Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #165: Gill1918 Presents David Mitchell “Honoring the Baton” Powered by Coach O

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#165: Gill1918 Presents David Mitchell “Honoring the Baton” Powered by Coach O · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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  coaches for coaches, powered by Gill Athletics.
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  Think of it as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
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  Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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  you grow as a coach. This episode is part of the
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  Youth and Beginner Series, brought to you by Coach O.
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  In this series, we focus on topics relating to coaching
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  youth athletes, coaching beginner athletes of any age,
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  and supporting brand new coaches as they find their way.
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  With that in mind, let's grow. Hey everybody, I'm David
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  Mitchell, and I'm here today to talk to you about developing a
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  culture that honors the relay baton and how defining roles and
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  responsibilities for each relay league supports that.
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  Good ideas are often birthed after struggles or failures.
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  My teams had a few of those, and it led to setting up this system
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  that I hope will help you avoid some of those uncomfortable
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  moments. Let me tell you about two of the
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  most painful failures. 4 by 800 meter relay at state
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  championship. Ran great, over 4 seconds,
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  better than anytime that year. School record, but got passed on
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  the anchor and finished second. So what went wrong?
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  My anchor flicked the baton down at the track and we were
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  dequeued. No points, no medals, no school
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  record. He knew better.
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  So why did he do that? Because we had gotten our home
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  track resurfaced that year with a nice bouncy surface, and he
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  had gotten into the habit of bouncing the baton off the track
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  and catching it, just flicking it down, having it flip a
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  partial flip and grabbing in his hand.
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  He was a great kid and a great runner, so I didn't get on him
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  about it when he did it at the state meet, though on the harder
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  track surface. Think any clang clang awful
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  sound that no coach ever wants to hear, and disqualification.
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  One improvement to our culture after that was to implement the
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  rule that if a baton ever hit the track or the ground during
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  practice or even during a meet, everybody stopped what they were
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  doing and did 5 push ups. If it happened another time on
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  the same day, the number of push ups doubled and that continued.
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  It really helped instill the importance of protecting and
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  honoring the baton and caused a little bit of positive peer
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  pressure. Those athletes did not want
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  their teammates unhappy with them for having to do the push
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  ups. The other painful incident that
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  reinforced the need for roles and responsibilities for each
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  relay leg happened at the regional meet.
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  At that time, the only way to qualify for the state meet.
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  This time it involved the 4 by 200m relay.
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  We are in the fastest seat along with the number one team in the
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  state, but the top two were auto qualifiers so we were only
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  paying moderate attention to them.
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  Out in front our team ran great, clearly in second place, but
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  really not terribly far behind good old number one and well
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  ahead of 3rd and 4th place. Those teams were clearly behind
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  us. It was clear that we were about
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  to qualify. For state.
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  Score eight points in the regional meet and smash our
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  school record in the process. That is until our anchor leg
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  came clearly into view and had a bright white puka shell necklace
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  bouncing up and down on his collarbone.
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  Instant DQ. Not going to state no points for
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  the regional no school record. The biggest insult came at the
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  state meet when our regional time would have placed second
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  place overall. Brutal.
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  We had the roles and responsibilities in place at
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  that point, but this relay was made-up of three seniors and a
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  junior on the anchor. They had been taking care of
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  business all year long, so I did not stay on them about following
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  through with the roles and responsibilities.
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  Great kids, top athletes, but I shouldn't have let them get
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  slack in the way that they did things.
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  Culture, it's sometimes said as whatever we as leaders do or do
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  not tolerate. And there I tolerated a little
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  too much. Actually, in both of those
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  instances, I tolerated things that I shouldn't have and
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  unfortunately, it came back to haunt us.
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  So what are the roles and responsibilities?
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  First off, we only kept our batons home or away in our big
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  black metal medicine kit Med kit for dual meets when we put out
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  multiple teams onto the track in each relay we bring lots of
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  batons, enough to make sure we had enough to fill fill the
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  lanes at those times. But for a big meet, we would
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  only bring 2, the two in the most pristine, unscratched,
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  undented condition. Sometimes I might bring a third
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  one that was hidden that they didn't know about because I just
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  wanted to be sure. But as far as the athletes knew,
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  we had two batons. They were always in the Med kit.
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  The lead off leg have the responsibility of getting the
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  baton, keeping possession of it and getting it to the starting
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  line on the track. It was the lead off legs
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  responsibility to be steady and reliable, AKA no fall starts,
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  and to set the stage by competing well and passing off
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  the baton very cleanly. Second leg had to get the relay
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  card from me, turn it into the clerk at the appropriate time.
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  If there were no relay cards, like at a dual meet, the second
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  leg shared the responsibility of the third leg that I'll describe
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  for you in just a minute. On the track, the role of the
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  second leg was to receive and give the baton smoothly and to
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  establish position. Second and third leg both had to
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  be good receivers and good at handing off.
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  Sometimes that helped dictate who got to be the lead off leg.
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  If they couldn't receive very well or for some reason the
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  anchor leg didn't hand off the baton very well, that got them
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  on the anchor leg more often than not.
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  The athletes were able to do all of those things just fine, and
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  it was able to be placed more on ability than anything else.
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  So second leg had to go out and establish that position for us.
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  Third leg's job off the track was to check uniforms and
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  jewelry to ensure that everyone was legal, properly equipped,
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  dressed legally on the track. The third leg also needed to
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  receive and give the baton smoothly in addition to being
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  what we called the first anchor, getting the baton into or near
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  the lead on that third leg. Third leg was a very important
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  leg and often overlooked some coaches at clinics.
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  I can remember Tony Veeny was a great speaker at clinics,
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  probably still is, and he talked about teams that had three
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  horses and a donkey or three studs and a dud.
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  And where do you, where do you put the donkey or where do you
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  put the dud? And we could talk about that all
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  day long in another situation. But just one of those things
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  that goes into the makeup of a relay team is figuring out how
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  to best deploy your personnel based on their ability.
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  So the anchor for the 4th legs job was to remain calm when
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  receiving the baton and then go compete.
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  Not to overthink, not to strategize, but compete as hard
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  as possible through that finish line.
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  After the race the anchor leg had the responsible
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  responsibility to personally return the baton to the Med kit
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  in a timely fashion because unless they were in the 4x4,
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  somebody else was going to need that baton before the meet was
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  over later on. So that fourth leg if if I had
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  been enforcing that. At the state.
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  Meet might not have gotten flicked down on the ground.
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  We didn't have that part in place yet.
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  That was in just my 4th year as a head coach.
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  Or more accurately, if I had stopped him from flicking the
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  baton and picking it back up off the nice bouncy track.
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  But it looked kind of cool. And I admit I kind of wanted to
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  do it myself. But I never did because I had
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  been had it instilled in me coming up as an athlete to honor
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  the baton. When the honor of the baton
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  culture was fully established and the roles and
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  responsibilities were made clear and enforced, it eliminated
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  nearly every, never every but nearly every issue that could
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  cause a disqualification. So do you have an honor of the
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  baton culture? What do you have, what kinds of
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  traditions do you have in place or what will you put in place
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  after hearing this particular talk?
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  Do your 4 relay legs have responsibilities off the track
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  or do you kind of trust them to figure it out on their own?
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  Or do you have coaches that are sort of micromanaging and
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  looking over everything that that happens, everything that's
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  done to be able to do that? I highly recommend that you go
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  ahead and establish both and honor the baton culture.
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  Push ups are great little motivator and that you have
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  those responsibilities lined up. It doesn't have to be the same
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  as what I had, but if you have something defined for them and
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  they know their job on that leg, things will go better for your
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  team as the. Show notes indicated this
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  episode was originally recorded in July of 2025, long before the
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  recent controversy in the news about disqualifications for what
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  was mentioned as taunting under the rules in the National High
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  School Federation. But what appeared to be a
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  celebration. So rather than go over what's
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  already been gone. Over a lot in social.
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  Media and newspapers and all over the place, really, millions
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  of views have taken place. What do we do?
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  How do we deal with that? How do we move forward in a way
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  that another controversy like this is not going to happen
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  again? And that's a very tough
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  question. So my thoughts are those within
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  the sport, athletic directors, coaches that have some influence
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  on state associations, work closely with their state
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  associations. If your state has an association
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  of officials to work with them as well so that everybody can
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  truly get on the same page. Because there's a huge
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  difference between taunting and celebration.
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  And if we look around other sports, I mean, after I coached
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  track for over 20 years, I became a volleyball coach and
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  there's a whole lot of celebration that could often be
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  considered taunting every time there's a mis serve, a ball that
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  goes out of play, other things that a team that's getting the
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  point of celebrating. And that that really is
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  different. And, and when we look at the the
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  big picture of college and professional sports and even
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  high school sports, all we see on all types of media are people
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  flexing and we see more bicuspids and tonsils than the
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  average dentist because people are yelling with their mouth
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  open after something good happens.
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  So this is a very sticky situation that happened there.
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  And I would say coaches just do the best that you can.
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  Again, like the first part of the episode mentioned, have a
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  system in place for yourself. Track should be fun.
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  Kids should be able to celebrate and not have to worry about
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  being disqualified. But also, there's no room for
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  taunting, for actual turning around, flexing in somebody's
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  face like has happened on the pro level that doesn't belong in
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  high school. So having the conversation over
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  and over again, not saying that anybody did anything wrong in
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  this one. I'm not talking about that.
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  I'm just talking about trying to move forward.
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  Using this as a springboard for conversation might be one of the
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  few ways that things can actually get changed.
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  And and again, lobbying for an understanding, getting education
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  for officials, that's one of the things that we're doing through
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  Kocho's education program. We've got officials and meet
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  management training programs. So find a place where that can
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  happen and see if we can't avoid ever having millions of views
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  for something controversial like this that that changes a huge
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  outcome for a bunch of young people that deserve better.
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  Thank you. So thank you for listening.
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  If you have an episode or two that you'd like to contribute to
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  the Youth or Beginner series powered by Coach O, or if you
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  have any feedback or questions, please contact me.
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  My e-mail address is clientrelationsnospacesnodotsoranythingclientrelations@coacho.com.
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  I would love to hear from you and hear what your struggles
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  are, what your successes are and how you plan to make life as a
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  relay coach go even better in this coming season.
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  Thanks for listening. Bye.
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  Bye. Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here.
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  Thanks for joining us for this episode in the Youth and
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  beginner series Powered by Coach O Powered by Coach O is more
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  than a platform. It's a movement to benefit track
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  and field by supporting coaches, athletes, parents, officials and
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  event directors in countless ways.
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  Find out more and get yourself plugged in to the Powered by
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