Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #163: Doug Marshall-University of North Texas

Transcript

#163: Doug Marshall-University of North Texas · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to season 3 of gila politics connection podcast.
• 0:07
  If this is your first time here, we're so excited.
• 0:09
  You hit the play button. Say if you like what you hear,
• 0:12
  check out our library of hundreds of Pascal's, that is
• 0:14
  sure to give you value for everyone else.
• 0:16
  We're so happy you've come back, quick favor.
• 0:19
  If you haven't already consider taking a minute to rate and
• 0:21
  review the podcast, the simple act helps amplify these Amazing
• 0:25
  Stories and we just love to hear your feedback.
• 0:27
  Heck, we may even read it out loud in a future episode.
• 0:30
  Okay, that's enough of an inch. All right, let's get to it.
• 0:33
  See what today's guest has in store for us.
• 0:40
  Alright, welcome back to the jewel, headaches, connections,
• 0:42
  podcast, super excited for today's guest.
• 0:45
  Introduce you to him as I'm just gonna hop right into it
• 0:48
  actually, so help me. Welcome the newly minted head
• 0:52
  coach of the University of North Texas.
• 0:53
  The mean green. I have a story of why I know
• 0:56
  this school to well, unfortunately, help me welcome
• 0:59
  the wise, the wonderful. The new head coach, mr.
• 1:02
  Doug Marshall. Doug, how are you today?
• 1:04
  I'm good, man, I appreciate it. Thank you for inviting me on and
• 1:09
  being Were to do this. So I'm a big fan.
• 1:13
  Well thank you man. I appreciate the curveball, you
• 1:16
  through me, we'll get more in depth into it but so Doug and I
• 1:23
  had this scheduled when he was the head coach of Iowa, Western
• 1:26
  Community College, super excited to learn, you know, his roots
• 1:29
  and Junior College. As a former junior college coach
• 1:31
  myself. And as we had the scheduled and
• 1:34
  was on the calendar, we're ready to rock and roll and then I see
• 1:37
  this cool announcement saying the new head Coach of the
• 1:40
  University of North Texas is Doug Marshall.
• 1:43
  And I got concern because I've changed jobs a few times.
• 1:46
  It's a little busy. So I was well, prepared.
• 1:50
  The for you to just be like, look, man, I am just swamped,
• 1:52
  can we push this back? And you didn't and I'm just so
• 1:55
  grateful for that man. I can't imagine how busy you are
• 1:57
  right now as you start. Transitioning, new state, a new
• 2:00
  job, new responsibilities with a family.
• 2:03
  So man, just thank you so much for being here.
• 2:05
  It means a lot. Yes, sir, not a Muslim.
• 2:08
  It's a transition. But now it's a it's a good
• 2:13
  transition and I think we we're figuring it out.
• 2:17
  How about our at this point? But nice is definitely healthy.
• 2:23
  I think it's a bit. It's a really exciting time for
• 2:26
  myself and my family. Absolutely.
• 2:28
  Yeah. And when you're listening to
• 2:30
  this, so This published on July 11th.
• 2:33
  We're actually on June 30th, 31st July 30th.
• 2:37
  So like his signature, it hasn't even dried.
• 2:40
  Ride on the contract. So he is literally brand-new.
• 2:42
  I might be who this will be a good question, are we the first
• 2:45
  interview for you as the head coach of North Texas?
• 2:49
  Yeah yeah. This is the first one.
• 2:51
  I actually got another one at like 2:00 today so you guys can
• 2:56
  I feel like that's a feather in our cap man.
• 2:58
  That's awesome. I love it.
• 3:00
  What we're going to get into that new new profession, but new
• 3:04
  new position at the University of North Texas here in the
• 3:07
  conversation but let's take it back a little bit.
• 3:09
  Let's learn Learn more about you Doug, how does coaching come
• 3:13
  into your life? How does it start transition
• 3:16
  from something? That was?
• 3:17
  Maybe done to you. If you were an athlete to where
• 3:20
  you started. When that first time of like, oh
• 3:22
  wait a minute, I think I could be a coach like that.
• 3:25
  Could, that could be my job. When does that start for you
• 3:28
  man? So I always tell everybody that
• 3:31
  track and field kind of chose me like I was a hardcore like I was
• 3:36
  a football player in high school and Texas.
• 3:38
  High school football is Is you know what I mean?
• 3:41
  Like it's crazy. It's king and so everybody
• 3:44
  thinks they're going to the league and to the NFL and you
• 3:47
  know you got these Big Dreams and so I think I started running
• 3:51
  track and middle school or something like that.
• 3:54
  I think it was like sixth grade or something and we were just
• 3:59
  trying out trying out different events and one of my friends
• 4:02
  went over to the jumps and he did jumps and summer track I
• 4:06
  didn't know anything about track.
• 4:08
  I didn't know anything and so true.
• 4:10
  Doubt and ended up being pretty good at triple jump and things
• 4:13
  like that. And so in high school we had a
• 4:17
  really really really good coach really, really inspired.
• 4:22
  A lot of us that were on that that team at the time I
• 4:26
  graduated from East Central, High School Hornets, shout out.
• 4:31
  Shout out to all my Hornets, but but it was a he was a big
• 4:37
  inspiration on, you know what I mean?
• 4:39
  Why I coach. Today because I, he just, he
• 4:42
  just poured a lot in to us and more than probably, we had
• 4:46
  gotten from a coach, my me and my group, like, the group that I
• 4:51
  was with, we were together for from, I think, from seventh
• 4:54
  grade through high school and so, you know, he really poured a
• 4:59
  lot into us as a coach and so he's a big inspiration for it.
• 5:03
  Well, you know, we love uplifting honor and coaches.
• 5:06
  Let's stop the, he's and his give us a shout out.
• 5:08
  Justice. Awesome coach.
• 5:10
  Looks do so well. What's his name?
• 5:12
  Yes, I'm saying. Whitewood Shane Whitewood,
• 5:14
  Mandy. I don't even think he's coaching
• 5:16
  anymore. But amazing coach.
• 5:19
  I think we ended up fourth in the state that year.
• 5:21
  We won the 4x4. I think I got like sixth or
• 5:26
  fifth or something like that. And triple jump and long jump or
• 5:28
  something. But it was a good team like and
• 5:31
  he really developed that entire team to be elite men, you know,
• 5:37
  like not even on a track. But Like, he knew our parents
• 5:42
  and he knew, you know what what, what they deal with and what
• 5:45
  they didn't deal with, he was extension of everything at home
• 5:49
  and so not, he really inspired me, you know, I was probably the
• 5:54
  first person that, that I kind of looked at it.
• 5:56
  And I was like, wow, like he, you know, he's a good coach, but
• 6:00
  I never thought I was gonna be a coach, like, I've never, you
• 6:03
  know, in high school even going through college never, never
• 6:08
  really thought I was going to be Coach.
• 6:10
  And I my head coaching college coach, Dave Harris and he just
• 6:17
  retired from the University of Nebraska, but he asked me after
• 6:22
  my senior year, if I'd be interested in coming back and
• 6:25
  being a grad, assistant and coaching.
• 6:28
  Wait. So Dave Harris, that means you
• 6:30
  went to Emporia State Emporia State.
• 6:32
  Yes, which means everybody is a ga at Emporia State, you know,
• 6:37
  kimbab Cameron bad. Yeah.
• 6:40
  Amy and Kim were teammates on cam.
• 6:41
  Coached me. Okay, that's what, because what
• 6:44
  you can do on the show and seem to make the same joke with
• 6:47
  Emporia State psycho, of course, you were a G8, Emporia State.
• 6:50
  Because everybody, I didn't even go to Emporia State.
• 6:52
  I think I gotta, I went G aided Emporia State.
• 6:56
  Yeah, that's amazing. That's awesome.
• 6:58
  So, what was the, what was the plan then?
• 7:00
  As you're going through your college career at Emporia great
• 7:03
  School in the middle of Kansas, that's where the Juco world is.
• 7:08
  I know you were, I love it. I will maybe kind of replaced a
• 7:11
  little bit. They Iowa's, not Juco, when I
• 7:14
  was in Kansas Juco. So it's been amazing.
• 7:17
  So, what was the plan? As you're going through Emporia
• 7:19
  State, what were you majoring in?
• 7:20
  What was the like, I'm going to be a lawyer.
• 7:22
  I'm going to be a business owner.
• 7:24
  What was the plan? If coaching wasn't in your
• 7:26
  mindset. Well, then I have big dreams.
• 7:30
  I thought I was gonna be on ESPN.
• 7:32
  I thought I was going to be likes to Scott and I was like,
• 7:34
  all right? Yeah, and so I did
• 7:37
  Communications and then I got out of Stations, they did
• 7:42
  education. So I was going to be a teacher
• 7:43
  and I wanted to teach and coach and then I got out of that.
• 7:48
  I hate it. So listen.
• 7:49
  This is the, this is a funny story and I probably shouldn't
• 7:52
  tell this story because my ideas are gonna probably like on to
• 7:54
  it, but I hate it. Anatomy and physiology and I
• 7:59
  hate it. I think it was, it was algebra
• 8:01
  and I algebra was all online. I couldn't do algebra, and
• 8:05
  anatomy. And so you needed those two
• 8:07
  classes. I think to be, to be a teacher I
• 8:10
  hated them the most. So I ended up changing my degree
• 8:12
  again the recreation. So I didn't know.
• 8:14
  So I didn't have to, I didn't have to take those classes, but,
• 8:19
  but it ended up working out. I ended up working out really
• 8:21
  well. It did, I graduated, with a rake
• 8:24
  degree at Emporia State and so it blended into to everything
• 8:30
  that, you know, has ended up today and then it sounds like,
• 8:35
  still coaching was in the mix. But then Dave was like, do you
• 8:37
  want to be a g? A, is that, when it when the the
• 8:40
  switch flipped of like, oh wait a minute that this could be me.
• 8:43
  No. I'm no, I said, you know, I just
• 9:12
  want to graduate. I want to be done.
• 9:13
  I'll, you know, I'll go work at the YMCA or something like that
• 9:16
  somewhere and so probably three weeks after that, there's a guy
• 9:23
  that was really involved in a program and Just Sports and
• 9:27
  Athletics in that Emporia area, excuse me as a whole, he came in
• 9:34
  and he asked me if I wanted to coach at a high school and The
• 9:40
  area one, a small one, a high school.
• 9:43
  I would be like the head boys coach, and we had ahead girls
• 9:47
  coach as well. And so that one kind of
• 9:50
  intrigued me a little bit more, because I didn't have to go to
• 9:52
  school. I didn't have to, I didn't have
• 9:54
  to go and take classes and do all that stuff so I told her.
• 9:57
  Yeah. I mean, I told him yes, you know
• 10:00
  how be interested in. So I ended up getting the job as
• 10:03
  head, boys track track and field coach at Hartford High School.
• 10:08
  As I was finishing my degree at him.
• 10:10
  Real estate. And so that's how I, that's how
• 10:14
  I got into it and started coaching.
• 10:16
  So what Drew you into I I can fully respect the not want to do
• 10:21
  GA because you don't want to go to grad school because that was
• 10:24
  me by the way. I didn't, I was done once I got
• 10:26
  that undergrads, like I grew up, maybe you probably are different
• 10:29
  here Doug but I grew up thinking, you know, no, no one
• 10:33
  in my family had a degree. So to get a degree in undergrad
• 10:35
  was like a big thing. I might as well been a PhD for
• 10:38
  crying out loud. So, To go above and beyond that,
• 10:41
  with just was like, that one. Even in my mind said, I wasn't
• 10:43
  going to grad school and and all that.
• 10:45
  So what was it about going? And I can imagine this one, a
• 10:48
  high school in Kansas Heaven coached in Kansas myself.
• 10:51
  I, you know, there's cornfield wheat Fields, there's nothing
• 10:54
  else. There's not many kids on the
• 10:55
  team, probably because it's a small school, they're all
• 10:58
  probably, you know, duel and triathletes do another Sports.
• 11:02
  What was it that first year there at Hartford?
• 11:05
  That was like, oh like did was that a the snap of like oh wait
• 11:09
  a minute. This is like, this is me like
• 11:11
  did you find yourself there or was it just the ability to be on
• 11:15
  track all day? Because, you know, it's not a
• 11:17
  terrible thing either right now, it was it was really the key is
• 11:21
  man. It was the the athletes once I
• 11:24
  got into it and I knew you know, at the end of my senior year, I
• 11:28
  wasn't going to be a professional athlete.
• 11:31
  I wasn't going to be able to go on and things like that but I
• 11:35
  love, I love the sport knives. I grown to love the sport even
• 11:39
  more. Or through throughout college.
• 11:41
  And so then being able to get on the other side of it and coach,
• 11:46
  and I was kind of like living out my dreams through them.
• 11:50
  And so like now I'm like, okay, now I get a chance to develop
• 11:54
  athletes and then I start thinking about Coach white wood
• 11:56
  and you know what I mean? Just kind of impact that he had
• 11:58
  as a coating. So then that that that kind of
• 12:01
  started growing my interest and you know and then they started
• 12:05
  getting better and they get they kept getting better and then we
• 12:08
  built relationships. And you know what?
• 12:09
  And so, to just kind of see the joy and them, you know, even
• 12:16
  through the hard workouts, just just going through it and going
• 12:19
  through an entire season and and continuing to see them and put
• 12:22
  progress throughout the season and then just seeing the Joy on
• 12:26
  their faces when they did. Well you know what I mean?
• 12:29
  Like that made me happy as a coach and then being able to
• 12:33
  impact them and impact their lives.
• 12:36
  You know off the track. Like I was like okay like this
• 12:38
  is cool job I got I could I could definitely see myself.
• 12:41
  You know, doing something like this for for, for a while.
• 12:46
  So it's appears that like someone like a coach white would
• 12:49
  obviously had such an influence with you on that.
• 12:52
  They're not just triple jumpers or 100 meter sprinters like
• 12:56
  there. People there, Bobby Tommy Chong,
• 12:59
  you know, they're they're just they're people first that happen
• 13:01
  to do an event and having to do our sport.
• 13:03
  So it sounds like coach Whitewood had a great influence
• 13:06
  on, you know, there, what was your coaching?
• 13:09
  Philosophy. Did you even have coaching
• 13:12
  philosophy that early typically we kind of fall back on how we
• 13:15
  were coach? Which not always a bad thing but
• 13:18
  how did you kind of how are you formulating your actual training
• 13:21
  knowing that we don't talk about X's and O's here.
• 13:23
  Doug you know just overall that philosophy.
• 13:26
  Yeah so I have man I really didn't know anything and like
• 13:31
  looking back at it now, you know, like I really didn't know
• 13:35
  anything about, you know what I mean.
• 13:36
  The philosophy or even setting up training and things like
• 13:39
  that. I just just kind of did the same
• 13:40
  things that we were doing in college.
• 13:43
  Just kind of mimic the workouts. I talked to my college coach and
• 13:47
  he sent me some stuff, you know, workout wise and things like
• 13:51
  that. And so I just kind of just I
• 13:53
  started tweaking stuff. I knew.
• 13:55
  Okay. They can't handle this type of,
• 13:57
  you know what I mean. This type of training like
• 13:59
  they're not at this point. So I just kind of tweaked stuff
• 14:02
  and it just stuff, you know, here and there like that.
• 14:04
  But like as far as like setting up things like I didn't know how
• 14:08
  to set up training and Then microcycle, you know, all of
• 14:11
  that stuff. I had no clue.
• 14:13
  I was just, I was just going out there and, hey, let's jump
• 14:16
  today. Lets, you know, we're going to
• 14:18
  do this. We're gonna do this, this this,
• 14:19
  and, and we would go out and do it.
• 14:21
  And so they, they, I mean, they, they bought in, and they just
• 14:27
  continue to get better. There's a fallacy out there that
• 14:33
  great athlete sometime, I like, you know, guys, that make it to
• 14:36
  the NFL, you know, high level women's basketball, coaches.
• 14:39
  In in and in our example, you know, NCAA All-American.
• 14:43
  So really, really good athletes. Don't make great coaches because
• 14:47
  the majority of people that you coach aren't good athlete.
• 14:51
  I mean, it's rare to become a great athlete, right?
• 14:53
  And so they don't know how that, you know, uncoordinated freshman
• 14:57
  in heart Hartford, yeah, heart for kids, this they can do it,
• 15:01
  right. But the reason I say that's a
• 15:03
  fallacy is because I think, if you are even a decent athlete,
• 15:06
  you have that Crux, sometimes you just Forget what it was like
• 15:10
  to be that gangly freshman. You just do, I picked it up and
• 15:13
  I figured out how to jump 49, feet, 50, whatever.
• 15:16
  You know, you might have jumped in college.
• 15:19
  Did you have that at all? When you first got there?
• 15:22
  Could you talk about getting workouts from coach?
• 15:24
  Did you, did you, were you able at that really rookie early year
• 15:28
  of your coaching to understand? Like, oh, what I did is a Junior
• 15:32
  and senior, like, what things already, I was able to pick up
• 15:34
  these kids, like they can barely chew gum and walk at the same
• 15:38
  time. Were you able to immediately
• 15:40
  understand that part? Or did you struggle?
• 15:42
  Maybe a little bit? There, it was a struggle at
• 15:44
  first, you know, it was a struggle trying to get, you
• 15:47
  know, at that point I was trying to get, you know, high school
• 15:50
  athletes that, you know, a lot of times are just coming out to,
• 15:55
  you know, to come out to, to run or coming out because their
• 15:58
  friend is coming out or, you know, whatever the case is.
• 16:01
  And so I was asking them to, you know, to do repeat 200.
• 16:06
  So, you know, I'm looking at them.
• 16:09
  Like how are you? So ugly.
• 16:10
  So I like, what is going on? And I it's so like just over
• 16:15
  time, I had to kind of, I had to kind of take a step back and
• 16:19
  kind of look at things that I was like, okay, this is stuff
• 16:22
  that we did at Emporia State. You know what I mean?
• 16:25
  Where you got athletes getting recruited to run track, they've
• 16:29
  been running them or you got high school, I mean, got it,
• 16:31
  College Juniors and seniors and things like that.
• 16:35
  Who have been in the game for a while and I'm asking you know,
• 16:38
  it sometimes. Freshmen and sophomores in high
• 16:41
  school that have never run tracking their lives to do.
• 16:45
  Repeat 200. If so.
• 16:48
  And so, you know, I, you know, I took a step back and, you know,
• 16:52
  you start to learn and you start to tweak things that, you know,
• 16:56
  I that's one thing that I really try.
• 16:58
  Try out hard to do and I still do to this day it's just kind of
• 17:02
  evaluate where everybody is that but you know, just just that
• 17:06
  evaluation process and realize about they these kids can They
• 17:10
  might not be able to handle, you know, this type of workload.
• 17:13
  Let's let's lower it or, you know, let's adjust it or tweak
• 17:16
  it or you go straight beginner, you know, like all the way, all
• 17:21
  the way to the beginning stages and develop from there.
• 17:24
  So, you learn those things through trial and error.
• 17:27
  But yeah, it was an adjustment. We get excited as coaches
• 17:32
  because we can see the potential.
• 17:34
  Yeah, that's one of the great things about coaches.
• 17:35
  They see potential in others before they can see it in
• 17:38
  themselves. But that has to be tempered
• 17:41
  with. Okay, we're still at day one or
• 17:43
  you know they're not they're not a gold medalist right off the
• 17:47
  bat you know they're right process there so that's also I
• 17:51
  appreciate your you know, humbleness to say hey man, I
• 17:53
  struggled there, I appreciate that's good.
• 17:54
  It's good for people to hear that there.
• 17:57
  There used to be, I'm a huge proponent of coaching education
• 18:01
  and came up through the usatf coaching education side, before
• 18:04
  you stfc, CCA, and Altis and some other great avenues that
• 18:09
  are out there. But there used to be to do a
• 18:11
  level two. You obviously had to have a
• 18:13
  level one certificate but you also had to coach for five years
• 18:17
  before you do that and people struggle with that like no I
• 18:20
  want to I just want to go to level 2 and learn but I think to
• 18:23
  your point about like those first few years of like I'm
• 18:25
  still trying to find my way. I think that's important to get
• 18:28
  that education. And then get the experience of
• 18:31
  making mistakes and getting a really talented freshmen and
• 18:35
  they freshman who will not run for you after that year because
• 18:38
  of other things. And understanding like, oh you
• 18:40
  have to, you have to figure out how to do both, and it's not the
• 18:43
  same. What'd you do with our is not
• 18:45
  what you're doing with the other.
• 18:46
  So I think that's really important.
• 18:48
  So, how long were you at Hartford?
• 18:49
  And what was next? What was your ambition with
• 18:52
  coaching at this point? Now that you kind of got the bug
• 18:54
  if you will? Yes I was there for I think
• 18:58
  officially baby two years so long ago I feel like but yeah I
• 19:05
  was like maybe you were so young get out of here.
• 19:08
  What else? In Garden City, Kansas.
• 19:41
  And while I was out there, I missed it, man.
• 19:47
  Like, I missed coaching, I went through my first year at the Y,
• 19:53
  and I just kind of caught myself.
• 19:55
  I did at high school, you know, that the high school in town.
• 19:58
  I'd go over to their meats and, you know, kind of watch a little
• 20:02
  bit of their meats. And so, I actually had a
• 20:04
  teammate in college. That was coaching the pole vault
• 20:08
  there. At the time Marcus Sommers.
• 20:11
  And so he reached out to me and he was like, Hey man like you
• 20:16
  would you be interested in coaching and songs like shoes if
• 20:21
  I can make it work between between a y and here then you
• 20:26
  know, most definitely and so he was like well you know I jumps
• 20:29
  coach is he is I think we're going to be looking for a jumps
• 20:36
  coach next year and so I can, you know, I can let our head
• 20:39
  coach know that you might be interested and so I was like,
• 20:43
  oh, yeah, for sure, like, like go ahead and write this is at
• 20:46
  Garden City Community College. This is a Garden City.
• 20:49
  High School, High School. Yeah.
• 20:50
  Okay. Good, perfect.
• 20:51
  Yep. Keep going.
• 20:51
  Yeah, yeah. So this is a Garden City, High
• 20:54
  School. And so he asked me.
• 20:56
  And so we went through the year that I think next fall Mike
• 21:03
  Smith. Amazing amazing man.
• 21:05
  Like he's a, he's a, he's a, heck of a coach but Mike Smith
• 21:11
  reached out to me. I had a chance to meet with him
• 21:15
  and he hired me as the Suppose horizontal jumps comes along and
• 21:20
  triple jump coach out there for Garden City, High School.
• 21:25
  And so that that really sparked my interest like that, that
• 21:29
  really just kind of is what like I was just like, yeah, I this is
• 21:34
  I mean, I Garden City High School, that's when I realized
• 21:36
  that, you know, coaching is what what I really wanted to do.
• 21:39
  So, you're back in it, you're back with the toes in the sand
• 21:42
  pit, you know, for our gym sketches.
• 21:44
  That's where we always want to be.
• 21:45
  We don't want to be in the office doing good.
• 21:50
  How did that experience a Garden, City High School
• 21:53
  compared to that first opportunity at Hartford was a
• 21:57
  very similar different, what was it?
• 21:58
  Like, I was completely different.
• 22:01
  So I don't think a lot of people realize this but Garden City is
• 22:04
  probably, I think it's one of the top three biggest largest
• 22:08
  high schools in the state of Kansas really.
• 22:11
  Yeah, it's huge. It's huge.
• 22:15
  And so I went from having And maybe God maybe at Hartford 2025
• 22:22
  kids on the team as a whole. And I think I had like 30 or
• 22:27
  maybe 40 kids in the jumps crew below, it was it was a huge
• 22:33
  team. I think we probably have close
• 22:35
  to probably pretty close to a hundred kids while I'm on the
• 22:39
  track and field team between between JV and varsity.
• 22:45
  It was it was a big team of the huge team.
• 22:47
  And so it was a big adjustment. You almost had more kids on the
• 22:51
  team, then maybe Hartford had as a school.
• 22:56
  I mean, to Harvard is pretty small.
• 22:57
  I guarantee it. Yeah, it is.
• 23:00
  Yeah, that would be a little bit different to figure out as
• 23:04
  you're still formulating, how to actually coach, you know, how to
• 23:06
  take the things that you learned and experienced as an athlete,
• 23:09
  how to coach? But also how to do that with 30
• 23:13
  kids, that's different than one on five and one on 10.
• 23:17
  You know, that that's its own. The Entity of coaching is the
• 23:20
  quantity of kids and then adding in all their different skill
• 23:24
  levels. Not only skill levels because we
• 23:26
  talked about that a lot, but their commitment levels, you
• 23:29
  know, you're touched on earlier like oh the, you know, you got
• 23:31
  some group of kids that, you know, they're there five days a
• 23:34
  week that you know, they're they're they're talking about
• 23:37
  what's tomorrow's work out, you know, those kind of things and
• 23:39
  you have other kids are like yeah I'm gonna miss tomorrow
• 23:41
  because Dennis dipalma whatever you do.
• 23:43
  I'm just not going to be here that that had to be such an
• 23:46
  experience of like, wow, there's a Whole bunch of kids here.
• 23:49
  What in the world? Do I do now?
• 23:51
  Yeah, it was, it was, it was a, it was a big transition.
• 23:55
  And so I, we structured and Coach Smith was great.
• 23:59
  Like he was, he was great. He was a great coach but
• 24:02
  organizationally like he was amazing at kind of giving us
• 24:06
  some different ideas of how to do things or, you know, how to
• 24:09
  structure your group of things like that.
• 24:10
  And so we ended up breaking the group's up and and I had
• 24:14
  basically like a varsity practice and I had If you
• 24:18
  practice and then we just kind of broke it up like that.
• 24:21
  And if gives moved up to Varsity, then they would just
• 24:24
  basically move up to the varsity practice.
• 24:26
  And so it kind of It kind of helped with, you know, how we,
• 24:29
  how we balance things and being able to, you know, I mean just
• 24:35
  just kind of Coach a little bit better but it was it was some
• 24:38
  some days it was like it was a madhouse because we had I think
• 24:42
  four different pits and they went both ways.
• 24:45
  And so I'd have guys going one way and I have girls going one
• 24:49
  way and I'm just kind of walking up and down, you know that the
• 24:53
  runway and just kind of trying to coach people at different
• 24:55
  times. And so I'm trying to give him as
• 24:59
  many athletes attention as I can possibly give them during the
• 25:02
  day but it was it was crazy sometimes.
• 25:05
  Yeah, that's the perfect example.
• 25:07
  When people talk about, you know, I write every individual
• 25:12
  workouts for every kid and I'm like, really do you like what do
• 25:15
  you have for kids like like real.
• 25:18
  Those people on all levels, not just high school but an auto
• 25:21
  levels. Your coach anywhere, between 10
• 25:23
  to 30, 40, 50, kids, in event are so individual workouts
• 25:27
  value, you group. And let's not, let's not try to
• 25:30
  Hero complex. Here, you're grouping.
• 25:32
  Okay, the a jumpers are doing, this features are doing that.
• 25:36
  So, what did you what year is this roughly?
• 25:40
  This is 20. 14, 2013, somewhere in there, it's around 13 14,
• 25:48
  where are you? Are you doing anything coaching,
• 25:51
  education wise, the anything like the Kansas track Clinic
• 25:56
  going to clinics anything like that?
• 25:57
  Any any kind of coaching education at this point?
• 26:00
  Yes, I didn't know I didn't I didn't really know anything
• 26:04
  about coaches education. And so at that at that point you
• 26:08
  know, we had, we had some really talented jumpers and so I kind
• 26:13
  of wanted Learn a little bit more about, you know what I
• 26:16
  mean? The development.
• 26:16
  And so I went I end up going to complete track and field, I
• 26:19
  think it was complete track and field and and that's where I
• 26:24
  kind of got into the world of booths schexnayder and you know
• 26:28
  kind of learn and Walter Davis was actually my favorite jumper
• 26:32
  growing up like going through college and all of that stuff.
• 26:35
  And so I didn't know a lot about boo, but I knew a ton about
• 26:38
  Walter. Yeah, and you know, I had a
• 26:40
  friend that went out to to LSU and so Then as I started going,
• 26:45
  you know, and kind of searching through complete track of feel.
• 26:48
  That's when I kind of learned about Boo and, you know, they
• 26:53
  had some of his videos. And and so I ended up buying one
• 26:57
  of his jumps packages at the time and just kind of soaked it
• 27:00
  in man. Like I think you know how, you
• 27:02
  know how like growing up yet you got those certain movies and you
• 27:05
  know like almost every word to 100% like I can probably if you
• 27:11
  put on if you put on that complete track and field I can
• 27:13
  probably you know, Gotta tell you every like, I could go work
• 27:16
  for wear with boots on the video so I just kind of soaked
• 27:19
  everything in see this proves how young you are because I'm
• 27:22
  going to speak to the generation of my age which you know,
• 27:25
  there's gonna be people older that are going to make fun of me
• 27:27
  and my age group. But to those that point about
• 27:30
  the videos that you, you know, rewind and I'm talking to VCR,
• 27:33
  you probably bought the DVD package.
• 27:35
  We, we have you but you know, the videos that you rewind you
• 27:38
  re-watch. You wear out the tape.
• 27:40
  There were there was a volume 1, volume 2.
• 27:43
  I'm going to get all the names. And stuff incorrect.
• 27:45
  So someone correct me on Twitter.
• 27:47
  I think it's called speed systems.
• 27:48
  It was Lauren Seagrave and don't say Kevin Tyler and I don't
• 27:52
  think that's the right name but they they're they're tape
• 27:56
  system, there's system one and system two there, two VHS tapes.
• 27:59
  Revolutionize coaches and my are that was the tape that we
• 28:02
  watched over and over about ground contact Time speed
• 28:05
  training, things like that. That was our coaching Bible if
• 28:09
  you will and much like this you know this collection of Boo
• 28:12
  schexnayder videos were You. So, but you're doing it, you
• 28:16
  were doing it on DVD so that's not the same.
• 28:20
  What was it? You know, we talked before we
• 28:22
  hit record here day about Boo schexnayder, and I've made my
• 28:25
  feelings known here on the podcast about Boo.
• 28:28
  And if you haven't listened to our episode with boo, you might
• 28:31
  be the only one who hasn't to be real Frank with you.
• 28:33
  It's our number one episode and we've done 100.
• 28:36
  And this is number 163. So out of 163 amazing.
• 28:40
  Awesome strong and powerful track coaches around the Old
• 28:44
  blue schexnayder rightfully reign, supreme.
• 28:47
  You need to go listen to it and if I tell you honestly, if
• 28:50
  you've listened to it before I tell you, go listen to it again
• 28:53
  because there's so many gyms, not only his uplifting, an honor
• 28:56
  and his journey. But what he talks about in the
• 28:58
  profession of coaching, I think, was so, so powerful.
• 29:01
  And important that we, we scream it from The Mountaintop, we need
• 29:04
  to hear it over and over again, but but for you Doug, what was
• 29:08
  it? When you're watch that?
• 29:09
  Take the, can you remember that first time you watched it and
• 29:12
  maybe things clicked, or maybe it was the way.
• 29:14
  Talked with that nice accent of his or maybe was the way he
• 29:17
  explained things. What was it that resonated with
• 29:20
  you on that that you're, you know, you were hooked to watch
• 29:22
  it 10, 20, 100 times more. Yeah, I think, I think the thing
• 29:29
  for me was kind of the way he explains things technically and
• 29:35
  it just kind of rolls off of this tongue and is so simplistic
• 29:40
  and, you know what I mean? I guess it's it's easy for
• 29:44
  anybody to understand you know the way he like it.
• 29:48
  If he could teach a baby how to walk in three months, you know
• 29:51
  what I mean? Because I could just explain it
• 29:55
  and Ever, baby firms and hit like and a baby will get up and
• 30:00
  start walking. And so like just just kind of
• 30:03
  how simplistic the way you know, that the way that he just kind
• 30:06
  of rolled things off of his tongue, but that is the best
• 30:11
  descriptor I've ever heard of his stock because you're so
• 30:14
  right. You said, you know how
• 30:15
  simplistic it is. And in general, we like to think
• 30:18
  of like, when you call anything simplistic, you're not typically
• 30:20
  given that, a, that's not a positive, that's not a good
• 30:24
  thing, right? It's okay, so simplistic.
• 30:26
  But that is the power of his teaching is it is simple like
• 30:30
  he's teaching high-level things, but he's teaching, you know,
• 30:32
  you're way smarter than I am. Even a dummy like me was able to
• 30:35
  catch some things like oh my goodness, like I can coach, you
• 30:38
  know, so I love that. That was the best description
• 30:40
  I've ever heard you. Teach a three-month-old a walk
• 30:42
  right now. Can we talk?
• 30:43
  Maybe Turner's, man. It's amazing.
• 30:46
  So how did you soak up that information?
• 30:48
  And what did you start again without talking X's and O's
• 30:51
  here. But what did you start changing?
• 30:53
  What were some of the things that you put into play for your?
• 30:56
  Based off of, you know, him and another may be things that you
• 30:58
  did for coaching education. Yeah.
• 31:01
  So a lot of the Simplicity I kind of took that back to, you
• 31:06
  know, the way I coached and I wouldn't expect maybe explaining
• 31:09
  the same terms that he would explain it in, but right, but,
• 31:12
  you know, kind of twist it and make it work for the athletes
• 31:15
  that I had and things like that. But, you know, that part of it
• 31:19
  and then just just the progression.
• 31:21
  I think that's when I really started to learn how to progress
• 31:24
  an athlete through, Through learning how to do different
• 31:27
  things and how to, how to put the runway together if you know
• 31:30
  what I mean. Like, just and not talking X's
• 31:33
  and O's like you said, but like just kind of how to build an
• 31:36
  entire, you know what I mean program and structure things
• 31:39
  about and and then learn how to tweak because you know, it's not
• 31:43
  all going to go at the same speed that you wanted to go.
• 31:46
  And then especially at the high school level, like you got some
• 31:49
  kids that I had kids, that will pick stuff up and that day that
• 31:53
  I taught him. I had kids that It would take
• 31:56
  two weeks for him to pick it up. And so, you know, just kind of
• 32:00
  trying to, like the way he explained, you know, how to
• 32:03
  structure things out. And, you know, how to how to
• 32:07
  progress throughout the year and things like that.
• 32:10
  Like, that's really, you know, kind of what I took back from,
• 32:15
  you know, from just from a lot of the videos that I would
• 32:17
  watch. So you're officially a coach
• 32:21
  now, not that you weren't at Hartford but like you're calling
• 32:24
  now seems to be like, okay, Yeah, this is, this is why I was
• 32:27
  put here, I'm here to be a coach.
• 32:30
  What was your motivation for career path?
• 32:33
  Where you thinking coaching college at all at this point?
• 32:36
  Or were you still like, yeah, I'll maybe I got to figure out
• 32:38
  how to go back and get an education teaching.
• 32:39
  Do you certificates? Are going to be a high school
• 32:41
  coach? What was the kind of the at that
• 32:43
  point? The motive, the the path you
• 32:45
  were seeking or thought maybe you were seeking at that point
• 32:48
  for coaching. Yeah, so funny part is, like,
• 32:52
  once I started like looking and watching, boo, like I start
• 32:55
  looking at his car. And I was like, okay he was a
• 32:57
  high school coach and then, you know what I mean?
• 33:00
  He then he when he moved into the Collegiate, the Collegiate,
• 33:03
  where I mean he started college, I think he was coaching at blend
• 33:08
  and for a little bit and so then I kind of looked at his past and
• 33:11
  I was like, okay, just do the smart as heck.
• 33:13
  He's a great coach, you know. It'd be nice to be able to
• 33:17
  coach, you know, a high school champion and then maybe move on
• 33:20
  and coach collegiately and things like that.
• 33:22
  And so at that point I coach the long jump Champion I Guy, I
• 33:26
  think I had two two dudes on the on.
• 33:30
  In the top three that year. And so then I was like, okay, I
• 33:33
  you know, I feel like I feel confident enough to be able to
• 33:35
  go into the college side of things and coach at the college
• 33:40
  kind of side and so I didn't have anything.
• 33:44
  The, the coaching Garden City ended up reaching out to me
• 33:50
  about, you know, potentially helping out with the jumps and
• 33:55
  and the jumpers for him, they were starting to track and field
• 33:58
  program again. Then I think that was like, the
• 34:01
  year maybe the year after tire, you kill Ram like 99 or
• 34:06
  something like that. Something crazy.
• 34:07
  They, they only had cross country at the time at that
• 34:11
  time. And so then I think they started
• 34:13
  kind of transitioning into the track and field side of things.
• 34:16
  And so he was coming in. He was going to take over the
• 34:20
  program. He wanted to know if I would
• 34:21
  help. He was just going to pay me a
• 34:22
  little stipend. I'll keep my job at the Y and,
• 34:26
  you know, he was like all you got to do is come out and coach.
• 34:29
  Is not go to interview meet and so I told him yeah, like I was
• 34:34
  on board I was ready to go. I was good and I actually went
• 34:39
  back to coach Smith the after that last season and you know I
• 34:44
  thank them for everything and I let them know.
• 34:46
  You know, I got hey coach, I'm probably not going to come back
• 34:49
  next year. Just wanted to let you know now
• 34:52
  so you can find somebody else. And so quit my job like a month
• 34:58
  later. I found.
• 34:59
  Found out that he got offered another job and so he left.
• 35:04
  And so I was like, okay, alright so I'm back at square one you
• 35:10
  know, with that whole thing. And so at that point, you know,
• 35:16
  I was just kind of keeping in contact with the administration
• 35:20
  at Garden City, you know? I let them know that, you know,
• 35:23
  if anything opened up, so I'd be interested things like that.
• 35:26
  And so then they hired another Coach.
• 35:30
  And I think I might, I might have caught him who probably
• 35:35
  like 20 times a day man trying to trying to just kind of give
• 35:38
  our foot in the door. And, you know, I told him, you
• 35:42
  know, I I'll take anything like even if you know even if it's a
• 35:46
  volunteer position just got to be in the world like I'll take
• 35:50
  it and so he ended up getting back to me and he was like yeah
• 35:54
  you know you want to help out come on out.
• 35:56
  This is when we have practice and so I started He's showing up
• 36:00
  and just kind of really just help him.
• 36:03
  Like I feel like I at that point I was like an intern but so
• 36:07
  you're not just getting paid you.
• 36:09
  This is you showing up, you don't even know.
• 36:11
  You have a place threat in this program.
• 36:15
  You're just all right. I'm here.
• 36:16
  Use me, let me help whatever I can do.
• 36:19
  Yeah, wow. Yeah.
• 36:20
  At this point I was just going to makes, man, like I was just,
• 36:23
  I was just, you know, out there, I'd help him, you know, set up,
• 36:27
  you know, if you needed the extra time.
• 36:29
  Rod, help. I'm fine.
• 36:31
  Jessica, I mean just to get my foot in the door and so ended up
• 36:35
  working out like I think 33 weeks later.
• 36:39
  I think the assistant coach ended up leaving and you know,
• 36:43
  he asked me if I wanted to move up to assistant coach.
• 36:46
  And so at that point that's when you know, I quit my job at at
• 36:53
  the YMCA and you know, I started coaching full-time Garden City,
• 36:58
  Howard. Excited, were you when he made
• 37:01
  that phone call, because even when the assistant coach quit, I
• 37:05
  have to imagine there's still no certainty in your brain.
• 37:07
  Like, oh, okay, well, I'm going to get it obviously.
• 37:09
  So, you know, they're still like, I don't know, my it's
• 37:11
  going to be an intern for this year.
• 37:14
  But when he called to say, hey do you want to be the assistant
• 37:17
  coach? Like like can you measure the
• 37:19
  front like where you just like Overjoyed like, oh my first
• 37:22
  college gig man, I'm in Yeah no I was I was going crazy, man.
• 37:27
  Like I got this thing I when I get really excited like I just
• 37:30
  take off and run. Like lastly I'll just run that
• 37:33
  is how we are completely different.
• 37:35
  My friend was around the sad. Happy excited perplexed.
• 37:41
  I ain't running around. No, no, I do.
• 37:45
  I cannot connect with you on this.
• 37:46
  I don't know what this is where that comes from.
• 37:51
  You were pumped. He told me, he asked me so I
• 38:02
  told him. Yeah, definitely.
• 38:03
  I definitely be interested in. So I went outside.
• 38:07
  I think I ran down the street and tiredly walked back back
• 38:12
  home. Now I was I was really excited.
• 38:16
  I was it was it was definitely something that you know I've
• 38:19
  been really thinking hard about it and you know I really want it
• 38:22
  was my passionate Braun and track and field.
• 38:25
  And so, you know, that was, that was, I mean, obviously, you
• 38:30
  know, one of the one of the most special days of my career.
• 38:34
  What do you, you know, I, in the same vein, I can remember the
• 38:37
  first call. I got ya, I started very similar
• 38:40
  as a high school coach up in the Chicago area and I remember the
• 38:44
  first time I got that call of like, hey, you know, we're gonna
• 38:47
  hire you as a college coach and I remember and I was, you know,
• 38:51
  so young, so dumb, not much has changed.
• 38:54
  Except for I'm not young anymore, but I remember thinking
• 38:57
  personally it was like, oh, I'm in the big time now.
• 39:00
  I was at Troy University, which is the greatest University in
• 39:03
  the world but it's not like I was at Alabama Auburn whatever
• 39:08
  you do. I'm saying in fact it was a new
• 39:10
  program had just kind of started the last few years but I started
• 39:13
  thinking like oh well everything that the intensity has to ramp
• 39:17
  up 100, everything has to ramp up 100 and what I found was the
• 39:21
  reality was Oh no you're still dealing with people here.
• 39:24
  Dealing with kids, maybe they're a little older, maybe they're a
• 39:28
  little bit more experience, but they ain't again, they're not
• 39:30
  gold medalist. They do, they're not awesome.
• 39:33
  They don't, they've been working out and doing high level track
• 39:35
  and field for a long time. And so, I made the mistake of
• 39:37
  coming in and just, you know, go in everything at 101 a rally, I
• 39:42
  needed to kind of pump the brakes and figure things out.
• 39:45
  What works? What doesn't work?
• 39:46
  Who am I working with? Who am I not working with
• 39:48
  etcetera? What was that experience?
• 39:50
  You know, you've now been working.
• 39:51
  You've had this goal of being a college coach, you quit?
• 39:54
  Everything and and got nothing meaning to pay, you know, you
• 39:57
  were just out there, hanging out and now you, you get your
• 39:59
  official your the, the stamp is on you, you are a college coach.
• 40:03
  What was it? Like, during that first few
• 40:04
  months of practice and, you know, all the things that go
• 40:07
  with it, you know, you get your gear and you got to learn how to
• 40:09
  recruit and figure that out and all that kind of stuff.
• 40:12
  What was it? Like that experience for you?
• 40:14
  Those first few months. Yeah so it was insane.
• 40:20
  It was it was nice because at the time I had taken over, you
• 40:25
  know, I obviously, I was transitioning out of a job at
• 40:29
  the YMCA and going into coaching full-time at the Collegiate
• 40:32
  level. And so, I had zero experience
• 40:34
  recruiting. I had 00 years experience
• 40:38
  coaching at the college level as well.
• 40:41
  And so it was a different beast and then I was dealing with also
• 40:46
  a group of athletes who at, you know, got recruited by one guy,
• 40:53
  you know? And then he leaves and then, you
• 40:56
  know, you have another coach come in and then he has an
• 40:59
  assistant and then that the assistant coach was their coach
• 41:02
  then he leaves and so, you know, they're on their third coach
• 41:06
  within a matter of a month and a half, they're looking at me.
• 41:10
  Like I was the countdown how long you 30 days 60 days you'll
• 41:14
  even just like everybody else is.
• 41:15
  Yeah, that's a great point. That that's another point that
• 41:18
  please don't talk about a lot in the coaching.
• 41:20
  Prefer a great great points there.
• 41:22
  Yeah, right. And so, Some night.
• 41:25
  Not only do I have to kind of try to build the trust of these
• 41:29
  athletes, but now they have to trust this coach that has zero
• 41:33
  years of experience as never coached in college in his life.
• 41:36
  You know, and only has a high school background.
• 41:39
  And so I think they kind of looked at me and they're just
• 41:42
  like like, you know what I mean? Like and rightfully.
• 41:46
  So right. Like, right?
• 41:48
  Like if a, if a dude grabs the, the wheels of the airplane it
• 41:51
  says yeah hop on. I've never flown before but hop
• 41:53
  on, I've done well. I love that you like to Garden
• 41:59
  City. Let's go.
• 41:59
  Let's jump. Like when you do you have never
• 42:01
  coached before? And by the way, I don't know.
• 42:03
  How long you're even going to be.
• 42:04
  Why should I listen to you? That's right.
• 42:07
  All the time. So, earning that trust with
• 42:09
  those athletes and at the same time, figuring yourself out,
• 42:12
  you're trying to figure out what, who am I as a coach, My
• 42:15
  Philosophy. What am I going to be doing here
• 42:17
  and learning all these new things?
• 42:18
  That sounds like a recipe for disaster?
• 42:20
  My friend? How did it go?
• 42:23
  It was So, if you thought the plane was crashing, it had
• 42:26
  crashed yet, like it hadn't crashed yet.
• 42:29
  Well liked and and so going through that, I knew I had to do
• 42:34
  something to build their trust. So I just kind of, I just kind
• 42:37
  of start showing up to every activity on campus that, you
• 42:42
  know what I mean. I felt like they would be at and
• 42:44
  just kind of got to kind of kind of got used to him.
• 42:47
  Got to got to know him a little bit more.
• 42:49
  I know that I mean the biggest thing is like, we were so close
• 42:51
  in age. Okay, at that point, I was like
• 42:53
  25. I've 24 25.
• 42:55
  And so, you know, you at that end and they're like, okay, what
• 42:58
  do you know like it did that the age difference was, you know
• 43:02
  what I mean? So I just kind of tried to get
• 43:04
  to know them like just the build the trust.
• 43:07
  And so we finally built the trust and then the head coach
• 43:10
  leave like that hiccups leaves. And so now I'm in a point where
• 43:15
  I'm like two months in or two and a half months in and now I'm
• 43:18
  the interim head coach and so I'm like, God dang.
• 43:23
  Wow. I mean I don't mean this
• 43:26
  offensively Doug but hopefully you'll agree with me and you
• 43:28
  push back. It's quite okay.
• 43:30
  You're the interim, head coach, you don't know anything two
• 43:35
  months, you probably don't even know exactly where the bathroom
• 43:37
  was from the office for crying out loud.
• 43:39
  I mean, that's amazing. That is literally what do they
• 43:41
  say out of The Frying Pan Into the Fire?
• 43:44
  He's like who's not hero will jump right into the fire gets
• 43:47
  even worse, right? Any thoughts because, you know,
• 43:52
  you kind of you have a lot of different options As when they
• 43:54
  say, hey we're going to be the interim head coach.
• 43:57
  You could quit that's an option and I don't know that how many
• 43:59
  people would necessarily fault you for that or, you know, you
• 44:03
  can dig in? Say, okay, well, I don't know
• 44:05
  anything. I better call reach out.
• 44:07
  Figure out, you know, you use people at the in my
• 44:09
  Administration and maybe others as well.
• 44:12
  What thoughts are going through head?
• 44:14
  Are you concerned at all and I don't use the word scared scared
• 44:18
  at all. Like you know I'm I'm flying
• 44:20
  this plane and don't add a flight.
• 44:21
  I'm literally going to crash this program.
• 44:23
  It's already skin. I'm just going to know what I'm
• 44:25
  going to finish it off here. What's going through your mind
• 44:28
  at this point, to be honest, I was just kind of all over the
• 44:32
  place. And like, at that point I had
• 44:34
  every group, you know what I mean?
• 44:35
  I had every, I had every single group I didn't really know any,
• 44:42
  like you said, I didn't know anything.
• 44:44
  Like I didn't know anything at all.
• 44:46
  And so, my number one thing was to try to get the kids to, you
• 44:52
  know, on board and just try to Hold everything together as long
• 44:56
  as possible. And so then it then it became a
• 45:00
  routine to where, you know, you just kind of you just kind of
• 45:04
  get used to seeing this groups, in this group and just kind of
• 45:07
  handing stuff out, but it was, it was Madness.
• 45:11
  Like, it was, it was definitely a crazy crazy time.
• 45:15
  Career-wise. And I was under a lot of stress,
• 45:17
  like, I was like, man, at this is what coaching is then I
• 45:22
  might, I might have to, you know, I'm a Go crawl back into
• 45:25
  the YMCA but no, it was, it was insane.
• 45:29
  That's why we project. That's what I wonder people in
• 45:32
  again, I'm guilty. I was the guy that, you know, as
• 45:34
  a high school coach and was like, oh man college is just so
• 45:36
  much easier and it's all you do you not to worry about other
• 45:39
  things? You have to worry about the job
• 45:40
  at the YMCA down to worry about teaching.
• 45:43
  I can just focus on coaching and you think we'll that is easier.
• 45:47
  Well, it has its own complexities especially for one
• 45:50
  who didn't even realize that those complexities we're going
• 45:53
  to be. A part of your responsibility.
• 45:55
  So how did you as you go through the year?
• 45:59
  You know, it's one thing to be a coach and, you know, and talking
• 46:02
  about, you know, being on the, on the field on the track and
• 46:05
  coaching long jumpers and now coaching throwers and distance
• 46:08
  and you got everybody. But there's also that
• 46:11
  responsibility of the head coach, there's forms to fill
• 46:14
  out. There's budgets to, to keep
• 46:16
  track of receipts, maybe hiring an assistant coach in, you're
• 46:20
  the intern by the way. So you're also kind of that
• 46:22
  overall, like, okay, I'm kind of View in every day to be the head
• 46:25
  coach of. That was a desire of yours.
• 46:27
  How did you balance the what I'ma call the, the coaching, the
• 46:30
  physical coaching side versus the head coach?
• 46:34
  I have to do all these different paper works and responsibilities
• 46:38
  along with that title. Yeah, so I spent a lot of time
• 46:43
  in my head lettuce, director's office, like just kind of trying
• 46:45
  to figure out how do I do this or, you know, if I need this,
• 46:50
  how do I get this? And so I'm really big.
• 46:54
  Going like trying not to make the same mistakes twice.
• 46:56
  Like I I really work hard not to make the same mistake twice.
• 47:00
  And so, you know, I was writing everything down step by step,
• 47:04
  like trying to try to figure out how to do everything on the
• 47:08
  administrative side. And then, you know, I had to
• 47:12
  kind of just kind of put a wall up between administrative side
• 47:15
  of things and the athletic side of things.
• 47:19
  And so like, when I went out to practice, I just kind of started
• 47:22
  putting the wall up and left. Ministrations that out because I
• 47:26
  had too many athletes to deal with by myself.
• 47:30
  And so I knew I couldn't, I couldn't think about.
• 47:33
  Oh man, I got to get receipts. And while I'm at practice, or
• 47:36
  you know what I mean? I gotta, I gotta make sure I
• 47:38
  turn this paperwork in to go recruit or whatever the case is.
• 47:41
  Like, I had to focus on what was going on with the athletes and
• 47:44
  so so then we just kind of started breaking practices up
• 47:48
  and you know what I mean? Like it became more manageable.
• 47:52
  And so once I got Like into like the routine that I needed to be
• 47:56
  in, you know, it became a lot easier.
• 48:01
  And so then, I mean, at that point, I thought I was like,
• 48:03
  okay, well maybe I can do is like maybe I could do the whole
• 48:06
  area coaching thing and actually, I applied for the head
• 48:10
  coaching job. I had no clue.
• 48:12
  I was not ready to be a head coach, man, like II didn't know
• 48:15
  anything looking back at it now, you know, like I organized
• 48:20
  everything out, you know what I mean?
• 48:21
  Practice wise, but I did my eye. Know anything about, you know,
• 48:25
  but being a head coach and, you know, the duties and things like
• 48:28
  that. And so it, it was, it was really
• 48:33
  great because I had an athletic director, Dan Delgado, and he
• 48:40
  didn't hire me. But, you know, and talking to
• 48:44
  him and things like that, you know, I kind of want to be back
• 48:47
  in, so he brought me into his office and then if, you know
• 48:50
  Dan, he doesn't mince words. Like he's going to tell you how
• 48:53
  It is, and he's going to keep it straightforward with you.
• 48:56
  And so, he sent me down here, and he told me, he said, you
• 48:59
  know, Doug, your great coach and he said, one day, you're going
• 49:02
  to be a really, really great head coach, but he said, you're
• 49:06
  just not ready yet. You're just not ready yet.
• 49:09
  And yeah, that's interesting. You know, we talked about and
• 49:13
  I've already mentioned it in today's episode that, you know,
• 49:16
  one of the powers of coaches is you see something in an athlete
• 49:20
  before. They can see it in themselves.
• 49:22
  We recently had Jimmy Holler at the athletic director of Iowa
• 49:25
  State University on podcast. And we talked about, you know,
• 49:29
  what, what's your role for coaches specifically track
• 49:32
  coaches and it was kind of the same thing as I do.
• 49:34
  The LED has to see things and assistant, coaches and head
• 49:37
  coaches that they don't see themselves.
• 49:38
  So, mr. Delgado, here seem to have, I
• 49:42
  mean, it's kind of funny now that we know you're the new head
• 49:44
  coach of University of North Texas that like he, he said,
• 49:47
  you're going to be a great head coach just not now, like he saw
• 49:52
  something in you then Maybe you didn't see in yourself at that
• 49:55
  time. That's, that's interesting that
• 49:57
  that's a different role, you know, an athletic director to a
• 49:59
  coach seeing that in an another person, wow, that had did they
• 50:03
  give you did that give you like hope or was it deflating of like
• 50:09
  I'm not getting this job? Yeah, so it was man, it was
• 50:14
  really deflated and again, I was at I was 20, I think I was 25 at
• 50:19
  the time, you know what I mean? And so I took it at disrespect,
• 50:23
  I was just like What do you mean?
• 50:24
  I'm not ready yet. You know what I mean?
• 50:27
  Yeah, sure, yeah, I get it man. If I was 25, same thing man.
• 50:31
  Absolutely. And and so I didn't get it as
• 50:34
  you know what I mean. Like I didn't under really
• 50:36
  really truly understand the depth of what he was saying,
• 50:38
  right? And you know, now looking back
• 50:42
  at it, I'm like, okay, bingo, I see you.
• 50:46
  Hit the nail on the head with that one because I was not, I
• 50:49
  was not ready and I had I had a lot to learn and so, He hired or
• 50:57
  they hired the as an Administration.
• 51:00
  They hired. Oh gosh.
• 51:04
  And I don't re putting them re Putnam.
• 51:06
  I love to do, man. They hired Ray Putnam as the
• 51:11
  head coach. He was a distance dude from up
• 51:14
  North like cash, staying like that Boston area.
• 51:19
  So he came in with like this really, really tough gritty.
• 51:24
  Boston, we're going to do this. If you have a bigger Western
• 51:27
  Kansas. Let me tell you what.
• 51:29
  You don't find. Western Kansas anybody from
• 51:32
  Boston. Yeah.
• 51:34
  Wow, exactly. And so he comes in with like
• 51:37
  this, this really rough this like really pretty like Austin,
• 51:41
  like, you know, like oh it's me against the world like, you
• 51:45
  know, it's so he came in like a drill sergeant where, you know,
• 51:50
  I was more of a Karen and you know communication Unlike come
• 51:54
  talk to me, you know, that type of coach and he came with like,
• 51:57
  the complete opposite. And so I hated it.
• 52:00
  Like, I hated it and the kids hated it, you know, I everybody
• 52:05
  hated it like and so, you know, the kids will kind of laugh at
• 52:09
  him cuz, you know, he's just serious like, like in-your-face
• 52:12
  type dude. And so, you know, we really
• 52:17
  bumped heads, you know, like and this is like you and I'm talking
• 52:20
  from out, then authenticity, you know what I mean?
• 52:23
  Like, What you thought like we really bumped heads for like
• 52:27
  maybe a year and a half that I was there.
• 52:29
  Like I didn't know what he was trying to do, you know, I didn't
• 52:34
  agree with it and you know, I keep he wanted me to coach a
• 52:37
  certain way and it wasn't me, you know, like we just really
• 52:42
  bumped heads for like a year and a half and thank God he didn't
• 52:46
  fire me like I and I still, it's funny because we talked to this
• 52:51
  day and I tell him the same thing.
• 52:53
  You know, I'm extremely grateful for him as a coach because I
• 52:58
  learned a lot from. But I thank God, he didn't fire
• 53:02
  me because you know, because of how much we bumped heads.
• 53:06
  And and so you know it had gotten to a point to where, you
• 53:10
  know, like I went into his office and I sat down and you
• 53:14
  know, we both just kind of we were just like look like this
• 53:18
  thing isn't going to get done with us being opposite opposite
• 53:22
  pass like we got it. To come together.
• 53:24
  We got to figure it out and, you know, he talked about me and the
• 53:28
  things that he liked about me as a coach, you know, and I talked
• 53:31
  about the things that I like that.
• 53:32
  So that was probably kind of the turning point for our
• 53:36
  relationship as a, you know, as head coach assistant coach and
• 53:41
  then we did like we just kind of started clicking and you know
• 53:44
  that was the point to where, you know, I Garden City wise, like
• 53:49
  we started getting better and better like for the kids.
• 53:54
  And for the athletes. And so shoots man, maybe six
• 53:59
  months after that point. Like here I was in, I was in
• 54:03
  Houston, Texas. And he calls me and he's like
• 54:06
  Doug, you got it, man. You're probably going to take
• 54:11
  over. He said I'm taking a job closer
• 54:13
  to home. And, you know, I talked to, I
• 54:18
  talked to Dan and the rest of the ladies and, you know, I told
• 54:21
  them that I want you to be the next head coach.
• 54:24
  He's no, I don't know if that's the direction they want to go
• 54:27
  in. But he's, I feel like you've
• 54:29
  earned it and good luck with everything.
• 54:32
  And so I was, it was a Bittersweet moment because, you
• 54:37
  know, like we had grown closer and closer, and closer together,
• 54:41
  you know, over those six months, and we really learn how to
• 54:44
  respect each other and work with each other.
• 54:46
  And, you know, I really started learning how to work for him as
• 54:49
  an assistant coach, but it was a really sweet moment.
• 54:53
  Because, you know, I think this is the opportunity that, you
• 54:56
  know, I kind of grown into over these past two and a half three
• 55:01
  years at that point. And so it was, it was a, it was
• 55:05
  interesting, man. It was interesting.
• 55:07
  So you got it. You got the head coaching job.
• 55:10
  Yes. With the same logo with the same
• 55:12
  ad, Delgado? Yes, I don't.
• 55:17
  I don't know if they'll gotta was still the idea at the time.
• 55:19
  I think he might have moved on. I was wondering if he gave you
• 55:22
  any feedback because A couple of years earlier, he said you're
• 55:25
  just not ready. And then now you were.
• 55:29
  I wonder if he had given you any feedback.
• 55:30
  Like, hey, here's this places. I've seen you grown that I, you
• 55:33
  know, I think you are maybe not ready because no one's ready for
• 55:37
  their first head coaching job. I truly believe that.
• 55:39
  I mean, you can have all the plans and formulating, and have
• 55:42
  an amazing mentors until you in the hot seat.
• 55:47
  It's an experience job. You have to have to get to get
• 55:49
  the experience of being in that seat, right?
• 55:52
  So I was just curious if I had given you any feedback and like,
• 55:54
  hey, here's where you're growing that I think, you know, we can
• 55:56
  give you the shot. So I just wonder about that.
• 55:59
  No. It's so that the baby at the
• 56:01
  time was John Green, and which that's, that's another, that's
• 56:04
  another guy that, you know, I do a lot, you know, a lot to grab
• 56:09
  very a lot of gratitude towards him because, you know,
• 56:12
  obviously, did he gave me my first head coaching job and, and
• 56:16
  So but I did call then afterwards I did call him after
• 56:21
  I finally you know I got the official phone call from Tony
• 56:24
  thing, tell me you didn't call and rub it in his face.
• 56:27
  I was like yeah that's a day and I got the job and I thank them
• 56:36
  for every yeah and you know we talked for a little bit, you
• 56:40
  know I told him, you know, you were absolutely right like you
• 56:44
  everything that you said and that maybe You know, to
• 56:47
  two-and-a-half years ago or whatever it was you know it it
• 56:50
  was it was all absolutely true. You know I obviously except for
• 56:55
  the part that I would be a really great coach but that
• 56:58
  remains to be seen my friend that you know what's striking to
• 57:04
  me. Doug I had a hard time believing
• 57:09
  what I heard when you said you mentioned.
• 57:11
  Great words about Del got it Dan, right?
• 57:14
  And I'll go too. He's a, you know, he's a great
• 57:17
  ad. He's awesome instrumental, but
• 57:19
  he didn't hire me like, that didn't.
• 57:21
  That's not compatible, right? So you didn't hire you, how can
• 57:24
  you be good, right? And then you said with Ray
• 57:29
  Putnam, you know, hey, we clashed not the same style.
• 57:33
  He tried to make me coaching a certain style, but man, what a
• 57:38
  great guy, he helped me, you know, we talked to this day, you
• 57:41
  seem. So it strikes me here.
• 57:43
  Is you seem to have a very good Grace about you.
• 57:48
  That if someone is not compatible with you, you still
• 57:53
  have the ability to like forgive and great, like you don't hold
• 57:57
  grudges, maybe is what I'm at least from those two examples.
• 58:00
  It just just striking to me because especially with the head
• 58:03
  coach. If you weren't copacetic with
• 58:04
  them and the style seem to be two completely different, most
• 58:09
  coaches are bouncing, they're gone.
• 58:10
  Now, you get some coaching College coaching experience,
• 58:12
  you'll find another Juco division, 3, whatever.
• 58:15
  You'd go find it. You know, just strikes me how,
• 58:19
  like, what is that about you? Where's that come from, where I
• 58:21
  keep using the word Grace, where you seem to have like, okay, I
• 58:24
  mean, I'd agree with you but that's okay, we can still be
• 58:26
  cool. Where does, what does that come
• 58:27
  from? Yeah, so man and that's my
• 58:30
  parents like it just just growing up and you know like you
• 58:35
  learn how to deal with such situations that my dad.
• 58:39
  I got spent a ton of time with my dad because you know my mama.
• 58:42
  I'll drop my mom crazy. And so she tells me they just go
• 58:45
  legit dad. Like all right there goes that
• 58:47
  your dad's leaving so you know like how is everyone?
• 58:52
  My dad was a pastor. So I was always in the church to
• 58:54
  and so but my dad was patient man.
• 58:58
  Like he was, he was really patient and he always has a
• 59:04
  lesson. Like if he was on the show he's
• 59:06
  sit here and he'll tell you to tell you a story, he'll tell you
• 59:09
  the lesson behind it. Are you okay?
• 59:12
  But I always want to work with everybody and so, you know, he
• 59:20
  find ways to work with people and then, you know, obviously
• 59:23
  growing up and, you know, you deal with different things and
• 59:27
  you deal with different people and situations and then watching
• 59:30
  him deal with different people and deal with different
• 59:33
  situations. You know, you kind of you kind
• 59:35
  of start learning about, you know, okay, well, well, if we
• 59:40
  can't make it work this way, then it's got to be a way to be
• 59:42
  able to make it work like. And so let's figure out a way.
• 59:46
  Way to make it work out. And so a lot of that and just
• 59:50
  just a lot of self evaluation like my wife is amazing.
• 59:53
  Even last night, I mean we were talking about something last
• 59:56
  night and she was like you just need to give it up like just
• 1:00:00
  just give it a, you know, you're at this point like just just
• 1:00:04
  just just just give it up and so being able to realize when
• 1:00:09
  people are helping you and telling you the truth and you
• 1:00:14
  know what I mean? Like, it's not always.
• 1:00:16
  Malicious, it's not always - you know what I mean.
• 1:00:19
  Like people need to hear the truth sometimes and sometimes
• 1:00:23
  you got to put your pride to the side and and and really listen
• 1:00:27
  to what people are saying. And so that's been a big part
• 1:00:32
  that bears repeating putting your pride aside, we are very
• 1:00:37
  quick to when someone says something negative to us,
• 1:00:41
  whether it's about our style, whether it's about our whatever
• 1:00:44
  we're not ready to be a hit. Coach.
• 1:00:46
  It's such a we take that as personal like those daggers to
• 1:00:50
  us since I go all out you are automatically only enemy list to
• 1:00:53
  put that pride aside and actually hear it and building
• 1:00:56
  valuating think, oh, well, maybe they're right.
• 1:00:58
  Maybe I do need to either gain more experience or learn this
• 1:01:02
  part of the job, Etc. So boy, you're so honoring of
• 1:01:06
  your mom, dad and wife actually did just, it was just kept
• 1:01:09
  exuded from you Grace. And then when you talked about
• 1:01:12
  your dad, his professions like oh yeah, forgiveness that's
• 1:01:14
  hopefully, you know what's in that?
• 1:01:16
  Old that doesn't seems exudes from you, so thats awesome.
• 1:01:20
  And yeah what? So what a as we turn back to
• 1:01:22
  Garden City here, what a roller coaster, man?
• 1:01:24
  I was writing down your titles and Garden City intern
• 1:01:30
  assistant. Coach interim, head coach
• 1:01:32
  assistant coach head coach. I mean, that is that's a whole
• 1:01:35
  career at there and this is in one school for crying out loud.
• 1:01:38
  Yeah. Wow.
• 1:01:39
  Well, your city the Broncos, man?
• 1:01:41
  You know, I coached in yosha County over on the east side of
• 1:01:44
  Kansas and Dave. Itself was the head coach back
• 1:01:47
  when I was a coach? He's now the head coach at Sam
• 1:01:49
  Houston State, I just have lots of great memories of making fun
• 1:01:53
  of garden cities, jerseys to be real Frank, the yellow and
• 1:01:56
  brown, but just battle and Barton and Hutchinson and
• 1:02:01
  Butler. I mean, that's just a brutal
• 1:02:04
  conference. How did you come out unscathed?
• 1:02:08
  Where was the next stop? And why coming out of the really
• 1:02:10
  the top conference in the country for National junior,
• 1:02:14
  college, track and field. Yeah, so the K jccc is crazy,
• 1:02:22
  you know, I think it's 15 teen, you know you got 15 teams deep
• 1:02:26
  in the state of Kansas and there's some extremely talented
• 1:02:32
  team coaches athletes, you know, like you're going up against the
• 1:02:37
  best of the best and Junior College at that point.
• 1:02:40
  And so just kind of trying to learn how to navigate those
• 1:02:44
  waters, you know what I mean? Like is We knew we were going to
• 1:02:47
  have a hard time. Like, we were going to have a
• 1:02:49
  really hard time recruiting against Barton and Butler and
• 1:02:56
  you know what I mean? Like, coffee build like those
• 1:02:58
  those those Cloud. You know what I mean?
• 1:03:00
  Like those really those those really really top tier schools
• 1:03:04
  at the time and then now I mean you had in Fort Scott and you
• 1:03:07
  know what I mean? Like him right?
• 1:03:08
  Yeah, the hell out of got worse. Yeah and so but I mean at the
• 1:03:13
  time, you know, it was it was crazy.
• 1:03:15
  And so, Have to try to figure out different ways to try to get
• 1:03:19
  the upper hand there. You know what I mean?
• 1:03:21
  Like, what what, what can we sell, you know, how can we bring
• 1:03:24
  athletes in and get them? Understand it?
• 1:03:27
  So, you know, we knew like, we're gonna have to develop kids
• 1:03:30
  and we're gonna have to really, really develop athletes like it.
• 1:03:33
  We're not going to get an 11-3 girl.
• 1:03:35
  That's going to come through here.
• 1:03:37
  You know what I mean? We're gonna have to try to take
• 1:03:39
  that 12, 112 to kid and bring them down to eleven six and and
• 1:03:44
  so just kind of being realistic. And learning like how to how to
• 1:03:48
  navigate those Waters to wear Garden.
• 1:03:50
  City can be successful or there's going to be success that
• 1:03:53
  Garden City and we did it. Like I mean I I hired a amazing
• 1:03:58
  sister and an amazing assistant coach coach and Coleman.
• 1:04:03
  He's a Sam Houston State. Now I know Coachella.
• 1:04:06
  Yeah, I'll tell him all the time.
• 1:04:09
  I tell him he's the worst coach in America and he tells me.
• 1:04:13
  Oh, I'm definitely the worst, not we give each other a hard
• 1:04:15
  time. Like a brother man, but we hit
• 1:04:19
  it off real real fast and so he's a Texas guy.
• 1:04:22
  I'm a Texas guy and so we hit the road man.
• 1:04:25
  Like we would we would hit the road and we would we would go
• 1:04:28
  and recruit and we come back and we will develop our athletes.
• 1:04:31
  Go to meet, hit the road, you know, like it was a it was a
• 1:04:35
  grind that Garden but like we just kind of like we just
• 1:04:40
  workmanlike. We we really just we really just
• 1:04:43
  put a lot of work in and so then I athlete started.
• 1:04:46
  Developing. And then I started getting
• 1:04:47
  better and they started to see it and they started trusting
• 1:04:50
  everything a little bit more. So like the will just kind of
• 1:04:53
  started turning a little bit more and then Jeremy Capo,
• 1:04:59
  excuse me, was the ad at Iowa, Western at the time.
• 1:05:06
  And so actually, I was at Nationals, I was like I was at
• 1:05:11
  outdoor Nationals and me and Keith Black Will were talking
• 1:05:15
  and You know, he came over to me and if you know Keith, you know,
• 1:05:20
  you know, you know how he is. And so he came over and he was
• 1:05:23
  like, man, what are you going to leave this place?
• 1:05:25
  And so, Keith was a Garden City guy to know.
• 1:05:28
  He, he's a, he's a real good dude.
• 1:05:31
  And so, you know, I told him I was like, man, I don't know.
• 1:05:34
  Like, I don't really have any plans.
• 1:05:36
  Like, it's not like I'm looking to leave.
• 1:05:39
  Like we're, you know, we're here, like we're doing what
• 1:05:42
  we're doing. And so, he asked me, if I'd be
• 1:05:44
  interested in Iowa, Western Zone, What position are so you
• 1:05:48
  know at that point I told him you know yeah definitely I think
• 1:05:51
  that's it it's a great place. I feel like they can do some
• 1:05:54
  really big things and so we went through the summer and that I
• 1:05:58
  was at a coach's education. I was that I was it was with
• 1:06:03
  Todd Lane at the u.s. tfcc. A I think it was the event tech
• 1:06:10
  for the jumps and so I was nervous the whole time because I
• 1:06:14
  had already done my interview and We left me and Coast Coleman
• 1:06:18
  drove to Chicago from Kansas and we went and did that.
• 1:06:22
  And so I was in class and I couldn't think about anything
• 1:06:25
  except for hopefully getting this phone call from our
• 1:06:28
  Western. And so I finally got the phone
• 1:06:30
  call and Jeremy called me, offer me, the head coaching job there.
• 1:06:34
  And and so you know, that's, that's kind of, when that, that
• 1:06:38
  whole journey. Begin and why why?
• 1:06:41
  Why the change. So I don't know the level of All
• 1:06:46
  of the program's necessarily at that time, meaning, I don't know
• 1:06:49
  if both you guys were Garden in Iowa, Western were battling the
• 1:06:52
  top 10 at Nationals Etc. I have no idea, but you're going
• 1:06:56
  north. So you're going farther away
• 1:06:57
  from home? Yeah.
• 1:06:59
  You're going Iowa. Yeah.
• 1:07:02
  I haven't lived in. I feel better than Kansas and
• 1:07:05
  any like we had the dream to move to Iowa.
• 1:07:08
  Yeah. Why why moved Iowa?
• 1:07:10
  Western better pay that I hope? So, first of all, but I mean,
• 1:07:14
  that could be a reason. What was the reason for For
• 1:07:16
  moving to an Iowa, Western Community College.
• 1:07:21
  It was, I think it was everything and like, even even
• 1:07:24
  when I was doing the interview process, you know, I knew okay.
• 1:07:29
  You know, the opportunity came about, like, you know, it would
• 1:07:32
  be a great opportunity, but like when I showed up the campus and
• 1:07:35
  when I got there and, you know, I met Jeremy, like, Jeremy
• 1:07:39
  played a huge part in. You know why I decided to leave?
• 1:07:45
  Why? Decided to leave Garden City and
• 1:07:48
  go to Iowa Western. And so there were some changes
• 1:07:52
  you know what I mean? There were some changes and
• 1:07:53
  things like that going on at Guardsman and, you know, I just
• 1:07:57
  felt like I needed a fresh start and I just needed a new start
• 1:08:00
  and this opportunity was gone provide that and more, you know
• 1:08:06
  what I mean? And it was gonna be a great
• 1:08:07
  opportunity for my family and for all of us.
• 1:08:11
  And so it was, it was just, it was something that came at the
• 1:08:15
  right time And then Jeremy just kind of heat.
• 1:08:19
  He said the deal with everything and and so I was like you know I
• 1:08:23
  had the conversation with my wife and I we both felt like it
• 1:08:27
  was it was it was going to be a great move for us and so we
• 1:08:30
  ended up, we ended up moving on but I think that if I had to
• 1:08:33
  pinpoint a reason why I left, it would probably would probably be
• 1:08:38
  German capoeira and I don't say that.
• 1:08:41
  Yeah. What, you know I mentioned the
• 1:08:44
  roller coaster at Garden City The in as much as you are, the
• 1:08:49
  head coach at Garden City, they're still especially in the
• 1:08:53
  same program. There's still that lingering.
• 1:08:55
  So, yeah, guy used to intern that guy used to be the
• 1:08:58
  associate. He was the interim head coach,
• 1:09:00
  but we didn't give the head job and he was assistant.
• 1:09:01
  Now, he's that. Now he's the head real, you
• 1:09:03
  know, and I'm coming from a whole different side or from all
• 1:09:08
  sides, 360, you know, being in, small-town Kansas even as the
• 1:09:14
  track of. This isn't that's fairly unique.
• 1:09:16
  I think in the cage acct world that the town knows who you are
• 1:09:20
  even as the track coach, because there ain't nothing else going
• 1:09:22
  on. At least in Chanute, Kansas.
• 1:09:23
  That was, I was the head coach there and was a nobody and
• 1:09:26
  people knew me. And I was like, yeah, I'll
• 1:09:28
  board, you know, y'all know who the track coach is, but, you
• 1:09:33
  know, yet those, you know. So, from from the, the
• 1:09:36
  neighborhood, you know, the the town itself other coaches,
• 1:09:40
  administrators, you do have this this past this history there,
• 1:09:45
  you do get It a clean slate, right?
• 1:09:47
  No one knows you but was turned. Besides I came from garden.
• 1:09:50
  That's all they know. They don't, they don't know the,
• 1:09:52
  the roller coaster. So you get this Clean Slate
• 1:09:55
  going Iowa. Western seem to give a really
• 1:09:57
  good immediate type of relationship with the athletic
• 1:10:00
  director. What did you do differently?
• 1:10:02
  Because because I'm assuming correct me if I'm assuming
• 1:10:06
  incorrectly very similar. I mean they're both Junior
• 1:10:09
  College different conferences but it still Junior College.
• 1:10:13
  Same region of, you know, and I say region of theirs.
• 1:10:16
  Jeans for junior college. But same location region.
• 1:10:19
  Right here. You didn't move to California
• 1:10:21
  and Coach, Junior College there, you get this Clean Slate.
• 1:10:24
  Did what did you do, differently?
• 1:10:25
  How did you? You know put your fingerprints
• 1:10:27
  on the Clean Slate of Iowa Western.
• 1:10:30
  Yeah so I'm coming in Iowa. Western you know, II knew I had
• 1:10:35
  to build a culture like that was going to be the number one thing
• 1:10:38
  was, you know, get the athletes to trust me and build the
• 1:10:43
  culture. I hadn't been The head coach at
• 1:10:47
  Garden for Terror, you know what I mean for a very long time.
• 1:10:50
  And so it wasn't like, you know, we were having this crazy
• 1:10:54
  success. I mean, I'll Western at the time
• 1:10:56
  was better than Garden City and a lot of different ways.
• 1:10:58
  And so, you know, just my number one thing was to try to get the
• 1:11:04
  athletes to trust and understand that.
• 1:11:06
  Like I have their, you know, I have their best interest at
• 1:11:09
  heart and and I want them to succeed and get better.
• 1:11:13
  And so that's the culture. You know what I mean?
• 1:11:16
  Like, I really wanted to build on to everything.
• 1:11:20
  And so, you know, once I built and and I guess I put together
• 1:11:24
  our coaching staff, you know, we all get in this room and I we
• 1:11:28
  didn't talk about X's and O's. We didn't talk about any of that
• 1:11:31
  stuff. We talked about how how we can,
• 1:11:35
  you know, loves the kids, get them to buy in build this
• 1:11:38
  culture and I told them the culture I want it and I told him
• 1:11:42
  like if we can do these things like guys, like in four years
• 1:11:45
  and He you can ask my assistant coaches, but, you know, I told
• 1:11:49
  him. I said, I if we could build
• 1:11:50
  these things, and we can do these things and we can get the
• 1:11:53
  kids to buy into all of this stuff like, in three years we
• 1:11:56
  could we could be competing for national championships and
• 1:11:58
  things like that because we have the things that we need the
• 1:12:02
  things, you know what I mean? Like the things, but if these
• 1:12:06
  athletes don't buy into what we're trying to do, and they
• 1:12:09
  don't buy into and they don't understand that, no, we actually
• 1:12:13
  care about them as people, you know, they're not gonna Then I
• 1:12:16
  go hard for us but if they do, then they'll run through a wall
• 1:12:20
  for us. And so we got to build those
• 1:12:21
  relationships. So I know the one of the other
• 1:12:27
  side's to what you just said there.
• 1:12:28
  Because very bold moves or to say, hey if you build the
• 1:12:32
  culture like I'm describing we can win a National Title in
• 1:12:37
  three years now pause there I don't know.
• 1:12:39
  It was IO Western before you got there with a top-ten like or you
• 1:12:44
  come in from the bottom here? The They already have kind of a
• 1:12:47
  decent little thing going and you said to course, correct or
• 1:12:51
  or not, no, man, it was a, and I don't know, I never say a
• 1:12:56
  struggling program because, you know, I feel like if I, you
• 1:12:59
  know, if I say that that's - I guess Twisted, the, you know,
• 1:13:03
  the past coach in the past that I don't, I don't, I don't think
• 1:13:06
  it was definitely a program that had a lot of really great
• 1:13:10
  talent. I think it was just a program
• 1:13:11
  that just kind of needed some change.
• 1:13:13
  No, at different boy, ACH and things like that.
• 1:13:18
  But I mean that why? I mean I I think they're women
• 1:13:22
  might have been top 25 or something like that and then I
• 1:13:26
  know the guys were probably enough for sure top 15.
• 1:13:29
  So it's easier to win a national title.
• 1:13:32
  If you take over a team that's been in the top five rights
• 1:13:35
  easier to build a pecan a peek. So we're getting Baseline here.
• 1:13:38
  We were not taught five when you came in.
• 1:13:40
  So, to come in and say if we build this culture and the way
• 1:13:44
  I'm describing it, We can win a title in three years, bold move.
• 1:13:48
  All right, bold move move. I'll suggest suggest that
• 1:13:52
  anybody out there. Remind me.
• 1:13:54
  I'm so sorry. Your throws coach his name yet.
• 1:13:57
  Mikhail Rodell. Okay, so Michelle, and I were
• 1:14:00
  having this conversation at the Juco, National meet this past
• 1:14:03
  year in door for Pitt State. And he tells me that story
• 1:14:06
  because I was talking about because, by the way, spoiler
• 1:14:09
  alert, he did it. By the way, did it more than
• 1:14:11
  once, but he told me that story. And in.
• 1:14:17
  So I get to hear the story from him, like I was like, well, what
• 1:14:19
  did you think when he said that? Like, I mean, it's one thing to
• 1:14:22
  get all jacked up. Like, okay, we're going to do it
• 1:14:24
  and like, but it's also like reality.
• 1:14:26
  No one does this? Yeah, in general, right.
• 1:14:28
  And he was like, man, because I kind of just believe them.
• 1:14:31
  He was a, you know, so what was it?
• 1:14:36
  You've done something more than once, I believe.
• 1:14:39
  I'm terrible. I don't fact checks, I have no
• 1:14:42
  idea. I know he's won a national
• 1:14:43
  title. I think you've won two, Second
• 1:14:47
  three, I'm coming. Where's the the live button?
• 1:14:55
  I need to I need to have one of those be proud for you and your
• 1:15:00
  program. You want three?
• 1:15:01
  Okay. So you've done something that
• 1:15:05
  honestly the majority of coaches in the profession will never do
• 1:15:08
  when a national title. It's there's only one a year to
• 1:15:13
  I guess you don't say in doing our dorm 3.
• 1:15:14
  If you want to count cross country, This is all of us that
• 1:15:19
  the majority of us are gonna go through our career and not have
• 1:15:21
  a national title. What was that first one like?
• 1:15:24
  Because that's the fruition of what you said, you came down and
• 1:15:27
  from the top of the mountain and came down and said, hey if we do
• 1:15:31
  this we can win. What was it like to actually do
• 1:15:35
  it to actually accomplish that goal?
• 1:15:36
  What was those? The feelings of actually hitting
• 1:15:39
  that goal and it was a rush, a rest of the most, I don't know.
• 1:15:46
  If you've seen the video, it came down to the four by four
• 1:15:50
  and we had that. Yeah, it came down to the 4x4.
• 1:15:55
  And so, you know, we were ahead, we were ahead, but we knew we
• 1:15:59
  had to, we had to finish and we have to finish.
• 1:16:01
  I think in the top three, or something stopped or something
• 1:16:04
  like that. And so all the confidence in the
• 1:16:07
  world and in my women to be able to get it done.
• 1:16:11
  But I mean, I was all over the field.
• 1:16:14
  I was I was, you know what I mean?
• 1:16:16
  Was praying. I was sitting down, getting up,
• 1:16:19
  sitting down, getting up, and then, you know, we have coaches
• 1:16:22
  that are coming up to me, like saying congratulations, coach,
• 1:16:24
  you deserve it. I'm like, it's not over here,
• 1:16:26
  like, it's not over yet, but no, like, it was, it was a very,
• 1:16:32
  very, very emotional moment for me.
• 1:16:36
  And I remember how crazy it was, because, you know, I as nakisha
• 1:16:41
  prices, finishing the crossing the finish line.
• 1:16:46
  I'm going crazy to team is going crazy, and like I just kind of
• 1:16:50
  run over to him and I just I felt like it was like a big
• 1:16:53
  group hug, but I, it was just kind of like, you know, for me,
• 1:16:58
  it was like, you've been through it.
• 1:17:01
  Felt like you've been through it all, you know, like you.
• 1:17:04
  You you started from the bottom now, kind of like Drake Like You
• 1:17:07
  Started From The Bottom, you know what I mean?
• 1:17:08
  And so it was like you you started as a volunteer or High
• 1:17:12
  School coach at 18 High School And in Kansas eastern Kansas and
• 1:17:19
  you know it every out of everything, you know, all of
• 1:17:22
  this has led to, you know, this point.
• 1:17:25
  And I remember I, you know, I hugged the team and I went over
• 1:17:30
  and I grab my cell phone and I called my wife on FaceTime and
• 1:17:34
  she was checking the checking in.
• 1:17:39
  And so, I called him, my kids are going crazy in the house and
• 1:17:42
  she's going crazy. And I just remember, like the
• 1:17:45
  sitting there and just I and Alia McNeil never.
• 1:17:49
  Did she want an outdoor Champion Championship force in the high
• 1:17:53
  jump. I remember her looking over at
• 1:17:56
  me and she said, coach, why are you crying?
• 1:18:00
  Sweetie, I'm just so happy. Like I'm just too happy and so I
• 1:18:04
  just just everything, you know, like, just everything, you know.
• 1:18:08
  I at that point, I just thought about everything you know, that
• 1:18:12
  I had kind of gone through and just staff had gone through and
• 1:18:16
  You know, like Mikhail came from Johnson County where they, you
• 1:18:19
  know, they dropped the program. You know what I mean?
• 1:18:23
  Like, everybody had their own stories, like everybody had, you
• 1:18:26
  know, their own thing and so just to kind of see everything
• 1:18:30
  come to come to fruition and that be the ultimate goal for
• 1:18:36
  everybody. Like, excuse me, it was a, it
• 1:18:38
  was a great. That's it was a it was a great
• 1:18:41
  feeling. Yeah, it was amazing only, you
• 1:18:43
  and your staff knows all the things.
• 1:18:46
  That went into it, right? The kid that got injured that
• 1:18:48
  was going to score for you and bandaged up and got eight
• 1:18:52
  instead of the second that she was supposed to.
• 1:18:53
  And that's what helped, you know, City over no one knows all
• 1:18:57
  of the that, you know, the kid that goes academic ineligible
• 1:18:59
  the recruit that said they were coming and they didn't know
• 1:19:02
  one's, the 12 Flats printer. That becomes an 11-4 and doesn't
• 1:19:07
  make fun of your final but as an important leg on your for by
• 1:19:09
  what you know, no one no one is that that story that complete
• 1:19:13
  like it's more than the you know. 50 points that you scored
• 1:19:17
  at the meet, its individual stories of how those points came
• 1:19:21
  together in some of that. Part of that story is not even
• 1:19:25
  kids. That score people that were, you
• 1:19:27
  know, Susie who didn't did he make it to Nationals but
• 1:19:31
  supported the team and help them to him.
• 1:19:35
  That, you know, it's it's an amazing culmination of a
• 1:19:39
  thousand different stories. The ad that gave you a little
• 1:19:41
  bit extra budget, money to go to this me that helps you do this,
• 1:19:44
  the recruit, you thought you Even be recruiting, but you went
• 1:19:47
  to her house anyway and God, you know, it's just it's quite an
• 1:19:50
  amazing story when you actually look at that Trophy and realize
• 1:19:54
  it's more than the points that got there.
• 1:19:57
  It's the people and their stories, their backgrounds that
• 1:20:00
  that actually helped build that trophy as you did.
• 1:20:04
  So I can just imagine you, like, I mean, the tears of joy, I'm
• 1:20:08
  just a little bit speechless on that.
• 1:20:10
  Just love that because the emotion comes out but you did it
• 1:20:13
  three times. Yeah, which one was the hardest?
• 1:20:19
  Who I'd have to say outdoor, maybe, maybe this.
• 1:20:27
  Maybe this past outdoor national.
• 1:20:29
  So I be the third one, the third one.
• 1:20:32
  Yeah, this this most recent one, I think that one end or was
• 1:20:37
  great. You know what I mean?
• 1:20:38
  Like and we fought, we fought our butt off, you know, to win
• 1:20:42
  that first title. We had a lot happen and and you
• 1:20:46
  know, going into it, you know, you tell your athletes like
• 1:20:48
  listen, like we have to be, we have to be perfectly, everybody
• 1:20:51
  else make mistakes. And, you know, that's, that's
• 1:20:53
  just kind of what we right off of this.
• 1:20:55
  You know, if we go in and we execute Let everybody else make
• 1:20:58
  mistakes. Then we'll be fine.
• 1:21:00
  I could just focus on us and so they did that.
• 1:21:03
  They did it amazing. You know what I mean?
• 1:21:06
  At that first indoor championship.
• 1:21:07
  And then second indoor Championship, everybody's firing
• 1:21:11
  on all cylinders. And, you know, I think we won by
• 1:21:13
  like 60. I don't know.
• 1:21:15
  You gotta ask. Keith ask is how much we won by
• 1:21:18
  but did he get second? Yeah, I'm not asking.
• 1:21:24
  First of all, he just lost his assistant coach, you know, the
• 1:21:27
  UN. We've gone through a lot during
• 1:21:59
  that season as a team. And, you know, we had gone
• 1:22:02
  through, you know, certain things that at points it was,
• 1:22:07
  you know, it was make-or-break like we could either go left or
• 1:22:10
  we could go right and you know, we could we could we could
• 1:22:13
  finish the year as a really, really great team or you know,
• 1:22:16
  we could finish in the top 15, you know what I mean?
• 1:22:19
  Or the top 10. And so, you know, we went
• 1:22:23
  through a lot going into that outdoor championship.
• 1:22:25
  And then we had a lot of injuries.
• 1:22:28
  We had a lot of athletes that were banged up and so we we
• 1:22:30
  didn't know where people were gonna, you know, where people
• 1:22:33
  are going to be. And so the night before, the
• 1:22:38
  second day we were in the Holiday Inn in the in the
• 1:22:44
  descend and like the lobby, just a Lobby room and we had a team
• 1:22:48
  meeting. And, you know, I did, I did my
• 1:22:52
  talk and and after that I think we had like six or seven
• 1:22:55
  athletes. Sophomores, just kind of get up
• 1:22:59
  and talk about, you know, like what the championship meant to
• 1:23:02
  him. We didn't win outdoor the year.
• 1:23:04
  Before on the women's side, we weren't even in a running on the
• 1:23:07
  men's side. So at this point, you know,
• 1:23:10
  going into day two. We were, I think six points
• 1:23:13
  behind on the men's side and I think we were maybe like eight
• 1:23:16
  points ahead on the women's side.
• 1:23:18
  And so, you know, just kind of listening to our athletes and
• 1:23:23
  just talk about, you know, everything that they had gone
• 1:23:25
  through and like what the championship.
• 1:23:27
  Meant to him and you know all the work that we have put in to
• 1:23:30
  get to this point and then going into day two watching how
• 1:23:36
  together everybody was like you know like it wasn't a moment
• 1:23:40
  where you know like people were just kind of sitting down or you
• 1:23:43
  know like everybody was there and we had downs and we had like
• 1:23:47
  we had we have valleys and we have peace, you know what I
• 1:23:49
  mean? It's so it was, it was fun to
• 1:23:51
  watch our athletes, pick each other up.
• 1:23:54
  You know what I mean when when they were in the valleys and You
• 1:23:57
  know, to celebrate each other when they were in the Peaks.
• 1:24:00
  And so it was, it was a tough one because it was up and down.
• 1:24:04
  But just kind of everything that we had gone through up into that
• 1:24:08
  point. I think that, that, that was
• 1:24:11
  what made it really, really tough.
• 1:24:13
  And especially, I mean, all of them are just as special, but
• 1:24:16
  how many it was really special, really special on any of those
• 1:24:20
  three championships, the to endure, and one outdoor were
• 1:24:23
  you. Ranked number one going in Yes,
• 1:24:28
  this year. Both indoor and outdoor sir.
• 1:24:31
  So, how do you as a coach as a leader of the program?
• 1:24:34
  We're dealing with, we're time. I Juco, normally, I say, we're
• 1:24:37
  in the college ranks, we're dealing with 18 to 22 year olds.
• 1:24:40
  We're dealing with 18 and 19 year olds.
• 1:24:41
  They're essentially High School age that not high schoolers, but
• 1:24:45
  they step away. Okay, how do you deal with as
• 1:24:49
  the leader in your coaching staff as the leaders of 18 and
• 1:24:53
  19 year old kids knowing is internet world.
• 1:24:55
  This this 22 122, man. They, I guarantee you, they knew
• 1:24:58
  this going in. Maybe I'll season, you were
• 1:25:01
  ranked. Number one, going into the meat.
• 1:25:03
  How do you deal with complacency meaning they go in thinking,
• 1:25:08
  like we're number one, we don't win.
• 1:25:10
  We gotta try as hard as we have, like, we're good.
• 1:25:13
  Like look at us, we're favorites by 60 points or whatever, you
• 1:25:16
  know. How do you keep the motivate?
• 1:25:18
  How do you keep them in? Like, hey, the job ain't done
• 1:25:20
  until the 404 is over. Like, how do you do that?
• 1:25:22
  I just feel like 18, 19 year-olds heck, 30 year olds,
• 1:25:27
  It's tough to when you're you know, on the top of the
• 1:25:29
  mountain, to keep that fire and know that the job has to go all
• 1:25:32
  the way through the end. Yeah.
• 1:25:34
  So I mean, first of all, my staff is amazing.
• 1:25:39
  You know what I mean? Like, I can't, I didn't do any
• 1:25:42
  new Army any of this stuff, you know?
• 1:25:43
  I mean, I'm just, I'm the head coach, I drive the bus, but I
• 1:25:47
  hold back. So we're going to strike that
• 1:25:55
  from the record. Are in.
• 1:25:57
  And what I mean by that is so you, this is my whole life, not
• 1:26:02
  my job, not my passion, my whole life is track and field coaches
• 1:26:06
  from all levels High School College, Etc.
• 1:26:09
  I just have such a loving passion, love for who you are as
• 1:26:13
  a person and that this is your profession.
• 1:26:15
  Okay. And I hear this quite often,
• 1:26:17
  this is a very cliche. I'm sorry.
• 1:26:19
  I'm calling out. Doug what you just said, was
• 1:26:21
  yeah, we cliche I hear a lot. I'm just the bus driver.
• 1:26:26
  I R that yeah. All the time bullcrap.
• 1:26:29
  I wish I could cuz sometimes like this.
• 1:26:31
  Yeah, it's bull crap. Now, that doesn't take away.
• 1:26:35
  What you, your very first sentence from my question was, I
• 1:26:39
  have an amazing staff. They, they did it.
• 1:26:41
  They boy, if it wasn't for them, I'm putting words in your mouth.
• 1:26:44
  Now the one for them this wouldn't have happened that
• 1:26:46
  stays true but it's this, we either, we are either going to
• 1:26:51
  be really good friends after this podcast, or you're never
• 1:26:54
  gonna want to talk to you again. It is speaking.
• 1:26:57
  It's fake humility. Humility is awesome.
• 1:27:00
  Fake humility is bad. Awesome is bad.
• 1:27:03
  Yeah, when you say I'm just a bus driver because what that
• 1:27:06
  does is that diminishes all the work that you're doing, all the
• 1:27:10
  work that you have done to get to this point.
• 1:27:12
  You worked your tail off. I don't even see.
• 1:27:15
  I saw you coach at the meat a little bit, but but I know we
• 1:27:18
  can we talk about, you know, the culmination to earn that trophy,
• 1:27:20
  the culmination to finish a season.
• 1:27:22
  By the way, is equally as impactful, but what you've done.
• 1:27:26
  Now, as a husband, as a father, as a coach that's important and
• 1:27:32
  so you diminish that which means you diminish, the sacrifices,
• 1:27:36
  your family makes the sacrifices, your coaching staff
• 1:27:38
  and their families made the sacrifices that your kids and
• 1:27:41
  their families. Make your athletes and their
• 1:27:43
  families make you diminish it. So, we're going to strike that.
• 1:27:46
  I'm gonna, I'm gonna beg of you. Remove that from your
• 1:27:50
  vocabulary. All right.
• 1:27:52
  I got you. And I might ask the question
• 1:27:54
  again. How do you as a leader and
• 1:27:56
  leading with your? Teaching staff.
• 1:27:57
  How do you work with 18 and 19 year olds?
• 1:28:00
  So they don't, they're going into the meat, ranked number
• 1:28:02
  one, they've won a national title already, their national
• 1:28:05
  champions themselves, they know what it is.
• 1:28:07
  How do you keep them motivated? How do you keep them
• 1:28:09
  understanding that the job's not done until the job is done.
• 1:28:14
  Yeah. All right.
• 1:28:15
  So no, honestly. Now we really and I'm glad you
• 1:28:18
  said that but I honestly we have an amazing staff like I really
• 1:28:22
  do have an amazing staff at and and that was one of the things
• 1:28:25
  that, you know, we We had a lot of conversation about is like
• 1:28:28
  keeping them, keeping them on track and keeping them home boy,
• 1:28:31
  and keeping them, you know, hungry.
• 1:28:33
  And I think a lot of time like throughout the season, you you
• 1:28:39
  get humble. And you know, I think that as as
• 1:28:42
  coaches, we have to be honest with our athletes and we have to
• 1:28:47
  make sure that they understand that you got humbled.
• 1:28:49
  You know what I mean? And and this is where we're at
• 1:28:52
  and this is the this is what you've been doing.
• 1:28:54
  Like we got to adjust those things.
• 1:28:56
  And so it was a lot of that throughout the season and just a
• 1:29:01
  lot of complement athletes. I'd I'd be straight up with him
• 1:29:07
  like, you know, like yeah. We're number one but like we
• 1:29:10
  were last year like we haven't won this year yet.
• 1:29:13
  You know, I would have we what have we accomplished this year
• 1:29:16
  with? Right now we're one hit wonder
• 1:29:19
  and you know like just just to kind of keep keep that hunger
• 1:29:22
  and uh and then even going into Nationals, like we talked a lot
• 1:29:26
  About like, further in the Target.
• 1:29:28
  And so, you know, I talked to him about like, just just going
• 1:29:32
  to, I, even at a gun range, you know, it's a lot easier to hit
• 1:29:37
  the bullseye of the target is close, but as we continue to
• 1:29:41
  work and work and work and stay dedicated and not take days off
• 1:29:46
  and, you know what I mean, do things like that.
• 1:29:48
  Then we can keep further in the target from the next person and
• 1:29:52
  and continue getting better and developing and staying focused
• 1:29:56
  on you know, Overall, go for everybody.
• 1:29:59
  And so like we talked a lot about further in the Target and
• 1:30:03
  and just just just that Dedication that our staff had
• 1:30:07
  myself, you know, I had as well but just keeping them focused
• 1:30:12
  and and, you know, sometimes holding them accountable and
• 1:30:17
  letting them know, like, you got humble because you know, we
• 1:30:23
  started slacking off and we got to get it together.
• 1:30:25
  Yeah, that's what. Why talk about when you, when
• 1:30:28
  coaches use the term, I'm just a bus driver.
• 1:30:30
  What? You just described, they're
• 1:30:32
  extremely difficult. So you talked about humbling,
• 1:30:35
  athletes to keep them hungry, but at the same time, you're
• 1:30:39
  also building up those athletes, right?
• 1:30:41
  You're also talking to that athlete.
• 1:30:43
  That doesn't think she can make the 100-meter finals.
• 1:30:45
  I don't know if you execute here, you absolutely can make it
• 1:30:48
  and maybe win it right at the same time.
• 1:30:51
  That's those are two opposing forces potentially that that is
• 1:30:54
  extremely hard. Good coaches.
• 1:30:58
  Do it more often and you are able to do that with your coach
• 1:31:01
  instead. I'm not again.
• 1:31:03
  I'm not saying this is taking anything from the coaching
• 1:31:05
  staff, her academic advisors and such are all the people that
• 1:31:08
  play into the totality of a Collegiate program.
• 1:31:11
  Here, I'm just saying, man, when you say I'm just a bus driver,
• 1:31:14
  you yeah, belittle this, amazing job of humbling.
• 1:31:20
  So keeping them hungry, that's the better term, keeping them
• 1:31:22
  hungry, not getting complacent. And also, Lifting of the
• 1:31:28
  uplifting, these young people. Because it's hard, they're 18,
• 1:31:30
  19, year-olds social media classes, Etc.
• 1:31:34
  And you got coach yelling, you're awesome, but don't you
• 1:31:37
  think you're awesome that tough man.
• 1:31:40
  So that's why I challenge you on that.
• 1:31:42
  Okay, it's amazing. Winnie is hard so to do it.
• 1:31:47
  Three times is amazing. I did do it one time is amazing.
• 1:31:50
  So to repeat that several times, man, Bravo to you the staff.
• 1:31:54
  And again, you know, it takes the whole village.
• 1:31:56
  So, again, all your academic advisor is Administration Etc.
• 1:32:00
  It just amazing. But then you leave and when I
• 1:32:03
  say you're a western, I mean, like, you know, yesterday, you
• 1:32:08
  recently were announced as the new head coach at the University
• 1:32:12
  of North Texas. The mean green when I was at
• 1:32:15
  Troy University, we were in the same conference as North Texas
• 1:32:19
  back when they were really good at football.
• 1:32:20
  And they used to be there but a lot but then we flipped it will
• 1:32:22
  have a row. So I'm not a big fan of North
• 1:32:24
  Texas as it relates to football history.
• 1:32:26
  Curry with my alma mater, but it is an amazing campus.
• 1:32:29
  Great area McKinney, right? No, not McKinney.
• 1:32:32
  I didn't didn't didn't basically north of the DFW area, just a
• 1:32:37
  great place. You're in Texas.
• 1:32:38
  Come on, man. Being a Texas guy.
• 1:32:40
  You know how great that is? What I thought we should maybe
• 1:32:43
  transition to is so your head coach.
• 1:32:46
  There's nothing really to ask you about North Texas.
• 1:32:47
  You ain't even you can't even stepped on campus more than one
• 1:32:51
  or two times. All right, your team.
• 1:32:53
  Yeah we have there's a scheduled to be.
• 1:32:55
  You have so much work and Of you.
• 1:32:56
  And again, that's why I'm just so grateful that you would even
• 1:32:59
  take the time to join us. You're busy, my man, you got so
• 1:33:02
  much to your behind schedule already, right?
• 1:33:04
  It's also thankful for that. But what I thought, you know,
• 1:33:07
  our two goals here on the Gill podcast one is to uplift, an
• 1:33:11
  honor, your amazing journey in this profession and then the
• 1:33:14
  other is to bring value to those who I'm just so, humbled would
• 1:33:18
  listen to us. This is not an easy podcast to
• 1:33:21
  listen to. And what I mean by that, is it's
• 1:33:23
  long, right? We're not a 20 minute podcast,
• 1:33:26
  there's a maze In twenty minutes.
• 1:33:27
  Thirty minute podcast that are out there that are have so much
• 1:33:29
  value. We're long-form podcast, we're
• 1:33:32
  an hour and a half in. If you were still here, God
• 1:33:34
  bless you. You a good part.
• 1:33:36
  You're about to get some real value here.
• 1:33:39
  What I thought Doug is, you have been named the head coach of the
• 1:33:43
  University of North Texas is something that a lot of people
• 1:33:47
  dream about you dreamed about it as going from high school to
• 1:33:51
  college coach. There are plenty of High School,
• 1:33:53
  coaches college coaches. That have a Goal for their
• 1:33:57
  career to be the head coach of their own program.
• 1:34:00
  This is your third head coaching program Garden City Community
• 1:34:03
  College, Iowa, Western Community College and now a division, one
• 1:34:07
  program, what did you help us? For those who are listening that
• 1:34:12
  have this goal of being a head coach?
• 1:34:14
  Maybe they have an interview coming up.
• 1:34:16
  Maybe they have the thought of being a head coach but they're
• 1:34:19
  like, I don't even know how I would prepare.
• 1:34:22
  Can you walk us through some of the things that you did to
• 1:34:25
  prepare? To get the job not necessarily,
• 1:34:31
  you know, we can kind of put to the side, I had to be a good
• 1:34:33
  coach first. Like, you had to Garner
• 1:34:35
  attention from an Administration to be hired and that takes
• 1:34:39
  winning right into. Whether this winning conference
• 1:34:41
  are having a lot of all Americans Etc and you won
• 1:34:43
  national title. So it's only fair that other
• 1:34:46
  administrations were like, well, wait a minute, he led them like
• 1:34:48
  maybe maybe. Yeah.
• 1:34:49
  I like a winner. My team.
• 1:34:50
  So I need to hire him. What did you do?
• 1:34:53
  Personally and professionally to prepare?
• 1:34:57
  For this job I applied but you didn't just show up for the
• 1:35:00
  interview and say hey I'm Doug hire me.
• 1:35:02
  Here's my three trophies. Hire me.
• 1:35:04
  You had to do some preparation. What might you have done?
• 1:35:07
  What did that look like? Yeah so from the beginning, you
• 1:35:12
  know I wanted to make sure it was going to be a good fit, you
• 1:35:17
  know. I'm I'm in a good situation.
• 1:35:19
  I'll our Western you know, I, my Administration is great.
• 1:35:24
  I love my assistant. Coaches.
• 1:35:26
  You No, we're successful. And so, you know, do I want to
• 1:35:30
  step away from our Western at this point?
• 1:35:33
  And so I just did a I did a lot of research on the school, you
• 1:35:37
  know. I really I wanted to be in, I
• 1:35:40
  wanted to be back home. I wanted to be, you know, in
• 1:35:42
  Texas and I wanted to be close to my family.
• 1:35:45
  So those are all emotional things but I had to make sure,
• 1:35:48
  you know what, with three kids and and and my wife like, I'm
• 1:35:53
  moving my entire, I'm approving my my entire family.
• 1:35:57
  To move, you know, to Denton Texas.
• 1:35:59
  And so I did a lot of research on the school and the area and
• 1:36:02
  things like that being from Texas, you know, you know, you
• 1:36:05
  know, you know, the Dallas in the DFW area, you know,
• 1:36:08
  everything in there, but not living in it, you know, and I've
• 1:36:11
  never lived in Dallas or in a DFW area, you know, I had to do
• 1:36:18
  a lot of research and just try to make sure, okay, is this
• 1:36:21
  going to be a great fit? Is it going to be a great
• 1:36:23
  opportunity, you know, for my family Emily is my wife going to
• 1:36:27
  be able to find a job and so I just kind of did a lot of
• 1:36:30
  research across the board on the town on the school, you know,
• 1:36:36
  all of those things and then then I started kind of like once
• 1:36:40
  I started just kind of getting interested in and I was like,
• 1:36:42
  okay yeah this is this is a great spot, just a great place.
• 1:36:45
  Then I started looking at the team and the conference and you
• 1:36:50
  know obviously I knew who was going to be interviewing me and
• 1:36:53
  things like that. And so I started researching
• 1:36:56
  them. And just kind of seeing like,
• 1:36:59
  you know, ran is an amazing man, you know?
• 1:37:03
  And so I got on YouTube, there's times where I be on my computer
• 1:37:07
  and I'm working on recruiting stuff for our lesson and I get
• 1:37:10
  on YouTube on my TV and I put up a podcast or an interview that
• 1:37:14
  he had done it just kind of see, you know what his thoughts?
• 1:37:17
  Like what you know, like what it what does he want?
• 1:37:20
  I don't know. Athletic department.
• 1:37:23
  Yeah. Sorry.
• 1:37:28
  It's one thing to want to know who you're going to be working
• 1:37:30
  for. Potentially, what were you
• 1:37:31
  looking for? Were you looking for like an
• 1:37:35
  indifferent interviews and stuff from him what he looks for in
• 1:37:38
  coaches or mannerisms? What were you looking for in
• 1:37:41
  that type of research for the role?
• 1:37:45
  This is style process. You know, I went back and I
• 1:37:47
  looked at it. I looked at, you know, one of
• 1:37:49
  the one of the first interviews that he did when he took the
• 1:37:52
  job. And, you know, like, just to
• 1:37:54
  kind of hear what he was talking about and what he wanted from a
• 1:37:56
  program. If you don't know Rim bakeries
• 1:37:59
  ad2 guy and, you know, I knew that we would have that
• 1:38:02
  connection as both being D2. Guys, he's in my day, a guy, you
• 1:38:06
  know, he came from Northwest Missouri and you know, I knew I
• 1:38:10
  was I was at Emporia State guy, you know?
• 1:38:12
  And so I just Trying to find different connections.
• 1:38:16
  You know, different things like that because I know, you know,
• 1:38:19
  once we get into the conversation and, you know, I
• 1:38:22
  mentioned that I'm a division 2 athlete or, you know, a past the
• 1:38:24
  business who athlete or, you know, like different things pop
• 1:38:27
  up. And so, you know, just trying to
• 1:38:30
  find different things. But like really, with with him
• 1:38:33
  just trying to get to know how he operates, what he's looking
• 1:38:36
  for, what his expectations are the program you can find, you
• 1:38:40
  can find all that stuff online man.
• 1:38:42
  Like you know you could you can find Add a lot about a person
• 1:38:45
  and, and you know what they're looking for, and things like
• 1:38:49
  that, right there, online, and listen to the interviews and
• 1:38:53
  things. And so, I definitely took a lot,
• 1:38:56
  a lot of looks at some of those things.
• 1:38:58
  So in that aspect, now looking back, you know, week ago, did
• 1:39:04
  that help you in the interview process that, that actual
• 1:39:07
  research now when you're in the interview process, when you look
• 1:39:10
  back at that now did that actually like the you like, oh
• 1:39:12
  yeah, man, that really helped me to kind of To understand what he
• 1:39:14
  was looking for and I was able to maybe you know make sure that
• 1:39:17
  I emphasize that part of my culture belief or D emphasize
• 1:39:22
  this part etcetera, did that at that actually helped in the
• 1:39:25
  process of the interview? Yeah, I'm I mean, it helps it,
• 1:39:29
  to hold on, sorry about that. Oh man, it's important that she
• 1:39:36
  we're right at our time I was going to ask you, are you cool
• 1:39:38
  for a few more minutes? He was like that and go with
• 1:39:41
  that guy. Yeah, okay, I'm good.
• 1:39:44
  No, no, it's so so it helped a lot.
• 1:39:47
  It helped helped the turn, but I mean, it wasn't just that,
• 1:39:51
  right? It was I spoke to I spoke to
• 1:39:55
  pass coaches of mine, you know? You mentioned Cameron bad, you
• 1:40:00
  know, me and Cameron bath had a conversation.
• 1:40:02
  You know, we were texting back and forth.
• 1:40:04
  You know, I spoke to him, I spoke to, you know, my mom
• 1:40:08
  passed ades and just, what are you talking to them about?
• 1:40:12
  Where are you asking them questions of like for
• 1:40:14
  Preparation or you asking, you know, ego questions.
• 1:40:18
  And what I mean by that is, hey, am I Cameron?
• 1:40:19
  Am I read your head coach? You know, you've known me for a
• 1:40:22
  while. I am.
• 1:40:22
  I ready for this? What are you actually asking
• 1:40:24
  those for Mercedes coaches? What are you actually asking
• 1:40:27
  them? What are you trying to figure
• 1:40:28
  out? This just kind of let you know
• 1:40:31
  did like it. When I'm talking about my fat,
• 1:40:33
  my former ad I'm looking for, you know, I what type of things
• 1:40:37
  do you think he's going to be looking for, like, what kind of
• 1:40:40
  questions do you think that might pop up?
• 1:40:42
  And, you know, like what do you think that, you know, is the
• 1:40:45
  negatives about me? Like what am I going to have to
• 1:40:48
  overcome? Or what do you think that, you
• 1:40:50
  know, he's gonna feel like I have to overcome or whatever the
• 1:40:53
  case is? And so just kind of going
• 1:40:56
  through like me and Jeremy, we kind of have like a Mock
• 1:40:59
  interview, the session, you know, I mean, and so, just kind
• 1:41:04
  of talking through a lot of things and then even like,
• 1:41:07
  reaching out to coaches that we're Juco before they went D1
• 1:41:11
  and just kind of seeing what that transition is like, what
• 1:41:15
  are some of the things that you struggle with and in the first
• 1:41:18
  few months of the first year, or whatever.
• 1:41:19
  And what are some of the things that were easy going going into
• 1:41:23
  that transition at. So, you know, just trying to get
• 1:41:26
  a feel, you know what the process is going to be like You
• 1:41:29
  know, kind of what I have to look forward to.
• 1:41:33
  Having a circle, a network that will speak truth to you is
• 1:41:37
  invaluable, right? It seems like you have that, you
• 1:41:40
  talked about, one of the things that you would talk to cam and
• 1:41:44
  Jeremy and those guys was one of the negatives about me.
• 1:41:47
  I'm curious, what did they say? What was what was something that
• 1:41:51
  they're like? You know what you tend to do
• 1:41:54
  this, and that might rub this guy.
• 1:41:57
  The wrong way, or what was it? - that they Give you that
• 1:41:59
  something that, you know, like okay, because now you're in your
• 1:42:01
  head. You're like, well, I better get
• 1:42:02
  better at it, but was something that someone shared - I'm asking
• 1:42:06
  a very lovable question. By the way, I'm sorry, I'm
• 1:42:08
  sorry, I'm sorry, but the very vulnerable question.
• 1:42:11
  So again, just appreciate you being open and authentic here,
• 1:42:14
  ya know. So like and talking to Jeremy
• 1:42:18
  like, he's like, tell your story man, like tell your story
• 1:42:21
  because you got a good story and he's like, you don't tell your
• 1:42:23
  story enough, but people need to hear, you know, and so like he
• 1:42:28
  said, going into it like me. You tell your story.
• 1:42:30
  Like if they have a question like tell it, tell him but tell
• 1:42:34
  him, you know, something that you might have dealt with to
• 1:42:37
  prepare you for that moment or prepare you for whatever
• 1:42:40
  question that they have are. So, you know, that was something
• 1:42:44
  that I am not a big, I try to stay as humble as possible, you
• 1:42:48
  know, I mean, I'm not a big up in your face, you know.
• 1:42:51
  I'm not, you know, that's just not me and so I I do have a hard
• 1:42:56
  time, you know what I mean? Talking about myself, or Going
• 1:42:59
  about my accomplishments and things like that.
• 1:43:02
  And and so, you know, he was like don't be afraid to talk
• 1:43:04
  about those things and bring those things up because you've
• 1:43:08
  been successful, is this Jeremy? This is this.
• 1:43:11
  Yes, thanks to Jeremy Kappa. Is he still there today, right?
• 1:43:17
  No, he's not. He's not, he's working for
• 1:43:19
  Mammoth construction. They do.
• 1:43:21
  I know me was construction, very well.
• 1:43:23
  That's, that's funny. I know, this guy's very well.
• 1:43:25
  You got to tell him? Hey, man, I just talked to
• 1:43:27
  Michael. Yeah, I know mammoth.
• 1:43:29
  Very well. It's awesome.
• 1:43:30
  But shout out to jeromy what a leader.
• 1:43:32
  First of all, he's helping you get another job from you know,
• 1:43:36
  from the University that's amazing.
• 1:43:38
  He really speaks truth to power there with you on that it gives
• 1:43:42
  you great advice. I mean, wow, Jeremy's spot-on.
• 1:43:47
  I mean really really spot-on because, you know, it's easy to
• 1:43:50
  talk about the positives in not the - what you've been through.
• 1:43:54
  But also it's interesting in the called the social media world
• 1:43:59
  When you talk about, do you have a hard time talking about the
• 1:44:02
  positives of yourself? Like you know, I mean use the
• 1:44:04
  word brag but that's a negative connotation but being proud of
• 1:44:07
  the things that you have accomplished in that you have
• 1:44:08
  done on the social media world. It is 100 to 1 ratio. 100 times.
• 1:44:13
  It's easy for us to say something bad.
• 1:44:14
  I hated this, I didn't like this.
• 1:44:16
  I'd and then as soon as someone says, man, I just published a
• 1:44:21
  new book, you know, here it is. I'm proud of it or hey, I just
• 1:44:23
  won the national title. Here's a picture of the trophy
• 1:44:27
  and people like I'll brag You know, the stuff that's like what
• 1:44:31
  would he should be proud and by the way, you should be proud for
• 1:44:35
  him. It's like we think this like
• 1:44:37
  success is a pie and there's only so many slices to get
• 1:44:41
  that's not real world man. Your success does not pull away
• 1:44:44
  from anybody else's success. We can all have success man.
• 1:44:47
  So so while it may be hard for you Doug be proud, I mean golly
• 1:44:53
  he's done amazing. Yeah be proud, don't be
• 1:44:56
  braggadocious but be proud. Don't be don't be so shy away
• 1:44:59
  from So, what was there? A question during the interview
• 1:45:04
  process that threw you for a loop?
• 1:45:06
  Like again, it's someone is like trying to prepare for their own
• 1:45:09
  interview. Was there a question?
• 1:45:10
  You're like, oh man, they asked that a little differently than I
• 1:45:13
  was expecting. Or was there anything that kind
• 1:45:14
  of like you had to in the moment scramble and figure out the
• 1:45:18
  right answer? Authentic answer.
• 1:45:21
  Yeah, so I probably know one of the, one of the things that came
• 1:45:27
  up was, you know, how are you going to be successful in the
• 1:45:31
  first three months of the job first, three months.
• 1:45:35
  Wait a minute. Yeah, you're the track coach.
• 1:45:37
  You talked about, like, we don't start season till January.
• 1:45:39
  I know we practice a first three months.
• 1:45:41
  So July, August September. School has barely started.
• 1:45:44
  Practice has barely started, and they were interested.
• 1:45:47
  How are you going to be successful in those 90 to 100
• 1:45:49
  days? That's arresting.
• 1:45:51
  Yeah. I would not have seen that one.
• 1:45:53
  Yeah. What did you do?
• 1:45:54
  You? Like look man, I'm be moving.
• 1:45:56
  That's going to be success. It was
• 1:46:21
  Everybody is new to me and so the process is different and and
• 1:46:25
  just kind of learning how things run at North Texas.
• 1:46:29
  You know, I've been in Iowa Western and their system and
• 1:46:32
  their system is different from Garden City system of doing
• 1:46:35
  things that, you know, just kind of trying to get adjusted to the
• 1:46:39
  way that they want things done administratively, and, you know
• 1:46:44
  what I mean? And then just building those
• 1:46:46
  relationships, not only with the administration, but with the
• 1:46:49
  student-athletes, It's and getting them to understand the
• 1:46:52
  by and Trust and Believe In, You know, the culture that we're
• 1:46:56
  bringing into into North Texas and understand that, like, I
• 1:47:00
  don't, to be honest with you, Mike like winning is fun, like
• 1:47:04
  it. It's a lot of fun to win, but,
• 1:47:07
  you know, you gotta do a lot behind the scenes, like, you
• 1:47:11
  gotta do a lot right through the process in order to just to just
• 1:47:16
  to be on the level to be able to, you know, what I mean to
• 1:47:19
  compete, too. In and I tell my athletes like
• 1:47:22
  listen, like track is individual.
• 1:47:26
  So you when you, when you get into, when you, when you line up
• 1:47:29
  for 100 meter dash, there's six Heats.
• 1:47:33
  And you know what I mean? Like you're beating that out 47
• 1:47:37
  people to be number one and that's hard.
• 1:47:41
  Like and it takes a lot of work. And so just to get just to get
• 1:47:46
  everybody to understand that, like, I don't care about
• 1:47:50
  winning. Like I care about, what are you
• 1:47:52
  doing day-to-day? Like how?
• 1:47:54
  We how are we getting better as a person, like, how we working
• 1:47:59
  towards towards that? You know what I mean towards
• 1:48:01
  that ultimate goal? Are we taking days off?
• 1:48:04
  Are we? You know what I mean?
• 1:48:05
  Are we doing things our way? You know, like are we sticking
• 1:48:08
  to the plan? Are we going to trust the plan?
• 1:48:10
  When it gets hard and start to do our own thing?
• 1:48:14
  Or are we just going to keep trusting the plan and trust your
• 1:48:16
  coaching and and keep moving forward?
• 1:48:19
  And so like, Those different things, you know what I mean?
• 1:48:23
  Like, in that first three months, you gotta, you have to
• 1:48:25
  really Hammer those things into to a lot of people, not just
• 1:48:28
  your athletes but like, even even Administration the
• 1:48:31
  administrative side and have like get them to understand
• 1:48:34
  that. Like, I, I'm working towards
• 1:48:37
  work greatness. And he even now, like, I'm still
• 1:48:40
  I'm working towards greatness like I'm not, I'm not the best
• 1:48:44
  coach in America. You know what I mean?
• 1:48:46
  Like, I was, I was the best coaching Juco, three times, like
• 1:48:49
  that was a blessing. Yes.
• 1:48:51
  And we had amazing athletes and amazing coaches to get to that
• 1:48:54
  point. But, you know, now like it's a
• 1:48:57
  whole nother beast and I'm working towards, you know, I'm
• 1:49:00
  working towards that. That's saying greatness.
• 1:49:02
  And so to get everybody to realize that, you know, that's
• 1:49:06
  the, that's the mentality. Like, you know, that's that's
• 1:49:09
  what we're trying to do. And building those relationships
• 1:49:13
  and understanding like that. This is what we're trying to do
• 1:49:15
  this, what we're trying to accomplish, and we want to do it
• 1:49:18
  the right way. Like that's that's important.
• 1:49:21
  Well, we've heard that before, that is a big part of what?
• 1:49:23
  Jamie Pollard. It, Iowa State said as well,
• 1:49:26
  regards to, you know, I asked them.
• 1:49:28
  What do you look for in hiring head coach?
• 1:49:30
  And he goes, you know, first of all, you got to know the craft,
• 1:49:33
  you got to coach, right? That's table Stakes.
• 1:49:36
  He goes, but then he goes, it's a relationship profession.
• 1:49:39
  He's like, you're gonna be working with academic.
• 1:49:40
  Advisors alumni, Fund, Raisers, admissions, Etc.
• 1:49:45
  If you can't work with a multitude of people, that's
• 1:49:49
  probably not the position. Mission for you.
• 1:49:51
  You know? So I love that.
• 1:49:52
  Yeah. You definitely re you've doubled
• 1:49:57
  down that. You make you validated that.
• 1:49:59
  Okay? Two more question.
• 1:50:00
  I know we're past time. I know you good.
• 1:50:02
  So thankful man. Okay.
• 1:50:04
  Two questions. How much did you lean on?
• 1:50:08
  That? Network of yours in regards to
• 1:50:10
  referrals. Like, did you have people call
• 1:50:13
  or email the ad or maybe someone knew that SWA and so they would
• 1:50:18
  email on your behalf or calling your dad did Lean on that at
• 1:50:21
  all? Yeah, not most definitely.
• 1:50:24
  I think, you know, it takes relationships to be able to take
• 1:50:28
  opportunities and things like that, like this.
• 1:50:31
  And so, you know, I reached out to people.
• 1:50:34
  I had, I was actually, I had a conversation with with, you
• 1:50:38
  know, Jeremy and no. I told him about the chance of,
• 1:50:40
  everything's all. Yeah, I know this guy, that's
• 1:50:42
  there. No, I can, I can reach out.
• 1:50:44
  You want me to reach out to him. Yeah, it won't hurt.
• 1:50:47
  You know, it won't hurt. And so I think that once Once
• 1:50:51
  you build a good network of people and, you know, you have
• 1:50:55
  people that are reaching out and sometimes and I don't know if it
• 1:50:58
  helped at all. You know you that that probably
• 1:51:00
  be a rim Baker type questions but you know like it definitely
• 1:51:06
  helps. I think when you're going
• 1:51:07
  through a process like that and if you're one of the favorites
• 1:51:11
  and you know your name is the name that keeps getting flowed
• 1:51:14
  floated around and you know it's nothing but success for good
• 1:51:18
  things that are coming out of people's mouths about you and
• 1:51:20
  things like That I think that you know, those things
• 1:51:23
  definitely help when you know, when people are able to or when
• 1:51:27
  you have people in your corner to be able to to willingly reach
• 1:51:32
  out to people and, you know, put in a good word for you.
• 1:51:36
  Okay, last question. So like how you're like, oh boy,
• 1:51:40
  here we go. Sometimes I see and Doug space
• 1:51:46
  the regret of saying yes to them.
• 1:51:51
  He's got this dog coming in now. Like, I was wrap this up.
• 1:51:54
  All right, Doug there is the I'm going to call it a myth because
• 1:51:59
  it's half-truth have myth, but it's it's a it's a thought.
• 1:52:02
  In the specifically, the college coaching world may be
• 1:52:06
  specifically track and field but probably not.
• 1:52:08
  The myth is and I love busting myths.
• 1:52:12
  The myth is that, if you don't know someone, you ain't getting
• 1:52:15
  the job. Yeah, it sounds like you didn't
• 1:52:20
  really know anybody at North Texas isn't, I didn't hear you
• 1:52:24
  say anything about. Oh, yeah, Ren rins.
• 1:52:27
  Associate ad was Jeremy before he went to Iowa Western, you
• 1:52:30
  know. So I, you know, I knew in that
• 1:52:31
  way. It sounds like you saw the, the
• 1:52:37
  job posting you applied for it, like a normal human being.
• 1:52:43
  And then you prepared for it and then interviewed and got the
• 1:52:45
  job. It seems like, you know, I dare
• 1:52:47
  I say you earned the job that you didn't know exact true, did
• 1:52:51
  you have an end, you know, a former classmate at Emporia
• 1:52:56
  State was the SWA, was there anything like that?
• 1:52:59
  Or did you just straight-up? Apply and got noticed and then
• 1:53:02
  did the preparation and earn the job?
• 1:53:05
  Yes, I did. I didn't know anybody throughout
• 1:53:08
  the process on a personal level. There are, there are different
• 1:53:12
  Different connections Natasha Oaks she's annum.
• 1:53:17
  She's amazing lady. She graduated from Emporia
• 1:53:21
  State, but she graduated two years before I got there.
• 1:53:24
  And so she knew Cameron bab and, you know, she knew some of the
• 1:53:27
  people that I knew on the team at that point that were
• 1:53:30
  crossovers to my time when I was there.
• 1:53:33
  And so, you know, like this, that that connection was there
• 1:53:37
  and, you know, obviously with Jeremy and and the And athletic
• 1:53:43
  director at North Texas wearing Baker and they had a prior
• 1:53:47
  connection, but, you know, we didn't know each other.
• 1:53:50
  Well, you know, it's just kind of that that person in between
• 1:53:52
  that middleman. And so, they kind of had, but I
• 1:53:56
  didn't know anybody, like, I didn't know anybody on my, on a
• 1:53:58
  direct level within the north Texas system or anything like
• 1:54:03
  that. The funny, the funny part about
• 1:54:05
  it I kind of share. This is Natasha and I didn't, I
• 1:54:09
  had no clue. I didn't know until like two
• 1:54:11
  days ago but she was Each team will notice that I followed you
• 1:54:15
  in like, in like August. I was like, No.
• 1:54:18
  And she was like, yeah. Like I kept seeing stuff about
• 1:54:20
  how our Western and you know everybody hears about our search
• 1:54:22
  will be browser. Great coach, you know, shout out
• 1:54:24
  to deep around. Absolutely.
• 1:54:26
  But she was like, you know, I had heard about you and I was
• 1:54:28
  Central and and then all of a sudden, I saw her seeing our
• 1:54:31
  Western Ohio, Western Iowa, Western, and so not followed
• 1:54:35
  you. And I started following you and
• 1:54:36
  kind of for it, so it's just kind of funny.
• 1:54:38
  And I mean, I grew up a Christian and I am like I said
• 1:54:42
  my Father was a pastor growing up things and so I always you
• 1:54:46
  know I always say you know, God puts things in your in your path
• 1:54:51
  and you sometimes don't even notice or you do you sometimes
• 1:54:54
  don't even know that those things in your past.
• 1:54:56
  That's so, you know, some of the good things, then some of the
• 1:54:59
  bad things and all all the way across the border, prepare you
• 1:55:02
  for, you know, something for you to take, you know, later on.
• 1:55:05
  And so it's just funny like how that path is, you know, my path
• 1:55:09
  along the way has kind of led me to North Texas.
• 1:55:12
  Then my assistant coach had a dream and this is the last thing
• 1:55:17
  I'll say and you know but she had a dream at one point and she
• 1:55:21
  told me about the dream and you know she said that you had a
• 1:55:24
  dream that you called me and you know we were in Green in Texas
• 1:55:31
  somewhere and this is in, this is in like september/october.
• 1:55:35
  We were sitting down. We were sitting down eating and
• 1:55:41
  you know, she's like I had a dream.
• 1:55:42
  You said we're out culture you like?
• 1:55:46
  And so as she was I didn't know what you were talking about and
• 1:55:49
  so now, you know, fast forward to this point, you know, like
• 1:55:53
  I'm now, I'm like, okay yeah, that's the dream was pretty day
• 1:55:56
  real, but, you know, just that path like that, that path.
• 1:56:00
  It leads you to say anything. And so I tell everybody, you
• 1:56:04
  know, take the good from everything, you know, because
• 1:56:07
  the good is the good, but I think sometimes you gotta gotta
• 1:56:11
  take a deeper look at the neck. And, and because the negatives
• 1:56:15
  of the things that you have to grow on, and get better from and
• 1:56:20
  build off of. And so, you know, the good sort
• 1:56:23
  of the great things are great, but I think sometimes those
• 1:56:26
  failures are, you know, you get the feedback that you need to be
• 1:56:30
  a lot better moving forward. And so I've definitely taken a
• 1:56:35
  lot of that feedback and move them into this direction.
• 1:56:39
  Well, I love the lesson. You gave their about her
• 1:56:43
  following you on on social and stuff like that, you know, doing
• 1:56:47
  the right thing is always the right thing, not because the
• 1:56:50
  truth is everybody. You never know who's watching
• 1:56:53
  you, but doing the right thing is right.
• 1:56:55
  There is doing the right thing, no matter what, but you never
• 1:56:57
  know who's watching. You never know who the DVD
• 1:57:00
  that's like. Hey, yeah, oh just in case I
• 1:57:02
  need to make sure I keep my eyes and opening in the goodies.
• 1:57:05
  Do that, you never know who's following your path, and when
• 1:57:08
  the right opportunity comes comes along for you and your
• 1:57:11
  family. And then for Your new program,
• 1:57:13
  man. Doug, thank you so much, man.
• 1:57:16
  We call you. So early in the process, you
• 1:57:18
  speaking of green, you weren't even able to wear green.
• 1:57:20
  You ain't even got your first. North Texas, pulao or anything.
• 1:57:26
  I gotta get you a shirt man. We got.
• 1:57:29
  So, you can represent be humble. I gotta make sure I get you.
• 1:57:32
  Thank you. I'm so humbled.
• 1:57:34
  I love representing programs where I have relationships, so
• 1:57:37
  that would mean the world to me and, you know, that thank you
• 1:57:39
  for that. It's on regular.
• 1:57:41
  So you're gonna have to come through I got you.
• 1:57:43
  I got you Doug man. We just want to bless you as you
• 1:57:46
  move into a new program here at University of North Texas.
• 1:57:49
  You know what you're going to do in the staff you put together
• 1:57:53
  and administration and team around you you know I think
• 1:57:56
  there's nothing but up I think what was it Conference USA that
• 1:57:59
  right for North Texas? Yes sir.
• 1:58:00
  Yeah, I say this year and next year.
• 1:58:03
  Yeah, that's right. That's why I think the other
• 1:58:07
  coaches in the conference had kind of a two-fold reaction.
• 1:58:11
  I bet half of them are like crap.
• 1:58:12
  Guys can come in and do something, we'd better step up.
• 1:58:14
  And then, you know, because those caught those coaches are
• 1:58:16
  really, you know, competitive people, they also are like great
• 1:58:19
  bring it, you get better. That means we gotta get better.
• 1:58:22
  So I think, you know, there's a lot of great competitors in that
• 1:58:25
  conference. So you're going to do an amazing
• 1:58:26
  job. I can't wait to see you at me to
• 1:58:29
  Texas. Really, you know, go to a lot
• 1:58:30
  more Texas meets now, man. But I think, you know, it's just
• 1:58:33
  gonna be awesome. Yeah, keep going to Drake,
• 1:58:35
  though. That's my favorite in the whole
• 1:58:36
  world. They keep going is a busy time.
• 1:58:42
  You know, you got to win these next three months, right?
• 1:58:44
  Just like the like we're in said, so get on it.
• 1:58:47
  I'll I'll quit bugging you with this podcast and but just again,
• 1:58:51
  thank you man. The most valuable thing you can
• 1:58:52
  give me is your time and I'm just so grateful for you.
• 1:58:55
  Yes, sir, man, I'm grateful for you.
• 1:58:57
  I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for having me on.
• 1:59:00
  Go get to work. Go get a green shirt or
• 1:59:01
  something. I got you.
• 1:59:04
  Oh man, thank you. Thanks Mike what an incredible
• 1:59:14
  journey coach has been on so awesome to hear their story in
• 1:59:17
  their own words, tremendous proof of the positive effects
• 1:59:20
  coaches make on a daily basis. Help us spread the word of this.
• 1:59:23
  Great journey by sharing on your favorite social, media channel.
• 1:59:26
  And don't forget to take a minute to rate and review the
• 1:59:29
  podcast. You just might get a shout out
• 1:59:31
  on a future episode. That's it for today.
• 1:59:33
  Join us next week, when we'll connect you with another
• 1:59:36
  amazing. Crunch.