Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #274: Chris McCoy-Univ of Arkansas-Pine Bluff

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#274: Chris McCoy-Univ of Arkansas-Pine Bluff · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and Field world Juvenile tuned in to our humble servant
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  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message for Guild
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  Athletics connections. All right, welcome back here to
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  the Gil Athletics Track and Field Connections podcast.
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  Super excited that you would join us once again.
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  You know, it's really a thrill to be the host here.
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  This is our halfway kind of through our fifth season.
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  You know, we're getting inching closer and closer to episode
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  300, which is bonkers to me to think that we would even make it
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  this far. And we only make it because you
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  press play on a weekly basis. So super grateful for you and
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  joining us week after week. Just really, really truly
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  grateful for you guys this week. I'm excited because, you know,
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  every once in a while, not only do I get a guest and you know,
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  we get to go through the history and uplift and honor what they
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  do, but I also get to invite friends on here.
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  And this is a case where coach and Fran and I'm just super
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  excited to share his journey with you and learn and just have
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  some fun. I feel like this one's going to
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  be a lot of fun here to be real, real honest with you.
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  So help me welcome the head coach from the University of
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  Arkansas, Pine Bluff the wise, the wonderful Mr. Chris McCoy.
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  Chris, how are you, Sir? I'm doing good, Mike.
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  How you doing? I'm doing good.
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  I like to guess. I like mascots and I I think I
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  know this one. Pine Bluff.
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  You're something like the lions or golden lions or something
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  like golden lions. That's it.
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  I knew it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  I like it's a unique one, which I like, you know, it's.
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  Golden Lions. Yeah, yeah.
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  I thought I remembered that. Well, Chris, how are you doing
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  today, man? I'm doing great.
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  Just just living life, having fun.
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  I'm doing great. Now, when you're listening to
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  this, it's probably August, September of 2024 when we're
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  recording this, the Olympics are going on.
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  And Chris and I were kind of talking about some of the things
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  going on and today was a big, you know, every day has been a
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  big day, but today was a big day.
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  What do you think about some of the things that happened on the
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  track today? I think it was good.
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  I mean, I think things that we expected to happen, happen.
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  We a lot of the kids, young ladies and young men for America
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  have got gold medal. We got some got silver that I
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  don't think they respected them way, but they did and I I think
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  it was good. I think USA, Team USA doing real
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  good. I think in my lifetime me been
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  watching the Olympics since God no win.
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  I think it was might be one of the best Olympics so far.
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  I think so for us, I think we, we got a lot of medals we and I
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  think that's a good thing for United States in the upcoming
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  years getting ready for 2028. So in LA.
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  So I think that will be a it'll be great.
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  And I'm looking forward. I'm I'm trying my best to get to
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  2028. I would love to be there.
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  My last time I went to A level was in 96, my sophomore year in
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  college. Oh, you got you got to go, Yeah.
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  I got to go and everybody's. That's my last time I went.
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  Everybody's been asking me if I'm going to go to LA in 28 and
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  you know, part of me is like, well, you know, there's not a
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  lot of business that, you know, it's not like a business thing
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  for Gil, you know, to be there. I'm like, but however, I did not
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  get to go to to 96 in in Atlanta.
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  And I was like, when is it going to be in America again in my
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  lifetime? Maybe not.
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  So maybe I need to find a way to get to LA me and you.
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  We'll hitchhike out. OK, We'll, we'll.
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  Yeah, I'm, I'm thinking about doing, I'm a my wife, you know,
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  I've been married for a year now and my wife want to go.
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  So I think I'm going to make that journey and try to go.
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  If I don't have nobody, if I don't be coaching nobody there,
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  I hope I can go. And that's right.
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  And you understand that's one of my goal to be coaching there,
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  you know? That's right.
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  You might have a you're going to work towards a coaching
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  credential to get there. I got to buy a ticket.
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  If I don't get on coaching anymore, I got to buy a ticket.
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  But well, that's my goal. My goal is to go to.
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  I went, like I said, we're in 96.
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  I got to go to my any my auntie work in a hospital, Saint Jude
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  Hospital in Memphis, TN and her Co workers, they had tickets and
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  she didn't want to go by herself.
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  So I went we went to the track, we did tracking, we did
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  swimming. We just only two we went to.
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  So that was my opportunity to go.
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  We went down for what about 3 days before they we didn't stay
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  that long. What?
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  What at the track did you get to see?
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  Like, did you see Michael Johnson's 200?
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  Or no, I was there for the 400 minute hurdles.
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  Yeah. I watched Calvin Davis.
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  That's when I won that year. That was not won.
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  I didn't go. I went with that day, the final,
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  the 400 minute. Hurdles.
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  Oh, that's cool. Yeah.
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  Well, you know, we still got a few events left.
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  Has there been, Was there a certain event that you were
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  really wanting to see, whether it's happened yet or or not
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  happened yet in this Olympics? Out the four, the men's four in
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  the hurdles and the men's four in the hurdles, I want us.
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  That's tomorrow and I I'm looking forward the women's
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  forwarding me. Today.
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  I really I young lady, the young girl from Jamaica didn't make
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  any and I was shocked. Price, right, Yeah.
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  Yeah, I was very shocked she didn't make any.
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  But now we, we have, you know, I'm looking forward to see who
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  went, who, what the outcome that would be, you know.
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  Price is a good example. You know, I live my life really
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  now based a lot of George Williams's famous saying, if, if
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  you're not in the huddle, you don't know the play.
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  You know, with with Price, you know, it's like, oh, like she
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  was a shoe in to make the finals.
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  But you know, I think we're learning When you see all these
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  events that are happening, when you see the difference between
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  3rd and 4th place, so a metal or not metal or you see the place,
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  the, the difference between 8th and 9th in any event, any event
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  at all, 8th and 9th place. So, you know, making finals or
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  not making finals, it is I, I, I mean, you make one small, you
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  make one small mistake in NCAA, you don't make finals.
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  You blink mistakenly, you don't make the finals in the Olympics.
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  So a, a kid like, you know, she is a kid for crying out loud,
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  like Price to not make it. It's like, man, I know I had her
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  on my bingo card to make it, but man, it just wasn't time this
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  year. But I would hate to be her
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  opponent for the next four years, though.
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  Yeah. She she's going to be a good
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  one, yeah. So you're looking, I'm looking
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  for foreigner hurdles tomorrow, today, just minutes ago, an hour
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  ago, we just saw Sydney set the world record in the foreigner
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  hurdles. I'm going to get you on
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  prediction. We won't know if you're right.
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  Well, we'll, we'll know if you're right tomorrow.
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  But we, the world won't know until they listen to this in
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  about a month or so. Do we see a world record
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  tomorrow in the foreigner hurdles and who you got winning?
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  For the man I do, I do, I, I, I do see a world record and I
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  don't see a world record, but I, I'm, I'm going with Rod Ben.
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  I, I, you know, I always like Rod Ben.
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  I, I, I remember his when he was at USC, he ran a 200 meter dash
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  at Texas AM and I didn't know he could run a 200 and he went
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  around 20 points and 200 before. And I heard him, I always said I
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  think he was good. I know he he'd been having some
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  ups and downs throughout the whole time he left college with
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  injuries and other things. But I'm I'm, I'm going to rob
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  Benjamin. I mean, but I'm going to rob
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  Benjamin. That's why I'm picking.
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  But and I'm not just picking because he's American picking
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  because I think right now, this year alone, I think he's the
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  most consistent. But I ain't going to take down
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  for that Viking, that Viking tough.
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  It's crazy. Yeah.
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  And I want to get a little bit better answer.
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  Then I can see a world record and I cannot see a world record.
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  But what are you predicting here?
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  Come on now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Yeah, I can. See the.
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  World I, I agree with you I'm I'm with you 100% of the way I
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  I'm riding with Benjamin I'm riding with the world record and
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  here's why you, you know and you've seen this and we're going
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  to get into your journey here in a second but you've seen this as
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  a coach on your own teams and other teams.
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  You know there's something like a momentum that occurs.
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  You can't plan it. You you could you wish as a
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  coach you could plan this, but you know, one kid pops off and
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  does something on your team and that embolden somebody else in
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  another event and you know, you've seen it.
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  You've seen this happen. And and and so I think with
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  what's going on right now with, you know, I know Sydney was
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  projected to win and all that. So for her winning, maybe that's
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  not a surprise, but setting the world record's a big deal.
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  Anna Cockrell, I don't know that she was I don't think she was
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  picked a medal. If it was, it was bronze at best
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  because of Femke and she gets silver.
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  Tara and Jasmine Moore go what, one and two or one and three in
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  the long junk. You know, I know the 200 again,
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  you know, there was some surprises with Noah getting sick
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  and everything, but he still gets bronze and Kenny gets
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  silver. So I, I, I think rye and the
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  rest of the Team USA by the way, I, oh, Quincy Hall just happened
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  yesterday and that was a big deal.
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  The, the distance runners are doing.
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  I mean, holy cow, distance runners.
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  My hat's off to you with what we're doing there from steeple
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  and all in between. I think Rye is I I think there's
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  a momentum for team USAI think, I think Rye would have won gold
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  anyway, But I think with everything that's going on, I
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  think he's going to be like, well, crap, if I don't set the
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  world record, I'm letting the whole team down.
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  I think he is going to I think he's going to blow it out.
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  I I think he is going to I think Vikings going to make it a game,
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  but I think Rye wins it and I think he sets the world record
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  as well. I'm I'm with you, I'm with you.
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  I. Think so too.
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  All right, well, that was fun. Let's let's go to what we're
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  really here for, and that is, that's for you, my friend.
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  So let's get in our Wayback Machine here.
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  You know, assuming that you were a track athlete, you might not
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  have been. We, we've, we've stopped
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  assuming that there is any one kind of path to college, I
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  shouldn't say to college track and field, to coaching track and
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  field. So we shouldn't necessarily
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  assume, but where does track and field start for you?
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  Well, track and field started me in back in junior high.
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  I started running the 7th grade my my family in my town.
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  I'm from West Middle Arkansas, so a lot of my family were ran
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  track. I had a couple uncles and a
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  couple cousins that was very fast and they were known out
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  throughout the city and the state that it was good because
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  I'm freezing from Arkansas. And so I started running track
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  in the 7th grade and it went from there.
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  I, I fell in love with track and field, I think when I was
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  running track Carlos in his heyday.
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  And I fell in love with track and field.
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  And I've been involved in track and field since, since that day
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  and never left. I stopped playing football in
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  11th grade and I focused my 12th grade year in track and field to
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  focus on getting a scholarship to go to to go to college.
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  And I thought I thought about doing that too, and I did.
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  I played both ran track and football senior year, though.
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  Why did you? Because that's a tough decision
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  because, you know, track and football are very intertwined.
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  They should be even more intertwined.
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  Coaches, football coaches specifically out there.
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  But but they're very intertwined, very complimentary.
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  So it's very natural. It's not like, you know, there
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  was like a struggle of like, oh, practice and they're like, no,
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  no, even the seasons line up. You mentioned to try to get a
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  scholarship. What, what you know, I, I don't
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  want to put words in your mouth, say, well, man, you, you must
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  have loved football. You must have liked football.
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  At least you made it, you know, played up until through your
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  junior year. What, what was that decision
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  like? And what, what and what did you
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  do? Here's probably the better
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  question. What did so when you, why did
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  you make the decision? How did you feel about the
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  decision? And then more importantly, now
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  that you had that fall off because you weren't playing
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  football, what did you do for track?
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  Like what was the OK, then? I'll better I better do extra
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  for track. Well, my uncle, he's the one who
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  told me look at what's best for me.
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  He told me that, you know, Kamonga ran trekking.
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  Kamonga went to Universal Arkansas Monticello, which is
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  about 45 minutes from us. So he went to college and ran.
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  He didn't finish college. He left, he had a baby in
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  college. He left, went joined the Navy
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  and he, the one told me, you know, you need to do what he
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  actually played football in college all the way until he
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  went to college. And he's like, yo, you got to do
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  best for you. And I feel like playing
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  football, I wasn't getting no bigger.
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  Everybody around me was getting big.
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  And I was still a little screening guy.
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  I was like, man, I ain't. So you really went hard because
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  I I played, you know, I was playing a lot, but I didn't
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  enjoy it. I got used to.
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  So I decided to go focus on track because I wanted, I want
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  to run fast on track. I wanted at that time, I only
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  ran 49 seconds. I got second in the state meet
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  in Arkansas in the Fort and mid days and I seen when I was
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  running track, I think Molly Ramsey was the one of the best
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  athletes coming out 45 high school.
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  So I wanted to blow up my time, my goal to run for my goal to
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  run 47 seconds. So I talked to my high school
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  coach, who was also the defense coordinator.
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  Yeah. OK.
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  I was going to ask because I'm from Alabama, which is basically
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  just East Coast Arkansas here. Yeah.
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  And all of our coaches, all of our football coaches coached
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  every sport. So all my track coaches were
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  also football. I was wondering if that was the
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  same. Yeah, so.
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  Did he? You said he was defensive.
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  What? What position did you play?
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  I played. I played defensive back in Wild
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  Seal and sometimes running back. In the track, he was cool.
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  Yeah, that's what I was wondering.
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  What was? His attitude, he was cool
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  because actually my high school track team was one of the best
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  high school track team in the city of Arkansas throughout the
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  80s and the 90s. My high school coach named Joe
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  Newham and we had a, we had a very good successful high school
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  track program throughout the names well, early.
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  I mean, he matter of fact, coach Nuno coach all my uncles in
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  football and basketball, football and track.
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  And so he'd been the football coach.
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  He was a track coach. He had a track coach since the
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  70s. So when I got to high school, he
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  already coached, had my family. He knew my grandma, my grandma,
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  my grandmother working at the cafeteria at the junior high
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  school where he started at before he came to the high
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  school level. So he knew my grandmother a long
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  time before he'd know me. OK.
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  And so when I went to coaching on and told him that I wasn't
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  going to I don't want to play football, I don't want to play
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  on track, he was cool with it. He just gave, he just told me I,
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  I, I did a lot of running. He just, I just was going runs
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  every day after practice. I had seven.
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  I still had 777 period class. So that's what all most all the
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  athletes had in class seven period go football prior to what
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  we're going to do. So I still had, I still had
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  seven period. So I used to do in the fall.
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  I just go on runs. I just go do some runs, do
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  crosses around the field. He gave me a little workout.
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  It wasn't that much dude. I kept I just started doing
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  stuff and he won that much. But he he also my high school
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  coach, he played, he played, he went to college.
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  He went to a small college here in Arkansas.
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  So he did football and he did track.
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  He was a Thor. My high school coach was a Thor,
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  but he was a good Sprint coach. So he gave me a workout every
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  day and I just go out there on the grass, run and I'll be
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  running or I'll go run. They did practice.
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  I'll be running around a few while they had practice.
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  I get stuff like that. So he gave me the work and he,
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  he, the one told me, actually, he told me it was cool because
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  if you go to college, you got to have to start training for track
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  in the fall. So I didn't know because we
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  didn't start training track until.
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  January, you know. What I'm saying And so it was
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  easy. And so he already knew how to do
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  it because he was, you know, he went to college, he did college,
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  he did college sports. So he knew and he just told me,
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  he gave me a little workout. I go run around the track, I run
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  this, I do this, I did this, I did drills and I did that.
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  And then when football season, when he got through a football
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  team, all the guys who run track, play football to come
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  around track. We all came to track season.
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  Actually we that year not mistaken, we started training
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  like in November because we ran a meet.
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  This went for this went Arkansas.
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  They still do it. Then with John McDonald, the
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  head coach, they have a meet in January, this first week in
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  January for high school. They still do it today.
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  And we went up there and ran up there and we did, we trained
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  early so we can go run. And he actually did all that for
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  me because I was one of the oldest guys on the team.
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  So he did it for me so I could get good looks to go to college.
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  So what was the I? I I love that attitude from and
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  it makes a lot. It makes maybe more sense than
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  you initially think because he was a a track coach and football
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  coach, not just he wasn't a football coach who also coached
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  track. Sounds like he was very much a
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  track and football coach. He actually loved track, but he
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  loved football. You know, a lot, a lot of
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  football coaches, even if you're not a a A star player, they
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  still want bodies. You know, they still need and
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  want bodies, right. So there's a little bit of like
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  that. Hey, Chris, maybe you should
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  stay. So I like that.
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  You know, coach had your intent. You're you're at heart, you know
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  your your future at heart. What about your peers?
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  I'm always wondering, you know, we we talked about sixteen 1718
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  year old kids. Now what, what did your peers
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  who were like? Oh, you quit in football to do?
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  Were they cool with it? Or well, Ashley.
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  I had Ashley 2/3 of my friends or my young when the high school
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  they were better than tracking football.
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  So they never I had one guy named he actually coached his
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  son here in August about four or five years ago.
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  He didn't never do football at all.
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  He ran 10106 in the hunting. He didn't even do football.
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  So it wasn't like no one would care really.
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  I can say because all the guys who did what they want to play
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  football the most and me and the other guy named Asian guy, me
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  Asian guy, we was, we were more into track.
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  And so it it wasn't, it wasn't no problem.
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  And you had a good track program too, though.
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  So like, I'm just kind of, yeah, I'm kind of playing it out
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  through mine. Like if I would have actually
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  stopped playing my senior year, I feel like a lot of the my
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  friends and peer group in the football would have made fun of
• 17:53
  me because we weren't very good at track.
• 17:55
  So I, I think that have been like, really, dude, like we
• 17:57
  aren't even that good. What are you doing?
• 17:58
  Like, we're better in football. But if you if you have a
• 18:01
  tradition of like being good at track, though, it's like, OK,
• 18:03
  he's just picking another. He's going to go be successful
• 18:06
  there instead of here, you know? So that makes a lot of sense.
• 18:09
  Well my my high school my sophomore year in high school
• 18:16
  was the first time Arkansas started doing Indo State meets
• 18:20
  and we won the 1st 3. Oh wow, holy cow.
• 18:24
  Yeah, and then they kept, but they didn't know.
• 18:26
  They bring them something and they didn't start it.
• 18:28
  I think they stopped it like a couple years.
• 18:30
  I got a high school to start doing instate indoor state
• 18:33
  meeting. They they brought it back when
• 18:34
  Arkansas built the indoor facility up in Fayetteville.
• 18:38
  They when they run back that they went state me now at fair,
• 18:40
  but we used to go I don't know. You remember Arkansas State had
• 18:43
  that rubber track around there, the flat?
• 18:46
  Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah.
• 18:47
  I remember when they first started Arkansas State meet in
• 18:50
  indoor that we used to have stayed.
• 18:52
  There. Oh wow.
• 18:55
  I took. There's a battle between some of
• 18:57
  the roughest indoor facilities of Arkansas states indoors and
• 19:01
  Florida's old one in the they've been.
• 19:04
  The same way all the different Arkansas State had rubble and,
• 19:07
  and, and I felt Florida had a real track and.
• 19:11
  There's still basically circles though.
• 19:12
  No, no track. It was a circle.
• 19:14
  They were circle, they were corn like this.
• 19:16
  But I tell people though, and and I tell people how these
• 19:19
  young cats we got now they got all these brands, We got all
• 19:22
  these citizens. I said, yo, back in the day,
• 19:24
  Arkansas State, so the noise was a place to be here by winter.
• 19:27
  That's. Right.
• 19:28
  So Illinois, do you? Remember George Mason?
• 19:30
  Remember. Clemson's indoor, yeah.
• 19:33
  You couldn't even like this. Yeah.
• 19:35
  And I tell people, I said, you know, you guys, y'all lucky
• 19:37
  because when I was running track, I remember, I remember
• 19:40
  when I was in a high school, when I went to JUCO in Kansas
• 19:43
  City. JUCO, we just go to Pittsburgh
• 19:45
  State. And it was on that one. 150
• 19:47
  meter track. I was like yo, and then it got
• 19:50
  300m track. Now you know.
• 19:53
  I've told the story before. When I coached JUCO in Kansas,
• 19:57
  we went to Pitt State one time. It was when I first got there,
• 19:59
  so I had no clue. I went over there and you know,
• 20:01
  it's, I don't know if it was 100, it might have been 140,
• 20:03
  Man, it was a small, I think it. Was.
• 20:06
  Small and I remember going, I will never come back here again.
• 20:08
  I was like, I can't like maybe I'll come here to run 60s, but I
• 20:11
  can't run twos and fours and even the eights and stuff.
• 20:14
  I was like, this is crazy. And now you go there and they've
• 20:17
  got, you know, it really is when you you know, we're about the
• 20:20
  same age. When you take a step back and
• 20:21
  think about what we had it as you know, athletes and coaches
• 20:24
  early in our career to what we have today, It's hard to
• 20:27
  complain about the the places we have today because boy, they are
• 20:30
  light years ahead of what we had back in the late 90s, early
• 20:35
  2000s. Man, holy cow.
• 20:37
  That what I tell people, I tell my kids all the time.
• 20:40
  Y'all y'all don't know what I ran on and we ran and and I
• 20:43
  think I tried to tell people we actually ran fast.
• 20:46
  Right, right, right. You know, people thought, oh yo,
• 20:49
  you run, you run a 4950 point on A-150 track and do the
• 20:54
  conversion. That's.
• 20:56
  Fast, fast and painful? No.
• 20:59
  And and hurt, but we didn't know no bells then like they know
• 21:02
  now. We didn't know no bells then.
• 21:03
  We thought that was the norm though, you know?
• 21:07
  All right, so senior year you you stopped playing football
• 21:12
  because you wanted to run faster to earn a scholarship.
• 21:15
  How'd that go? Where did you end up going to
• 21:17
  school? Tell us about that process.
• 21:19
  And what were you thinking as you were, you know, finishing up
• 21:22
  senior year looking at college? What were you thinking career
• 21:24
  wise? Was coaching at all in the brain
• 21:27
  at this point? Or was it to go be a doctor or
• 21:29
  business owner? What?
• 21:30
  What were you? Thinking well, it went well.
• 21:33
  I got a lot of look from a lot of small schools around the
• 21:35
  area, like Mary State. One of the school called me
• 21:38
  Louisiana Lafayette. I remember Arkansas State woman,
• 21:42
  even Coach. I'm saying I can't, I don't want
• 21:47
  to call the wrong name, but Coach Civic, was it Arkansas
• 21:52
  Steve? Steve came and see me.
• 21:54
  He came to my house and he came to my house mile fat of 92.
• 21:59
  It was going to 92 USA, not 92. It was the NCA championship was
• 22:04
  in Tennessee. He stopped by my house driving
• 22:07
  toward to go to the championship.
• 22:08
  He stopped by my house and talked to me in my living room
• 22:11
  in August. I was on my radar, but I end up
• 22:14
  you know, I went into Cobra because I was like ACT wasn't
• 22:17
  good enough. So I end up going to I end up
• 22:19
  going to Kansas City Community College.
• 22:21
  There were Al Hopson. You.
• 22:22
  I didn't know you were KCK. I went to KCK.
• 22:26
  So what year? What year did you graduate high
• 22:28
  school? 95.
• 22:30
  OK, I graduated in 94. OK Wow, I did not know you got
• 22:33
  coached by Hop. I got by all hops in I, I with
• 22:38
  Marvis Green, trained with Marvis Green everybody.
• 22:40
  What was so I love Hop. I coached JUCO, you know, he was
• 22:45
  in Kansas City area at the KCKI was down in the southeast Kansas
• 22:50
  Neosho County Community College. And you know, I got to know a
• 22:53
  lot of people that ran for Hop, you know, Dexter and all these
• 22:57
  guys, Ray and them and you know, Hobb was just I don't know he's
• 23:03
  I don't know that a lot of people know him, unfortunately,
• 23:06
  because you know, he got some pub with Maurice Green,
• 23:09
  obviously, but he has produced a lot and he's a good dude.
• 23:17
  What was that like running for him?
• 23:19
  It was good, Hobbes. It was good.
• 23:22
  I was good. First of all, when I went to KCK
• 23:26
  I had another coach, Coach Todd Biggs, but he left and Hop took
• 23:29
  over the pro. He was just a spring coach and
• 23:32
  caught and Hop. Coach Biggs left and went to
• 23:34
  Pittsburgh State to be coaching at Pittsburgh coach with Coach
• 23:37
  Jewell and out to coach Hopkins took over and I ran with Coach
• 23:42
  Hopson or I was training or we were training and that's when
• 23:45
  Hop took over. That year.
• 23:48
  Marvis Green just left with LA and trained with John Smith.
• 23:52
  So I trained with, I trained with Maurice the whole fall.
• 23:56
  I think December out of Christmas, he left and went to
• 23:59
  LA and I used to tell people Maurice was really going to run
• 24:01
  fast because I trained the guy. I went just too fast and I had
• 24:03
  some old guys on. The team I trained with went on
• 24:07
  Keith Black, who ran for Tech State.
• 24:10
  I trained with Keith Black, his son now going to play football
• 24:13
  with K, not K State son, but going to play football for
• 24:16
  University of Texas. And so, yeah, I had I had good.
• 24:20
  I learned a lot from Coach Hobson.
• 24:22
  So you asked me about when I want to be a tracker.
• 24:23
  I actually want to I actually want to be a track.
• 24:26
  I actually want to coach since I left high school.
• 24:29
  My my high school coach was the one that inspired me to coach.
• 24:34
  I you know why coach Norman was a good guy.
• 24:38
  You know, he was a guy like I like you said, he, even though
• 24:41
  he was a football guy, he that's why I tell he really knew track.
• 24:47
  He he's a good cleaning, learning from everybody,
• 24:50
  learning from people come doing his high school program.
• 24:53
  I mean, he he he he he was a track guy actually coach.
• 24:56
  No, no, he's on bliss how old he is and he actually ran well.
• 25:01
  He was in the high school the same time Claude Hart was in
• 25:03
  high school in Arkansas to Claude Hart from the hot spring
• 25:05
  Arkansas. They was in high school
• 25:07
  together, you know, so Colonel was a good guy, you know, he was
• 25:11
  a guy and I look up to and all my, like I said, he knew my
• 25:14
  whole family, you know, before I met Colonel, he knew me before I
• 25:17
  met him, I'm saying. And he knew my whole family, my
• 25:20
  grandmama and granddad, like I say, my uncles ran track for him
• 25:25
  and my cousin ran track for him. So he knew my whole family and
• 25:28
  he inspired me. But actually I wanted coach, but
• 25:31
  I want to go be, I want to do business.
• 25:32
  I actually want to be real estate because my grandmama and
• 25:34
  my grandfather own a lot of real estate properties in my
• 25:37
  hometown. And my uncle, one of my uncles,
• 25:40
  one of my older uncles, he's like my oldest, oldest uncle, my
• 25:43
  grandma, oldest son, Uncle Sonny, he was a he was real
• 25:46
  estate. I used to go to work with him.
• 25:48
  He was doing real estate in Westminx and I used to go to
• 25:50
  work with him and and that's how I want to do real estate.
• 25:54
  But when I went to college, taking them classes I like, this
• 25:58
  ain't for me. Yeah, I hear you.
• 26:00
  I like my brand companies. And so I started, I went, I
• 26:03
  left, I left business alone and I said, you know what, I want to
• 26:06
  coach, so I'm going to do for education.
• 26:08
  And that's what I did. I got in education round and
• 26:12
  because I want to, I want to be a coach.
• 26:14
  So I started doing that and went did my two years at KCKI, left
• 26:21
  there and I end up at say, Oh well, Coach Williams.
• 26:24
  Oh, did you? I didn't.
• 26:27
  Yeah, I end up, I end up saying, Oh well, Coach Williams, he.
• 26:30
  I mean, K. CK.
• 26:32
  I love, you know, now knowing, hearing about your high school
• 26:36
  coach Pop and now coach Williams, you were destined to
• 26:41
  be a coach, my man. I mean, holy cow, that's the you
• 26:44
  know, that's the three headed monster of you of if you will,
• 26:47
  of like you're going to do this man.
• 26:49
  I I'd love that you kind of caught on early in the high
• 26:52
  school side about coaching. You know, it's it's always
• 26:55
  interesting to me. We hear this story a lot when
• 26:57
  we're interviewing coaches around the country that, you
• 27:01
  know, they go through high school and college, you know,
• 27:03
  thinking I'm going to go become an accountant or what, whatever.
• 27:08
  And then like there's like this aha moment, usually sometime
• 27:11
  around like their senior year of, of college where it's like,
• 27:14
  oh, wait a minute, I could be a, a, a track.
• 27:17
  Like you have these people in front of you all day your whole
• 27:20
  life, you know, your high school track coach, your college track
• 27:23
  coach, and you never actually like, oh, wait a minute, that's
• 27:26
  actually like that person's getting paid for that.
• 27:28
  Like I I that means I could go on.
• 27:30
  So I like that you kind of had from your high school coach of
• 27:32
  like, oh, man, like I I like this guy.
• 27:34
  I like how he makes me feel, like how like what he does with
• 27:37
  me for, you know, training and things like that.
• 27:39
  I I want to be that like that's that's really cool.
• 27:41
  I love that you found that early and then go get coached by Hop
• 27:45
  and a coach Williams. 1st, right, Yeah.
• 27:48
  Holy cow, what? So tell me.
• 27:51
  I mean, you know, we've had George on the podcast.
• 27:53
  Also had coach Hart, you mentioned Clyde earlier as well.
• 27:56
  He he gave us some great stories about, you know, setting school
• 27:59
  records and trying out for LSUS track T.
• 28:02
  It was amazing. He he's a great one.
• 28:03
  If you're listening, go back and check out coach Hart's podcast
• 28:07
  as well as George Williams. I, I tell you what, you know,
• 28:11
  George is one of those. He's an icon.
• 28:15
  There's no other way to really say it, man.
• 28:18
  You know, I've I've said this many times and I'll say it again
• 28:21
  every time I get the chance. You know, I got to interview
• 28:23
  Brooks Johnson early in the podcast.
• 28:25
  I think he's like episode 50. So I mean, this is, you know,
• 28:27
  season one type stuff. And he taught me about, you
• 28:31
  know, if you're not in the huddle, you don't know the play
• 28:32
  from coach Williams. And then I literally was like,
• 28:35
  oh, I need to go get coach Williams in too.
• 28:37
  So he's the one he's the originator of that I need to go
• 28:38
  get him. And so I got him on the show
• 28:41
  about a year, two years ago. And to hear how you know a
• 28:45
  basketball guy, how he got into coaching, how you got into
• 28:48
  coaching track. And then his whole mantra, if
• 28:51
  you, if you will, of the, if you're not in the huddle, you're
• 28:53
  not in the play. It changed me listening to
• 28:55
  Brooks and listening to George tell this non judgement, because
• 29:00
  that's what it is. It's about not judging people.
• 29:02
  It, it, it changed me not as a coach.
• 29:04
  I don't coach anymore. It changed me as a person, as a
• 29:06
  businessman, as a parent. It, it really, really changed
• 29:10
  me. What, so I I don't get to talk
• 29:12
  to very many proteges of, of a Coach Williams.
• 29:16
  What was it like? Like, could you could you grasp
• 29:21
  who Coach Williams was as an athlete?
• 29:24
  You know, today we can, we're we're you know, we're 40 year
• 29:26
  old. We know, you know, we bowed down
• 29:28
  Coach Williams, right. Were you able to grasp what you
• 29:31
  had in front of you as a coach? Or was it just yeah man, I was
• 29:34
  just trying to survive 400m workouts.
• 29:37
  I did. The thing is with that, when I
• 29:41
  went to say my first year of say, oh, coach William was not
• 29:45
  our coach. And I said this, he had the
• 29:48
  basketball coach just died. He had a heart attack and Coach
• 29:54
  William was the AD, so he needed a basketball coach.
• 29:57
  So the president of the school, he's a basketball guy.
• 30:00
  Yeah, Yeah, he was. So the president of the school
• 30:02
  told him, well, you go coach basketball.
• 30:04
  He's like, what? And that's how I coped with.
• 30:06
  And so I bring some more people. So Antonio Pettigrew was on the
• 30:10
  coach step Coach Pettigrew and Antonio Pettigrew actually
• 30:14
  coached us our first year because William, we didn't, we
• 30:21
  didn't see cover there because he went back.
• 30:22
  We see covertly air the blue moon.
• 30:24
  He come to play every now and then, but we didn't see covertly
• 30:27
  doing the fall training. We were with Pettigrew and some
• 30:30
  more. We had some more coaches out
• 30:31
  there, Coach Chapman and Coach Friedman.
• 30:34
  We had them out there and they were the guys who were to coach
• 30:36
  us. I was on team with Jerome Young
• 30:38
  and do Rescue Odom. And so Dworsky owed them.
• 30:41
  Wow, they're. Yeah, he was on my team.
• 30:42
  What a name. I just see him last week.
• 30:44
  And he was on my team. So yeah, he was.
• 30:46
  I was in in North Carolina. Is he still the he was the high
• 30:51
  school 60 meter? Yeah, he was the high school 60
• 30:56
  meter hurdle record. Is he still hold that record?
• 31:00
  I think he does. I think he's so I think he do.
• 31:02
  I think he does. Yeah, I remember that name.
• 31:04
  Wow, Yeah. In the 55.
• 31:06
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.
• 31:08
  Yeah, so I I did when Coach William Ashley really came back
• 31:14
  out to the track, got the basketball season on with, I
• 31:19
  did. I already knew we were because I
• 31:21
  when I got there, I mean, he's already on.
• 31:23
  He was on the limit staff team in 96.
• 31:24
  And so like that, I think the next year when I got to Saint
• 31:28
  All, he became 1999 and he was the head coach for the world
• 31:32
  championship team. So I I did grasp who I was with
• 31:36
  when I got there. I knew the history of Saint all.
• 31:39
  So I did and I learned. I learned a lot from coach
• 31:41
  William. Like you said it saying you
• 31:43
  always say if you're not in the hood you don't know to play.
• 31:46
  And that's something he always told me.
• 31:47
  So when I started, I got through running SA Hall.
• 31:51
  I had one more year of school left and he paid for my year and
• 31:55
  I said well, and I told him, I said, well I want to coach.
• 31:58
  He said you do. I said yeah.
• 32:00
  He said well come on out there every day and set the hurdles up
• 32:03
  for me. And we told him you do so every
• 32:06
  day. I had to come out there, set the
• 32:07
  hurdles up, set the workout up, set stuff up, put cones out, put
• 32:12
  this out. Dude, I did all the good work
• 32:14
  before he got to practice and went, I mean, I, I was out there
• 32:17
  before the team out there setting stuff up, get everything
• 32:20
  ready and, and I went from there.
• 32:23
  And you know, he told me that one of the things Kobe always
• 32:26
  told me when I first started coaching, he was, he said you
• 32:30
  got to be lower to to people you work for.
• 32:33
  And so. He lived that.
• 32:37
  Yeah. And I always, always apply
• 32:40
  myself as today to be loyal to who I work for.
• 32:43
  I'm very loyal to in UAPB, I'm very loyal to, in everybody I
• 32:48
  deal with. And so that's something that I,
• 32:50
  I, I learned from the moment. I also learned, you know, he,
• 32:53
  the one that told me about USA track and field coaching
• 32:57
  education stuff. And he always said that you go
• 33:00
  learn, don't mean you know how to apply.
• 33:03
  You got to learn how to apply too.
• 33:06
  And so he said you can read all the books.
• 33:07
  He always said you can read all the books you want to read, but
• 33:10
  you got to know how to apply the books.
• 33:12
  If you don't know how to apply it don't mean nothing.
• 33:14
  And he's right. And I see a lot of people, they
• 33:16
  can take you 100 different workouts, but they can't apply.
• 33:21
  So, so I learned a lot from coach and I also learned how I
• 33:25
  learned how I learned how to build a team and build a
• 33:27
  championship team through coach. That's something that I learned
• 33:31
  because you know, we won a lot when I was saying, oh, we won
• 33:33
  three championships and indoors and outdoors, track and field,
• 33:36
  NCAA Division two and we won. I think we won every year.
• 33:40
  I think we won every year in cross country, indoors and
• 33:43
  outdoors. On the men's side, CIWA
• 33:48
  championship, comfort championship.
• 33:49
  I don't think we lost. I don't think we never lost.
• 33:51
  They they my first year as a 6th and coach with Coach Williams,
• 33:55
  we won the women's championship in division two.
• 34:01
  That's my first year with him. But I learned a lot and he and
• 34:03
  actually I was a quarter mile. He let me work with the quarter
• 34:08
  mouse. He made me go work with the
• 34:10
  jumpers. He told me, you know how to run
• 34:14
  around a track, go out and talk to them jumpers.
• 34:16
  I'm like coach the jumpers. I don't know about no jumpers.
• 34:19
  But he said he told me this. He said what you don't know
• 34:23
  they're going to teach you. And he right and he talked.
• 34:27
  I learned a lot. We had a couple guys jumping 25.
• 34:30
  You know, Tim Russon. Tim Russon was on the team and I
• 34:33
  was there. Tim Russon was a 5757 foot
• 34:36
  triple jump and Tim Russons some old guy, a guy by the name
• 34:42
  Maurice English who was a 24 foot long jump and a guy, my old
• 34:45
  roommate named, he's from Jamaica, Lance.
• 34:49
  Lance Gooding was a 24 long jump and a 53 foot triple jump.
• 34:54
  You know, we had all these guys on the team here.
• 34:56
  We had a couple girls, couple women athletes were jumping 20
• 34:59
  feet and and 4142 feet. So he told me what you don't
• 35:04
  know they're going to teach you. And he was right.
• 35:05
  I learned a lot. And then from there I got
• 35:10
  acquitted to be a jump coach. So I started studying the jumps
• 35:14
  and I live from there and I worked there with Coach Williams
• 35:18
  for two years. I left, went back home to West
• 35:21
  Memphis because my mom want me to come home.
• 35:24
  I don't know why she want me to come home, but she did.
• 35:27
  So I came back and went back to West Memphis.
• 35:28
  I stayed in West Memphis for six months and I left and I went to
• 35:32
  Mary State to be a grad assistant.
• 35:34
  Oh, wow, you know, it's amazing. You know, there there is some
• 35:40
  formal education of how to coach and when I say how to coach the
• 35:44
  actual XS and OS. So you talked about USATF, you
• 35:47
  know, level ones and level twos, but there's no real, I'm not
• 35:51
  sure our GAS the positions are even set up like this, but
• 35:55
  there's no real like, Hey, here's how to code.
• 35:57
  Like, because you know, coaching is more than just on the track
• 36:00
  and, you know, running a workout.
• 36:01
  You got like this internship. Like we don't have internships
• 36:05
  really in in coaching for track and field.
• 36:07
  Anyway, you got this like really immersive internship with coach
• 36:11
  Williams on how to coach because you got to see not only, you
• 36:15
  know, what he was thinking about as far as workouts, but maybe
• 36:17
  did you even get to see like, you know, all the, and he was AD
• 36:20
  as well, But did you get to see like the other stuff, like, you
• 36:22
  know, he's working on scheduling and budgeting and you know, I, I
• 36:25
  got to say. All that I, I actually, I got to
• 36:28
  say all that because I was always in his office that year.
• 36:32
  I got that graduated, I always come in the office.
• 36:35
  I was, I was part time. He paid me part time.
• 36:37
  He didn't pay me that much money, but I was part time.
• 36:39
  I also work in the grocery store too.
• 36:41
  So I was in the office before he got there because we didn't get
• 36:45
  off by 9:00. That's on someday.
• 36:47
  Someday you get to 12:00 how you play golf.
• 36:50
  And so we ain't playing golf from 9:00 to 12:00.
• 36:53
  I got to do stuff. I got to run around and get
• 36:55
  paper sign for them and do this stuff.
• 36:57
  We come at 12:00. I had, you know, I had all this
• 36:59
  stuff done for them. So I got to see how to do
• 37:01
  paperwork, how to do budgeting. I've seen the numbers.
• 37:04
  I've seen papers say $1,000,000, paper say $2,000,000.
• 37:07
  You know, I see all these things.
• 37:08
  So yes, I I got opportunities to see things thing and coaching
• 37:15
  and I got to see how how institution run, how do they
• 37:19
  run, how most institutions run off of pays, keeping the beds.
• 37:23
  You know what I'm saying? So I got to see all that and and
• 37:26
  how we get funded for our programs and stuff.
• 37:29
  Most of our young people that, you know, say they want to be a
• 37:32
  coach, it's because they love the being in the sand pit with
• 37:36
  the kids and at the block work and stuff like that.
• 37:38
  And and then they they, you know, stumble into learning
• 37:42
  that. Oh yeah, yeah.
• 37:42
  That's, you know, this much of the actual job.
• 37:45
  There's a lot of paperwork, recruiting, budgeting, staff
• 37:50
  management, etcetera. You got to see that fairly early
• 37:53
  and it didn't scare you off. No, it didn't.
• 37:56
  I was, I like to work. I don't mind working and I like
• 38:00
  I like learning new stuff. If I got an opportunity to
• 38:02
  learn, I did what I had to do to learn.
• 38:04
  You know, it didn't phase me. Nothing to learn.
• 38:08
  So I could, I want to be a coach and I want to coach on a college
• 38:10
  level. So when I went back home to West
• 38:13
  Memphis and then I went to Mary State and did a graduate of Mary
• 38:16
  State for a year, I went back to Raleigh and I worked at a high
• 38:21
  school for a year and then I got up to that's when I and then
• 38:26
  after that I got my opportunity to be a first.
• 38:28
  Then I got my opportunity to go coach at Bethune Cookman down in
• 38:33
  Daytona before with my friend Godfrey Ellen Woods.
• 38:36
  And that's how I got my, that's my first paying job coaching
• 38:39
  because I was just volunteer coaching or I was getting paid a
• 38:42
  little bit of money. I think that's where we first
• 38:44
  met, too, was at BC. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 38:47
  So what's that like? You know, it amazes me, you
• 38:50
  know, this, this period here after, after working part time
• 38:56
  with Coach Williams, you know, there's, there's some months
• 38:59
  back home, there's a year of grad work, there's some high
• 39:03
  school work. Like it's a very unstable time.
• 39:06
  You don't. Have a job?
• 39:08
  You know, and then you and then you get a job, you get the
• 39:11
  assistant job at Bethune Cookman.
• 39:13
  How do you keep, how and why do you keep motivated to the goal?
• 39:19
  The goal was to coach collegiate track and field.
• 39:21
  You know there's a lot of opportunities for you to quit.
• 39:24
  You know you're a smart guy with a great college degree.
• 39:27
  There are other jobs you could go do.
• 39:30
  How do you I I apply for before I ask the question?
• 39:36
  I apply for a lot of jobs. I actually got a lot of
• 39:38
  interviews cause of Coach William.
• 39:41
  Sure, but a lot of people turn me down for all reasons and and
• 39:48
  did I agree with some of the reasons?
• 39:49
  No, a lot of the reason was was one of the biggest reasons was
• 39:52
  recruit a lot of people they didn't think I can recruit in
• 39:56
  the area. I got I got opportunity.
• 39:58
  I got interviews up in New Jersey at the time, I didn't
• 40:03
  care why I went even all over this everywhere, but a lot of
• 40:07
  the people that that I interviewed with and.
• 40:12
  I think they didn't think I can recruit.
• 40:13
  That's the biggest. Thing why?
• 40:14
  Why? Why is that that that bugs?
• 40:16
  Me, I don't know. I don't know for.
• 40:18
  You maybe I'll put a pen in it for a second, but I hear that a
• 40:21
  lot of why that's like to me, what I hear the number one
• 40:24
  reason why college coaches don't hire high school coaches.
• 40:29
  It's like, well, sure, they can coach and you know, maybe their
• 40:32
  time management's good because they're a teacher and all that
• 40:33
  kind of stuff, but you know, they haven't recruited.
• 40:35
  And I'll tell you what, and maybe it certainly opened my
• 40:38
  eyes hosting this podcast, every high school coach that I've
• 40:42
  interviewed here, I tell you what, a major part of their
• 40:45
  track coaching is recruiting. Those friggin hallways.
• 40:47
  They've got, you know, 4 minute milers walking around.
• 40:49
  They'd realize that and they got to go get them and convince them
• 40:52
  to run on the track team and not go do baseball or football or
• 40:56
  the billion other things that they can do go.
• 40:58
  You know, kids can stay home and play video games, right?
• 41:00
  It's what me and you did back in the day.
• 41:02
  They still do that so they they can recruit.
• 41:04
  But what I don't understand and and you know, you know, my
• 41:07
  coaching career, you know each other a little bit when I was
• 41:10
  coaching, you know, I was, I was, I was a known recruiter,
• 41:13
  but I wouldn't tell you that. You know what I did had some
• 41:16
  kind of mysticism to it. Like what is this like mysticism
• 41:20
  that we put over recruiting? What they liked you enough, you
• 41:23
  you recruited them enough to get an interview.
• 41:26
  Why would they then say, oh, but we're we're not sure you can go
• 41:29
  do that with 18 year olds. Give me a break.
• 41:32
  Yeah, I don't know. I know every job I applied for,
• 41:36
  that was the main reason. And then when I got the GA job
• 41:39
  and that that's when I went GA route, I said, let me go find,
• 41:43
  give me a grad assistant and see how that work.
• 41:46
  But it didn't work out for me. And I like I said, I kept on
• 41:49
  grinding and I just knew I want to coach.
• 41:52
  I, I, I had no, I had no kids, I had no wife.
• 41:56
  I was just like, you know, I was living, you know, and I said,
• 41:58
  no, what I'm, I'm going to get there one day.
• 42:00
  And when Garfield got the job at Bethune Cookman, he hired me.
• 42:05
  I came in, I coached, you know? Did you know him beforehand?
• 42:09
  Yes, I met Garfield. I don't want to tell all the
• 42:12
  stories, but Garfield down in North Carolina training.
• 42:16
  Right, right, right. Right.
• 42:16
  And then he started coming. Then somehow he came on and
• 42:19
  started training with Coach William.
• 42:21
  Right. And that's How I Met golfer
• 42:24
  because he came in coach William.
• 42:25
  The coach, William with trained Jerome.
• 42:27
  So there was some familiarity there because I was wondering
• 42:29
  like, well, why didn't he think you couldn't recruit, You know,
• 42:31
  didn't have the experience? I still don't understand that
• 42:33
  but. OK, well, I'll tell you that
• 42:34
  story about that too. I did have some trouble
• 42:36
  recruiting my first years coaching.
• 42:38
  I did when I first when I first thought if Bethune couldn't, I
• 42:44
  wasn't scared of recruiting. But you know, everybody looked
• 42:48
  for a name and who got the name who do what You, I think
• 42:52
  everybody look at what have you done?
• 42:54
  So there was that first two years of me at Bethune Cookman.
• 42:58
  Recruiting was hard for me. I ain't going to lie to you.
• 43:01
  That second, that third year, it came around because I started, I
• 43:08
  want to say I started looking for kids when no one is looking.
• 43:11
  So still not going to a high school like Northwestern, Miami,
• 43:14
  Northwestern. I went to a high school where no
• 43:17
  one thinking about this high school, but it's a kid from
• 43:20
  Florida and I live in Florida. So it's a kid from Florida at a,
• 43:25
  a, a, a AA3A school out of out of nomad land.
• 43:29
  I look for kids like that. So I started finding kids at
• 43:32
  schools where no one's going to from a, from a, maybe it could
• 43:36
  be a, a 2A school or a three a school, you know what I'm
• 43:40
  saying? And so when I started finding
• 43:42
  them kids, I got them to come in and they started doing good.
• 43:46
  And also junior college, that's why and I and I and some one day
• 43:51
  just click on me, you're not going to junior card, OK.
• 43:55
  And so that's when I started going to junior card.
• 43:58
  That's funny coming from a JUCO guy, by the way.
• 43:59
  You know what I'm saying? It's not like you didn't even
• 44:01
  think about that. You you ran through the
• 44:03
  division, so you know it. Yeah.
• 44:04
  Yeah. So I I started going and that's
• 44:06
  when I started and and and that's when it started clicking
• 44:09
  for me when I started going to JUCO keys.
• 44:12
  I'm fascinated with the recruiting.
• 44:14
  Again, it's it was my number one thing.
• 44:15
  I, I, I just enjoyed it. And you know, obviously is, if
• 44:18
  you think about where recruiting is, it's relationship building.
• 44:20
  And so you know what I do here through Gil, it's you know, I'm
• 44:23
  just recruiting. I'm just recruiting a different,
• 44:25
  I'm not recruiting 18 year olds, you know, anymore.
• 44:28
  But like, I want to go back to you where you said you struggled
• 44:32
  when you first started recruiting.
• 44:34
  Was it because you, you mentioned like a Northwestern
• 44:37
  and stuff? Was it because you're like, oh,
• 44:39
  OK, well, I got to go after the best kids and you're hearing
• 44:42
  know a lot because, you know, for many reasons.
• 44:46
  I would hear no, I would hear no from the worst kids.
• 44:50
  It wasn't just the best kid because I was like when I was
• 44:52
  coding the jumpers, I had a certain number of feet.
• 44:56
  I was looking for ladies. I was looking for 18118, two,
• 44:59
  maybe triple jump 3839. I just look for someone I can
• 45:02
  develop. But like I said what you just
• 45:06
  said about relationship, a lot of that had to do with
• 45:08
  relationship. You know, even kids, even kids
• 45:11
  that went to schools at a big name school like Northwestern
• 45:16
  young lady, young man might want that good.
• 45:17
  I still have a hard time getting them like well they ain't that
• 45:20
  good. I want the best, but I just want
• 45:21
  that you know what I'm saying? So it was a hard for me until I
• 45:25
  said light bulb came in my own head and said go get dream car
• 45:28
  athlete. And I did and I went to JUCO and
• 45:32
  I told them in Florida, out in Daytona Beach, I signed at
• 45:36
  Bethune Cookman. I signed 4 girls and four guys
• 45:39
  in one month when I told them I live in Florida and these kids
• 45:43
  came from all they, some from Jamaica, some from all around
• 45:46
  the world. I had one of the one of the job
• 45:48
  coach in Bethune before I left Bethune or from New Jersey.
• 45:52
  He didn't want to go nowhere cold.
• 45:54
  He was 24 for Long John. He didn't want to go nowhere
• 45:57
  cold. I signed him, you know, so and
• 46:00
  then like you said, the relationship came when I left
• 46:03
  Bethune. I was there after three years
• 46:05
  out of my third year, I left Bethune.
• 46:07
  I went to Hampton University and the recruit got easy.
• 46:12
  It got very easy and I got a thorn clue.
• 46:14
  I mean, I got the happy university.
• 46:15
  Why is that? It got so easy?
• 46:18
  Hampton had a name. I was.
• 46:20
  Gonna say a name in a tradition. Tradition but not but not
• 46:26
  Daytona Beach. I would have thought Daytona
• 46:29
  Beach would have been a big draw.
• 46:30
  Yeah. And I think we, we, when I went
• 46:33
  to when I was at Bethune Cooker with Garfield, we made it a
• 46:36
  name. He won a name until we got there
• 46:38
  and we made a name. We had Ronny Ash.
• 46:41
  You had all these guys come through and do.
• 46:42
  Right, I forgot about that. Yeah, we had Ronny Ash and I
• 46:45
  think that year, that year we went to NCA Championship.
• 46:48
  We got, what, 14 with two people, Ronnie?
• 46:51
  Was a big dude, I remember him. I should I saw him running.
• 46:55
  Is that right? I saw him running.
• 46:58
  Was he a high school kid? Oh, high school.
• 47:01
  Right, OK, You said you talk about you talk about
• 47:04
  relationship. So one of my college friends was
• 47:10
  running high school track coach. That's how we knew where running
• 47:12
  was. That's how we got running.
• 47:15
  So and running with, running with 14, he was a 14 second
• 47:18
  hurdle. OK, as I said, what?
• 47:20
  What did he run? Yeah, yeah.
• 47:21
  Yeah, 14, but he was big and Godfrey liked him because he was
• 47:25
  big. He was tall.
• 47:26
  He ran 14 and actually he was just a a newbie.
• 47:29
  He just started running track. That was the 2nd year running
• 47:31
  track and he was a high jumper before he started running
• 47:35
  hurdles. And then my friend who was the
• 47:38
  coach told him to go run, put him over hurdles.
• 47:40
  He called me and Goffy up and said hey, I got his, I got his
• 47:44
  kid for y'all and that's how we got running.
• 47:46
  Actually, we got his whole team that year.
• 47:48
  We got his whole high school team.
• 47:49
  We got like four of the boys on his high school team.
• 47:51
  That was good. Like we had one of the boys went
• 47:54
  one of the springs went ten, one boy went 10/5.
• 47:56
  They from North Carolina, they from night there North Carolina,
• 47:58
  one boy went 1051 boy went 47, one and 40 meter dash and
• 48:03
  running into the hurdles and another jumper.
• 48:05
  We had a jumper too. We had four board we got for one
• 48:07
  high school. So they're from North Carolina?
• 48:10
  They from North Carolina. OK, let's stay on this
• 48:11
  recruiting thing. We'll, we'll get to Hampton in
• 48:13
  five. I, I just, I'm fascinated with
• 48:16
  this. I, I, I'm really, you know,
• 48:17
  having a lot of conversations on Twitter with this stuff,
• 48:19
  especially in, you know, today, like, you know, last week or
• 48:23
  whatever, basically the, the, the new rules or whatever you
• 48:27
  want to call them, the new environment, the new world for
• 48:30
  all sports. But you know, we're talking
• 48:32
  track and field here for Division One came down this
• 48:34
  whole, you know, 45 roster limits and all this kind of
• 48:37
  stuff. And there's a lot of, I'm going
• 48:42
  to say Chicken Little. I'm not calling anybody a name,
• 48:44
  but you know, the sky is falling.
• 48:45
  This is going to destroy track and field, those kind of things.
• 48:48
  And, and we'll put aside the destroying track and field
• 48:51
  because of financials. Financials, we'll put that to
• 48:53
  the side. Let's just talk about
• 48:54
  recruiting. I, I hear a lot of the rich are
• 48:57
  going to get richer and things like that.
• 48:59
  Where I was kind of going with this.
• 49:00
  You mentioned Ronnie and his team.
• 49:02
  They were four really good kids. They're in North Carolina.
• 49:05
  North Carolina is one of those really unique states to me.
• 49:07
  It's a it's a lot like Kansas to me.
• 49:09
  And what I mean by that is there are a bazillion track programs
• 49:13
  in that state. I mean, there is every East
• 49:16
  Carolina, UNC Asheville, UNC Wilmington, of course, NC State
• 49:19
  saying, I mean, there are there's so many opportunities
• 49:22
  for those kids to have stayed in state and most kids I think
• 49:25
  stay, you know, in state ish. I think when, if you were to
• 49:28
  look at actual recruiting, I think most kids stay within,
• 49:30
  call it 100 miles from their high school.
• 49:33
  Most, not everyone, obviously, but those kids came down to
• 49:37
  Bethune Cookman. They had other choices.
• 49:40
  You, you talked about a relationship with the coach.
• 49:42
  There's plenty of you have plenty of relationship with
• 49:44
  coaches that kids aren't going to your schools, not because of
• 49:47
  you, because of, you know, again, we're talking about 18
• 49:48
  year olds. What the heck do they know what
• 49:49
  they want to do? You know, I'm just, it's just
• 49:51
  amazing to me. I, I don't think it's secret
• 49:55
  sauce. What I, I guess what I'm really
• 49:57
  getting at here, Chris, is I think the kids that sign with
• 50:00
  you and anybody, by the way, Mouse the the, the coach at West
• 50:06
  A Texas A&M Kingsville, you know, I'm talking about all the
• 50:10
  hops, all the I think kids sign. There's a lot of reasons, you
• 50:15
  know, the school major things like that scholarship amounts,
• 50:19
  but I think it's because they find some kind of relationship
• 50:22
  with the the coach and there's a million reasons why that
• 50:26
  relationship has happens. It could be, you know, my high
• 50:29
  school coach, Wow, he must be pretty cool.
• 50:31
  If my, you know, I really like my high school coach.
• 50:33
  This guy ran with him. He must be pretty cool.
• 50:35
  It could be wow, he went to school in North Carolina and now
• 50:39
  he's in Florida. Well, maybe that means I can go
• 50:40
  to school in Florida. You know, there's there's all
• 50:43
  these Dumbrey, I mean, just reasons he would never be able
• 50:45
  to even cook up. Like it's just amazing.
• 50:47
  And you got Ronnie because he had to have had not he had to.
• 50:50
  He certainly had other options. Well, he did.
• 50:56
  A lot of people didn't look at. He was just running 14 seconds
• 50:59
  though, and I heard somebody really there are a. 100 schools
• 51:01
  in North Carolina that will take that right now.
• 51:04
  I know, but they didn't really because I guess, well, you can
• 51:08
  talk about Mount Scotch getting full ride.
• 51:09
  That's why he changed. That's part of it.
• 51:11
  No one, no one, no one didn't offer him full ride and we offer
• 51:15
  and we gave maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 51:17
  And that's why I think sold. That's apparently, yeah.
• 51:19
  He going to school free. But there are.
• 51:21
  And I think never sold them. But there are plenty of coaches
• 51:24
  right now that have the story of I offered the kid a full and
• 51:27
  they took 25% at this school or 50 of that, whatever.
• 51:30
  So it's not So what what I'm, what I'm trying to say there,
• 51:33
  Chris is, while that may have been a big part or a part for
• 51:37
  him and those kids, it was, it's not always the number one, it's
• 51:41
  not always the highest bidder that wins.
• 51:43
  Yeah, that's true. I believe that too.
• 51:45
  I believe that's true. But sometimes I have kids.
• 51:48
  I get here in Arkansas, I have kids that I try to recruit and
• 51:51
  they ever go to Razorback for $10, like you're going to pay
• 51:55
  out your pocket, I'm going to give you more money they're
• 51:57
  going to give you. But you're right.
• 51:58
  And I think that relationship with Ronnie and all them came.
• 52:01
  It was like, we just, I think Garfield did a good job of
• 52:06
  recruiting them and they build a relationship and they came and
• 52:10
  that's I think that was a good thing because Garfield did a
• 52:12
  good job of recruiting them. I just want to see, I want to
• 52:14
  see run and run at the high school national before he
• 52:17
  signed. And I called Garfield back on
• 52:19
  the phone and I said, yo, he's the one.
• 52:21
  I told Garfield, run. They're going to be the one.
• 52:23
  He said, you for real? I said, I'm telling you, I've
• 52:25
  been around a lot of 110 hurdles.
• 52:27
  This kid got a lot more potential than people think.
• 52:29
  And he did everything I told Garfield was going to do as a
• 52:33
  freshman. He got third place as a
• 52:35
  freshman. Is that right?
• 52:36
  Oh wow. Yes, he got third place.
• 52:37
  He won the next. He got third his freshman year
• 52:40
  and then 110 hurdles is 6 S more year.
• 52:43
  He won the 110. Hurry, Arkansas.
• 52:47
  So let's talk about that. He stayed all four years, right?
• 52:49
  No, we, we I left but the one with the Hampton, but the one
• 52:53
  couldn't fire Garfield and running left and went to
• 52:57
  Oklahoma. OK.
• 52:59
  He ran with Cane. He ran, he with.
• 53:01
  Oklahoma Cane yeah, OK all right, I can't I can't ask the
• 53:03
  question I want to ask there OK let's talk about let's stay at
• 53:05
  the Cookman for a little bit because the transfer portal is
• 53:09
  part of my recruiting like I just so curious about things we.
• 53:13
  Had a deal. But well, OK, see now you can
• 53:15
  make me ask questions. So I know we didn't have
• 53:18
  transfer portal back then, but kids certainly still
• 53:21
  transferred. While it may be easier to and I
• 53:25
  and you know you're in it, so you tell me where I'm wrong.
• 53:27
  I'm not in anymore. So I'm, I'm you know what I hear
• 53:30
  and have conversations with it. It's easier for a kid to get on
• 53:35
  to be transfer eligible. I mean, they don't, they used to
• 53:37
  have to come talk to you, the coach.
• 53:39
  And that's an uncomfortable conversation for an 18/19/2021
• 53:42
  year old. I I get that now they don't even
• 53:45
  have to talk to you. They just go to the compliance
• 53:47
  director and say, hey man, put me on the list.
• 53:48
  And you find out the next day when you check the transfer
• 53:50
  report like what the where that come from, right?
• 53:52
  Now you see an e-mail in by 30 minutes you like.
• 53:56
  Okay, you get e-mail. Is an e-mail Well you can't see
• 54:00
  the schools. If you if August, I'll put your
• 54:02
  tramp report the coaches archive power.
• 54:05
  Can I see you in the transfer port?
• 54:07
  Only people see the people in transfer port is the other
• 54:09
  schools. So can I put someone, one of my
• 54:11
  kids getting transfer port? I don't know.
• 54:13
  They didn't transfer port until I got an e-mail.
• 54:16
  So we can't. You can't see your own kids.
• 54:18
  Only see, your kids are the schools.
• 54:20
  I had this idea like, you know, I, I assume every coach as soon
• 54:23
  as they come in the office, that's their like for me, this
• 54:25
  is how I would do it. The first thing I would open up
• 54:27
  every morning on my computer would be the transfer ports,
• 54:29
  like, all right, let's see who's new.
• 54:30
  And I, so I had this vision of like you, you know, Monday
• 54:32
  morning, you walk in and you're like, Johnny, what the hell?
• 54:36
  We just had a meet Saturday dude.
• 54:38
  So, but you know. How?
• 54:39
  How quickly do you get an e-mail like they?
• 54:41
  They go to the. That's when.
• 54:42
  They when when the compliant person submitted to the portal.
• 54:46
  Oh, OK, so you. Yeah, the e-mail will come to
• 54:48
  the culture, so. You're checking your e-mail.
• 54:51
  You're like, did Mike give me that quote?
• 54:53
  Johnny? What?
• 54:55
  But but my e-mail come to my phone so it once it pop in once
• 54:59
  they put it in the system I I see it on my phone.
• 55:01
  That's what I'm saying. You're like, that's how I had
• 55:02
  your phones. Like you're looking like, oh,
• 55:04
  what the hell, man. Yeah.
• 55:05
  I have. I have handsome kids as a man, I
• 55:09
  tell my kids this, if you go and get a transfer portal, be a man,
• 55:14
  be a woman, come in my office and say, quote, I want to
• 55:16
  transfer. I can't do nothing about it.
• 55:18
  So just be, you know, if you do that, I respect you more and
• 55:21
  I'll help you go somewhere. I had a girl this this year.
• 55:24
  Yeah, yeah. I'll help her go somewhere else.
• 55:28
  And I as another adult, know that about you, like like if one
• 55:32
  of your kids came up to me and said, Hey, I'm thinking about
• 55:34
  transferring, but I'm really concerned about talking to Coach
• 55:36
  McCoy. I, because I know you and I'm an
• 55:39
  adult, I would easily be able to say, oh, well then just tell
• 55:42
  him. Like, I know it's a little, I
• 55:44
  know it's nervous. You know, you're talking to an
• 55:45
  adult, you're talking to a coach.
• 55:47
  I get that. But trust me, it'll be better if
• 55:49
  you just tell him. Like if you just go on your own,
• 55:50
  you're going to be on your own. If you go tell him, like I'd I'd
• 55:53
  be shocked if he didn't try to help you.
• 55:55
  I get that. Now put yourself in the shoes of
• 55:58
  an 1819 twenty year old kid. Don't forget they are still
• 56:01
  kids. And it's like man, coach is
• 56:05
  going to flip his lid on me. We, we are in general in
• 56:11
  society, not just track. We are conflict avoiders.
• 56:16
  And a 19 year old coming and telling you, even if it's like
• 56:19
  the most legit reason in the world, hey coach, my mom's sick
• 56:22
  so I want to transfer. Not because of you, the program,
• 56:25
  anything. I just want I need to be closer
• 56:27
  to home. That's a pretty like that's hard
• 56:29
  for any like what coach? Well, you got to be a pretty
• 56:32
  harsh person, I think to find fault in a kid for that, right?
• 56:36
  That's still nerve racking. It's a it's a conflict to come
• 56:40
  tell you, Hey, I know you, you believe in me.
• 56:42
  Here's the thing, I think it's really stems from you have done
• 56:46
  your job, meaning that kid has seen you believe in me.
• 56:48
  You've poured into me, you've done this.
• 56:50
  You got me these shoes, you've taken me these meats.
• 56:52
  You, you, you sat down and hurt and listened to me and heard me
• 56:55
  in my lowest play. And now I got to go tell you
• 56:58
  that I'm leaving you. That's hard.
• 57:01
  That's hard. So I I'm, I'm a pro transfer
• 57:04
  portal. I know it's got a lot of hate
• 57:05
  right there from everybody listening because I, I think
• 57:09
  just like you could and should leave to go to another
• 57:12
  institution if it's right for you for whatever reason,
• 57:15
  location, hopefully money, things like that.
• 57:18
  I think the kids should as well. Well, I, I, I in the beginning
• 57:24
  of the transfer portal system, I didn't like it because it hit me
• 57:27
  hard. The year I had, I had a really,
• 57:30
  I think I had one of the best teams on the women's side here
• 57:32
  at UAPB when the transfer first started coming out.
• 57:36
  And what, what made I, I wasn't mad about kids leaving my
• 57:41
  school. I'm upset about how can they go
• 57:45
  to the same conference? Sure, sure, sure.
• 57:48
  That's what hurt me. And I, I had, I had four young
• 57:51
  ladies left me for UAPB and went to another school in the
• 57:55
  conference and they won't. And like we was the year before
• 57:58
  they left, we were 30 points from winning the championship.
• 58:01
  And I'm like, yo, I'm bringing some old girls in, trying to get
• 58:03
  to 30 points to get winning the championship.
• 58:05
  But these four young lady left and went to another school in
• 58:08
  the conference and won. And they didn't leave because
• 58:12
  they ain't like me. They didn't leave because they
• 58:15
  left because other reasons. And so I can say I I didn't like
• 58:20
  it in the beginning, but now I have found a way that say that's
• 58:24
  normal and. And there's a lot of nuances
• 58:27
  like that. That's a nuance.
• 58:28
  Like when you just described that, I actually was like, Oh,
• 58:30
  you know, I haven't thought about that, You know, because,
• 58:32
  because here's what we hear most of the time from a coach in your
• 58:35
  position here at like at Arkansas Point Bluff.
• 58:37
  It's like, man, I, I, I went out and developed this kid.
• 58:40
  I, I, let's use a women's long jumper.
• 58:41
  I went out and and signed this 17 year, a 17 foot long jumper.
• 58:46
  And you know, by sophomore year, I got her at 20 foot and 1/2 or
• 58:49
  21 foot. You, you, that's this is
• 58:51
  something you've done your whole career.
• 58:53
  And now that she's jumped 20 foot and a half, 21 foot.
• 58:56
  Now I won't name names of schools, but enter big name
• 59:01
  university XYZ. Now they want her and now she
• 59:05
  gets to go there. And So what I hear, first of
• 59:06
  all, I, I get that, but I also, you know, get when coaches say,
• 59:11
  Hey, I'd do it for the kids. And it's like, well, man, you
• 59:12
  did it for the kid. Like she get to go on to a, you
• 59:15
  know, air quotes here bigger university, great job.
• 59:17
  I know it sucks. I I know it sucks.
• 59:19
  I I get it. Here's where I hear from
• 59:21
  coaches. It's like, oh, you know, less
• 59:24
  opportunities for high school. This is where I still don't
• 59:26
  understand this at all. In that situation, a high high
• 59:29
  school coaches and college coaches will say, well, there's
• 59:31
  less opportunities for high school kids like they're going
• 59:34
  these, these quote UN quote big name schools are going transfer
• 59:36
  portal 1st. And I'm like, I don't believe
• 59:39
  that because that kid that just left your school, this mythical
• 59:42
  21 foot long jumper that just left your school opened up a
• 59:45
  scholarship. And I think that's a huge thing
• 59:48
  for a kid to come to your, to your school and get developed.
• 59:52
  I I don't. And that's the way I stopped
• 59:54
  thinking about it because I look at like I'm already developing
• 59:57
  people and I, I actually, I don't be honest with you.
• 1:00:01
  I don't look at transfer port. I don't look at transfer port.
• 1:00:03
  My, my assistant coach, they do. And I, you know, I got a rule
• 1:00:06
  they got, they came with this rule that if you do take a four
• 1:00:09
  year transfer a kid, you have to keep them.
• 1:00:11
  You can't get rid of them no more.
• 1:00:13
  You can't get rid of nobody, no more anybody transfer any type
• 1:00:16
  of four year school NIAD 2D1D3. You have to keep them all the
• 1:00:20
  way. They lead on their own.
• 1:00:24
  Now what's crazy, I'm, you know, I'm very pro coach obviously,
• 1:00:28
  but I am pro athlete in this kind of sense.
• 1:00:30
  I actually don't like that. I don't need it.
• 1:00:32
  If they want and they deserve, when I say they mean in
• 1:00:35
  athletes, all these kind of new rules that are coming down the
• 1:00:38
  line as far as revenue sharing and transferring and you know,
• 1:00:42
  moving to roster cap of 45, but you can give up to 45 full
• 1:00:47
  rides. I love that.
• 1:00:48
  I'm all very pro that, but that also means, in my opinion, you
• 1:00:53
  as the head coach, you should have full autonomy over your
• 1:00:56
  roster. So for and I would be the as
• 1:01:00
  much as I am pro, you know, transfer transfer portal, I'm
• 1:01:03
  pro. I'll call it firing, meaning you
• 1:01:06
  get to set your roster. I don't care, I don't care.
• 1:01:10
  I don't care what the reason if you want to get rid of XYZ
• 1:01:13
  person, whether it's because they're not performing
• 1:01:15
  academically or athletically or personality like that, they're
• 1:01:18
  just, you know, we've heard of the, you know, bad apple,
• 1:01:21
  rotten, whatever it is there that you know, you know what,
• 1:01:24
  Hey, if I get if I get rid of this person, our team will be
• 1:01:26
  better because of the cancer that this person is.
• 1:01:30
  I think you should be able to do it, but you're not.
• 1:01:31
  So you can't do that. So that's why I don't, I don't,
• 1:01:36
  I don't really care about transfer port.
• 1:01:37
  So I am so back to the high school.
• 1:01:40
  I really get a high school kid. This matter of fact, this is
• 1:01:42
  going to be one of my big testimony this year coming up
• 1:01:44
  because I'm graduating 14 people this year on my team.
• 1:01:48
  Wow. I'm graduating 14 people and so
• 1:01:52
  this is going to be and it's some key 14 people.
• 1:01:54
  So it's going to be a big testimony for my for me and I'm
• 1:01:58
  actually I'm my mindset. I'm I'm trying to bring in many
• 1:02:01
  high school kids. I can bring in JUCO.
• 1:02:03
  I don't really want no transfer kid And I but you know what, my
• 1:02:07
  e-mail be ring with kids coming for other schools and and I got
• 1:02:11
  to tell someone. I had a couple kids leave me and
• 1:02:13
  I said, you know, and I've told one of them, you know, they
• 1:02:16
  leave. But they said you go, you go
• 1:02:18
  anywhere you long as you can go somewhere you have, you might
• 1:02:20
  have never graduated from college.
• 1:02:22
  Right. Right.
• 1:02:23
  And I mean the transfer port like I said, I'm cool with like
• 1:02:26
  I said, I was against it, but now I'm cool with it.
• 1:02:29
  But I think but but I'm also. I'm not seeing that either.
• 1:02:35
  When this was going down, I, I also feared the kid who's
• 1:02:40
  transferring a lot. And it's like, because you know,
• 1:02:41
  at the end of the day, you got to get a college degree.
• 1:02:43
  This is what you're really. But I haven't seen and now I
• 1:02:47
  haven't looked either. But I, I'm assuming that if this
• 1:02:49
  were happening negatively, we would see reports or I'd see it
• 1:02:52
  on Twitter. I see everything on Twitter.
• 1:02:54
  I don't see graduation rates coming down.
• 1:02:56
  So it doesn't feel like it's affecting it.
• 1:02:59
  OK, you thinking? I hear you.
• 1:03:00
  Is that right? You tell me.
• 1:03:03
  I think, I think they don't show you what they want to show you.
• 1:03:05
  It's effect, it's effective isn't the?
• 1:03:08
  APR. Isn't the APR still a thing?
• 1:03:10
  Yes, it. Is I don't see more I don't see
• 1:03:12
  more track but all they busted on APR.
• 1:03:14
  Well, well, they ain't been putting it out there, but it's
• 1:03:18
  some programs, it's affecting the program and on my campus
• 1:03:22
  it's affecting some programs. It's but AP also, you know, you
• 1:03:25
  got you got so many ways through the APR where if a kid go to
• 1:03:28
  another school and algebra go to another school, you good, you
• 1:03:31
  don't get you don't lose no points for that.
• 1:03:33
  So it's ways that you can make them points back.
• 1:03:36
  If a kid go to a school and algebra, all that good stuff but
• 1:03:39
  so well. That's good because I mean,
• 1:03:41
  you're graduating. I think, I think that I think in
• 1:03:45
  another couple of years it will be more out.
• 1:03:47
  It ain't that much right now, but it's some out there.
• 1:03:50
  But I think another year or two it will be more because they
• 1:03:52
  just change the rule that they can go anywhere.
• 1:03:54
  They can go transfer me anytime you want to.
• 1:03:56
  Here's the other thing. I hear this conversation has
• 1:03:59
  gone off the rails, by the way, but in a very, very good way.
• 1:04:02
  And I told you when we started this, that I felt like this was
• 1:04:05
  going to be a lot of fun because again, Chris and I are friends
• 1:04:08
  as well as, you know, working together business wise and, you
• 1:04:11
  know, coaching fraternity, things like that.
• 1:04:13
  So I feel so I, I have a lot of trust with you, Chris, meaning I
• 1:04:16
  can I ask you a lot of questions that I really like to be asked.
• 1:04:18
  And I know you'll give me the straight skinny.
• 1:04:20
  You'll give me the truth here. So here's the other thing that
• 1:04:22
  perturbs me when I hear about transfer portal.
• 1:04:24
  And I don't know that I've heard the numbers for track, but you
• 1:04:28
  know, there's a lot of similarities.
• 1:04:30
  I hear this a lot for basketball and football.
• 1:04:32
  I'll hear the, the, the stat of, you know, making up numbers
• 1:04:36
  because I don't know the actual numbers.
• 1:04:37
  But you know, 7000 basketball kids put their names into
• 1:04:41
  transfer portals, but only 1000 got scholarships, meaning you
• 1:04:46
  6000 screwed up. And it's like, OK, if that's
• 1:04:50
  true, I'm always OK. If that's true, that means 6000.
• 1:04:56
  If if we're talking about basketball, that means
• 1:04:57
  scholarships kids traditionally because if they're walk ONS, I
• 1:05:01
  hate to say that we don't, we're not really talking about them,
• 1:05:03
  but we're not talking about them.
• 1:05:04
  We're talking about scholarship kids. 6000 kids who had
• 1:05:07
  scholarships aren't getting scholarships because they didn't
• 1:05:10
  get picked up out of transfer portal.
• 1:05:11
  Well that means there's 6000 spots for high school kids and
• 1:05:15
  JUCO kids. And and and well, I don't know
• 1:05:19
  that that number that big, but I think it's big I'm.
• 1:05:22
  I don't know the number, but it's big.
• 1:05:23
  It's 1000. I think, I think what two years
• 1:05:25
  ago it was a big number out there.
• 1:05:27
  There were a lot of kids and all, I mean, not just all the
• 1:05:31
  sports weren't getting picked up.
• 1:05:33
  And if they're not, some of them picked.
• 1:05:35
  Up That means those spots are available for high schoolers.
• 1:05:39
  That's true too, but a lot of high schools, but well, some of
• 1:05:42
  them was getting picked up some high school kid.
• 1:05:44
  Well, they some people took the high school kid over and a lot
• 1:05:47
  of kids didn't get picked up because of grades.
• 1:05:49
  A lot of kids. Yeah, grades are.
• 1:05:50
  Yeah, I'm talking about. Kids who are eligible.
• 1:05:52
  A lot of people. A lot of people didn't, I think
• 1:05:54
  a lot of kids. That's table stakes.
• 1:05:55
  You got to be eligible. Yeah, I think a lot of the
• 1:05:57
  numbers so be like that because a lot of kids leaving as a
• 1:06:00
  senior, I got one more year in school and I want to bounce, you
• 1:06:04
  know, and you know, I just think this I don't mind kids leaving.
• 1:06:08
  Like I said, I I got over there because one lead is go find you
• 1:06:11
  some items. But I think that I go back to
• 1:06:15
  what I tell you about loyalty. I think that it's no loyalty no
• 1:06:19
  more. And that's why it's hard to keep
• 1:06:22
  A-Team. That's why you would never see,
• 1:06:24
  I don't think you would never see the same team dominating the
• 1:06:27
  NCA like we used to in some sports back-to-back.
• 1:06:31
  But we're still seeing that track.
• 1:06:32
  It's the same. It's.
• 1:06:33
  The same five schools every year they.
• 1:06:36
  Are but I like. And that's not going to change.
• 1:06:40
  Well, with this 45 is not going to change, but I just think that
• 1:06:46
  not track might be different. But other sport I don't see the
• 1:06:50
  Alabama dominate like they did two years ago in football.
• 1:06:54
  I don't see football. I don't see football and
• 1:06:56
  basketball dominate like that. But track I can see because you
• 1:06:59
  know, track you don't need but five people to win a
• 1:07:01
  championship. Track the first person, go pick
• 1:07:03
  a point, you win, do. You think this?
• 1:07:05
  Let's let's play ideal world here.
• 1:07:08
  I know this is not what real world's going to be.
• 1:07:11
  Let's play ideal world next year, so not 2026.
• 1:07:16
  Every Division One is going to have a roster cap of 45.
• 1:07:20
  And I know there's some intricacies of like if you
• 1:07:22
  participate in revenue sharing, that means yes, but if not, and
• 1:07:25
  I don't, and I don't think anybody knows what that means if
• 1:07:27
  you're not and all those kind of things.
• 1:07:28
  But let's just say every Division One can only have 45
• 1:07:31
  kids on the track team. And let's say here's the here's
• 1:07:35
  the real, here's the real, not real world.
• 1:07:37
  Let's say every one of those schools gives out 45 full
• 1:07:41
  rights. Now I know that's not real
• 1:07:44
  world. Well, that'll be a that'll be a
• 1:07:47
  good world, even king, but. I, I, I say that, do you think
• 1:07:51
  so? Here's my question with that.
• 1:07:52
  So we're, we're playing fantasyland here, 40 every
• 1:07:54
  school, 45 every school, 45 full rides.
• 1:07:58
  Let's play that out for five years.
• 1:08:01
  Do you think when we look at the top ten NCAA Division one teams,
• 1:08:05
  men and women, do you think it looks different than it looks
• 1:08:08
  today? Not that much.
• 1:08:12
  I don't think it will be a little bit.
• 1:08:14
  Maybe. I mean a little bit, I think it
• 1:08:17
  might be some schools come up. I think some schools might come
• 1:08:20
  up that that can be up there can come up.
• 1:08:23
  But I don't think it ain't going to change that much.
• 1:08:25
  And I think I think I don't care.
• 1:08:27
  I miss scholarship. This is my opinion about track
• 1:08:29
  and field. I, I told, I said this, I tell
• 1:08:31
  people around the UFAB, I'm not, I'm not a track coach.
• 1:08:34
  I'm a I'm a sports performance coach.
• 1:08:37
  I don't train. I I think coaches for people who
• 1:08:39
  deal with X and OI train people to run fast.
• 1:08:42
  I train people to jump and throw fast though.
• 1:08:44
  So I look at myself, I train people.
• 1:08:46
  So I think to me, I look at it different than coaching like
• 1:08:49
  football and basketball. But me saying this to say this,
• 1:08:54
  it will change, but you still got to coach the sport and
• 1:09:00
  regardless you got a 45 scholarship.
• 1:09:04
  If I was at a big Power 5 school and I got 45 scholarship, if I
• 1:09:09
  ain't a top five school right now, I don't care about it
• 1:09:12
  because it ain't going to make me better.
• 1:09:14
  Because in a day if I can't coach, I can't be up in the part
• 1:09:19
  five that that was the kids, the guys and the young ladies.
• 1:09:24
  The program is already a top five right now.
• 1:09:27
  They're the one they're going to win regardless because they can
• 1:09:30
  coach. That was my point.
• 1:09:31
  They know how to recruit and they putting the right people in
• 1:09:33
  their team to win. So those who don't, those who at
• 1:09:38
  a Power 5 school or wherever you want to be at and you don't.
• 1:09:41
  You take 10 people to the NCA champion and you don't score a
• 1:09:43
  point. Yeah, you to me.
• 1:09:45
  I'm going to beat you anyway because I'm going to score some
• 1:09:47
  points, you know, so you don't. I don't personally think it
• 1:09:51
  ain't going to affect. It ain't going to hurt me.
• 1:09:54
  He ain't going to hit the person who already winning.
• 1:09:55
  He's going to hurt the ones in the middle who ain't doing
• 1:09:58
  nothing without all the money. And you can't.
• 1:10:00
  You ain't just going on puzzle away.
• 1:10:02
  I don't know that I could agree with you more.
• 1:10:04
  You know, I like to use mouse as my example because, you know, a
• 1:10:06
  good friend, also Gil podcast alum.
• 1:10:10
  I, I think about him and I go, OK, he's got 12.6 on the men
• 1:10:13
  today. He's going to get 45 tomorrow.
• 1:10:16
  He's going to win. He's he could coach and win at
• 1:10:19
  12. What do you, what do you think
• 1:10:21
  45's going to do? And that's the point.
• 1:10:23
  Carol Smith's going to win. Carol Smith Gilbert, you're
• 1:10:26
  going. To win.
• 1:10:27
  He's winning at 12 now. What makes you think she ain't
• 1:10:28
  winning at 45? Yeah, So, but here's what
• 1:10:31
  interests. I, I never heard how you put
• 1:10:33
  what you said about coach versus performance.
• 1:10:36
  I, I love that you, you actually said that because that's what I
• 1:10:38
  think about the difference between a track coach and a
• 1:10:40
  football coach and a basketball coach.
• 1:10:42
  It's like, oh, they're they're doing a lot of XS and OS, which
• 1:10:44
  is important, but a track coach is looking at this human body
• 1:10:47
  saying how do I make it jump farther?
• 1:10:49
  How do I make it run fast? That that's different.
• 1:10:51
  That's that's human performance. I agree with that, But I wonder
• 1:10:56
  this kind of popped in my head when you're describing that.
• 1:10:57
  And I loved how you described that.
• 1:10:59
  I wonder if the playing field is even.
• 1:11:03
  That's a big air quote there, by the way.
• 1:11:05
  And everybody has 45 scholarships.
• 1:11:08
  I wonder if, if the strategy, the strategic side of coaching
• 1:11:15
  comes in because now if you, if, if you know right now with 12.6,
• 1:11:20
  it's kind of feast and famine. Like you, you have to focus on
• 1:11:23
  one or two and maybe and a half event groups to win nationals.
• 1:11:28
  There are no, I don't believe full team national championships
• 1:11:33
  that they're very, very rare. I should say it that way because
• 1:11:35
  maybe there is, but today in NAU, which I love, I love that,
• 1:11:40
  you know, Northern Arizona was like, you know, what were they
• 1:11:42
  runner UPS or something like that?
• 1:11:43
  And, and, and outdoor or indoor track because they're not a
• 1:11:47
  traditional, but they put a lot, you know, not all because, you
• 1:11:51
  know, they actually had a weight thrower qualify for nationals,
• 1:11:53
  which I thought that was cool. But but certainly a majority of
• 1:11:56
  their 12.6 is in distance. Now that you're going to have
• 1:11:59
  45, I think it's going to be more strategic on how you event
• 1:12:05
  wise. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:07
  I think, I think it actually you might have to have a more
• 1:12:10
  balanced team to do. You can have more balance, I
• 1:12:13
  think. I think, I think that you can
• 1:12:16
  have more balance in. But back the whole thing is that
• 1:12:19
  the ones who win is going to continue to win.
• 1:12:20
  I think so. And the ones not, they're not
• 1:12:23
  going to win, I don't think. Me personally, I don't want to
• 1:12:27
  deal with all the people because you got to deal with you got to
• 1:12:30
  deal with a lot of people and some schools already got 45
• 1:12:34
  people in a roster on women's side, on the men's side.
• 1:12:36
  So that number of having athletes ain't the problem.
• 1:12:41
  Now you're able to get 45 people scholarships.
• 1:12:44
  I think it'll be a lot of people to transfer portal because the
• 1:12:48
  people just running around and going to school school, because
• 1:12:51
  I think it'll be a lot of people running around school, school.
• 1:12:53
  OK, hold on. I wanted to agree with you when
• 1:12:55
  you said that, but then I started thinking about this
• 1:12:57
  because what I was going to and when you're explaining that I
• 1:12:59
  was going to ask you this question.
• 1:13:01
  But don't you, if you were to get 45 full rides, so every kid
• 1:13:05
  on your school, on your roster is a full ride just like
• 1:13:08
  football, wouldn't you like to be?
• 1:13:12
  Wouldn't you like to get rid of the bidding process that you
• 1:13:17
  currently have in track and field?
• 1:13:18
  Like, oh, you know, this she's probably really just a 10% for
• 1:13:21
  me. Oh, wait, someone came and
• 1:13:23
  offered 15 and I know that the percentages don't matter because
• 1:13:27
  of the cost of school, but just stay with me.
• 1:13:28
  And so now you're like, well, I really do need her event though,
• 1:13:32
  so I better go 20% and Nope, this kids a lot better.
• 1:13:35
  So I'll go 75, I hope. But this this school offered the
• 1:13:37
  full. You get rid of that.
• 1:13:39
  And now it's like, I want you in the team, which means it's a
• 1:13:41
  full right? Don't.
• 1:13:41
  Don't you want to get rid of that?
• 1:13:44
  Well, you ain't going to get rid of that.
• 1:13:45
  That's still going to happen. No, they're all full rides.
• 1:13:47
  They're all full rides. But they're going, somebody
• 1:13:49
  going, somebody going, they ain't going.
• 1:13:50
  But but The thing is though, OK, if they all going to be full
• 1:13:54
  ride, people still going to leave, people going to still
• 1:13:57
  leave. No, no pause there.
• 1:13:58
  I'm with you. I'm going to get with that in a
• 1:13:59
  second, but I'm but just on the full ride or not full ride, you
• 1:14:02
  know equivalency versus full headcount, wouldn't you look
• 1:14:05
  forward to that? I would look forward.
• 1:14:07
  To that I would. I mean, I do that now.
• 1:14:10
  I would now I give. With football, like here's
• 1:14:13
  here's what I think about for Division One football coaches
• 1:14:16
  because it's all full ride. So there's no like, oh, we're
• 1:14:18
  going to offer more and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:14:19
  So when a kid decides to go outside the big, you know, when
• 1:14:22
  you talk about money and what's the better future for NFL.
• 1:14:25
  But when a kid is deciding between schools, it's like, oh,
• 1:14:29
  I'm not deciding on money anymore, 'cause they're all full
• 1:14:30
  rides now. I'm deciding on all these other
• 1:14:33
  things that we say is really important in college.
• 1:14:36
  The school, the major, the location, the coach, the
• 1:14:40
  program. Like it's no more a bidding war.
• 1:14:43
  I would. I mean, I was, I'm, I'm looking
• 1:14:47
  forward to, I, I don't think I would have 45 people on
• 1:14:50
  scholarship, but I'm looking, I'm looking forward to, you
• 1:14:53
  know, offer full rides. But you, I think personally from
• 1:14:57
  my standpoint in my institution, I'm going to be careful who I
• 1:15:01
  give full rides to. I'm not going to give full ride
• 1:15:03
  to anybody. I'm going to give full ride
• 1:15:05
  because I, I recruit right now. I look at a kid, can that kid as
• 1:15:11
  a freshman walk in the door and score in the SWAT championship
• 1:15:15
  or run good or be in the top 15 or 20 in cross country?
• 1:15:19
  So that's why I look at kids right now.
• 1:15:20
  So that's going to be all we're going to be.
• 1:15:23
  That's going to be really my focus.
• 1:15:24
  If you can't come in and help the program right now, I don't
• 1:15:28
  need you. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:15:30
  So that like right now, well, I want a kid and I think this kid
• 1:15:33
  can help the program. I think the kid will come in and
• 1:15:35
  score the freshman. I do offer full ride automatic
• 1:15:38
  even if I really think this kid got the potential because I
• 1:15:40
  said, oh, he going to score. He might own score big, but he
• 1:15:42
  going to score this year. I'm going to development score
• 1:15:45
  as we get on down the line. He going to score big and big
• 1:15:47
  and big. So I think that, like you say
• 1:15:51
  about the bidding war, that will cut that out, We won't have that
• 1:15:55
  no more. We were just like, hey, you,
• 1:15:56
  you, everybody in your foot. But now all of a sudden you got
• 1:15:58
  to pick who you want to get trained by and who you want to
• 1:16:01
  go to school and get your education from.
• 1:16:03
  And the program. Like the program?
• 1:16:05
  These guys, whether it's, you know, they focus on sprints or I
• 1:16:08
  like that they don't focus on Sprint.
• 1:16:10
  I'm a sprinter, but I like that they're going to have throw.
• 1:16:12
  There's people that are attracted to that.
• 1:16:13
  Yeah, you get to now focus on that.
• 1:16:15
  So now with about the transferring though, at first I
• 1:16:18
  was thinking I was kind of like, Oh well the transfer report is
• 1:16:22
  still going to be nuts because you know again kid, kids can
• 1:16:24
  leave for whatever. But is it there some percentage
• 1:16:27
  of kids that are transferring because they want to move from
• 1:16:30
  10% to 50% scholarship or 50% to full ride and now that would be
• 1:16:34
  gone. So those people transferring,
• 1:16:36
  the reason it is gone? Yeah, yeah, you got kid do that.
• 1:16:41
  I I have an experience that a lot of my kids left for the
• 1:16:44
  reason they didn't leave because of money.
• 1:16:46
  I I try to, I try to give my kids with scholarship money,
• 1:16:51
  academic money, Pell Grant. I try, I, I work hard and get my
• 1:16:57
  kids a packet deal so they won't get no won't have to get loans
• 1:17:01
  out and maybe get a refund back. Never know.
• 1:17:04
  But I think that that will cut it out.
• 1:17:07
  I think that will cut the kids out.
• 1:17:08
  You can't worry about everybody and your full ride.
• 1:17:11
  But The thing is, but the thing that you got to look at transfer
• 1:17:14
  now if you at my school and you ain't doing it in my school, who
• 1:17:20
  else going to take you? You know, you got to look at
• 1:17:23
  that now you got to look at I'm on the floor right over here and
• 1:17:25
  I ain't scored no point in common championship.
• 1:17:27
  Who won't take me? I get a transfer who going to
• 1:17:29
  take me? You know you won't be like,
• 1:17:31
  well, I don't think nobody going to take, nobody can't score no
• 1:17:33
  points. Yeah.
• 1:17:35
  You know, thinking about that as you're answering that my
• 1:17:41
  reasoning of the kids who want to try to move from 10 to 50 or
• 1:17:45
  50 to 100%, that's not today's basketball and football world
• 1:17:49
  that they're all full rides. And yet that transfer portal is
• 1:17:52
  still hotter than all get out. So yeah, yeah, you know, it's
• 1:17:55
  different, you know, thinking about those kids that are
• 1:17:56
  transferring when you when you just talked about that kid
• 1:17:58
  that's transferring, it's like, where are you going to transfer
• 1:18:00
  to? Like we know who, you know,
• 1:18:01
  track is so data-driven. So like, you know, if you jump
• 1:18:06
  18 feet at your place, well, I can expect that you're going to
• 1:18:09
  jump 18 feet at the other place, barn coaching or whatever.
• 1:18:11
  But. But with basketball, it's like,
• 1:18:13
  you know, well, why? Why?
• 1:18:14
  You know, why should I take you? You rode the pine at such and
• 1:18:16
  such school. And it's like, yeah, but coach
• 1:18:17
  didn't like me. The system doesn't fit me in
• 1:18:20
  your system I can do. And that may be true.
• 1:18:22
  We're in track. It's like, I mean, you're coming
• 1:18:25
  from Chris Mccoy's program. He's pretty good coach.
• 1:18:27
  What if he doing it there? What the heck you going to do it
• 1:18:29
  here, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:31
  And that's what I look at. I mean, you know, look at that.
• 1:18:33
  I look, I'm like one thing I'm going to do with you, right?
• 1:18:36
  Right, right, right. Yeah.
• 1:18:37
  I'm a big on if you guys you got, I don't care who coach you.
• 1:18:40
  I always say you got, you got I don't care.
• 1:18:42
  A blind man can coach you. If you're good, you're good.
• 1:18:45
  I don't. I mean, and, and some people,
• 1:18:48
  like I always say some people do, you know, some people can
• 1:18:50
  coach some people, but it's good.
• 1:18:51
  But yeah, yeah. I mean, there's certainly
• 1:18:53
  coaching still matters, right? Like when?
• 1:18:55
  Yeah, it does. And maybe.
• 1:18:57
  It does a lot. And maybe someone like Nikisha
• 1:18:59
  Price is a good example bringing it back to her.
• 1:19:02
  You know, she went, I think, I think she went junior college,
• 1:19:05
  right? I think she's a junior.
• 1:19:06
  Yeah, she was an hour West. First, yeah, and she ran fast,
• 1:19:09
  like 50. 4:50. Three.
• 1:19:11
  Did she run 52? Let's say she ran 52, which
• 1:19:15
  that's fast, come on. But in one year with Chris and
• 1:19:19
  Boogie, she went 49. Now that is not a 848.
• 1:19:23
  Sorry. Now that is not a slam on Iowa
• 1:19:26
  Westerns coaches. By the way.
• 1:19:27
  I love those guys. I know them very well.
• 1:19:29
  I'm just saying in a different program, different.
• 1:19:32
  And when I say different program weather is different in Arkansas
• 1:19:35
  than it is in Iowa Western, for crying out loud.
• 1:19:37
  But she got an indoor facility in Arkansas.
• 1:19:39
  Indoor facility training mates, you know, having other fasting
• 1:19:44
  in you know, we certainly Arkansas women's four hundreds
• 1:19:46
  were you know, they had a pretty good training group this year.
• 1:19:49
  Yeah, they run three 17318. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:19:51
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, whether they go 1234
• 1:19:54
  or NC ES, I mean, that's stupid. That's crazy so coaching, you
• 1:19:58
  know, environment and coaching matters and and that that was
• 1:20:00
  the example I just want to use with the price.
• 1:20:01
  OK, let I love this conversation, Chris.
• 1:20:04
  These are one of those conversations where I'm like,
• 1:20:07
  you know, if no one listens, I don't care.
• 1:20:09
  I I benefited from now I know a lot of people are going to
• 1:20:11
  benefit from this and listen to it.
• 1:20:13
  All right so Bethune Cookman, that's where you and I meet
• 1:20:15
  you're with Garfield love him. You go to Hampton, so you're
• 1:20:19
  with Maurice now I'm. With the MO P man.
• 1:20:22
  Man who's also a Guild Podcast alum, he's a guy, you know, he
• 1:20:27
  reminds me of what I just said about Hop that I'm not sure gets
• 1:20:33
  his dues. Like, you know, he's coached a
• 1:20:34
  lot of good people and as a good dude.
• 1:20:36
  Maurice is another guy that, you know, coached a lot of good
• 1:20:39
  kids, a lot of Olympians and I'm not sure a lot of people give
• 1:20:44
  him the do that he deserves. Loved having him on the show.
• 1:20:48
  So you're with him again. You have this.
• 1:20:50
  What is this knack you have? It's almost like a magnetism to
• 1:20:54
  like really good coaches. You know your high school coach,
• 1:20:58
  George Garfield Maurice now, like you're like a magnet for
• 1:21:03
  this, my man. Well, I, when I went to Moppi,
• 1:21:07
  learned a lot about organized A-Team to win championships.
• 1:21:10
  I learned a lot about just just how to just be in an environment
• 1:21:17
  where you don't have everything you want or everything you need
• 1:21:21
  to be successful, but you don't make away.
• 1:21:23
  Right. And I think that's where all the
• 1:21:25
  guys, I, all the coaches I've been around Hobbs High School,
• 1:21:28
  Coach Garfield, Coach William Maurice, I, I just, I just
• 1:21:33
  learned how to give the situation what I'm in and make
• 1:21:38
  the best of. That's when I my recruiting game
• 1:21:41
  got better at Hampton. I say because of environment
• 1:21:45
  what what Coach Pierce already done at Hampton before I got
• 1:21:48
  there, how he been winning championship, championship,
• 1:21:51
  people going to the NCA, people going to the Olympics.
• 1:21:55
  It was easy to recruit there. It was very easy to recruit
• 1:21:58
  Hampton. And we recruit some good kids.
• 1:22:01
  And I, I think my first recruit player in Hampton was we brought
• 1:22:04
  in 10 girls and that was a big, that was, I think he told me
• 1:22:08
  that was the biggest class. No, we brought more than 10.
• 1:22:10
  We brought 13 girls. He said that was the biggest
• 1:22:13
  class he ever brought in before. Your way in the recruiting for
• 1:22:19
  someone who's struggling. Yeah, I did I actually I
• 1:22:22
  actually found my way to recruit and and one thing it it go back
• 1:22:25
  to their relationships and some relationships are good and some
• 1:22:29
  relationships are not bad, but it it it I found that knit and
• 1:22:33
  building a relationship and I get like now I get a bunch of
• 1:22:36
  emails from everybody around the world now even coaches get power
• 1:22:39
  fight. You won't talk to this person.
• 1:22:41
  Yeah, I will. And so I had a lot of
• 1:22:44
  opportunity to, I work with my coach Pierce.
• 1:22:49
  He's my one of my good friend. Him and Godfrey was in my
• 1:22:52
  wedding. So then my boys, they went
• 1:22:53
  through some of my two of my best friends.
• 1:22:56
  So, so how many? How many years of Bethune
• 1:22:57
  Cookman? Three years.
• 1:22:59
  How many years at Hampton? Two years.
• 1:23:02
  And then from there to Pine Bluff.
• 1:23:04
  I came to Pine Bluff. Why I became how I got a job at
• 1:23:08
  Pine Bluff was Maurice Pierce. When I got there, I I told, I
• 1:23:12
  told coach Pierce, I said, man, I want to be a head coach.
• 1:23:15
  And I asked him, I said what what's what is it take to be a
• 1:23:17
  head coach? And first thing he got out of
• 1:23:19
  that paperwork, I said what boys and girls, that's the truth.
• 1:23:24
  He said. He said you are already out of
• 1:23:25
  the paperwork and you are right. He said you got everything else
• 1:23:29
  you can recruit, you can coach paperwork and he said I hate
• 1:23:32
  doing that paperwork and and I actually did all these paperwork
• 1:23:36
  for when I got there with MRP. I did everything.
• 1:23:38
  I did everything from Oakley. He didn't had to worry about
• 1:23:40
  nothing. I don't think he had to worry
• 1:23:42
  about signing the people document and let me go turn it
• 1:23:44
  in. And he said, you know, I did all
• 1:23:46
  the orders, I did everything. I made sure all the hotel was
• 1:23:49
  done. I made sure all the I did all
• 1:23:50
  the logistics stuff. And all he had to do was sign
• 1:23:52
  the documents and say, Hey, I sign up.
• 1:23:54
  Sometimes you tell me go sign my nextbook, just put MP on and
• 1:23:56
  send it to him. But it was good experience and
• 1:24:00
  how I got the UAPB, the AD, that that's another word I learned
• 1:24:05
  how you got no administrative to be a head coach.
• 1:24:10
  The AD at Hampton, love Hampton and came to UAPB to be the AD
• 1:24:15
  here. And he asked Coach Pierce, he
• 1:24:18
  called Coach Pierce, he got him one of his coaches want to be a
• 1:24:21
  head coach and he told him, well, I'm going to Arkansas on
• 1:24:23
  Pine Bluff. He said, well, I got a man for
• 1:24:25
  you. He said Coach McCoy, he's from
• 1:24:28
  Arkansas. And the next morning I walked in
• 1:24:31
  the hallway in the building AD he ain't left yet.
• 1:24:35
  He came. He said I didn't talk to you.
• 1:24:38
  I said you want to be a head coach?
• 1:24:39
  I said yeah, I would like to be one one day.
• 1:24:41
  He said I'm going to be the head.
• 1:24:43
  I'm moving to Arkansas to be the Adi want you.
• 1:24:45
  You want to come with me as I already knew my Arkansas panel
• 1:24:49
  because I'm from here. I said yeah, that's how much
• 1:24:52
  you're going to pay me. That's what I asked.
• 1:24:55
  He said, well, you, you. He said we got to talk about
• 1:24:57
  that. I said shit.
• 1:24:58
  He's like, he's like, I ain't even there, bud.
• 1:25:00
  I don't know. That's what we told me.
• 1:25:02
  How much they paying me he. Said I don't know you have.
• 1:25:05
  He said I don't know you have all these coaches like you got
• 1:25:07
  you. He said I don't I can give you
• 1:25:10
  all the coaches like you got in. We're here to Hampton, but I
• 1:25:14
  know we're going to pay you decent.
• 1:25:15
  I said OK and we told him to send me my resume.
• 1:25:19
  I sent him my resume. We met, we're talking about
• 1:25:21
  everything APR and all that stuff.
• 1:25:23
  And he told me. He called him the president here
• 1:25:26
  at the school and told him I got my man won't be the track coach
• 1:25:30
  and because they had no track coaches, they had no track
• 1:25:32
  coaches. The guy was here, he just, he
• 1:25:34
  left and all that. He got fired and I said OK and I
• 1:25:39
  took the job and he paid me. I made more money than ever made
• 1:25:44
  in my life. I look at it because I ain't
• 1:25:46
  never made that much money, $60,000, I ain't gonna make that
• 1:25:49
  much money and he gave me a job. So I'm not going to get three
• 1:25:52
  coaches and 2GA's. I said, well, I can work with
• 1:25:56
  that. And I've been here.
• 1:25:58
  I've been at UABB now going on 14.
• 1:26:00
  Just come to UAB my 14 years here.
• 1:26:02
  Is that right? Yeah, I've been here since 2011.
• 1:26:07
  Man, time goes by fast. Dude, I I knew you'd been here
• 1:26:09
  for a while. I was going to say eight years.
• 1:26:11
  14 now I've been here 14 years time go by 5 you're having fun.
• 1:26:15
  I I like it. Good point.
• 1:26:18
  You know, I'm in the I'm in the moves.
• 1:26:19
  I have opportunities to lead, but I chose not to because I'm
• 1:26:24
  looking at I don't like moving. I hate moving.
• 1:26:26
  I hate moving. I hate moving it's 2000 like I
• 1:26:28
  don't like moving. I like paint and.
• 1:26:31
  You got to paint when you move a lot of times.
• 1:26:33
  I don't want to paint, so that's why I want to move.
• 1:26:36
  So I'm I'm I'm look, I'm happy, I'm I'm cool.
• 1:26:39
  I ain't got everything I want. I'm I'm praying that I one of
• 1:26:42
  the biggest things and you know this I want the track.
• 1:26:46
  I want to build this just track to get built here.
• 1:26:48
  UAPB I, I don't want to leave until I'm the first one in it
• 1:26:51
  because I, I put my sweat and tears in the things I do and I,
• 1:26:55
  I don't want to leave. Let somehow you have fun or
• 1:26:58
  something that I work hard. That's a good point.
• 1:27:02
  So I've been having some good ADS and like, I had a lot of
• 1:27:05
  different ADS and I've been at UAPB.
• 1:27:07
  But right now I'm the oldest coach on staff.
• 1:27:09
  I'm the oldest head coach here. We've been here.
• 1:27:12
  We got a new head coach for every sport.
• 1:27:13
  I don't. I've been alone.
• 1:27:14
  You're the godfather of coaches at UAP.
• 1:27:17
  They would have called me around here.
• 1:27:18
  They called me godfather. I'm not a godfather.
• 1:27:20
  I'm just doing what I do. You know, I survived.
• 1:27:24
  I told them I can survive anybody.
• 1:27:25
  That's fine. But you know, I don't coach them
• 1:27:27
  on. I don't call the revenue sport.
• 1:27:31
  I ain't got to worry about that. You know, HBC U's kind of went
• 1:27:36
  through a moment with the whole, the whole Deion Sanders, Jackson
• 1:27:40
  State. It brought a lot of mainstream
• 1:27:42
  media and there's a lot of celebration of HBC US, a lot of
• 1:27:46
  time and attention, rightfully so, spent on them.
• 1:27:50
  It does seem unfortunately, again, mainstream media now that
• 1:27:54
  Dion's gone to Colorado that HBC US are back to like, Oh yeah,
• 1:27:59
  they're there, but we're not celebrating them like maybe we
• 1:28:02
  should. We've I've enjoyed every HBCU
• 1:28:05
  coach we've had here at Richie Bean from Alabama State.
• 1:28:08
  I talked about Maurice and Hampton and some others love it.
• 1:28:12
  Your career, not counting KCK and I'm not sure if Saint Ogg's
• 1:28:21
  technically, I know there's a definition or there's like AI
• 1:28:23
  don't want to call it a conference, but there's a, an
• 1:28:27
  actual set guideline I guess for HBCU.
• 1:28:29
  St. Saint Aug's is an HBCU right?
• 1:28:32
  So, so you know your undergrad at HBCU, your first full time
• 1:28:37
  job at Bethune Cookman, Hampton and now Pine Bluff.
• 1:28:43
  Is, is this on purpose? And what is the importance of
• 1:28:47
  being a a African American male in our sport for you?
• 1:28:52
  Coaching at a HBCU at Hbcu's plural.
• 1:28:57
  Well, I don't think it's on purpose.
• 1:28:58
  I actually applied for a lot of power fire schools.
• 1:29:01
  Like I say, I didn't get them, but I don't think it's on
• 1:29:04
  purpose. I think that, I mean, I grew up
• 1:29:06
  around HBCU because my family, a lot of my family members with
• 1:29:08
  HBCU. So I, I've been on HBCU campus
• 1:29:10
  all my life. So I don't think it's the
• 1:29:13
  purpose. I have to think I got an
• 1:29:14
  opportunity to coach. I don't a lot of times I don't
• 1:29:18
  look at that. I look at it, I got opportunity
• 1:29:20
  to coach and I can try, I'm trying to win.
• 1:29:22
  That's how I look at it. And do I will I lead?
• 1:29:26
  Yes, I will lead. If I tell you I won't, I'd be
• 1:29:29
  lying to you. So will I lead HBCU?
• 1:29:32
  Yeah, I will leave the right opportunity to the right school
• 1:29:34
  call and the right place for me and my wife.
• 1:29:37
  I would lead, but it just, I guess the cause I've been dealt
• 1:29:41
  with and I try to make the best of it.
• 1:29:43
  I don't. I can't sit here and pound about
• 1:29:46
  it because I feel like a lot of HBC U's in track and field have
• 1:29:50
  done a lot. You got some guys at Power Five
• 1:29:52
  schools with HBCU and people don't even know a lot of Power
• 1:29:56
  five coaches that I know head coaches at power Five went into
• 1:30:01
  a HBCU school and some of them started HBCU coaching like my
• 1:30:05
  boy Dwayne Ross. That's my boy.
• 1:30:08
  I met Dwayne Ross back in back in North Carolina days.
• 1:30:12
  Dwayne started off at North Carolina and T and now here at
• 1:30:16
  Tennessee. Even Tim Hall, Tim Hall went to
• 1:30:20
  South Carolina State. That's.
• 1:30:22
  Right. You know, you know, and I like I
• 1:30:25
  say, if it meant for me to be at a power fire, I'll be at a power
• 1:30:30
  fire. But I'm I'm, I'm enjoying my
• 1:30:31
  life. I'm enjoying what I do.
• 1:30:34
  I get up, I do something, I tell people real on campus.
• 1:30:39
  I said, I think it's the best job in the world working on a
• 1:30:42
  college campus. You know, like I said, that's
• 1:30:46
  why I think it's the best job because I don't have, I don't
• 1:30:49
  have no micromanaging people. Ain't nobody micromanaging me
• 1:30:51
  around here. I get the job done.
• 1:30:53
  I do, I do, but I just think it's, it's, it's an opportunity
• 1:30:58
  for me and I'm doing what I want to do and I'm doing what I like
• 1:31:02
  to do and I'm enjoying what I'm doing.
• 1:31:04
  And when I, I tell people this, when I stop enjoying, that's
• 1:31:08
  when I'm going to go. But I'm enjoying.
• 1:31:11
  I think COVID 20 helped me a lot to do other things.
• 1:31:16
  I started getting involved in other things, playing more golf,
• 1:31:18
  fishing, hunting, shooting guns and five, four wheels.
• 1:31:22
  So I got myself involved with all this stuff.
• 1:31:24
  So when I do get ready to retire, I have something to go
• 1:31:27
  do. I don't want to just sit around.
• 1:31:29
  I don't want to coach them 100 years ago.
• 1:31:31
  I see coaches who coating 90 years old.
• 1:31:32
  Nah, I don't want to do that. I don't think.
• 1:31:35
  I don't think nobody should do that.
• 1:31:36
  I look at some of the coaches out there still coaching like I
• 1:31:39
  know you ain't coming for no money.
• 1:31:42
  You know, what are you coaching and you might say you coaching
• 1:31:45
  because you got the thrill. You still love it.
• 1:31:47
  That's cool too. But I think when you get certain
• 1:31:49
  age, you better can walk around, you better get around.
• 1:31:51
  I think, you know, it's time to let this go.
• 1:31:53
  It's time to go do something else.
• 1:31:55
  That's my opinion. But you can't tell them.
• 1:31:57
  But I was I was excited about when I hate the way they did my
• 1:32:02
  coach at Saint Hall push them out of there.
• 1:32:04
  But I think it was time for them to retire anyway, he said.
• 1:32:07
  Just. Go do.
• 1:32:09
  You know he and he found another life because he always had to
• 1:32:11
  play golf a lot. He he playing golf every day.
• 1:32:13
  I have time to look on Facebook. He on golf, he's.
• 1:32:16
  Always. So, so and that he didn't,
• 1:32:19
  couldn't go and do nothing else. He just didn't want to do
• 1:32:21
  nothing. But I tell people that I, I
• 1:32:24
  don't want to be here until I'm 90 years old.
• 1:32:26
  If I see, I want to see 100 years old, but I want to coach
• 1:32:30
  and and and I and one thing I learned two of my my uncle and
• 1:32:36
  Dwayne Roy taught me this to save my money.
• 1:32:39
  So I have when I first started at Hampton and Bethune Cookman,
• 1:32:44
  I put 100% of my retirement. So Dwayne Ross told me you put
• 1:32:49
  100%, you ain't going to see it. So you ain't not worried about
• 1:32:52
  it. So I've been saving my I hope
• 1:32:55
  nothing happened, pray God doesn't happen, but my
• 1:32:58
  retirement going to be nice and I'm going to sit down.
• 1:33:02
  You know, we're in state school. I tell you when I work in state
• 1:33:04
  school, the benefit to me. Chris, we, we got to start
• 1:33:08
  wrapping up here, but I, I want to, so that's a real, that's a
• 1:33:14
  real problem and a real passion of mine.
• 1:33:16
  It's a real problem in the coaching profession.
• 1:33:20
  The opposite like I, I, I, I, I maybe assume that you have these
• 1:33:26
  type of conversations with your group.
• 1:33:28
  We all have a group you, you know, in our, in our network,
• 1:33:31
  right? But more coaches and more
• 1:33:34
  younger coaches need to hear that advice that Dwayne gave
• 1:33:38
  you, and now you're living through it.
• 1:33:41
  When we get into coaching, we don't because it's great.
• 1:33:45
  You know, it's sports. There's a lot of emotion and
• 1:33:47
  passion around it. And I think that's why a lot of
• 1:33:49
  people say, oh, you know, you got to pay your dues.
• 1:33:51
  You got to make, you know, it's fine that you make 20 grand for
• 1:33:54
  the first three years. It's like, man, that's terrible.
• 1:33:56
  No, you shouldn't make 20 grand your first three.
• 1:33:58
  Like you should get involved, I know, but you shouldn't have.
• 1:34:02
  But I but I I saved my money. And you shouldn't wish that on
• 1:34:04
  this generate like you shouldn't have to start at 20,000.
• 1:34:07
  You should, you know, make a you deserve it.
• 1:34:09
  But I don't think we and it's a young person, not just track
• 1:34:13
  coaching, but it's it's certainly maybe double down a
• 1:34:15
  young track coach person. They don't think about that.
• 1:34:18
  One day, Lord willing, you should be able to retire.
• 1:34:23
  And that means you're going to have to have money because that
• 1:34:24
  means you're, you're no more income, which means you need to
• 1:34:27
  start thinking about retirement savings today.
• 1:34:32
  You, you need to start thinking of it as a 22 year old, 23 year
• 1:34:34
  old, 24 year old. Not here's the story I hear.
• 1:34:37
  You know, you, you know what I do, Chris, I, I talk to coaches
• 1:34:40
  all day every day. That's all I do.
• 1:34:42
  Here's the story I hear coaches that are in our age bracket,
• 1:34:45
  we're in the, you know, 50s tomorrow.
• 1:34:47
  Basically for guys like me and you, it's real close.
• 1:34:50
  And they have no savings or they have 10,000 in, in retirement
• 1:34:55
  savings. And it's like, yeah, now that
• 1:34:57
  I'm 50, I'm starting to think about, well, man, retirements,
• 1:35:00
  you know, maybe 15, maybe less years away.
• 1:35:03
  I better start saving. It's like it's not too late.
• 1:35:05
  If you haven't started at 50, please start now.
• 1:35:08
  But it would have been a lot better if you just started at
• 1:35:10
  222324, your very first job, putting in whatever it is to get
• 1:35:14
  the match and things like that. We need more people like you
• 1:35:20
  that have that are going to see the benefit of that when you
• 1:35:22
  retired talking to people today. We we've got to get our, our,
• 1:35:27
  our, the profession of coaching track and field has to
• 1:35:30
  professionalize. And what I mean by that is it's
• 1:35:33
  not just this hobby that we get paid a little bit for.
• 1:35:36
  It is a real profession. It is a real job that has real
• 1:35:40
  consequences, that has real benefits for other people.
• 1:35:44
  You benefit in your category as a college coach, 18 to 22 year
• 1:35:47
  old kids, You give real benefit to them.
• 1:35:50
  You make real sacrifices in your personal life and professional
• 1:35:54
  life. You deserve to get paid and you
• 1:35:56
  deserve to retire one day. To your point about, you know,
• 1:36:02
  people being out there till they're 100 and things like
• 1:36:04
  that. You deserve to have a life.
• 1:36:06
  Your, your life should not revolve around coaching.
• 1:36:08
  It's it's a role. It's a role that you do, but you
• 1:36:12
  like talk about you here, Chris. You're, you're a son, you're a
• 1:36:16
  husband, maybe you're a brother. There are there are other roles
• 1:36:21
  and those are more important. Your husband to your wife is way
• 1:36:24
  more important than coaching. It really is.
• 1:36:27
  But a lot of times we put that coach's number one, that role of
• 1:36:31
  coach number one and everything else sacrifices.
• 1:36:33
  And the only way that changes is a coach who's getting in the
• 1:36:36
  Business Today at 25 is looking up to you now, Chris and says,
• 1:36:40
  wait a minute. So you started you started
• 1:36:42
  saving your retirement at 25. I guess that's what you do as a
• 1:36:44
  coach. I guess I better start doing
• 1:36:45
  that. But they don't know that if we
• 1:36:46
  don't talk about these things. So I just want to encourage you
• 1:36:51
  and other guys like Dwayne, also a podcast alum.
• 1:36:55
  You can I don't necessarily need you to go to Sam seems and say,
• 1:37:00
  hey, Sam, I want to present at the convention and I want to
• 1:37:02
  present about four O1 KS, but just as effective.
• 1:37:07
  I need you to talk to those kids, the kids that you're hire
• 1:37:09
  as a kids, you know, these 25 year old kids that you're
• 1:37:12
  hiring, these kids that come up to you and say, hey, so I'm Aga
• 1:37:16
  right now, your head coach. I want to be a head coach one
• 1:37:19
  day. Have the conversations past the
• 1:37:21
  X's and O's of what's it mean to be a professional, a human being
• 1:37:26
  who chooses to be a track coach. That's a profession.
• 1:37:28
  How do you make that kid better when they're 45 and 55?
• 1:37:32
  Not just how do you make them coach a long jumper better or in
• 1:37:35
  your case, a high jumper? You know what I'm saying?
• 1:37:39
  I just want to encourage you and, and your network to have
• 1:37:42
  those conversations, man. It'll make the profession
• 1:37:45
  better. All right, I'm off my soapbox
• 1:37:50
  and we've come to the end of our time.
• 1:37:51
  Dude, Chris, I knew, you know, first of all, let me apologize.
• 1:37:55
  The goal, the number one goal of this podcast is to uplift and
• 1:37:57
  honor your journey. And we did very little talking
• 1:38:00
  about your journey. We talk about I have a good
• 1:38:04
  journey. I feel like I great journey a
• 1:38:06
  lot. I'm still trying to get more out
• 1:38:08
  of. You know, Chris, I know you.
• 1:38:11
  I know you really well. And I didn't know this like Hall
• 1:38:13
  of Fame cadre of coaches that you've had with you the whole
• 1:38:17
  time. I mean, that's just again, it's
• 1:38:19
  it's amazing that, you know, you're a product of the people
• 1:38:21
  that you're around. And you know, this makes a lot
• 1:38:23
  more sense of why I hold you to such high esteem.
• 1:38:24
  It's like, oh, you hanging around a bunch of people.
• 1:38:26
  I think also of high esteem. So that makes a lot of sense.
• 1:38:30
  But I think, you know what, we didn't get to really dive deep
• 1:38:33
  as I usually do in your journey. I think the conversation that we
• 1:38:37
  had around recruiting, your struggles initially recruiting
• 1:38:41
  and now what you do recruiting, that's night and day those
• 1:38:45
  conversations and about, you know, management of your team
• 1:38:48
  and stuff like that. I think that is going to provide
• 1:38:50
  a lot of value to those people who choose to press play.
• 1:38:52
  So I'm very grateful for your just, you know, really your
• 1:38:55
  openness and authenticity to have that conversation.
• 1:38:57
  It's not, it's not usually an open book sometimes with people.
• 1:39:00
  And I understand why, but you know, I'm really grateful for
• 1:39:03
  for you and your position there. But I, I really do think for
• 1:39:06
  being on the podcast, I wonder when I'm be on one, I know this
• 1:39:09
  is my first one I ever did. So that's the first time I've
• 1:39:13
  been on the podcast. I thank you for having me on it.
• 1:39:16
  When I see the e-mail, I got to do it because if I don't do it,
• 1:39:19
  you're going to hold it. You're going to be mad at me.
• 1:39:20
  But I'm glad that I, I'm glad I had an opportunity to do it.
• 1:39:24
  I just want to share my, you know, I had some good people.
• 1:39:27
  I still have good people in my corner and taught me some good
• 1:39:30
  things about the profession, how to be a profession in this in
• 1:39:34
  this sport. But I just want everyone to
• 1:39:36
  know, you know, focus on yourself, focus on what you got
• 1:39:40
  to do to be the best you want to be.
• 1:39:42
  You can't worry about what everybody to do at this school
• 1:39:44
  and that school. You take what you got and you
• 1:39:47
  make the best of because we ain't we are never be equal.
• 1:39:50
  I don't care. You hear the power, even some of
• 1:39:52
  the power five schools ain't equal because you know, Oregon
• 1:39:55
  is not. I don't know how they equal
• 1:39:57
  something about Oregon got the best percent in the world, you
• 1:39:59
  know, So how can I say Oregon? Be equal, you know you and
• 1:40:04
  they'll be equal with God. What school you work at small,
• 1:40:07
  big, you know it ain't going to be equal.
• 1:40:09
  You just got to keep working, keep learning the sport, learn
• 1:40:12
  the profession and love what you do.
• 1:40:15
  You know, don't do it just for a check.
• 1:40:17
  That's that's that's the one thing that I don't do.
• 1:40:20
  I mean, I like getting paid. I like paying my bills and
• 1:40:23
  bought me a new truck. I like that, but I don't do it
• 1:40:26
  for the money. I do it because I love.
• 1:40:28
  I actually come to work every day excited about what the next
• 1:40:32
  day going to bring for me in my coach and I'm and I I don't
• 1:40:35
  like, I'll tell you this. You might look at me crazy.
• 1:40:37
  I don't like the summertime. You know why you don't like the
• 1:40:38
  summertime? I like to be working.
• 1:40:41
  I like my kids here and I and I can't wait to get back and meet
• 1:40:44
  star coming back next week for cross country kids.
• 1:40:46
  Star coming back and everybody's coming back.
• 1:40:48
  The week out there. I can't wait.
• 1:40:49
  Star Trek practice, I can't wait.
• 1:40:51
  You know, that's the thrill I have every year, you know, after
• 1:40:56
  summertime over there. I mean, we all need a little
• 1:40:58
  break. I had my little break.
• 1:41:00
  I only but one week. I'm good, but I, I like the
• 1:41:02
  world. Track and field to me is a very
• 1:41:04
  dear place to me and I love it. I love working with the people I
• 1:41:08
  work with. I love coming to the NCA
• 1:41:09
  Championship. I love doing all the things I
• 1:41:12
  do. So like you say, I I when I do
• 1:41:15
  have a conversation with other young coaches, I tell them, you
• 1:41:18
  know, we all going to go different ways to get what we're
• 1:41:22
  trying to get to, But you got to do something yourself.
• 1:41:25
  And that's one thing I learned from the people older than me.
• 1:41:28
  They told me, Hey, you got take care of yourself because you're
• 1:41:31
  going to retire one day. But if I don't see every time
• 1:41:34
  somebody going to get it, I know my wife going to get a hold of
• 1:41:37
  it. But Mike, I really enjoyed being
• 1:41:42
  on here with you. If you want to do a second pop
• 1:41:44
  pop pad, we can do it. And you know, I like this.
• 1:41:47
  I love your advice and if you're listening, I would recommend you
• 1:41:52
  hit that rewind button a little bit and re listen to what he
• 1:41:54
  said. A lot of important, important
• 1:41:56
  things there. And what I really love about it
• 1:41:58
  is the authenticity because you've lived that out since a
• 1:42:01
  high schooler, for crying out loud.
• 1:42:03
  Doing what's best for you, making a decision of like, I'm
• 1:42:06
  not gonna do football my senior year, your senior year, by the
• 1:42:08
  way, that's supposed to be the most fun and all that kind of
• 1:42:10
  stuff Year. I'm going to focus on track and
• 1:42:12
  field. So you've been living that
• 1:42:14
  advice since a 17 year old, my friend.
• 1:42:16
  So I love that authenticity. And that's what that's what I
• 1:42:19
  know you the best. I know it's what I expect from
• 1:42:21
  you as well. So all right, guys and gals,
• 1:42:24
  thank you so much for being here, Chris.
• 1:42:26
  The most valuable thing you can give me is your time, man.
• 1:42:28
  And so I'm really grateful for your time here today.
• 1:42:30
  And yeah, I love you to death. And I'm just so, so proud to not
• 1:42:33
  just call you, you know, someone I do business with.
• 1:42:35
  I'm very proud to call you a friend as well.
• 1:42:38
  Me too. Thank you man.
• 1:42:40
  Thanks guys for being here. Join us next week.
• 1:42:41
  We'll do it all over again and we'll have some fun.
• 1:42:43
  Not maybe not as much fun as this because this, this is
• 1:42:45
  pretty special for me, but we're going to try to do our best.
• 1:42:48
  See you next week. If it goes to appreciate the
• 1:42:52
  coach the ones that pour people most every season needs a voice
• 1:42:55
  of reason speaking the growth you got to prep for you carry
• 1:42:58
  the load. It's coffee to the soul For
• 1:43:00
  those of us who stay on the go proper hand off and stay in the
• 1:43:03
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:43:05
  There's more than one way to go taking those that's paying
• 1:43:08
  you're told it ain't practice If your purpose Saint Clair it
• 1:43:11
  can't happen until you listen with both is you can't mentor
• 1:43:14
  without a mentor of years of experience.
• 1:43:16
  You can reinvent those years. Every plan's got to stand and
• 1:43:19
  deliver to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
• 1:43:22
  It's a choice and the fight not a win or lose.
• 1:43:25
  It's not a ploy boy device y'all can make more moves.
• 1:43:28
  It's not about how to it's all about why you don't know till
• 1:43:31
  you know who you are inside 6,000,000 Waste of time choose
• 1:43:34
  none. So we y'all cross finish line.
• 1:43:36
  The work ain't done so we learn from the experts but y'all got
• 1:43:39
  to put in the network. Guilt Athletics is the network.
• 1:43:42
  It's all about connections put together for the profession to
• 1:43:45
  where every track coach could be blessing.