
  because they ran bad or whatever.
• 36:16
  You know, I love watching the agony and their faces when they
• 36:20
  get hurt and, you know, they felt like they could have done,
• 36:22
  you know? I just all of that human drama,
• 36:24
  whatever I find it extremely intriguing, you know?
• 36:28
  And and I just have tremendous respect for anybody who goes out
• 36:33
  there and And lays it on the line so to speak, you know, and
• 36:37
  it is out there trying to win something and competing, just
• 36:40
  for the sake of competition, not winning, you know, just just to
• 36:45
  say I'm the best to do as well as I can do.
• 36:47
  And I mean that's something that I sometimes, I worry that we
• 36:51
  lose the society is, I mean, is there there's value in doing
• 36:55
  your best just because it's your best and sports are just where
• 37:00
  that still happens. And that's why I'm such a big
• 37:02
  fan of sports, you know. So, where do we go from?
• 37:06
  Southwest Louisiana LSU straight to LSU and, you know, went from
• 37:10
  there to LSU and you must have known somebody or how'd you get
• 37:14
  that? You get that job.
• 37:16
  Well, I mean, I've been around the LSU program and I knew Coach
• 37:18
  Henry. Well, I never dreamed that.
• 37:20
  He would offer me a job, but he did.
• 37:22
  And so I'd had success at USL and, you know, he knew me
• 37:29
  because back in my high school days, I was even officiating
• 37:33
  some Meats Adela soon. No, working meats and that type
• 37:35
  of. So so he kind of knew me and he
• 37:37
  called me and offered me a job. So you know, I didn't want to
• 37:40
  go. I quit other shoe twice, you
• 37:43
  know, I like I said, I quit as a student, I had started a PhD at
• 37:46
  LSU one time. I quit that I tell people, I've
• 37:50
  only I only quit two times in my life LSU the first time LSU the
• 37:54
  second time. So now you all want to go to
• 37:58
  LSU. So I went to USL, I said look if
• 38:00
  y'all make me full time, I'll stay and they said no go.
• 38:04
  Because you know the finances just wanted right anyway.
• 38:07
  So so I ended up at LSU there. There wasn't any, you guys
• 38:13
  didn't you and Coach Henry didn't pass through it.
• 38:15
  Blend like right there was a separation, right?
• 38:19
  Okay. If I had to guess, I would say
• 38:21
  Coach Henry, probably the fact that I coached in junior college
• 38:27
  and he had, he probably like that.
• 38:30
  Yeah, but I'm not going to say that's why I got the job, right?
• 38:33
  But But I think that probably on, you know, he I think he
• 38:36
  likes you go people. I just think he thinks giucose a
• 38:39
  good level and you learn and type of kids, you deal with
• 38:42
  them, you know, the ability to do without sometimes whatever.
• 38:45
  I think thinks is a positive. And I think that's probably was
• 38:48
  part of it. Well and you know, coach and
• 38:50
  he's a winner right. He likes to see people develop
• 38:52
  positively. So I'm going to go on a limb and
• 38:54
  say those kids. You got it.
• 38:55
  Southwest, Louisiana, weren't number one, kid in the nation,
• 38:58
  coming out of high school and yet they go on and win the
• 39:00
  national title and all Americans.
• 39:02
  So I'm sure he's Is all those kids doing.
• 39:06
  Well, if I'd been failing about that, he would offer me a job,
• 39:09
  I'm pretty sure, you know. Yeah, he's a smart guy, he
• 39:13
  Talent identification and athletes and coaches.
• 39:17
  So, thing about Coach Henry's, you know, that's that's one
• 39:20
  thing is surrounding himself with good.
• 39:22
  Coaches has always been his wheel.
• 39:25
  Yeah. So what was it like going to
• 39:27
  LSU? So, you're from Louisiana.
• 39:28
  So LSU is the Mega Flagship of the state you'd started.
• 39:34
  School their coach Henry's there.
• 39:36
  So can I assume they're winning titles at this point?
• 39:38
  What year was this 9595? So are you winning tight as LSU
• 39:43
  win titles? At that point.
• 39:46
  They won like you know what? 25 in a row or something. 100 a
• 39:49
  row whatever was they were went in.
• 39:50
  So what's it like expectation wise for you?
• 39:53
  Do you get a little nervous like?
• 39:54
  Oh man. That's now this is the big boy
• 39:56
  stage. I've got to step up.
• 39:57
  Or is this just coach? I got, I'm the coach be too
• 40:00
  coach. Um I went through about a six
• 40:05
  month phase where I did a very poor job.
• 40:07
  I kind of thought I had to be a certain way and it didn't work
• 40:13
  well in math. Is didn't perform well when when
• 40:15
  the kid I got it midterm was a kid that was doing the best in
• 40:18
  the one. I had through all the fall were
• 40:19
  and doing as well. I realize I needed to kind of
• 40:22
  figure it out, so it took me a little bit of adjustment to be
• 40:25
  honest with you. It shouldn't have but it did,
• 40:28
  you know? So, and I'll be frank with you,
• 40:30
  like it. The coaching track a long time,
• 40:33
  by the time I got there, and I was sitting in staff meetings,
• 40:36
  listening to the other coaches talk and these other coaches are
• 40:40
  have been in division, one a long time.
• 40:42
  And there were times, I didn't know, even know what the hell
• 40:44
  they were talking about. Like because this level is like
• 40:47
  totally foreign to me, you know? So I think I was a little bit
• 40:52
  overwhelmed and it took me a little while to get it going
• 40:54
  first. You know, semester or whatever
• 40:57
  wasn't good, and it was until kind of the end of outdoor where
• 41:00
  I kind of got some traction. And then the next year, I just
• 41:03
  came out and just with myself like, you know, you know, if I
• 41:06
  was mad, I screamed. If I was happy, I laugh, you
• 41:09
  know, I just, I just was myself and everything pretty much
• 41:13
  clicked real well, after that, that's a great lesson because
• 41:17
  when whether it's a school's name or a boss, you know, Pat
• 41:22
  Henry in this example, sometimes we do get caught into Ooh this.
• 41:26
  Well, what do they expect like how am I supposed to act?
• 41:29
  When really, what got you, the job for you?
• 41:31
  Specifically, was you being you? And so there was a little bit
• 41:34
  of, like, oh now I'm okay Coach Henry.
• 41:37
  Maybe I need to do this, or I'm at LSU.
• 41:38
  So maybe I need to do this in a reality.
• 41:40
  You need to take a deep breath and continue what you're doing
• 41:43
  and continue to improve and how you were doing it.
• 41:45
  Yeah. I've never been the most
• 41:46
  confident person in the world to be totally Frank with you.
• 41:49
  At least and I'll surely wasn't in that situation.
• 41:52
  But again, like I said, I just at some point in time, it just
• 41:55
  kind of Sort of feel more comfortable.
• 41:57
  I could just be myself and from that point on everything, right?
• 42:00
  We're well, yeah, that makes a lot of sense because I know you.
• 42:03
  So you being yourself. That makes a lot of sense of
• 42:05
  that that's what would actually work out.
• 42:07
  So you get to LSU in 95, right? 95 through when did you leave
• 42:13
  LSU? Stay there through 0707.
• 42:16
  Right? So what an unbelievable time.
• 42:21
  Talk to us about. So how did you guys gel as a
• 42:25
  Coaching staff, because I mean, you're winning titles left and
• 42:28
  right. It's kind of like the old blind
• 42:29
  days if you will, you're whatever titles hard, but you're
• 42:33
  winning a lot. Your it specifically, in your
• 42:35
  category, lots of lots of all Americans.
• 42:38
  Certificates are coming your way.
• 42:40
  No, it was great because we had great athletes, you know, and
• 42:43
  you're working around great coaches and I'll give Coach
• 42:46
  Henry, tremendous credit because he is the person who to me was
• 42:51
  absolute Master as far as like setting up a culture.
• 42:55
  Like a team culture. And I don't even know if he
• 42:58
  could verse verse, you know, say exactly what he did.
• 43:02
  But he just have this thing used to say all the time, just do the
• 43:04
  right thing every day. Just do the right thing every
• 43:06
  day. You know.
• 43:07
  And any weight under him frankly it was easy to coach Winters,
• 43:12
  you know, because the culture was there, you know, he was
• 43:15
  pretty much supportive what you did now, if you didn't do your
• 43:17
  job, you wouldn't be there very long.
• 43:18
  But you know, if you were good, if you're, you know, if you were
• 43:22
  successful in whatever he would support you and you know,
• 43:25
  There's a couple times not very often where kid would come in.
• 43:28
  And, you know, I'm not really happy with Coach selling so
• 43:32
  well. Well, where do you want to
• 43:34
  transfer? So I don't want to transfer
• 43:36
  Wilson's. Will you need to work it out
• 43:38
  with Coach so and so, you know, so it was a very supportive kind
• 43:41
  of atmosphere, you know. And anyway, so working for him,
• 43:46
  you know, everybody you have UPS, everybody, you have Downs
• 43:49
  with. That was one thing, was that the
• 43:50
  climate was the culture of the team, was a good one that you
• 43:54
  made. You think you could You know,
• 43:56
  you could produce their whatever, you know.
• 43:59
  And as you're going through, 95 through 07 yeah, I pick you up
• 44:04
  around. I'd say 02 03 in my career is,
• 44:08
  when I know hoopoe is & Boos teaching level 2 Etc.
• 44:11
  Are you doing during this timeframe more?
• 44:14
  I don't know how you could but are you doing more clinics and
• 44:17
  coaching education? Are you doing more curriculum
• 44:19
  writing? What's that side of it?
• 44:21
  Look like for you doing a lot of that stuff, you know?
• 44:23
  And pretty much had the type You know, typing any time I was on a
• 44:27
  plane did times in the hotel room.
• 44:29
  Pretty much had the computer, you know, going all the time and
• 44:33
  of course, Pat left and 04 in crochet Burrell took over and
• 44:37
  that. At that point, I decided not to
• 44:39
  pursue that job. I felt I was more of an
• 44:41
  assistant coach. I was more of on the track coach
• 44:44
  and an administrator. I didn't have confidence in my
• 44:46
  abilities as an administrator to be very Frank with you.
• 44:50
  And anyway so I got to work for him for three years and I'll be
• 44:53
  very Frank with you. It got to the Point where I was
• 44:57
  kind of experience in some burn up.
• 44:59
  You know, I remember one time I went to one of the, you probably
• 45:02
  have been listened to the same lecture.
• 45:03
  Mike, the coaching burnout lecture at a level to remember
• 45:07
  out of 19 signs. I had like 18 of them, you know?
• 45:10
  And and because it was in comp all encompassing, you know, and
• 45:15
  it got to the point where I'm coaching postgrads the you know.
• 45:18
  So the college kids are starting practice around Labor Day.
• 45:21
  The post grad kids are going through September so you're
• 45:24
  coaching 13 months. Out of the year now and it just
• 45:27
  never stopped. And there were years when you're
• 45:29
  coaching thirtysomething people or whatever and I could grind
• 45:33
  through it. But what I started noticing was
• 45:36
  my I was not as sharp. I wasn't as perceptive about
• 45:40
  picking up signs. I wasn't quite as discriminating
• 45:42
  in the training that I was writing as I probably should
• 45:46
  have been you know that's why I tell people if you got my
• 45:49
  workouts from my last couple of years that other shoe, those are
• 45:52
  the ones you want. You want to copy probably Put on
• 45:56
  and I'll be frank with you you know expressing my own
• 45:59
  weaknesses like you get to the point when you're burnt out like
• 46:02
  that that you're like oh well I don't really need to call this
• 46:05
  recruit this week. I can maybe skip this, we can
• 46:07
  call them next week you know and then that's when I realized that
• 46:11
  if that's what you're doing it's time for me to to Bow.
• 46:15
  Wow. You know so I decided to take my
• 46:18
  retirement at that point so you know we talked about two things
• 46:22
  here ego and self awareness. Self awareness is really Really
• 46:26
  hard, right? Like that's one of the things we
• 46:28
  we need a lot of help on personally and a lot of that
• 46:31
  sometimes comes from a coach, whether it's a athletic coach
• 46:34
  and you're an athlete, may be a fellow coach on your staff even
• 46:38
  in the business world, we have coaches out here that, you know,
• 46:41
  it's called a blind spot for a reason, right?
• 46:43
  It's blind. So you need others.
• 46:45
  How were you able to talk about the burnout?
• 46:48
  And maybe I wasn't doing all the things that I should.
• 46:50
  The recruiting, my workouts weren't as sharp.
• 46:53
  I wasn't seeing things in the curriculum writing.
• 46:55
  Was there a coach of you that was helping you see this?
• 46:59
  Or how did you come to that self-awareness?
• 47:02
  I think I came about it myself, but I'm not saying that they
• 47:05
  weren't people who saw it before me, you know that.
• 47:10
  So I'm not going to be conceited enough to think that I dug my
• 47:12
  way out of it or I pick it all up, myself.
• 47:15
  Yeah, you know, and my reputation might have worked
• 47:18
  against me in that respect because probably, if I depend a
• 47:20
  little less developed as a coach, or a little less
• 47:22
  established a coach, maybe somebody would have grabbed me
• 47:25
  and pulled me on the Sighed and shook me up a little bit or
• 47:27
  whatever. Absolutely, right talking about
• 47:30
  speaking truth to power is tough, right?
• 47:32
  And, you know, I think about like when you give that example
• 47:35
  there and I think about, you know, I'm at Mississippi State,
• 47:37
  your boo and I see you do something like, well, that's
• 47:40
  like that's uncharacteristic. I probably would have written it
• 47:44
  down like, oh, well I guess I got to start doing that.
• 47:45
  That's, that's how you perpetuate mistakes, right?
• 47:50
  So sadly could shaver didn't get the best room.
• 47:55
  Try to really make it up going this second time around.
• 47:58
  Yeah, absolutely. So the other word I wanted to
• 48:02
  talk about was ego and ego is not necessarily a bad ego is
• 48:06
  bad, but the ego and self-worth and self-esteem can go hand in
• 48:10
  hand. You mentioned, you know, you're
• 48:11
  at LSU for a long time, you've got a million accolades at this
• 48:15
  time. Was there ever a desire to be a
• 48:18
  head coach? You kind of Express them that
• 48:20
  self-awareness of like yeah I don't know that I was really
• 48:22
  strong administratively. Anyway but was there ever a
• 48:24
  thought of leading your own? Program.
• 48:27
  No, I didn't. In fact sometimes I think that I
• 48:31
  made a mistake not trying to pursue the LSU job, you know,
• 48:35
  because but I just Fizz I just literally did not feel prepared
• 48:39
  at that point for some reason and you know what's on it.
• 48:42
  Honestly, I don't know that I have the desire to do that at
• 48:46
  this stage in my life but now if you like, I can handle it easily
• 48:50
  but it's funny you go through those stages, you know?
• 48:52
  And and again, I didn't I just saw myself more as a person.
• 48:55
  It was going to be on the track and, you know, more of the, the
• 48:59
  guy Friday kind of person, you know, right hand to the head
• 49:02
  coach as opposed to the head coach whatever.
• 49:05
  In some ways I regret that decision because financially,
• 49:08
  you know, I'm behind the eight ball, you know?
• 49:11
  And that's why I advise everybody, I talked to this
• 49:13
  point forward to do, don't do what I did.
• 49:16
  You know if you have an opportunity to move up, you do
• 49:18
  what you have to do and because ultimately, you know,
• 49:21
  financially you have to take care of yourself.
• 49:23
  You don't know what you have, you know, financially.
• 49:25
  Frankly, I'm not where I'd like to be.
• 49:27
  I'm okay. And we'll be okay Julie and I'll
• 49:31
  be fine but I'm not. I wish I had more for her.
• 49:36
  Yeah, that I'm glad you brought that up, you know, it's a real
• 49:39
  passion of mine for coaches. As much as I loved the coaching
• 49:43
  education side and it definitely changed my career and so much in
• 49:47
  fact that I started teaching levels one level ones.
• 49:49
  I thought I don't know maybe 30 of them and loved it enjoyed
• 49:53
  being able to help other coaches you know my real Now with
• 49:56
  coaches is that off the track stuff, your Financial Health,
• 49:59
  your your own physical health, your relationship health.
• 50:03
  So you know, I appreciate you being open and authentic,
• 50:05
  they're like man I'm behind the eight ball here because when
• 50:08
  we're 25 30 year, old 35 year old coaches.
• 50:11
  We're not thinking about our 401ks and IRAs.
• 50:13
  We're thinking about the next job or the next track meet or
• 50:16
  the next recruit, we're thinking about everything.
• 50:18
  Except well, what's life going to look like when I'm 65 or 70?
• 50:21
  Do I do? I want to retire?
• 50:22
  Can I retire one day or am I literally going to Have to
• 50:26
  coach. It's one thing if you get to
• 50:28
  coach to be 80 and 90. But there's a different fact if
• 50:31
  you have to coach to 80 or 90 because of retirement and lack
• 50:35
  of funds there. No.
• 50:37
  You're totally correct. You know, I was a coach called
• 50:40
  me the other day in a, somebody have kind of mentored a little
• 50:42
  bit and had a dilemma. I've been offered a job that is
• 50:47
  better, you know? And I'd like to take it, but
• 50:51
  there's another job that I'm up for, that's even better than
• 50:54
  this one. So, I'll say, we'll take the one
• 50:56
  that you just got offered and then if you the other one comes
• 50:59
  through, will you leave and go? Well?
• 51:00
  So I would only be there a couple of weeks.
• 51:02
  Like, so what, you know, I mean, I understand and I really
• 51:07
  appreciate your ethics in that situation, but I tell coaches.
• 51:10
  Now the bottom line is, no one is going to take care of you,
• 51:15
  but you, you know, that's the nature of that dead business,
• 51:18
  you know, and you ultimately your responsibility is not is to
• 51:23
  your family, you know, to do the best for your family.
• 51:25
  You know, and sometimes I hear coaches say things like well I
• 51:28
  don't want to leave the kids I have and all.
• 51:29
  Well yeah but how you know they won't hire a better Coach?
• 51:33
  Yeah, you know, so don't be so selfish to think that this
• 51:36
  because you're leaving everything is going to fall
• 51:38
  apart, you know what? Hey that's that was a really
• 51:44
  interesting way. You just said that.
• 51:45
  So I've talked before about the selfless versus selfish aspect
• 51:51
  right in that you'll coaches are so selfless, right?
• 51:55
  Like they spend all this time. 24/7 with other people's kids,
• 51:58
  but yet, that's all so selfish. Right.
• 52:00
  Because they're, they're neglecting their family and
• 52:03
  friends and their lives Etc. I love how you said, how do you
• 52:06
  know? I mean, this is real.
• 52:07
  You talk about ego here. This is ego, how do you know why
• 52:10
  you leaving? They're not going to get someone
• 52:12
  better for these kids. Wow, that's kind of, like, truth
• 52:14
  bomb right there like like sit back and think about that, holy
• 52:17
  cow, make sure I give young kids all the time, a fork in the
• 52:21
  road, you know, it's not like, there's always a right fork in
• 52:23
  the wrong Fork. Most of the time you Make them
• 52:25
  both right? You could make them both wrong
• 52:27
  by looking at your attitude and the way you handle it, you know,
• 52:30
  those kind of situation. So, I just kind of recommend
• 52:32
  people, you know, what this is, as you move through the
• 52:34
  profession, just kind of take care of yourself, take care of
• 52:37
  your family because ultimately you know nobody else is going to
• 52:40
  nobody else is going to going to do that, you know everybody's
• 52:43
  got their own set of interests and it doesn't make anybody a
• 52:46
  bad person. It wants just the way the world
• 52:48
  works. You.
• 52:49
  Yeah. The number one excuse to hear is
• 52:51
  I don't want to leave the kids. Well if that's the case, then
• 52:52
  you're never going to leave ever.
• 52:55
  And I hate, you know, sometimes somebody will worry about that
• 52:57
  and go, well, the kids will leave specially in today's
• 52:59
  transfer portal world, right? But it's like, that's actually
• 53:01
  that that's not the same, you're putting apples and oranges
• 53:04
  together there, it's more about you got into coaching to coach.
• 53:09
  You didn't get into coaching to coach at LSU specifically, you
• 53:12
  got into coaching to coach. So whether that's local, high
• 53:16
  school, a power, five Juco, that's the profession, and the
• 53:20
  passion. You have take care of yourself
• 53:22
  along the way. So you're taking care of your
• 53:24
  family and your future. ER, Exactly, you know.
• 53:27
  And, you know, I and I understand that and I appreciate
• 53:30
  it. I mean, I'm the person who tried
• 53:32
  to stay at USL, rather than going to LSU as stupid as that
• 53:36
  might sound. I tried to stay, you know, so I
• 53:40
  get it, but I'm beyond that, you know, I, you know, I've been on
• 53:44
  the other side of them now and I understand you know, ultimately
• 53:48
  robot is going to take care of you but you and it bothers me
• 53:50
  because if you're going to coach you're going to pay a price in
• 53:53
  your family life, you're going to pay a price and everything,
• 53:55
  you know. No.
• 53:56
  And that's why you got to like it.
• 53:57
  That's why you got to love it and I'll say to this day.
• 54:00
  If, if I was 40 again, the thing I would probably do, honestly is
• 54:05
  not start a track and field Academy.
• 54:08
  I would probably start a coach's Union because just to make
• 54:13
  working conditions better for coaches and whatever because
• 54:15
  it's gotten to the point, you know where, so many people are
• 54:17
  telling cultures what to do, and in some situations, they've lost
• 54:21
  control of the process, but they're still responsible for
• 54:24
  the product. You know, and and I sympathize
• 54:29
  with that because in many cases coaches put up I think with way
• 54:33
  more than they should some since um working scenarios, you know.
• 54:37
  And if you say that that's not a popular thing because
• 54:40
  immediately somebody thinks of who what coach Saban has or what
• 54:44
  coaches chefs gas or whatever. But they're not understanding
• 54:46
  that the typical NCAA coach code is an assistant soccer coach,
• 54:51
  who makes 45 thousand dollars a year and all it takes is one
• 54:55
  athlete who gets Of angry with them and goes to an athletic
• 54:57
  director to complain and they're all the window, you know, with
• 55:00
  no recourse. Whether they're, you know, even
• 55:02
  though the accusations or whatever might be, you know, so
• 55:06
  so, you know, that kind of bothers me and it bothers me
• 55:10
  because coaches do so much for young people, you know?
• 55:13
  And, and there's bad apples in every profession.
• 55:15
  But I just a firm believer that as a coach you are, you're an
• 55:21
  extremely important person and an athlete's life because know,
• 55:25
  the Just still, the person who's kind of make an athlete's,
• 55:28
  understand how to win with Grace and lose with dignity and and
• 55:32
  sometimes, of course, teaches the lesson that the problem with
• 55:34
  you is you, you know, and there aren't many people who are still
• 55:37
  doing that anymore, you know. So I would hate to think where
• 55:40
  we are without the coaches and I just don't want to make coaching
• 55:43
  any harder than it is already. Yeah, I agree. 100%, right.
• 55:47
  I mean, the positive impact, a coach makes on young people
• 55:49
  today in Rat, where your feet are.
• 55:51
  So with your in Chanute Kansas or New York City, it doesn't
• 55:55
  matter. You have young people right
• 55:56
  there in front of you and you're making a positive impact, That's
• 55:59
  The Power of a coach bar, none. So, Ima put coaching education
• 56:05
  to the side for a second. You go through 07 and you take
• 56:08
  an early retirement. You couldn't have been mentioned
• 56:11
  that. If you could go back to be 40
• 56:12
  again you could have been 45. Think it was four to six.
• 56:15
  Yeah. Okay.
• 56:16
  As I say that's your round. It was my age.
• 56:18
  I am not thinking about early, retirement, how are you able to
• 56:20
  early retire? I had a lot of use.
• 56:22
  Remember I taught High School. Many years in the same
• 56:25
  retirement. What was in it LSU?
• 56:27
  That's why you. That's why you couldn't have
• 56:29
  pulled me out of a shoe at a tractor and a crowbar.
• 56:31
  Because the retirement years with all the same as the high
• 56:35
  school, you make law got lucky in that regard, you know?
• 56:38
  And I just did the math. I crunched the numbers and I
• 56:40
  said, well yeah if I hang in there, longer I can up my
• 56:44
  retirement benefit but I started looking at the money I could
• 56:47
  collect. And I did number crunching and
• 56:49
  whatever. And I said the financial play
• 56:51
  here is to take the retirement and just go do something else
• 56:54
  and that's what I did, you know. So what does a 46 year old
• 56:58
  highly successful track coach, do it, retirement and 46.
• 57:02
  What was the something else? What I did was this guy offered
• 57:05
  me, an opportunity to run a training center and I said, okay
• 57:09
  well this will work although that wasn't something I really
• 57:12
  wanted to do long-term or whatever and that's what I did.
• 57:15
  And anyway. But what was interesting was
• 57:18
  when I left LSU the phone rang off the hook, that's when the
• 57:21
  clinics and the Consulting and all blew up, you know?
• 57:24
  Because The phone just started ringing off the hook but you
• 57:28
  could never do my clinic because you were at LSU.
• 57:30
  Now you're coming up. All right, I want you to come
• 57:33
  watch practices for two days and debrief us or whatever you could
• 57:36
  never do that because you were at LSU don't want you to come
• 57:39
  now. And that's when all of that
• 57:40
  happens. So I was extremely fortunate and
• 57:42
  I tell that to this date, they took a lot of coaches.
• 57:44
  You know, we were kind of worried about what the next step
• 57:47
  might be. As you never know, who wants you
• 57:49
  right now? Who thinks she won't go because
• 57:52
  of the job that you have now. So, so anyway, that's what
• 57:55
  happened. Happened and that developed into
• 57:57
  a pretty good business as far as Consulting work and that type of
• 58:01
  stuff clinics and such and then right around that time was when
• 58:05
  track and field Academy. We kind of started, you know,
• 58:07
  getting that going. I think that will it was 09 when
• 58:10
  we kind of made the decision to get that going.
• 58:15
  Yeah. There's not a, you know, there's
• 58:16
  a collection of, I'm a column post-collegiate coaches, but I
• 58:20
  don't know that there's a lot that I'm going to call travel
• 58:23
  and consult, right? They have their training group
• 58:25
  and they There maybe they do some camps and Clinics and and
• 58:28
  such but they don't they would never that.
• 58:31
  I've seen I maybe just be out of the picture.
• 58:33
  Don't go to another program and evaluate and help that coach
• 58:37
  move on or you know, Advanced I should say not move on.
• 58:40
  Yeah that's interesting. So I learned that financially it
• 58:43
  could work at least it could for me because I was fortunate to
• 58:47
  have a good reputation and success behind my belt but I
• 58:51
  learned that it could work because in all of these
• 58:55
  so-called Foreman straining businesses.
• 58:57
  The facility is a huge overhead while I learned that if I just
• 59:01
  deal with the coaches and just help the coaches, I have no
• 59:04
  overhead and so ended up working out, pretty good.
• 59:08
  I had some really good months, financially doing that stuff
• 59:10
  when I had a bad month, I had a retirement check.
• 59:12
  So the retirement check kind of gave me the flexibility to kind
• 59:16
  of take some risks professionally in that regard.
• 59:20
  That's interesting. So are you coaching at all at
• 59:22
  this point? Are you just coaching coach has
• 59:25
  pretty much Coaching cultures. Now, there are some situations
• 59:28
  where I was spot coaching, like, fly me into work with.
• 59:32
  So and so, for a couple of days because of a particular problem
• 59:35
  or whatever, I'm, you know, made a couple trips up to Canada, to
• 59:38
  kind of, you know, troubleshoot particular athletes or whatever
• 59:42
  might have been a couple of instances where athletes came
• 59:45
  into me for training camps or whatever.
• 59:47
  So I'm spot coaching, but I'm not coaching anybody on a like
• 59:50
  day-to-day. You're my athlete basis.
• 59:53
  So they say it's like riding a bike or in.
• 59:55
  Guards to lot of things, right? Like you learned how to ride a
• 59:58
  bike as a kid and maybe take ten years off, you can hop on a bike
• 1:00:01
  and ride and that might be true. I haven't rode a bike in a while
• 1:00:04
  but I bet if I got on I probably could ride that bike but I
• 1:00:07
  wouldn't be as good because I didn't have the practice.
• 1:00:10
  Are you getting out of practice during this time?
• 1:00:14
  No, you're going to ride the bike.
• 1:00:15
  Better getting away from it, you come back to it.
• 1:00:20
  You see it so much more clearly you're really see it clearly,
• 1:00:23
  you know, you remember you I threw in the junk pile.
• 1:00:28
  You know all of these years of burnout.
• 1:00:30
  And everything that I had with me.
• 1:00:32
  They're all of a sudden like my eyes are working better.
• 1:00:35
  My perceptions working better. I'm much more into.
• 1:00:38
  So everything is much sharper. Like I can now go to a coach and
• 1:00:43
  watch that coach work and pick up three or four things that I
• 1:00:45
  might have never seen before. Yeah.
• 1:00:47
  Believe it or not, you get out of it and come back in at.
• 1:00:49
  You see it and much much more clean though.
• 1:00:51
  The education people figured it out years ago, that's why
• 1:00:53
  sabbaticals are there, you know. For that opportunity, you know
• 1:00:57
  and there's something to be said for that.
• 1:00:59
  But anyway, just being in a different scenario different and
• 1:01:03
  there are some people who are like that.
• 1:01:05
  Like there's a couple of coaches.
• 1:01:06
  I know who can't coach a lick, but they'll come and watch your
• 1:01:08
  Athletes Training. They'll point out, three or
• 1:01:10
  four, keep things that you're missing because some people have
• 1:01:13
  that gift and I think that I became a lot more perceptive in
• 1:01:18
  that particular regard at that, at that time.
• 1:01:21
  So I think you'd ride that bike better, Mike Mike, my kids will
• 1:01:25
  be Happy when I tell them this. So, we're okay you're doing this
• 1:01:32
  and doing really grasping the coaching of coaches at this
• 1:01:35
  point. What do you go?
• 1:01:37
  You come straight back to LSU, is that correct?
• 1:01:41
  Well, I came back to LSU, I was going for 10 years.
• 1:01:43
  Yeah, that's why I say what. So what yet, yeah.
• 1:01:45
  What was the draw back? They call me.
• 1:01:49
  The can't be the only people that called you and probably not
• 1:01:51
  the only time they called you specifically.
• 1:01:53
  Well, I think most people realize I wasn't going to just
• 1:01:56
  go anywhere, you know. And so I got a couple of offers
• 1:01:59
  but nothing but it was just go shaver.
• 1:02:03
  He, he lost his, he had a really good throws coach, who left him
• 1:02:08
  kind of abruptly and September. And And he just felt like I
• 1:02:12
  can't hire somebody and September.
• 1:02:14
  Can you just fill in so to speak?
• 1:02:16
  You know, can you just fill in the year for me?
• 1:02:19
  I said, okay, here's how much it's going to cost you and they
• 1:02:21
  LS she was willing to do it so I did it and I like being back in
• 1:02:25
  it. He says how can we keep you
• 1:02:26
  involved? Do you want to continue?
• 1:02:28
  I said coach I can coach the rules but I can't go to Europe
• 1:02:32
  and recruit throwers. I don't have those connections
• 1:02:34
  that those throws guys. And so, what if I was the
• 1:02:38
  strength coach for the program that I can kind of Continue to
• 1:02:41
  be involved in, you know, maybe even touch on other kids and
• 1:02:45
  other event areas and so forth. So he says okay so he goes equal
• 1:02:48
  to Administration and they created a position and here I am
• 1:02:53
  so two unique things in that story right there.
• 1:02:56
  Boo one that you you came back to coach throws and Coach shaver
• 1:03:01
  like it was an automatic. Hey I need.
• 1:03:02
  Can you come can you come coach throws?
• 1:03:03
  Like it wasn't like I don't know I think who can do it for a year
• 1:03:06
  like I was like hey man I need help come help me what is What
• 1:03:11
  has led you to be able to coach throws at this point?
• 1:03:13
  Is it just a transference of all the other things that, you know,
• 1:03:15
  biomechanically or well, I'd always handle throws.
• 1:03:18
  You know, coach throws in high school at coach decathletes in
• 1:03:21
  the throes. I coach helped athletes in the
• 1:03:23
  throes and I'm a high school coach.
• 1:03:25
  I can coach anything from scratch.
• 1:03:27
  You know? And I'm not, I'm not saying that
• 1:03:29
  I have the level of sophistication in the throes or
• 1:03:32
  whatever. But I know how to train athletes
• 1:03:34
  and I got an eye for basic biomechanics and he'll most
• 1:03:36
  people complicated too damn much anyway.
• 1:03:38
  So so, so it worked Okay. Had a couple kids did real well.
• 1:03:42
  You know any case so and you know and I came back and you
• 1:03:47
  know, could she ever was just from Mom all this far as
• 1:03:50
  accommodating me, I had a couple of obligations that I couldn't
• 1:03:53
  get out of and I said, coach, I'd love to do it, but here are
• 1:03:57
  these obligations. I have, he says no problem, you
• 1:03:59
  know. And anyway he was extremely
• 1:04:01
  flexible and continues to be work with me, great, you know,
• 1:04:04
  like, you know, I paid some compliments to coach Sylvia but
• 1:04:08
  I've been blessed to have some really good.
• 1:04:10
  Bosses. Yeah.
• 1:04:11
  For her. Cool.
• 1:04:12
  Shaver for the last five years has been phenomenal to me.
• 1:04:16
  Yeah. I you could I could not ask for
• 1:04:19
  anyone to be any more helpful and supportive and he's been for
• 1:04:25
  these last few years. It's been incredible.
• 1:04:27
  Yeah, I will say, I love coach shaver.
• 1:04:29
  He has one of the most up front, and I mean, it's all in the
• 1:04:32
  positive ways. Front honest
• 1:04:35
  what-you-see-is-what-you-get. He's going to tell you the
• 1:04:37
  truth, even if it's to his detriment, I think he's such
• 1:04:40
  Truthful. Truthful.
• 1:04:41
  Guy. He taught my level two sprints
• 1:04:44
  the year after I did jumps with you, and at the end is so in the
• 1:04:48
  middle of level 2, Al Schmidt came to me and told me I was
• 1:04:51
  officially hired at Mississippi State.
• 1:04:53
  At the end, you know, we were going down and shaken, the
• 1:04:56
  instructors hands and all that. And Dennis takes my hand.
• 1:04:59
  He pulls me in real close and he goes, you're the enemy now.
• 1:05:04
  Remember thinking, oh, welcome to the SEC, buddy.
• 1:05:09
  So And the other aspect that was interesting in that story.
• 1:05:13
  Boot was you, are you the only track and field specific
• 1:05:18
  strength and conditioning coach in the country?
• 1:05:22
  I doubt it but I can't tell you 5 or 10 minutes off top of my
• 1:05:26
  head. I don't know, I don't think
• 1:05:31
  that's the case. I think there are some other
• 1:05:33
  schools that have somebody. They'd only does track in there
• 1:05:35
  right now. Probably the most prodigious,
• 1:05:37
  the most notorious one. Yeah.
• 1:05:40
  There were starting to say Jimmy Radcliffe.
• 1:05:41
  I think. And that's was just for a while.
• 1:05:44
  Yeah, yeah, right. All right, that'd be one that I
• 1:05:46
  could have come up with, but it's an extremely unique
• 1:05:49
  position and really maybe forward-thinking by you and
• 1:05:52
  Dennis in regards to this as well.
• 1:05:54
  So there's a lot of patience a lot.
• 1:05:56
  There's a stereotype of conflict between In the traditional
• 1:06:00
  strength and conditioning coach and the track and field coach.
• 1:06:04
  This seems to solve any of that potential conflict or Prejudice
• 1:06:09
  of conflict if you will. Yeah, I think so.
• 1:06:12
  You know, I learned about 10 years out, I probably refereed
• 1:06:15
  more cat fights between track coaches, and strength, and
• 1:06:18
  conditioning coaches. Then then anybody out there, in
• 1:06:23
  fact that, you know, there was one University who wanted to
• 1:06:25
  bring me in as a consultant, and their whole purpose was to I
• 1:06:29
  gather mud on the track closer, they could fire the track coach.
• 1:06:32
  You know, I didn't take that paycheck.
• 1:06:35
  Wow, but yeah, the athletic administrators can be pretty
• 1:06:39
  devious at times but anyhow, yeah, that unfortunately, that
• 1:06:44
  the reason that stereotype exists is because almost all
• 1:06:47
  stereotypes have some basis. In fact, you know, and so often
• 1:06:51
  you got a strength coach who has a football background or
• 1:06:54
  whatever and really doesn't understand the speed side of
• 1:06:56
  things. And you got to track coach, who
• 1:06:58
  kind of has a Bunch of what needs to be done, but isn't good
• 1:07:01
  at verbalizing or doesn't, maybe get the science behind into
• 1:07:05
  whatever and I think I can maybe make those things mesh to some
• 1:07:09
  extent. And the other thing that really
• 1:07:11
  helped us at LSU this time around was not doing it quite as
• 1:07:15
  much now. But do you know during the
• 1:07:18
  little nice little run? We've had with some really good
• 1:07:20
  athletes here is that I've been extremely involved with the
• 1:07:23
  sports medicine stuff, you know, for a while I when I was working
• 1:07:28
  with the ha Hospital in Thibodaux, I had a lot of
• 1:07:32
  opportunities to do rehabs, and I've developed some philosophies
• 1:07:36
  on rehab and things like that, that are much more in line with
• 1:07:39
  training than they are with traditional rehab.
• 1:07:41
  And some rehab, people consider me a pariah, some of them
• 1:07:45
  consider me lucky and you know, a few of them, consider me a
• 1:07:48
  genius. So I'm on the whole end of this
• 1:07:51
  all ends of the spectrum, you know, but to make a long story
• 1:07:54
  short, what I want when it comes to rehab.
• 1:07:59
  Just try to take the things that I've learned as a coach of
• 1:08:02
  healthy athletes and just try to apply those principles in the
• 1:08:06
  rehab setting, and it just seems to go a lot better than a lot of
• 1:08:09
  traditional rehab, does to be honest with you.
• 1:08:12
  And the sports medicine people that are work with, were have
• 1:08:16
  been pretty open to involving me in the rehab process and making
• 1:08:20
  suggestions into rehab processes and so forth and maybe even
• 1:08:24
  making some advice as far as referrals and who to refer
• 1:08:27
  people to and it's made a really A big difference in our program,
• 1:08:31
  you know, help make a long story short that's been helpful, so on
• 1:08:36
  the strength and conditioning side for the LSU track team.
• 1:08:40
  How much are you enjoying that aspects of?
• 1:08:43
  Because I'm guessing you get to touch if not all the majority of
• 1:08:47
  the event groups. You get to see you talked
• 1:08:49
  earlier about, you know sitting up against the wall.
• 1:08:52
  Watching the high school athletes compete, you kind of
• 1:08:54
  get that same Viewpoint. Now for all of the athletes on
• 1:08:57
  the LSU's track team. Yeah, I To be involved with
• 1:09:00
  everybody, you know, and, you know, because I'm involved with
• 1:09:03
  the rehab and that type of stuff, and I'm kind of a
• 1:09:06
  go-between between that eats and I kind of an advocate for the
• 1:09:09
  athletes, with the sports medicine, people, whatever at
• 1:09:11
  times, I get to be involved with just about everybody at some
• 1:09:15
  point in time. So it's a good and it's a good
• 1:09:18
  thing. It's could she ever has been
• 1:09:21
  really great? Because and some of our Sports
• 1:09:23
  Medicine, people have been really great because they kind
• 1:09:26
  of almost allowed me to take this position at home.
• 1:09:29
  Most tailor it to my strengths so to speak where I can kind of
• 1:09:33
  interject when I need the energetic and they might say
• 1:09:36
  that. I interject a little too much or
• 1:09:37
  whatever, but, you know, so be it, you know, I always I can be,
• 1:09:41
  I can be painfully blunt, I don't know if you know this but
• 1:09:44
  I can be playing poorly bluntman, you know, sometimes I
• 1:09:46
  just tell them I'm not going to. I'm not going to pretend to be
• 1:09:50
  stupid so you can feel better about yourself you know, and
• 1:09:53
  that's that's one of the things that I live by and every once in
• 1:09:56
  a while it'll rub somebody the wrong way but that's how the
• 1:09:59
  Works. You know and kids are going to
• 1:10:01
  go where they can get answers and ultimately that's the way it
• 1:10:05
  is. You know, I spent a lot of time
• 1:10:07
  mentoring young coaches and sometimes.
• 1:10:09
  Now I Mentor young therapists and trainers and I tell them all
• 1:10:12
  the time that your title has nothing to do with what with
• 1:10:18
  anything. You know, just because you are
• 1:10:20
  the trainer at this school or the coach of this at that school
• 1:10:24
  kids are always going to look for answers, you know.
• 1:10:26
  And if you're not providing answers to them, they're going
• 1:10:29
  to Seek elsewhere and it doesn't matter if you had that title or
• 1:10:32
  not. So basically if you know, if
• 1:10:35
  they're not coming to you for the answers, then you have to
• 1:10:38
  raise your game, you know, because the title doesn't
• 1:10:41
  entitle you to anything, ultimately, you know, that's the
• 1:10:44
  way it works, you know? Even when I had really, really
• 1:10:46
  good athletes and I was respected as a coach, you know,
• 1:10:50
  there are people in, you know, this might there people in your
• 1:10:52
  athletes ears all the time. I can coach.
• 1:10:54
  You better. I can make you do better or
• 1:10:56
  whatever. Well if they're doing pretty
• 1:10:57
  good there with you, but if Not doing well, they start
• 1:11:01
  listening, you know, so there's always people in their ear and
• 1:11:04
  ultimately it's the, that's one of the things I love about it
• 1:11:07
  is, it's ultimately the accountability associated with
• 1:11:10
  it. If you can produce results and
• 1:11:12
  produce answers for athletes and athletes come to you with
• 1:11:15
  problems and you help them to solve them, they're going to
• 1:11:18
  keep coming back and you know, and like I said, if you feel
• 1:11:22
  like they have pleats are not doing that with you, you need to
• 1:11:25
  improve your game. You need to improve your skill
• 1:11:27
  level in that regard, you No. In this position.
• 1:11:31
  How is your relationship with the coaches staff?
• 1:11:34
  They are and you get every once in a while a new coach comes in
• 1:11:38
  and how much of a pain in your butt is Houston Frank's, let me
• 1:11:43
  tell you something, Lisa, Frank's amazes me every day.
• 1:11:48
  That guy is one of the most. Oh, I'm sorry.
• 1:11:50
  We are so happy to have him in office.
• 1:11:52
  He's just kind of getting the ball rolling in that regard, but
• 1:11:55
  he is sharp as a whip. He is a fan.
• 1:11:59
  Tastic Coach and he's got the personality to deal with
• 1:12:03
  different types of people and he can he can take a pissed-off kid
• 1:12:07
  and diffuse it he can take a kid and bring them to.
• 1:12:10
  I mean he can eat just knows how to do it and I'm just really
• 1:12:14
  looking forward to see what he does with that program in the
• 1:12:17
  next few years. You know, love Mississippi
• 1:12:20
  State, you know, got a lot of friends over there but we just
• 1:12:22
  got a different level of resource and I just excited to
• 1:12:26
  see what he's going to be doing there.
• 1:12:28
  With a big, the biggest Compliment.
• 1:12:29
  I can give him as he was my roommate for a year and he
• 1:12:32
  survived. So yeah, it's pretty good.
• 1:12:36
  I said he could deal with a pissed off kid.
• 1:12:37
  He could deal with me, so I feel like I maybe helped him with his
• 1:12:40
  skill set there. So, let's turn as we start to
• 1:12:45
  wrap up today here. Boo.
• 1:12:46
  Let's turn to coaching, education and camps and Clinics,
• 1:12:51
  and things like that. I told you earlier, you know,
• 1:12:55
  you're one of less than a handful of people that gets
• 1:12:58
  mentioned on this. Podcast, I must say every other,
• 1:13:01
  but it's a higher per it's not everyone specifically, but it's
• 1:13:05
  a higher rate than even every other one.
• 1:13:07
  And sometimes it's me bring it up stories of, you know, from my
• 1:13:10
  time of Education with you. Which and I've said it 100 times
• 1:13:14
  here changed my the course of my coaching career, all for the
• 1:13:17
  better and then it's the guests will have some comment of like,
• 1:13:21
  man. I saw Boo at the Louisiana
• 1:13:24
  clinic or I went to level 2. I went to you stfc a and it's
• 1:13:29
  Always. I mean literally always batting
• 1:13:32
  a thousand percent here. Always in a positive light not
• 1:13:36
  even in a mediocre like Boo not even in a like yeah I listen to
• 1:13:40
  boob. It was okay.
• 1:13:41
  And I've heard that from other coaches from other clinics and
• 1:13:44
  stuff, right? Always with you boo, always.
• 1:13:47
  It is whatever. The closest thing to
• 1:13:50
  life-changing can be in the profession of coaching track and
• 1:13:53
  field, I don't want to overstate it here so I'll keep it just
• 1:13:55
  under life-changing. What?
• 1:13:59
  Drew you, we talked a little bit about it but what has drawn you
• 1:14:02
  into be in this, not just a coach of a pleats and coaching,
• 1:14:06
  amazing 57-foot, triple jumpers, and 22 and 23 foot female long.
• 1:14:12
  I mean, just decathletes pole vaulters.
• 1:14:14
  I mean, throwers, it's one thing to be a great coach and there's
• 1:14:18
  some amazing coaches out there and I love them.
• 1:14:20
  You have transcended a whole nother step in affected the
• 1:14:24
  sport, unlike anybody, that I can even think of right now, In
• 1:14:29
  regards to helping other coaches become better coaches.
• 1:14:34
  Where did that come from? Where is that?
• 1:14:36
  Selflessness of. I'm going to give away all my
• 1:14:39
  secrets. I'm doing air quotes there.
• 1:14:41
  I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to give it all to you.
• 1:14:43
  There's no holding back here. You're going to get it all.
• 1:14:46
  Where does that come from? Boo.
• 1:14:48
  Well, I think it's some of his started with Dan, you know.
• 1:14:51
  It's just the fact that he was willing to do it for me, you
• 1:14:53
  know, kind of planted a seed and plant it a little bit of
• 1:14:56
  obligation, you know. And I think we just have an
• 1:14:59
  obligation to leave something better than you, then you got
• 1:15:02
  it, you know. But that being said, I said a
• 1:15:04
  lot of it, just has to do it. What I feel about coaches, I
• 1:15:07
  said earlier, that I think coaches are so often the most
• 1:15:10
  important people in athletes lives, you know?
• 1:15:14
  Ultimately they, you know, Sports teaches lessons, I have a
• 1:15:18
  huge. I have a huge sort of looking
• 1:15:24
  for here. I feel very strongly that
• 1:15:27
  Athletics is probably the best personality development program
• 1:15:32
  that a person can go through it. Kind of To do the lessons,
• 1:15:34
  you're supposed to learn if you kind of go through Sports and
• 1:15:38
  stick to the structure and whatever you're going to come
• 1:15:40
  out a better person because of the lessons that you learn there
• 1:15:43
  and ultimately that's what coaches do coaches provide those
• 1:15:46
  opportunities. And it just I just feel that
• 1:15:50
  coaching is a hard job. It doesn't pay enough.
• 1:15:52
  It's difficult. You're dealing with athletes
• 1:15:56
  that don't appreciate you. Now, they'll appreciate you in
• 1:15:58
  10 years, but they don't necessarily appreciate you.
• 1:16:01
  Now, you know, and you got all those issues and I just Just
• 1:16:04
  felt that maybe my way of contributing to the world as if
• 1:16:08
  I make the world better job for coaches and coaching, or doing
• 1:16:11
  all this stuff, good stuff, then, maybe I'm making the world
• 1:16:14
  a better place. So it's kind of become a passion
• 1:16:16
  in that regard. I just think that coaches, do
• 1:16:19
  more for young people than just about anybody else and if I can
• 1:16:23
  help coaches do that, that's what I'm going to do.
• 1:16:25
  You know? And I'm not really a I'm if it
• 1:16:30
  comes through, technical knowledge or whatever or This
• 1:16:34
  building or mentoring or whatever.
• 1:16:36
  I'm just going to do that. So I think it just really it
• 1:16:40
  just comes from my respect for coaching as a profession and the
• 1:16:43
  value of coaching as a profession.
• 1:16:45
  You know, I just think that there's in our society there's
• 1:16:48
  so many fussing and fighting and all this kind of stuff but
• 1:16:51
  ultimately I just think that coaches, you know, you hear the
• 1:16:56
  argument. I don't think there's ever been
• 1:16:59
  a government program that is ever done more positive for
• 1:17:02
  society than any single quote. Has ever done for the athletes
• 1:17:05
  in their care. You know, I, you know, you can,
• 1:17:08
  you can take all the government money, you want, put all the
• 1:17:10
  social work programs. You want out there, whatever,
• 1:17:14
  none of them will ever surpass. The good athletes get from
• 1:17:18
  playing organized sports with good coaches and I just feel
• 1:17:22
  that strongly and that's why I think it's a passion of mine to
• 1:17:25
  be honest with you. So there's a lots of coaches out
• 1:17:29
  there that on the track working with an athlete there.
• 1:17:34
  Are really good, they're good at their craft.
• 1:17:36
  And then you might ask them to explain something that they're
• 1:17:39
  doing, or that they saw or reasoning behind it.
• 1:17:42
  And they can't string three words together.
• 1:17:45
  Just, it's a, it's a different skill to be able to teach that.
• 1:17:50
  On top of that. You and I'm sure it's not just
• 1:17:55
  me except heard the story a couple of times from lots of
• 1:17:57
  coaches. You have a propensity to always
• 1:18:01
  communicate back with people that communicate with you that
• 1:18:04
  are specifically that are asking for help.
• 1:18:06
  Like, I know personally, my example, I emailed you out of
• 1:18:09
  the blue. You had no clue who I was
• 1:18:11
  before. I did level 2 and they met you
• 1:18:14
  personally emailed you out of the blue was like, hey, I've
• 1:18:19
  got, I don't remember what the issue was something you have.
• 1:18:21
  I have What can you recommend and really I'll be real Frank
• 1:18:26
  here. I sent that email thinking.
• 1:18:28
  Yeah I'm I might as well not send it it he ain't reading this
• 1:18:32
  he ain't responding he's at LSU. You know, I had this like OLS
• 1:18:37
  you which might actually be true, right?
• 1:18:39
  But he's not going to email. I think I was a junior college.
• 1:18:43
  I think it was a no-show over in Kansas some like he's not going
• 1:18:47
  to email you back. I don't have any athletes for
• 1:18:49
  him to recruit so there's no reason you know there's no
• 1:18:51
  nothing in it for. Um, to respond and you responded
• 1:18:55
  in a timely manner, even I want. Yeah, not even like a week
• 1:18:58
  later. Like you quickly within 24 hours
• 1:19:01
  and not a one word to word answer, like I thought out
• 1:19:06
  response. And of course, I took that
• 1:19:09
  Advantage were like, well, I gotta respond off of That.
• 1:19:11
  So I responded and became this correspondence.
• 1:19:14
  And I've heard that story again. This is another one of those,
• 1:19:16
  I've heard a thousand of those stories.
• 1:19:18
  I emailed blew out of the blue. That's hard to say three times
• 1:19:21
  fast email move out of the blue and he responded.
• 1:19:25
  Like the people like, oh my God, I couldn't believe he actually
• 1:19:27
  responded and I bring them down a little bit.
• 1:19:29
  Like, I hope you don't think you're special, meaning he would
• 1:19:33
  everybody. He's the special one here.
• 1:19:36
  How do you? I mean you do so much your
• 1:19:38
  coaching. You have your own private side,
• 1:19:40
  you're rewriting curriculum and teaching curriculum and yet you
• 1:19:43
  see Seem to be able to respond to everybody where you got to do
• 1:19:48
  what you got to do. I mean, it's important and you
• 1:19:51
  got to do what you got to do this, what's important?
• 1:19:53
  You know, there's something I'm doing this, not as important as
• 1:19:55
  that. I'm sure.
• 1:19:56
  I'll just put that on the Shelf. But ultimately I've been in the
• 1:19:59
  same situation, you know, where I'm grasping for answers or
• 1:20:02
  whatever and I'm desperate and this kid wants to succeed and
• 1:20:05
  they're highly motivated and I'm not helping.
• 1:20:07
  I mean I've been in that situation, I know what it's
• 1:20:09
  like, you know. No I'm not.
• 1:20:11
  You know, I can't get everybody within 24 hours but You send me
• 1:20:15
  a question. I'm going to I'm going to answer
• 1:20:17
  it if I can because simply they aren't places for coaches to go,
• 1:20:20
  you know? And again I go back to what I
• 1:20:22
  said coaching is hard but I'm but I get a lot of credit for
• 1:20:25
  that but I'm going to see one thing.
• 1:20:27
  There's a lot of cultures will give like that you know there
• 1:20:30
  are a lot you know Dan was that way, you know.
• 1:20:33
  And what's funny is this is that in my career when I reached out
• 1:20:39
  the very best coaches are always open like the when I will not
• 1:20:43
  come. It acted or really good coach,
• 1:20:45
  you know. Maybe it's a little sooner,
• 1:20:47
  maybe it's a little late or whatever, but they always are
• 1:20:49
  given they always get. Now, the second tier of coaches,
• 1:20:53
  the ones who aren't the very best but they're a little bit
• 1:20:56
  under. Those are the ones who will.
• 1:20:57
  I can't tell you that, that's my secret, you know?
• 1:21:00
  So so I just think that when you become a good coach, there's a
• 1:21:04
  certain level of security that you have and you understand, as
• 1:21:07
  long as you have some athletes, you're going to be perfectly
• 1:21:09
  fine and it doesn't hurt anything to give away Secrets or
• 1:21:12
  or advice or whatever. Because ultimately, you know,
• 1:21:16
  you're you're safe and comfortable in your own skin, so
• 1:21:19
  to speak. And I think that's part of it
• 1:21:21
  is, you know, ultimately aspiring to be comfortable in
• 1:21:24
  your own skin. Ultimately, you know, and I tell
• 1:21:27
  the kids all the time, you know, I told the other day, you know,
• 1:21:30
  we're trying to talk. I was talking to this young lady
• 1:21:33
  long jumper, not on our team and a different one, and we're
• 1:21:36
  trying to come up with a strategy and I want her to have
• 1:21:39
  some input and I told her I said, look I don't have a skin
• 1:21:42
  in the game. I says if you do Orly nobody's
• 1:21:44
  going to say I'm a bad coach and if you do great I don't get to
• 1:21:48
  keep the trophy you keep it so you know so that's the way we
• 1:21:52
  need to look at it. Ultimately I think we always
• 1:21:54
  need to keep in mind that ultimately, the competitions are
• 1:21:57
  for the athletes. You know, you kind of want to
• 1:21:59
  think that you're the quarterback who's controlling
• 1:22:02
  everything, or you're not even the quarterback, maybe the
• 1:22:04
  Puppeteer and it was pulling the strings and control, but you're
• 1:22:07
  not, ultimately, you're not, you know, you're what you're doing
• 1:22:10
  is you're trying to prepare these athletes to handle their
• 1:22:12
  own competitions is what? You're trying to do here and if
• 1:22:15
  you kind of look at it that way then it becomes a lot easier.
• 1:22:18
  I think to be unselfish in that regard.
• 1:22:21
  I'm going to lie and say I've got two more questions.
• 1:22:23
  Boo. I'm sure that's going to get 200
• 1:22:25
  more, but so we've talked about Dan path a lot today and what he
• 1:22:29
  meant to you and thank God for his mentorship of in
• 1:22:32
  selflessness with you because that helps grow that with you
• 1:22:35
  and I love Dan as well. He's amazing.
• 1:22:38
  I have several talks with him, love him to death.
• 1:22:41
  In fact, you two are when I describe coaches, I'll say a lot
• 1:22:44
  of times, like there's a lot of great great coaches and then
• 1:22:47
  there's just a handful that are just one step above and you and
• 1:22:50
  Dan are always in that group that I mentioned.
• 1:22:54
  Thank you something. That is different though Dan
• 1:22:58
  super smart. I mean, if you've ever had a
• 1:23:00
  conversation with Dan path, that dude is just smart.
• 1:23:05
  I am an untrained coach who got a public relations degree from
• 1:23:11
  Troy University. When Dan pox to me, I won't even
• 1:23:15
  talk about camps and Clinics. I'll just talk about when we
• 1:23:17
  have conversations when we used to have coaching conversations.
• 1:23:20
  Even try anymore. Come on, I'm dying.
• 1:23:23
  I can't, I can't, I can't coach myself out of what they were
• 1:23:25
  back now. But when I used to like, you
• 1:23:28
  know, soak up all this knowledge.
• 1:23:29
  Dan would say, thanks and I could tell like, there were
• 1:23:32
  things like, oh, okay, I need to pick up this in this Nest, but
• 1:23:34
  it was at such a level. I just couldn't grasp now and
• 1:23:40
  that. And obviously, there's brilliant
• 1:23:42
  coaches out there part of, it was me and my education levels.
• 1:23:45
  There's plenty of people that Dan has affected positively
• 1:23:47
  here. You are able to teach high-level
• 1:23:52
  stuff, but at a, I'm a called, a kindergarten level.
• 1:23:56
  That's basically where I was at. You're able to help people who
• 1:23:59
  don't have science, backgrounds, who maybe have never even
• 1:24:02
  coached the event. They just know.
• 1:24:04
  Hey, I came to level 2 because next year I got a coach jumps
• 1:24:07
  and I'm a thrower by trade. I know nothing about jumps.
• 1:24:10
  You're able to simplify very difficult Concepts.
• 1:24:15
  Was that from your teaching background?
• 1:24:16
  You mentioned teaching math, was it from that background, or how
• 1:24:19
  did that skill, develop? I think that part of it does
• 1:24:23
  come from a teaching background, you know, the I am but I think
• 1:24:28
  it's also a kind of a product of my personality.
• 1:24:30
  And my personality is have organized thought processes.
• 1:24:34
  So I'm always thinking in terms of cleaning up the thought
• 1:24:37
  process, you know, I'm always thinking in terms of trees you.
• 1:24:40
  No, yes, no, yes. Is this know, is this and then
• 1:24:43
  yes, my brings you to another you know, so I'm always think
• 1:24:45
  that's how my brain works. Meaning that they're, you know,
• 1:24:49
  I think. In a very organized fashion and
• 1:24:52
  I think the reason I can bring it across as organized is
• 1:24:56
  because it's genuinely filed in my head in an organized fashion
• 1:25:01
  in the same way, you know. So I it's not abstract to me,
• 1:25:06
  it's it's not like a black box thing where there's a cause
• 1:25:11
  here's an effect and there's no tracing in between to me the the
• 1:25:14
  routes of cause effect in everything or very clear.
• 1:25:17
  And I just think that had something to do.
• 1:25:19
  That's just how I think. So to speak, you know.
• 1:25:22
  So everything to me is kind of cause effect in that regard, I'm
• 1:25:25
  always looking for those relationships.
• 1:25:28
  Some people might say, well, that makes me not a creative
• 1:25:30
  person, and that's probably a valid criticism, to be honest
• 1:25:34
  with you. I'm the kind of person that,
• 1:25:36
  like, I can never write a song. I can never write a poem.
• 1:25:39
  I can never do anything like it. How the hell do you like just
• 1:25:42
  come up with a tune and work? How do you do that?
• 1:25:44
  I can't do that. But if but if you give me an
• 1:25:48
  idea, I can elaborate on it and make it a whole book.
• 1:25:51
  You know, so I'm not the creative person, but I'm the
• 1:25:53
  person who can do logical deductions engineering problem,
• 1:25:57
  solve, and organize things, and put things in need folders, and
• 1:26:01
  whatever. And that's kind of how my mind
• 1:26:03
  works as well. Say you're an engineer that you
• 1:26:05
  just described engineering right there.
• 1:26:09
  So you say you're not the creative person but that's
• 1:26:11
  exactly where my second question was coming here.
• 1:26:14
  You are Infamous, I'll go with infamous on your Syndicate,
• 1:26:18
  figure drawing like it is. If stick figures is an art form
• 1:26:25
  then this is what you do. You you have I have seen you
• 1:26:29
  draw long jump. Triple jump high jump in.
• 1:26:33
  Stick figures that again I'm just like oh I get it now like
• 1:26:36
  you almost had me believing after laughter level 2 jumps.
• 1:26:39
  That I could coach the pole vault.
• 1:26:40
  Almost almost exactly a plea for all our athletes.
• 1:26:43
  I did not coach pole vault but you almost have like, oh man,
• 1:26:47
  look at that stick figure. I could get that stick figure to
• 1:26:48
  do that. Yeah, you know, it's a shame,
• 1:26:51
  you know, it's a shame might, the younger generation of
• 1:26:53
  coaches. They have no idea because
• 1:26:54
  everybody wants power point, you know?
• 1:26:56
  So so but I can still do it. You know, back when I was
• 1:26:59
  coaching and recruitment, we used to take the recruits to one
• 1:27:02
  of these restaurants where they put paper on the table, you
• 1:27:05
  know, and they used to bring out the Crayons, you know, and
• 1:27:08
  whatever the Kids event was, I would stick figure there event
• 1:27:11
  from beginning to end all the way across the table.
• 1:27:15
  You know, I don't know that it ever made a difference but and
• 1:27:18
  it was a conversation starter, if and nothing else.
• 1:27:20
  How many I wonder and there's a number.
• 1:27:23
  I know athletes still have that like, as in their scrapbooker
• 1:27:26
  and they're like, that's cool man.
• 1:27:29
  That's a good question because I guarantee you, no other coach
• 1:27:32
  did that. Let me just say, where did that
• 1:27:36
  drunk? Because that is a, you know, we
• 1:27:37
  talked about right-brain, left-brain type stuff.
• 1:27:38
  Right, That is a creative thing. That's a visualization.
• 1:27:41
  How did you when did you start that?
• 1:27:44
  And did you like did you have to learn it or was it like
• 1:27:46
  automatically you're able to translate what you see in to
• 1:27:49
  really well figured stick figures?
• 1:27:52
  Well, it's knowing what you see in so it to me it's not
• 1:27:55
  creative. It's just factual.
• 1:27:57
  All you're doing is repeating something that you've seen, but
• 1:27:59
  the other thing is that there are rules like if you of how the
• 1:28:04
  human body operates by mechanically, like when you're
• 1:28:07
  in kind, Unilateral movement, you know, single egg type of
• 1:28:11
  patterns, one joint is going to be at maximum flexion when the
• 1:28:14
  other joint is at maximum extension and vice versa.
• 1:28:17
  You know, if you're working bilateral and typically it's
• 1:28:22
  similar joints are going to have similar extension patterns.
• 1:28:26
  So basically There Are Rules as to how the body operates and
• 1:28:29
  when I draw the stick figures, what I'm doing is, I'm kind of
• 1:28:32
  operating by those rules. I know the points at which the
• 1:28:35
  elbow angle and the knee angle are going to match.
• 1:28:38
  I know they come. Is when the ankle angle and you
• 1:28:40
  know, so I understand commensurate positions and those
• 1:28:45
  relationships biomechanically and that's the trick.
• 1:28:48
  So to speak of it is to kind of take biomechanics to a whole new
• 1:28:51
  level. But no, that's not creative at
• 1:28:53
  all. It's totally factual, man.
• 1:28:56
  If you didn't have the emotions and feelings that you have, you
• 1:29:00
  would be the doctor Spock of coaching track and feel your so
• 1:29:02
  logical. Like know this moves here.
• 1:29:04
  That means this is got to move here.
• 1:29:05
  If you want to do this, you got to do that.
• 1:29:07
  Well, you asked some of that pizza.
• 1:29:09
  I coach a logical I am because I got a I got a little bit of
• 1:29:12
  reputation to somebody who get a little heated.
• 1:29:14
  Every once in a while to, you know, I'm that person that lets
• 1:29:17
  everything slide about. 95% when I go off, I like really go off.
• 1:29:21
  You know, it's funny. You said that because there's
• 1:29:24
  this memory burned in my head from our level 2 and by the way,
• 1:29:27
  I got to give a shout out to a mutual friend of ours might
• 1:29:29
  corn, when I was signing up for my first level to, you know, I
• 1:29:33
  was going to be, I was a Sprints and hurdles coach so I was gonna
• 1:29:35
  go do Sprints and hurdles and it was the Boise State.
• 1:29:39
  Level 2, and he calls me up. He goes, hey, Mike, I'm sorry,
• 1:29:41
  it's full. Do you want to do jumps and as
• 1:29:44
  like jumps man, I coach jumps. I was at Ball State.
• 1:29:48
  I coach jumps here because Sue Parks makes me not because I
• 1:29:51
  want to, I want to be, I want to be damp out to be a great
• 1:29:54
  Sprints and hurdles coach, you know, and he goes, hey, trust
• 1:29:57
  me, man. You'll learn a lot from from the
• 1:29:59
  jobs, just do it, okay? Just consider it, do it and I've
• 1:30:03
  memorized like Mike. All right fine, I'll do it and
• 1:30:06
  thank the Lord. I did it.
• 1:30:09
  Love my Sprint, teachers, the very next year told you to do
• 1:30:11
  dinner. Shaver Gary Winkler maybe Rock
• 1:30:15
  light. I think I can tell who the other
• 1:30:16
  one who do their Sprint coach was unfortunately, but I did
• 1:30:19
  learn so much from Level 2 from the jumps more about the
• 1:30:23
  training Theory. Not necessarily, you know the
• 1:30:25
  technique. But how do you sequence your
• 1:30:28
  training? That's what kind of like really
• 1:30:30
  blew my mind and changed how I coach.
• 1:30:33
  But I remember in if, you know anything about memory, it's not
• 1:30:37
  a VCR that you just replace. I'm sure I have Of these facts
• 1:30:39
  and correct your but here's how I remember it.
• 1:30:41
  We were talking about triple jump and you were talking about
• 1:30:45
  the difference between training the triple jumper more like a
• 1:30:48
  short Sprinter versus 400 meters and you're like if you want to
• 1:30:51
  have the best triple jumper, you can't train them like a
• 1:30:53
  foreigner M. It's totally different Energy
• 1:30:55
  Systems etc, etc and this coach and I don't I don't want to
• 1:30:59
  pigeonhole say he's a high school coach.
• 1:31:00
  I have no idea actually but it's coach gets up and says, well
• 1:31:03
  boo. I like all my triple jumpers to
• 1:31:06
  run the 400 because it makes them tough.
• 1:31:09
  And you see it through a little bit back and forth.
• 1:31:11
  And you were really good. Like, this is part of your 95%,
• 1:31:14
  where you let a lot of things. Go, but ultimately you said
• 1:31:19
  again, you maybe didn't even say, this is just how my memory
• 1:31:22
  is, and just all these statements in these terms, that
• 1:31:26
  you have, you know, I said, when earlier you to coach beat a
• 1:31:28
  coach that's straight from you all the way, but you looked at
• 1:31:31
  the guy and he said, look, when they make an event called tough,
• 1:31:35
  I'll train a kid to be tough, but right now, it's triple jump
• 1:31:38
  in the Hundred and those should not mix, but I was just so
• 1:31:43
  impressed. How you know, I knew who you
• 1:31:45
  were and stature and LSU, coach automatically, you get, you
• 1:31:48
  know, track read for that, right?
• 1:31:50
  And remember, the audacity of this guy like you're arguing
• 1:31:52
  with, boo checks later, what are you doing?
• 1:31:55
  And you were just so calm, cool and collected.
• 1:31:57
  Let it overtake the class and went right back into your stick
• 1:32:01
  figures. It was quite amazing of how you
• 1:32:03
  handle people in that sense. You know, sometimes our
• 1:32:07
  instructors and coaching, and I got it.
• 1:32:09
  Encourage them, you know, because sometimes they try to
• 1:32:11
  validate things, you know what, I taught a coaching ed class and
• 1:32:14
  somebody who just would voice something that's like wrong or
• 1:32:17
  totally wrong. I wanted everybody in the class
• 1:32:20
  to know it was wrong because yeah, you know, you handle this
• 1:32:25
  one person with with kid gloves or whatever.
• 1:32:27
  But I don't want the rest of the class leaving would have clouded
• 1:32:31
  picture of what's actually correct and so forth.
• 1:32:34
  So I just think those are little stands that you kind of have to
• 1:32:37
  have to take, to be honest. I mean, it's right or it's
• 1:32:41
  wrong, you know, there's there's very little gray area, you know.
• 1:32:46
  So that being said, you know, I just sometimes you don't have
• 1:32:50
  the courage to confront or the courage to correct or the
• 1:32:54
  courage to just tell somebody they wrong, and that's not
• 1:32:57
  right. That's why even with dealing
• 1:32:58
  with the athletes to this day, you know, blunt, I'm positive to
• 1:33:03
  a certain extent but I'm also kind of blunt like this is where
• 1:33:07
  you are, and this is what you can expect.
• 1:33:09
  Or whatever. And you know, I don't like to
• 1:33:11
  deal in fantasy, you know, it's not a good bit model.
• 1:33:18
  I'll tell you. The engineering mind is coming
• 1:33:20
  out every Senate. Now, every sentence I hear my oh
• 1:33:22
  yeah, that's right or wrong. Yep.
• 1:33:23
  Very little gray. That's true.
• 1:33:26
  Boo man. I can't thank you enough.
• 1:33:29
  You know, literally I could sit here for another two hours and
• 1:33:31
  trade stories back and forth with you because you are a man
• 1:33:34
  who's clearly. Yeah.
• 1:33:35
  So some stuff I want to thank you because this has been so fun
• 1:33:38
  because Normally, I'm talking technical stuff and whatever and
• 1:33:42
  to kind of take you through the Journey and kind of get to open
• 1:33:45
  up a little bit about my UPS and my Downs has been a lot of fun
• 1:33:48
  and very therapeutic for me. So Mike this is maybe been the
• 1:33:52
  most fun thing I've ever done podcast, why?
• 1:33:54
  So I really Opera I really appreciate the opportunity thank
• 1:33:58
  you so much for that. That's I mean I'm honored and
• 1:34:01
  these podcasts like these interviews here are really
• 1:34:05
  really tough for me Mouse and Karen did.
• 1:34:09
  This was another one, you know, it's people that I coached for
• 1:34:11
  10 years you guys and gals were the ones I looked up to, like I
• 1:34:15
  said, I'd email you and help me out here.
• 1:34:16
  I'd email care and he mailmouse was like, help me out here, and
• 1:34:19
  then get my butt kicked when I went to their conference and
• 1:34:21
  stuff. So, it's a little nerve-wracking
• 1:34:24
  because it's the I put you on a pedestal rightfully so, and I'm
• 1:34:26
  just so happy that you are human and that the things that you do
• 1:34:31
  matter, you know, I talk a lot about I said earlier about
• 1:34:34
  coaches in route, where your two feet are right now, you're
• 1:34:37
  making an amazing. Positive impact, whether you
• 1:34:40
  coach 10, kids are 100, Kids, you coach Middle School, you
• 1:34:44
  coach professionals. You have a real honor and
• 1:34:49
  ability to positively affect those kids lives.
• 1:34:51
  And it doesn't, that's, this is the great part about this is
• 1:34:53
  where math comes in, you'll be able to explain this way better
• 1:34:56
  than I. You can't boo math, right?
• 1:34:58
  Multiple. So if you coach 10 kids, those
• 1:35:00
  10 kids go on to become moms and dads and doctors and lawyers and
• 1:35:04
  coaches. And they affect young people in
• 1:35:07
  a positive manner and they they hearkened Back to how you
• 1:35:10
  treated them as a coach and they teach their children, how to be
• 1:35:15
  that way their co-workers to be? That way their athletes to be
• 1:35:18
  that way. You have a whole different
• 1:35:22
  multiple set here. Boo.
• 1:35:23
  So not only do you have that athletes?
• 1:35:25
  You've coached for a long time and you've got many, many
• 1:35:27
  athletes that are coaches. Now, mom's doctors dad's, great
• 1:35:32
  people in society, your web over coaches.
• 1:35:36
  Every coach that you've taught in.
• 1:35:37
  A positive manner has On on to affect positively, thousands of
• 1:35:42
  athletes your tree so to speak, it's not even a tree.
• 1:35:47
  It's a friggin Forest here. My man, you have affected.
• 1:35:50
  So many young people's lives directly as a coach and
• 1:35:53
  indirectly as the coach of a coach and you've changed
• 1:35:56
  people's careers. I distinctly have told the story
• 1:35:59
  a hundred times, I'm not going to tell the full story.
• 1:36:01
  Now my cook my career was 10 years, there is a distinct five
• 1:36:04
  year mark and that five years right after five years was I
• 1:36:06
  when I had you, my next five years I looked Like a genius,
• 1:36:09
  maybe not so much there. I, you know, that's, that was a
• 1:36:12
  little far, but it's way different because of the impact
• 1:36:15
  you had on my life. And I know that is shared by
• 1:36:18
  literally thousands of people in the coaching profession.
• 1:36:22
  Profession my man. And I'm just, so, I'm just so
• 1:36:25
  thankful. Thankful that Dan path?
• 1:36:27
  Saw something in you and took the time to teach you.
• 1:36:30
  I'm so thankful that you didn't go on to become the defensive
• 1:36:33
  coordinator of the Cowboys, I guess the Saints.
• 1:36:35
  And I'm so thankful the path that you've taken to get to
• 1:36:39
  Where you are today because it is been so positive in so many
• 1:36:43
  people's lives, man, I'm just so thankful from all of the
• 1:36:45
  coaching body. Thank you.
• 1:36:47
  From all of us. Thank you, Mike.
• 1:36:49
  I think I'm going to hire you to do my Tombstone.
• 1:36:52
  Okay. That is going to be one eye
• 1:36:54
  mask, use my French one big-ass Tombstone.
• 1:36:56
  My man got a lot of, a lot of accolades, but man, I am so
• 1:37:00
  thankful. I'm so thankful.
• 1:37:01
  You would join us here tonight, man.
• 1:37:03
  And a pleasure. They are extremely busy.
• 1:37:06
  I was, it was a wing and a prayer to reach out to you cause
• 1:37:08
  I'm like, man, he's gonna be so Busy.
• 1:37:09
  And I also knew because I know you well enough I was like he is
• 1:37:12
  going to make the time, so I had to be very careful of your time,
• 1:37:15
  man. It's it's precious and I'm just
• 1:37:17
  so thankful you'd be here with us today and be so open and
• 1:37:20
  authentic and humble with us today, this has been
• 1:37:23
  therapeutic, preciate, you give me the opportunity.
• 1:37:25
  Thanks, it's all the honors. Mine man.
• 1:37:28
  Thank you so much for being here.
• 1:37:29
  I hope you enjoyed this story. This is he's a legend and
• 1:37:32
  sometimes we don't get to hear and honor our Legends while
• 1:37:37
  they're here. And so it was important.
• 1:37:39
  Me personally, to be able to have a mentor of mine.
• 1:37:42
  Somebody who again changed my life, as it relates to coaching
• 1:37:45
  and I tell you, what do I take the selflessness and attitude
• 1:37:49
  of, you know, helping people. I take that into my daily daily
• 1:37:52
  life. Now as a father and as a husband
• 1:37:55
  and as a professional here at yellow headaches, man, you set a
• 1:37:58
  great example for all of us. So thank you for being here and
• 1:38:00
  listening. If you found value in today's
• 1:38:03
  podcast, I'm going to go on a limb and say, someone else in
• 1:38:05
  your network would receive value as well.
• 1:38:07
  So share it and just spread this The story and then go be like,
• 1:38:10
  boom, and go out and help someone else your athletes other
• 1:38:13
  coaches, give what you have away, cuz it's going to come
• 1:38:16
  back to 1 million time. So, thanks for being here today.
• 1:38:19
  Join us next week and we'll do it all over again.
• 1:38:09
  The story and then go be like, boom, and go out and help
• 1:38:12
  someone else your athletes other coaches, give what you have
• 1:38:15
  away, cuz it's going to come back to 1 million time.
• 1:38:18
  So, thanks for being here today. Join us next week and we'll do
• 1:38:21
  it all over again.