Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #321: Brian Sebera – Minnesota State University | Laughter, Wisdom & the Joy of Coaching

Transcript

#321: Brian Sebera – Minnesota State University | Laughter, Wisdom & the Joy of Coaching · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world UNL tuned
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in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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extraordinary message for Gil Athletics Connections.
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Welcome back here to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast.
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We have started another one here.
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We have 300 and something I've lost count even though it's
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right there in the title, what number it is, but I don't know
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what number it is when we hit record here.
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So super excited for you to join us here for another amazing,
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amazing individual who chooses to be a track and field coach.
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And I think we're going to have a lot of fun with this one.
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We we had a lot of laughs in our pre interview.
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So I'm super excited about this one.
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So let's get right into it. Help me welcome from the great
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Minnesota State University, the wise, the wonderful Mr. Brian
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Siberra. I was going to try the the real
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print. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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And then I was like, you know, let's just let's just go what I
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want. Brian, how are you doing today?
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My. Friend, I am so good.
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Yes, I'm excited for this opportunity.
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Yeah. So ready to go away and give you
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whatever whatever I go. Well, I know you're ready to go
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because halfway through our pre interview you were you started
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going into the story and I was like wait, wait, wait.
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That goal needs to be on wax. We got to record that man.
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Hold on, hold on. So I love it, man.
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How how are things going at Minnesota State?
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You know, I, you know, we, I think you're the third coach
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from Minnesota. It's like we've almost got the
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whole staff on here and you guys do just a wonderful job there.
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How's how's life there in you're in Mankato.
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Is that right? Yeah, yeah.
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How's life in Mankato, man? So very good.
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Really enjoying the time here. I've been here for going into
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Year 7 and working for Coach Sturgeon, who I've known for
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about 16 years. Oh really, and his amazing
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ability just to kind of again, keep us motivated and keep us at
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task is is kind of been what I've gravitated to quite a bit.
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But it's it's been an amazing experience.
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Coach Parnell, Coach held, Coach Blue, all their experiences
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really, again, learning from one another, that big circle, and
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then just the support, you know, from whether it's the department
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to the academic community to the community itself has been
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incredible. So that's cool.
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Yeah. This is probably been the most
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enjoyable stop along my path. Yeah, I love hearing that.
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You know, it's, it's one thing to have a track and field
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program and you know, of course, I encourage all universities and
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high schools and such to have a track and field program because
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it's so much bigger than just, you know, jumping and running
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and things like that. Like it's, it's overall good for
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your athletic department and it's overall good for your, your
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school. But if you're going to have a
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track and field program, I want you to support it.
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So I love hearing of the support, not just from, you
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know, your staff, coach Turgeon being a Guild podcast lump,
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Coach Pardo being a Guild podcast lump.
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So I love that you have that support with the staff.
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But to hear like, oh, the university, the athletic
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department, like we, we get support.
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That's again, if you're going to have a track and field program,
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support it and you'll have so many more things.
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So that's cool, man. Well, I'm looking forward to
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hearing how you got to Minnesota State and you said you've done
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coach Sturgeon for 16 years. That's going to be interesting
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because you've only been in Minnesota State for six.
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So before before we get there, I feel like I got a hold you, but
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you're just like I. Love it man, I.
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Love, your energy is infectious here.
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Let's get into our Wayback Machine here and find out more
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about you. Brian, you know, assuming you
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were an athlete, and that's not a great assumption, we've had
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plenty of coaches that were not athletes that turn into great
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track and field coaches. Where does track and field start
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for you? So my gosh, mine, my experience
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with track and field, my opportunity with track and field
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really started so many years ago and I'm probably only 7 or 8,
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but living in a small country, Lesotho, within the country of
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South Africa within there. And I remember vividly, because
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I remember, I tell my, my, my kids, even my parents, I
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remember having all this, all the students come out.
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They had all the students come out.
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They put us against the fence and we had to run.
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I don't know if it was 100 or 80 yards, whatever it was.
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And then they kind of pick the students out of the fastest.
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And so I remember having that experience and remember being
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pulled aside is one of the fastest and then kind of going
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mad like this is this is fun, this is something I can do.
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And again, nothing really came of it from there.
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You just kind of ran it. You ran in in whatever little
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games and track meets that they kind of put on.
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And then nothing came of it until I got to Toronto, Canada
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and then really dove in on a club standpoint.
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So so the name of the country again, Lasoto.
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Lasoto. Lasoto.
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What year? How old were you when you left
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Lasoto? So just.
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What was I, maybe 7-8? So as much as you can remember
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that that's a fairly young age. So you have all excuses to not
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remember much. What was the culture of track
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and field in Lesotho? And what I mean by that is like,
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at that age, like, did you guys know about like, oh, I don't
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know what year it is, but I'm just going to make up famous
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names like, oh, Michael Johnson, Carl Lewis and or yeah.
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It wasn't like that. It was just, and I would say it
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was even more like physical education, your physical
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education course. And then they have all the
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students and they have, you know, whatever their, their
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games for the year like. Yeah, yeah, like a field day
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type of thing. Kind of thing.
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And then you just go out there and you're lined up with all
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these kids, yeah, from different classes, different, and they're
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your age mates, but you don't know them.
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And then you run and then they kind of pick out, oh, this kids,
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this kid just. Yeah.
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So you guys didn't really know much or think, and I should say
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more, think much, not know much, think much about like the
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Olympics and things like you guys were at this age, this age
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as much as you can remember. It was like, oh man, we just
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like to run from light pole to light pole.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you moved from Lesoto to
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Canada? Yeah, yeah.
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So initially we ended up in Lesoto because we were escaping
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genocide. So my dad's from Rwanda and at
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the time his country was going through genocide and we had
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applied for citizenship in the states.
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We did not get citizens, different states.
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So then at that point we had to think of other things.
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And we were living in Kenya at the time.
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I was born in Uganda, but we were living in Kenya at the
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time. And so the furthest we could get
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away from Rwanda and some of the things that were happening was
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Lesotho. So we ended up in in South
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Africa until we could figure figure out things.
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And then what happening at that point was we had received
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citizenship in Canada. And in January or February or
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sometime when it was cold and freezing, we flew to Canada,
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landed in Canada. And, you know, there it all
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began. My parents kind of got
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themselves situated and settled and then and then obviously
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afforded me the opportunity to kind of, you know, be involved
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and do things. Yeah.
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Now, I'm well aware that this is a track and field podcast.
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However, my curiosity just you know, I just, I have a billion
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questions. You're about, excuse me, you're
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about 7:00 or 8:00 when you moved to Canada?
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Yeah, about, about maybe a little bit older, yeah.
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About this, but still young. I mean, you know, not like a
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teenager or anything. You're you're, you're a kid for
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sure, right? We could, I mean, what I can't
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imagine, like I'm just putting myself in your shoes and as a
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little kid, you're moving here to there.
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You know, maybe at that age you didn't know everything that was
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going on. You know, as parents, we
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sometimes protect our kids as far as what we tell them, you
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know, maybe why we're moving or why we're not moving.
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But you go from, you know, the continent of Africa, a lot of
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different countries in there to Canada.
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And I love how you the first thing you said was in the middle
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of the cold like so there's a stark difference in weather
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language, are you? Forgive me if this is an
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insensitive question. Are you speaking English at this
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age? At this age, I would say that I
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was a sponge. So at this age it was just
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amalgamation of things. My parents were teachers, so my
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mother actually English and living in Kenya, you kind of, I
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started my primaries and started school in Kenya and living in
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Kenya, you kind of went back and forth speaking Swahili and then
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speaking English. And so I had my home language
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from Uganda, had Swahili that I picked up along the way.
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English I was learning and kind of picking up as I kind of moved
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and shifted. And then I picked up a Zulu
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language and I was in the continent of Lesotho.
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So I kind of picked up all these because I was embedded in
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school. I was embedded in community.
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I was in, you know, involved. And then I got to Canada and it
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was, you know, I was in ESL classes to, you know, figure out
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English still because I obviously hadn't learned that
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formally. And so there was a lot of
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learning. But then again, I still remember
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some of the things vividly because I was, you know,
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present. I was, you know, going from one
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country to the next, moving, you know, at the middle of the night
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and fleeing to, you know, So those things are vivid and even
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discussions that I have with my parents now about some of the
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things that, you know, were taking place at the time.
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And. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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So. So yeah, I ended up in Canada.
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And then there's kind of, you know, again, like I said, we got
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settled. My mother went back to school,
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became a nurse. My father kind of, he worked
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jobs to help assist mother in doing that.
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And then he kind of went his way and.
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And to support us and then at the during that time, it was
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then, you know, track clubs and basketball and different things
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that we were, you know, just kind of thrown into.
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Yeah, it was busy. How I mean, I again, just put
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myself in your shoes. I would have been just
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terrified, just scared. You know, I, I had a like to
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think of just the language barrier first and foremost, you
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know, I, I'm very privileged, born and raised in America.
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So, you know, 99.9% of all my experiences are speaking
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English. Even though I'm from Alabama, I
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still speak English well enough that people understand.
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I had a real like, like this altered my life in a, in a
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positive manner to help me, you know, empathize and see other
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sides of things. I was in Costa Rica a few years
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ago, actually, it might have been 2020 now that I think about
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it. And I found a, you know, I'm a,
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I was a college track coach for 10 years.
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I've been at Gill for 19. Well, one year in between those
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as a professional poker player. So I still enjoy playing poker.
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So I found a local casino that had poker.
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Now this was a local, there's not a tourist casino.
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This was a local. So I sit down with, you know,
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7-8 other people and they're all speaking Spanish.
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They're not speaking English at all.
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And I remember just like, oh man, is this like when, when I'm
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in, you know, I used to live in Vegas when I'm in, lived in
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Vegas or now and you know, someone who speaks, sits down
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from Asia or Africa or Mexico and there's, you know, their,
10:43
their native language is not English.
10:44
So maybe they don't understand English all the way.
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Is this how they feel? Because I felt, I felt dumb, to
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be honest with you, you know, normal things that I would do
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easily, like, you know, betting or asking, you know, how much
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or, you know, asking a question felt like the hardest thing in
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the world. And it, it really like, you
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know, there's a little fear, not fear of like getting hurt.
11:02
I guess I probably fear about like being stupid, like I'm
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going to say or do something dumb, you know, But I, it really
11:08
like made me think about like individuals that come to this
11:10
country who don't speak English all that well, like, Oh my God,
11:14
like how scared you must be. And then that's not right, you
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know, That's like I, I, I have such a heart for that now.
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Yeah. And I will say, and I think like
11:23
you go through those things and I think those things that in in
11:25
most cases made me a more understanding individual.
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I think the biggest thing for me was the experience that I had
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prior to that. I mean, I think living in Uganda
11:32
where you are living amongst you're, you know, you're living
11:35
against Asian, you're living amongst Asians, everyone's from
11:38
everywhere kind of in the area that we lived in, in Jinja,
11:40
there living in Kenya, which again, another just very, very
11:46
diverse area for me. I think those experiences, if
11:49
anything, taught me just how to live amongst other individuals.
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And then as a result, I think I mean, there's still like, I call
11:55
it identity crisis where you're kind of battling with where do I
12:01
want to fit in the group? How do I do this without
12:05
essentially, you know, tarnishing or leaving my, you
12:08
know, culture or that piece behind?
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And so I had those instances where whether it was like hip
12:15
hop music, my friends like to listen to hip hop music.
12:18
Should I listen to hip hop music because I want to fit in?
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I need to, you know, maybe the way I speak and I even speak
12:23
about it like this when I tell my wife, me and my brother, me
12:26
and my brother Felix, he was born in Kenya.
12:29
Even my brother Aggie, when we move from certain places to
12:31
other other countries, I could notice that we could pick up
12:35
whether it was vocal intonation or a certain just phrases or
12:40
thing how things are said. My brother moved to both of my
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brothers moved to North Carolina and I remember going there to
12:45
visit them and immediately they had like southern draw.
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But a lot of it was just their ability to like acclimate to.
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So I think a lot of a lot of what we've experienced allowed
12:55
us to kind of say, OK, you know what, when we're in certain
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situations when I was in Canada and I need to speak a certain
13:00
way to fit into a certain group, I could do that.
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You know, when I moved to the States, I needed to make changes
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when everyone was saying, hey, you're saying, hey, you're from
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Canada. And I'm like, what are you
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talking about? I have no clue.
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It was one of those things where, you know, you start
13:13
making those just iterations and changes to fit in.
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So then you kind of have like what again, what I call identity
13:18
crisis, where you're just saying, hey, just do what I need
13:21
to to fit in. And like you said, sometimes
13:24
it's sad because I go like when I moved to Canada, I went to ESL
13:27
classes. A lot of it was to get rid of
13:29
just kind of shift my accent properly if you want to say
13:32
that. But then when I listen to my
13:34
cousins or my uncle speaking now and I'm going, gosh, that's a
13:38
part of me that I wish I could share with my children because
13:41
they look at me and they just, they don't know any other part
13:43
of me. But you know who I am now.
13:44
So. So, yeah, I think there's there
13:46
was here, you're sitting, you're in front of a classroom and
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you're about to present something and you don't want to
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say it, you know, You know, you don't want to say it with an
13:55
accent. You don't want to.
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Yeah. I had that experience as a 45
13:59
year old adult, as a 10 year old, 13 year like you, you
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nailed it. You know, when we're young and
14:05
even when we're old, because it's actually kind of maybe
14:08
coded in our DNA, You know, back when, you know, we were tuk tuk
14:11
and you know, running the caves. Well, you know, if you didn't
14:14
fit in you, you got you died. You'd.
14:17
Eat you. Know things like that, right.
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So it that's still kind of ingrained with us that we want
14:20
to fit in and that's important today is 40 and 50 year olds
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like me, but also more so in today's, not today's society, in
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society as a 13 year old, 15 year old, like you don't, you
14:32
know, we don't want to be the odd man out.
14:33
We want to be part of a group. And so trying to find that
14:36
identity super hard, trying to find that identity when you
14:39
don't understand slang and tonalities and accents.
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Like I just boy, I just you are you and, and other people like
14:52
yourself, brother, way stronger than you get credit for on it
14:57
just for that. I mean, that is, I said that's
14:59
terrifying, terrifying, terrifying, terrifying.
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Well, thank you for that. I, I appreciate that.
15:03
That's interesting. It's part of your story, part of
15:05
your journey. So I think it's important for us
15:06
to to share that. I appreciate you being willing
15:08
to, to, to share that with us. OK, so I heard you're, you're in
15:13
Canada, you're a teenager. So we're in high school, it's
15:18
Canada. So grade, grade, grade nine,
15:20
grade 10 or whatever. You know, they say Speaking of,
15:23
you know, regional decisions and how you speak, but and you're
15:27
doing, how did you get into track?
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Because I heard you say running and track and things like that.
15:30
How did how did track get into it?
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Well, basically I think when I got to Canada and then I was the
15:35
one thing that I found myself just identifying and being able
15:38
to like settle in and just basically appropriate myself
15:43
with culture and everything else was sport.
15:46
So anything to do with sport, I realized I was just extremely
15:49
talented and I can just pick it up and do it.
15:51
Whether it was my friends were gonna play hockey.
15:54
OK, let me. Think about that do.
15:57
This thing, right, basketball, whatever it might be.
16:00
So then I was just kind of all over the place and doing so many
16:03
different things. And then a friend of mine at one
16:06
point was just like, you know, like, why don't you try this
16:09
track and field thing? And I went out and I mean, at
16:12
the time again, it was just like it was almost in, in South
16:15
Africa, but it was like here, the broad jump, just stand here
16:18
and jump as far as you can. And I jumped everybody.
16:20
And then it was kind of, you know, Oh my gosh, this is
16:23
something I should be doing. And so then from there, myself,
16:27
myself, my mother, my brothers pointed me in the direction of a
16:33
certain clubs that they had in the area.
16:34
But we kind of talked about it and me and my brothers joined
16:38
and we joined Brampton Track Club just outside of Toronto and
16:44
loved our experience there and obviously then at that point
16:47
became track nerds. You want to call it that?
16:50
So did you graduate from Canadian high school?
16:53
Yeah. Yeah, so finished.
16:55
All four years. So help us understand because
16:59
you mentioned a track club and that's not foreign to us.
17:01
Like we know track clubs, but my recollection is we don't really
17:05
have track and field in the high schools like we do here in the
17:09
States. Maybe we have it indoor.
17:11
Maybe you're going to give us a little history here.
17:14
But really, if you're doing track and field in Canada,
17:16
you're you're doing it for a club, correct?
17:18
Yeah. So they did have track and field
17:21
in the high school, but generally most students that
17:24
wanted to do it and really be good at it.
17:27
The club environment club scene was probably the scene that they
17:31
got involved in. So we met a man by the name of
17:33
Frank Buca who just retired this last year on coach Brampton
17:37
Pride Club forever, but was my coach and me and my brothers as
17:41
well. And we signed up, my parents
17:44
signed us up and we were doing that basically throughout the
17:48
year. And they had some indoor season
17:50
things that they did into the outdoor season or summer months.
17:55
Sorry, in the spring we would still have our a high school
18:00
track, if you want to call it that, where we would compete
18:02
with our high school team and go to track meets and whatnot.
18:06
But then we would still have that, that club piece attached
18:09
to it, yes. So, so it's not like the states
18:12
where, you know, we are Mankato Tigers High School and that's,
18:18
you know, that's our identity. And then we may do track in the
18:21
summer or basketball club or something.
18:23
So it's more club culture than. High school, yeah.
18:28
And I would say like now maybe things have changed quite a bit.
18:30
Again, I'm, I'm holding and not to date myself, but, but I think
18:36
the culture has definitely changed quite a bit.
18:38
I think there's still more, there's probably more done now
18:41
at the high school level with, you know, coaches.
18:43
And obviously there's some different things in terms of how
18:45
monies are appropriated to coaches there versus here in the
18:48
States and then even facilities and some and some of those
18:51
things. So track clubs generally are the
18:53
way to go out there and most athletes are, are, are
18:57
affiliated with track clubs. And then again, if there's some,
19:00
if there's an opportunity in high school, you'd do it.
19:02
You know, otherwise they kind of just leave that alone.
19:05
And it's, yeah, it's, it's mainly that track club thing
19:07
that's really kind of the big scene.
19:08
So you mentioned you were athletic.
19:10
So you I love that you did ice hockey because I grew up in
19:12
Alabama. Hockey wasn't even in my
19:15
definition. When I moved from South to
19:16
north, I was like, Oh yeah, that's right.
19:17
People play that because we we didn't play that down South.
19:20
That's that's a whole different that that was a whole different
19:23
sport. Didn't know anything about it.
19:25
So athletic, doing hockey, other sports, things like that.
19:28
What drew you to track? Like what made what made track
19:32
the main? I'm hearing that it's the main
19:33
sport. You may correct me there, but
19:35
what what? What was it about?
19:37
Track Well, I think as you you mentioned it a little bit
19:39
earlier, I think there was a certain point where, you know,
19:43
brothers were involved, were doing at the club level, were
19:45
doing at the high school level. And then you're watching
19:49
Olympics, you're watching some diamond leagues things or things
19:52
that are going on around the world.
19:53
And Donovan Bailey was a big one for us.
19:56
Johnson Some of the folks that came came through at that time
20:00
and then you're watching those Lynnford Christie's the I'm just
20:04
trying to think of athletes from the past, but but you're
20:07
watching some of those. Some of those historic athletes
20:11
do their thing and the million brothers just got caught into
20:13
it. And it was just whether my
20:15
brother ran distance at the University of North Carolina.
20:17
So whether it was 800 meter runners, 1500 mile or whatever
20:22
it might be that we are following them, we're watching
20:25
them. Whatever crack meets where we
20:26
are traveling to, to try to see whatever we could see and just
20:29
learn more about the sport. And then obviously with the
20:33
meets that we were part of, we were so embedded, you know, my
20:35
dad would drop us off, we'd finish our our, our events at a
20:40
certain point of the day. And it's like, dad, we don't
20:41
want to go home yet. We want to hang out and just
20:43
watch a little bit more. So a lot of again, what you
20:46
said, watching it on television, you know, seeing Donovan
20:50
Bailey's, seeing the, you know, again, the Ben Johnson, the
20:55
folks that went on and and did some amazing things for Canada,
20:57
but also things that were happening, you know, with, you
21:01
know, track and field with Linford Christie, the all over
21:05
the world that we're just doing it at a high level just just
21:07
caught our attention and really just became our place to be.
21:12
So the way you're telling that story sounds like, excuse me,
21:18
you're, you're very assimilated into Canadian culture and Canada
21:22
because like, and it certainly has changed, you know, here in
21:25
the last five years. Like I'm thinking about athletes
21:28
from the continent of Africa. You know, there's like, they're
21:32
good. They've always been good, but
21:33
now it seems like there's a lot of them that are good.
21:36
But you're mentioning the guys, with the exception of Linford
21:39
Christie, very Canadian people. Was your, did you ever like have
21:45
a mind like, hey, who's running for South Africa or who's
21:47
running for Kenya? Anything like that or yeah.
21:50
And that was part of it too, because a lot of it was my dad
21:55
wanting to see what, you know, certain Africans were doing at
22:00
some of these championships, you know, so it would be, you know,
22:02
we're tuning in and we're turning in, yes.
22:04
And we're following, you know, Canadians that are in this race.
22:07
We're following maybe the popular Americans that are in
22:09
this race. But then you're you have your
22:12
favorite, but then it's like, you know, what's the individual
22:15
from Cameroon or the individual from Botswana are going to do,
22:19
you know, when you're kind of hoping that maybe, you know, And
22:22
then even again, we lived in Kenya and if there was a Ugandan
22:25
in there, obviously Rwanda at the time didn't have many
22:27
athletes, but now a lot more trailer in there.
22:30
But every, anytime you have someone that you could, you
22:33
know, somewhat connect to, like that part of it drew us.
22:36
So it was not, again, not just the Canadian part of it, but it
22:38
was also like that, you know, part of it where we're just like
22:42
fascinated by, OK, the athletes that, you know, maybe represent
22:46
the continent and. Yeah.
22:49
This is kind of related, but not really, but it's a story I kind
22:51
of wanted to get out there because this literally happened
22:53
yesterday. You know, it's interesting to
22:55
athletes that like transcend track nerd them, you know, as
22:59
track nerds. We know, you know every athlete,
23:01
but you know, they're when the average Joe, the average public
23:04
Joe knows someone in our sport, you know they've transcended the
23:08
sport, right? So you think of Carl Lewis,
23:09
Donovan Bailey's, those guys. Those guys did transcend, right?
23:12
Usain Bolt, of course, right As yesterday I was on the phone
23:17
with a guy who's not a track guy, not a, not even a
23:21
necessarily a sports guy. It's actually, it's actually a
23:25
guy who works in like marketing and SEO and social media and
23:29
things like that. And we're connected through
23:32
podcasts and stuff. So he was just talking to me and
23:34
ask me how my job's going and track and all that.
23:36
And he goes, yeah, he goes, you know, been fascinating watching,
23:39
you know, some things. And I've heard about this kid
23:41
named Gal Gal. And I was like, it really.
23:45
Like I was like, cuz you know, Gal Gout's good.
23:48
I'm not taking anything away from, but he's not, you know,
23:49
he's 1 Olympic gold or anything. But I was like, wow.
23:53
I was like, here's this, this is an average Joe I'm talking to
23:56
and he knows Gout Gout's name like that, that really kind of
24:00
like and and you know, then you start wondering like, well, how
24:02
much do you know some factors that are out of our control,
24:04
like him having a name Gout Gout, like does that help?
24:08
You know, it helped Bolt to be, you know, obviously, but it
24:11
added more that his name was Bolt for crying out loud, right.
24:14
But it just, it was just kind of like, wow, I was like, I don't
24:16
think this dude would know any track athlete from Africa at
24:20
all. And here he is telling me about
24:22
Gow cow. And I was like a little bit I
24:24
was like, how you know that guy, mate?
24:25
Like that was just just interesting.
24:27
I don't know. It's not really pertaining to
24:28
the story, I thought. It was, I think you're right.
24:30
I think I mean the way I mean back then, I mean I think
24:33
remember just jumping on, sitting in front of ATV, you're
24:36
waiting for it to be turned on. You're waiting for the Olympics,
24:38
you're waiting for certain time periods.
24:40
So you only knew the athletes again if you were really a heavy
24:43
follower. Now it's like with the scope of
24:46
a social media really, you know, puts I mean, I again gout gout.
24:51
I wouldn't have heard of him unless I mean, obviously I'm
24:53
coaching a a minute, but on social media feeds you see him
24:56
all the time with so it's it's a very different time you get.
25:01
And it like I said, I think it helps that he has that unique
25:03
name, right? Like if he had, you know, if his
25:05
name was, you know, Joe Williams, it's like, you know,
25:08
some guy named Joe, you know, it's like, not only gout is
25:10
cool, but guess what? That's both gout.
25:13
You know, it's like, that's kind of cool.
25:14
It's easy to say like no one calls him.
25:16
It's so interesting when I listen to like Justin Gatlin on
25:20
Ready Set Go and some other podcast, no one refers to him as
25:23
gout because that's his like, you know, like you would talk
25:25
about, Oh, there's a Barrow, you know, or there's a the Lyles,
25:31
you know, Noah, no one, you know, you have to say both names
25:34
for some reason. You have to say.
25:35
You have to say gout. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:36
So otherwise no one knows what you're talking.
25:39
About gout. Who's gout?
25:40
Gout gout. Yeah, yeah, so dumb.
25:43
That's the way. All right, OK, so tell me, say
25:46
in high school, we're getting real close to move to the next
25:47
level here. So what is your relationship
25:49
with coach? Are you, you know, cuz spoiler
25:52
alert, you become a track coach. So, and we're going to find out
25:54
here soon if coaching is in your brain at all at this point, but
25:58
at least something is ticking there because you know, maybe
26:01
there's a little seed that gets there because it grows.
26:03
You become a coach. What's your relationship with
26:05
with with coaches? I don't see this overall, like
26:08
all my experiences, whether it was basketball, whether it was,
26:11
you know, a little football in there, baseball to track.
26:17
I think all my experiences were very, very, very, very, like,
26:21
just very, very good, wholesome experiences in terms of like
26:26
just having coaches that were just willing to work with you,
26:28
just willing to just show you, teach you things and and move
26:31
you along. And I think that sparred some
26:34
things in me and, and, and really got me excited about just
26:37
being around it, you know, just for eternity, right.
26:42
So I'd say that's like Frank Buka, who was small, little
26:47
short Italian dude that coach and went to NC State with a
26:52
sprinter there. He'd be on his megaphone again.
26:54
At the time, he might have been in the 60s and now he's, you
26:57
know, 80s, nineties, but he'd be on his megaphone and he'd yell
27:02
at you when your next Rep was up.
27:04
And he would, you know, and it was just a very just methodical
27:07
way of moving through it. You could tell he was just
27:09
comfortable with coaching and just how he maneuvered kids from
27:12
point A to point B in terms of his teaching acumen.
27:16
And that part of it just got me, you know, and got us me and my
27:19
brothers, you know, and that's kind of just got into track and
27:23
field in that in that fashion, got so close to it.
27:26
And even my brother who doesn't coach but took has taken some
27:30
coaching credential courses. A lot of it is just, you know,
27:34
be based on the fact that we loved the way he thought through
27:37
training, you know, through how an athlete again should move
27:42
from, you know, again, point A to point BI.
27:45
Love that visual of this. You know, you said short Italian
27:49
guy with a megaphone. You're about it.
27:53
You run it. You just ran A-150 and you're
27:55
like, Oh my gosh. And he gives you the rest time
27:57
and you're walking back to your point and you're just going.
28:00
I really hope he does. I don't want to hear him on the
28:02
megaphone. Yeah, so turn that megaphone.
28:03
I hope the batteries die. Yeah, we need.
28:05
More recovery and then he's just like, hey guys, you're up and
28:08
you're just OK, let's go I. Love that.
28:12
All right. So you finish, I think in Canada
28:14
we do Grade 13, right, if I remember?
28:16
Yeah, at the time they had OEC, they called it OEC Ontario
28:19
Academic Curriculum or something of that nature just in
28:21
preparation for college, but. So you start thinking about
28:25
college. Talk to us about what you're
28:27
thinking about. What did you think about
28:28
majoring in And at this age, you know, 1718, nineteen years old,
28:32
what were you thinking of becoming?
28:35
You're gonna become a business owner, international business
28:38
guy. You got a lot of experience
28:39
there. I'm gonna become a translator.
28:41
What were you thinking at that age that you were gonna become,
28:43
and how did you get to college? I was just like any other high
28:46
school kid, thinking like, I'm gonna be an Olympian.
28:49
I'm gonna be the superstar athlete.
28:51
You kind of had these grand, you know, and at the time you kind
28:54
of, you look back at it and you kind of go, OK, hold on.
28:56
Like I'm just, I'm a subpar athlete.
28:58
Like I'm not, I gotta figure this out.
29:01
I gotta think about it a little bit more.
29:02
So the thought process for me was really OK.
29:05
My parents, I came up, I grew up in a home with both parents
29:08
where they were both pushing academics, traditional African
29:11
family. It's like, I don't care how fast
29:13
you run. What were your grades?
29:15
I don't care. But you scored this many points.
29:17
What were your grades? So at that point it was kind of
29:20
like, OK, I have to figure this out and I'm go, I have to go to
29:23
college and I have to get a degree of some sort.
29:26
And so school was going to be, you know, a big part of of this
29:30
whole thing. You know, track could be there.
29:32
And as I sought out schools and I looked at looked at
29:34
institutions and looked at places, I was looking for an
29:37
opportunity with track. But the school thing was the one
29:41
thing that my parents, you know, prefaced and really made as
29:45
really placed importance on. I got contacted and spoke with,
29:51
you know, one I consider a mentor, but obviously a good
29:54
friend and someone that believed in me in terms of coaching and,
29:57
and moving myself into this. And I can get into that later.
29:59
But he called me up and I remember I had sent an e-mail or
30:03
some sort saying that I was interested in running track and
30:06
field. And he said that I have a spot
30:07
for you, you know, and when I came up to Saint Cloud, he had a
30:11
spot kind of kept his and had a place for me.
30:14
And I joined the program and just kind of went from there,
30:16
you know? So what were you thinking about
30:20
besides the Olympics or the JV Olympics even, you know?
30:23
I I. Need the JV of the JV Olympics
30:25
if I was ever going to make it. What were you thinking about?
30:27
Like, oh, I'm going to go major in XYZ because I'm going to
30:29
become. So I got there and I was like,
30:31
business, they're coming on and I was going to, you know, go
30:35
into business and, and go that route.
30:37
And then obviously, like most students, I got settled in, got
30:41
an understanding of how academia works and in the States and
30:45
decided, OK, you know, what business was not a thing that I
30:49
was really interested in anymore.
30:50
And, and so then at that point had made the necessary changes,
30:54
made the necessary shifts in in path and decided on sports
30:58
management and recreational therapy as, as paths to kind of
31:02
go into just the kept me around athletics.
31:04
And that's kind of the biggest thing that was kind of what was
31:06
important to me at that point in time.
31:08
And I remember stories that my mother tells even now how there
31:11
was times where she knew that coaching was probably going to,
31:14
to be in my in, or just being in round athletics was going to be
31:18
in my, in my future. When, you know, there was times
31:21
where you know, hockey games going on there in Game 7 or game
31:25
six of the playoffs or the Toronto Blue Jays are playing
31:28
and they're in they're in the World Series and we have to go
31:31
to bed cuz it's school night. And I sneak back down to watch.
31:35
And a lot of it for me, it's not even necessarily that I ever
31:37
wanted to play baseball or play hockey at a, but it was just
31:41
like, I think I could get lost in just some of the chess
31:45
matches that were taking place behind the scenes with coaches.
31:50
This lineup, that lineup, if we do this, if we do that, what
31:53
could happen if you? And even now, I think when I
31:56
watch basketball, it's always watching it.
31:57
I never watch the teams cuz it's not teams that I naturally care
32:00
about, but it's more about like, what is this coach gonna do?
32:04
So I think a lot of those things were evident early on, and my
32:06
mother would tell and still tells me to this day, Like when
32:09
I saw you sneaking or catch you sneaking down to finish a
32:13
baseball game or, you know, at that point it became evident to
32:15
me that this is something that we're going to feature.
32:17
Yeah. I'm amazed that more than one,
32:22
several times in a coach's journey, they'll tell me about
32:26
how, you know, playing video games and playing, you know,
32:29
incidentally, football or whatever, and they would play
32:31
the coaches mode. So you'd recruit and you'd call
32:33
play and that they just love that.
32:36
And it's like, man, what a precursor, what a little seed.
32:39
You're doing exactly what you're doing today, but you're doing a
32:41
video game for that. So it's interesting.
32:43
So I'm not hearing as you're looking at schools and it seems
32:46
like academics was first and track and athletics was second,
32:50
but still important to you. But I'm not hearing like, oh,
32:52
cuz you started in business. I'm not hearing like, oh, I want
32:55
to become a coach. I'm not hearing that at this
32:57
point in, in your, in your journey.
32:59
Well. Cuz I still wasn't like, I guess
33:01
I didn't. I knew I wanted to be around
33:03
athletics. I just didn't know what capacity
33:04
and what that look. I had no understanding of what
33:07
vision. I it was one of those things
33:10
where I thought I'm gonna finish up here.
33:11
I'm gonna head back to Canada and I don't even, you know, I
33:15
don't know what I'll be doing. I'll figure it out.
33:17
That kind of thing. It it's amazing.
33:20
I mean, this is more than half. This is a majority of the
33:24
coaches that we speak to that even though the job is right in
33:27
front of them, like, you know, there's a coach in front of
33:30
this. That's someone who has a job
33:32
that's coaching. How many people for, I mean,
33:35
many year, like, not until college or even after college
33:38
realize like, oh, wait a minute, I could do that.
33:41
Like maybe that could be my job. Like, you know, there, even
33:43
though it's right in front of you, it's being modeled to you,
33:46
you still don't realize like, oh, that that guy or gal's
33:48
getting paid like that's a that's a real job.
33:50
I could become that job. You know, it's just it's
33:52
interesting that way. OK, so you go to Saint Cloud
33:55
State University. Yeah, boy in Minnesota.
33:57
So oh boy. So you OK?
33:58
I'm starting to see a theme already, but here's.
34:00
Where we are in Minnesota. So you go to say Cloud, you
34:03
start with business and realize that maybe that's not for me.
34:05
I want to be around athletics and start doing sports
34:08
management. How Talk to me about your
34:09
college career in regards to relationship with coach and
34:12
athletics and did you keep Mama proud to keep your grades up and
34:16
things like that? No, so I did what I needed to
34:18
do. I mean, from an academic
34:19
standpoint, I think that part of it was obviously drilled in and
34:23
one thing that was, you know, definitely reminded to me, you
34:27
know, my phone calls, whatever it might be.
34:30
And then I had a great, I mean, Seth Mischke, who was a head
34:35
coach now he's coaching at Emporia, but was a head coach,
34:39
head coach when I had jumped in in there.
34:44
And he was just an awesome. Again, I again, I when I say,
34:49
when I think about all my coaches and I think about just
34:51
watching someone and just sitting on the sideline and just
34:54
watching the maneuver and how they think through things and
34:56
how they put things together. He was awesome because I learned
35:00
so much about just kind of sitting back and allowing things
35:04
to kind of play out and then take form and then interject
35:07
and, you know, it was just it, it was very, again, just very
35:11
methodical in its own way, you know, But he, he coached me.
35:15
I had a good experience there. Again, like I was in this
35:17
tremendous athlete, but he gave me an opportunity and I went
35:22
there and I met people cuz part of this is growth.
35:25
You know, when you think about, when I think about athletics and
35:27
I think about it even now in the program that I'm in as, as an
35:30
assistant, I think about how track and field grew me as a
35:36
into the man that I am today. And and it sounds cliche, but
35:39
there's just a lot of different things that you can take from it
35:42
that you can apply to life. And so in that experience, I
35:46
learned a lot from him. He was a young coach, but in
35:50
those opportunities that he had to teach me and I had
35:53
opportunities to coach me, I think I was able to kind of sit
35:57
there and soak in a lot. And then I'll see the
35:59
friendships, the the team, the team that he had built, the
36:03
things that he kind of put together and constructed for us
36:06
to, you know, achieve what we want to achieve or even fail and
36:09
understand what failure was. I think those things were huge
36:13
in that experience and the time that I spent there.
36:16
Tell me a story. Obviously Sean had a big
36:19
influence on you and the sport did right and I think you nailed
36:23
it. You know, I'm sure band and oh
36:31
gosh, I'm glad my daughter doesn't listen to the podcast.
36:33
What do you call it when you're on state acting and stuff?
36:35
There's a theater. Theater, Yeah.
36:38
My daughter's my daughter's big into theater and Oh my God,
36:41
cast. One day you're going to be
36:42
listening to this. You're going to be 30 years old.
36:43
I am so sorry. I could not think of theater,
36:45
but I'm sure I know they have life lessons because again, my
36:48
daughter's in theater in a band, My son's in band and is in
36:52
competitive bass fishing things. So I know they're but in sport,
36:56
yeah, I think you're you're right.
36:57
Not only in regards to the sport itself.
36:59
You know, you have failures, you have positivities, you have
37:02
setbacks, you have windfalls, but you have a coach or coaches
37:06
that are also guiding you and you're seeing them be an
37:09
imperfect. They make mistakes and and
37:11
they're there for you when you know things are off the track
37:14
are not great or good for you. Tell me a story of of an impact
37:19
he made on you. Like whether is you know, it
37:21
could be a funny story. You know, someone day told you,
37:24
I don't know, whatever pulled you aside and was like, hey,
37:27
your mom called me, you got to be in English and that's not
37:30
acceptable or something, you know, and.
37:33
I think mine would be more so from this and mine would be more
37:36
about like his, his ability to say things and be loud even in
37:41
silence, you know? Yeah, what's that mean?
37:44
And again, I'd say like I remember being a student
37:47
stepping in his office. I think there was a semester
37:48
where my grades we're not the best and I was, you know,
37:52
potentially going to be on the verge of being ineligible the
37:54
next time. Wow, really?
37:56
That That surprises. Me.
37:59
Yes. Did mom?
37:59
Did mom disown you like this? Doesn't sound like Mom would.
38:02
Oh my God, with another story. That's another podcast how mom
38:06
handled that right. And I told my kid, I even told
38:10
my kids, I told the kid my kids those stories like no, grandma
38:13
wasn't always this like I'll. Buy Yeah, yeah, yeah.
38:15
She was my grandma. She was my mom.
38:16
That's different. It's very different.
38:19
Why is grandma always smiling though?
38:20
She's always happy. No, I don't.
38:24
Oh gosh, no. But I remember him calling me in
38:27
my into his office regarding some of my academic issues and
38:31
whatnot. And it was just very like the
38:35
way he moved through the conversation was just very stoic
38:37
and just kind of like this, you know, hard and thought, you
38:41
know, tell you kind of this is kind of what we're dealing with.
38:44
This is what we have in front of us.
38:45
This is what we have to tackle in front of us.
38:48
And then he would just kind of go back into his thinking and
38:51
then just kind of give you another, you know, little
38:54
sentence and then go back into thinking.
38:56
And then you leave there and you kind of go, gosh, like, I don't
39:00
know, like, you know, what does it all mean?
39:02
How do I unpack this? But I think in that in that
39:05
conversation, in that one opportunity to sit there and
39:08
think and sit there in his office and take that information
39:11
from him, I think I learned a lot about just how to like just
39:17
persevere and work through things and push through things
39:19
just because you you go, OK, He sat there.
39:23
He told me the things that I have to fix, the things that I
39:27
have to get, you know, in order in my life in order for me to
39:31
like make this. And then at the time track and
39:34
field is like, I guess in some, in some instance, it was
39:37
everything to me. You know, it's kind of like I
39:39
was living it. I was eating well, sleeping
39:42
while trying to do the right things by it, you know, and now
39:45
all of a sudden it might be taken away and he's trying to
39:48
share this thing. And in that moment again, it's
39:50
it's the idea that I took in the silence that maybe he understood
39:54
and saw that this thing was something that I was passionate
39:56
about. And it was probably harder for
39:59
him to convey this to me versus maybe like maybe even the way I
40:05
walked out of there taking it right.
40:08
And I think from there it. I think I learned a lot about
40:12
learning to persevere, learning to learning to get some
40:15
information and take it in and then go and bad or good work on
40:20
the things that you need to work on to put yourself in a position
40:22
where you know, you're taking care of the situation or you're,
40:25
you know, dealing with the, the and again, that metaphorically,
40:28
that's kind of the track and field, how the track and field
40:31
thing can help you, you know, maneuver life.
40:33
But I, I feel like there were those moments and again, it's
40:36
probably even deeper than that, but there was just those moments
40:40
where it was just, it seemed deeper than it was.
40:43
And it wasn't just a conversation about my grades.
40:48
It's him understanding the breadth of what he was telling
40:51
me, the depth of what he was telling me, knowing that it
40:54
almost meant everything to me, but he had to say it.
40:59
He had to put it out there, you know, And I think that part,
41:01
that part of it was something that I could respect.
41:03
That's that part of it was something that I, I valued and
41:07
loved, you know, amidst all the things that I was like picking
41:11
up along the way, running track, being around it again, the
41:14
failures, successes, that kind of thing, that that interaction
41:19
was just huge in itself in terms of propelling me into the
41:22
saying, oh gosh, like, I think this is what I need to be doing,
41:27
you know, like this is, you know.
41:31
What what a great example of the positive impact coaches make on
41:35
young kids everyday like, like that moment was obviously very
41:38
special that that the relationship is very special to
41:40
you. But that is going on everywhere
41:43
all the time. In a majority, like majority of
41:46
coaches are very caring about their kids and and are helping
41:49
them understand. Hey, you, you really like this
41:51
sport, track and field. Here is the specific example.
41:54
However, if you don't do this other thing, well, this gets
41:57
taken away from you. And and maybe as you were
41:59
telling that story made me think about, you know what we just
42:01
talked about the other impact of what sport can do for you and
42:05
you know, the highs and lows and what it can teach you about
42:07
life. I wonder if part of that
42:09
importance of sport to growing up and it's obviously not the be
42:14
all end all because there's plenty of people who don't play
42:15
sport that go on to be very great human beings.
42:18
But I wonder for those of us who are inclined to athletics, I
42:20
wonder if part of the lessons learned is that this is a very
42:25
finite time. You know, certainly you may and
42:29
maybe you're going to tell me later on you compete in masters
42:31
track that, you know, certainly you can do sport the rest of
42:33
your life. But but being part of a team is
42:36
really kind of two parts in most of it's only one part.
42:39
There's high school and there's college and that's typically it.
42:43
That's the majority of the opportunity you have.
42:46
So, so as much as you love track and field, for most of us, the
42:50
vast, vast, vast majority of us, you got four or five years and
42:53
then it's done, buddy. The reality is the students that
42:57
the students that we work with are, they're passionate about
43:00
this. You know, they're whether you
43:02
know, they come in as 11th graders and you're recruiting
43:04
them, kind of moving them into that senior year into college or
43:07
whether they're in their third, fourth year.
43:09
I sit down and do go meetings every day and I always tell my
43:11
athletes, I think, you know, having something, you're
43:14
passionate about it, it's great. You know, and I think like when
43:19
you have things in your life that you're passionate about,
43:20
whether it's, you know, that business program or that that
43:25
social circle that you're involved in, you treat those
43:27
things carefully. You treat those things, you
43:29
know, with a level of care that you know is attributed that
43:34
allows them to like flourish and and be what you want them to be.
43:36
And then as a result, generally, I always believe that, you know,
43:39
if you do those things to the things that you're passionate
43:41
about, the second thing in your life that you're passionate
43:42
about, where there's track and field this, it seeps in there.
43:45
And I think so, yeah. Please go ahead.
43:48
Go. Sorry, go ahead.
43:49
Go. Yeah, no.
43:50
So I think, I think there's definitely, you know, something
43:53
there. And I always believe that for my
43:55
athletes, that's always important to let them know, like
43:57
it's OK to be passionate about something, you know, regardless
44:01
of what the end result might be. You know, we can't fear that.
44:03
We can't fear what we don't know.
44:05
It's, you know, put yourself, you know, put that foot forward
44:07
and. I think you're spot on.
44:10
You know, again, that limited time we've athletics and you
44:12
have passion towards that. Then then how do we leverage
44:14
that to, to, to transfer that passion to something else,
44:17
right? So if you have a passion for
44:19
long jumping and you know, you're not going to make the
44:21
Olympics, you know, again, no one does, right.
44:23
So then how do I take that passion you have over that event
44:25
and become an amazing teacher or an amazing parent or an amazing
44:29
business owner or whatever you go into?
44:31
I I think that's, I think that's spot on, Brian.
44:33
I love that. OK, so you have a good time, a
44:37
transformative time it seems like at Saint Cloud State
44:39
continue to develop and grow into the human that you are
44:42
today. As you get closer to senior year
44:46
and graduating. Talk to me about has coaching
44:51
entered the mind at all? What are we thinking about once
44:53
we graduate? Give us that transition.
44:55
So at this point, again, I've been around athletics, I'm
44:59
working, beneficiating, doing different things, just call
45:03
myself in different areas. And I think my experiences are
45:06
they stated with, with Seth working with Coach Mishki as an
45:11
athlete there, I think those things start ringing.
45:14
Just opening up some thought processes for me in terms of
45:17
coaching. And I go into like my last years
45:21
in college and I remember telling myself that's OK, Like
45:24
there's something I want to do. Like I want to see different
45:28
ways to do this. I want to look at it from
45:30
different vantage points and, and see what it looks like.
45:33
I remember going into Coach Lego.
45:35
Coach Lego was the basketball coach at Saint Cloud State at
45:37
the time and I worked as camps and repped and officiated some
45:41
of those camps. And I asked him, I said, OK,
45:44
listen, I don't know if this is possible.
45:47
You guys have your practices and I know no one's in there during
45:50
your practices, but is it possible that I can just sit in?
45:52
I just want to learn to like coach to how you.
45:54
I want to see you, how you communicate with with with your
45:58
athletes. I want to see, you know, when
46:00
things are crappy. I want to see when things are
46:02
great. I want to learn how you, you
46:04
know, set up your practices, organize the the, the training
46:08
environment. And this is basketball.
46:09
But it was kind of like, you know, like a figure coach is a
46:11
coach. I can, you know, he says yes to
46:14
this. And I remember that whole year,
46:16
it could have been my junior senior year, that whole year
46:19
going, you know, I'd finish whatever I needed to do.
46:21
I think we had early practices at the time, but then I'll, you
46:24
know, finish my classes and then I would head over.
46:27
He'd let me or they'd let me into the practice session and I
46:30
would just sit there on the sideline, not even taking any
46:32
notes, but just watching and observing.
46:34
And I would see when athletes did things wrong or incorrectly
46:38
and he was on them when when things were great.
46:40
And then I would watch also just down to like the nitty gritty
46:43
when he'd sit down with his coaching staff and communicate
46:46
to them how he wanted to organize things.
46:48
Just some of those things that were very integral to like
46:50
running a, you know, a quality program that I thought was going
46:53
to be, you know, great. Now, again, at the same time,
46:55
obviously, you know, I'm in I'm in the Track World, you know,
46:58
but I wanted to see something different.
46:59
I'm there with Seth. I'm seeing Seth, you know, I
47:01
wanted to see something different.
47:02
And so this provided that and I could sit in there, watch his
47:05
practices eventually became a thing where I was like, OK,
47:08
Coach Alfreds, who was the women's coach, would let me sit
47:11
in her practices, you know, and from time to time I just come in
47:14
and I would sit there hours just watching, you know, observing,
47:18
you know, and learning and just kind of seeing how things are
47:21
maneuvered. Just just the little things that
47:23
were going to be helpful. And at that point I realized
47:26
this is something I can do. You realize that it's working
47:31
with people, it's communicating, it's caring about their goals,
47:35
the things that they want to accomplish.
47:40
Really, that's what it comes down to, you know?
47:42
And I figured I could, you know, put those things together.
47:45
So those experiences, once I had those experiences, I definitely
47:48
knew profoundly that it was like, OK, coaching was a thing.
47:52
So I finished up and then moved to my mother's house in North
47:56
Carolina for about like half a year, applying to graduate
48:00
schools. And I was going to go to NC
48:03
State to didn't have Aga and I was reaching out to coaches to,
48:08
to, to be Aga didn't have Aga for me.
48:10
But my younger brother was starting at NC State as a
48:13
freshman. And I was like, I'm going to go
48:16
to NC State as a graduate student.
48:17
I got into the to the graduate program there, but the GA that I
48:21
had was in golf management. I had no clue what it was I but
48:26
I could figure it out, right? And they got me this scenario.
48:31
So I'm sitting in North Carolina getting prepared.
48:34
Summer's finishing up here, you know, and getting ready to
48:39
potentially get started. And then I got a call from Seth
48:44
at Saint Cloud because I'd already, I'd also applied Saint
48:48
Cloud for Graduate School. And then he calls me up and
48:52
says, Brian, I have Aga here for you in track and field.
48:55
You know, if you come here, you know, we can figure it out.
48:58
I get your GA and you can help me coach.
49:02
And I was like, hold on a second.
49:03
That's much better than what I don't know.
49:05
So then figured it out and ended up back in Saint Cloud to coach.
49:10
Yeah. Brian, that level of I don't
49:16
know if it's maturity or understanding that like I'm
49:18
floored by you going to the basketball coaches to observe
49:23
coaching, not basketball coaching coaching like that.
49:28
Like that's a different level of thinking that, you know, I
49:31
haven't heard that story yet. Like if you would have said, you
49:37
know, I I called the Minnesota guys up and track coaches and
49:40
was like, Hey, I want to see, you know, I know what Seth does.
49:41
I'm I'm in his program. I want to see what you guys do
49:43
and just let me observe. Like for track and field, I'm
49:46
like, oh, OK, that makes you know, like that's a story I've
49:48
heard before. But for you to just like, OK,
49:51
I'm just going to observe basketball and see how they
49:53
correct kids, how they promote positive kids.
49:57
You know how they that that's that's interesting to me because
50:02
like I. Coach but it was I don't, I was
50:05
just a reach to saying, OK, I I don't have the means of
50:09
traveling. I mean, I was an international
50:10
student. I don't have the means of
50:11
traveling as well. Like what do I have in front?
50:15
Of but even, OK, so I've heard the story of a kid who, you
50:17
know, halfway through college or whatever says, I know I'm going
50:20
to be a track coach. And so head coach, I know you
50:23
coach me, but you know, I'd like to come in after hours and pick
50:26
your, you know, there's what we do in the track for our practice
50:29
is one thing. But now I want to pick your
50:30
brain in the office. Like, like if you just said that
50:32
like, Oh yeah, I started meeting with Seth every day for an hour,
50:35
I'd pick his brain and things like that.
50:37
Like I'd be like, oh, OK, you know, that's a story I could
50:39
see, you know, but for you to understand, like, oh, there's,
50:43
there's coaching tracks, sure, but there's coaching.
50:46
Yeah. And so for you to say, OK, well,
50:48
maybe I can get into the basketball guys and just watch.
50:50
You didn't you didn't say I wanted to watch the basketball
50:53
coaches because I thought, well, maybe that's more lucrative.
50:54
So I want to become a basketball coach, not a track coach.
50:57
So I'm going to watch how they do their X's and O's and all
50:58
that kind of stuff. You can say that you're like, I
51:00
just want to watch how coaching the the activity of coaching
51:04
happens. That's really tremendous.
51:06
It it makes me wonder, you know, we're all we all have our boxes
51:11
that we're in. And if you think you're not in a
51:12
box, you are squarely in a box for sure people.
51:16
But like, I think about track, you know, I'm in a track and
51:17
field box now. It makes me wonder, like, what
51:20
can we learn from other sport coaches?
51:23
And I know we've had, you know, John Wooden has a book and Phil
51:26
Jackson and things like that. So there's there are books like
51:30
that where they're trying to teach about coaching that, you
51:33
know, and really life lessons is what they're teaching.
51:36
But I wonder now, like, oh, I wonder if there's a way like
51:39
like we have this sub podcast here called the Guild 1918
51:43
project, which are, you know, 10 to 30 minute kind of Ted talks
51:46
of track and field where we get into XS and OS or culture.
51:50
Like I'm wondering, like I wonder if there's a, is there an
51:52
ability? Is there something for our
51:54
coaches to learn to have a baseball coach, a basketball
51:57
coach, a football coach, golf coach, talk about like, Hey,
52:02
here's how we run practices. You're not going to pick
52:04
something up for your track practice from that, but maybe
52:07
you pick up something like, oh wow, that coach before every
52:13
tennis practice goes and shakes the hand of every person on the
52:18
team and ask them how their day was like.
52:19
Maybe I should be doing that with track.
52:20
You know what I'm saying? Like, I wonder if there is so
52:23
much more to learn about coaching from other sport, from
52:26
other good. You know, a good coach is a good
52:28
coach, right? And a good coach is not
52:29
necessarily. What we have been exploring this
52:31
a lot on this podcast is that the XS and OS might be the easy
52:35
part. So how to actually coach a long
52:37
jumper or a sprinter or a district might be the easy part.
52:39
The other 80%, the culture like what do you do with your kids?
52:44
How do you talk with your kids? How do you recruit?
52:46
That might be the more like how you run your program, that might
52:49
be the more important part of it.
52:50
And so maybe we can learn that from other sports coaches that
52:53
are successful, not not how to how to coach a tennis player to
52:57
hit a forehand, but how do you conduct your practice Or how do
52:59
you how do you end every one of your practices or how do you
53:02
conduct A1 on one meeting, whatever.
53:03
Maybe you conduct one-on-one meetings and you know, me as a
53:06
track coach needs to learn that or something That's that's just
53:08
super. I'm fascinated by that.
53:10
You know, you're 2223 years old. That fascinates me that your
53:14
kids still at that age, dude, that you had that like
53:18
forethought of like I, I just want to go see coaching that.
53:21
That's amazing. Yeah, and I think that that part
53:23
of me was just something that was, it was not even necessarily
53:26
that I was going to find something like that was
53:28
profound, but it was just the idea that, you know, to be a
53:34
coach. I just thought like they're,
53:36
they're that's, that's the one connecting piece.
53:38
Like you're working with people, you're communicating with, with
53:41
students, I mean, specifically collegiate coach, you're just
53:43
communicating with student athletes.
53:45
You have goals, You're intentional.
53:47
As long as you're intentional about this culture, this thing
53:49
that you're you're you're bringing forth.
53:51
I thought like those things are things that are, you know,
53:54
parallel amongst all of us as coaches.
53:56
So it was more so to say, OK, you know, what if I want to do
53:59
this thing, there's things I'm going to learn that I can take
54:02
with me. I don't necessarily think that,
54:03
you know, I'm necessarily going to be teaching a motion offense
54:07
in one of my high jump practices, but it would, it was
54:11
more about like, okay, how do I conduct and run that
54:15
environment? Yeah.
54:17
You're talking about culture and leadership.
54:18
Really, when you talk about that, that's what you're
54:21
talking. How do I conduct a practice?
54:22
Well, that's leadership. You do it because you're a
54:24
leader and not let the the kids run the practice.
54:27
You're you're the coach. Be the coach.
54:29
That's a a saying that my mentor, Bouchex Nader.
54:31
I used to say all the times like you the coach, be the coach.
54:34
You know, that means be the leader that you're supposed to
54:36
be. So like that accent.
54:38
Yeah, yeah, that's as Cajun as I can get for with Boo on that
54:40
one. Say you the coach, be the coach.
54:42
Yeah, I heard it a million times.
54:43
That's like the one little sentence I can say, but that's
54:46
just tremendous. You know, kudos to you for the
54:49
maturity. And again, the the just the
54:51
thought process to have that. That's so super cool, Super
54:53
cool. All right, so you, you bounce a
54:55
little bit, you go to North Carolina and then Seth calls you
54:57
back up and says, hey, man, come, come back home, this home,
55:00
come back the same way. So you become Aga.
55:02
You do that for what? What degree did you get for your
55:05
graduate? So there again, I did a sports
55:07
management masters and did some it was kind of interesting
55:11
because I was able to blend it with some different things, but
55:13
did some educational pieces in there because I ended up going
55:15
on doing a doctorate in education because I had some
55:18
research things I wanted to do and I met interesting professor
55:21
there that kind of let me down a different path because I was
55:23
like all of a sudden thinking, OK, coaching, but I had still
55:26
had no clue, like this coaching thing, I can make a career and
55:31
you know, I'm still thinking to myself like I still got to get
55:33
out there and get a real job eventually.
55:36
I mean, coaching is, you know, is there and it's definitely a
55:40
possibility, but I still kind of looked at it as this auxiliary,
55:42
this thing that I could just, I could get a job and, you know,
55:45
coach and help out here, you know.
55:48
And so I met an interesting professor by the name of Doctor
55:51
Moore while doing my master's work.
55:53
He let me some down some interesting paths as far as
55:56
research. And I was able to do some, you
55:59
know, fun things. Also volunteer some very, very
56:05
passionate folks in in some nonprofits with some of the
56:10
changes that were happening from a diversity standpoint in the
56:12
area that I lived in at the time.
56:15
And that was kind of like breaking me off into these two
56:17
different paths at the same time.
56:19
It was kind of one of these things where, you know, I've now
56:23
been here, now I was there for, I don't even know.
56:26
Now it's probably close to Year 8.
56:30
You. Know, sorry, like year six year
56:34
8 with Seth. And so, yeah, it was kind of one
56:37
of those things where I finish up my master's work and then I'm
56:41
kind of like, OK, I don't know where I'm going to go.
56:43
And he he offers me a $5000 job. Dude, you, you amaze me.
56:52
Now, I say this, I say he offers me this $5000 job.
56:55
At the time, I'm kind of in the place where I've done this
56:57
research. And now at this point, I want to
56:59
do my doctorate. I know I want to do my doctorate
57:01
and I'm going to go do it. I've applied to several
57:03
different schools to go to go do this thing.
57:07
And then I stay for the year while I'm trying to figure all
57:13
that out or stay for a couple years.
57:15
And I'm just coaching and my mother is helping me live on my
57:18
friend's floor or pay help, pay rent on my friend's floor.
57:21
And I'm building my, I guess, resume, if you want to call it
57:24
that, right, going through it. So so then, yeah, I just kind of
57:29
blended from a Georgia into this like assistant coach role kind
57:32
of thing. And then I finally decided I'm
57:36
going to go do my doctorate and they had a program there.
57:38
I looked at a couple different places, but what I settled on
57:41
was the mere fact that where I was currently at, they offered
57:44
me basically a full time job coaching and now I could do my
57:50
doctorate and I was going to be paid for as well.
57:52
So then it was kind of like, OK, this is a no brainer.
57:55
And that was at Saint Cloud St. Cloud.
57:57
So then I just decided to just get it done there.
57:59
Wow, OK, so much dumb pack there.
58:03
One is I'm always curious because I I think it should be a
58:06
rule that this is not allowed. How how did you handle the
58:10
transition for, you know, you certainly are coming at a pretty
58:15
high maturity rate as a call it a senior in college.
58:18
So maybe it was easier for you. But how did you transition?
58:21
How, how, how did you handle the transition from, you know, on
58:24
Friday, you know, spring semester, you were one of the
58:27
guys. You know, you were a long jumper
58:29
on the team or whatever event and playing Xbox on Friday night
58:32
with the with the, with the dude, dudes with the team.
58:34
And then on Monday you're a coach, you know, and I know
58:39
there's a summer involved, you know, all that kind of stuff.
58:41
But still, you were you were GA coaching kids that were
58:44
teammates of yours. There was no separation there.
58:46
That's not like I said, I think it should be.
58:49
You know. Without using the word illegal,
58:51
but it should be against the rules because I don't think
58:53
anybody handles that transition very well because I was in
58:55
college once too. So, so how, how did you handle
58:58
like, OK guys, you got to see me in a little bit different light.
59:01
Yeah, No, I think it was pretty. I think it was pretty seamless
59:04
and a lot of it was, it's kind of interesting.
59:07
One of my college teammates, who's Jason Cook, who's that
59:12
now? I think he's a head coach, men's
59:14
head coach at at Hastings High School here in Minnesota.
59:17
He had that place and he was also doing his master's work and
59:22
also helping out with track and field.
59:23
So basically I hung out with him the whole time and we kind of
59:27
just didn't blur the lines. We kind of kept our, you know,
59:29
we did have actually, I will say this, we did have two athletes
59:32
that we're currently on the team living with us.
59:34
One of them was a pole Walter. So I never really, you know,
59:37
worked, worked with him a lot. So I didn't talk to that dude,
59:41
but. Andrew stacked the other club
59:42
that that there are. I think that was there and was
59:47
roommates as well. And so it was one of those
59:50
things where I think both, I mean, the group that was that
59:54
were mature and then Jay living with Jason, he was just a breath
59:58
of pressure just in terms of doing other things, you know,
1:00:01
introducing me to fishing things that I used to never involved,
1:00:03
you know, So it was just like we'd finish with track, we'd
1:00:05
finish all our school work and then we'd just go do these other
1:00:08
things fishing or, you know, we would be, you know, helping out
1:00:12
the community, doing something, you know.
1:00:14
I, I think that's the concern I had, You said blurring the
1:00:17
lines, but I'm also not naive enough to think that life is
1:00:22
delineated with clear seeing lines either.
1:00:24
So, you know, I was an undergraduate coach and also had
1:00:27
roommates that were on the team. So while I was not teammates
1:00:30
with them because I, I was terrible, but, but I, but I was
1:00:33
of their age. Yeah, yeah.
1:00:35
You know, I was 19/20/21 years old and, you know, it was
1:00:38
college. I'll leave you to your
1:00:39
imagination of what all that means and stuff.
1:00:41
But you know, like I think I look back and go, man, I'm so
1:00:44
glad I was able to do it cuz I got me a degree and, you know,
1:00:46
didn't have any student loans and all that kind of stuff.
1:00:48
But I'm also like, Oh yeah, coach should have never done
1:00:51
that. Like should've made me live on
1:00:52
my own. Like that's not healthy.
1:00:53
You know, as far as coach and athlete relationship there so.
1:00:57
And I think the athlete that we chose to live with, I think more
1:01:00
so with them, it was more about like the fact that they were
1:01:03
also of mature state. We never again, we never really
1:01:06
hung out with them. I would say yeah, yeah, yeah,
1:01:09
with us. But it was just kind of like
1:01:10
passing and going. And we're just doing our
1:01:12
graduate work. And the the house that we're
1:01:14
living in actually was owned by a former track athlete.
1:01:17
So it's kind of the reason why they were kind of yeah, I know
1:01:20
it was, you know, we're, I mean, we're so embedded in our
1:01:23
studies, our research and Jason, then it was just we'd go and
1:01:26
coach and travel for these track meets.
1:01:28
And then it was just kind of that we just left it at that and
1:01:31
that was it, you know, but. Yeah, that, that's, that's what
1:01:33
I'm thinking about. I think about your maturity.
1:01:34
And then I just remember my maturity.
1:01:36
And that's where I'm like, oh, this could not have, you know,
1:01:38
it's not good. It's just I'm basing this all
1:01:40
over my idiotic self at 20 years old.
1:01:42
I think more of it with my mother, like once she's once she
1:01:46
like Graduate School, you better do this thing right.
1:01:49
Yeah, OK. So so that was actually another
1:01:51
thing I wanted to unpack. So you become a coach, you know,
1:01:53
you go through and get your grad work and now you're doing kind
1:01:57
of starting out, I'm going to call it part time, you know,
1:01:58
5000 a year. And then you kind of move to a
1:02:00
full time assistant coach there, right?
1:02:04
Does mom disown you? And what I mean by that is, you
1:02:07
know, mom, I'm just getting the picture of mom being the very
1:02:09
like, yeah, that's cool and all. What about your grade?
1:02:11
Are you getting a real job? You know, this is what I kind of
1:02:13
picked your mom. How is mom handling?
1:02:15
Like you're kind of full blown, you're going.
1:02:17
And the next thing I want to unpack is this PhD thing.
1:02:19
You are continuing on with a very high academic thing.
1:02:21
So I feel like Mom's very pleased about that.
1:02:24
I don't think Mom's is very pleased about you being a track
1:02:27
coach. Yeah.
1:02:28
And I would say that I think what kind of kept everything
1:02:32
afloat and allowed me to continue doing the coaching
1:02:36
thing was the fact that I was still in school.
1:02:38
Being able to say, mom, I'm gonna do this master's thing.
1:02:40
My mother's like she's gonna do this master's thing.
1:02:43
Like, we gotta get behind this, right?
1:02:47
So I think the the school part of it really helped push along
1:02:51
the idea of coaching, you know, again, still not knowing like it
1:02:55
could turn into this thing, but it was kind of like, you know,
1:02:58
yeah, you can still do this thing in coach as long as you're
1:03:00
working on this master's degree, right?
1:03:02
So those things kind of help. And my dad was always
1:03:04
supportive. My dad was always kind of the he
1:03:06
was an educator and then turned into a nurse, but he was always
1:03:09
just kind of in the background just like, yeah, it's what you
1:03:10
want to do. And you'd put your mother in the
1:03:12
right direction in terms of. Yeah, I bet he thinks that I'm
1:03:15
married too, buddy. And I think sometimes I push my
1:03:18
wife, whatever, man, she's in the way here.
1:03:20
I just, you know, I have this picture of your mom and just
1:03:22
like the blessing that she is like, we need moms, like we need
1:03:26
more moms like your mom. So I'm just like in the
1:03:28
background thinking she's like this track coaching thing is not
1:03:30
a real job. OK, you're going to grad work.
1:03:32
All right, good, good. You're still doing master.
1:03:33
Oh, you're getting PhD. OK, all right, right.
1:03:35
We're going to get to the point where you know, all that's done
1:03:37
and you're a full time coach. I'm we're going to learn about
1:03:39
what mom thinks. Now we'll hold on to that.
1:03:42
So did you let's talk about this PhD?
1:03:44
Did you go on and get your actual PhD?
1:03:47
Yeah, so I got a EDD, was a doctorate in education, OK.
1:03:52
And so I started my doctorate work going into, I mean, I got
1:03:56
married that summer, got married to my college girlfriend 8
1:04:03
years. And then we basically moved to
1:04:07
that same cloud area. And then I basically locked in
1:04:11
on this doctorate program. And again, at the time, I
1:04:15
started with the assistant coach position and Seth was still head
1:04:21
there and we were just working together, recruiting, trying to
1:04:24
keep the group as competitive as possible.
1:04:25
I was trying to soak in and learn and take any advantage of
1:04:28
any time I had, take any advantage of any developmental
1:04:32
or develop any. What is it?
1:04:36
I'm losing the word now, but any professional development
1:04:39
opportunities that were available.
1:04:42
And so, yeah, started into that EDD and the most rigorous thing
1:04:46
I've ever done in my life. My gosh.
1:04:48
We had, so I don't know much about PHD's, EDD's.
1:04:51
I can barely spell that just recently.
1:04:55
We from Alabama always remember that, OK.
1:04:57
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll think much better of me
1:05:00
if you just remember I went to high school and College in the
1:05:02
state of Alabama. You're like that guys.
1:05:03
He's really overcoming things. So, but recently we had Arkansas
1:05:08
State's head coach on the podcast, Jim Patchel, Doctor Jim
1:05:11
Patchel, who also who got a PhD and I, you know, again, my
1:05:14
curiosity brain just never turns off.
1:05:16
And so I bet you for, I don't know, a good 30 minutes of his
1:05:20
entire podcast is me just asking questions about the PhD process,
1:05:23
you know, the the dissertation and just all of that kind of
1:05:26
stuff. It was, I was just fascinated by
1:05:28
it. I learned I didn't know.
1:05:33
So I kind of had like this image of like, you know, defending
1:05:36
your dissertation of like, like, you know, you're sitting here
1:05:39
and there's like these five judges or whatever up and he's
1:05:41
like, yeah, it's not far off. But I, I, I learned from him
1:05:44
that like anybody can go to that dissertation, that defense.
1:05:48
Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't.
1:05:49
I'm so. I'm so weird.
1:05:51
I was like, I was like, so you're telling me I could we
1:05:53
were in Champaign, right? University of I was like, so
1:05:55
you're telling me I could like, because I know that happened
1:05:57
right here at U of. I was like, so I can.
1:05:59
And he goes, yeah, yeah. Just call it like the department
1:06:00
head and ask him what you know, when I was like, I was like, I'm
1:06:02
totally doing it this summer. At some point I just got off a
1:06:05
bunch of travel. But at some point this summer or
1:06:06
fall, I am absolutely wanting to do this.
1:06:10
I will not, I will not understand anything that's going
1:06:12
on, but I'll just be like, this is cool, man.
1:06:13
It's a good process. Well, that's cool, man.
1:06:15
So. So I should be calling you
1:06:16
Doctor Sabera? Not coach.
1:06:19
I love it. I love it.
1:06:21
So you go on. I can't believe you get an EDD.
1:06:24
That's just, I mean, I never wanted to go to grad.
1:06:28
When I got done with my undergrad, I was like, I'm done.
1:06:30
That's enough school. I've been.
1:06:31
Going to school. Yeah, yeah.
1:06:34
Well, I knew I didn't just think it.
1:06:36
I knew I was dealing with it. So when people tell me grad
1:06:38
work, I'm like, that's pretty cool.
1:06:40
I could never do that. And then somebody tells me to
1:06:41
get a doctor, like, oh God, why? This is crazy.
1:06:45
Some people, I think, are just addicted to being students,
1:06:47
like, like they don't want to go into the real world.
1:06:49
Now this is not the case I'm saying here.
1:06:51
Brian. I think some people like like
1:06:53
they want to defer the real world and getting a job and
1:06:55
things like that. So they go and get multiple, you
1:06:57
know, master's degrees and and doctorates and things.
1:07:00
It's safe for them in that sense.
1:07:02
But it's like, man, one day you get, you know, you got to get
1:07:04
kicked out of the nest and go to the real world you.
1:07:06
Know I enjoyed the research. I think for me it was really the
1:07:09
research. I was, that's pretty evident
1:07:10
actually. I was going to say that it seems
1:07:11
like when you were talking about the research in the in that
1:07:13
professor that you had that, you know, it kind of.
1:07:16
Yeah, that was like your face kind of lit up.
1:07:18
And I was like, oh, this is kind of your jam here in this.
1:07:20
Side but it's Doctor Moore at University of Eastern Carolina
1:07:22
who helped me out with like it was and he was amazing just in
1:07:29
his vision of what I could do. I remember him once he got the
1:07:33
job at ECU and I was telling him like, yeah, I think I'm just
1:07:36
gonna like try to figure this out and go back home to Canada.
1:07:39
He's like Brian. He thought about applying the
1:07:41
Graduate School. He's the one that actually had
1:07:42
me apply to for master's, a master's degree at at NC State
1:07:46
because he had a friend there. And yeah, he was just an awesome
1:07:51
individual to see what he saw in me, you know?
1:07:55
We need people like that in our lives, man.
1:07:57
So that's, that's so cool. You know, I'll say this a
1:08:00
million times. You know, the superpower of a
1:08:01
coach is being able to see something in, in the athlete
1:08:04
before they can see it themselves.
1:08:05
Like, you know, you, you've had plenty of athletes that you're
1:08:07
like, dude, you're, you're a 25 foot long jumper and they're
1:08:10
like, dude, I barely jumped 22. It's like, no, no, no, I've seen
1:08:13
this, right. So you see it before they do and
1:08:15
they end up jumping 25 that same this kind of superpowers.
1:08:19
And a lot of people, you know, people like that, the ECU
1:08:22
professor sees like, hey, no, you, you need to apply for like,
1:08:25
what do you mean you're not thinking about grad school?
1:08:26
You're a brilliant guy. I'm looking at him like you're
1:08:29
looking. Yeah, I'm like.
1:08:30
Yeah, and he saw that in you, though, before you could see it,
1:08:33
he's he was a coach to you. He saw that.
1:08:35
And he was like, oh, man, I know you can't see it, but trust me,
1:08:37
dude, you're you're you're you're you're meant for this.
1:08:41
You know, that's that's so cool. I love that you had that that
1:08:43
guy in your life that was that was needed.
1:08:45
I love that. OK, so you go through your Saint
1:08:47
Cloud, you get your PhD or your EDD.
1:08:50
Is that what it is your? EDD Educational Dr. Yeah.
1:08:54
Educational Dr. What happens after that?
1:08:57
You still still at Saint Cloud? Where?
1:08:59
Where do we go next? What are we doing?
1:09:01
This is, yeah, this is about the time I kind of get that.
1:09:04
Are you doing? I'm sorry, I am the worst
1:09:06
interrupting people because I'm just trying to paint the whole
1:09:08
picture. Are you because you're so
1:09:10
academic inclined, I'm wondering during this time frame as well,
1:09:15
are you doing coaching education formally?
1:09:18
And what I mean by that is so there's there's formal informal
1:09:21
in my mind for coaching education.
1:09:23
Informal is peer-to-peer. You know, you call another coach
1:09:25
up and you know, you're talking with Sean, et cetera.
1:09:27
Very important. I'm not saying 1 is more
1:09:28
important. The other, the formal coaching
1:09:32
education is USATF Level 1, Level 2, USTFCA Academy, things
1:09:36
like that. Are you doing any of that during
1:09:37
this time? Frame, yes, as well, yes, yeah.
1:09:39
So again, like I said, I'm taking advantage of any
1:09:41
opportunity that you have the time.
1:09:43
I am jumping all over it. And again, obviously during that
1:09:47
spell of my doctorate work, I was pretty much, it was three
1:09:50
years just really locked in and it took me and it was something
1:09:54
they gave me 7 years to do it. I took all 7 research and
1:09:58
everything else. But again, and then the head, it
1:10:01
came to a head when my wife was like, OK, Brian, you know, cuz
1:10:04
once your seven-year time frame is up, you basically have to
1:10:07
restart the whole thing again. So my wife was like, no, no, no,
1:10:10
no, you got this thing paid for free.
1:10:13
You're gonna finish this thing. And I'm like, wait, what do you
1:10:15
mean she goes, She takes, I mean, this is like in the
1:10:18
summer. I can't remember the summer, but
1:10:20
it was just like, I'm going, I'm taking the kids up to the to my
1:10:24
parents farm in South Dakota where she's from.
1:10:26
And you were going to spend your weekends working on the thing.
1:10:29
So I'm like just embedded floors covered in research.
1:10:33
I'm like just doing matrices, just matching different things.
1:10:38
I got out of different interviews I pulled just trying
1:10:42
to get it all, you know, all organized and all all together
1:10:46
and then. That's like a scene from a
1:10:47
movie. Like I can see these, all these
1:10:50
papers around you got him up on the wall, you know, equation
1:10:53
like that's so cool. Now, prior to all this, I was
1:10:57
again coaching and then I come into the office one day and I
1:11:01
sit down, Seth wants to talk to me and he's like Brian.
1:11:05
And it was just like very like nonchalant.
1:11:07
He's kind of like Brian. Your than you had coach here
1:11:10
that's in cloud. I'm like, wait.
1:11:12
And again, I I'm like, what are you talking about?
1:11:15
Like, this is a joke in my head. Yeah, yeah.
1:11:17
Yeah. And he's like, well, I took
1:11:19
another job at Black Hills and I'll be leaving and I, I've told
1:11:23
administration, you're gonna, you know, So then that's kind of
1:11:26
what lagged my doctorate work because I was like, oh gosh, now
1:11:31
I'm running a program, you know, and at this juncture, it's about
1:11:35
the time where it all sets in. It's like, Oh my gosh, like I
1:11:39
can be a coach and make a living out of this.
1:11:41
Like, you know, and that only lasts for about a year because
1:11:48
they kind of go in a different direction.
1:11:49
They hire an UAD at the time. So the AD that was there and
1:11:53
then the UAD kind of has a different path that she wants to
1:11:56
go, which is fine. And then I ended up finding
1:11:58
myself in different avenues. But again, once I get through
1:12:01
that and I kind of move into working at the College of Saint
1:12:04
Benedict with the women's program there, it's about the
1:12:06
time where I'm like, OK, I got to get this doctorate thing
1:12:09
done. My wife is on me.
1:12:10
And yeah, so, yeah. So that that that realization of
1:12:13
coaching really became very evident to me once I was given
1:12:20
that that position, that head coach position as an interim
1:12:24
coach for about a year there at Saint Cloud.
1:12:28
And wow. Yeah, I I think there, there's a
1:12:31
lot of like those forks in the road where we have to make
1:12:33
decisions and sometimes we don't think they're very big
1:12:35
decisions, but they have very big consequences in our life.
1:12:38
And I think with coaching, I think everybody kind of goes
1:12:40
through that at some point, some, some very early, some
1:12:42
later where it's like, OK, yeah, this is this is who I am or, or
1:12:46
the opposite, hey, you know what, this is not not who I am.
1:12:49
I need to be doing something else for, for many, many
1:12:51
reasons. So I love that.
1:12:52
So Saint Cloud for a year is the interim or the head coach there
1:12:58
new a DS and you know, whatever. I I you know, I no one's a
1:13:02
bigger fan of track and track coaches than I am.
1:13:04
And when I hear that sometimes about the AD on their own track
1:13:08
for I'm like, it's track. Let's let's settle down here.
1:13:12
You know, if as long as they're doing a good job and they're not
1:13:15
doing anything illegal or you know there's not you know,
1:13:17
they're good to their kids. Like what do you mean?
1:13:19
You think you have a better track person?
1:13:20
Like get get out of here. I know we're track Mr. and
1:13:24
Missus Adi know we're track ranks on you get.
1:13:26
Yeah, that's just that's. Just silly, silly stuff.
1:13:28
OK, but they but she made her decision.
1:13:31
So unfortunately this silly stuff affected your life.
1:13:34
So you go to, I heard you say. I go to the college Saint
1:13:37
Benedict, which is in Minnesota, kind of keeps me around the
1:13:40
area. And during that time I kind of,
1:13:43
they were able to kind of formulate a position for me and
1:13:45
kind of get me situated. I also took on a an executive
1:13:50
role with a half marathon thing that they did in that area, in
1:13:54
that area. A friend of mine owned it and
1:13:57
they were like, Brian, we need someone to run this thing.
1:13:59
You know, we have these meetings with Shields and whatever some
1:14:03
of these organizations get. So I did that as well and it
1:14:06
kept me at home and then I'd just go coach in the afternoons
1:14:09
and kept me around coaching. Definitely a tough year because
1:14:16
we, I probably have that head coaching position and we, you
1:14:18
know, settle in. But that didn't happen that way.
1:14:22
And I think, you know, I think like, again, all things happen
1:14:26
for reason. It sounds cliche, but I think it
1:14:28
happened and it was what it was, but it forced me to kind of
1:14:30
really think about, OK, what was next and what I need to do.
1:14:33
And then again, jumping over to Saint Ben's and having that
1:14:36
experience there, I think also ultimately helped me grow as a
1:14:39
coach. My time there with Coach Baldur
1:14:42
Le New Robin was still there was, you know, I learned a lot
1:14:47
from the women that I coached. I learned a lot from working
1:14:50
with a women's coach about coaching women in general and
1:14:55
then just just coaching athletes in general.
1:14:58
You know, I think she was very, very, you know, she was a high
1:15:01
school coach, coached at she coached at Monticello High
1:15:04
School and was a teacher and then moved into starting the
1:15:08
program and then collegiate coach obviously at Saint Ben's
1:15:11
for many years. But she had a culture.
1:15:14
It was one of those things where I just came in and it was
1:15:17
seamless. You know, like I just was able
1:15:20
to just fall in and again, one, I was able to coach athletes and
1:15:23
work with them and try to develop the athlete.
1:15:26
And then on top of that was able to learn and absorb a lot in
1:15:29
terms of just how to build culture, how to sustain culture,
1:15:32
how to, you know, move people along.
1:15:34
And it was a private institution.
1:15:35
So also recruiting, I learned a lot private versus public.
1:15:40
You know, the dollars are very different.
1:15:42
Scholarship pieces were a little different as well, too.
1:15:45
So I learned a lot in the in the, you know, five years that I
1:15:49
spent spent there. Yeah.
1:15:53
Where after five years, where do we go?
1:15:55
So during the in between time there, while still working at
1:16:00
Saint Ben's and helping out, I took a job that allowed me to a
1:16:05
little work a little bit more with my doctorate, You know,
1:16:08
because I was it was student affairs was kind of the
1:16:10
direction was the emphasis of my doctorate.
1:16:14
So at one point or another, I kind of had worked like about
1:16:17
three years with at Saint Ben's and I reached I talked to
1:16:23
Waldron Nunez like, listen, they want to take a different role.
1:16:26
I just need a change of pace. And I jumped into higher Ed just
1:16:31
doing something a little different, but still coaching on
1:16:34
the side. And then it became evident to me
1:16:37
when I was sitting behind a desk working and I just wasn't
1:16:41
impacting people in the same fashion that I thought I was
1:16:44
impacting them when I was coaching was like I sat down
1:16:47
with my wife and we had a long conversation.
1:16:50
But the gist of it was I need to get back into coaching.
1:16:52
I need to be doing that full time.
1:16:54
I think that's that's my classroom, you know, that's my.
1:16:59
And it was tough, but she got behind me and I was in tears.
1:17:03
I was like, literally going, OK, this is crazy, but I feel this
1:17:06
way. And I don't know what to do.
1:17:08
I don't know that I could sustain this any other way if I
1:17:11
don't. Right.
1:17:14
It's kind of funny because I got back into coaching.
1:17:19
I was working with at Saint Ben's.
1:17:21
I take a group to nationals and we're I have two multi vendors
1:17:25
competing at the national meet in Geneva.
1:17:27
OH, and I'm in the middle of high jump competition.
1:17:31
I'm getting these calls from like six O 5 number in South
1:17:34
Dakota. I'm like, I don't like I unless
1:17:37
it's an emergency. I mean Brandy's families in that
1:17:40
area. Maybe there's something going on
1:17:42
and I need and I'm in the middle of the high jump.
1:17:43
I can't do anything. So I wait, finish, go and get
1:17:46
these messages and I listen and it's director at the University
1:17:50
of Sioux Falls. This time I'm just coaching part
1:17:53
time, but I wanted to get back into it full time.
1:17:54
And he's like, he just leaves the messages like I'd like to
1:17:57
talk to you about a position that I have here.
1:18:00
If you'd be interested, please give me a call back, that kind
1:18:02
of thing. So I wait for everything to
1:18:04
subside. The day kind of finishes, I call
1:18:06
him up and we have a discussion. Doug was his name at the at the
1:18:10
University of Sioux Falls and he had just taken over as the head
1:18:13
or the director of the program. And so, and he was a high school
1:18:17
coach, didn't know much about division two and maneuvering
1:18:20
paperwork, administrative things.
1:18:22
So he just needed kind of an associated coach kind of help
1:18:24
with those pieces and what not. And so I reached out to him and
1:18:27
I was like, yeah, I'm very intrigued by this at Sioux
1:18:30
Falls. It's not too far from my wife's
1:18:32
family. I think she would, you know,
1:18:35
definitely be interested in that.
1:18:36
And so from that point, I went out there, interviewed and he
1:18:42
offered me the position and then I jumped back into coaching full
1:18:45
time. Yeah.
1:18:46
That's a cool little campus. I've been there actually several
1:18:48
times. So I really like that, that area
1:18:51
and that campus you can see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.
1:18:55
So how long? And I'm kind of moving us
1:18:57
forward a little bit just for time because I want to make sure
1:18:58
we spend some time at Minnesota State.
1:19:01
How many years at Sioux Falls and where do we go next?
1:19:04
Well, we spent two years there. Now, during that time, the
1:19:08
difficulty was that surgeon had just got in the position here as
1:19:11
I accepted the position at Sioux Falls and I we were obviously
1:19:15
from the discussions that we've had, but he wanted me.
1:19:17
He remember him sending me a message saying, you idiot, why
1:19:20
did you accept the position at Sioux Falls?
1:19:22
I was going to hire you here. And I was like, well, you know,
1:19:25
this is just. You got to let me.
1:19:26
Know well he had just got in the position and I accepted it and
1:19:31
whatever else and so. So how did you know him?
1:19:34
Because you mentioned you knew him.
1:19:35
Before I met him as Aga at Saint Cloud, OK.
1:19:40
And he obviously was a throws coach ship when no one helping
1:19:42
helping that Ed. And then my teammate at one
1:19:49
point and now and then throws coach at Saint Cloud asked me
1:19:53
one night to come and hang out with other throws coaches.
1:19:56
And I was like, yeah, I'll go do that.
1:19:58
Of course you. Would.
1:19:59
Yeah. Probably not.
1:20:00
And I went down and sat and met him for the first time.
1:20:03
And then, you know, we had just kind of off the cuff discussions
1:20:07
about just things in general. And instead of that, you know,
1:20:10
and then we just kind of, you know, stayed in touch.
1:20:12
That's cool. Yeah.
1:20:15
No. I, I think we need to highlight
1:20:17
that that story right there, Brian, because you know, all too
1:20:21
often when I go to conventions or track meets, etcetera, I'll
1:20:24
see all the Sprint coaches hanging out, all the throws
1:20:27
coaches hanging out. And certainly we see, I see some
1:20:30
cross, you know, throws A sprints, a distance, etcetera.
1:20:33
And I think it's important for people to remember that when
1:20:37
someone becomes a head coach, they don't necessarily 99 times
1:20:41
out of 100, they don't need to go then hire someone in that
1:20:44
event area. So Mike being a throws coach,
1:20:46
when he became the head coach of Minnesota State, didn't go look
1:20:49
for other throws coaches to then hire.
1:20:51
He needed a jumps coach, a sprints coach, a distance coach.
1:20:53
So I think it's important that we take advantage.
1:20:56
So when your friend called you and said, Hey, a bunch of throws
1:20:59
coaches are hanging out, that you didn't go, what do I want to
1:21:01
talk about throws coach? I don't know anything about it.
1:21:03
I don't have passion. Do you want to talk about
1:21:05
jumping? I can talk to them about that,
1:21:07
you know, but instead you're like, all right, cool, let's go
1:21:09
see what's going on down there. I think that it obviously led to
1:21:12
this, but I think that's an important lesson for us to learn
1:21:14
that, Hey, you need to if you're thinking about, you know, your
1:21:18
career development, and I hate to use the word networking
1:21:20
because I think most people network incorrectly, But if
1:21:22
you're thinking about your career development, I think you
1:21:25
better make sure sure you are learning and and getting to know
1:21:29
people outside of your event group, not only for maybe you
1:21:33
get hired one day, but guess what?
1:21:34
If you become a head coach, well, you better know some
1:21:37
throws coaches, distance coaches Sprint.
1:21:39
You better know people of other other venues so that you can
1:21:41
trust like Mike did when he called you and said, what are
1:21:43
you doing? I was going to hire like I have
1:21:45
to know you. I like to, I can trust you.
1:21:46
I want you on my stat, you know, so I think that's just an
1:21:48
important a story to highlight there about that.
1:21:52
Don't just hang out with event group people.
1:21:55
You better be learning other event.
1:21:57
Groups. Yeah, that's a big.
1:22:00
I think every step along the way, people I've met play a very
1:22:04
instrumental role in how I coach, how I maneuver things,
1:22:07
how I think about things. I think even that conversation
1:22:11
that I, you know, I didn't think much of a long time, you know,
1:22:14
so many years ago with Turgeon, it just let itself to some, you
1:22:17
know, just this relationship that was just kind of like, you
1:22:20
know, you know, you just talk with someone, you get.
1:22:23
Yeah. I think it's important that you
1:22:24
allowed yourself to be A to, to, to that happen again.
1:22:27
You didn't close yourself down. Be like, what am I going to
1:22:28
learn from a throws coach? I'm never going to coach it,
1:22:30
blah, blah, blah. It's like, yeah, but he may hire
1:22:32
you one day or vice versa. Yeah, love it.
1:22:34
So Sioux Falls, two years. So from Sioux Falls to Minnesota
1:22:37
State. Yes, yeah.
1:22:40
And you've been then you've been there.
1:22:41
You said seven seasons now. Yeah, seven seasons.
1:22:46
Yeah. Yeah.
1:22:47
So tell me what it's like because, you know, Minnesota
1:22:50
State is one of those programs. You know, I got to know more
1:22:53
about it when, you know, Parno is a is an OG on the podcast.
1:22:56
I think he was guest number like 1615.
1:22:59
Like he's he he trusted me from the get go when this wasn't even
1:23:02
a thing, man. So I love Chris.
1:23:03
Shout out to him and what he does.
1:23:05
And he's a very, you know, you talk about a guy who, you know,
1:23:07
actually you guys probably get along well, right, Because I
1:23:09
think I was just about to call him a very like educational
1:23:12
coach, meaning he teaches level ones and has his own courses.
1:23:15
And I'm like, wait a minute, you're an educator, you know,
1:23:16
like you guys are you're teachers at heart that happen to
1:23:19
be teaching track and field. I assume you guys get along
1:23:21
really well. Tell us about the the culture at
1:23:25
Minnesota State because, you know, it seems like you guys, I
1:23:28
see you guys at track meets. You guys seem to have a lot of
1:23:30
fun, but on top of that, and that's super fun, are super
1:23:33
important. I think you should have fun with
1:23:35
your profession and your sport, but you are also winning at the
1:23:38
at the very high level. Tell me just kind of give us
1:23:41
like peel the curtain back here a little bit and give us kind of
1:23:43
an inside look on the the culture there at Minnesota
1:23:45
State. And I think, yeah, the culture
1:23:50
is, again, unlike anything I've ever really experienced in terms
1:23:53
of just, you know, winning. And again, I think prior to even
1:23:56
being a part of this program, I think there's been things that
1:24:00
seeds have been planted. And I think when I met with
1:24:04
Turgeon originally and I we talked about this opportunity in
1:24:07
a position I, the, the one thought that came up was this
1:24:11
place being a very uncovered, I just hidden gem in the sense
1:24:18
that there's tons of resources, a lot of support, but now it
1:24:25
just needed the right direction and the culture just needed some
1:24:28
forming, you know, and, and just restructuring and rebranding, if
1:24:32
you want to call it that. But Turgeon has done an awesome
1:24:35
job of really cementing that. I think he gets it out on us as
1:24:38
coaches in terms of like creating.
1:24:40
We have these meetings where it's just we're sitting down.
1:24:42
We're talking about, you know, the decisions that we make now,
1:24:45
how are they going to affect, you know, winning, You know,
1:24:48
they can affect, you know, now, again, all of this is done
1:24:51
within the framework of, you know, this path that's holistic
1:24:56
in a sense. Were were the real, the reality
1:24:59
of this is that we're college coaches on an academic campus,
1:25:02
on a campus, on the university campus.
1:25:03
Students are here to learn to grow themselves, whether it's
1:25:06
spiritually, culturally, socially, professionally,
1:25:09
There's so many vast, you know, so there's the framework is
1:25:13
these things are the things that have to be present, You know,
1:25:16
students moving through matriculating through their four
1:25:17
years. But at the same time, we need to
1:25:20
also have this thought process in mind.
1:25:23
So how do we make these things available to us?
1:25:26
How do you make these these opportunities, winning
1:25:29
opportunities within our grasp or clutches without a without,
1:25:32
not without us not shaking up or affecting the bottom line.
1:25:35
And I think he's done a tremendous job of setting us up
1:25:38
in terms of saying, OK, you know what?
1:25:40
I'm going to align you guys up with the things that you guys
1:25:43
need. Myself, Coach Parnell, Coach
1:25:45
Held, Coach Blue, these are the things you need.
1:25:47
You lay them out for me. I'm gonna make sure that you
1:25:49
have these things and then you go out and affect success,
1:25:53
affect success in small ways, but let it lead to the big
1:25:57
picture. And that's something that just
1:26:00
resonates. And again, I see it even within
1:26:05
the coaching staff. Us as coaches, we sit down and I
1:26:09
look at Parno's group and I'm always thinking to myself, how
1:26:12
can I get my group to that place?
1:26:14
Coach held does the same thing. And we kind of do this amongst,
1:26:17
I mean, it's a very friend. We do in a friendly manner, but
1:26:20
it's such it's done in such a way where we're always thinking
1:26:23
about moving ourselves forward, putting ourselves in a position
1:26:26
to succeed without, without disrupting the bottom line and
1:26:30
then utilizing the resources that are in front of us,
1:26:32
utilizing the things that are, you know, are available to us.
1:26:34
And I think a lot of the things we're here, they're just never
1:26:38
being, you know, used to the used in the manner that we're
1:26:41
utilizing them now. Yeah.
1:26:43
You know, culture is one of those things that, you know,
1:26:47
there, there is a definition. I'm sure if I look in the
1:26:49
dictionary, who who has a dictionary?
1:26:51
I'm sure if I Google the definition of culture, there's a
1:26:54
there's a definition there, right?
1:26:55
But it's hard to actual define like in real world, you know,
1:27:00
you did a great job of explaining like the culture of
1:27:02
Minnesota State, but that's the that's hard to there's so much
1:27:05
more to it than what you just said there.
1:27:07
Things that you can't even think of right now, things that just
1:27:08
happen instinctively between you and the coaching staff, the
1:27:11
athletes, administration, etcetera.
1:27:13
So this next question is a little bit more specific and a
1:27:16
little bit more personal. So you've been there for seven
1:27:19
years. You've been through other
1:27:20
programs, you've seen cultures, what Seth put into culture coach
1:27:23
at Saint Ben, things like that. You have your own culture, you
1:27:26
know your mom's influence on you.
1:27:28
That's a part of your culture and what you bring to the table.
1:27:31
Tell me what your what, what do you bring to the culture of
1:27:34
Minnesota State? You specifically, you've been
1:27:36
there seven years now. So you've you've affected it
1:27:38
positively and negatively. Like that's meaning we've made
1:27:41
mistakes. But you obviously it's the sum
1:27:43
total is positive. Tell me about the role you play
1:27:46
in that winning culture there at Minnesota State.
1:27:49
Authenticity. I think it's being, you know, I
1:27:52
think it's about, you know, I have some athletes when I
1:27:54
recruit you to be here, the culture and some of the things
1:27:58
that are here, they're already set in stone.
1:27:59
I want you to be yourself. Think about it like move into a
1:28:02
community. You buy a house in a community.
1:28:05
Yes, there's we can talk about social constructs and all these
1:28:08
things, but yes, you're going to have neighbors on this side,
1:28:11
neighbors on this side that might think certain ways or
1:28:13
might look at, but you, you got to be yourself.
1:28:16
You know, you got to you don't change who you are to fit
1:28:19
yourself in. You know, this is what it is,
1:28:21
right, And I think with what I've been able to do here and
1:28:26
the things that the one thing that Turgeon is always made
1:28:29
apparent to me, it's Brian. Be yourself and allow, allow you
1:28:35
to be kind of what sets the tone or kind of what sets the wheel
1:28:40
rolling, you know, And I think that part of it is something
1:28:44
that really pours out to my student athletes cuz when they
1:28:46
come here again, the thought process is still the same.
1:28:49
I want you to be yourself within this group.
1:28:50
And I think that in itself carries us even further.
1:28:52
And then when we're talking about, you know, I've, you know,
1:28:56
pretty decent international group, they're coming from all
1:28:59
different parts of the world. The one connection point is
1:29:01
track and field. But the one thing that they can
1:29:04
bring and add to the group is, you know, themselves.
1:29:06
I have a multi vendor that I recruited from, from, from Iowa
1:29:12
who's never travelled, you know, it's out of the country in his
1:29:14
life. And this year he's travelling
1:29:16
all the way to Norway to hang out with his teammates.
1:29:18
You know, and a lot of it is just because I, you know, I, I,
1:29:23
I don't know any other way of doing it.
1:29:24
But being authentic about, you know, whether it's again down,
1:29:29
whether it's your Marks and what you want to accomplish, whether
1:29:32
it's you doing a shitty job in the classroom.
1:29:34
Just being real about the things that you know that are going to
1:29:38
get us where you want to go or get an athlete where they want
1:29:40
to go. Yeah, I think the thing to point
1:29:43
out there is that that trickle down, if you will, that that
1:29:46
culture being authentic amongst the coaching staff trickles down
1:29:50
to the coaches, to the athletes as well.
1:29:53
And I think if you guys didn't have that on the coaching side,
1:29:55
well, it would show pretty quick when, you know, you tell an
1:29:58
athlete, just be yourself. And it's like, man, I see you
1:30:00
guys, you guys aren't yourself. What do you mean?
1:30:02
Like, you know, kids are, you know, kids are kids, but they
1:30:05
are very perceptive. They catch on to things that we
1:30:08
think that they don't catch on to.
1:30:10
And so I think that and so I have to imagine if I were
1:30:13
talking with an administrator at Minnesota State, that some of
1:30:18
the same languages that you and Turgeon are using, they're using
1:30:21
as well, that this is a trickle down from the athletic
1:30:23
administration to the coaches to the coaches to the athletes,
1:30:26
etcetera. So I think that's authenticity.
1:30:29
That's one of my, call it my buzzword.
1:30:32
Like I love, you know, it's truly, I truly believe in
1:30:34
authenticity. It's why I love, you know, the
1:30:36
people that we, I hear almost everybody in the sales and
1:30:40
things like that are former track athletes or track coaches
1:30:43
and they don't have to be good. Like, you know, we don't
1:30:45
necessarily have to have been amazing.
1:30:47
Trust me, I was not a very, I was a terrible athlete.
1:30:49
So they don't have to be good, but they have to have passion
1:30:52
centered around that sport and around coaches and therefore
1:30:55
around equipment. And I think that authenticity is
1:30:57
extremely, extremely important. So I love that.
1:31:00
Brian, give me here and as we start to wrap up here a little
1:31:03
bit, well, what's got you excited about the future of
1:31:06
Minnesota State and you get to define future.
1:31:08
It could be the 2026 season, could be the 2036 season.
1:31:11
But as you continue to move along as a coaching staff and
1:31:14
continue to improve, what's got you excited there?
1:31:17
Well. I'd say my excitement is rooted
1:31:21
in Turgeon's vision. I could say that I think like,
1:31:26
you know, I remember him sitting with me when he recruited me for
1:31:30
this position and I was telling him jokingly, I was like, you
1:31:32
don't recruit me or recruit my wife.
1:31:35
Yeah. It wasn't the trick, but I think
1:31:39
remember he sat down with me and said, Brian, you know what, in
1:31:41
five years, I think it was year 3 for him.
1:31:43
He's like, I want to win a national title here.
1:31:45
And I remember in Year 5, that's two years for me here.
1:31:51
We won a national title on the women's side.
1:31:53
And I think when he puts thought and he is sitting down and I sit
1:31:59
down in his office with meetings all the time with him, just
1:32:02
about whatever good scholarship money or this I need.
1:32:05
But it's always interesting to hear him and kind of hear where
1:32:08
what he's thinking, where he's thinking about going next.
1:32:11
But I think the excitement is just knowing that when he puts
1:32:16
thought into something, he's going to work to make to make
1:32:20
that happen. And then even that his ability
1:32:22
to cultivate a response, cultivate the responses from us
1:32:27
in terms of us working to make sure that certain things are are
1:32:31
happening. Those things excite me because,
1:32:33
you know, it's one of those things where you know, like I, I
1:32:37
almost liken it to imagine you had this untrusting friend and
1:32:41
they blindfolded you and you had to trust them to lead you
1:32:44
somewhere. And you kind of be weary, but
1:32:47
you'd be taking these tiny steps.
1:32:49
He'd be the one where I, if he was leading me, I'd be taking
1:32:52
these large steps, knowing that, OK, like the end result of this,
1:32:56
you know, can't be bad. It's, you know, don't you going
1:32:58
to lead us towards what we want to accomplish as a team.
1:33:01
And those goals and those tasks, those those things that we kind
1:33:04
of set up that we want to accomplish, all those things are
1:33:07
like in well thought of and well planned.
1:33:09
And that part of it excites me, you know, cuz when he said
1:33:12
something, it's, there's meaning behind it.
1:33:14
It's not just saying it to say it, you know.
1:33:17
So I would say from that vantage point, that's the part of it
1:33:20
that excites me. Obviously there's a changing, a
1:33:22
sweep, sweeping change in in just collegiate athletics in
1:33:26
general with recruitment and how that's, but I'm always excited
1:33:31
about that stuff is always going to be exciting to me where I can
1:33:34
take an athlete, whoever's in front of me, I'm coaching, I'm
1:33:37
willing to work with them and do the things they need to.
1:33:39
So that part of it is never going to change in terms of
1:33:41
excitement and all the athletes that choose to be a part of my
1:33:44
program, I'm always vigilant and very self aware about, you know,
1:33:51
whether I, I have my exit interviews, I have discussions
1:33:54
with them, we talk. So I try to stay well bonded to
1:33:57
them as a as I realize I'm getting older and not as young
1:34:00
as I used to be and I could like let me get into a workout with
1:34:02
you guys and do this. So I have to find other channels
1:34:07
to kind of connect me and keep me connected.
1:34:09
But for the most part, one thing I do realize is, you know, the
1:34:14
athletes, they have their goals, they're passionate about their
1:34:17
goals, They're passionate about what and they they believe in
1:34:19
themselves. So hardly.
1:34:20
And it's, you know, it's that never changes.
1:34:23
That stuff never changes. And I think so that for that for
1:34:26
me is that excitement piece for me regarding the athletes.
1:34:30
That's never going to leave me. I think that's a part of a part
1:34:32
of it from year to year. It's just, you know, recharging
1:34:35
the battery and then hitting it up again in the fall when, when
1:34:38
they're here, you know. I think you gave the most
1:34:43
amazing compliment I've ever heard to Mike Turgeon there with
1:34:47
the analogy, the story, the example of, you know, the, the
1:34:51
blindfolded friend and you know, like, you know, he's a friend,
1:34:55
how much I trust him. So you take baby steps and and
1:34:57
again, cuz when people tell stories, I'm a visual guys.
1:35:00
I'm always like watching the video in my head.
1:35:02
And you were like, yeah, But with Mike, he could blindfold me
1:35:04
and I would walk freely. Like I would trust him
1:35:07
implicitly. Where that that has to be like
1:35:08
one of the greatest compliments I've ever heard of someone else.
1:35:13
And that just continues to back up the culture that you guys
1:35:16
have there. Because I remember when I
1:35:18
reached out to Mike for him to be on the podcast, and he
1:35:21
actually turned me down and said, hey, you know who you
1:35:24
should have on the show? My assistant Brian Sabera.
1:35:28
Oh gosh. Yeah, he goes, he give me like a
1:35:31
quick 2 minutes or two sentence like this guy's been here and
1:35:35
done this and like he, he, he literally was like, not me.
1:35:38
You should get Brian. And I told him I was like, well,
1:35:41
I was like, I want you Mike as like, but I'll put Brian on the
1:35:43
list for sure. Like I, I like referrals or
1:35:48
nominee like that. That means a lot.
1:35:49
If someone reaches out to me and says, Hey, you should have so
1:35:51
and so on the show like that mean like, wow, that person is
1:35:54
at least affected One person tremendously positive, right.
1:35:57
So, but but that it it not amazing.
1:36:01
I can't think of the right word, but it was it was impactful when
1:36:03
Mike was like, Hey, I appreciate that.
1:36:05
But you know, you really should be like my assistant Brian
1:36:09
should be on that show that just showed me like, oh, wow, like
1:36:11
here's a dude who's lifting up other people, like putting
1:36:14
himself in the back seat and putting Brian in the front seat
1:36:17
in in that example. So and that actually made me
1:36:20
want Mike Moore. Like that's why I was like,
1:36:22
yeah, it's cool. I'll get to Brian.
1:36:23
But Mike, like, come on, dude, anybody.
1:36:24
Yeah, yeah, I was like to anybody who do that, Like now I,
1:36:27
you know, like you have to be on the show now because you did
1:36:29
that, dude. So I just, I love the the love
1:36:32
that you guys for sure have for each other.
1:36:35
And, you know, I'm, I'm careful at saying, you know, it's like a
1:36:38
family and things like that because the other day, it's
1:36:40
still business. You know, you could get fired
1:36:41
any day and he could get fired any day, things like that.
1:36:44
But boy, you guys certainly have a strong connection as a staff
1:36:48
and that again, that that kind of thing doesn't, does not does
1:36:53
not not spill over to your athletes.
1:36:54
So it's pretty evident, you know, along with the beginning
1:36:57
very good athletes and coaching them well, there's a culture
1:36:59
that makes them run just a little bit faster, makes them
1:37:01
jump a little bit farther, throw a little bit farther.
1:37:03
That's that's pretty evident from the coaching staff.
1:37:05
So that's really cool. I love that, Brian.
1:37:08
Thank you. Well, dude, we are at the end.
1:37:11
That is the right place to stop here for the day.
1:37:14
I'm so glad Mike did tell me that I you know, that I needed
1:37:18
to have you on the show and I appreciate, you know, both of us
1:37:22
sticking it out, you sticking it out patience wise and me
1:37:24
sticking out patience wise with the track season, things like
1:37:26
that. But you know, I always believe
1:37:29
that you are exactly where you're supposed to be at this
1:37:32
moment. So to be where your feet are.
1:37:33
So when when things maybe go slower than we want or it
1:37:37
doesn't happen the way we thought we wanted it, I think
1:37:39
that's exactly how it played out.
1:37:40
And I think you're supposed to be on this show exactly today,
1:37:43
not two years ago, not two years from now.
1:37:46
I think this is the right time and and it's showed by your
1:37:49
story. Man, that was amazing.
1:37:51
I could spent the whole time just talking about your, your
1:37:53
childhood and growing up and acclamation.
1:37:56
And you know, I think the things that you talked about with
1:37:59
assimilation and culture and culture appropriation and
1:38:02
keeping true to your original, I think those are extremely
1:38:06
important. Like I'm very fascinated by
1:38:07
those topics. And you know, they don't
1:38:10
necessarily have to do a track and field, although they do have
1:38:12
to do a track and field. You coach kids from other
1:38:14
countries and other regions and things like that.
1:38:17
And you got to kind of now help lead these young men and young
1:38:20
women of like, all right, well, you know, yes, they're different
1:38:22
because they came from here. And you know what, maybe you got
1:38:24
to think about how they feel about being in in Minnesota, for
1:38:27
crying out loud, you know, like there's there's a, you know,
1:38:29
weather wise and things like that.
1:38:30
So I think you're doing an amazing job leading young men
1:38:34
and young women. I'm so glad that you're pouring
1:38:36
into them and it's really it's a continuation of the people that
1:38:40
poured into you from from professionally, people like Seth
1:38:42
and Mike to family like your mom and your dad and brothers and
1:38:46
people in your neighborhood in Canada where you grew up and
1:38:49
people that helped you out when you're in Africa moving from
1:38:51
just terrible, terrible situations.
1:38:53
I mean, those are all those are all build up to who you are
1:38:55
today. And I think that's so cool that
1:38:57
kids get to to learn from you and experience that from from
1:39:01
your point of view. Appreciate that and I appreciate
1:39:04
you appreciate you giving me this opportunity to share and
1:39:07
hopefully some of this means something to someone, then they
1:39:12
can take it and make use of it. Well, it will.
1:39:14
I, I, there's no doubt in my mind.
1:39:16
So thank you so much for you guys being here again today.
1:39:18
You know, it means the world to me that you press play, not
1:39:21
because you get to hear my voice.
1:39:22
You, you'll hear my voice. And all the time on Twitter and
1:39:26
podcast and all that kind of stuff.
1:39:27
It's these guys and gals that sit down with us, their voice,
1:39:30
their story, their journeys matter.
1:39:32
And I, you know, I'm super excited to share these with you.
1:39:35
With Brian. I didn't know a lot about his.
1:39:37
He's one of those guys. You know, I've talked to you
1:39:39
about that. There's people on the show that
1:39:41
I don't really know that I haven't really talked too much
1:39:43
Brian. I have not talked much on the
1:39:45
track and things like that very much.
1:39:47
So I didn't know very much about Brian.
1:39:48
So to hear that story, that authenticity, that that journey
1:39:52
that he's gone through like that, that's amazing to me that
1:39:55
that this guy, he became a track coach.
1:39:57
He could, I mean, you know, you, you heard the story.
1:39:59
He could have become a lot of different things.
1:40:01
Obviously a teacher professor is kind of where I think he was bit
1:40:05
to go towards. And thank you.
1:40:07
Thank goodness for us in the track and field world that this
1:40:09
guy decided to take that teacher professorship into doing it for
1:40:13
track and field in life, you know, helping young people
1:40:15
continue to grow. So I'm so happy that you were
1:40:17
able to hear his journey. So join us next week.
1:40:19
We'll do it all over again and have some some more fun out
1:40:21
there. Thanks everybody.
1:40:23
The goals to appreciate the coach, the ones that pour people
1:40:26
most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth
1:40:29
you got to prep before you carry the load ice coffee to the soul.
1:40:33
For those of us who stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
1:40:36
zone which you packing for the road.
1:40:38
There's more than one way to go taking those SPA on your toe.
1:40:41
It ain't practice, it's your purpose.
1:40:43
Saint Clair. It can't happen until you listen
1:40:45
with both is you can't mentor without a mentor of years of
1:40:48
experience. You can reinvent those years.
1:40:50
Every plan's got to stand and deliver to and the price
1:40:53
sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight, not a
1:40:57
win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
1:40:59
Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to, it's all
1:41:02
about why you don't know till you know who you are inside
1:41:05
6,000,000. Waste of time, choose none.
1:41:07
So y'all of course finish line the work ain't done so we learn
1:41:11
from the experts but y'all got to put in the leg work kill.
1:41:14
Athletics is the network. It's all about connections put
1:41:17
together for the profession to where every track coach could be
1:41:19
blessing.