Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #195: Aaron Robison-Penn Relays

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#195: Aaron Robison-Penn Relays · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field coach, the ones that point
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  people most every season. He's the voice of reason.
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  Speaking, the growth gotta prep for you carry the load.
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  Talk to the stove. For those of us, stay on the go
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  pop, the handle, staying in the zone.
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  What you packing for the role is more than one way to go taking
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  those tests. And you told it ain't practice
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  it before it became clear. You can't happen to you.
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  Listen with both ears, can't Mentor, without a mentor, kids
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  of experience, you can reinvent those kids.
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  Every plans got to stand and deliver in the price sacrifice,
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  can you give up Hugh its choice and to fight not to win or lose?
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  It's not a boy, but if I see, y'all can make more movies, not
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  about how to All about why you don't know what you're you know
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  who you are inside. Six, many ways to die.
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  The work ain't done. So we learn from the experts to.
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  Y'all got to put in the legwork Gil athletic shoes Network.
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  It's all about Connections put together for the profession to
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  every track coach could be blessed.
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  Welcome back to the glowsticks connections podcast, man, I am
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  so glad you're here. I'm so humbled to be your host.
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  I really truly. A lot of people ask me, like,
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  how's your day going? Or how's how's work?
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  How's Gil, you know, I truly have the best job in the world.
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  So like I'm on the clock right now, I get to talk to coaches
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  and influential people in the sport of track and field on a
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  daily basis and then I get to bring it to you.
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  You got to kind of get the fly on the wall if you will to hear
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  these awesome conversations with these awesome people.
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  And And I'm excited about today, today is going to be, we have
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  any, I don't know what's going to happen here in the next hour,
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  hour and a half. Maybe for our.
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  Who knows? Maybe we're going to set the
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  record but the record is for, I think in a half hours, I don't
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  know. You never know what's going to
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  happen. It also may be could be five
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  minutes, maybe he just kicks me off and we're just we're just
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  done here but help me. Welcome the associate director
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  of the famed Penn. Relays that's right we've got
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  the Penn relays here today. Help me welcome the wise, the
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  wonderful mr. Eyre and Robinson, Robinson
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  Rosen Robinson, Robinson Robinson and I It's too early.
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  It's early in the morning when we're recording here so give me.
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  I don't drink coffee anymore, so I don't have any excuses to wake
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  me up here. How are you sir?
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  Welcome to the show. Well, thanks for having me on,
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  absolutely, man. I think this will be a lot of
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  fun, you know, typically we have coaches and, and we've had
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  others, you know, just recently, we had Dan O'Brien who, you
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  know, not but coach by any means, but we got to talk a lot
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  about his coaches. We've had Tim Langford from
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  Oklahoma, Dan path. We've been some amazing coaches.
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  You have a coaching background yourself, so that's a good.
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  To be fun to learn, but you helped oversee.
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  You know, if you were going to name, you know, maybe the top
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  five meats or events, if you will of track and field, man,
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  99% of us are going to have the Penn relays in that top five.
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  And you get to kind of help Shepherd and Lead.
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  This really amazing event no pressure but that seems like a
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  pretty awe-inspiring tasks or yeah.
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  I mean listen, it's pretty daunting and humbling.
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  Especially when you you figure how many people have been a part
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  of the events over its, you know, we're going on 130 years
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  coming up. How many people have both
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  competed? How many people have attended?
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  How many people have watched? How many people it's impacted
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  their life in one way or the other.
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  And I kind of find those things out on a daily basis.
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  From places that you would have never thought, you know, people
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  reaching out my great grandfather ran on the relays
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  and we lost his metal. Is there any way that, you know,
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  No, we can order a replacement. I mean, just a couple of months
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  ago, someone had reached out and it was their
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  great-great-grandfather that still had a watch that they won
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  in the 1903. Relays.
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  So I mean, we're spending so many generations and it's just
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  it's it's insane house. How long and continuous?
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  And building upon itself this event has gone until, you know.
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  Now where the Twenty-three iter, which will be the 127th running
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  of the events. And and that's just that's just
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  wild to me. The only two years that it
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  didn't happen or 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic.
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  It went through World War One. It went through the Great
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  Depression, it went through World War Two, it went through
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  the entire Cold War, it just continued on, you know, Stone
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  rolling down the mountain, kind of thing, and it's It's quite
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  the event and to fully grasp what it means to various people
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  is one of the most humbling and beautiful aspects of the job
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  that I have. It gets so caught up you know
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  often in the minutiae to make sure that you know the events
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  are running on time that we have a proper schedule that the
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  everything is seated properly. Like all of those details when
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  those things, you know, when they do happen.
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  That's not what people are noticing.
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  You're seeing there seeing The pain realizes is a carnival that
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  it brings back a lot of memories.
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  It's a reunions of sorts. It's you know it's really a
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  unique thing that really doesn't exist in the same capacity it's
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  really. It is truly a carnival and it's
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  a pretty cool experience. Now, I can't imagine this person
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  exists but I'm sure there is someone who doesn't know the
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  Penn relays give us like the they give us the stat line.
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  So how many days? How many athletes?
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  How many people in the stands? Give us kind of that in.
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  And then we'll take a step back and learn about your journey in
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  this Sport and then we'll get really deep into the Penn
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  relays. But what's the kind of stats?
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  I mean, what is this like 100 people?
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  100 athletes, kind of meat? What we do in here.
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  So, it's the event goes over three days.
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  It's Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
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  The Saturday is always the last Saturday of April.
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  Thursday, is is primarily day one of high school Friday is day
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  1 of college day 2 of high school and day one for the other
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  gender that didn't start on Thursday for high school.
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  And then Saturday is all finals, along with pro events.
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  We do have a few pro events on Friday evening as well, but the
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  the pro events are from 2:00 to 4:00 on Saturday kind of during
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  that Premier window. And the combined attendance over
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  the three days is on average about And 10,000 participants,
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  it's usually about 13,000 high school athletes.
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  It's about two or three thousand College athletes and then Pros
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  are less than 100 because there's just, there's not a,
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  there's not a ton of pro events, but the lifeblood of the events
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  is the high school events. There's just so many of them in
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  the 4 by 1 and the 4 by 4. Are roughly 600 teams in each of
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  those events for the boys and each of those events for the
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  girls. So it's a huge participatory
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  event. It's just incredible.
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  It's an International Event. We've had teams from something
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  like 37 different countries attend at some point the most
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  common being those from the Caribbean Jamaica.
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  Most notably the Trinidad and Bahamas have a long history
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  here. A lot of success and you know,
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  it's just incredible what what it's done both internationally
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  and domestically and from what I've been told that it's the
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  highest attended Track event outside of the Olympics and
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  world championships with the one day always Saturday.
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  The last day of the relays has attendance numbers as high as
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  one day highs has as much as anything.
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  Man, incredible is the right word.
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  When you start thinking about these numbers and that you're
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  doing it over a weekend, you know, three-day weekend that's
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  quite impressive. I can't wait to kind of delve
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  into like the process like it you know, to when I was coaching
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  you we'd host home meets and and that was an event on its own, in
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  regards to the preparation and making sure, you know, teams
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  know where to go, where the, where the people are going to
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  team camps, the whole nine I can't imagine doing it for over
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  fifteen thousand athletes and God knows how many teams and and
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  what have you? So we're we'll dive into that.
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  So let's take a step back before that though Aaron because you
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  know, to do a roll like this, it takes a lot of skills, maybe a
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  lot of maybe we will learn different skills from coaching.
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  Maybe some skills that you learn as a coach or being coached
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  translate. Certainly they do because
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  there's some you know real world things that we do is track
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  coaches and as athletes. So we'll learn kind of what are
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  the what are the skill sets that you need to have to help bring
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  success to the Penn relays? So let's learn about you and how
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  you got to this point here. So where does track and field
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  start for you? Or you have middle school or
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  high school, or maybe heck, I don't know, maybe never did
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  track and field. Well, now track and field
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  started for me on day, one of life.
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  So Mike one father is Clarence Robison.
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  Who was the he was 1948 Olympian in the fire. 5,000 and then he
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  started as the head track coach. In 1949 at BYU a position, he
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  held until 1989. And then, my father is Mark
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  Robinson, who's been coaching at BYU since 1985?
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  Who's currently the associate director of the program at BYU
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  and was the head men's coach for?
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  I think 14 years. And so literally my entire being
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  has been Involved in track and my plan and my goal all through
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  Elementary School will middle school, high school and even
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  College was to follow in that same family coaching tree.
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  And with the long-term goal of coaching collegiately in 2014
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  that shifted a little bit. At that point, is last year, I
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  coached High School. I coach high school for five
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  years and so Our toga Springs Utah at Westlake High School, we
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  had a lot of success. We did a lot of good things.
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  At that point, we moved East. My wife took a job with Johnson
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  & Johnson and New Jersey and I started grad school at Rutgers
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  and somewhere in there, there was a slight shift of, you know,
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  dude, I still want to coach. Do I want to?
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  I knew I was going to be involved in the sport.
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  I just didn't know exactly how as I was, I was kind of
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  exploring different options. And things while in grad school,
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  I worked for an Malaysian called the national athletic Institute
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  which what we did is we represented both able-bodied and
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  para u.s. athletes to help kind of build in a structure to
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  relieve the funding Gap and that was my first exposure to the
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  sport on the other side. You know, the non coaching sides
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  I was in the program development director.
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  So I did a lot of camps and Clinics put those events on and
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  kind of develop the sport from that capacity. after I graduated
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  from Rutgers with my Master's Degree, an opportunity came up
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  at the armory in New York City, just as a seasonal staff member
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  to be involved in the sport there and my dear friend and
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  Mentor, Tim Fulton took a chance on me, help, teach me, you know,
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  the world of meat directing and what that looks like and at the
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  Armory meet directing is kind of in this you know it's a it's a
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  Small tin can kind of thing. It's tons of people you know,
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  one day events that have as many as 5,000 athletes and in a small
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  capacity like the Armory you know, an indoor track and field
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  facility. And so I learned firsthand from
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  Tim who I think is probably the best meat director in the
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  country. Tim taught me, this the sport
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  from that aspect and within about six months, the armory And
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  hired me full time where I was the assistant director of track
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  and field. And then upon the retirement of
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  Jack Pfeiffer, I became the director of college track and
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  field there and I managed. All of I was the meet director
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  for all of our College events and the high school events.
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  It was all about volume, the college events.
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  It was, it's just a little bit different and got to kind of
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  learn exactly how to be a good meet director for a college
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  event including the dr. Sandra Invitational and And I
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  was on the staff with Melrose and and several of those kind of
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  things which just again it helps me and kind of guiding me and
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  teaching me the sport from a professional standpoint teaching
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  and guiding me. The sport from a college and
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  high school standpoint and then fast forward to 2021 upon the
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  retirement of Dave Johnson. You know, the director of the
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  Penn relays for 26 years, Steve Dolan Became the new director of
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  the Penn relays as well as being the director of the pain track
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  and field program. And so then they were looking to
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  hire an associate director. And that's the role that that I
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  eventually got I applied and was able to get this, this role here
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  at Penn. And so my role now here at Penn,
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  it pretty much takes all of those different aspects that I
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  learned both as an athlete, the aspect of learning the pro side
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  of it. High School side of it, the
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  college side of it, and everything.
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  And now in my role here at Penn, I as the associate director, I'm
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  in charge of the operations to make sure that, you know, I'm
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  the boots on the ground to make sure that the meat staying on
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  time that we have that schedule. Fine-tuned and the meat rolls on
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  over the three days. And we end when we say we end
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  and we start when we say we start.
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  So, let's pause there. Let's unpack a lot of this story
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  of yours here and I mean, I don't want to gloss over some
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  really important. Ortant.
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  Interesting facts. So go all the way back.
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  I love that you said, you know, track started me on day one and
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  you literally meant the day you were born.
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  You are immersed in track and field.
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  I know your dad well and one of the most authentic people in
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  this sport. Yeah.
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  I deal with a ton of track coaches, and smile is always on
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  my face. When I get to talk to your dad,
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  man, knowing I didn't know your grandpa's history there, no
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  Olympian in the five. I feel like I've missed out, not
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  knowing him, to be honest with you, that if he's anything like
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  you and Mark, good God, that guy.
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  He's started at all. He was the, the rock that rubs
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  on was built on. Its he was the Pinnacle.
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  My dad is the closest to him, and then I come in, you know,
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  distant flirt in, trying to stand up to what they have done.
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  But now they've impacted a lot of people for sure.
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  And that's the one area of coaching.
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  That that I definitely miss. Is that daily young person
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  interaction. It's It's, there's nothing more
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  rewarding than those types of things.
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  So, you know, I know of your dad as I know of him as a very good
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  field events type of Coach but you were a distance.
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  Runner. How was that?
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  Being a coach's son in maybe Mark, I mean marks a coach
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  coach, so many pigeonholing when I say field events but the guy
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  could probably coach anything. How was it growing up?
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  A coach's son, you know, being at a track meet probably from
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  the day, you were born type of attitude there It's kind of
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  interesting even though my grandfather was also a distance
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  Runner, he coached all the field events and I think that was
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  primarily because in the 40s when he started, it was easier
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  to find assistant coaches, that could do the Sprints in the
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  distance Runners. Hmm.
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  And so, he learned, I mean, he knew all the events, he learned
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  the events, he could coach anything, and my father followed
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  that same pattern. My father was also a distance
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  Runner. He was a distance Runner, BYU
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  Mark, I did not know that. Haha.
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  And so when he graduated in the early 80s and he was there at
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  the same time, Doug Padilla is a year older than my father, so
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  Doug Padilla Paul Cummings. And then a couple of years after
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  them is when Ed, I Stone came about, you know, Ed was there in
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  the mid 80s so it's really a Heyday of middle distance
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  Runners at BYU at that time and my father was right there in
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  that mix. Not not to that same level.
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  I mean those guys were world-class, that's a heck of a
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  leveled but and so he knew upon graduation that he needed to
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  become a track coach, right? A coach should know every event.
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  And whether they coach those events or not, they should know
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  every event. And so, as a distance Runner, he
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  obviously knew the distances. He understood the Dynamics and
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  things behind, Sprints, and hurdles.
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  And so he became, you know, a field event coach specializing
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  in the jumps and the Sighs and obviously is a Maltese coach
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  that's extremely important. You've got to know.
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  You can't just pass them off to other people and then, you know,
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  you're at the competition and know will what do I say now?
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  So, and so, when he came back to BYU in 85, after graduating, he
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  started grad school and was a grad assistant at that time for
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  the last few years, under my grandfather, and he learned the
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  field events and became the field.
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  Event coach upon my grandfather's retirement in the
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  late 80s. And then that's what he's
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  coached his whole career. So for me like I knew that that
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  was exactly what I wanted to do as well though.
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  I was a distance Runner. Aye my family is five boys.
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  And one girl my oldest brother Nate was a distance Runner and
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  Nate was sixth at the 2004 Olympic trials, just missed the
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  whole for Olympic team and was a seven-time All-American at BYU
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  and between cross-country indoor and outdoor.
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  And so he was very, very good distance Runner.
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  Her. And then I was kind of following
• 19:04
  my brother's footsteps and you know thought.
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  Yeah I'm going to be, you know, a distance Runner as well.
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  Started in high school is very mediocre my senior year.
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  I finally dropped about 30 seconds off my Mile and was able
• 19:20
  to walk on to BYU and made the team as a distance Runner as
• 19:23
  well that next year and I was my brother Nate.
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  All my siblings are fairly tall, I'm sick. 8.
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  And when I started running, I was about 510 and then I grew
• 19:38
  about eight inches in three years and it just it wasn't
• 19:42
  coming together. And I mean, obviously never
• 19:44
  hindsight when you're growing and your structured like a baby
• 19:48
  giraffe, it's to put one leg in front of the other and and do
• 19:53
  anything over that slow down and then I could finally put in, you
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  know, the training and the coordination came and everything
• 20:00
  and it kind of all came together.
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  But then, even in my my career at BYU it was just it was lots
• 20:09
  of injuries could never stay healthy which made sense.
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  I mean my I was 68 180, 190 pounds trying to do 80 90 miles
• 20:18
  a week. That just that's just not going
• 20:20
  to work. And so, I mean, I had some
• 20:23
  moderate success, but it was, it was such a great experience for
• 20:27
  me one just, you know, teammates and friends and things to being
• 20:31
  able to be there with my father on.
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  Daily basis. Even though he wasn't my direct
• 20:34
  coach, I was coached by a Dye Stone, but then just to be able
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  to learn the sport from the inside, you know, like, getting
• 20:41
  to see it from a different perspective.
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  All growing up in elementary school and in middle school, and
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  to a lesser degree in high school because I had my own
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  competitions. But I went in my dad, anytime I
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  could, I would, I went up to Idaho State Mini Dome more times
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  than I can count. As you know, I was extra piece
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  of cargo on the bus that went up there.
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  And got to follow my dad around. And I learned the sport
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  firsthand from him. Listen to has, he instructed his
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  high jumpers and he's instructed as long jumpers to sprinters and
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  everything. And I was just mentored by so
• 21:19
  many of these world-class athletes that were on the, the
• 21:23
  BYU team and got to see incredible things.
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  I got to see when Leonard miles Mills, broke the NCAA record,
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  the 55 that also been tied the world record.
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  I got to see. Um, though, she wasn't on the
• 21:34
  BYU team. But when Stacey Drew creature,
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  guila broke the world record in the pole vault for the first
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  time, you know, like, I got to see those kind of things.
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  I got to be mentored by, you know, world-class athletes, and
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  world-class coaches and everything.
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  It just, it opened my eyes to the sport.
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  And, you know, I learned firsthand like one, you know,
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  how you interact with athletes and how you coach, and how you
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  do, all those things that when I did, then start coaching.
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  High school after I was done collegiately, I just had, you
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  know, some some innate things some things.
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  I just, you know, almost gotten from osmosis if you will from my
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  father who had gotten them from his father and and those are
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  some of my most Cherished Memories.
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  As I think back on the hundreds of athletes that my dad coached
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  that, you know, I was their little brother and They seized
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  me and played with me and they were over 4.
• 22:32
  Our house on Thanksgiving and those kind of scent and even,
• 22:36
  you know, to a greater extent, I got a such an incredible
• 22:40
  exposure as here, I was a kid growing up in Provo, Utah and
• 22:44
  not the most diverse places, but I got exposure to people from
• 22:48
  all over the world. As so many of my dad's athletes
• 22:51
  were either from Africa or were from Europe or from different
• 22:54
  parts of the world and and learning from them and learning
• 22:59
  what different cultures were like and those kind of things.
• 23:02
  Was was just such a neat experience as you know our
• 23:07
  Thanksgiving dinners and our Christmas dinners and things
• 23:09
  were United Nations. It was it was so fun.
• 23:14
  We have lots of real fun uncle's that you know, were members of
• 23:19
  the team that came over and and so, you know, there was just so
• 23:23
  much about the sport that I learned while not realizing that
• 23:27
  I was learning the sport and now fast forward to 2023.
• 23:31
  There's so many Those things that I just, you know, I learned
• 23:34
  innately that I hadn't realized that, you know, come when I hit
• 23:40
  my career or later in my life, how important those things would
• 23:43
  be, and it's been, I'm very, very blessed to have had kind of
• 23:48
  those unique opportunities because it's not a, it's not a
• 23:54
  very common, you know, role or a common path to where I am.
• 23:59
  Now, you mentioned one of the The greatest things about the
• 24:03
  sport of track and field and it's the diversity.
• 24:06
  You nailed it, right? So from different countries,
• 24:09
  different races different, religions different backgrounds,
• 24:13
  different socioeconomic backgrounds to me different body
• 24:17
  types. I mean, that's to me, what makes
• 24:19
  track and field better than any other sport.
• 24:21
  You know, football might be close in the sense of like, body
• 24:24
  types. Like, okay, there's there's a
• 24:25
  place for a big, guys. There's a place for skinny guys.
• 24:28
  Got for fast, guys, little guys, but there's really Place for
• 24:33
  females in football is as far as on the sport, there's not a lot
• 24:38
  of other countries necessarily playing the sport, although it's
• 24:41
  seems to be more and more every year, but for track and field,
• 24:44
  it is the global worldwide. Top to bottom, there is a place
• 24:49
  for you and track and feels I when you're painting that
• 24:53
  picture, like I had this picture of like this long table and you
• 24:57
  know, there's Leonard miles in there from Ghana and I just, oh,
• 25:01
  man, that's so So really special about our sport.
• 25:05
  You you know you went to BYU. I got the really the pleasure I
• 25:10
  did a few years ago a trip through Utah where I went from
• 25:13
  Southern Utah all the way up to Utah, State and BYU of course,
• 25:17
  as you know you're not allowed to go to the state, not go to
• 25:19
  BYU's campus. It's kind of a law I think, or
• 25:21
  something and Utah. But it was my first time that
• 25:24
  I've been on campus and was really blown away.
• 25:29
  I mean, Abby, first of all, the buildings themselves, fine?
• 25:32
  Our buildings, our buildings but they all look kind of new.
• 25:34
  I don't know how new they were but they all look new.
• 25:36
  But the mountains where the tracks its I mean it was kind of
• 25:41
  fairy tale as you know just like wow this is a real real place.
• 25:45
  Your dad gave me a great tour. I loved it.
• 25:47
  There BYU has a fantastic history in the sport of track
• 25:51
  and field. As you mentioned, in fact you're
• 25:55
  the women's distance coach there.
• 25:56
  Now deal detailer is was a podcast was a he's an Alum of
• 26:00
  the podcast and actually one of of our top five ever.
• 26:03
  Listen to podcast had a fantastic time.
• 26:07
  Getting the No Deal G and the success that she's having.
• 26:10
  You mentioned, Ed Eyestone, come on man, your dad was a
• 26:13
  hall-of-famer, the Ringgit. The Aurelius had any pronounce
• 26:16
  Knicks last name? Granny has a radius.
• 26:18
  The radius family has gone through.
• 26:21
  But you while you mean it's really it's all if a material
• 26:24
  left and right as you went to BYU, you said you know because
• 26:28
  of this immersion that you are learning the sport and Coaching
• 26:33
  by osmosis what a great description there.
• 26:36
  What did you major in? Was it like, I'm going to be a
• 26:39
  high school coach where you an education major.
• 26:41
  Yeah, it was an education. It was within the department of
• 26:45
  exercise science. It was a physical education,
• 26:47
  teacher education, major with. Yeah.
• 26:51
  The, the plan was to become a high school teacher and Coach
• 26:55
  that was everything I had planned.
• 26:58
  And so when I graduated from BYU and Thousand and nine that fall
• 27:05
  I was lucky enough to get a coaching and teaching job at
• 27:09
  Westlake High School in. Saratoga Springs is a brand new
• 27:11
  high school was just opening up and I got to be there first
• 27:16
  track and cross country coach, and it was such a humbling
• 27:21
  experience. I had three kids on my
• 27:23
  cross-country team that fall that had ever run a race before
• 27:27
  5K a high school race anything. And it was so awesome.
• 27:32
  Because I just got to learn and no one was going to really care
• 27:38
  how I went about doing it. We were going to try things, we
• 27:40
  were going to fail and eventually we were going to
• 27:43
  figure things out and lucky for me are lat my last year I was
• 27:48
  there. So that was the fall of 2013 to
• 27:50
  the spring of 2014 that fall. My boys cross country.
• 27:53
  Team was ranked number twenty fourth nationally.
• 27:56
  We had a lot of success. I think we still We end up, I
• 28:01
  think we're either fourth or fifth at the state meet, just
• 28:04
  because you tie is quite a good cross country.
• 28:07
  State our neighbors to one town, over was American Fork, High
• 28:12
  School and then lumpy High School is one more over to the
• 28:15
  other direction and, and Herriman High School just on the
• 28:18
  other side of small little mountain.
• 28:23
  And, you know, and then you throw in Davis, High School, and
• 28:26
  all their history and everything.
• 28:27
  It's, it was, it was quite a A challenging time.
• 28:33
  But man, it was so awesome. And my assistant coach was one
• 28:38
  of my former teammates. If you, while you chat Durham,
• 28:41
  we had such a good time. It was, you know, again, like I
• 28:45
  mentioned a few minutes ago, the thing, I miss the very most that
• 28:49
  I now that I'm not coaching is just those daily interactions
• 28:53
  interactions with the young, people just having an
• 28:57
  opportunity to kind of see as their life changes.
• 29:00
  Track and field makes that for the better.
• 29:01
  So often it's you know, it's a really beautiful thing.
• 29:05
  There's so much of a an individual aspect of the sport.
• 29:09
  That's you know, you get what you put into it and that was
• 29:13
  cool to watch from so many these different kids.
• 29:15
  How many years did you coach High School?
• 29:18
  Five years? I was there from 2009 until the
• 29:22
  spring of 2014. Was there ever any frustration
• 29:26
  from you? It doesn't seem like it because
• 29:27
  you talked about three kids never run your like it was
• 29:30
  awesome. Mmm.
• 29:31
  But I started thinking about the background and the level of
• 29:34
  track and field that you were at up into this point, right?
• 29:37
  I mean, you know, being around your dad being around BYU, your
• 29:41
  brother successful, I mean, good lord, your lineage is your
• 29:44
  dad's, an deliver. Your grandpa was an Olympian.
• 29:47
  I mean, then you go into high school, which you first off,
• 29:51
  even if you had taken over an established program, the level
• 29:55
  of high school track and field varies immensely, you're taking
• 29:58
  up her whole new program, did you?
• 30:00
  Was there any like, oh man, I thought this would be easier.
• 30:02
  I thought we just come in and hit the ground running and they
• 30:05
  would just all become all Americans or whatever.
• 30:07
  Or, how did that go for you? Kind of emotionally?
• 30:10
  They're certainly, I think anyone that takes over a high
• 30:13
  school coaching job when you haven't been at the high school
• 30:15
  level a long time, they kind of Awakening like, oh, not
• 30:20
  everybody on the team wants to run five or six times a week.
• 30:23
  Not everybody on the team really is doing this for anything,
• 30:26
  other than social reasons. That's right.
• 30:28
  The drop something on a resume. And and so I Like, you know, you
• 30:31
  learn that but the thing that's I had always had established in
• 30:35
  to me for both my father and my grandfather is there people
• 30:39
  first their athletes second. And so when I had that
• 30:44
  opportunity to really get to apply that, right, like none of
• 30:48
  them are currently athletes. So there's got to be some type
• 30:52
  of, you know, what's the benefit here, right?
• 30:55
  Like, what can I do for this person?
• 30:57
  And the funny thing is, when you think That way when you are more
• 31:02
  concerned with them as a person, then, all of a sudden, the
• 31:05
  success comes very, very quickly because now they see that they
• 31:10
  that you care about them whether or not they are first or last
• 31:14
  that you care about them, you know, during practice during
• 31:17
  meets, whether it's beneficial for you, as a coach or not
• 31:21
  beneficial for you as a coach, or a team, or whatever, then all
• 31:24
  of a sudden that's where all the buy-in comes in.
• 31:26
  And, you know, I was, I was I felt like I was okay at this.
• 31:32
  And then my assistant coach Chad is the best at this.
• 31:36
  And Chad was the rah-rah guy, the guy that got everybody just
• 31:40
  feeling, you know, all warm and fuzzy.
• 31:41
  And, and so, the combination of the two of us with that being
• 31:44
  our primary goal, the success came.
• 31:48
  And, you know, we did get a, some really, really good kids
• 31:53
  that were, you know, good right off the bat but when we were
• 31:56
  able to apply those principles, yeah, we And seeing some
• 32:01
  success, and we had some really good kids, and, and Chad is
• 32:05
  still coaching at Westlake now, and they've sustained a success.
• 32:09
  And they've had some really, really good kids come through
• 32:11
  that program. I've also has really lucky my
• 32:15
  first year coaching high school track.
• 32:18
  So cross-country, you know, it was a bit of a challenge but
• 32:21
  that you're on track. We had a German exchange student
• 32:23
  that fast forward, he ended up being a three-time All-American,
• 32:28
  in the 400 hurdles and he Was 12 at the World, Junior
• 32:31
  Championships, the fall or late summer after that year.
• 32:37
  So the first year in track, we actually had a lot of success.
• 32:40
  Wow, because you had this, this one young man.
• 32:42
  Max schaible, who ended up going on to do some great things ended
• 32:47
  up running. Oh, how fast did he end up
• 32:50
  going? I think in college, he went 50.1
• 32:54
  and the 400 hurdles. So I mean he was very, very
• 32:56
  good. He made a couple of NCAA meats
• 32:58
  and things in college. And so when, you know, you're
• 33:02
  blessed with an athlete like that all of a sudden, I mean, I
• 33:05
  think he qualified for six or seven events at the state needs
• 33:09
  all four events that he ended up doing at the state meet, he
• 33:13
  placed and placed very high. And so do our first year we were
• 33:16
  like fourth or fifth at the state meet.
• 33:18
  Thanks, One German exchange student, you know.
• 33:20
  So, you know, I had some, some luck involved in there too, but,
• 33:25
  yeah, it was awesome. So I heard two things as you're
• 33:28
  talking about the program, as you were starting it and
• 33:31
  expectations. One is meeting the kids where
• 33:35
  they are today but, you know, you may have come from a great
• 33:38
  program. You may be used to Olympians and
• 33:40
  all Americans, but you know what?
• 33:42
  Okay, this is here's a kid. Joey showing up and Joey thinks
• 33:45
  it's a good idea to do cross country but he doesn't even know
• 33:47
  what it really is. You know, he did the mile back
• 33:50
  in middle school and didn't win it by the way, meeting them
• 33:54
  where they are. So I heard that into I heard
• 33:56
  that you are not the wrong guy. You said, Chad was and you said,
• 34:00
  so we had the two different people.
• 34:02
  Yeah, I mean, I was to an extent, you know, obviously,
• 34:07
  instilling those those same things that I mentioned, you
• 34:10
  know, for my father and grandfather always, I could be
• 34:13
  the rock guy, but that was Chad's main main thing, right?
• 34:15
  Because also as the head coach, you also Have to be the bearer
• 34:19
  of bad news sometimes and you have to be the, you know, kind
• 34:22
  of the good cop bad cop. I had to be the bad cop more
• 34:26
  often and so that was the beauty of having Chad there with me is
• 34:29
  because Chad's personality was just so, just warm and uplifting
• 34:35
  that that he could really be that while I had to be the
• 34:38
  other. And most of the time we didn't
• 34:41
  really have to do that and I could definitely be the wrong
• 34:44
  guy but at the same time I wasn't the wrong guy.
• 34:48
  It was also kind of funny as we went along.
• 34:51
  If a kid was ever going to miss practice, they went and found
• 34:54
  Chad not me because they knew that I would tell them no and a
• 34:58
  hard time but chatter be like, okay y'all.
• 35:00
  Let's all that are and know kind of thing, you know?
• 35:03
  And so it kind of turned into that Mom and Dad kind of
• 35:06
  situation to where the kids knew, what answer they were
• 35:09
  going to get from what coach. So they went to that coach
• 35:11
  accordingly. It's so it's hard to be the
• 35:14
  delivered the positive real real.
• 35:15
  When it's like, hey, Joey, you're not making the trip this
• 35:17
  weekend. Yeah.
• 35:18
  You know it's like all right. Well someone has still deliver
• 35:21
  that for sure. And with that though.
• 35:23
  Like it was also just. Yeah.
• 35:26
  It was just you know a mom and dad is kind of in fact, that's
• 35:29
  what the kids had gotten to the point of, you know, that that we
• 35:33
  were mom and dad even though we know those two mail coaches,
• 35:35
  right? But it was it was a lot of fun
• 35:39
  and you know, we just some of the most tremendous experiences,
• 35:43
  some of the most the best memories were all, you know,
• 35:48
  just all that. Coaching and learning different
• 35:51
  coaches in the state of Utah than state of Utah, does
• 35:53
  incredible job at the high school level with more than just
• 35:56
  the distance Runners. The distance Runners kind of
• 35:58
  steal the headlines, but there are some incredible athletes
• 36:02
  that come out of that state year after year in a state of just
• 36:06
  over two million people. It's really it's, you know, I've
• 36:10
  got a lot of Pride and, you know, my home state and
• 36:12
  especially track and field for my home state.
• 36:14
  Yeah, I would agree. You know coaching A profession
• 36:19
  for the sport of track and field is special.
• 36:22
  You idea did on several different levels, High School,
• 36:24
  Junior College, D1 and power 5. And I still, I mean, we had some
• 36:30
  major success. You know, I had a full by one
• 36:31
  run 30 8.30 would grow 3013 flat and the full before, and I still
• 36:37
  remember that my first two years of coaching coaching High School
• 36:40
  in Chicago, I told the story of the podcast before and it's
• 36:43
  where I'm going to tell it again.
• 36:45
  I still remember Robert three. I'll never forget Robert three.
• 36:47
  This was 90. Tea.
• 36:50
  Five. So this is 28 years.
• 36:53
  Oh my God, I'm old 28 years ago, Robert three was a freshman for.
• 36:57
  So as a deal of style High School in Chicago, in the
• 37:00
  Catholic league and you know, he was not good, you know, I don't
• 37:04
  think Robert would, you know if it's Roberts listening.
• 37:06
  I don't think he's cringing right now.
• 37:07
  He was a 615 Miler and at the JV Catholic League meet.
• 37:12
  He ran under six. Right?
• 37:14
  I do not remember what it was. I remember his under six out,
• 37:16
  you know we have these time commitment, right?
• 37:18
  You know, some 6 of 5. For right?
• 37:20
  And sub 6 was his sub for, you know, it was he was striving for
• 37:23
  and I think junior, junior varsity Catholic League.
• 37:27
  He runs, 550 something I'm sure doesn't place.
• 37:31
  I don't think that place. There's Catholics pretty good in
• 37:34
  Chicago, but you would have thought he won the Olympic gold
• 37:38
  medal. Absolutely, he is pumped.
• 37:41
  I'm pumped. His parents are, there were all,
• 37:43
  we're like, doing the little, like, the, for your, the, to
• 37:46
  parents. Him and me are doing the like,
• 37:48
  the the jump around like We were just so pumped, every didn't
• 37:53
  matter that he finished, whatever.
• 37:54
  I don't remember. What place he finished.
• 37:55
  He might have score. I don't even know, but it was
• 37:58
  that he achieved a goal that he'd been busting his butt for
• 38:02
  all year. Now, a lot of times in the
• 38:05
  college side, it's like, oh, that's nice.
• 38:07
  But you still didn't do anything in conference or call for
• 38:09
  National? So, see you next year.
• 38:10
  This was the Super Bowl for that kid.
• 38:13
  And for me like there, no, no Miss, I'll, I still remembered
• 38:17
  that. And it was so special.
• 38:19
  It is It's different on each level, there's differences.
• 38:22
  But that High School level, it's all that's the beauty of high
• 38:25
  school, right? Because there's not those those
• 38:28
  extra pressures. There's not the you know there's
• 38:32
  just so few of them that are actually going to run Beyond
• 38:34
  high school anyway. Right.
• 38:36
  That's what's the percentage is, it's not in turn 7 or not, it's
• 38:40
  not 10, it's single digits. I think if I'm ever last that I
• 38:43
  saw. Yeah.
• 38:44
  And so what could it's very, very challenging.
• 38:46
  So, you know, you're going to coach those kids a little bit
• 38:48
  differently but but similar to you, one of my most fond
• 38:52
  memories are he still remember name and everything?
• 38:55
  You know, I won't say her name on here in case she's listening
• 38:58
  and be embarrassed or whatever, but was also not the most
• 39:03
  talented, but she was so wonderful.
• 39:05
  She did so much for the team. She was such a positive
• 39:08
  influence on everyone and when she broke seven minutes in the
• 39:10
  mile for the first time, it was that same type of experience.
• 39:13
  Like she had that day. You know, that one day that's
• 39:17
  everything felt great and always Look on her face, you know, high
• 39:21
  five and hugging me and my assistant coach doing kind of a
• 39:25
  jump circle thing, you know, like and yeah, I don't know if
• 39:29
  she'd meet anybody that day but that didn't matter, you know.
• 39:31
  That's that was one of the cool things we should have.
• 39:33
  We should have had her race. My guy that have been a good
• 39:35
  racer, they got on an average day that have been a good race
• 39:38
  and know. Part of the reason that I did
• 39:41
  the sport myself in high school, you know?
• 39:43
  I, you know, just like every other kid, you know, I thought I
• 39:45
  was going to be an NBA player. I thought it was gonna play
• 39:48
  Major League Baseball or whatever and you kind of come to
• 39:50
  a quick realization that those things aren't going to happen.
• 39:53
  And part of the reason like in high school that one I did, it
• 39:56
  is one because, you know, track and field was kind of, you know,
• 39:59
  ingrained in my family. But to is because I was good at
• 40:01
  it, right? Like I was beating people, I was
• 40:04
  running fast, I was making the state meet, you know, I was
• 40:07
  having those opportunities. I had some teammates in high
• 40:09
  school and even kids that I coach in high school that like,
• 40:12
  they never beat a soul. And yet they still showed up to
• 40:15
  practice on time every single day.
• 40:17
  Still were the ones that practice they were the ones.
• 40:19
  In each other up they were the first people out there cheering
• 40:22
  for their teammates in whatever the race is and that to me like
• 40:26
  that was that was impressive. Like those are the kind of
• 40:30
  people that I aspire to be like here I was doing sport for a
• 40:34
  bevy of different reasons but if I had sucked I would have found
• 40:37
  a difference, you know, different route.
• 40:39
  Like I don't think I could have I don't think I could have done
• 40:42
  that you know, and that's not a slide on those those people.
• 40:46
  That's more of like a. Wow, this is impressive.
• 40:48
  Hey, that's the kind of people I strive to hire today, teammates
• 40:52
  positive teammates that it's not about all about you.
• 40:55
  Give me give me that boy or girl that man or woman right now
• 40:59
  think of it on Harvey. Just love the sport and they
• 41:02
  love the teammates and they love people's accomplishments.
• 41:05
  They're not in it for themselves at all and that's one of the
• 41:08
  things that's really really challenging in the sport too.
• 41:10
  Is that there's not a shortage of people that are on the other
• 41:13
  end of that Spectrum, right? Like that's you know may have
• 41:16
  had some success in the sport or had a lot of Success.
• 41:20
  And they go into coaching and it's harder for them to be able
• 41:23
  to relate with the kid that's struggling or relate with the
• 41:28
  kid that like, why are you happy that times?
• 41:30
  Horrible? You know, like that's that's the
• 41:33
  unfortunate side of it too. So trying to balance those
• 41:35
  things out, and that's the purity of the high school sport.
• 41:38
  The high school sport is just so fun and that's why that numbers
• 41:41
  are so high and everything because it's a great
• 41:44
  extracurricular activity that, you know, you can go out and you
• 41:48
  can challenge yourself. And if you're not Good.
• 41:50
  That's okay. Because you can, you've got some
• 41:52
  tangible data that you can strive to improve upon.
• 41:55
  And so let's let's let's fast forward.
• 41:58
  I want to talk about before we get to the Penn, relays the
• 42:01
  Armory because this is another, you know, iconic facility in our
• 42:05
  sport iconic meets or run their Hall of Famer Olympian world
• 42:11
  record holders compete there on an annual basis and and and this
• 42:15
  is actually one of Italy's I've never been to.
• 42:17
  I actually have not been to the armory.
• 42:19
  Everything I hear is it's a crazy Zoo.
• 42:23
  It is just, I mean, he talked about 11, Dave's one-day events,
• 42:27
  haven't five thousand athletes and this is endure that would be
• 42:30
  a that would be a mega outdoor track and we're talking about
• 42:34
  indoors and I think the Armory just announced here recently.
• 42:38
  I think they're now the Nike indoor track and field
• 42:41
  facilities. They got a nice pop sponsorship
• 42:43
  with Nike helping out the sport which I always love and
• 42:46
  appreciate that. What tell us about the time at
• 42:48
  the Armory and some of the things Things, maybe you learned
• 42:51
  for that very unique situation in facility.
• 42:54
  Yeah, it was absolutely amazing. The Armory atmosphere is second
• 42:59
  to none. It's close quarters.
• 43:03
  Everybody's right on top of each other.
• 43:04
  You're in the you know, Upper Manhattan.
• 43:07
  So there's just people everywhere anyway but in the
• 43:11
  Armory for a big high school event and you have a, you know,
• 43:15
  a fast race or whatever. On the track, the 4x2
• 43:18
  specifically the By 2 is so much fun at the high school level in
• 43:22
  door because it's just, it's like the 4x4 but faster because
• 43:27
  it's a shorter distance because everybody's doing one lap and
• 43:30
  the energy and the excitement and everything in there is just
• 43:33
  it's so much fun and the Armory host, so many needs, and the
• 43:41
  atmosphere is just incredible, is they have done an incredible
• 43:44
  job with the facility. I mean, just 30 years ago, the
• 43:48
  facility was complete. Run down.
• 43:50
  The city was was trying to decide whether or not they were
• 43:53
  just going to knock the building down or they were going to
• 43:57
  restore it in some capacity and and dr.
• 43:59
  Norbert sander a physician at the top.
• 44:02
  I'm decided that he was going to lead a group of investors and
• 44:08
  Revitalize the Armory and bring it back to being an indoor track
• 44:12
  and field facility. At the time, it was a homeless
• 44:14
  shelter and it was a very, very bad homeless shelter.
• 44:18
  This was the early Is that part of New York was the coke capital
• 44:22
  of the world and it was just a very Bleak outlook for that area
• 44:27
  and dr. Sander had a vision of what he
• 44:30
  wanted to become and he made it happen and he in, you know, Five
• 44:36
  Short years turned that facility into a fast track again, they
• 44:41
  found another portion of the building, the building itself is
• 44:44
  huge about 60% of it operates as the Armory and 40% of it
• 44:48
  operates as a homeowner. Shelter.
• 44:50
  So it's still a homeless shelter today.
• 44:52
  Today now those Those portions of the building, you know, you
• 44:56
  can't go back and forth between them.
• 44:58
  So it's not like a kids running in a meat and you know, homeless
• 45:01
  people are wandering around on the track.
• 45:04
  It still operates as a homeless shelter and it really helped
• 45:07
  Revitalize that portion of Manhattan and Austin Street.
• 45:12
  I don't know that many people know that we were seemingly
• 45:14
  pretty close to losing this iconic facility.
• 45:18
  It was It was really really bad but the facility was so run
• 45:22
  down. I mean it was the facility was
• 45:25
  built in the early I think was 1912 as when it was completed
• 45:29
  and it was originally part of the military and that it just
• 45:32
  you know had gone over to the city and then the city was
• 45:34
  managing it and it was a homeless shelter.
• 45:36
  In fact the large open area on the third floor where the track
• 45:40
  is you know there wasn't a banked track in there, you know,
• 45:43
  this is 80s and 90s, it was just cause you know and kautz all all
• 45:49
  The way across the entire space, and that's where the various
• 45:52
  homeless would come and sleep and they'd even blocked out.
• 45:56
  The top windows that go all the way around the top of the track,
• 46:00
  I mean, and so dr. Sander got a group together,
• 46:04
  he'd run there in high school. He wanted to revitalize it
• 46:07
  within a few short years he had it back and operating and and
• 46:12
  high school meets were back in there and they helped find a
• 46:14
  better portion of the facility and the cleaned it up for the
• 46:17
  homeless shelter to operate. And that was kind of the birth
• 46:20
  of the Armory Foundation, which the armor is operated, by the
• 46:24
  Armory Foundation, which is a 501 c 3, nonprofit organization
• 46:28
  with their primary goal is to. This is the, the motto is To
• 46:34
  Keep Kids On Track and they do that both by the track itself as
• 46:39
  well as an Armory College Prep program, which is an
• 46:42
  after-school program for kids there and Hatton to come and do
• 46:46
  everything from FAFSA applications to Scholarship
• 46:50
  applications to math tutoring to special projects to you name it.
• 46:54
  And the only requirement, it's a free program.
• 46:57
  The only requirement is that the kid is a member of their track
• 46:59
  team. They don't have to be good.
• 47:00
  They just have to be a member of attracting and it is an
• 47:03
  incredible program. So that building and dr.
• 47:06
  Sanders Vision has just completely revitalized,
• 47:09
  Washington, Heights in Upper Manhattan.
• 47:12
  I love highlighting people that are I don't want to come on the
• 47:18
  outskirts of track, but they're not.
• 47:19
  The forward-facing. So you know we've had amazing
• 47:22
  people like Mouse Holloway and tilled you Taylor, Boo
• 47:27
  schexnayder and in the coaching realm, obviously, for track and
• 47:30
  field. Like there's three amazing
• 47:32
  people that we know about hearing a doctor nor word
• 47:36
  sander, like he affected the sport of track and field through
• 47:40
  his philanthropy. Like thank goodness.
• 47:42
  This was his, I mean, he obviously had maybe resources to
• 47:45
  help out a lot of different things and places and people
• 47:47
  thank goodness for our sport. Art the Armory was on his list
• 47:52
  of like hey you know this is important for a lot of rooms,
• 47:55
  not just track and field but for homeless as well.
• 47:58
  Let's get this thing up and going back up to where it needs
• 48:01
  to be like, thank goodness, dr. Sander is.
• 48:03
  And there's people like him recently lost a great Bob,
• 48:05
  Hirsch, not a lot of people. Maybe know who Bob Hirsch is our
• 48:08
  was who just recently passed away.
• 48:10
  But another guy in the background and Bob would like
• 48:13
  to, he wanted to be, you know, in the background but has done
• 48:15
  so much to move our sport forward.
• 48:17
  I love that story there about doctor.
• 48:19
  Enderman thank goodness for doctors again.
• 48:21
  He did incredible things. He would not let the city tell
• 48:25
  him. No and he continued to.
• 48:27
  He found private investors, he found partners.
• 48:30
  He created the Armory foundation's board to do exactly
• 48:34
  that to be able to just to do all these things.
• 48:38
  And he was a bulldog. He wasn't going to be told no
• 48:43
  and he had tremendous success in the sport.
• 48:45
  In fact he's the last New Yorker to win the New York City
• 48:47
  marathon. And so he was legit like he
• 48:51
  wasn't just attract fan and was on the team back in the day,
• 48:54
  right? At Fordham, both high school and
• 48:57
  college and and we've had a lot of success.
• 48:59
  And, and, while he was going through medical school, he won
• 49:02
  the New York City marathon, and then fast forward well, into his
• 49:06
  medical career. He went about revitalizing the
• 49:10
  Armory, and then, when he passed away, this is my first year at
• 49:14
  the Armory, so that would've been March of 2017 and the rains
• 49:19
  were handed off. To co-presidents Rita Finkel and
• 49:21
  Jonathan shindell and they have continued to take dr.
• 49:24
  Sanders vision and and just grow it out and continue to do
• 49:30
  incredible things. You know, the milrose games was
• 49:34
  forever at Madison Square Garden and the Armory.
• 49:37
  Brought it to the Armory to revitalize, the meat and to get
• 49:41
  it back to National prominence, which it most definitely is.
• 49:44
  Yeah, for sure. So, tell us, what is your role
• 49:47
  there at the Armory and tell us about like you mentioned a lot
• 49:50
  of track meets and that's kind of what I always think about
• 49:52
  with our men. Like man, it seems like they
• 49:53
  have one every day and maybe that's true.
• 49:55
  How many track meets and what was your role?
• 49:57
  What were the things that you were learning in your role there
• 50:00
  at the Armory? So while I was at the Armory my
• 50:05
  my final title there and my main responsibilities, I was the
• 50:08
  director of college track and field and the director of track
• 50:11
  and field Finance. So I was in charge of all the
• 50:14
  contracts and everything on the finance side, the money
• 50:17
  collection, all Out in addition to my college duties.
• 50:22
  And so I was in charge of putting together all the
• 50:26
  registration, okay? So let's say you have two
• 50:29
  Hispanic games coming up. Hispanic games is one of the
• 50:31
  larger meets of the Armory puts on a two-day meet.
• 50:34
  In the beginning of January, average is anywhere from 5 to
• 50:39
  6,000 athletes over those two days.
• 50:40
  So just Mastiff, massive High School, indoor meet and so I was
• 50:46
  in charge of all the registration and everything that
• 50:48
  dealt with. Tracks and finances and all that
• 50:52
  and for an event like that it's putting together, the thousands
• 50:57
  of packets, you know, so coaches can come and pick those up with
• 51:00
  her bib numbers and everything. It's managing what our budgets
• 51:06
  look like for that event, right? So what are, what is our income
• 51:09
  or primary income with that, you know, is just meet fees.
• 51:13
  How are we managing that? How are we collecting it?
• 51:15
  How are we tracking down? You know, coaches that submit a
• 51:18
  p.o. and then It's to be paid later, just that whole process
• 51:23
  and that was, you know, that made along with the Armory hosts
• 51:29
  in their facility between about 10 and 15 events a year.
• 51:33
  Then what they contract out is then they contract out other
• 51:39
  meats and other organizations that come in and they host their
• 51:41
  own meat under the guise of the Armory supervision.
• 51:45
  So, for example, in New York City, you have the PSAs.
• 51:49
  LPS Al is this Public School Athletic League?
• 51:51
  It's the largest Athletic League of its sword in the country.
• 51:55
  Just I mean, it's all the New York City public schools and so
• 51:59
  all the PSAL meats are there. And so that totals about 45 or
• 52:05
  50 events, may be a little bit larger than that from November
• 52:08
  to end of March Section, 1 Section 1 of New York.
• 52:13
  That's Bronxville, North Rockland New Rochelle.
• 52:17
  The area is just North of New York City.
• 52:19
  Section 1 has all their Championship events there as
• 52:22
  well as a lot of their regular season meets.
• 52:25
  And then there's other, you know, organizations that have
• 52:28
  one meet their year. You know, like a Rutgers for
• 52:30
  example, Rutgers has their one of their college meets at the
• 52:33
  Armory coming up in just a couple of weeks, Columbia hosts
• 52:38
  a couple of events you know just the majority of the events that
• 52:42
  are at the Armory are hosted by another organization.
• 52:46
  That's just renting out the facility but then Of course
• 52:49
  everything is under the supervision of the Armory, you
• 52:52
  know? Like if you're coming and having
• 52:53
  to meet here, then this is your start time.
• 52:55
  This is your end time. You can't do X, Y and Z.
• 52:58
  You know, we need to make sure that you're good stewards and
• 53:01
  doing those kind of things. So yeah, the the Armory.
• 53:05
  It was all hands on deck. You know, we'd have these large
• 53:09
  events, notably the Melrose games and everyone was involved
• 53:13
  in some capacity to make sure that the event could go on.
• 53:16
  It was a world-class events and A lot of things to do and
• 53:21
  accomplish and it's just it was really, really neat experience.
• 53:27
  Just working day and day out with some right now.
• 53:30
  Dearest friends, and former colleagues in accomplishing this
• 53:34
  gargantuan task that's November to April every year was just, it
• 53:39
  was exhausting. Yeah, and by the time that you
• 53:43
  got to March New Balance Nationals more OS was the last
• 53:48
  meet of the year, that was there.
• 53:49
  Are you get through that meat and you big exhale?
• 53:54
  And then April is time to start putting contracts together and
• 53:57
  preparing for the next season. So, you know, is that feeds into
• 54:01
  now, what I do with the Penn relays, they'll, you know, it's
• 54:06
  simpler in some ways because it's only one event, but it's
• 54:09
  significantly more difficult in other ways because it's the
• 54:13
  largest event or, you know, it's all of those events that the
• 54:17
  Armory did compounded into one thing.
• 54:20
  One three-day weekend and it takes an army to make this event
• 54:24
  happen. It's it's incredible.
• 54:28
  This is blue. See how the Penn relays goes.
• 54:31
  So let's try trans trans trans trans transfer translate.
• 54:36
  I don't know sometimes transition, there you go
• 54:38
  sometimes. But you know again, I always
• 54:40
  tell people who are as high school and college educated the
• 54:42
  state of Alabama. So words don't come easy for me.
• 54:44
  All right, just be glad. I'm not saying y'all and sweet
• 54:47
  tea. Every other word.
• 54:49
  Let's transition to the Penn relays.
• 54:52
  So you mentioned a guy, another guy who not a lot of people
• 54:56
  might know his name, but boy, in instrumental in the sport of
• 55:01
  track and field, Dave Johnson. So, on one hand, like, when
• 55:06
  people retire, like I'm usually like extremely happy for them
• 55:10
  because like, you know, I'd like to retire one day too.
• 55:12
  So I'm kind of like I'm jealous. You actually did it, you know
• 55:14
  because I at this age is staging like I just know how I can't how
• 55:17
  could I ever retire. So so Bravo.
• 55:19
  The Dave Johnson or tired that he was able to retire.
• 55:23
  But for a guy who did the job and do the job so well for so
• 55:26
  long, it's always like, well how do you replace that?
• 55:30
  Like how do you mean not just the skill sets that are required
• 55:34
  but the experience and knowledge.
• 55:37
  Like there's just you know, no matter how hard you try as an
• 55:40
  organization, there is tribal knowledge.
• 55:42
  There is knowledge that just doesn't get written down.
• 55:44
  Doesn't get trained it just you learn it, you learn that.
• 55:47
  Oh my gosh, we can't start at 8:00.
• 55:49
  Because that's Cruz everything else I guess start at 7:30 if
• 55:52
  you're going to change because we're going to talk about this
• 55:53
  the the girls from Saturday to Friday.
• 55:55
  Well that creates a whole different schedule change things
• 55:59
  like that until you mentioned Steve Dolan and here you know a
• 56:03
  guy Steve don't head track coach there you go busy enough right
• 56:06
  there I mean that is a full-time and by full-time.
• 56:09
  You need more than 40 hours a week job especially at a school
• 56:13
  like the University of Pennsylvania.
• 56:14
  He's also now the director of Pinterest so he takes that on,
• 56:18
  he was Seems seemingly very wise to go, get you even his
• 56:22
  associate like hey man, I need your help here because it is a
• 56:25
  full-time job. What was it?
• 56:27
  Like as you transitioned over to the Penn, relays it's an awesome
• 56:32
  responsibility to have something special that you are in charge
• 56:37
  of the you're helping lead me. There's a huge support team.
• 56:40
  Obviously there at pin for the Penn relays but you're helping
• 56:44
  lead that what was it? Like when you first kind of got
• 56:47
  the call like Hey we're going to hire you, and you the first
• 56:49
  week. The job you're looking at Old
• 56:50
  trophies and you're getting calls from Grandpa's old, watch
• 56:53
  and things. I mean, that those are all.
• 56:55
  I'm not making fun. Those are cool things.
• 56:57
  Yeah, it was it like that first week on the job, like, okay,
• 57:00
  here we are, I wanted it. So here.
• 57:01
  Let's let's go. Well, I think the biggest thing
• 57:04
  is just just overwhelmed with how much, I didn't know.
• 57:10
  I didn't know. You know, the way that the pain
• 57:15
  realized was described to me and continue to be Added through
• 57:20
  that whole first, you know, I was hired December 1st 2021 and
• 57:26
  the meat was going on on April, 28th, 29th and 30th of April,
• 57:30
  you know? So just a few short months and
• 57:32
  we had to lift this gargantuan, I'm thing and it was just, it
• 57:36
  was overwhelming how much I didn't know, I didn't know and
• 57:41
  things would come up and I'd be I just I had no idea.
• 57:44
  Like, I don't know what's been done in the past and Add into
• 57:48
  that, you know, Steve and I were both new and that role you add
• 57:53
  into the fact that the meat had happened since 2019.
• 57:56
  So there were a lot of people that within the department that
• 58:01
  had never been here for a Penn relays.
• 58:03
  There are a lot of people, you know, trying to figure out who
• 58:07
  can come in for volunteering. It just there were so many
• 58:11
  different obstacles and it was extremely humbling and so, What
• 58:18
  we did is we just figured it out and plowed through the best that
• 58:23
  we could and realize that we were going to get the meat on
• 58:26
  the track, we were going to make it happen and then we were going
• 58:29
  to learn a whole lot and that's exactly what happens.
• 58:33
  With that being said, I had to rely very, very heavily on
• 58:38
  people that have done it before. There were people both within
• 58:41
  the Penn relays office, that's, you know, had done this many
• 58:44
  times and, and learning from them, and Trying to, you know,
• 58:48
  extract what it is that I can do and what is it, that I'm not
• 58:51
  thinking of and just it was a baptism by fire, I knew that
• 58:58
  once we got to Thursday the Penn relays and once it's started,
• 59:02
  then I was in my element, you know, like it was still
• 59:05
  extremely challenging, right? To make sure that the for by
• 59:09
  ones were going off on time and that we weren't getting behind
• 59:11
  in the schedule. But that's what I'd done before.
• 59:14
  I done that at the Armory, not in the same capacity but I done.
• 59:17
  That before and so I wasn't completely new and Thursday went
• 59:23
  off well and luckily we had beautiful weather, all three
• 59:26
  days which that was the one of the luckiest things, but
• 59:30
  Thursday went off without a hitch.
• 59:32
  We stayed on time. It's a fairly easy day to stay.
• 59:34
  On time Friday. We got behind.
• 59:37
  We tried, kept trying to catch back up and it just you know, we
• 59:41
  found out that we'd made some errors within the schedule and
• 59:44
  we you know, some growing pains and things there and then Then
• 59:47
  Saturday again, we had some some challenges but we met those
• 59:52
  challenges and the meat started on time and we made it through
• 59:56
  the to, our ESPN TV window. Even though we'd had block slip
• 1:00:02
  and a false start. And, you know, those kind of
• 1:00:06
  things and when you're in a TV window and this is what a lot of
• 1:00:09
  people may not understand when you're watching a meet on NBC or
• 1:00:12
  ESPN or, you know, the World Championships Olympic Games or
• 1:00:16
  whatever. The producers and the meet
• 1:00:19
  director and everybody that's there on the track, you do not
• 1:00:23
  want false starts, you do not want to block slip, you do not
• 1:00:26
  want any type of recall, because you have such a fine period of
• 1:00:32
  time, whether that's an hour, whether that's two hours,
• 1:00:34
  whatever it is, you have to fit that whole window in.
• 1:00:37
  So if you get behind, you've got to figure out other ways to
• 1:00:40
  catch back up and the first events of that TV window where
• 1:00:44
  the hurdles in the hundreds. And we had Two blocks lips and a
• 1:00:48
  false start. And so, we were already, I
• 1:00:50
  believe 12 minutes behind once we got done with those events.
• 1:00:54
  And so then it just turns into this, you know, this
• 1:00:57
  mathematical puzzle if you will of a, how are we do this?
• 1:01:01
  And how do I get ESPN to work with us to know?
• 1:01:04
  They can't cut the commercial short.
• 1:01:06
  That's, that's vital. And so long story short, we were
• 1:01:11
  able to catch back up. We have built in a little bit of
• 1:01:13
  buffer and a couple of different places a minute here minute
• 1:01:15
  there and, and What we were most concerned with was the last
• 1:01:19
  event and that's what you always want to do.
• 1:01:21
  The last event of the TV window is the Premier event and that
• 1:01:24
  last event was going to be a Thing mo and angers Wilson in
• 1:01:26
  the women's 600 along with a toy on Google and among others.
• 1:01:30
  And that was the feature, you know, AJ's from New Jersey as so
• 1:01:34
  has a thing. You know, they were coming home
• 1:01:36
  and they were doing this in front of a home crowd and
• 1:01:39
  Natalya ghoul. The Jamaican record holder was
• 1:01:41
  there in front of a Jamaican crowd and it was just such an
• 1:01:44
  exciting race. But we were a little bit
• 1:01:47
  panicked. Like okay, like this can't come
• 1:01:49
  after 4 p.m. because ESPN is no longer going to be here, you
• 1:01:53
  know. So those kind of things like
• 1:01:57
  they were luckily things that I had gotten to experience or see
• 1:02:00
  at the Armory with part of the Melrose games.
• 1:02:02
  Norris games is that to our TV window, I'd gotten to see, like,
• 1:02:06
  how we get back on time from being a clerk at the BYU
• 1:02:10
  Invitational when I was in college, you know, just all of
• 1:02:14
  those things. Those Frances all come flooding
• 1:02:17
  back as you're trying to get back on track and it's it was an
• 1:02:23
  incredible experience. And there were so many things on
• 1:02:27
  my end that I had to, you know, my own critiques and and what,
• 1:02:32
  you know what not, but the end of the day, the meat went off
• 1:02:35
  and it went off to the general Observer without a hitch.
• 1:02:40
  And, you know, we weren't from the mistakes that we made and we
• 1:02:43
  make sure that we don't make those things again from Movies
• 1:02:46
  and television. I have this knowledge, it's from
• 1:02:51
  TV and movies, so it's probably wrong when they're doing those
• 1:02:54
  things. There's the guy in the booth and
• 1:02:56
  he's directing camera, One camera two and they all have
• 1:02:59
  earpieces and connected to our you earpiece into the director
• 1:03:04
  or the ESPN guy and like that. Or is it just word of like how
• 1:03:08
  does that communication even happen?
• 1:03:09
  As it's on the fly. It sounds like because it
• 1:03:12
  depends on how many blocks lips and whatnot.
• 1:03:14
  You might have. So this Year with a pen realize
• 1:03:17
  I didn't have a headset but I had somebody that had a headset
• 1:03:20
  to the booth right next to me that person was not very
• 1:03:25
  experienced in track. And so I was telling them to
• 1:03:28
  tell the Boost such and such and then this and this is what we're
• 1:03:31
  going to try to do when is the commercial break?
• 1:03:33
  Okay, I've got this much time, you know.
• 1:03:35
  It was just kind of a back and forth with with that individual
• 1:03:39
  and milrose which is the other, you know opportunity I've had to
• 1:03:42
  I have been on those headsets and I've been part of those you
• 1:03:45
  know production Some things and understanding, okay, you know,
• 1:03:48
  this is how long you have for commercial break and you're
• 1:03:50
  doing this and you're doing that.
• 1:03:52
  And so I had seen what that looked like and I had experience
• 1:03:56
  of what that is and that's kind of luckily enabled me to be able
• 1:04:01
  to be right there. Okay, we're behind.
• 1:04:05
  We got to keep on the TV schedule.
• 1:04:06
  We got to catch up. We're going to catch up here and
• 1:04:08
  here and here you got to tell me how long is this commercial?
• 1:04:10
  Okay when are we coming back? Because the second that comes
• 1:04:12
  back. All right starter go, you know
• 1:04:14
  like there's There's we can't have a wasted 30 seconds.
• 1:04:19
  So, you know, it's it was luckily it was only two hours
• 1:04:23
  and not the full 36 hours of the meat, you know, that when do
• 1:04:26
  something like that but it's yeah, it's a challenge for sure.
• 1:04:31
  That's amazing. You mentioned.
• 1:04:33
  The meat goes off to the outside Observer.
• 1:04:36
  It was perfect like we because we don't see those things when
• 1:04:39
  watching TV or even necessarily when we're in the stands.
• 1:04:42
  What are some things? You'll help us peel.
• 1:04:45
  Back the curtain. Little bit here.
• 1:04:46
  And what are some of the challenges that you're
• 1:04:50
  overcoming? So that people from the outside
• 1:04:52
  who are watching or even coaches and athletes.
• 1:04:54
  Like, yeah, you didn't even know that because I worked around
• 1:04:57
  this way. What are some of the things?
• 1:04:58
  Like, how you're doing? I think the earlier you
• 1:05:00
  mentioned 600 Heats or maybe was 600 teams of the for by ones and
• 1:05:04
  4x4 like that can't be easy and you talk about the schedule and
• 1:05:07
  you have to be so exacting for not only TV.
• 1:05:10
  But for the meat itself, what are some of these challenges and
• 1:05:14
  how do you overcome those? Well, the biggest thing with
• 1:05:17
  pain realizes that the meat itself isn't that complicated.
• 1:05:21
  It's that it's a large volume ride, volume is what makes
• 1:05:23
  everything more complicated and within the meat there are four
• 1:05:28
  major blocks that all take up a significant amount of time and
• 1:05:32
  that's the boys and girls for by one Heats and the boys and girls
• 1:05:37
  four by four Heats and the for by ones are even more
• 1:05:42
  challenging because you have to Clerk.
• 1:05:45
  Five or six Heats in advance. And what essentially happens is,
• 1:05:49
  you have various corking stations.
• 1:05:53
  Everybody has been split up into you know, there are various
• 1:06:00
  sections of the four by one on the girls side.
• 1:06:03
  There's always between 40 and 50 Heats of the four by one.
• 1:06:07
  And on the boys side it's about the same and then it's the same
• 1:06:09
  with a 4x4. I'll talk about the four by four
• 1:06:11
  in just a second but with the four by one on the girls side,
• 1:06:15
  we We have a gun go off every about 70 seconds and that's what
• 1:06:19
  we have to do and I'd be able to get through that many Heats and
• 1:06:23
  it's a large block of time and it's extremely challenging.
• 1:06:27
  And so the process for that to happen is all of the preliminary
• 1:06:32
  heats, the teams are given bibs ahead of time, you know, they
• 1:06:37
  pick up their packet and those bibs are then ordered in by the
• 1:06:43
  alphabet. Okay?
• 1:06:44
  So the first heat The first Lane of the first heat would be a a
• 1:06:49
  heat or Lane to is a b and so on and so forth.
• 1:06:53
  So we know that heat one is a he too is be heat. 3 is C and so
• 1:06:58
  forth which makes it available for both the athletes in the
• 1:07:01
  clerk's to be able to get them gone to track it right time and
• 1:07:05
  so they move through the various corking stages, they get to an
• 1:07:10
  area. It's called The Paddock which is
• 1:07:13
  just right there on the It's just beyond where the relays
• 1:07:17
  finish line is just right there. On the portion of the track.
• 1:07:21
  We have three of the most experienced quarks that are
• 1:07:26
  organizing them on the Fly, getting them in the Heat's,
• 1:07:29
  getting them organized and then when it's about three or four,
• 1:07:32
  Heats ahead of that person's time, we have what are called
• 1:07:36
  Zone Runners. And these Zone Runners are they
• 1:07:39
  then take the three runners that won't be at the starting line
• 1:07:42
  and they get them to their zone. So they run across the field,
• 1:07:45
  they get them. Zone.
• 1:07:46
  They let them know what heat there in and where they need to
• 1:07:48
  stand. And they are in a line behind
• 1:07:50
  the Heats that are in front of them.
• 1:07:52
  And so they get them to Zone 1 where you know, first leg hands
• 1:07:55
  off to Second leg. They go to Zone, 2 3, 2 2 3 and
• 1:07:59
  zone for or Zone 3. Excuse me where three hands off
• 1:08:02
  24 and that same flow is going on for the girls.
• 1:08:08
  It's it lasts. Just under three hours about
• 1:08:12
  two-and-a-half to three hours depending on what a total
• 1:08:14
  number. And With the boys.
• 1:08:16
  It's a little bit short of that and so that same process just
• 1:08:21
  continues until you get all six hundred plus teams out on the
• 1:08:24
  track and through the event, those Zone Runners.
• 1:08:27
  So the track is busy because it's continually running.
• 1:08:30
  Your Middle Field is busy because you have the long jump,
• 1:08:32
  high jump, whole volley of things going on there, Ward
• 1:08:34
  ceremonies as well. Do those owners have like a
• 1:08:37
  dedicated Lane on the track to get to their spots?
• 1:08:41
  Not on the track. They go throw the infield.
• 1:08:43
  No, no there. That that's what I meant.
• 1:08:45
  Yeah, I meant. Throws.
• 1:08:47
  The throws don't take place in the in the stadium because one
• 1:08:50
  it's a turf field and to like how in the world would you.
• 1:08:55
  So they go right through the center.
• 1:08:58
  They go across the same thing. It's funny with the pain track
• 1:09:03
  as well as that there is two rails, right?
• 1:09:07
  There's a rail between lines, three and four just because of
• 1:09:09
  the, you know, the dimensions of Franklin Field.
• 1:09:12
  And then there's another rail on Line one.
• 1:09:16
  So there's one person stands there.
• 1:09:19
  They probably say watch the rail anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000
• 1:09:23
  times of meat. When there's one real.
• 1:09:27
  Yes. They they repeatedly rails.
• 1:09:31
  Even if even if a kid official coach goes there and they're
• 1:09:33
  like, you know what? I'm always cognizant of the
• 1:09:35
  rail. Yeah.
• 1:09:36
  You got two of them here in Franklin buddy and everyone
• 1:09:40
  trips on it. There's so many people the trip
• 1:09:42
  and, you know, we've got that's One area that we're going to to
• 1:09:48
  fix for this year. So within the rules, we are
• 1:09:51
  going to pick up a chunk of the rail and we'll have cones, you
• 1:09:56
  know, just the small cones there to, you know, in act as the
• 1:09:59
  rail. Just, we're very lucky that no
• 1:10:02
  one has gotten seriously hurt or you're an athlete.
• 1:10:06
  You're at the Penn relays, your mind is somewhere else.
• 1:10:10
  You're just like, oh, please don't botch the handoff not
• 1:10:13
  today, not to now. No, no, no.
• 1:10:15
  The last thing you're concerned about is you're trying to get to
• 1:10:17
  your Zone as someone's hollering at you and this just commotion,
• 1:10:20
  we're not worried about some rail, you're not even hearing
• 1:10:23
  the person saying, watch the rail.
• 1:10:24
  So we're going to pull out that portion of it and, you know,
• 1:10:27
  make some accommodations there. But anyway, so those those three
• 1:10:32
  runners, you know, the second, third, and fourth legs, they're
• 1:10:36
  running to their areas following behind.
• 1:10:38
  Somebody they each have their distinguished path, we then have
• 1:10:41
  even security, they're making sure that hey, people are
• 1:10:44
  coming. Watch out, I was Yeah, they get
• 1:10:48
  to their areas and the meat goes on and on, and on and it's, it's
• 1:10:53
  pretty wild. In fact, one of the coolest
• 1:10:55
  things that you can ever see and I do get an opportunity, this is
• 1:10:59
  last year obviously. But if you go and sit on the
• 1:11:01
  upper deck of Franklin Field during the four by ones and just
• 1:11:04
  watch and just watch a mean, it looks like an Amazon
• 1:11:07
  distribution facility. Its people are going everywhere.
• 1:11:11
  It's just you know track and field is organized chaos.
• 1:11:14
  This is like organized chaos at the Amazon facility in December.
• 1:11:18
  I mean, it's just it's crazy and it's just so unique.
• 1:11:24
  And this whole process has just been developed over years and
• 1:11:29
  years and years by mines, that are far superior to me and the
• 1:11:33
  volunteers. And the officials that we have
• 1:11:36
  here that continue to enhance this and grow this and do all.
• 1:11:39
  This are just their incredible. They are.
• 1:11:45
  From all walks of life. Some of them that we have that
• 1:11:48
  come in there, they're doctors, they're lawyers, they do other
• 1:11:51
  things, and then they come to the Penn relays.
• 1:11:53
  And they make the whole thing hum.
• 1:11:54
  It's pretty incredible in an earlier conversation, you and I
• 1:11:58
  had, he talked about something that seemingly from the outside.
• 1:12:02
  Seems like a fairly easy thing to do.
• 1:12:06
  Correct me where I'm wrong. I believe it was the girls.
• 1:12:10
  One of the girls events, it wasn't maybe the 3,000 you.
• 1:12:13
  You fill in those blanks here, a girl's event had never run on
• 1:12:17
  Friday or vice versa and so you're going to flip the boys
• 1:12:19
  and girls it was the same event. So you know, again from the
• 1:12:22
  outside looks like, oh okay. Just take these however, many
• 1:12:25
  Heats and just the boys were here, so move them and then move
• 1:12:28
  them over. But there was a whole it's not
• 1:12:31
  that easy to fill in the blanks there and tell us about that.
• 1:12:34
  So, this year for the first time, the high school girls are
• 1:12:38
  going to be competing on Friday and Saturday.
• 1:12:39
  So what in an Ideal World? We'd be able to have the meat,
• 1:12:43
  go over three days and we could split High School boys and girls
• 1:12:46
  and just kind of have it smooth throughout all three days.
• 1:12:48
  Unfortunately because of those four main blocks that doesn't
• 1:12:51
  work because those four blocks have to be separated because
• 1:12:55
  it's just too much time, you can't get everything in.
• 1:12:58
  And so last year was actually the first year that the college
• 1:13:01
  teams were only Friday and Saturday.
• 1:13:03
  His like before that the college, women were Thursday and
• 1:13:07
  Friday, the college member Friday and Saturday.
• 1:13:10
  Yeah. And you know, Thursday
• 1:13:12
  historically had been women's day at the Penn relays.
• 1:13:15
  So last year we adjusted that to where the college men, and this
• 1:13:21
  is easier for the college programs, the college men and
• 1:13:24
  women were together on Friday and Saturday with a few distance
• 1:13:27
  events, Thursday evening. And this last year, the high
• 1:13:30
  school girls were Thursday as they always have been and on
• 1:13:34
  Friday they conclude. And then the high school boys,
• 1:13:36
  start on Friday and then they can quote on Saturday.
• 1:13:39
  And so, for this year, and for every year here, after the high
• 1:13:45
  school boys, and girls will take turns, you know, one year,
• 1:13:49
  they'll be Thursday, Friday for the boys and the girls are
• 1:13:51
  Friday, Saturday and so forth. And so when we made that switch
• 1:13:54
  and we adjusted everything, one of the challenging things again,
• 1:13:58
  coming back to those big for Behemoth prelims.
• 1:14:02
  When you take the high school girls 4x4 off of Thursday, where
• 1:14:07
  there is a lot more time. And you put it Saturday morning
• 1:14:11
  where the high school? Boys. 4x4 had been historically.
• 1:14:14
  Now, we have an extra 35 minutes that we need to come up with.
• 1:14:18
  Because with the high school girls, the 4x1, it's not as
• 1:14:24
  relevant, right? You know, it's like 15 minutes
• 1:14:26
  longer because it's a shorter event, the times.
• 1:14:28
  Aren't that dissimilar, you know, the high school, boys gun
• 1:14:31
  to gun is about 60 seconds. In the four by one high school
• 1:14:35
  girls gotten a gun. It's about 70 to 75 seconds.
• 1:14:38
  Maybe even 90 seconds of, we actually need to slow things
• 1:14:41
  down a little bit. We can sometimes get a little
• 1:14:43
  bit ahead of schedule, but in the four by four it's a little
• 1:14:48
  bit more than that right for the formed by for the boys, it's
• 1:14:53
  about four to four and a half minutes or and a half minutes.
• 1:14:57
  We need to slow down a little bit four minutes.
• 1:14:59
  If you know, were we need to catch up or we're coming along
• 1:15:06
  and with the girls, it's anywhere from five to Minutes.
• 1:15:09
  And so now when you factor that by 40 to 50 Heats, you're
• 1:15:14
  talking about, you know, 45 to 50 minutes longer depending and
• 1:15:20
  so we just had to kind of, you know, massage the schedule to
• 1:15:25
  make those kind of things work and it's a lot of time and
• 1:15:30
  effort and meetings from with me and Steve and trying to figure
• 1:15:34
  out, okay? How do we do this?
• 1:15:35
  Where do we move that? How do we make sure that, you
• 1:15:38
  know, we're not Changing the whole product, you know, like
• 1:15:41
  there's some things that kind of historically been in certain
• 1:15:44
  places and people come to expect that.
• 1:15:47
  So how do we make all of it work and there's lots of fine-tuning
• 1:15:52
  and again, you know, I was so lucky to learn from Tim Fulton
• 1:15:56
  at the Armory team. Tim, can make a mean schedule
• 1:16:02
  and learn how to follow that schedule to a tee.
• 1:16:05
  And, you know, I learned a lot from him and that helped me in
• 1:16:09
  And kind of putting the Penn Relays schedule together while
• 1:16:12
  how do I put these chunks in there?
• 1:16:14
  And how do we make those chunks work?
• 1:16:16
  And and so for this year, yeah, the boys are going to be
• 1:16:19
  Thursday and Friday, which will be really cool and the girls
• 1:16:21
  will be Friday and Saturday. It's, it's crazy when you think
• 1:16:25
  of all of the high school girls that have run at the Penn relays
• 1:16:29
  from the city McLaughlin's, the Caitlin to ease, you know, even
• 1:16:34
  more historically, Merlin ADI, you know, going way back.
• 1:16:38
  All of the Is Jamaican women that have come through.
• 1:16:41
  Then they've never had the opportunity to run on Saturday
• 1:16:46
  in front of the Saturday crowd, you know, it's and it wasn't
• 1:16:49
  ever anything. You know, like they weren't
• 1:16:50
  doing this maliciously or on purpose.
• 1:16:52
  I was just how the event was set up and it wasn't even until the
• 1:16:56
  80s that the women were involved in the event and they dedicated
• 1:17:00
  a whole day when they expanded the meat 23 days, the whole day
• 1:17:03
  of Thursday was so the girls could participate.
• 1:17:06
  So we're excited for it. It's going to be really, really
• 1:17:08
  cool. The the quality of high school
• 1:17:12
  athletes in the Northeast as well as in Jamaica.
• 1:17:16
  I mean there are just some incredible young women and some
• 1:17:20
  women on all capacities that come and compete and then being
• 1:17:25
  able to be showcased on Saturday, is going to be a
• 1:17:27
  really cool experience for them. And for the crowd as a whole,
• 1:17:31
  how do you you talked about the for the humans?
• 1:17:35
  How do you in a meet this size? It's I don't controversial, but
• 1:17:41
  tough topic limiting events. So, how many people can be in a
• 1:17:44
  long job? How many people can be in the
• 1:17:46
  110k relay start with your entries for the relays and what
• 1:17:52
  you allow there. And then how do you figure out
• 1:17:54
  how many of the other event people you're going to allow?
• 1:17:57
  So one of the things that we try to do is we try to allow as many
• 1:18:01
  people as humanly possible to have the Penn relays experience
• 1:18:04
  and that's everything from the carnival that's going on around
• 1:18:06
  the stadium to stepping on the track and Ending that, you know,
• 1:18:10
  that blue and red baton off to your high school teammate.
• 1:18:12
  An experience, you'll never forget running in front of more
• 1:18:15
  people than you'll ever run in front of in your entire life.
• 1:18:18
  Unless you're lucky enough to make an Olympic Games.
• 1:18:21
  I mean, those kind of things, like, that's what we're trying
• 1:18:23
  to accomplish. And so we actually don't turn
• 1:18:27
  any teams away in the 4, by 1 and 4 by 4.
• 1:18:30
  We have some very like, soft standards on those two events.
• 1:18:37
  But even then, Maybe one, maybe two teams are turned away each
• 1:18:43
  year we you know, hey coach, this probably is not a real good
• 1:18:47
  experience for your kids if they're going to get beat by a
• 1:18:49
  minute and the for life or, you know, that's kind of type of
• 1:18:52
  situation. And actually, sometimes it just
• 1:18:55
  is straight up a typo, right? The coach just put in, you know,
• 1:18:58
  a five instead of four or something like that.
• 1:19:02
  But anyway, so we don't turn anybody away in those events.
• 1:19:05
  And so we, we build an enough time there, and we make sure
• 1:19:08
  that That, you know, we can accomplish 55 Heats or if we
• 1:19:12
  need to, we can accomplish 40 Heats, and we have a little bit
• 1:19:15
  of wiggle room with how much time between gun to gun to be
• 1:19:18
  able to get it in those windows. However, with all the other
• 1:19:23
  events, we are much more restrictive, right?
• 1:19:25
  And you got a high school level. So the high school for by one
• 1:19:29
  and four by four, those are the two main relays the 4x8.
• 1:19:34
  We accept 70 schools to the prelim, that's usually 35.
• 1:19:39
  All schools and 35 large schools.
• 1:19:41
  That's still a ton. It's is a lot.
• 1:19:44
  Wow and so those two groups you know they all compete and the
• 1:19:51
  top I think we end up taking shoot do ten or twelve four by
• 1:19:58
  eight teams to the championship of America.
• 1:20:00
  Final. And then from there, the rest
• 1:20:03
  are well, we also have the DMR, the DMR is only 15 teams, so
• 1:20:07
  it's very hard to make the DMR. Field.
• 1:20:09
  That's just a straight final. We then take 15 athletes the Mi.
• 1:20:13
  We take 25 athletes to the 3000 and then all the field events
• 1:20:17
  are 16 athletes. So that's the long jump.
• 1:20:20
  That's the triple jump. That's the high jump.
• 1:20:22
  The pole vault, the throws the shot, put discus and Javelin.
• 1:20:28
  It's 16 athletes. So in those events I mean we
• 1:20:32
  have to be extremely restrictive and the thought behind all this
• 1:20:38
  is To be as inclusive as possible but also be able to
• 1:20:41
  make the meat happen. And so that's what we can 16 is
• 1:20:45
  the magic number because that's one flight, right?
• 1:20:47
  That's one flight in the long, jump for The discus or whatever
• 1:20:52
  it may be and they do qualify for a final, right?
• 1:20:55
  So it's you know, 16 apples and it comes down to either 8 or 9
• 1:21:00
  for the final. And you know it's giving as many
• 1:21:03
  kids that that Penn relays experience.
• 1:21:05
  But we do with the individual events, you know, we have to be
• 1:21:09
  B, we have to be restricted, it's very challenging, and
• 1:21:12
  there's no politics in it with the registration process for,
• 1:21:17
  you know, whether it's the javelin or the pole vault or
• 1:21:19
  whatever the coaches have to submit, you know, the athlete
• 1:21:24
  that they would like to be considered they then also submit
• 1:21:28
  their Mark and a link to where that Mark happened.
• 1:21:32
  And then I have a team, it's my high school committee that goes
• 1:21:37
  through and they verify every mark.
• 1:21:39
  And if it can't be verified then that kids time is thrown out.
• 1:21:43
  So you know, we put it back on the coach, you've got to make
• 1:21:47
  sure you put in the correct time and then we just go just like
• 1:21:51
  old-school NCAA, you know, descending order list.
• 1:21:55
  Here's the 16 that make it. And even once we declare that
• 1:21:59
  those are the 16, if a kid gets hurt or things like that, we
• 1:22:02
  don't have, the means of backfilling that.
• 1:22:05
  Yeah, I was going to ask that because I really was going to
• 1:22:09
  ask You know, coaches are famous for but it's a part of our sport
• 1:22:11
  of injuries and things like that.
• 1:22:14
  How do you you know on a regular meet again the you know a but I
• 1:22:17
  call regular 5 team meet whatever you know there's always
• 1:22:21
  the we showed up Friday morning is like hey do you have another
• 1:22:25
  spot in the hundred or hey I need to pull out the to hunt the
• 1:22:27
  201. You know how many times do we
• 1:22:29
  only see that when we get ready to do the 200?
• 1:22:31
  Cuz everybody everybody enters and everybody backs out.
• 1:22:34
  How do you how do you handle coaches last-minute?
• 1:22:39
  How do you in the inverter side? How do you handle the
• 1:22:41
  last-minute? Cancellation, your talk about.
• 1:22:44
  No back feels. But how do you see that?
• 1:22:46
  And all that kind of stuff, the last-minute cancellation, and
• 1:22:49
  individual event, you know, it's a there's 16 athletes, you know,
• 1:22:51
  we just don't backfill it, you know.
• 1:22:53
  It's all right, well, the miles running with 15 athletes now and
• 1:22:58
  you know, like we've gotten some pushback from coaches and things
• 1:23:00
  on that, but like at the same time, like we're dealing with
• 1:23:04
  13,000, high school registrations, right?
• 1:23:06
  Know, like we Declare what it is and you know, heaven forbid,
• 1:23:11
  someone gets hurt but we have to move forward on it and and
• 1:23:16
  backfilling would be a never-ending process and it's
• 1:23:18
  just not, it's not feasible as hard as that is to here for the
• 1:23:22
  17th kid or the 18th kid. That's, you know, could have
• 1:23:25
  gotten in, it's just not feasible and, you know, in a
• 1:23:28
  similar sense, the n-c-double-a like it's much the same way,
• 1:23:32
  right, you know 16 qualify well, if someone got hurt, then we go
• 1:23:36
  with 14, or we go with whatever. And you know it's not ideal but
• 1:23:41
  it's you know it's the reality of the situation with when we're
• 1:23:45
  talking about the sheer numbers but as far as the relays go,
• 1:23:50
  that's the beauty of us, you know, we organize them into pods
• 1:23:55
  basically so we have 45 schools in pod, a for the four by one,
• 1:24:01
  and they show up at a certain time and then we see them and we
• 1:24:04
  get them on the track, right? So we never have empty lanes
• 1:24:07
  because we do that If a team doesn't show up, they don't show
• 1:24:12
  up and we're not even really aware that they didn't show up.
• 1:24:14
  Until after the meat when we realize, okay, following six
• 1:24:17
  schools were dnfs. And and that happens, you know,
• 1:24:21
  last year, especially since we were, you know, still kind of
• 1:24:25
  the height of covid and things. There were schools that, you
• 1:24:28
  know, there are Relay Team came down with covid and when you
• 1:24:31
  lose two kids off your relay, then you can't compete.
• 1:24:34
  But the one thing that we don't restrict is when Register those
• 1:24:40
  names, like that's kind of your place holders.
• 1:24:43
  Those aren't the for that have to run.
• 1:24:45
  Now, when it comes to the prelim versus the final, there are a
• 1:24:49
  few more rules that are built in there, but as far as like the
• 1:24:52
  names that you provided us, originally like we get the new
• 1:24:56
  names from the kids when they check in and then those names
• 1:25:01
  are the ones that are properly put into the results and
• 1:25:03
  everything. So it's it's pretty wild.
• 1:25:08
  I mean, it really is wild that begin at hosting a hosted a dual
• 1:25:12
  meet is hard. I mean, let's be real here with
• 1:25:15
  officials and timing. And last minute, entries and
• 1:25:18
  scratches and things like that. Whether do that do me times,
• 1:25:22
  1,000 more than 1,000 is quite odd inspiring well.
• 1:25:27
  And that's where we cannot do this without our army of
• 1:25:34
  officials and volunteers. It's it is a labor of love.
• 1:25:38
  Love, you know they get some nice swag but and front row seat
• 1:25:44
  to the relays but they're doing this out of love for pain.
• 1:25:47
  They're doing this out of love for the Penn relays.
• 1:25:49
  They're doing this out of love for the sport and it's
• 1:25:51
  absolutely magnificent what they're able to do.
• 1:25:56
  Everything from you know, the starters two quarks to Zone
• 1:26:00
  Runners and his owners are often because there's so much running
• 1:26:03
  involved in that position. There are high school athletes
• 1:26:06
  themselves that's you know maybe their team.
• 1:26:08
  Start running in the Penn relays or whatever it be and they get a
• 1:26:12
  lot of running in because they're running to zone.
• 1:26:14
  Three and then back and then dissolved 3 again and you know,
• 1:26:17
  it's it looks almost like a Museum tour because they're
• 1:26:21
  holding up a little flag that says a three on it to.
• 1:26:24
  They're running to that zone. You know, stay with me, don't
• 1:26:27
  get lost, don't get lost. You know, you're, you're gonna
• 1:26:29
  have a hard time by handing off the tan if you're not the right
• 1:26:31
  spot kind of thing. So, I'd hate to see everybody's
• 1:26:34
  a step counters for the day. Oh, well, I'm not running two
• 1:26:39
  zones but mine's anywhere from 25 to 30,000 he's there.
• 1:26:42
  So your back and forth here and there.
• 1:26:43
  Yeah, what, there's our II idea, you know, I didn't grow up in
• 1:26:50
  our group in the South so I didn't grow up in relay.
• 1:26:52
  I knew of the Penn relays, but I didn't, you know, back in the
• 1:26:54
  day, you know, we'd have internet.
• 1:26:56
  So I had no clue about results until you just saw the
• 1:26:57
  highlights of the, you know, the best collegians and prose.
• 1:27:00
  And maybe, you know, high schooler would do amazing lot of
• 1:27:03
  sub for milers there and things like that.
• 1:27:05
  And I went as a coach twice. I was at Mississippi State.
• 1:27:08
  We were at Penn relays team so that was my experience there and
• 1:27:11
  coaching relays an individual's there.
• 1:27:14
  And so there, I got to see a little bit more of the results
• 1:27:16
  in such an unique aspect. At least it appears to be unique
• 1:27:19
  from my perspective. So we talked about high schooler
• 1:27:22
  talk to attack. Legions talked about Pros.
• 1:27:25
  They I at least used to see like the news media for by one's the,
• 1:27:32
  there's Masters athletes. I know, for sure, fact, there
• 1:27:34
  was a pretty viral thing goes from last year, video of afford.
• 1:27:38
  Buy one from the Masters. That was aware.
• 1:27:39
  I love that video. I know.
• 1:27:41
  I retweeted that several times. It was hilarious.
• 1:27:43
  Just to see that whole thing. It was awesome.
• 1:27:45
  But there are other like, I'm going to come community-based
• 1:27:49
  events that are there. How does that play into it?
• 1:27:52
  And what's the history and culture of that?
• 1:27:54
  Because that seems to be fairly unique.
• 1:27:56
  Yeah, I can't speak a whole lot to the history of it.
• 1:28:01
  They're currently. There isn't a, you know, media
• 1:28:05
  for by one. I think that Something in the
• 1:28:08
  past, and that was definitely something that was popular.
• 1:28:10
  But if there's not a media members that want to do it,
• 1:28:13
  something like that will that will die pretty quickly.
• 1:28:17
  However, we still do have a corporate distance, medley relay
• 1:28:22
  evening, and this last year, was kind of fun, you know, one of
• 1:28:27
  our sponsors is on and on team that they put out there where,
• 1:28:33
  you know, for a ringers guys that were, you know, former pros
• 1:28:37
  and we're still Oh in fantastic shape.
• 1:28:40
  And then you know it's everything from arms team, that
• 1:28:44
  was incredible. Toyota had three or four teams
• 1:28:47
  out there, you know, just having fun and and you know then some
• 1:28:50
  of the other local groups here in Pennsylvania.
• 1:28:55
  And then yeah, there's a large contingent of Masters.
• 1:28:58
  So the Masters have a 4 by 1 and a 4 by 4 as well as the open
• 1:29:01
  hundred. The open hundred is the one
• 1:29:03
  that, you know, we see a lot of like the Five and older heat is
• 1:29:10
  on Saturday right? In the you know, right in the
• 1:29:12
  middle of the event. It's a very popular thing.
• 1:29:15
  This last year. There was a gentleman, I think,
• 1:29:18
  what was he 101? I believe so and it was his
• 1:29:24
  first time running at Penn relays and like 65 years or so.
• 1:29:27
  I remember that video because I retweeted that said, what's your
• 1:29:29
  excuse? Because yeah, here is this guy a
• 1:29:31
  hundred and something? It was like, I literally was for
• 1:29:34
  me, as well as like. Well, what do I complain about
• 1:29:36
  mean this guy? Come on.
• 1:29:38
  I hope I live to that long and I don't think I'll be running and
• 1:29:40
  here, he was getting after it at the Penn, relays.
• 1:29:43
  Yeah. So, you know, like stuff like
• 1:29:45
  that. It's very fun.
• 1:29:48
  There are some Elementary School like shuttle, relays that take
• 1:29:52
  place on the on the infield. On Friday, we do have some
• 1:29:58
  Middle School races and some things.
• 1:30:01
  So, you know, and there's the Special Olympics have a
• 1:30:03
  component of it. They race, they do some both
• 1:30:07
  Special Olympics as well as what's the term?
• 1:30:11
  We've adapted athletes adapted. Yeah, what do not adapted.
• 1:30:18
  I think it is adapted. I enjoy like wheelchair and
• 1:30:22
  things like that, but we don't have that per se.
• 1:30:25
  We have when it's in high school, kids can be in a course
• 1:30:33
  with other kids that are in special ed and so they do kind
• 1:30:37
  of a relay together it's that Miracle High School Aids and
• 1:30:40
  things. So you know we have a lot of
• 1:30:42
  those different pieces and there's always an ask for more
• 1:30:46
  it's just the event. Already so large.
• 1:30:49
  It's really challenging to add anything else.
• 1:30:53
  Do you ever think about going to a fourth day to add in a
• 1:30:55
  Wednesday? You know, it would alleviate
• 1:30:58
  some things but it would cause more complications than right
• 1:31:02
  most notably in New York state. New York state has a rule that
• 1:31:08
  track and field competitions can't go over two days.
• 1:31:11
  So wait, hold on. That's a that's a rule law in
• 1:31:14
  the state of New York in the in the High School Activities
• 1:31:19
  Association. Yes one.
• 1:31:20
  So if we expanded to a fourth day, well, what's going to go on
• 1:31:25
  that? Fourth day, is it now that high
• 1:31:27
  School. The high school program for
• 1:31:29
  whether it's boys, specifically or girls specifically can only
• 1:31:32
  go over two days, huh? That's why it's part of the way,
• 1:31:35
  the way that it's split up. The work that it's what up.
• 1:31:38
  The boys are only Friday Saturday and the girls were
• 1:31:41
  Thursday, Friday or vice versa. Yeah, going to a fourth day.
• 1:31:44
  I mean, yeah, we could add a lot of other things but you know,
• 1:31:50
  Why, you know like yes we always add more.
• 1:31:53
  This event is because we want it to be right.
• 1:31:56
  But what is you know, what is the purpose behind that?
• 1:32:00
  Like what is it? You know what an additional is
• 1:32:03
  that accomplishing? And there may be a lot of people
• 1:32:05
  say, hey I'm more people get to participate and that may be true
• 1:32:08
  but there's so much else that goes into that.
• 1:32:11
  You know, the sheer cost of the city of Philadelphia being shut
• 1:32:15
  down for three days right now, you're saying it's going to be
• 1:32:18
  shut down for four days. Is like there's just there's so
• 1:32:21
  many moving parts and if you just anything even a you know,
• 1:32:26
  one degree, there's 90 other degrees of then adjustment that
• 1:32:31
  go into it and and so it's a large very complicated thing and
• 1:32:40
  it's challenging so we try to add as much as we can but you
• 1:32:45
  know, to add something that usually means we have to take
• 1:32:48
  something else away. Yeah.
• 1:32:50
  Not really want to do that either.
• 1:32:51
  Okay, last two topics and then and I know like I've heard the
• 1:32:54
  phone ringing, the fax machine going, there's teams that are
• 1:32:57
  trying to get qualified right now.
• 1:32:59
  They're asking, can they get the 17th guy in the javelin?
• 1:33:01
  I know they are. I know you're busy.
• 1:33:02
  So we got last two topics here for you.
• 1:33:04
  Aaron one is, you know, we'd be remiss to talk about the Penn
• 1:33:08
  relays. If we didn't dive a little bit
• 1:33:09
  into the culture of the Caribbeans and specifically, the
• 1:33:12
  Jamaican athletes that come up to the Penn relays there in
• 1:33:15
  Philadelphia, talk to us about that, are their Logistics
• 1:33:18
  issues. Shoes.
• 1:33:19
  How does is it just a normal? Like, oh, yeah, they're just a
• 1:33:21
  team. So we put them in it and have,
• 1:33:23
  you know, the culture of Jamaica and the Caribbeans in the
• 1:33:26
  Philadelphia area is what helped build that.
• 1:33:28
  I think, if I remember correctly from Reading way back in the
• 1:33:30
  day, but talk to us about like is that special challenging?
• 1:33:33
  Or is it just a normal another high school or another protein
• 1:33:36
  coming for the USA versus World thing?
• 1:33:38
  It takes a lot of people to make those things happen and as an
• 1:33:44
  NCAA institution, were very, very limited on what we can and
• 1:33:48
  cannot do. These are all prospective
• 1:33:50
  student athletes. Right.
• 1:33:52
  Pulls the University of Pennsylvania is extremely
• 1:33:56
  limited on, on, what can be done.
• 1:33:59
  And so, there is an organization called team.
• 1:34:03
  Jamaica Bickle. There are one of our our
• 1:34:07
  sponsors and and one of our I guess you could say our team
• 1:34:10
  members, right? That's they help fund and
• 1:34:13
  coordinate for those teams from Jamaica to come and attend and
• 1:34:17
  what they accomplish is Unbelievable everything from
• 1:34:21
  correspondence with the schools in making sure that they're
• 1:34:24
  taking care of two housing, them, and housing them.
• 1:34:28
  Everything from hotels to staying at people's homes, it
• 1:34:33
  kind of a funny story. My, my son's pediatric dentist.
• 1:34:38
  She is Jamaican she is from Kingston and came to the United
• 1:34:42
  States for dental school and college and everything and she's
• 1:34:47
  from Jamaica. So she's a big track.
• 1:34:49
  Field fan. And when she found out, I was in
• 1:34:52
  this new role at the Penn relays, she's like, oh, that's
• 1:34:54
  incredible. I how's the teams from Homewood
• 1:34:57
  Tech every year because that's the school I went.
• 1:34:59
  Wow, though my son's dentist, even, you know, in Jersey
• 1:35:05
  houses, a team from Homewood took every year so that they
• 1:35:08
  have somewhere to stay and they make some meals form that it's
• 1:35:11
  incredible. The amount of effort that goes
• 1:35:14
  for those teams to come from the international places and So
• 1:35:20
  teams, you make a big hole fundraisers and works with those
• 1:35:22
  schools to be able to get them here and then as far as the pain
• 1:35:26
  realizes concerned they're you know, they're treated the same
• 1:35:29
  as any other high school team would be they've got to register
• 1:35:32
  by the deadlines, you know, they have to pay for their packets,
• 1:35:36
  just the same and tickets and so forth and, you know, we aren't
• 1:35:42
  able to, you know, really do a whole lot beyond that.
• 1:35:46
  Just /, NCAA rules. Right.
• 1:35:50
  It's challenging but you know those rules are in place for a
• 1:35:55
  reason. And so historically, the
• 1:35:58
  Jamaican teams first started coming in the 60s and it's just
• 1:36:02
  continued to grow from there. It really took off when some of
• 1:36:07
  these Jamaican athletes were, you know, kind of put on the
• 1:36:10
  world scale for the first time. And some of them were being seen
• 1:36:14
  in front of College code, which is for the first time and the
• 1:36:18
  most One coming from the Penn relays was merely naughty act.
• 1:36:22
  Early naughty came to, the Penn relays and this is in the
• 1:36:24
  beginning when women were first able to participate in the Penn
• 1:36:27
  relays and she showed how good she was University of Nebraska
• 1:36:34
  was at the meat. They offered her a scholarship
• 1:36:37
  and that opened up a, I guess a direct line for recruiting for
• 1:36:45
  the u.s. Lucian's.
• 1:36:49
  And for a long time there, that was, you know, that was your
• 1:36:53
  means of seeing these Jamaican athletes was coming to the base
• 1:36:57
  and recruiting rules at that time or about different than
• 1:36:59
  they are. Now, if you come to one of these
• 1:37:01
  meats now, like there's a lot of restrictions for NCAA rules for
• 1:37:05
  good reason of what you can and cannot do while the athlete.
• 1:37:09
  I mean, doing the athlete heading out on the track and
• 1:37:11
  you're like, hey, you know, I'm from school X and we'd love to
• 1:37:14
  have you. Here's my card as they've got a
• 1:37:16
  baton in there. There's a lot of restrictions
• 1:37:20
  and things, but, you know, it's a opportunity to come and see.
• 1:37:23
  And then as far as like, The Crowd Goes, the cool thing.
• 1:37:26
  With the Jamaicans is so Jamaica Queens.
• 1:37:30
  You know where JFK airport is you know right in the mouth of
• 1:37:33
  Long Island and everything is an incredibly, large Jamaican
• 1:37:37
  population. Both New York and Pennsylvania
• 1:37:41
  both the Philadelphia region specifically.
• 1:37:43
  There's just a tremendous amount of Jamaicans and so, For them,
• 1:37:49
  it's their opportunity to come and see, you know, the future of
• 1:37:52
  what the sport is going to be like, who is the next big star
• 1:37:55
  Usain Bolt ran at the Penn relays in high school Yohan
• 1:37:58
  Blake? In fact, his Saint jogo team was
• 1:38:02
  the first team to break 40 seconds and the high school
• 1:38:06
  teams at the Penn relays. So these big names all ran here
• 1:38:10
  in high school. You know they got their start at
• 1:38:12
  Penn relays. And the thing that's cool is it
• 1:38:15
  allows these, you know, these hands and thousands of Jamaicans
• 1:38:19
  that live in this area to come and see, because they don't have
• 1:38:23
  the ability to go down for Champs, you know, and they can't
• 1:38:25
  go down, you know, as much as they were.
• 1:38:27
  So they can come to Philadelphia and they can watch all these
• 1:38:30
  kids, that ran it, Champs just a few weeks earlier.
• 1:38:33
  One other thing that was explained to me for the first
• 1:38:35
  time this last year, that I wasn't aware of at Champs the
• 1:38:39
  way that they break it up more or less, its Ninth and tenth
• 1:38:42
  graders competing against each other's and its 11th and 12th
• 1:38:45
  graders competing against. More or less.
• 1:38:49
  It's that's how it's divided up. But then they come to the Penn
• 1:38:51
  relays and now whole more Tech can use 9th through 12th graders
• 1:38:56
  and they're all running together.
• 1:38:57
  So, that's part of the reason you see, just these incredibly
• 1:39:00
  Fast Times and part of the reason that it's so exciting of,
• 1:39:06
  you know, high school, girls 4x4 team running 330, you know, or a
• 1:39:10
  high school boys, 4x8 running 724.
• 1:39:13
  Like those things are happening because now Like the coach can
• 1:39:18
  finally combine forces. And one last thing that's really
• 1:39:22
  interesting with Jamaica is this last year and I kind of got a
• 1:39:27
  full tour of what Jamaican High School looks like, right?
• 1:39:31
  All of the best coaches in Jamaica, our High School
• 1:39:35
  coaches. That's where they put the most
• 1:39:37
  emphasis, that's where they put time and energy and resources,
• 1:39:41
  because they realize that's the starting point, that's the
• 1:39:44
  backbone and that gives them a headed on.
• 1:39:47
  Right path. They know then what a lot of
• 1:39:49
  these kids if they compete collegiately, they're going to
• 1:39:52
  come to more than likely the United States to a large D1
• 1:39:55
  institution, and they're going to be coached well there.
• 1:39:58
  And then when they go pro, you know, now they have kind of a
• 1:40:00
  choice of who they want to be coached by and where they want
• 1:40:02
  to be coached. And so their efforts and their
• 1:40:05
  energy. And everything is in these High
• 1:40:07
  School coaches and you can see it, you can see it on the track.
• 1:40:11
  There's a reason that the Jamaicans don't drop batons at
• 1:40:13
  World Championships, and Olympic Games.
• 1:40:16
  You brought that up. I was not going to bring up
• 1:40:18
  anything related to that. I'm not talking about any of the
• 1:40:21
  countries that lighter with such events, but they do the Penn
• 1:40:26
  relays. There are no baton drops.
• 1:40:28
  Its to come on, you're the epitome of real, a pizza.
• 1:40:31
  There are not a lot. Well, yes, there's definitely
• 1:40:38
  because they, they know what they're doing and and my
• 1:40:45
  goodness, they are Talented and it is just so fun to watch them
• 1:40:50
  be able to run. And so we always pray that it's,
• 1:40:53
  you know, not a cold Philadelphia's day because if
• 1:40:58
  it's hot, the times are going to be incredible because all the
• 1:41:02
  sudden, the Jamaicans muscles are are warm to a proper
• 1:41:06
  temperature and and look out, it's going to be fast, that's a
• 1:41:10
  lot of fun, very unique aspect of Penn relays and very unique
• 1:41:14
  based on the geographical location of The Penn relays as
• 1:41:18
  well. Okay, Aaron.
• 1:41:19
  I lied. I said I had two more topics.
• 1:41:20
  I actually thought of a third one, so I'm going to slip this.
• 1:41:22
  It's a quickie though, in the number in the number 2.
• 1:41:25
  Here you mentioned about the number of packets that you had
• 1:41:28
  to put together at the Armory. Will that got exploded here at
• 1:41:31
  the Penn relays. How many people does it take?
• 1:41:34
  Cuz I'm ever doing packets. When we at Mississippi State?
• 1:41:36
  And it's a stinks, you know, getting all the bibs and
• 1:41:38
  counting up the the safety pins and the wristbands you got to
• 1:41:43
  do, how many people does it take to put together all these
• 1:41:46
  packets for Then relays a lot this past year, we goodness all
• 1:41:56
  hands on deck. I mean it, as many as we can
• 1:41:59
  get, Steve had several members of the Penn track team, you
• 1:42:03
  know, they came in and shapes, and right.
• 1:42:06
  It's not an event, right? It has to happen over time
• 1:42:08
  frame. Yeah, I mean, it was, it was a
• 1:42:10
  few different days. It's, it's quite a process and
• 1:42:17
  The there are some logistical things that we do ahead of time
• 1:42:21
  that you know kind of helped us to make that a little bit easier
• 1:42:25
  but it's still, it's a massive massive.
• 1:42:28
  Yeah. I just started thinking about,
• 1:42:30
  that was like, man, we take that for granted.
• 1:42:31
  We get our packet and we move on.
• 1:42:32
  It's like, no, no someone had to make 10,000.
• 1:42:36
  Not, it's amazing. Okay.
• 1:42:41
  Is just over 65,000 bibs, that's crazy.
• 1:42:47
  Every athlete has a bib on the front and back.
• 1:42:50
  And then, right, if you run in the prelim and then you make the
• 1:42:53
  final, it's a stiffer. Instead of bibs for the final,
• 1:42:56
  dude, the last topic because there's no way we can talk me.
• 1:43:01
  There's a lot of things that you just can't not talk about with
• 1:43:03
  the Penn relays, but the culmination what we're all I
• 1:43:06
  should say we're all going for, but one of the things that we
• 1:43:08
  strive for as we take a team to the Penn relays is the famed
• 1:43:14
  Wagon Wheel. Like I still remember I think we
• 1:43:16
  won the four by two To both years at Mississippi State there
• 1:43:19
  and it's a big deal. I mean, like, those things go up
• 1:43:22
  on our wall when we get back to the office.
• 1:43:24
  I mean, it is, I mean, it is one of a, one of the more unique
• 1:43:29
  trophies plaques. We want to call it awards for
• 1:43:31
  one enemy, but it is a, it's a sign of accomplishment when
• 1:43:37
  recruits go in coaches, show them their Wagon Wheels.
• 1:43:40
  I mean, it's a big deal. Talk to us about I just don't
• 1:43:44
  know enough about like, how this thing's made are they easy to
• 1:43:46
  make They did it cost a billion dollars, each.
• 1:43:49
  I don't know, tell us a little bit about that to round us out
• 1:43:51
  today. So the history behind it.
• 1:43:54
  They were first handed out. I'm going to get the dates wrong
• 1:43:58
  here and then I'm going to people like, yes, some was gonna
• 1:44:00
  start yelling. They're listening right now.
• 1:44:01
  Like know in the boys started in the 20s and it, the wheels are
• 1:44:08
  only awarded to the championship America, the Lark.
• 1:44:12
  So there's actually there's two different sizes, right?
• 1:44:15
  One, that's 36 inches. Across, and that's the large one
• 1:44:18
  and that's worded to all the championship America Champions.
• 1:44:22
  So that's high school for by one Championship America college for
• 1:44:25
  by one and so forth. And the championship America is
• 1:44:28
  the fastest of the fast, right then there are there's a smaller
• 1:44:34
  wheel. I think it's about 14 inches
• 1:44:35
  across and those are given out to the each heat of the 4x1 + 4
• 1:44:41
  by 4 is considered its own section and if you are a section
• 1:44:46
  winner, you will get a All world.
• 1:44:48
  Oh is that right? We give out just over 200 of the
• 1:44:52
  small wheels over the course of the weekend.
• 1:44:55
  Because I mean you and your section and Penn relays like
• 1:44:57
  that's worth acknowledgement. We do mix the Heats in the form.
• 1:45:02
  I want to 4x4 a little bit to where it's some Geographics,
• 1:45:06
  right? You know, so you don't have we
• 1:45:10
  keep them relatively kind of close to the same ability levels
• 1:45:14
  and things. You know, it there is some
• 1:45:15
  mixing in there. Yeah.
• 1:45:17
  You win your heat of the Penn relays.
• 1:45:18
  That's big deal and so that's why we award the small wheel but
• 1:45:23
  the wheel was first, they first started being awarded in the 20s
• 1:45:26
  or 30s and it's just continued to evolve their.
• 1:45:30
  It's a little bit deceiving. They're not as heavy as they
• 1:45:33
  look right. It's they look like they're
• 1:45:38
  solid wood. They're not.
• 1:45:40
  It's kind of a pressed particle boards for lack of a better
• 1:45:45
  description. I don't know exactly.
• 1:45:47
  What it is, but it's a relatively light thing.
• 1:45:50
  So when you see those photos of a team holding it, well above
• 1:45:53
  their heads, right? Not that they have all of a
• 1:45:56
  sudden, got crazy adrenaline flowing through them, it's good.
• 1:46:00
  It's really it's not quite that heavy but after a team wins,
• 1:46:04
  they come out on the podium, they get that famous shot in
• 1:46:06
  front of weight Munhall. The wheel is handed to them and
• 1:46:12
  they get it home by any means necessary.
• 1:46:13
  He has a good luck. So it's You know, obviously it's
• 1:46:18
  a nice carry on for those that are flying.
• 1:46:20
  And, and so, yeah, it's a big deal on the high school stage.
• 1:46:25
  There's nothing more challenging in High School athletics, in my
• 1:46:28
  opinion, then winning a championship America.
• 1:46:32
  Because, if you do that before, by one or the 4x4, the 4x8, what
• 1:46:36
  that means is, you're probably the best high school team in one
• 1:46:41
  of those four events in the world, because if you beat in
• 1:46:44
  Jamaicans, then who else in the world?
• 1:46:47
  This is going to beat you in those events, right?
• 1:46:49
  And so, it's an incredible accomplishment and the high
• 1:46:53
  school teams that this have won the most wheels or do these
• 1:46:58
  other things. You know, it's the best of the
• 1:47:00
  best and a High School National records are broken.
• 1:47:05
  And those teams are third or fourth in the meat, as you know,
• 1:47:11
  I didn't pull them up. I should have pulled them up
• 1:47:13
  before this but the Jamaica or the Penn relays records.
• 1:47:17
  In the, for my one, the 4x4 in the four, by eight at the high
• 1:47:19
  school level are incredible, the High School record in the 4x4
• 1:47:24
  for the boys is 303. It is I mean NCAA Final worthy
• 1:47:31
  like type team, High School record in the 4x8 for the boys
• 1:47:36
  is 724 and I mean the high school girls, it's know.
• 1:47:41
  It's absolutely unbelievable. The times that are run year and
• 1:47:46
  you're It's the Penn relays records, you know, if you got
• 1:47:50
  two or three u.s. teams built into their, it's wow.
• 1:47:54
  That's that's really cool. And they're often the national
• 1:47:57
  record holders. So when you go back and look at
• 1:48:00
  the history of the u.s. teams that have won those, those
• 1:48:03
  Wheels, it was quite efficient. It's much easier to win the
• 1:48:09
  national championship than it is to when a Penn relays wheel.
• 1:48:11
  Well Erin. You know, we have you here,
• 1:48:13
  you're on record your own video. So I'm going to put you on On
• 1:48:17
  the spot you know as we and we should always be doing this.
• 1:48:21
  Pushing the envelope doing things differently a little bit
• 1:48:23
  differently trying to make things better and keep
• 1:48:25
  improving. And sometimes we do that with
• 1:48:28
  things that don't need to be touched.
• 1:48:30
  Tell me, tell us right now and we're going to hold you to it.
• 1:48:33
  You're the new guy, their pain you and Steve both overseeing
• 1:48:36
  the pin rate. Dave, did this, he wasn't going
• 1:48:38
  to change this. I just know this, but let's make
• 1:48:39
  sure you two are not going to touch this.
• 1:48:41
  Aspect of the Penn relays tell us that the wagon wheel will
• 1:48:45
  stay in remain. For years and decades to come as
• 1:48:49
  the, the premier award at the Penn relays?
• 1:48:51
  Yeah, I mean it's one of the most iconic Awards definitely in
• 1:48:56
  the sport. If not in all sports, it's very
• 1:49:01
  recognizable. It's obviously what it is since
• 1:49:04
  it says Henry my Carnival on around it.
• 1:49:07
  But yeah there's it's an iconic thing is I'm certainly not doing
• 1:49:14
  anything will ever meet what a cool thing like what?
• 1:49:17
  A great thing, like it's more people probably have seen or
• 1:49:20
  know what those wheels are at least seen those then than any
• 1:49:23
  other aspect of the main. So yeah, I'm all right, removes
• 1:49:27
  the Stanley Cup. No, we're not moving the snow.
• 1:49:30
  It's pretty awesome. All right, good, we got you on
• 1:49:33
  it. So if it happens in the next
• 1:49:34
  year to, we're going to come back and say, hey, what happened
• 1:49:36
  to Aaron? You wasn't you, obviously, you
• 1:49:39
  said it wouldn't be if it's going to be one of you.
• 1:49:41
  But it's just one of those things that's like, this kind of
• 1:49:43
  tradition that needs to reign supreme as you continue.
• 1:49:47
  To the 135th and 40th 150th which will be here before we
• 1:49:51
  know it, by the way, running of the Penn relays Aaron you're
• 1:49:54
  busy, you got to go, thank you so much.
• 1:49:57
  I mean it is so awesome to have an event, a cultural event like
• 1:50:02
  the Penn relays and kind of pull back the curtains and see behind
• 1:50:06
  the scenes, what's going on? You said it perfectly, you know,
• 1:50:09
  from us on the outside watching on TV or for in the stands or
• 1:50:13
  even a lot of times when we're coaching, it feels like that
• 1:50:16
  quote, unquote. Well, uh, Oiled machine it's
• 1:50:17
  like, oh yeah. Nothing ever goes wrong here and
• 1:50:20
  having run events and done anything in life.
• 1:50:23
  That's not the case. But it is the case of good
• 1:50:25
  leadership and good support and volunteers and helpers that when
• 1:50:29
  things do go unplanned, we won't say wrong unplanned, that we get
• 1:50:34
  back on plan and everybody still has an amazing experience
• 1:50:37
  walking away from their pain. Real he's experienced, it's
• 1:50:40
  something that they'll remember for a lifetime.
• 1:50:42
  And so thank you so much for being here today, to kind of
• 1:50:44
  give us that that little peek behind the curtain man.
• 1:50:47
  And it was so fascinating, so thankful for your time today,
• 1:50:50
  slowly, my pleasure. Thanks for having me awesome.
• 1:50:52
  It see, the phone just rang, he did, he's got his next meeting
• 1:50:54
  to go to right now. So thanks for being here today.
• 1:50:56
  This week, as we kind of peel back the curtain on those Wagon
• 1:50:59
  Wheels there for the Penn. Relays, I hope you learned
• 1:51:01
  something. I know I sure did and I can't
• 1:51:04
  wait, I haven't been in a long time.
• 1:51:05
  I can't wait to get to my next Penn.
• 1:51:06
  Relays have a great week and we'll see you next week.