Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #255: Bruce Jackson-Academy of Art

Transcript

#255: Bruce Jackson-Academy of Art · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:10
  Track and field world Juvenal tuned in to our humble servant
• 0:14
  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message on Gil
• 0:18
  Athletics connections. All right, here we go.
• 0:24
  Back on the go up expansions podcast.
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  So grateful as always. Really just humble that you'd
• 0:29
  press play once again on our podcast and check out another
• 0:33
  amazing coach from around the country.
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  Hopefully you've been catching up here in season five.
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  We started off with the Baylor 4 by 4 series.
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  We've had some awesome people like James Thomas over at
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  Oklahoma. We even had we even had a race
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  Walker on the show. I didn't think we'd ever have
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  that and I really learned a lot And if you weren't able to go to
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  check out that episode, I really encourage you.
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  Even if you have anti race walkers thoughts, I'd I'd really
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  encourage you to go listen to Michael Roth from the Raleigh
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  Walkers and learn a little bit about the event.
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  And we had a really great conversation about where that
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  event maybe should sit inside of track and field or maybe outside
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  of track and field. So.
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  So here's my preview of what we've been doing season five.
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  I hope you've been following along and having a good time.
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  And of course, big back catalog 200 plus coaches here and we're
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  going to add 1 today. Help me welcome the distance
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  coach of Art U. Not our first coach, not our
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  second coach, but actually our third coach from Art U.
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  We're going to learn about this really awesome university,
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  amazing athletic program. Help me welcome the distance
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  coach, the wise, the wonderful Mr. Bruce Jackson.
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  Bruce, how are you Sir? I'm good.
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  Thank you for having me on here. Appreciate it.
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  It's always awkward to sit through the intro, isn't it?
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  You're like, all right, When's it going to get to me?
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  Yeah, yeah, it's cool. Race walking, Mike, come on,
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  come on, let's go. We're talking about distance
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  racing, not race walking here today.
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  I was interested. I wanted to hear what you had to
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  say. Yeah.
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  Hey, I don't know. I don't put you on the spot
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  here. Did you get it?
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  You're a listener. Thank you, by the way, Bruce,
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  for being here and for being a listener.
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  Did you get a chance It was real recent for when we're recording
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  this to listen to the to the race.
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  Walker. Michael Roth.
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  No, no, I haven't. But I I've had experience Tim
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  Siemens silver down in Kumaka College. him and I are very good
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  buddies. I used to coach in San Diego and
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  obviously his wife is, you know, national level.
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  I actually got to see Tim this last weekend for a meet, so so I
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  used to have him come out to my teams actually and talk to them
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  to recruit some kids for for his college.
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  So I'm familiar a little bit with the race walking.
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  I I I was blown away. I I told him even on air, but
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  you know before air I was like hey I was like I'd like to have
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  a conversation about race walking and I don't want it to
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  be confrontational and the reason I said that was first of
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  all Michael Roth, he's a self admitted.
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  You know he's a little bit of a a hot head when it comes to race
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  walking and I was very anti race walking and I tell you what I,
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  no pun intended, walked out of that conversation having a lot
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  more respect for the events. And he really, you know, we
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  really had a good conversation of where should it be for like
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  the marathon is not part of track and field, right?
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  But it's still our part of our sport.
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  So that's kind of where it's like, well, maybe race walking
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  just shouldn't be part of track and field.
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  It needs to live as its own event.
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  Maybe there needs to be events, you know, like 5 KS and things
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  like that. And maybe it needs to be shorter
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  as well. By the way, maybe there needs to
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  be a mile. And I know they're in, you know,
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  like in youth events, there's mile race walking, 'cause I was
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  just like, why is it got to be 50K, man?
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  I was like, I I I struggle with marathon.
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  I struggle with 10 KS. To be honest with you, I know
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  I'm talking to my distance guy here today, but.
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  But. 50K Come on man, Why? Why?
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  You know what about a mile That might be a cool event.
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  You know? Anyway, Well Bruce, let's learn
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  more about you and although you have, you know race walking
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  friends, that's really cool. You know Tim and Rachel, man,
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  their royalty inside race walking.
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  So it's really cool. Well Bruce, super excited to
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  have you here. You know we have turned the
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  corner in the podcast. You know, when after you get to
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  250 some episodes, you know, you have to do things differently on
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  how you get people to the show. You know, when I first started,
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  you know, 4 almost five years ago, you know, first of all, no
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  one was doing podcast back then, really, you know, generalizing
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  here inside of track and field. And so here was Mike with this
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  crazy idea of, hey, I want to sit down with you for an hour,
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  hour and a half and talk about you your whole life.
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  Right. That was a little, you know, I
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  had to, I don't want to say beg, but, you know, I had to really
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  coax people to get on to the show now, and this sounds like a
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  terrible, terrible brag. Everybody wants the show, right?
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  So everybody's. So now we've turned it to where
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  you have to be nominated to be on the show.
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  And you, my friend, you were nominated not only by a fellow
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  peer of ours, you know, a friend of ours, but also a Guild
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  podcast alum, Mr. Lamont Vaughan, the head coach at
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  Grambling State University. Dear friend.
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  And you know, maybe some of you listening right now are probably
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  shaking your head, 'cause he's just one of the more most
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  likable people in our profession.
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  There's a lot of great people that are likable, and Lamont
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  just really stands head and shoulders.
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  Love him. But if you haven't listened to
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  his episode, go check it out in the same app that you're using
• 5:07
  right now. Just type in his name, Lamont
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  Von or type in Grambling and that'll bring up the The Gill
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  Connections podcast. He was a he was he was a while
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  back he probably was episode like maybe 80 and we're on next.
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  This is 255 today so which you know to my distance runner
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  that's actually my half mile PR 255 so it's appropriate.
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  I couldn't even go with Marathon PR.
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  Now I had to go. Real.
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  Real. Real.
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  So you were nominated. So congratulations, that is a
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  big deal that someone else thinks enough of you and and
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  your history and journey in this profession, and I'm excited to
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  to learn about that today. No, yeah.
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  I'm very appreciative to Coach Vaughn there and we go, we go
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  way back. So I appreciate him nominating
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  me, and I'm sure he'll his name might probably come up here in
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  a. Little bit, yeah.
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  I was trying not because I was going to say, well, how do you
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  know? And I was like, well, that's
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  going to get in the story. Let's make sure we go in order.
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  But before we get in order, I do want to ask you about something
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  that you you just taught me about before we hit record here
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  because I think this is this is fascinating.
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  So this is not your first podcast and not because you've
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  been a guest on other shows. Maybe you have.
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  Hopefully you have, but you actually host or Co host.
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  You tell me you actually have your own podcast.
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  Yeah, so I Co host a podcast called Blacktop Smack Talk
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  podcast and it's basically on on basketball around everything.
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  So you know mainly the focus is NBA but we've dived into you
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  know WNBA, college basketball. I've done it around for about
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  5-6 years and probably was we were a lot more active then.
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  And I think you know as you get older you know some of my Co
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  hosts is three other gentlemen based out of Seattle and that's
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  where I'm from. And so they, you know they work
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  out of the studio that we work with third wheel podcast
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  studios. There's a plug for them out out
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  in Seattle and then I see you know call in or zoom in but
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  we've done that for for years and so you know we're on YouTube
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  and Spotify, Podbeam, all that stuff.
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  So I have experience definitely doing that and then being on the
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  in your side Mike, and interviewing different people
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  but in the you know the realm of basketball, so.
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  And you've done this 5-6 years. Hey, that's a big deal.
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  You know, when COVID hit, a lot of podcasts started and a lot of
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  podcasts in the track and field world started.
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  But as you might have expected that when we got out of COVID
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  and you know we got back to coaching and working and family
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  and lives, as you mentioned, a lot of them fell off and they're
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  no longer around, you know, so for you guys, you guys were pre
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  COVID kept it going during COVID and now keep it that bravo, that
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  that that longevity, that consistency which I'm sure
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  you've seen in coaching. You know, a plus consistency
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  will get you a lot farther than a lot of tricks and gimmicks out
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  there. So that's a that's a big deal.
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  Why? Why basketball?
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  You're well, you know we'll learn.
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  Maybe we'll learn. Why basketball but not track.
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  Why? Why basketball?
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  Basketball I was it's my first love.
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  It's what I started. I I to be honest I never thought
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  I'd be a track athlete in college over basketball I did
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  what both and so I just have a lot of lot of friends in the
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  basketball community grew up in in both tracking basketball
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  community. So those are kind of pretty
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  prevalent sports in my family and just my friend base.
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  So yeah, I was just it just worked.
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  It was kind of like our our group chat you know exposed and
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  people want to listen to it and and we just you know have a lot
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  of connections in the in those worlds so.
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  Has the podcast. Because what I I'm always
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  learning is that a lot of people would like to do their own
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  podcast and I highly encourage, I actually encourage everybody.
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  If you want to do a podcast, you should just like I would say if
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  you wanted to have a Twitter account or an Instagram account
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  or whatever, sure you should. There's no harm if you do it,
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  and even if you do it bad, it's big deal.
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  A lot of people do social media bad.
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  Trust me. I see.
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  That's correct. But we would never tell them not
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  to open up an account. What has the podcast?
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  Black Blacktop Smack. That's hard to say.
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  Bro. Blacktop Smack.
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  Talk. There you go.
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  Has that led, have you, have you met anybody famous through that
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  like that you've had on the show what what kind of opportunities
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  has that open? Sure, sure.
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  You know if you you can just go to acronym BTST.
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  You know a pod that works. Yeah.
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  No we've we've we've gone in to interview people from like we've
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  been in you know I used to go to summer league before summer
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  league is now like I mean I can tell you stories and with you
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  know I've sat next to like James Harden's mom when she was a
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  rookie and you know I've met a lot of NBA different players and
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  stuff definitely some interesting stories for another
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  pod but but yeah so as far as on our podcast I mean notably that
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  would probably be more now that you would recognize is like
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  Paulo Bank Caro right who's NBA rookie of the year All Star.
• 9:59
  He's from Seattle. We interviewed him when he was
• 10:02
  like the number one high school recruit in the country his
• 10:05
  senior year before going to Duke.
• 10:07
  You know, so we've had him on the podcast and then I more
• 10:10
  probably recent scandal which has been this week is there's
• 10:14
  been a lot of right NB prop betting and sports betting in
• 10:18
  the NBA and other professional sports.
• 10:19
  And one person has come to the kind of figure right now is
• 10:22
  Jonte Porter Michael Porter Junior.
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  So Michael Porter Junior and Jonte Porter went to my high
• 10:27
  school and I actually had Jonte Porter.
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  So we interviewed him. So I kind of made a joke in our
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  podcast like our our interview with him might be trending this
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  week since he's kind of the forefront of the NBA
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  investigating him for for for gambling.
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  So you know those are a couple names.
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  It's funny, I'm a gambler and I just put a prop bet on how many
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  podcast he would be on, so I'm already up one right there.
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  You're up one. That's really cool man.
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  I would I I give just props to you and and your crew for doing
• 10:56
  that. It's again it's not easy.
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  It's easy to start it. It's hard to continue it.
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  So props. So if you guys are listening you
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  know what So maybe some of you guys don't know.
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  I actually teach a like intro to podcasting podcasting one O 1
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  college class for a junior college here in Illinois and so
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  I get to do a lot of the studies behind podcasting and the
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  average podcast listener. So you listening right now
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  listens to between 7:00 and 10:00 different podcasts so
• 11:22
  that's kind of your audience. If someone's already listening
• 11:24
  to a podcast it's easier to get them to listen to your podcast
• 11:26
  and someone who doesn't listen to podcast at all.
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  It's one of the hardest parts as far as the Gill Connections
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  podcast is is growing the the listeners is we're now getting
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  to the point where almost air quotes every person who's
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  interested in track, track coaches who listens to podcast
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  listens. So now you've got to go reach
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  out people who don't listen to podcast much harder.
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  Anyway, having said all that, if you are listening right now and
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  you have interest in specifically NBA basketball or
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  do you guys kind of touch college as well?
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  No, yeah, we you know we try to, we touch everything.
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  So I I would say there's probably a regionality focus a
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  little more in the Pacific Northwest since we're we're that
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  way. So obviously, like, you know,
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  I'm a University of Washington alum, there are two, but we
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  touch on, you know, WNBA, College MBA, all of it, even
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  overseas a little bit as well. And so if you are a basketball
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  enthusiast, and I'm sorry, Bruce, I'm not.
• 12:21
  So I won't. Be able to.
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  Usually I always like to listen to when people do stuff like
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  this. I can't handle it.
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  I can barely spell basketball. But if you are a basketball
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  enthusiast, I I I would go check it out.
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  So the same again same app you're using right now, just
• 12:33
  type in blacktop smacks. I feel like I'm going to say
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  something bad when I say. That's OK, blacktop.
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  Smack. Talk.
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  Yeah, you got it. And.
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  And check them out, man. It might be a a good podcast for
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  you guys. I'm I'm really proud of you,
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  man. Like I said that's it's easy to
• 12:45
  start. It's really hard to keep it
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  going consistently. So that's really cool, man.
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  I love that. I love Let's learn more about
• 12:52
  you. I bet there's more interesting
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  things about you Where does let's kind of get in our Way
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  back machine here Bruce. Track and field.
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  Where is track and field and cross country distance.
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  Where does that start for you and your life?
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  Yeah, for me in my life that would probably that would have
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  started in in high school. That's when I started running
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  track and field. I would say it was probably the
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  the secondary sports to basketball.
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  I played basketball my whole whole life pretty much as a
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  child and so I I probably thought more of track and field
• 13:27
  and cross country as just like conditioning for for basketball.
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  So I I definitely, I didn't run cross country in my freshman
• 13:33
  year of of high school. It was more like hey we need
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  that fall to get ready for basketball tryouts and then I
• 13:39
  always kind of knew I would do track.
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  It's been around my family. You know, my my mother did track
• 13:45
  and field in in in like at the high school level and my dad's
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  side of the family's from Kansas.
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  And so like for them they they're all KU fans.
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  And you know my uncle went to school when Jim Ryan was there
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  and and the KU and and and his daughters who I'm really close
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  to my cousins, you know a lot of them did track.
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  So we kind of you know been around.
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  So I always kind of knew in high school, oh I'm going to I'll
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  give track a try. But you know, my focus is is
• 14:11
  kind of more more basketball and then as I got through high
• 14:14
  school got more more serious so. And where are we growing up at?
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  You said Dad was from Kansas. Yeah, you went to school and up
• 14:21
  in the Seattle area. Where sure, I'm born and born
• 14:24
  and raised from Seattle, so my parents, you know, met, met in
• 14:28
  Seattle and stuff like that. But originally, Dad was from
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  Kansas, Mom was from Ohio, and yeah, you know, born and raised
• 14:34
  in the good old Pacific Northwest.
• 14:36
  So yeah. That's a great area.
• 14:37
  I I really, actually love Seattle.
• 14:39
  I don't get to go enough. I I really do like that area
• 14:42
  though. OK, so you're very common,
• 14:45
  right? We've heard this story 100 times
• 14:47
  from our basketball playing originalist.
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  Yeah, I did it to stay in shape or get in shape for basketball.
• 14:53
  Hear that quite often. Often.
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  Where did track switch for you as you're doing basketball and
• 15:01
  track in high school? You've got different,
• 15:03
  potentially different coaches, a different set of basketball
• 15:06
  coaches, and different set of track and field coaches.
• 15:08
  When did anything switch for you as far as, oh, I'm gonna be a
• 15:10
  little bit more serious or or did?
• 15:12
  You get it at all, yeah. No, I think it was kind of a
• 15:15
  progression. I well what it probably maybe
• 15:18
  switched and helped me a little bit was one of my basketball
• 15:23
  coaches kind of the the freshman level also was alum at the
• 15:27
  school that I went to and was assistant for for the track and
• 15:32
  field team but more the the distance side in cross country.
• 15:36
  And so I I just remember freshman year he was like man
• 15:40
  you never you never really get tired on the court or are doing
• 15:43
  like lines like suicides or something like that.
• 15:46
  You know maybe you should try distance running or coming out
• 15:49
  to the distance side and kind of my whole focus when I was going
• 15:52
  to do track was like oh I'm going to come and do like
• 15:54
  hurdles or something like Sprint.
• 15:55
  My mom did hurdles. So I was like oh cool.
• 15:57
  And my mom went to the same high school, so you know, so yes, I
• 16:00
  went to same high school to her. So I was like all right, I'll
• 16:02
  fall and do some hurdles and I think I went to hurdle practice,
• 16:08
  the very first practice. And then the next day it was
• 16:10
  like, hey, try try distance. And I went out on a run and the
• 16:15
  coach was like, hey just run with these guys.
• 16:17
  And it was some varsity level cross country dudes and think we
• 16:20
  went on like AI don't know, it's just a little recovery five mile
• 16:23
  run and came back and he's like, oh you did you stay with them
• 16:27
  the whole time. And I'm just competitive.
• 16:29
  And I was like, yeah, I run and he's like, oh, and I never went
• 16:32
  back to hurdles then, you know, and stayed there.
• 16:35
  Did that say more about your distance positivity or your yeah
• 16:39
  negatively? Negatively.
• 16:41
  Yeah. I think it was just more like
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  all right like OK it's cool I'm hanging with these guys and so
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  so yeah, I just, I think you know I did that And then you
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  know, I, you know, I had different coaches and freshmen
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  and sophomore year running was still kind of, you know, for
• 16:56
  conditioning and I came out for cross country sophomore year And
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  so just being around the group and it was just a different vibe
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  from you know, basketball culture and running culture is a
• 17:06
  little bit different. And I I say I probably got to
• 17:09
  junior year where I got more more serious about it.
• 17:13
  And you know I always appreciated my high school coach
• 17:16
  who and I are very close to this day.
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  You know he I think he knew long term that running was probably
• 17:23
  better for me as far as just athletic ability, pure athletic
• 17:27
  ability. But he kind of let me get to
• 17:29
  that point myself. He never was the ultimatum where
• 17:33
  you've got to do this. You can't do that which a lot of
• 17:35
  coaches are tend to be sometimes at the high school level where
• 17:39
  as my basketball coach is like why are you doing this stuff?
• 17:41
  Like we need you an offseason you know spring league ball and
• 17:45
  A and this stuff and and my other coach, like you know
• 17:47
  you'll come to it and. So I think probably towards my
• 17:50
  junior year, I kind of just like you know what I wonder if I like
• 17:54
  put a little more in running and maybe less than basketball, what
• 17:57
  could what could happen because at that point, I mean I had some
• 17:59
  minor success but not not compared to what you know, the
• 18:02
  explosion that kind of came at the end of junior, I would say
• 18:06
  senior year, so, so. So before we get to that, going
• 18:09
  back to, you know, I always like when people are telling these
• 18:12
  stories. I, I, I have a, it's an
• 18:14
  automatic. I just start playing the movie
• 18:16
  in the head, right. And so you know when you talked
• 18:19
  earlier about, you know, at first I did track to stay in
• 18:21
  shape or to get into shape for basketball, that's a pretty
• 18:23
  common story. I hear that quite often when you
• 18:28
  went on that first, you know, four or five Miller, you know
• 18:30
  recovery run which probably wasn't a recovery run for you.
• 18:34
  You know you were. Probably a little gas.
• 18:36
  You were going to. You were.
• 18:37
  I love how you said I was competitive, though.
• 18:38
  I was going to stay stay with them.
• 18:41
  The the the other common story we hear with that is yeah coach
• 18:44
  told me to go on this four mile five mile run and I never came
• 18:48
  back. That was terrible.
• 18:49
  I never want to do it again. But yet something it hooked you
• 18:53
  a little bit whether it was well you tell me what Why did it Why
• 18:56
  didn't you like you know what I came out to do Hurdles man.
• 18:58
  I did not come out here to run 5 miles.
• 19:00
  What? What?
• 19:00
  What was it about that that you're like, OK, I let me keep
• 19:03
  trying this. Yeah, I think it was just that
• 19:06
  the fact that I could come back, I think that's repealed to me
• 19:10
  like, OK, here's the challenge. I don't think these guys think I
• 19:14
  can hang and you know, coming back and hang and then just, you
• 19:18
  know, the welcoming nature of the group.
• 19:21
  You know, I, I maybe I just connected.
• 19:22
  I think I connected that group of people maybe a little more
• 19:26
  than the group of the of the hurdlers or something like that
• 19:30
  and it just encouraging like it was just like oh wow surprise.
• 19:33
  Hey. And I think the way he phrased
• 19:35
  it was like Oh yeah, come back tomorrow and try you know try
• 19:37
  again. We'll try something else.
• 19:39
  So I think it just it just hooked up the hey, this was AI
• 19:43
  saw as probably a bigger challenge than that over there
• 19:46
  and it just like, all right, let's wow, I'm pretty naturally
• 19:49
  and I'm with these guys. Let's just see what happens.
• 19:51
  I guess so. Yeah, I like how you describe
• 19:53
  that. You know, when you think about
• 19:54
  the 100 meter dash, anybody can do the 100 meter dash not does
• 19:57
  not mean you're going to do it. Well, yeah, I I would hesitate
• 20:01
  to say that anybody could go run a 5 mile or I I can't, I can run
• 20:04
  100. I'll probably still be running
• 20:05
  it while you're done with your 5 miles.
• 20:07
  But the challenge of running the 100 is running it fast.
• 20:10
  You know, now the challenge of the five miles is to also run it
• 20:13
  fast. But the first challenge you got
• 20:14
  to get over is. Doing it, you know being
• 20:16
  consistent with it, that's that's interesting.
• 20:18
  Learning a little bit about you there, OK.
• 20:21
  So you started taking it may be a little bit more serious going
• 20:23
  into junior senior year and you said success kind of you kind of
• 20:27
  may be a little bit ramped up. Yeah, I ramped up.
• 20:30
  I just kind of. I just started training a little
• 20:33
  more, probably because of a girl I liked on the team that was a
• 20:37
  year older than that is. Also a common theme.
• 20:40
  So I started Runaway and who was more of A built for distance and
• 20:44
  and kind of more of a longer distance runner and and and I
• 20:48
  just kind of took it more seriously and was like all right
• 20:50
  I'm going to go on these runs to her and and not do maybe as much
• 20:54
  commit as much time to you know spring like basketball and
• 20:57
  offseason training and stuff and and see what I could get to and
• 21:01
  and so I had a little bit of success my my junior year.
• 21:03
  I think like you know I was one of the top guys in our league
• 21:07
  which I mean nothing but like the league league level like the
• 21:10
  eight and the 400 meters or something And and I think I I
• 21:13
  just remember sometimes you need disappointment to kind of give
• 21:15
  you a a boost you know. And so I I kind of remember
• 21:19
  junior year you know I made state individually in cross
• 21:22
  country my junior year and so it's my second year running
• 21:26
  cross country And so you know at our school oh that was you know
• 21:29
  we had a pretty story good tradition at our high school And
• 21:33
  so I was happy to make it individually.
• 21:34
  Of course I wanted the team team to be there, but me and me and,
• 21:39
  you know another one of my teammates made it individually
• 21:41
  and then so I had a decent state meet.
• 21:43
  Nothing spectacular or anything. I think I was like 77th or
• 21:47
  something in the state meet and you know Washington's a pretty
• 21:50
  good running state though but it's like all right and then
• 21:54
  track. For a long time I kind of fought
• 21:58
  my coach and I was just like, hey, I I like the two mile and
• 22:01
  the mile and and he was like I think you're a 800m runner and I
• 22:05
  was like no. And so my freshman sophomore
• 22:08
  year, I I know I reversal. Not.
• 22:10
  Normally here, yeah, I normally just was wanted to do the two
• 22:15
  mile and mile and again he's patient, never forced the issue.
• 22:19
  Kind of always let me get there my own and and kind of show the
• 22:22
  steps. And so junior year I kind of
• 22:24
  gave in to him. I was like all right let me try
• 22:26
  this this 800 and and the and the 400 and I end up being like
• 22:31
  the fastest person in the 400 in the league and was up there in
• 22:35
  the 8 and I scratched I remember scratching the 400 at league to
• 22:38
  focus on the 8:00 and I thought I could make state in in track
• 22:41
  and and I didn't and I had a disappointing meet at the
• 22:44
  district meet and and didn't and I think I had barely you know
• 22:48
  broken two that year or something like that And you know
• 22:51
  I was just like Oh yeah I didn't make it and I was just really
• 22:54
  disappointed and I just kind of told myself I just kind of
• 22:57
  remember sitting in the stands and it's a typical Pacific
• 22:59
  Northwest day it's pouring down rain and I'm disappointed.
• 23:02
  I'm all sad and droopy and I'm telling myself you know like
• 23:05
  this feeling I'm feeling right now like I can change this.
• 23:08
  I'm going to try to put a little more effort in running because
• 23:13
  I've put a lot of basketball and I'm I'm getting better.
• 23:15
  But I'm not, you know, there's a little more factors.
• 23:18
  I think in a basketball, a little more of a team aspect.
• 23:21
  There's, you know, you have a little more control where, you
• 23:23
  know, track sometimes is, you know, as viewed as like right
• 23:25
  individual sport in a team setting.
• 23:27
  And so I thought, you know, I can control a little bit more in
• 23:31
  track and field than I can in basketball.
• 23:33
  And so let's let's see what we can do going to senior year.
• 23:37
  You know, I'm sure a lot of coaches are listening right now
• 23:40
  and you know, they're replaying the hundreds of kids that have
• 23:43
  told them, hey, I'm never going to let this happen again.
• 23:46
  Hey, I'll never want to feel like this again.
• 23:49
  And maybe 90 out of 100, they don't do anything different to
• 23:55
  make that feeling not happen again or to make that result not
• 23:57
  happen again. What did you do differently when
• 24:01
  you you were sitting there? I kind of picture this, you know
• 24:04
  the commercial with the rain cloud that's just following just
• 24:06
  you, but you you have to do something different now for the
• 24:09
  next 365 days. So it's different next year.
• 24:11
  What did you do different? Yeah no I I I stuck to my guns.
• 24:16
  You know I I I you know that summer and all that.
• 24:19
  I I kind of I was committed to the team and obviously had
• 24:22
  friends and players as far as basketball but like summer
• 24:25
  league ball I try to like kind of minimized just how much I was
• 24:29
  around basketball and turned out into running.
• 24:31
  So I just like, you know, trained that summer, you know,
• 24:35
  trained like I hadn't actually. You know, hey, you know and you,
• 24:38
  you come and do summer practices.
• 24:40
  But I think a lot of times as as coaches know sometimes people
• 24:43
  are just you're going through the motions like are you really
• 24:46
  it's the toe in there are you really dived into the to the
• 24:49
  lake. And so I kind of just I finally
• 24:52
  stopped putting the toes in there and and dived into it and
• 24:55
  just try to like you know make my my life around it and and and
• 25:00
  really run run on my own and and focus on pace and really
• 25:03
  communicate with my coach and yeah.
• 25:07
  And so that's this kind of the big change was I just kind of
• 25:09
  shifted the focus like yeah when I'm going to commit myself to
• 25:12
  the team because I'm I'm one of the best you know basketball
• 25:15
  players at the school and all that.
• 25:16
  But I'm you know going to reshift a lot more of my focus
• 25:21
  on on working out on my own and conditioning and all that.
• 25:24
  And so that's kind of the focus And then, yeah, and then senior
• 25:27
  year was, you know, kind of way better.
• 25:32
  How'd it work out? Yeah it worked out well.
• 25:35
  I mean I made the state again in in cross country and in another
• 25:38
  teammate and and I think I had another disappointing set back
• 25:41
  that I wouldn't have had the track season, I wouldn't have
• 25:43
  had had if it wasn't for the disappointment that senior cross
• 25:46
  country. And I kind of use that sometimes
• 25:48
  for my athletes about sometimes you need disappointment to write
• 25:52
  you. And so you know I was one of the
• 25:54
  better runners in our district I would say at the state level and
• 25:57
  cross and my whole goal that year was to make team
• 26:01
  Washington. I'll never forget this probably
• 26:03
  the only time I've ever I'm admitting this in a podcast only
• 26:05
  the only time I've ever cried at like a competition.
• 26:09
  But team Washington if you don't know like in in in the Pacific
• 26:14
  Northwest they and I don't know they still do it.
• 26:16
  It's called border clash now but border Clash is of course it was
• 26:21
  called back then it was the Top 40 cross country runners in
• 26:24
  Washington go against the Top 40 cross country runners in Oregon
• 26:27
  at the Nike campus and like my whole goal was like such a big
• 26:30
  deal so I want to make you know border Clash which means for my
• 26:34
  I was a three a runner 4 as the top you know I have to be on the
• 26:37
  podium and so all year you know I had been finishing big invite
• 26:41
  stuff like that races you know top ten top five.
• 26:44
  So I'm like all right I can I can make this podium border
• 26:47
  clash and and I had beat my teammate every single race all
• 26:53
  year long and that particular year at the state meet it was a
• 26:56
  windstorm windstorm year actually 4050 mile per hour
• 27:00
  winds. It's documented and they ran in
• 27:02
  it and I'm a little bit more of a 800 body type.
• 27:05
  I'm a little more taller stockier and actually my my
• 27:08
  teammate I remember this he's he was actually he's he ended up
• 27:11
  being a professional cyclist but he had been cycling his whole
• 27:13
  life so he understood the concept of like drafting sitting
• 27:17
  behind someone and and and it was a bad race and like I was up
• 27:22
  in the leaders the first mile and a half and just slowly just
• 27:25
  started dying off and I always remember I will never forget
• 27:28
  that. I remember there's a point in
• 27:29
  the race if you run at the Washington State meet cross
• 27:33
  country course, where there's a point where if you're in the
• 27:36
  back and the leaders in the front, there's kind of a turn so
• 27:39
  you can see the leaders go by. And I remember at that point I
• 27:42
  was, you know, the race is over and and I'm sitting there and
• 27:46
  I'm like, oh, there's such and such When I was with, you know,
• 27:49
  last week at the district meet, there's such and such too, you
• 27:52
  know, right there in the league. Oh my gosh, my team mate, he's
• 27:55
  in six. What like?
• 27:58
  Like you, son of. AI know and he kicks it in and
• 28:02
  he ends up finishing fifth in the top guy in our league.
• 28:05
  And I mean, like the dude was not, you know, race of his life
• 28:08
  and he makes it. And I crossed the line and I I
• 28:11
  mean, I I broke down. I was sobbing and crying like,
• 28:15
  oh, I can't. Believe that, You know, I was
• 28:17
  happy. For him, obviously by myself and
• 28:20
  I just told myself like, oh man, like and so that was kind of the
• 28:23
  fuel the fire. I was like I am going on a
• 28:26
  track. I'm more suited my skill set for
• 28:29
  track and I'm just going to go on like try to be a tear and and
• 28:34
  and really and so that kind of just lit a fire and and the
• 28:37
  belief of my you know my coach you know he kind of came up to
• 28:40
  me with some crazy idea for the track season.
• 28:44
  I was like wow, like you want to do this you know and and and he
• 28:49
  believed in me and and we we, you know track was a whole
• 28:53
  different game so. Sounds like you.
• 28:56
  You've alluded to this coach and you know we almost called the
• 28:58
  podcast the Gill Shout Out Podcast 'cause we love shout
• 29:01
  outs. Sounds like you had a really
• 29:02
  good relationship with your high school coach.
• 29:05
  Very, very Richard Freeman. Very good.
• 29:08
  I mean to this day, to this day, I mean he knows almost as much
• 29:12
  as my current team as I know about my team.
• 29:15
  Now that he's retired, he travels and he's come to watch,
• 29:18
  you know my team compete like Brian Clay Mount SAC.
• 29:21
  You know he's we're very, very close.
• 29:23
  We probably talk on the phone every 2-3 weeks, you know, stuff
• 29:28
  like that, so. What?
• 29:29
  What? You know, I don't know that.
• 29:32
  I hear that in other sport. I played other sports.
• 29:35
  I was a football player and stuff like that and and I
• 29:38
  certainly you know keep in touch with a couple of my coaches but
• 29:42
  you hear that with track. I mean here's a guy who you know
• 29:46
  he coached in track and and that's it's really important.
• 29:48
  I mean, no one's a bigger track coach fan than than me.
• 29:51
  But here he is in retirement, travelling to his former
• 29:54
  athletes now team you, you know, I mean, that's what what do you
• 29:59
  think that bond is? Why in track and field?
• 30:03
  Yeah, I I I don't know. I think there's so many I guess
• 30:09
  our depending on the obviously I think for everything there's so
• 30:12
  much maybe one-on-one just face to face interaction.
• 30:17
  I think obviously like when I think of a basketball
• 30:19
  environment, of course there's that, but in a practice setting,
• 30:22
  right, a lot of times you're addressing what are we doing as
• 30:24
  a whole group, what are we doing like that?
• 30:26
  And maybe with track you do address obviously the whole
• 30:29
  team, but then you have to come up because so many.
• 30:32
  You know, we might be a distance group, but this person's a
• 30:35
  steeplechaser, this person's more of a hunter runner, I
• 30:37
  think. I don't know, maybe it's just
• 30:39
  there is a lot of just face to face interaction, maybe a little
• 30:43
  more. Maybe that's why, I don't know.
• 30:45
  Yeah, I just don't know that if you to become a basketball
• 30:47
  coach, if your basketball coach would come down to watch your
• 30:50
  game. I don't know.
• 30:51
  No. Yeah.
• 30:52
  Yeah, I don't think. And I'm not.
• 30:54
  That's not judgment on the basketball coach.
• 30:56
  It's just, yeah, I'm just not. I'm just not sure.
• 30:59
  So you are going through your senior year, you're having a
• 31:02
  much better senior year after cross country season.
• 31:05
  You have a a wild plan Coach Freeman comes up with and you
• 31:08
  have to start looking at schools, whether it's to
• 31:11
  actually run or at least for the academic side.
• 31:14
  What did tell us about going in and thinking about the college
• 31:17
  process and what did what did you end up going and and
• 31:20
  majoring in? Yeah, yeah.
• 31:22
  I mean think after my, you know, things have really opened up
• 31:25
  after senior track. You know, I I mean the crazy
• 31:28
  thing he wanted me to do was do the Alberta one train a double.
• 31:32
  You know, win the 400 and 800 the state meet.
• 31:34
  So wow, yeah, we and we accomplished it.
• 31:36
  And I'm, you know, still the only prep in Washington state
• 31:38
  history to do it. Is that right?
• 31:41
  Totally. Yeah.
• 31:42
  Yeah. So toughest double in track and
• 31:44
  field. So yeah, I mean after doing that
• 31:48
  and dropping you know significantly my times in in
• 31:51
  both of those because now you know I went from probably
• 31:54
  getting you know junior college CC offers and I was getting
• 31:58
  stuff for basketball to literally you know senior year.
• 32:03
  Here's a guy that thought he was a 2.
• 32:04
  Miller Miller doesn't train like a sprinter and now he's you know
• 32:08
  ran 48, four and 154 off a distance training and then I ran
• 32:12
  47 this summer you know splits like that.
• 32:15
  So I made tremendous increase and so I had a lot of lot of
• 32:18
  schools interested me, but a lot of them wanted me to go and I
• 32:23
  think the biggest riff for some of them was a lot of them wanted
• 32:27
  me to come and become a a sprinter, you know and it's like
• 32:30
  this guy's running this fast without like literally training
• 32:33
  like a distance runner and I didn't want that.
• 32:35
  I I I enjoyed I kind of wanted to be a middle distance runner,
• 32:38
  probably focused more on the 800 and and 15 potentially in in in
• 32:42
  mile and still run. I love the relay 4 by 4 and
• 32:45
  stuff like that. So yeah it was you know that
• 32:49
  process was interesting. It was really late for me
• 32:52
  because again I kind of gambled on myself.
• 32:55
  I didn't have, like I said I didn't have.
• 32:56
  I kind of had a disappointing cross country season and wasn't
• 32:59
  getting too many interests. And then obviously my junior
• 33:02
  track, I didn't have anything phenomenal.
• 33:04
  I had ran like 159 and 51 something you know and so you
• 33:09
  know Titanic. But again I was so under trained
• 33:13
  like I told you and I took it more seriously and had this kind
• 33:16
  of gigantic leap and made high school nationals and all of
• 33:20
  which was back then Adidas. Now it's New Balance and all
• 33:22
  that. But.
• 33:24
  So, so yeah, you know, my coach just so like I didn't really to
• 33:29
  be quite honest, I mean I talked to a few schools, but like my
• 33:32
  recruiting really jumped after the high schools state meet.
• 33:37
  So you're almost into the summer after your senior year perhaps.
• 33:41
  And so, yeah, so I mean, I mean, obviously at the state meet
• 33:44
  there was schools and and beforehand, you know, I would
• 33:47
  say the only school that kind of consistently talked to me
• 33:50
  leading up to that was like University of Washington a
• 33:52
  little bit. But I know during that process
• 33:57
  for me, I really wasn't sold and going to school where I was
• 34:02
  from, you know, I didn't want to go to school in my backyard my
• 34:06
  senior year, we had a brand new track as well and it's like one
• 34:09
  of the nicest tracks in Seattle. And so, like my high school
• 34:13
  track at the time, I would say was nicer than the University of
• 34:16
  Washington's track because they used to have the old track, the
• 34:19
  the few that were around the football field.
• 34:21
  And so I was like, I don't want to go here.
• 34:24
  And so I I looked at a lot of schools.
• 34:26
  I was, you know, out of state and and ultimately out of out of
• 34:33
  the schools that some very big time schools that recruited me.
• 34:37
  I actually ended up at Eastern Washington.
• 34:40
  Oh yeah. Yeah.
• 34:42
  The Eagles. Yeah, greatest recruiting job
• 34:46
  ever. But yeah, yeah, so, so.
• 34:49
  Interesting subject. Yeah.
• 34:52
  You know thinking about and I know track is a little different
• 34:57
  college wise, scholarships and things like that today than it
• 34:59
  was when you were being recruited.
• 35:02
  But it's always interesting to me.
• 35:04
  I love how you put that. You bet on yourself.
• 35:07
  There is a lot of pressure put on me.
• 35:09
  We we always have to remember and I think sometimes we forget
• 35:12
  we are dealing with 18 year old kids.
• 35:13
  I really loved your story about breaking down at the state meet
• 35:18
  for cross country. You know you're a tough guy
• 35:21
  you're you're a strong guy, you've you've gone through a lot
• 35:23
  that we're going to learn and things like that.
• 35:25
  But you were still a 1718 year old kid.
• 35:28
  That emotionality of what happened and what didn't happen,
• 35:31
  you know that your success didn't happen there hit you in
• 35:34
  that moment. There's a lot of pressure on
• 35:37
  these 1718 year old kids to make collegiate decisions and track
• 35:41
  and field. So you know this is where I live
• 35:43
  and then I see this ever. I mean literally I see this
• 35:45
  every day on Twitter where you know somebody will say, hey, if
• 35:48
  you've gotten an offer now and you better take it, it ain't
• 35:51
  going to be there tomorrow. If you're waiting for these, you
• 35:54
  know, Power Five, what is it now?
• 35:56
  Power Five, I don't even know what we say.
• 35:58
  Power two, Power two. Yeah, right.
• 36:00
  Exactly. If you're waiting for the big
• 36:02
  time the air quotes there Division One offer, it's not
• 36:04
  going to be there because of the transfer port.
• 36:06
  A lot of I, I, I see and hear a lot of fear mongering with this.
• 36:10
  Now I I also believe that a lot of our coaches that are saying
• 36:12
  that are saying it. I I do believe they're all
• 36:15
  they're saying it for a little bit of self-interest honestly.
• 36:18
  But I do believe there's also the heart of I don't want a kid
• 36:21
  to get screwed over here again knowing that recruiting's a
• 36:24
  little different today than it was back then.
• 36:27
  You didn't do that. You you you had some offers at
• 36:30
  1:59 and 51 or you offers to go places and maybe some small
• 36:33
  scholarship offers or something like that.
• 36:35
  And again, I love how you put it.
• 36:36
  I bet on myself and you end up you know Washington now
• 36:39
  recruiting you big you know big name schools in Eastern
• 36:41
  Washington. What is your.
• 36:44
  And you know you set it as a division two school which that
• 36:46
  plays into this whole if you get an offer you better accept it
• 36:50
  now type of the culture if you will.
• 36:53
  Where do you sit on, what's your thought when you're talking to a
• 36:57
  1718 year old kid and you're making an offer and they're
• 37:00
  like, yeah coach, I want to bet on myself or tell me kind of
• 37:03
  what, what, where do you sit now as a coach versus back then as
• 37:06
  an athlete? Yeah, I mean, yeah, what I said
• 37:10
  now, I mean, I, yeah, I totally think of, you know, I try to
• 37:13
  talk to kids and I understand like what, you know, 1718 year
• 37:18
  old knows what they want to do with their life, you know, and
• 37:20
  exactly you know, where they want to go.
• 37:22
  And so I, you know, I make an offer.
• 37:24
  I'm trying to make sure that they know that, you know, you've
• 37:27
  got to focus on a couple of different things.
• 37:29
  And for me, you know, I, you know, is it a place obviously
• 37:32
  you can see yourself running at? It is a place that you can see
• 37:34
  yourself, you know, having the major that you want to be as a
• 37:38
  place that you know when everything is not going well.
• 37:43
  Or do you want to be there, 'cause the last thing I told
• 37:45
  her, 'cause the last thing I want you to do is look around
• 37:47
  and like, why am I here, 'cause I don't.
• 37:48
  I don't care if you're the best #1 recruit in the country or
• 37:52
  #1000. There's going to be a time where
• 37:56
  running is not going to make me going particularly well.
• 37:59
  School academically might not be particularly going well.
• 38:02
  And then you're going to have to sit down and look around your
• 38:04
  surroundings and like is this where I want to be with some of
• 38:08
  the other things that whether you know social location,
• 38:11
  environment, weather, things like that around.
• 38:13
  And so you know I'm a little more patient.
• 38:16
  I'm I'm not to be honest. I'm not a coach that typically
• 38:19
  puts out deadlines on on on athletes.
• 38:22
  Now you know I usually sometimes challenge them and be like hey,
• 38:26
  do you maybe. Particularly because sometimes
• 38:28
  nowadays I would say probably the difference is some of them
• 38:30
  actually have their own deadlines where I think back in
• 38:33
  the past a lot more were just kind of like because the
• 38:36
  recruit, the recruiting market wasn't well as known.
• 38:39
  Where this is like Oh well I'll wait because they'll tell me
• 38:42
  what to do or they'll get a deadline where I think a little
• 38:44
  bit more nowadays recruits are a little more informed of what the
• 38:48
  climate is. You know what, what's going on
• 38:52
  with, you know, as far as like that they're a little bit more
• 38:54
  knowledgeable as far as official unofficial visits, obviously,
• 38:58
  you know, you get a little, I guess in our sport, a little bit
• 39:00
  of an NIL now and things like that.
• 39:03
  So they're a little bit more aware as far as back in my day,
• 39:06
  it was kind of like whatever the coach told you, you know, you're
• 39:08
  kind of like hanging on them, so.
• 39:12
  Yeah, that's that's interesting to me, you know.
• 39:16
  And by the way I have a lot of empathy for the coaches who you
• 39:19
  know there's there's there livelihood is dependent on 18
• 39:23
  year old kids choosing or not choosing their institution.
• 39:25
  So I I also have a lot of empathy for for the coaches who
• 39:28
  are like hey man you need to make a decision because I got to
• 39:30
  move on. I I would just like to see more
• 39:32
  transparency of like hey 18 year old kid I'm offering a
• 39:35
  scholarship I'm just going to let you know I have also offered
• 39:37
  maybe two others it's first come first served you know and that's
• 39:41
  also a lot of pressure to put on a 18 year old kid too there.
• 39:43
  I don't know that honestly you know, kind of talking this out
• 39:46
  right now, Bruce. I'm not sure that there is a
• 39:48
  healthy way to do it at all. You know, because we're still
• 39:51
  dealing with 18 year old kids. You know, that's the that to me
• 39:54
  is the the smoking gun of it all.
• 39:56
  It's like man, you are still dealing with a kid.
• 39:58
  That kid doesn't know what underwear he wants to wear
• 40:01
  tomorrow. How is he supposed to choose?
• 40:03
  And and by the way, it's still, I've said this many times on the
• 40:05
  podcast, it's still ridiculous to me that we make 18 year olds
• 40:08
  choose their their academic and therefore their professional
• 40:12
  path at 18 years old. It's.
• 40:15
  Ridiculous. Ridiculous.
• 40:16
  So what did you you end up going to Eastern Washington?
• 40:18
  What did you? Think.
• 40:20
  You wanted to be what was the I'm going to be a businessman.
• 40:23
  I'm going to be a teacher. What?
• 40:25
  What was the thought for academic?
• 40:26
  Yeah, I think initially, yeah, when I went to school, I think I
• 40:31
  was interested in business and and and marketing or the other
• 40:34
  side kind of was into, I don't know, behavioral science and
• 40:38
  thought I might work for the FBI and study like track down sealer
• 40:41
  killers and stuff like that. I was kind of into that.
• 40:45
  I just reading people and. Again, why do we make that 18
• 40:48
  year olds make their decisions? It's like, man, it's on the show
• 40:52
  and I was like, that's what I want to be and it's like.
• 40:53
  Yeah, it'll change tomorrow. Trust me.
• 40:55
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 40:56
  Yeah. So you know academically, yeah
• 40:58
  those were the thoughts and just you know athletically they kind
• 41:01
  of to be honest they probably said said what I wanted to hear.
• 41:06
  I can tell my mindset was a lot different back then and and and
• 41:09
  you know you know you have you know I was you have club coaches
• 41:12
  you have your high school coaches telling you to go to
• 41:15
  this and that. You know and I can kind of
• 41:16
  remember you know where they wanted to.
• 41:18
  I remember my club coach really wanted me to go you know, you
• 41:21
  know I want you to go to Georgetown.
• 41:22
  You should go there and then you know you're getting letters from
• 41:25
  you know I was getting stuff from most most PAC 12 schools
• 41:28
  and all this stuff. And you know, I I think for me
• 41:31
  at the time I kind of wanted to be, you know, probably didn't
• 41:34
  say it but probably like a big fish in a small pond.
• 41:37
  And so you know Eastern, Eastern just kind of worked with that
• 41:41
  and they kind of were selling what I wanted to hear as far as
• 41:43
  like what I wanted to run. And so I wanted to focus more on
• 41:48
  kind of middle distances or some of these other places, probably
• 41:50
  wanted a little more emphasis on the the 8:00 and 4:00 and like I
• 41:54
  said, I know it's wild but you know I'm the rare person that
• 41:56
  moved down in distance and not up.
• 41:58
  And so I I you know I enjoyed cross country and and stuff like
• 42:02
  that a little bit longer. I always say that there's
• 42:05
  definitely people out there that go down in distance because
• 42:07
  everybody says, Oh well, everybody moves up.
• 42:08
  And if that was true, then everybody would be a 10K guy by
• 42:11
  the time they were seniors, right?
• 42:12
  It's like some people do stay and you know, you are the little
• 42:15
  bit of the rare bird that actually went down in distance.
• 42:17
  I love that. That's so, so unique.
• 42:19
  What, You know, I'm always curious for athletes who have a
• 42:23
  strong relationship with their high school coach, how they
• 42:26
  transition to their college coach.
• 42:28
  How did that go for you as far as a relationship with your
• 42:32
  collegiate coach? I mean obviously the first stop
• 42:35
  here at Eastern, not not very, very well, but.
• 42:38
  OK, you give us a little hint there that we're not going to
• 42:40
  graduate from Eastern is what you're saying?
• 42:41
  Not going to graduate from Eastern.
• 42:43
  So yeah not very not very well. You know, didn't have it you
• 42:50
  know very good relationship. You know I read registered my
• 42:54
  freshman year there and but again I, you know hindsight and
• 42:58
  and I know myself and I probably didn't help the situation.
• 43:03
  You know, I had played definitely a part a part in that
• 43:05
  for sure. And so you know you're young you
• 43:08
  got it mature and I was definitely immature and you know
• 43:12
  and I think also just probably culturally it was a little bit,
• 43:15
  you know I'm being in a growing up in a major metropolitan area
• 43:19
  and moving pretty much into a very rural rural era was
• 43:22
  probably a little more culture shock and just things like that.
• 43:25
  Yeah. I don't think we talked about
• 43:26
  that a lot enough in recruiting. I think that's a good point.
• 43:29
  Yeah so. So yeah we didn't the best, best
• 43:34
  relationship as far as my distance coach.
• 43:36
  I know as far as the head coaches and other coaches were
• 43:38
  actually pretty pretty well and they and they they were there
• 43:41
  for a long time. You know, Stan Kerr, Marcia
• 43:43
  Mecklenburg were there and so obviously I had a different
• 43:46
  distance coach, so. So where'd you go?
• 43:49
  So after yeah two years I transferred transferred back
• 43:52
  home to the University of Washington and and you know
• 43:55
  probably I always say that probably the maybe the best
• 43:58
  decision I've ever made in my life maybe close to it and so
• 44:02
  and a part of that was you know not you know just needed in a
• 44:04
  different environment I think it would just work well-being close
• 44:07
  to home my mother was pretty was was diagnosed with Ms. when I
• 44:11
  left college So a lot of people actually didn't know if I was
• 44:14
  actually even going to go to eastern.
• 44:16
  You know, we had kind of a incident right before I was
• 44:18
  supposed to leave. So I ended up coming there a
• 44:20
  little bit late and so for me moving back home, it served you
• 44:24
  know, purpose was one I needed definitely a change of scenery
• 44:27
  and and to re kind of get my running career going again.
• 44:32
  And then also part of it was just to be closer to my mom
• 44:35
  because I mean I literally became her power of attorney at
• 44:37
  like the age of 18 years old. So see.
• 44:40
  This is, I'm on kind of a crusade personally and outwardly
• 44:44
  to our coaching body of being more empathetic.
• 44:47
  You know, again, I keep saying, you know, we're dealing with 18
• 44:49
  year old kids again, They are kids.
• 44:51
  Even you may have been one of the more and obviously you had
• 44:54
  to have been one of the more mature 18 year olds.
• 44:57
  But you know dealing dealing with your mom have an Ms. today
• 45:01
  at this age and stage you're full born adult now you know
• 45:05
  you've got a lot of maturities would be extremely hard.
• 45:08
  An 18 year old dealing with this, becoming your mom's POA
• 45:14
  dude, that's tough. That's harder than running sub
• 45:18
  150 and 800. That's harder than making a four
• 45:21
  point O. That is real stuff that kids are
• 45:24
  going through that you were going through while going to a
• 45:27
  whole different environment to live new friends new.
• 45:30
  Or do I go to eat cafeteria? Oh, by the way, no one's telling
• 45:33
  me to go to bed at 9:10 o'clock anymore, so I can sample 2:00
• 45:36
  and all these kind of things and having expectations of running
• 45:39
  fast, making your grades, being a cool teammate, things like
• 45:42
  that. That's hard.
• 45:45
  Yeah, yeah. I mean it was tough.
• 45:46
  I mean she was, you know, and you're, you're getting decisions
• 45:49
  and at that time she was handling it pretty well.
• 45:51
  You know, obviously it's a deteriorating disease.
• 45:55
  But you know, when I first moved back we, you know, we, I lived
• 45:58
  with her that summer coming into UW.
• 46:01
  So, you know, at that time now I'm 2020, I think I turned 21
• 46:05
  that summer or something like that, but 2020 years old.
• 46:09
  And so she was still living on her you know on her own but you
• 46:12
  can see you know you know things deteriorating and and stuff like
• 46:17
  that and so yeah just being over the helper with the decisions
• 46:22
  and stuff like that and and just with their health related issues
• 46:25
  but but yeah no moving to UW I you know it was like I said
• 46:31
  probably the best decisions I ever made And and then obviously
• 46:34
  being there my very first year you know I I met coach coach
• 46:37
  Metcalf and that's that's my guy I love met and I'm being great
• 46:44
  And so you know that whole staff you know believes me.
• 46:47
  A lot of those guys you know followed me in the high school
• 46:50
  years and then you know obviously transferring there and
• 46:54
  I just really enjoyed my time with that staff.
• 46:56
  The staff at that time when I first got there was Dionne
• 46:59
  Miller who I know has been on your show.
• 47:02
  Coach Miller Arizona State. So Dionne was the Sprint coach
• 47:05
  Coach Metcalf. I was the head coach distance
• 47:08
  David Bazzi who you know to me is like a a Seattle local
• 47:13
  legend. So I love Boz and then at the
• 47:17
  time Kelly Kelly McDonald who's you know Kelly Bean now married.
• 47:21
  So that was the the staff on there.
• 47:23
  And then obviously we had other Staffs with you know other event
• 47:26
  areas. Pat Licari Reedus.
• 47:28
  Yeah. So Pat was there.
• 47:29
  He's. Legend.
• 47:30
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Ras has been.
• 47:32
  So you you're getting into your last couple years of college.
• 47:37
  You're being very responsible for your mom.
• 47:40
  You start thinking differently about your future.
• 47:42
  You start thinking about your future.
• 47:44
  It's not just what's today and what's tomorrow.
• 47:46
  It's like, what is five years from now?
• 47:47
  Where? How did did your mindset change
• 47:50
  at all in regards to academics, as far as what you're going to
• 47:53
  major in and what you might do you eventually you're going to
• 47:56
  graduate. I'm going to become an
• 47:57
  accountant or a serial killer interviewer.
• 48:00
  What? Are you thinking, Yeah, yeah,
• 48:03
  no, I I think you know, right when I first when I got there,
• 48:06
  my mindset changed a little bit 'cause it was kind of more like,
• 48:10
  hey, let's you know, I, I come from a a very high achieving I
• 48:15
  guess family. And just like and I think a lot
• 48:17
  of times I I knew like oh you could study this in major, but
• 48:20
  doesn't mean you don't have to you can't do something else
• 48:22
  professionally or or go to grad school and get that.
• 48:26
  So like you know I I was lucky to be grew up in around a family
• 48:29
  that very highly educated and and you know I had people to
• 48:33
  look towards for you know success.
• 48:34
  So I think when I got to UW it was like yeah, you know I still
• 48:38
  was kind of more of the business route is in in marketing but
• 48:41
  like let's you know maybe take majors in things that you know
• 48:44
  I'm I'm interested in in in theory and so kind of I kind of
• 48:48
  like you know law enforcement or you know politics and things
• 48:52
  like that. And so I, you know I double
• 48:54
  majored in like sociology and law siding justice which is kind
• 48:58
  of like pre kind of pre law people either usually go into
• 49:01
  like government agencies or pre law or lawyers you know so like
• 49:03
  that and you know I was fooling around that idea.
• 49:06
  I I come from a family of full lawyers.
• 49:08
  I have six lawyers in my family Extended.
• 49:11
  Yeah, so. I should have known that before
• 49:14
  I invited you to the show. Yeah.
• 49:17
  You know, so I gotta, I gotta change all my questions here.
• 49:20
  Hold on. Yeah, so.
• 49:22
  So I just kinda. I think when I got to UW, it was
• 49:24
  more like, all right, let's you know, you know, I obviously want
• 49:29
  to focus on academics, but I feel like I have a lot more to
• 49:32
  offer athletically that I wasn't really able to display at at
• 49:36
  Eastern. And so I was just kind of
• 49:37
  focused like that and I got the environment.
• 49:39
  And so yeah that that first year at UW I still probably had some
• 49:44
  of those some of those immature things, some of those things
• 49:48
  that are lingering from Eastern. And that's why like I said, I
• 49:51
  mean Metcalf was just what I needed to wake myself up.
• 49:55
  He kept you know where I was from.
• 49:57
  I needed someone to be very honest and direct and and some
• 50:01
  you know some people can't handle that.
• 50:03
  It's a different it's probably a different coaching world now you
• 50:05
  know things you could say and do now compared back then and and
• 50:08
  stuff. That stuff registered with me.
• 50:11
  Well you know he was very honest with me about what I needed to
• 50:15
  do and and changes and and so that kind of gave me the kick in
• 50:18
  the butt. And so after that first year in
• 50:21
  came Coach Vaughn. You know Coach Miller I had for
• 50:24
  one year and Coach Vaughn came in and and so we kind of shifted
• 50:28
  our our focus training and then things clicked.
• 50:31
  You know where the first year I was kind of primarily with
• 50:33
  Metcalf where when Bond came in I kind of shifted down to the
• 50:37
  Sprint Sprint group and yeah and then it's just kind of exploded
• 50:41
  and everything got a lot lot better and and Bond was
• 50:44
  definitely what I needed. He kept me, kept me going and he
• 50:48
  challenged me for sure. So I I think a lot of people
• 50:51
  would be surprised I don't do any pre research for these
• 50:55
  podcasts. I actually have no I had no clue
• 50:57
  you ran as you know you got as good as you did at your senior
• 50:59
  year in high school and I really have no clue how good did he get
• 51:02
  with coach Vaughn. So tell us because, and it's
• 51:04
  weird questions, I, I, I, this might actually be the first time
• 51:07
  I've ever asked like, So what What did you end up having for
• 51:09
  PRS? Because I don't really care
• 51:10
  about PRS. Meaning you're not a better or
• 51:12
  worse person because you ran 145 versus 240. 5:00 today.
• 51:17
  But it sounds like you know something's clicked.
• 51:20
  No, yeah it clicked. You know I kind of focused on
• 51:22
  that and then you know for that. So then I got down you know he
• 51:26
  eventually came with 40 you know 46, four, 400 guy and I was
• 51:30
  anchoring our school record and 40 fours you know which is still
• 51:34
  the school records to stay in the four by four, three O 3.
• 51:37
  And so you know we just had a really good group and especially
• 51:40
  of home grown people you know there at that year and it just
• 51:44
  you know everything kind of clicked whereas like 4 by 4
• 51:47
  except for one guy was kind of home grown and and was.
• 51:49
  This around like a team. Jordan Bose.
• 51:52
  Yeah. So Jordan was my Jordan was my
• 51:54
  roommate. I'm a little older than Jordan,
• 51:55
  so right before that. So Ryan Brown is like my very
• 51:59
  good friend who was, you know, two time NCAA champion and 800
• 52:02
  should have been 3. And so Amy Leah was also a 1500m
• 52:08
  champion. They won at the same year.
• 52:09
  So this is about 2005, 2006, 2005, 2006 Austin Abbott was
• 52:16
  there. 2005 Did you run at Nationals in the 4 by 4?
• 52:22
  Yes, we did. We did.
• 52:23
  We did. What place did y'all get?
• 52:25
  So that 2005, we were the fastest team not to make the
• 52:31
  final and nationals. I got caught at the line by
• 52:34
  Northern Iowa, I remember and ran three O 4.
• 52:37
  We ran three O 3. But that's the year that the
• 52:39
  collegiate record got bulk and we're like all eight teams in
• 52:43
  the final ran like 3 O one or something 3 flat.
• 52:46
  So my team got you know it's long years now so I can't
• 52:50
  remember we got we got 3rd, 4th or 5th somewhere in there.
• 52:52
  I was. I was coaching at Mississippi
• 52:53
  State during that. Time.
• 52:54
  Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.
• 52:55
  So I remember. That's why.
• 52:56
  So someone, it's funny posted on Facebook the video of that race
• 53:00
  where Xavier Carter Kelly. Exactly.
• 53:04
  Oh gosh, I should be the four bastards that from LSU that set
• 53:08
  the record they destroyed. I.
• 53:09
  Think yeah, it was like, I think Binny was Binny Brazil.
• 53:13
  Yeah, Binny was probably on it. Yeah.
• 53:15
  And I remember someone posted on Facebook and I go, yeah, this
• 53:19
  was the race that got me out of code.
• 53:20
  That was my last race I coached. I'm like, you know what?
• 53:22
  I go, we ran 3O13 flat and change or whatever we're
• 53:25
  supposed to win. I was like and we were, I think
• 53:27
  we're 5th. I was like we.
• 53:28
  Are fifth? No, that's like.
• 53:30
  This is not fun, which is the ironic part is now you run 3
• 53:33
  flat and you're still 5th. I know, right?
• 53:35
  You know, it's just ridiculous. Different times.
• 53:37
  But I know. I actually didn't remember that.
• 53:39
  Because I remember like, yeah, and I was like, oh, wait, we're
• 53:43
  going to go. No, but Oregon.
• 53:45
  Arizona State was in that final. Yeah, there's no state
• 53:47
  Minnesota. That's when Adam Steele and Yep.
• 53:51
  Yeah. Oh gosh.
• 53:53
  The other guy, You'll get older. I just forget all these.
• 53:55
  You do, Yeah. But yeah, no, we were stuck in
• 53:58
  the hip. And so that we were like, Oh my
• 54:00
  gosh, I can't believe we for the first team out.
• 54:03
  It was a dogfight to make the final.
• 54:05
  I remember that, I really do. So, so you have a much, I mean,
• 54:09
  gosh, you got a lot better and you have coach Vaughn and you
• 54:11
  know, he's a pretty, I would feel like I'd be like as an
• 54:15
  athlete of his, it'd be pretty cool.
• 54:16
  I mean he's a great guy. He's a great friend.
• 54:18
  So I could see, you know, him being a coach career ends
• 54:22
  athletically, collegiately, athletically.
• 54:26
  Now you got to make decisions on what do what, what do we do
• 54:30
  professionally? Do we keep running?
• 54:31
  I mean, you're pretty good, Mark, so maybe you tried.
• 54:33
  That yeah. So I just kind of I think
• 54:36
  sometimes you know you you hindsight but I I do remember
• 54:39
  graduating and I I do remember Vaughn and and my training
• 54:44
  partner at the time was Shane Charles who ended up being the
• 54:47
  Grenadian record holder 400 hurdles.
• 54:50
  He was all American PAC, PAC, PAC 10, PAC 12, whatever
• 54:54
  champion and and so just kind of the national progression I
• 54:58
  remember coach Bond asked me like you know you're always been
• 55:01
  tall athletics stuff fast especially more of a probably
• 55:03
  stronger more speed endurance probably 400 runner than
• 55:07
  explosive why don't you you want to try 400 hurdles So it's like
• 55:10
  oh this sounds like a. It sounds like A and.
• 55:13
  Now I regret not doing it, but I I think sometimes you graduate
• 55:16
  and you're like, well now I can do what I want to do.
• 55:18
  I'm going to, I'm going to run what I want.
• 55:20
  And so you know I always loved, like I said that kind of
• 55:23
  distance and all that. So I kind of focused more.
• 55:25
  I was like I'm going to focus on the 800 and at the time you know
• 55:28
  I was like a one 49800 runner and and all this.
• 55:32
  I'm going to focus on the 8:00 and and maybe the 15 and do
• 55:35
  that. So for three you know I
• 55:36
  graduated 2006 and kind of my thought process was like you
• 55:40
  know obviously I always valued valued education just obviously
• 55:44
  for my family and and being and I know you know I wasn't one of
• 55:47
  those people like I've been to chase this forever and you know
• 55:50
  I I know reality. So I kind of just was like all
• 55:53
  right I'm going to do this to the O 8 trials.
• 55:55
  That's kind of was my mindset was like I'm going to do this.
• 55:58
  And so I kind of and I went back and I actually got coached by my
• 56:02
  high school coach. So I went back to him since I've
• 56:04
  been in Seattle now and and went back and trained with him.
• 56:08
  And then I joined, you know local club club Northwest and
• 56:12
  they kind of had like kind of elite division where people were
• 56:16
  getting sponsored by like you know Brooks or something back at
• 56:18
  the time. And so that was kind and a lot
• 56:21
  of like kind of UW post, you know, alums would kind of do
• 56:24
  that a little bit of that route if they stayed in the Seattle
• 56:26
  area. So you know, that's what I did
• 56:28
  and I just kind of you know, focused on that and and trying
• 56:32
  to make, you know, the trials which I didn't end up making.
• 56:35
  But you know, I made some USA indoors meets and club
• 56:39
  nationals, won that one year and just kind of traveled to the US
• 56:42
  and kind of did the whole post collegiate thing for about 3
• 56:46
  years and did that. So on our podcast here, Bruce,
• 56:50
  we focus on coaches and their journeys.
• 56:52
  Somewhere coaching had to start. Yeah.
• 56:55
  Where? Where does coaching begin?
• 56:57
  Here, So coaching, yeah, I just, it was just like in 2008.
• 57:04
  I was just just randomly, I was on a run and I used to live
• 57:09
  right by Woodland Park, which is right by Green Lake if you've
• 57:12
  been to Seattle. And Green Lake's like the
• 57:13
  running kind of Mecca area of Seattle and and so I was just
• 57:17
  literally on a run And one of my old youth club coaches from back
• 57:23
  in the high school days, Jim Neff from Rain City Flyers and
• 57:27
  he's just there's a dirt track over next to Green Lake and I'm
• 57:30
  just running and the little kids are, you know, running.
• 57:32
  And he sees me and he's just kind of yells at me, hey, you
• 57:36
  know, how do you do you want to help out?
• 57:38
  And I'm just like sure I'll help out.
• 57:40
  He's like at the local high school.
• 57:42
  He also coached at Roseville High School and I was like all
• 57:45
  right and he's like, yeah, just give me a call or text.
• 57:48
  And so I did and he high end up hiring me as the Sprint coach
• 57:52
  that year of oh 2008 at at Roosevelt High School.
• 57:55
  And that's that's where it's that's where it began.
• 57:58
  Yeah, as the Sprint coach. Yeah, as the Sprint, I was the
• 58:01
  Sprint coach and then I, you know helped him out with the the
• 58:04
  middle distance. But he he was, you know,
• 58:06
  primarily the distance coach and he needed, just he needed some
• 58:09
  extra healthy hands And you know, I've ran obviously the
• 58:12
  four and the two a little bit and and up, up.
• 58:15
  So she's like, hey, help coach these sprinters and then you
• 58:17
  can, you know, help me out with the like the the Mylers and 800
• 58:21
  Chemos, all right? Sure.
• 58:22
  So what what's your memory? You know, it's always
• 58:25
  interesting to me when an athlete, especially an athlete
• 58:27
  of your caliber who did it, you did it for a long time and then
• 58:29
  did it pass collegiately as well.
• 58:31
  I mean it's just you know, those are those are you know master
• 58:34
  thesis type years at that point. When you change over from
• 58:39
  athlete to coach, it's different.
• 58:40
  I don't care how high level of an athlete and what I mean high
• 58:43
  level, not necessarily your times but how much you really
• 58:45
  listen to coach and ask coach, well why are we doing this
• 58:48
  workout and not this workout, those kind of things.
• 58:50
  How much you actually paid attention to it.
• 58:51
  Most athletes don't. Most athletes say 4 by 200.
• 58:54
  Okay, let's go. They don't ask about why and
• 58:56
  what systems are being worked. But now you're in the coaching
• 58:59
  side, meaning you've got to know why you're doing workouts.
• 59:03
  What what's your memory of that first year of actually direct?
• 59:06
  You know, now it's it's Coach Jackson, not Bruce the athlete.
• 59:09
  Yeah, yeah, it was. It was interesting because like
• 59:13
  some of those kids, you know, I might knew they're like knew
• 59:16
  their uppers, older siblings maybe ran club with me or
• 59:20
  something like that. So you know you're young.
• 59:22
  I mean at that time when I started I was 2424 and so yeah,
• 59:28
  it was just tough just trying to and I think a lot of new
• 59:31
  coaches. You right.
• 59:31
  You just kind of think of like well, what did I do back then
• 59:34
  Like were some of the workouts that I did and so and then
• 59:38
  obviously I had Jim as a resource who had been around the
• 59:41
  game for a long time. So just like programming, you're
• 59:44
  just sometimes it's just trial by error, right?
• 59:47
  Trial by fire. See what this does.
• 59:48
  But I I just kind of thought of myself like you know, what did I
• 59:52
  want? You know, I I think young people
• 59:55
  can tell if you're authentic or disingenuous regardless.
• 59:59
  They're willing to do whatever, even if they know maybe you not.
• 1:00:02
  You might might be the most knowledgeable or something like
• 1:00:05
  that. But they will work for you if
• 1:00:06
  they can. They know that you care, you
• 1:00:08
  know, And so for me. It was just about relationships
• 1:00:13
  and and that's, you know, something I've always learned
• 1:00:15
  from my high school coach. Ultimately it's about
• 1:00:17
  relationship and how do we make these people better people?
• 1:00:20
  It's not necessarily better runners, but just better people
• 1:00:23
  in general. And so just showing them that I
• 1:00:25
  could care and I was going to, you know, if I didn't know
• 1:00:27
  something or I wasn't skilled, I was going to go read about it or
• 1:00:31
  ask someone about it or, you know, pick their brain about it.
• 1:00:34
  And so, you know, I just remember, yeah, that first year.
• 1:00:37
  Yeah, the programming, I think of some of the things we did
• 1:00:39
  all, you know, probably probably not the best, but I think, you
• 1:00:43
  know, they performed because they could tell I was bought in
• 1:00:45
  and it wasn't just like I'm showing up here to get, you
• 1:00:48
  know, some chump change or something like that, so.
• 1:00:51
  Yeah, I think it's. I always take it as a real big
• 1:00:55
  sign of a coach when they say, oh man, the first year or two
• 1:00:58
  that I coached, I look back on, you know, I need to apologize to
• 1:01:01
  them like, oh man, I take that as a sign of a good coach
• 1:01:05
  because that means you have developed to learn more and
• 1:01:08
  become a water coach where, you know other people are like, oh,
• 1:01:10
  I've been doing the same thing for 10 years now from day one to
• 1:01:13
  day 1000. It's like, oh man, you.
• 1:01:14
  So you haven't improved at all since year one.
• 1:01:16
  That's that's not a a good sign. So when did I love that?
• 1:01:20
  It's and it sounds like you're someone who is coaching track.
• 1:01:25
  You're there's a difference between someone who coaches
• 1:01:27
  track and someone who is a track coach.
• 1:01:29
  When did where do you remember the the IT could have been an
• 1:01:34
  incident it could just been a time frame where coaching hooked
• 1:01:38
  you and you became instead of like oh I'm Bruce the guy who
• 1:01:40
  yeah I help out the track the track team.
• 1:01:42
  I help out and like Oh no no, I this is my career.
• 1:01:45
  I am AI am a track coach. Yeah.
• 1:01:48
  So I I would say a couple years later, you know, I I think I
• 1:01:54
  said help that Roosevelt for two years.
• 1:01:56
  So O eight O 9 season. You know, I kind of told myself
• 1:02:02
  I think I'm going to be done. You know and I was running
• 1:02:06
  during those times. I said I think I'm going to be
• 1:02:08
  done chase chasing the dream or whatever.
• 1:02:10
  And and so, you know, at that time I was just, you know,
• 1:02:14
  working at a shoe store and then I was doing some grassroots
• 1:02:17
  marketing for that shoe store a little bit as well.
• 1:02:19
  And so I was like, you know what, I'm going to go to law
• 1:02:22
  school. And so that was kind.
• 1:02:25
  Of course, that's what the Jacksons do, I've.
• 1:02:26
  Learned, yeah, Jacksons do. And my family told me not to go
• 1:02:29
  to law school, but I was like, I'm going to go to law school
• 1:02:31
  and I had an interest in being a a sports agent for the NBA and
• 1:02:35
  in track, you know. And obviously I lived with a
• 1:02:37
  time like I mentioned earlier Ryan Brown and Ryan had made the
• 1:02:41
  USA team in 09 and had kind of an incident.
• 1:02:45
  There was kind of a dark incident with one of his, his
• 1:02:47
  agents who was doing some shady things with a bunch of athletes
• 1:02:51
  he was representing. So I just kind of thought, oh,
• 1:02:54
  you know, I I'm in the track community.
• 1:02:56
  I know the basketball community I'm going to go and and and a
• 1:02:59
  lot of most, you know, sports agencies have a lot of people
• 1:03:02
  that have legal backgrounds, contract negotiations.
• 1:03:05
  And so I was like all right let's you know I want to be
• 1:03:08
  around sport and so this could keep me there and so I went to
• 1:03:10
  law school in O nine out in Michigan and and still ran a
• 1:03:15
  little bit that first year but then the demands of law school
• 1:03:19
  gets like that. But I I continued coaching in in
• 1:03:23
  Michigan and and I you know coached for a club team Michigan
• 1:03:27
  All Stars track club and then also coached to the high school
• 1:03:31
  and and Ann Arbor Huron high school and and ended up becoming
• 1:03:34
  the the head coach there And so obviously law school's three
• 1:03:37
  years so from O 9 to 2012 you know I did that and those were
• 1:03:41
  great years and the club team and just being in a different
• 1:03:44
  environment you know where you're working with some kids
• 1:03:47
  definitely you know outside in the Ypsilanti socio economically
• 1:03:51
  tough you know where the track team meant a lot from.
• 1:03:54
  And I think those years were very formative for me to see how
• 1:03:58
  much the sport can do and provide and and give back, you
• 1:04:02
  know, to those, to those individuals.
• 1:04:04
  And so I would say when I left there in 2012, Michigan to move
• 1:04:10
  to California. So now I've coached for, you
• 1:04:14
  know, basically like 5, five seasons, five years, four years
• 1:04:18
  and I moved to San Diego and I was going to prepare for the bar
• 1:04:23
  exam. So I was preparing for the
• 1:04:25
  January bar of 2013 and so 2012, that's fall.
• 1:04:32
  I was like I'm going to coach. I was going to coach just try to
• 1:04:37
  be an assistant at a local high school just to you know just to
• 1:04:42
  like still do it. Put some money in my pocket, but
• 1:04:45
  focus on the on the bar. And at that time, you know I I
• 1:04:50
  had an interview for a job and and then this is probably that
• 1:04:53
  point where it's like where things changed, you know and I
• 1:04:57
  had an interview with and if if you know the California high
• 1:05:01
  school running scene track scene and if you know San Diego, you
• 1:05:03
  know Dennis Mcclanahan and and I interviewed with Dennis
• 1:05:08
  Mcclanahan to be his assistant in in at Mount Carmel High
• 1:05:11
  School in 2020. 12 while you're working on the bar.
• 1:05:16
  Yeah, While I'm preparing for the bar, yeah, Yeah.
• 1:05:18
  So doing bar prep and I think I I met him in June, June of 2012
• 1:05:25
  and so obviously you've got you know half a year or whatever
• 1:05:28
  some time for the par and we had an interview at like a islands
• 1:05:34
  and it wasn't even like an interview.
• 1:05:36
  Dennis he he can get talking and it was like 3 hours and whatever
• 1:05:41
  And you know I'm thinking all right I'm going to be this guy's
• 1:05:44
  assistant coach. And and I remember he calls me
• 1:05:48
  and he just happens to say like one of his former athletes Sean.
• 1:05:51
  Sean Forehand who actually used to run for like the Nike farm
• 1:05:56
  team or whatever he went to mount Mount Carmel and he's like
• 1:05:58
  he wants to get into coaching and he doesn't have enough
• 1:06:01
  coaching stipends for the both of us and obvious And of course
• 1:06:04
  you're going to go with the person you personally coached in
• 1:06:07
  high school and I understand no hard feelings and he he just
• 1:06:10
  kind of tells me hey you you know there's a position open at
• 1:06:14
  the rival one of the rival schools.
• 1:06:16
  They need a head coach. It's Poway high school and and
• 1:06:20
  I'm like OK and you should apply to that and I'm like I I don't
• 1:06:24
  want to be a head coach. I just want to be a assistant.
• 1:06:26
  I just you know I'm preparing for the bar and so I don't think
• 1:06:29
  anything of it and I I end up applying for it just like
• 1:06:33
  whatever like head cross it's just cross so head cross country
• 1:06:37
  and and he didn't have to do this and and to this day but he
• 1:06:42
  I you know I heard later on that he actually and he's only met me
• 1:06:45
  through the interview you know stuff like that.
• 1:06:48
  But he he called Dan Crane the AD and said you know this is
• 1:06:52
  your your guy like this is the guy that needs to be you know
• 1:06:56
  the head coach and I was going to be replacing someone that had
• 1:06:58
  been coaching the high school for like 2530 years you know Dan
• 1:07:02
  Scheidel and stuff. But this guy is, you know, head
• 1:07:05
  coaching material, not assistant, you know, like that.
• 1:07:07
  And he never had to do that. And we've had, you know,
• 1:07:09
  obviously battles, but I always appreciated that.
• 1:07:12
  And so when I started that Poway and I got through that first
• 1:07:15
  cross country season, that's when things changed.
• 1:07:19
  And I I knew that, you know, after the year that we have
• 1:07:22
  those, those that whole team and particularly those young ladies.
• 1:07:26
  Yeah, that that fall of 2012, I was like, I'm going to, I'm
• 1:07:30
  going to do this. So, So what?
• 1:07:32
  What changed? What You know, I hope it wasn't
• 1:07:35
  you. You ended up going to state meet
• 1:07:36
  and went to state meet because that's a that's not a tangible
• 1:07:39
  thing. It doesn't happen every year.
• 1:07:41
  You know it's like you're going to chase that for the rest of
• 1:07:43
  your life at that point. So what What was it that the a a
• 1:07:46
  semester, a fall semester coaching high school, Poway high
• 1:07:50
  school. You stop the you you stop the
• 1:07:54
  sports agency dream. You stop the maybe studying for
• 1:07:57
  the bar. What?
• 1:07:58
  What? What happened?
• 1:07:59
  Yeah, I just, I don't know, I just kind of the totality of
• 1:08:02
  things just kind of culminated that year and just like taking
• 1:08:06
  over for kind of a, you know, a traditional kind of little bit
• 1:08:10
  of a story program, but they kind of had lost its luster.
• 1:08:14
  You know just probably people that needed to hear a new voice
• 1:08:17
  and just seeing those kids and how enthusiastic I was, you know
• 1:08:20
  such a different person you know coming background and what they
• 1:08:23
  had been in and and just that year and it was a very good
• 1:08:27
  year. You know I think our our women's
• 1:08:29
  team made you know stay for the first time in like 17 years or
• 1:08:33
  something like that and very young group and everyone was bad
• 1:08:38
  And just like the reception I got from someone from a from a
• 1:08:41
  place that's so completely different from where I'm where
• 1:08:44
  I'm from just socio economically and stuff like that.
• 1:08:47
  And just like I don't know I just got to the point where for
• 1:08:52
  me just seeing how grateful they were plus the experience that I
• 1:08:56
  had in Michigan I was just like I like what I'm doing and and
• 1:09:00
  part of me what's important for me is like money is not like
• 1:09:04
  important for me like I need to enjoy what I do and have some
• 1:09:10
  type of reward would be rewarded rewarding feeling of that I can
• 1:09:13
  help others. And so, you know, I got to that
• 1:09:17
  point in the year I was like, I don't want to get into my like
• 1:09:22
  40s and regret why I didn't give coaching a chance where I'm
• 1:09:26
  already working for a law office or firm or agency and I'm
• 1:09:29
  already embedded in it and I can't, you know, necessarily go
• 1:09:33
  back and get in. So now I'm like, you know, at
• 1:09:36
  that time I'm telling myself I'm in my upper 20s, you know,
• 1:09:40
  whatever, right at there. And so if I'm going to give this
• 1:09:42
  a shot, I'm going to give it this a shot now.
• 1:09:44
  And I I like it and I feel like the effect that I have.
• 1:09:47
  So I I didn't, I didn't take the bar.
• 1:09:49
  I said I'm going to commit to coaching now and and start that
• 1:09:56
  journey from here at the high school level and we'll see where
• 1:09:58
  it takes me obviously eventually after that.
• 1:10:01
  Earlier you talked about your training in high school.
• 1:10:05
  You talked about dipping your toe in versus diving in just
• 1:10:09
  full bore, cannonballing it in. Sounds like you're at that
• 1:10:12
  inflection point for coaching. You're you've been, you know,
• 1:10:16
  honestly you've been dipping your toe in coaching, but what a
• 1:10:19
  that sounds so weird. What a great toe.
• 1:10:21
  Meaning you know you've been head high school, that's a big
• 1:10:23
  deal. You've been coaching kids.
• 1:10:25
  You've been learning things like that.
• 1:10:26
  That's a you know that's pretty good.
• 1:10:28
  But you've now decided. I did you did three years of law
• 1:10:32
  school and you're like Nope, I'm not going to take the bar.
• 1:10:36
  I'm. I'm a coach.
• 1:10:37
  I'm Coach Jackson. That's going to be my identity.
• 1:10:39
  So what did you do to die fully in What does the next step of
• 1:10:44
  all right now I'm going to coach.
• 1:10:45
  What did you do differently? Yeah, I would say like for me,
• 1:10:48
  it's just like, OK, the next step was just, you know, leading
• 1:10:52
  the team. And then I became kind of the
• 1:10:53
  overall director. You know, the coming of that
• 1:10:55
  season, I took over as the head track coach.
• 1:10:57
  I wanted that. I saw him I and I actually kept
• 1:11:00
  the whole head track coach who's that worked actually very well
• 1:11:04
  because he didn't want that and so so we he was a throws coach
• 1:11:08
  for us Phil. So I I think Phil to this day
• 1:11:10
  we're we're buddies to this day. And so I've completely took over
• 1:11:13
  the program and then I just said to myself like if I'm going to
• 1:11:17
  be do this I got to get better. And so for me I'm a very
• 1:11:20
  proponent, strong proponent of coaches education.
• 1:11:23
  And so I kind of really dived into both aspects whether it's
• 1:11:28
  the you know USTFCCCA side and USA track and field you know
• 1:11:32
  side. And so I kind of had a a good
• 1:11:34
  stint of coach's education. I dived into you know working at
• 1:11:38
  running camps and just being around just fully ingraining
• 1:11:42
  myself in the culture of coaching and just trying to
• 1:11:47
  improve my craft. And I really, I would say, dived
• 1:11:50
  into it very heavily from like 20, 13 to like 2018-2019.
• 1:11:56
  Very very have hard. So I would echo your sentiment
• 1:12:01
  about being a big proponent of coaching education.
• 1:12:03
  It changed my life. Not just my coaching career, but
• 1:12:06
  my, my life. He gave me a mentor and
• 1:12:09
  bouchexnader who I still resonate with today.
• 1:12:11
  Even in the professional side of the sport.
• 1:12:13
  You did a few different types and there's a, you know, amazing
• 1:12:17
  different options now with USATFUSTFCCCA as you had
• 1:12:20
  mentioned Altus, you know now you know COVID taught us that.
• 1:12:24
  You know we can now really pick the brains of our fellow coaches
• 1:12:28
  that are doing really amazing jobs out there.
• 1:12:30
  What? What?
• 1:12:31
  You know if you look back you you took a real deep dive and
• 1:12:33
  and obviously if you went to law school you know, it doesn't
• 1:12:35
  shock me that you said coaching education would be a big deal
• 1:12:38
  for you because you know law school is nothing but reading
• 1:12:40
  and education. So you know you just turn it
• 1:12:43
  down to track and field side of coaching stuff, right?
• 1:12:45
  What has been the most? You know, you look back at all
• 1:12:48
  the the, the formal coaching education.
• 1:12:50
  Sure. What's been the most impactful
• 1:12:52
  for you? Was it the USTFCA?
• 1:12:54
  Was there a course there? Was there a teacher at USATF was
• 1:12:57
  there? What's been the most like?
• 1:12:58
  When you look back, you're like, oh man, if I didn't do this
• 1:13:02
  course or this teacher or this class or this time period or
• 1:13:05
  this peer group that happened to be taking the class at the same
• 1:13:08
  time, what was the Was there like a thing that stands out of
• 1:13:11
  like, oh man, this really has helped me propel my career?
• 1:13:16
  Yeah, I mean I think there's a couple of different points.
• 1:13:21
  I think you just you know, I think sometimes when you go
• 1:13:23
  through it you just sometimes times things get regurgitated.
• 1:13:28
  But I think it's more like what peer you know, what peers are
• 1:13:30
  there and just getting to know people and talk and then like
• 1:13:33
  sometimes there's points I can reflect where you like I feel
• 1:13:36
  like maybe validation or you you're getting there you belong
• 1:13:40
  you know stuff like that. So you know I I think of like
• 1:13:43
  kind of I guess removing up a chronological ladder.
• 1:13:47
  I I I I do remember taking like for instance I'm taking a Marion
• 1:13:51
  University USCF Level 2 education there and I just
• 1:13:56
  remember that group of people and and it was good and and and
• 1:14:00
  that's where I met Diljit 'cause she was there and some Cal State
• 1:14:03
  Stanislaus still right there that transition and and some
• 1:14:07
  some other coaches and and Jared Butler who who's now out of the
• 1:14:11
  coaching a little bit but he was at he was at Butler University
• 1:14:14
  by that time he was at Bryant and before that Wisconsin and
• 1:14:18
  just knowing that I most of the you have to remember most of
• 1:14:21
  these things I'm going to they're college coaches I'm the
• 1:14:25
  high school coach. You know and so just proving my
• 1:14:28
  like you know worth or knowing or being one of the guy who
• 1:14:31
  wants to present this you know the project or speak or
• 1:14:34
  answering questions or being vocal to show like no I you know
• 1:14:38
  I have I feel like I have the ability eventually you know be
• 1:14:41
  at this level and move up. So I I I that that kind of
• 1:14:44
  stands out to me. 2026 was a cool time where you know now
• 1:14:49
  I've been through a little bit of coach's education and and you
• 1:14:52
  know I applied to the the elite, elite coaches camp down at the
• 1:14:57
  US you know training facility and that 2016 was an Olympic
• 1:15:01
  year. And so that was really eye
• 1:15:03
  opening to be a kind of a small group and me and like you've
• 1:15:07
  said you've got kind of a mentor, you've got through
• 1:15:09
  through this and I've gotten to be, you know, pretty got to know
• 1:15:14
  like Scott Christensen pretty well.
• 1:15:17
  And obviously, you know, for me looking up, it's like oh you're
• 1:15:20
  doing this and you're also a high school coach, you know, And
• 1:15:23
  so, so he was one of the teachers for that class and
• 1:15:27
  being like in an intimate classroom.
• 1:15:29
  It was just four of us during the Olympic year and we're
• 1:15:31
  literally everyone was down there except for obviously the
• 1:15:35
  distance runners don't used to go to the Chula Vista location.
• 1:15:37
  But being there with like seeing like these top sprinters and
• 1:15:40
  jumpers and going to practice, you know, that was and being
• 1:15:43
  there, you know sleep and eat there and like you know going
• 1:15:46
  into the Olympic Games, like you know that was very cool and and
• 1:15:50
  eye opening for me. And then I think just when I got
• 1:15:54
  to the point where I was I would say I I speak and taught for a
• 1:15:59
  long time at this running camp called runners workshop where a
• 1:16:02
  lot of different coaches and they mainly are college coaches
• 1:16:06
  and then you get invited if you know have a enough kids from
• 1:16:10
  your high school team and just some of the brain trust.
• 1:16:14
  And so I I would say some of my interactions there really gave
• 1:16:17
  me the mentors and and stuff like that and the the confidence
• 1:16:20
  the no. So I can do it and and kind of
• 1:16:22
  two people stick out to me. You know three people stick out
• 1:16:24
  to me kind of when I've during that time because there's been a
• 1:16:27
  whole assortment of other college coaches have come there
• 1:16:29
  and it's based in Idlewild. They do one in Idlewild and one
• 1:16:32
  in Northern California in Yosemite.
• 1:16:36
  But you know 11 particular time when I was there when I was
• 1:16:39
  thinking about jumping to college and and doing that and
• 1:16:42
  this is probably back in 2016 seventeen Louis Catana was there
• 1:16:49
  and you know he was from at that time I think he just maybe
• 1:16:52
  transferred to Oregon State or still was at Arizona State But
• 1:16:56
  you know just having a lot of one-on-one conversations with
• 1:16:59
  him and he like you know I you know what do I need to do like
• 1:17:02
  you know I I really you know I love it if I'm going to make you
• 1:17:06
  know coaching my career you know you you don't coach you still
• 1:17:09
  got to eat and pay bills right. So you don't coach high school
• 1:17:11
  for the, you coach high school for the love.
• 1:17:14
  You're not coaching it for a paycheck or something like that.
• 1:17:16
  And so just talking to him and picking his brain, he was very,
• 1:17:20
  very helpful during that kind of time period in my life.
• 1:17:22
  And then another coach that kind of went there who I've, you
• 1:17:25
  know, really talked to and friends today is Devin.
• 1:17:27
  Devin Allisano, who's who was the coach at UCLA before Sean
• 1:17:32
  Brosnan to go over there and so that.
• 1:17:34
  But at that time Devin was coaching at UC Davis and so when
• 1:17:41
  Drew Wartenberg was there and stuff like that and so he would
• 1:17:44
  definitely and he came similar to me started out high school
• 1:17:48
  for a little bit and jumped to college.
• 1:17:49
  So just kind of knowing hey here's someone who's on the same
• 1:17:52
  path that's been on the same path before me, you know and and
• 1:17:55
  and kind of giving me guidance and then kind of the the voice,
• 1:18:00
  they call it the voice of California.
• 1:18:01
  But Tim O'Rourke used to used to be there and and Tim, you know,
• 1:18:07
  kind of the next phase for me was like, oh, right, you, you
• 1:18:10
  know, you're going to this coach's education, you're doing
• 1:18:12
  these things. Can you teach coaches how to
• 1:18:15
  coach? And and Tim was really good
• 1:18:18
  about helping me, you know, get out and exposure.
• 1:18:21
  And so he worked with the LA 84 Foundation.
• 1:18:24
  And so at these camps he always thought, you know, you're you,
• 1:18:28
  you speak well, you present you, you're really good at teaching
• 1:18:31
  these, you know, teaching at classes, these campers and stuff
• 1:18:33
  like that. You know, how would you be
• 1:18:35
  interested in doing the LA 84 Foundation?
• 1:18:37
  And so I did that for a couple years teaching their, you know,
• 1:18:40
  beginning and intermediate, you know, coaches, training as far
• 1:18:43
  as, you know, sports Physiology, stuff like that.
• 1:18:46
  So those those people definitely, you know, helped me
• 1:18:49
  a lot in the beginning. I love busting myths, and
• 1:18:52
  there's a myth in the coaching profession that high school
• 1:18:56
  coaches cannot coach collegiately.
• 1:19:00
  It's it's crazy for many, many reasons, one of them being that
• 1:19:04
  a lot of the coaches that you find successful started out
• 1:19:08
  coaching high school. So just for that alone is crazy
• 1:19:12
  to me. But it's a stereotype that gets
• 1:19:15
  perpetuated that, you know, a high school coach can't recruit.
• 1:19:18
  They can't coach that level of athlete.
• 1:19:21
  They can't do the paperwork that you have to do in the NCAA or
• 1:19:26
  NAIA, whatever, etcetera, etcetera.
• 1:19:28
  They're all excuses. It's exactly what they all are,
• 1:19:31
  right? You know, we've had many, many
• 1:19:32
  high school coaches here on the show.
• 1:19:35
  And let me tell you what they all, all the successful high
• 1:19:37
  school coaches recruit their butts off in the hallways and
• 1:19:41
  things like that. They have just as much
• 1:19:43
  paperwork, 'cause they're teachers typically, you know, in
• 1:19:46
  learning NCAA paperwork. Give me a break.
• 1:19:49
  That ain't rocket science. It's a lot of stuff and it's
• 1:19:52
  definitely gotten more today than when I coach.
• 1:19:54
  But it's not. We don't need a, you know, a
• 1:19:57
  mathematical degree to do them, for crying out loud.
• 1:19:59
  You learn how to do the paperwork and you move on,
• 1:20:01
  right? And as far as like not being
• 1:20:02
  able to coach that level of athlete, well, I'm assuming if
• 1:20:05
  you would even think about coaching in college, you have
• 1:20:07
  coached that level of type of athlete at the high school
• 1:20:10
  level. Maybe not as many because we're
• 1:20:12
  dealing. And with you know high schoolers
• 1:20:13
  in college you get to you know recruit So it's it's ridiculous
• 1:20:16
  to me so I love busting that myth.
• 1:20:18
  So how did there's high school coaches listening now How did
• 1:20:22
  you not only. How did you start coaching
• 1:20:25
  college? And and was aren't you the first
• 1:20:27
  one? Or, you know, you'll tell us.
• 1:20:29
  And why did you make that jump? Because it it, first of all it's
• 1:20:34
  it's not always as green on the other side.
• 1:20:37
  You know, what's that grass? It's not always as great as you
• 1:20:39
  think it is. I remember, you know, I coached
• 1:20:41
  high school for our coach collegially.
• 1:20:42
  And I remember thinking so naively, I was like, oh man, I
• 1:20:45
  can't wait to coach college. I get to pick the kids that I
• 1:20:48
  coach, you know, not just whoever shows up from the high
• 1:20:51
  school that I'm at. I get to pick whatever good kids
• 1:20:54
  I want, yadda yadda. You know, and, you know, you
• 1:20:56
  know, coaching college and every college coach around is
• 1:20:58
  laughing. Like, yeah, you get to try.
• 1:21:00
  You don't necessarily get to pick the ones you want, right?
• 1:21:05
  And so how did you make that that, that?
• 1:21:08
  See, I hate calling it a leap because that means that means
• 1:21:11
  that sounds like I'm putting college above high school
• 1:21:13
  coaching. That's so not true.
• 1:21:14
  In fact, I honestly think high school coaches have a bigger
• 1:21:17
  impact on our sport and our society because of you're
• 1:21:20
  dealing with 14 to 18 year olds with regards to 18 to 22 year
• 1:21:24
  olds. But how did you make that leap
• 1:21:26
  and why? Psychologically.
• 1:21:28
  Like what? What were you looking for?
• 1:21:30
  Like why? Why go what?
• 1:21:31
  You know you're a successful high school coaching and had a
• 1:21:33
  lot more room to grow as a high school coach.
• 1:21:35
  Why did you choose to want to go to the college level?
• 1:21:39
  Yeah, I chose a lot. I just, you know, at the time
• 1:21:42
  there was probably two times in my life I was trying to make a
• 1:21:45
  jump to there. And then so kind of the last
• 1:21:47
  time, you know, it got to the point I was there.
• 1:21:50
  You know, I coached high school now probably in 20, the second
• 1:21:53
  kind of go around 2018-2019. And I coached for 11 years, 10
• 1:21:58
  to 11 years high school. And you know, part of it was
• 1:22:03
  just like, well, if I'm going to, you know, you get to, you
• 1:22:05
  know, to be honest, I get to the crossroads where it's like, man,
• 1:22:09
  I've been grinding. Not just you know at that time,
• 1:22:13
  man, I was I was a student. You know I was a teacher
• 1:22:17
  assistant at the elementary school for for special needs
• 1:22:19
  kids. I've been doing that for for
• 1:22:22
  that. I was coaching the high school
• 1:22:24
  in the afternoon and that and I was, I was I'll be honest I was
• 1:22:27
  bouncing at a bar at night. You know I've been grinding for
• 1:22:30
  seven years of 1003 jobs and so you're.
• 1:22:33
  Just like teaching, you don't have a teacher's degree, so.
• 1:22:35
  You're not teaching. No, no.
• 1:22:36
  And you're. Scraping it together to.
• 1:22:38
  Coach, Yeah, I'm scraping it together.
• 1:22:40
  And so it's just like for me, it's like, you know, obviously I
• 1:22:43
  have other options. I could, you know easily go back
• 1:22:46
  to try to do something with my law degree and and yeah, I'd be
• 1:22:51
  a little more comfortable in life.
• 1:22:53
  But you know, like I said, I'm, I'm about this life and I and I
• 1:22:56
  wanted to be coaching. So I didn't mind you know,
• 1:22:58
  embracing the struggle for those years.
• 1:23:00
  And so part of it was just like I guess like livelihood to like
• 1:23:03
  hey, let's go to college and and all that.
• 1:23:05
  But also, you know, I built a very, you know, I would say a
• 1:23:09
  very good program, one of the better programs in California at
• 1:23:12
  that time after being, you know, as a Poway for seven years and
• 1:23:16
  put kids all across the country and had you know, state teams
• 1:23:20
  and all this stuff and national team type level teams.
• 1:23:23
  And so I just kind of wanted another challenge and I had
• 1:23:26
  always thought, you know, it was always my progression.
• 1:23:28
  You know, I always kind of have in my map mind a road map and so
• 1:23:31
  I was going to go here and here and here and here and so I
• 1:23:34
  thought it was, you know, it was time to the jump to make that to
• 1:23:39
  make that leap. And so it was it was tough And
• 1:23:42
  so I I would say, you know, I applied to a lot of places and
• 1:23:47
  and and now, you know looking back and so that I I would say
• 1:23:51
  there's probably 2 roads to get the, you know, get the coaching
• 1:23:56
  that are the, you know, there's the, you know, being a grad
• 1:23:58
  assistant is probably the easiest coming if you know you
• 1:24:01
  want to coach right after you're done as a athlete.
• 1:24:05
  You know, that's probably the easiest Rd.
• 1:24:06
  For me, it was going to be a lot more difficult because now I
• 1:24:11
  have been coaching for 11 years. I'm in my early 30s.
• 1:24:15
  You know, I have getting a grad like I have AJD Why do I need to
• 1:24:20
  get a masters right now like that That that's just doesn't
• 1:24:23
  appeal to me. And so obviously, there's the
• 1:24:27
  volunteer aspect of it. And so, you know, I had got to a
• 1:24:30
  point in my life where I could take the, you know, you're not
• 1:24:33
  dealing with a 21 year old. You're dealing with a 3031 year
• 1:24:36
  old who's got life and things and bills and stuff like that.
• 1:24:39
  But I could take a a financial hit.
• 1:24:41
  And so, you know, my advice a lot of times the high school
• 1:24:44
  coaches that are trying to jump up is like if you're a little
• 1:24:48
  bit older, you know, you might have to, you know, if you really
• 1:24:52
  want to be about this, you might have to suck up and take that
• 1:24:54
  financial hit and come on as a volunteer.
• 1:24:56
  And I and I know a lot of my peers and maybe turn your nose
• 1:24:59
  down. You know, I know a lot of them
• 1:25:01
  will. You know, I my advice is don't
• 1:25:03
  turn yourself nose up because you still have to prove yourself
• 1:25:06
  you know and and come in there and not expect like you know
• 1:25:09
  coming in there with asking demands like I'm going to be
• 1:25:11
  assistant coach. I'm going to be that coach.
• 1:25:13
  I want this and that And I lucky for me, you know, I never
• 1:25:17
  thought I was better than anyone else, even though I might had at
• 1:25:20
  the time 10A decade of coaching experience and training and knew
• 1:25:24
  how to program and felt like, man, I might be better than some
• 1:25:27
  of these college coaches in my area as far as developing
• 1:25:30
  athletes. I still didn't have that
• 1:25:32
  experience my resume. And so I kind of turned my nose
• 1:25:34
  down and said, you know, I'll come in wherever I can get in,
• 1:25:38
  you know, and and volunteer. And that's kind of the approach
• 1:25:40
  I took when to get my foot in the door.
• 1:25:42
  Where at? So interesting.
• 1:25:47
  I was. I actually was in O 8.
• 1:25:53
  This is weird how things come full circle.
• 1:25:55
  So 20/20/18 that summer, I knew, you know, it was time and I was
• 1:26:02
  going into my last. I for me, I was going to be my
• 1:26:05
  last high school cross country season and I had a, you know,
• 1:26:08
  very good group and at that time Tori Olson at Cal State San
• 1:26:14
  Marcos had become the director there and he was the head cross
• 1:26:19
  country coach at Academy of Art and he had left there and he was
• 1:26:23
  at San Marcos. And I think I just knew and I
• 1:26:28
  don't know how it started, but like I knew Tori from, like I
• 1:26:32
  think he recruited, you know, some of my athletes in the past.
• 1:26:35
  And I knew Steve Scott used to be the director of San Marcos
• 1:26:38
  beforehand and I knew Steve Scott from that camp, running
• 1:26:40
  camp that I told you about. He was always one of the guest
• 1:26:43
  speakers and one of the coaches that came out.
• 1:26:44
  So I've known Steve for for years.
• 1:26:47
  And I think when Tori got the job, I think I kind of told
• 1:26:50
  myself, like, I I don't know if I contact, I'm going to guess I
• 1:26:54
  contacted him and been like, hey, like, I'm just trying to
• 1:26:58
  jump, you know, Like, I know you're coming down here.
• 1:27:01
  You know, I would love to be your, can I come on as a
• 1:27:03
  volunteer just trying to get my foot in the door?
• 1:27:05
  Because I, you know, at the time I was secure enough financially
• 1:27:08
  to just, hey, I just need experience.
• 1:27:11
  And you know a lot of my mentors that I had from that were
• 1:27:15
  already college coaches were like, you know you you just need
• 1:27:18
  college coaching experience and the door will open for you just
• 1:27:21
  from your own running background and what you've done at the
• 1:27:23
  highest level is just just get it how you can get it, you know
• 1:27:26
  somehow. And so that was kind of my
• 1:27:28
  thought and and so we had talked.
• 1:27:30
  So by that whole year I knew in my mind that that we kind of
• 1:27:35
  agreed January of 2019 that like hey you're going to start mid
• 1:27:39
  year and come on. And I was going to be his
• 1:27:42
  volunteer assistant there at San Marcos and that was kind of the
• 1:27:47
  the thought process. And so I, I I remember I coached
• 1:27:51
  that whole year. I even tried to like kind of
• 1:27:55
  plug my and obviously the team didn't know.
• 1:27:57
  You know I coached that year. I I actually took the team I
• 1:27:59
  think to their crossbeat just to watch like you know like set up
• 1:28:03
  like oh hey you know coach Jackson might be here next year
• 1:28:06
  down the road you know help recruiting in the future.
• 1:28:09
  But and then obviously I told the team at the end of the year
• 1:28:12
  and I I actually remember they you know end of the year high
• 1:28:14
  school banquet. They, you know did the whole
• 1:28:16
  video and they changed like the Poway logo to the San Marcos
• 1:28:20
  logo on the editing. And two weeks, two weeks before
• 1:28:24
  I was supposed to start at San Marcos my, my girlfriend got too
• 1:28:29
  good of a job offer in San Francisco area, in the Bay Area
• 1:28:34
  And she, you know we just like oh let's move in.
• 1:28:38
  So it was just too good of a job offer to like turn down.
• 1:28:42
  We had you know we were living together.
• 1:28:43
  We lived together and and so I called Tori and I was like, yeah
• 1:28:47
  man, like I'm you know and and and again I wasn't coming in as
• 1:28:52
  a paid I was coming in as a volunteer And he understood.
• 1:28:54
  He understood and I was like, yeah.
• 1:28:56
  And I moved to the to the Bay Area.
• 1:28:59
  So I I quit at Poway January like January 2019 and then moved
• 1:29:06
  here with nothing. Like, you know, she's obviously
• 1:29:10
  had a very good job and you know, we're good on that part.
• 1:29:13
  And yeah, and so I reached out to Devin Elizondo because
• 1:29:19
  obviously he's at UC Davis. He had his fan.
• 1:29:21
  Now he's at UCLA, but he obviously knew the Bay Area.
• 1:29:24
  And I kind of, you know, poked his mind.
• 1:29:27
  And he, I was like, give me the give me the gist of every
• 1:29:30
  program in this area, like your thoughts, pros, cons, you know.
• 1:29:34
  And he kind of, you know, gave me his opinion from someone
• 1:29:37
  who's been up here for a while. And from there, I I literally, I
• 1:29:43
  had nothing. So I moved here in February of
• 1:29:46
  2019. No job.
• 1:29:48
  Got like a job at like a local shoe store and I reached out to
• 1:29:53
  every school in the Bay Area. If they needed a volunteer
• 1:29:58
  everywhere do you didn't care, You know, D2D1, whatever in the
• 1:30:05
  area And then, you know, a couple schools responded back,
• 1:30:10
  Yeah, and go ahead. Yeah.
• 1:30:12
  Yeah, 'cause I was going to say, 'cause the plan was you're
• 1:30:15
  there. OK.
• 1:30:16
  Well, your original plan was to go volunteer.
• 1:30:18
  So OK, now you're just going to to be in the Bay Area, the plan
• 1:30:21
  still to go volunteer. So I got to figure it out.
• 1:30:23
  So you you did the the hustle you you contacted everybody and
• 1:30:27
  I and I'm and I'm going to assume everybody got back to
• 1:30:29
  you. No.
• 1:30:30
  No, no, I wish. See, I'm going to teach you how
• 1:30:35
  to do your podcast. This is how you set up the
• 1:30:36
  software. Because you know the answer is
• 1:30:39
  no. But you you sum it up, like, of
• 1:30:41
  course everybody got back to you, and then you get to drop
• 1:30:43
  the bomb and say no, not at all. How'd that process go?
• 1:30:49
  Interesting. But yeah, you know, some, some
• 1:30:53
  people did, Some people like, oh, I wish, you know, so I
• 1:30:56
  didn't. But some didn't hear anything.
• 1:30:58
  Crickets. And so yeah, 22 schools got back
• 1:31:03
  to me and and and RE was one of them.
• 1:31:06
  And so I just kind of did school visits.
• 1:31:09
  I visited a practice and just kind of, I realized like I
• 1:31:13
  thought art, you was a better fit for me, you know, a better
• 1:31:16
  fit for me and and the staff there and and yeah, and I
• 1:31:19
  started there as a volunteer in end of March of 2019.
• 1:31:24
  Quick speed up here. So you started out as a
• 1:31:26
  volunteer there. I love, you're the, like the
• 1:31:27
  most prepared volunteer coach that I've ever seen.
• 1:31:31
  I took visits. I'm like bro, you're volunteer.
• 1:31:33
  Get where they can. Well, they want to take you I
• 1:31:35
  love I love you You're like I wouldn't visit it.
• 1:31:37
  I want to see where it was the right place.
• 1:31:38
  I love that. That's great.
• 1:31:40
  Do a little bit of speed up here.
• 1:31:41
  So you started as a volunteer. I'm assuming they eventually
• 1:31:44
  hired you because you're now the so February of 19 started as a
• 1:31:48
  volunteer. How long before they hired you?
• 1:31:51
  I became the Director of Operations in August of 2019.
• 1:31:56
  Oh, OK, all right, good. That.
• 1:31:57
  That's interesting. And now that's changed to
• 1:32:00
  coaching to be in the. Distance.
• 1:32:01
  Yeah. I was the Director of OPS for
• 1:32:03
  two years till August of 2021 and then I became the head head
• 1:32:11
  cross country coach August 27th. OK, so this has been your first
• 1:32:17
  full time collegiate coaching. You've had a very extensive and
• 1:32:22
  successful high school coaching. You've had when you were
• 1:32:25
  coaching high school and you're meeting these other college
• 1:32:28
  coaches and you had your own college athletic experience of
• 1:32:31
  what coaches do and did and things like that.
• 1:32:34
  How did as you got into coaching and now you're behind the
• 1:32:38
  curtain, you're actually seeing everything that's going on.
• 1:32:41
  How did that stack up against your expectations?
• 1:32:48
  Some of the things were were I I expected you know, I I think
• 1:32:53
  like the the admin administrative paperwork, things
• 1:32:56
  like that. Just some of that stuff was my
• 1:32:59
  expectations. I think just the relationship
• 1:33:04
  piece wearing multiple hats. Some of those things were a
• 1:33:07
  little bit surprising I I think behind the behind the curtain,
• 1:33:11
  so. Yeah, kind of seeing that.
• 1:33:13
  It's not just coaching, OK, You you maybe thought like, OK, I
• 1:33:16
  get the coaching part like I'm at the right workouts and
• 1:33:18
  administrator, I understand going to track meetings like
• 1:33:21
  that. I understand relationships you
• 1:33:24
  know the better relationship I have maybe the better the
• 1:33:26
  athlete they're going to be and just you know, we're human
• 1:33:28
  beings maybe we should have a relationship but then you saw
• 1:33:30
  the other hats you saw maybe the well, I've also got to be kind
• 1:33:33
  of part time athletic trainer and academic counselor and oh
• 1:33:39
  you know the schedule just doesn't happen.
• 1:33:41
  So someone has to schedule and someone has to do a budget and
• 1:33:45
  met out the you know what equipment we're going to do or
• 1:33:47
  things like that recruiting budget etcetera.
• 1:33:49
  You started seeing the the white, white what actually the
• 1:33:52
  definition of a track coach is? Yeah.
• 1:33:55
  Was there any part so. So there's coaches right now
• 1:33:58
  listening that they're high school coaches and they they
• 1:34:01
  desperately. I was this person by the way and
• 1:34:04
  mine was driven by ego, bad ego, I should say.
• 1:34:07
  Ego's not bad. Bad ego is bad.
• 1:34:09
  Mine was driven by pride and ego to go to college, not to coach
• 1:34:13
  in the college level. Was there anything?
• 1:34:16
  So there's a high school coaches right now thinking they want to
• 1:34:18
  do this. Absolutely.
• 1:34:19
  Is there anything that you can remember?
• 1:34:21
  And you know, this has just been the last few years here now that
• 1:34:25
  it surprised you of like, oh crap, this was hard.
• 1:34:28
  And so I had to learn it. Like, I had to go ask.
• 1:34:31
  I had to go call my mentors. I used to call my mentors and
• 1:34:34
  ask them, hey, what do you do with this 430 Miller to make
• 1:34:37
  them a four flat Miller. Now I'm calling mentors.
• 1:34:39
  I'm like, hey man, how do you handle time management to do
• 1:34:43
  this paperwork or how do you handle, you know, you got to
• 1:34:46
  recruit that. I know my place would be the
• 1:34:49
  right place for them, but they are just stubborn.
• 1:34:50
  They think they're going to go to XYZ or whatever.
• 1:34:54
  What? What?
• 1:34:54
  What? What stood out to you now is you
• 1:34:56
  kind of look back of like, oh man, this.
• 1:34:58
  I had to buckle down and really learn this.
• 1:35:02
  Yeah, I don't know. I mean I discussed.
• 1:35:06
  I got warned up because I got to do a lot of admin obviously for
• 1:35:09
  two years and so that. Was a big deal.
• 1:35:11
  Yeah, so Director of OPS. So we didn't that, didn't that.
• 1:35:14
  That might be sorry to cut you off here.
• 1:35:16
  You know, when you talked about grad assistance and things like
• 1:35:19
  that. I actually think if you're going
• 1:35:20
  to be, if you want to be a college coach, I think instead
• 1:35:24
  of being a, you know, some people say you should be a grad
• 1:35:25
  assistant or a volunteer coach. I actually think you should be a
• 1:35:28
  director of OPS. I think that should be your.
• 1:35:31
  You got to do a director of OPS internship for a year.
• 1:35:35
  All the other stuff that happens not just on the track because we
• 1:35:38
  think, I used to think like, oh man, oh, coaching track.
• 1:35:41
  I'm going to be on the track 6 hours a day.
• 1:35:43
  Yeah, two hours. I'll probably be recruiting, but
• 1:35:45
  I'm going to be on the track all the time.
• 1:35:47
  No, Sir, you're going to have to be in that office a lot of times
• 1:35:50
  I think that. So I think your Director of OPS
• 1:35:52
  position maybe has helped you, not the exes and O's of coaching
• 1:35:57
  all the other rest of it, more their share that could have
• 1:36:00
  prepared you for that. No, for sure.
• 1:36:02
  Yeah. So I got to you know see that
• 1:36:03
  side with because you were talking about budgeting and and
• 1:36:06
  ordering equipment all that. So I I got all work with no.
• 1:36:10
  None of the fun of coaching. Yeah.
• 1:36:11
  No. No outlet of like, well, at
• 1:36:14
  least it's 2:00. I get to go outside.
• 1:36:15
  Nope, not at all. Yeah.
• 1:36:17
  So no, I I think Ventures you know things I've reached out
• 1:36:21
  that's just been you know handling situation.
• 1:36:25
  You know you wear a lot more hats and it's like I think in
• 1:36:29
  the past I I didn't realize when you're in high school and issues
• 1:36:35
  come up you don't realize that like a lot of times you might
• 1:36:39
  not that are non track things that obviously affect their
• 1:36:42
  performance whether it's just something in life or things like
• 1:36:44
  that. It might not come across your
• 1:36:48
  bow because ultimately at the end of the day, right.
• 1:36:50
  They go home sometimes obviously they go home to mom and dad and
• 1:36:54
  mom and dad kind of takes the brunt of it.
• 1:36:56
  You've brought that kid to your campus and so now when they have
• 1:36:59
  those issues they go home and they Co talk to you.
• 1:37:03
  And I think that was like the hardest thing of just like man,
• 1:37:06
  I'm dealing with, like I'm sure these things have happened or
• 1:37:09
  these issues happened at the high school level, but I wasn't
• 1:37:13
  necessarily not all the time. And some of the times kids, you
• 1:37:15
  know, I had the the privileged honor that they I the trust that
• 1:37:19
  they had trust to come to me. But now it's like every time,
• 1:37:24
  every time. Because that's where they're
• 1:37:25
  going to, they're going to turn to is is you.
• 1:37:27
  And and because some of the times those issues are with mom
• 1:37:30
  and dad. And so I think that's that was
• 1:37:32
  probably the more the most starkly thing of like man, how
• 1:37:36
  did you, you know, call them, how did you handle, you know,
• 1:37:39
  this, you know, this trauma or this mental health issue or this
• 1:37:43
  situation as a coach? Because I didn't have to
• 1:37:47
  necessarily deal with, you know, that in the past.
• 1:37:50
  That's a great point. You know, I'm proud that, you
• 1:37:53
  know organizations like the USTFCCCA and and I'm seeing it
• 1:37:57
  more on the high school side, the Wisconsin Track Coaches
• 1:38:00
  Clinic, the Texas Track and Field Coaches Clinic, where it
• 1:38:04
  used to be not that long ago. You know let's call it five
• 1:38:07
  years ago 99% of the talks that were given were how to coach a
• 1:38:12
  distance runner to go faster, you know to go faster, how to
• 1:38:16
  make a long jumper. You know the technical X is no
• 1:38:18
  side and now we're seeing it's probably, I'll be generous and
• 1:38:21
  say 7030, it's probably you know 7525 where now we're starting to
• 1:38:25
  see how to be a coach and what that means and what.
• 1:38:28
  So that's the psychology side of it.
• 1:38:30
  That's the admin side of it. That's the, I'm going to call it
• 1:38:34
  resume building professional development side of it.
• 1:38:37
  And you know that point you just made there, it hasn't been I I
• 1:38:40
  don't know that in 200 plus episodes that's been brought up
• 1:38:43
  like the way you said it there about the kids turn to you more
• 1:38:49
  than their parents typically now that you're coaching College in
• 1:38:54
  in high school and you could, you know you could be a 40 year
• 1:38:56
  veteran and everybody, all the parents you coached, all the
• 1:38:59
  parents of the kids that you coach now and so everybody knows
• 1:39:02
  you and you're trustworthy and you're a trusted advisor. 16
• 1:39:06
  year old kid gets into a car wreck.
• 1:39:08
  They're going home to talk to mom and dad.
• 1:39:10
  Hey, I messed up. I I wrecked the car.
• 1:39:12
  You know, had a Fender Bender. Whatever.
• 1:39:13
  In college they go, oh, crap. What do I do?
• 1:39:17
  They don't. They don't typically turn to
• 1:39:19
  their English professor. They don't turn to their
• 1:39:22
  academic advisor. They go coach.
• 1:39:25
  What do I do? I got into a car accident, You
• 1:39:28
  know, I got it. My mom and dad.
• 1:39:30
  I can't. You know, I bought this car.
• 1:39:31
  This isn't their responsibility. I can't tell my dad.
• 1:39:34
  I, you know, they already thought I was foolish for coming
• 1:39:36
  across the country or whatever. You know, they turn to you And
• 1:39:40
  that's just a very that's a small minor like who can't, you
• 1:39:42
  know, Fender Bender. We're talking about like you, to
• 1:39:44
  your point about mental health and you know, relationship
• 1:39:46
  issues, that there's some really big concerns that they're
• 1:39:50
  bringing to you. And I would venture to say you
• 1:39:53
  are woefully unprepared outside of being, thank God you're a
• 1:39:57
  human being. You're a good human being.
• 1:39:59
  So you connect with them but you're unprepared of like what
• 1:40:01
  do I do here. And there's some some of those
• 1:40:04
  issues are are law issues as far as like you know, I can't I want
• 1:40:09
  to say first responder, but I don't think.
• 1:40:10
  That's the name. Mandatory reporting.
• 1:40:11
  That's it. Yeah.
• 1:40:12
  There's things that you have to legally know about that you
• 1:40:15
  better be doing. And then other sides of, like,
• 1:40:17
  you know, you maybe just need to be a good ear.
• 1:40:19
  That's hard. Sometimes you're like, man, I'm
• 1:40:21
  trying to get to my family and you want to squabble about your
• 1:40:24
  your girlfriend or your boyfriend.
• 1:40:26
  I'm on now you know I'm your track coach not your your
• 1:40:29
  colleges. Well, I'm afraid sometimes 18
• 1:40:32
  year old you are they're they're psychologists.
• 1:40:34
  And so you've got to figure out how are you going to become a
• 1:40:36
  listener if you're not a natural listener.
• 1:40:38
  I think that's a a great point that it's not brought up.
• 1:40:42
  It's not talked about. And that's why I really love
• 1:40:44
  doing this podcast 'cause now maybe some people will have this
• 1:40:47
  conversation. Maybe some people who are high
• 1:40:49
  school coaches that think they want to be college coaches go,
• 1:40:51
  oh wait a minute. I don't think I would enjoy that
• 1:40:53
  at all. Well then don't.
• 1:40:55
  Don't move up, because this is every college institution by the
• 1:40:59
  way. Junior college, the smallest
• 1:41:01
  NEIA school all the way up to University of Washington,
• 1:41:04
  Florida, Texas, etcetera. Doesn't matter how good how fast
• 1:41:08
  that kid is. They are 18 to 22 year olds
• 1:41:10
  first. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:41:13
  Exactly. So we're running up into time
• 1:41:16
  here, Bruce. What I'd really like to know is,
• 1:41:20
  you know, I told you, I kind of teased at the very beginning,
• 1:41:24
  you're the third aren't you Coach?
• 1:41:26
  We've had here so Charles, Ryan, Chuck, We've had Chuck on the
• 1:41:30
  show. You know, the amazing guy.
• 1:41:33
  And now the head coach of the new Speed City San Jose State
• 1:41:36
  University we had, I almost said Lamont Vonnegan.
• 1:41:40
  Mont Johnson. Yep, Yep.
• 1:41:42
  Who I think still holds the Gill podcast record for the longest
• 1:41:46
  podcast. I think we went close to 4
• 1:41:48
  hours, which if you know him, that doesn't shock you at.
• 1:41:52
  All no. Exactly.
• 1:41:55
  But I'm always, I was always struck talking to those two
• 1:41:59
  amazing individuals about the uniqueness of art.
• 1:42:02
  You. OK.
• 1:42:04
  Yeah. So give us kind of the 30,000
• 1:42:06
  foot level for those of us who have never heard of art you or
• 1:42:09
  don't know the uniqueness. And then I want you to delve
• 1:42:12
  into how does that possibly change how you have to coach
• 1:42:17
  because it is a unique institution, a great one.
• 1:42:19
  I'm glad we have an institution like Art U, but it is, is a
• 1:42:23
  little unique then down the road UC Davis, UCLA etcetera.
• 1:42:27
  So give us kind of that 30,000 foot level of the school and
• 1:42:29
  then how does that do you have to coach or recruit uniquely
• 1:42:34
  because of that? Yeah, I mean, I think that.
• 1:42:38
  I mean the two things probably more that stand out uniquely
• 1:42:41
  than most schools. I mean I think obviously
• 1:42:45
  academic offerings, you know, we are the only, you know, art, art
• 1:42:50
  school in the NCAA level as far as that goes and says sports.
• 1:42:54
  Is that right? The only one.
• 1:42:55
  Yeah. So I mean I always tell people
• 1:42:57
  like every university obviously might have a art department or
• 1:43:01
  art majors, but I'm talking about as the, the whole
• 1:43:04
  institution itself focuses on, you know, the arts, you know,
• 1:43:07
  art, you know, and I always like to say, you know, it's a little
• 1:43:10
  bit because people hear art and they see just assume what is it
• 1:43:13
  just drawing and painting, but you know, you know, right.
• 1:43:16
  So, art, fashion, design things. Around that.
• 1:43:20
  Exactly. Visual, Visual and performing
• 1:43:22
  arts. So you know architecture, all
• 1:43:24
  that kind of graphic. So anything with design,
• 1:43:26
  fashion, art, Fine Arts, visual performing arts, you know arts
• 1:43:30
  university focuses on. So obviously if you you know
• 1:43:34
  you're interested in STEM, you know science, technology,
• 1:43:36
  engineering, math, I I pretty much you know our university
• 1:43:39
  doesn't have much much offerings in those areas.
• 1:43:42
  But you know as far as those other those avenues.
• 1:43:45
  So you know that's one thing I would say you know makes it a
• 1:43:48
  little bit unique and then obviously being and there's some
• 1:43:52
  universities are like this but you know being more of a urban
• 1:43:55
  campus you know where our I always say our our our campus is
• 1:43:59
  kind of more of like a European how schools are in Europe where
• 1:44:02
  it's more integrated into the city.
• 1:44:04
  So you know we have buildings kind of throughout the Union
• 1:44:07
  Square downtown area. So obviously you know if you
• 1:44:10
  walk it out one of our buildings you know you're you will see
• 1:44:13
  faculty administrator staff your peers that are you know that are
• 1:44:16
  aren't you you know based but you're also gonna just see
• 1:44:19
  regular citizens of San Francisco you know what your
• 1:44:23
  young old Greenway bright white whatever you know roaming the
• 1:44:27
  streets And so I would say those two things you know the
• 1:44:29
  academics and the kind of the location of us you know makes us
• 1:44:34
  a little more unique. So, so when you're recruiting,
• 1:44:37
  you get a questionnaire back or maybe, you know, probably
• 1:44:40
  because you're so specialized academically, maybe the first
• 1:44:44
  question you're asking when you talk to recruit or recruits,
• 1:44:47
  coach or parent, is, hey, So what are you interested in
• 1:44:50
  majoring? And if it's like, Oh yeah, you
• 1:44:52
  know, my whole family's been engineers and my other side of
• 1:44:56
  my family's been lawyers. So I'm going to go into some
• 1:44:58
  kind of, you know, engineering or you know, that kind of it's
• 1:45:01
  like, oh cool man, good luck and you just move on or?
• 1:45:05
  Yeah, I mean sometimes you do have those, Sometimes there's
• 1:45:09
  certain things around and you know, some things go hand in
• 1:45:11
  hand. It's funny actually you
• 1:45:12
  mentioned engineering, you know and so you've got the people
• 1:45:15
  that that build, you know, the building, but you also have the
• 1:45:18
  engineering side, but you have the people that designed the
• 1:45:20
  building, right. So I can come at them at our
• 1:45:22
  architecture, you know, our interior, you know, yeah.
• 1:45:25
  So sometimes you can you can think about a little bit and and
• 1:45:28
  things like that. But yeah, retreating that is
• 1:45:31
  definitely, you know one of the biggest things is like what
• 1:45:34
  what's the academic fit for for you here?
• 1:45:38
  That definitely does come up for sure.
• 1:45:40
  So in the business world and in all businesses and even in
• 1:45:44
  podcasting, you know they have what's called the ideal customer
• 1:45:49
  profile. It actually goes all the way
• 1:45:51
  back to Coke did this back and they're kind of the ones that
• 1:45:54
  first one did it as A and it's now become mainstream is they
• 1:45:59
  had their people say who is the ideal.
• 1:46:02
  I think they were doing Diet Coke maybe at the time.
• 1:46:04
  Who is the ideal person who, who drinks that Coke?
• 1:46:08
  Like who's this targeted to? And I'm talking about, you get
• 1:46:10
  real specific, like so they came up with Mary.
• 1:46:14
  I'm probably making, I don't know what they actually came up
• 1:46:15
  with, but you know, it's it's Mary who's a suburban, you know,
• 1:46:19
  married woman you know typically has a dog and you know, two kids
• 1:46:24
  and and so now when you make decisions of where you're going
• 1:46:27
  to spend your marketing dollars, your advertising dollars and
• 1:46:29
  your salesperson people's time, you you better be keeping Mary
• 1:46:33
  in in mind because that's you may also get Bruce.
• 1:46:36
  Bruce also might be a Diet Coke drinker.
• 1:46:38
  But Bruce is drinking a Diet Coke once a month, Mary's
• 1:46:42
  drinking 5A day. That's your main customer,
• 1:46:45
  right. So same thing in your podcast
• 1:46:46
  world if you think about your podcast The Blacktop Smacktuxy.
• 1:46:51
  I really thought I was going. To just roll around with the
• 1:46:53
  tongue. Yeah, the BTSTI think you're
• 1:46:55
  right. You know, you guys have to think
• 1:46:58
  about, well, who should we actually, you know, try to
• 1:47:00
  market our podcast to? Let me tell you, I'm not your
• 1:47:03
  ideal customer, right. I don't like basketball.
• 1:47:05
  I'm not particularly interested in it.
• 1:47:08
  So you know, anytime you could, you could spend $1,000,000
• 1:47:11
  advertising to me. You are not going to convert me.
• 1:47:15
  But there's lots of people, maybe young African American
• 1:47:19
  basketball, maybe former basketball player, maybe that's
• 1:47:22
  your ideal. It's like, oh, if we put
• 1:47:23
  $1,000,000 to them, I'm gonna get a bunch of of listeners
• 1:47:26
  right. So art you you've got to there
• 1:47:30
  is a specific and by the way this is for every university.
• 1:47:33
  This is why when when a coach tells me, Oh yeah, any
• 1:47:35
  university I go to I'd be a great recruiter.
• 1:47:37
  It's like but if you understand this principle you will But just
• 1:47:41
  because you have a good smile and good gift for Gab you're not
• 1:47:44
  gonna be a great recruiter. Every cuz every school's
• 1:47:45
  different. Art you has a unique type of
• 1:47:49
  recruit. Obviously we know kind of maybe
• 1:47:51
  art or I love how you talked about like oh I'm going to be an
• 1:47:53
  engineer. Cool.
• 1:47:54
  If you talk think thought about the design portion that was
• 1:47:57
  really smart like as far as like oh I can help educate the kids.
• 1:48:01
  What is the idea when you're looking at the top 200 list in
• 1:48:06
  America of each event or whatever you look at?
• 1:48:10
  Are they, you know, people from the East Coast with that are
• 1:48:14
  affluent that want to be art majors and come from big cities
• 1:48:19
  on the East Coast? Because we live in San
• 1:48:21
  Francisco, I'm making up because I'm kind of inferred that
• 1:48:23
  there's, you know, some of those are not your ideal.
• 1:48:25
  What is your idea? Like what do you have the most
• 1:48:27
  success getting kids? What what do those kids look
• 1:48:30
  like that you have the most success getting to argue and
• 1:48:33
  staying and being successful? Yeah.
• 1:48:35
  I mean, I think we, I mean obviously we have an
• 1:48:38
  international footprint on our team, but.
• 1:48:41
  I don't know that that's obvious to be real.
• 1:48:43
  Fast. Oh, I didn't know.
• 1:48:44
  OK. Yeah.
• 1:48:44
  Explain that a. Little bit, yeah.
• 1:48:46
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:48:46
  So I mean I think for us, yeah, we we reach out internationally.
• 1:48:50
  And I think you know where you've been is a factor.
• 1:48:53
  I think being in the heart of a city in San Francisco, a major
• 1:48:59
  metropolitan area, you know there's things that just come
• 1:49:03
  with being in the city, you know, that's different.
• 1:49:05
  And so I think those kids that you know can adapt to the city.
• 1:49:11
  And so if you're, if you're from a major metropolitan area, you
• 1:49:14
  seem to probably transition well.
• 1:49:16
  So we've always had interests. You know, I would say people
• 1:49:19
  like, you know, we've had people who've been from like New York
• 1:49:21
  for instance, who've come come across the country and then
• 1:49:25
  obviously. I'm glad you started with that.
• 1:49:27
  I'm sorry to interrupt because what I really wanted to do
• 1:49:28
  there, I'm glad you started with that because that's what I was
• 1:49:30
  trying to make a connection with this.
• 1:49:32
  I think the coaches of Eastern Washington and you made a
• 1:49:36
  mistake, 'cause you when you talked about Seattle before you
• 1:49:39
  started talking about where you went to school, you were like,
• 1:49:41
  oh man, I loved it. I loved the city, you know, this
• 1:49:43
  is my place. And then you went to Cheney,
• 1:49:45
  which is the opposite. And by the way, guess where you
• 1:49:48
  went back-to-back to the city, you know what I'm saying?
• 1:49:52
  I I, I'm not sure. I think sometimes we think we
• 1:49:55
  lead with the, the the performance of like, hey, man,
• 1:49:58
  it's a 149 kid. I don't care if he's from, you
• 1:50:02
  know, France or New York City or you follow Alabama.
• 1:50:09
  He runs 149. I want him to get here.
• 1:50:11
  And I think that's why you left. I think that's part of, I should
• 1:50:14
  say, no one thing is the one thing.
• 1:50:15
  I think if you'd have went to Seattle, you'd have stayed to
• 1:50:18
  Seattle all four years, even if you went to like Seattle
• 1:50:20
  Pacific, which is in Seattle. You know what I'm saying?
• 1:50:22
  I I think that's an important part.
• 1:50:23
  So I think when you're recruiting, and I love this
• 1:50:26
  shows your intelligent, your EQ of recruiting of, Oh yeah, I'm
• 1:50:31
  not. They're going to waste too much
• 1:50:33
  time on that kid that's from small town Alabama.
• 1:50:35
  Because unless they somehow tell me they've grown up wishing and
• 1:50:39
  dreaming, they lived in San Francisco.
• 1:50:41
  I may get this kid spent a lot of time and energy and money on
• 1:50:44
  this kid and he or she's gone in a year because it's San
• 1:50:48
  Francisco. That's different.
• 1:50:49
  Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah. Because they're used to, you
• 1:50:52
  know, the the urban concrete jungle as you would say and then
• 1:50:58
  you know we, you know, targeted international.
• 1:51:00
  I think. I think one thing I seem to find
• 1:51:03
  over the years is and and I know this personally from being at
• 1:51:06
  the high school level and I, I, you know, worked a little bit in
• 1:51:09
  in PE, it's like in in America. You know, you've got some other
• 1:51:12
  things that have come up as where there has to be AD
• 1:51:16
  emphasis on like PE and the arts through education, through
• 1:51:20
  primary and secondary education in America.
• 1:51:22
  What's a little bit more emphasized internationally,
• 1:51:25
  particularly in Europe. So we tend to see a lot, a
• 1:51:30
  little bit more like you were saying, a little more, I would
• 1:51:34
  say Europeans or internationals in general having more of
• 1:51:37
  appreciation for art, fashion, design because they have had it
• 1:51:40
  ingrained in their curriculum a lot more than here in the United
• 1:51:44
  States. And so.
• 1:51:46
  So there's sometimes naturally a pool for those particular
• 1:51:50
  students because hey, oh, you do have those majors because I've
• 1:51:53
  been, you know, trained in that or stuff like that.
• 1:51:55
  And I see that quite a bit where they're, they've been in civic
• 1:51:58
  curriculum, whether it's been like architecture.
• 1:52:01
  That's a pretty popular major for us, graphic design, you
• 1:52:04
  know, because they've been around that.
• 1:52:05
  But you don't see that 'cause I'll I'll talk to a lot of
• 1:52:08
  domestic recruits and I'm like, well, what's your experience
• 1:52:10
  with whether it's portfolio building or these certain you
• 1:52:13
  know aspects and when they have general interest in art, it's
• 1:52:16
  like well, you know, I try, I I draw a little bit on my own are
• 1:52:22
  like, you know, are like I happen to take this shop class
• 1:52:24
  where there's tends to be a little bit more of a formal
• 1:52:27
  education for those particular individuals overseas.
• 1:52:30
  How have you guys I mean and it's been you know it was before
• 1:52:34
  you Bruce and and continues today.
• 1:52:36
  I'm always amazed with art you because not because you're an
• 1:52:40
  art institution you know an art art school.
• 1:52:43
  I I think that's unique and I love that aspect.
• 1:52:46
  I don't think because you're D2, I don't think This is why I'm so
• 1:52:49
  impressed because you're in the Bay Area where you are.
• 1:52:54
  That I think is the hardest part there.
• 1:52:56
  It's it's you don't get to walk across campus to your track
• 1:52:59
  complex and practice, you know. So you've got a lot going
• 1:53:03
  against you in that regards. You know not not a liberal arts
• 1:53:07
  school that has English majors plus engineering school and
• 1:53:09
  things like that. You're in San Francisco you you
• 1:53:13
  are division two. So in regards to you know
• 1:53:14
  whether a kid wants to quote UN quote go D1 or bust and those
• 1:53:17
  kind of things. But yet every I've, I've been
• 1:53:22
  blessed to go to the division two national championships for
• 1:53:24
  the past four years now. I think it is yeah I tell you
• 1:53:28
  what I see a lot of our you kids there and I see the final
• 1:53:32
  tallies and you're a bad year is you are 11th you know you're
• 1:53:37
  you're 10th is a bad year you're top five you've you've aren't
• 1:53:40
  you has won national titles as a team.
• 1:53:43
  How do you. I love it because it it it to me
• 1:53:47
  kind of maybe gives it takes away excuses from other schools.
• 1:53:51
  Well we can't because and we can't like man, aren't you has a
• 1:53:55
  lot going against it. A lot going for it.
• 1:53:57
  Don't hear me. I'm not bad mouthing to hear now
• 1:54:00
  So how have you guys overcome that and thrived in it.
• 1:54:04
  You really thrive in the uniqueness of art.
• 1:54:07
  Yeah. Track and field.
• 1:54:08
  No, I just you, you know I think it comes obviously from the top
• 1:54:12
  down, from our director down And so you know just you got to
• 1:54:15
  embrace what you be happy what you have what you got and
• 1:54:18
  embrace it. And you know you know he
• 1:54:21
  challenges us and you know we got to be innovative and use you
• 1:54:25
  know think out-of-the-box And so it makes your coach a little bit
• 1:54:29
  more. Yeah I, you know I'd love to you
• 1:54:32
  know walk out my office and be a track there.
• 1:54:35
  But you know I've got to I've got to take a take a little bit
• 1:54:37
  of a drive you know over to the track and and that's OK and so
• 1:54:41
  we just you know we don't harp on what we don't have we just
• 1:54:45
  embrace on what what we do have and and and focus on that and
• 1:54:48
  then if you want to be good you'll you'll just deal with
• 1:54:51
  with that if you want to be good you know and so yeah no we just
• 1:54:56
  I think that's just kind of what the motto is and and just trying
• 1:54:59
  to get you know quality quality student athletes obviously you
• 1:55:02
  know I mean the coaches we we can do what we can do but we're
• 1:55:05
  not nothing without the great student athletes that we've
• 1:55:08
  we've been able to buy in you know.
• 1:55:11
  I'm always amazed at the guests we have here and how they forget
• 1:55:17
  to drop the names they're talking about.
• 1:55:19
  You're talking about when you talk about your director, your
• 1:55:21
  head coach there, Kevin Lashore. We got to make sure that not
• 1:55:25
  everybody, not everybody goes, Oh yeah, we know Kevin is
• 1:55:27
  because I echo every sentiment you say about that man.
• 1:55:31
  I love him to death. He has done a great job of
• 1:55:33
  continuing in in in doing it differently.
• 1:55:36
  You know, not, you know, there's no cookie cutter.
• 1:55:38
  You just do it the same way. Every coach comes in and puts
• 1:55:40
  their own fingerprints. And I thought Kevin has done a
• 1:55:42
  great job of taking over the program and the coaches and
• 1:55:46
  assistant coaches and the athletes that he's he's has now
• 1:55:49
  and and has had and will continue to have as well.
• 1:55:53
  OK, wrap us up. You said something really
• 1:55:55
  interesting there and I thought this would be a good way to to
• 1:55:57
  end the podcast. You said because of those
• 1:56:01
  limitations and we learn in life and art specifically that
• 1:56:04
  limitations actually blossom. Creativity.
• 1:56:07
  You would think like just a big wide open canvas that you can be
• 1:56:10
  as creative as possible. But actually having restrictions
• 1:56:13
  is what grows creativity. So you have these restrictions,
• 1:56:16
  some of these these things that you can't walk outside your
• 1:56:19
  office and go to track. So you said, so you have to
• 1:56:21
  think outside the box, meaning you have to do things
• 1:56:24
  differently. In the several years that you've
• 1:56:26
  been there, now, what's been the most out of box?
• 1:56:30
  What's been the most like? All right, man, here is my
• 1:56:32
  challenge. Everybody else gets to do it
• 1:56:35
  this way. Well, I don't.
• 1:56:36
  So I had to go do it this way. You get to choose recruiting,
• 1:56:40
  coaching, workout, I'll allow you to give a workout and you
• 1:56:43
  know even I told you we're good workouts, travel, qualifying,
• 1:56:49
  you tell I'll let you. I won't give you a restriction
• 1:56:52
  on that. But what's been the most out of
• 1:56:54
  box type of thing that you've had to overcome and do and be
• 1:56:57
  and had it been successful for you?
• 1:57:01
  I get. I love people, putting people on
• 1:57:04
  the spot. I was trying.
• 1:57:04
  To I was trying to. Talk a lot so to give you time
• 1:57:07
  to think. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:57:08
  No, I mean, yeah, I mean obviously not having, you know,
• 1:57:14
  I mean not having a track, I'm sure obviously like not, but I
• 1:57:17
  mean not having a track. We've done, we've done, we've
• 1:57:20
  done things, you know, you've done workouts he'll repeats on
• 1:57:23
  the Streets of Union Square. I think the one thing it's kind
• 1:57:28
  of got it had got to me in the past, but it's just like, hey,
• 1:57:31
  this is what it is. You know we use the track at
• 1:57:36
  City College of San Francisco. And so we don't own the track.
• 1:57:41
  We lease the track. You know, we use that track.
• 1:57:44
  And so sometimes you know some equipment things And so I'm a
• 1:57:47
  distance coach. I coach the Stevo chase.
• 1:57:50
  It would be nice to have the City College didn't throw away
• 1:57:54
  the all the barriers and didn't have a rusty steeple water pit
• 1:57:59
  barrier that doesn't jump that's stuck on the guy's height And
• 1:58:02
  it's been that way for a little bit.
• 1:58:05
  And so I've had to think out-of-the-box of like how do we
• 1:58:08
  simulate you know some of these things and waters and stuff like
• 1:58:11
  that and without going to another, you know obviously
• 1:58:14
  calling somebody using another university stuff like that.
• 1:58:17
  So that that's been interesting where I've, you know I think
• 1:58:20
  it's made me a better steeple coach with like doing some
• 1:58:24
  things up up plyo boxes and and jumps and turning hurdles over
• 1:58:31
  and and simulating things and now I'm like oh man, you know
• 1:58:34
  some of these drills that we're doing these are pretty, pretty
• 1:58:37
  good. So I guess that's probably one
• 1:58:40
  thing of like thinking out-of-the-box that it has
• 1:58:42
  improved and you know we've had, we've had some all right steeple
• 1:58:46
  or so. You know, earlier you said and
• 1:58:49
  you said it two different ways. You said sometimes you need
• 1:58:52
  disappointment to give you a boost.
• 1:58:54
  I thought that was like to me, that was, you know, one of the
• 1:58:56
  quotes that I wrote down. I really like that.
• 1:58:58
  I, I think kind of the same attitude there is sometimes, you
• 1:59:02
  know, you put this, you know, you need disappointment to give
• 1:59:04
  you a boot. Sometimes you need to not be
• 1:59:07
  able to do something the right way.
• 1:59:10
  Meaning, hey, the steeplechase is is stuck at 36 and you've got
• 1:59:14
  a bunch of girls that you need to teach steeplechase.
• 1:59:16
  All right. What do you do?
• 1:59:18
  So there's your disappointment. You don't have it the way you
• 1:59:20
  everybody else air quotes there has it.
• 1:59:22
  Well, you still need to get the boost.
• 1:59:24
  You still need to figure it out. And I think having those
• 1:59:27
  setbacks, those disappointments is I I think you nailed it.
• 1:59:30
  That's what gives you the boost. That gives you the creativity.
• 1:59:33
  OK, well, I got to get her done. How do I do it?
• 1:59:35
  And then you get it done. I think that's what makes you a
• 1:59:38
  better coach. Thank you.
• 1:59:41
  Thank you. I.
• 1:59:42
  Love it. I love it.
• 1:59:42
  That's a great. I knew there would be a great
• 1:59:44
  example because when I just know your situation, I'm like, man,
• 1:59:47
  it is so tough you would have. You have every excuse to, you
• 1:59:52
  know, hey, we qualified one kid to nationals.
• 1:59:54
  That's a big deal for us, Mike, because we don't have a track
• 1:59:57
  and we don't have this. And yeah, yeah.
• 1:59:58
  And it's like, no, no, no, man, one kid, I don't know.
• 2:00:01
  Your whole staff would be fired if only one kid qualified.
• 2:00:03
  So that's never happens. That never happens at RU.
• 2:00:06
  So I love that the mentality of nothing gets in our way.
• 2:00:10
  We're going to figure this out recruiting.
• 2:00:11
  We're going to figure this out training and we're going to
• 2:00:13
  figure this out competing. And you guys do a really amazing
• 2:00:16
  job. It really is.
• 2:00:18
  When I see aren't you? It's always just like, man.
• 2:00:21
  Those guys, there's nothing, there's nothing fancy about
• 2:00:24
  them. They got to work hard, you know,
• 2:00:26
  they got to overcome a lot of things.
• 2:00:27
  So Bruce, my man, thank you so much.
• 2:00:30
  You know, I, it means a lot to me.
• 2:00:33
  You know, we ask for a lot of time to sit down and do this
• 2:00:36
  podcast. This is not an easy podcast to
• 2:00:39
  to do to, to, to be a guest on. It's not an easy podcast to
• 2:00:42
  listen to if you're still here, man.
• 2:00:43
  I'm so tickled. And we've looked at our stats.
• 2:00:46
  I'm quite amazed at how deep the vast majority of our listeners,
• 2:00:51
  people are really interested in the guests that we have your
• 2:00:54
  stories from soup to nuts from the beginning from you know, I'm
• 2:00:58
  going to do the track because I'm going to stay in shape for
• 2:01:00
  basketball to hey man, you know, we we're trying to win a
• 2:01:04
  national title here at at RU. So super excited when anybody
• 2:01:08
  can give me the time to to share your journey and I'm really
• 2:01:12
  thankful. Shout out to Lamont Vaughn for
• 2:01:15
  doing this 'cause you know my my goal is to get every coach on
• 2:01:18
  the podcast and I only get 52 a year so it's going to take me a
• 2:01:21
  long time. So it might have been a while
• 2:01:22
  but I would eventually had you. But this was the boost we needed
• 2:01:25
  to to have you here on the show man.
• 2:01:27
  So really grateful for you. Thank you.
• 2:01:30
  Thank you. Happy to do it anytime.
• 2:01:33
  Absolutely, absolutely. Well, thank you again Bruce, for
• 2:01:35
  being here, learning about art, you and really his interesting
• 2:01:38
  career. I think you know some takeaways
• 2:01:40
  for me on this episode. One I thought, you know, talking
• 2:01:44
  about the recruiting aspect, I think it's really important.
• 2:01:47
  But also again, I love busting myths.
• 2:01:51
  And so this myth that high school coaches cannot coach
• 2:01:53
  college, I don't understand it. I don't understand it when it
• 2:01:57
  comes from coaches who used to be high school coaches
• 2:01:59
  themselves. By the way.
• 2:02:00
  That always just kind of blows me away there.
• 2:02:03
  But I think when we're looking at hiring quality coaches in the
• 2:02:07
  collegiate level, I think we need to start taking the resumes
• 2:02:11
  of high school coaches more serious.
• 2:02:13
  Not as a back burner, not as a yeah, maybe if no one else pans
• 2:02:17
  out, I I think high school coaches around the country are
• 2:02:20
  doing an amazing job. Go look at the results right
• 2:02:22
  now, by the way. But if they're teachers
• 2:02:25
  specifically, and I know Bruce, you weren't necessarily a
• 2:02:27
  teacher specifically, They've got time management skills,
• 2:02:31
  teaching skills, recruiting skills, and they're doing
• 2:02:34
  everything that we're doing on the college level just
• 2:02:36
  differently, just in a different, different setting.
• 2:02:38
  So. So Bruce, I appreciate your
• 2:02:40
  story and experience with that as well.
• 2:02:42
  So join us next week. Hey, don't forget next week,
• 2:02:44
  actually. Yeah.
• 2:02:45
  So two things going on here. One next week on Monday, we've
• 2:02:48
  got, it's Penn Relays and Drake Relays week, right.
• 2:02:51
  So we've got Steve Dolan, the head coach of the University of
• 2:02:53
  Pennsylvania, for our Monday episode.
• 2:02:56
  We get to learn about his background.
• 2:02:57
  Hey, this distance coach used to be a decathlete.
• 2:03:00
  You think this distance coach over here should have been a
• 2:03:01
  foreigner Hurdler Steve Dolan was a decath athletes.
• 2:03:04
  So join us next week for that and right now we're in the
• 2:03:07
  middle. This start started April 2nd
• 2:03:09
  every day on the podcast except for Mondays because we drop our
• 2:03:13
  our guests like Bruce here on Mondays every Tuesday through
• 2:03:16
  Sunday from April 2nd through the end of May, one episode a
• 2:03:20
  day we are interviewing a high school coach from every state.
• 2:03:23
  So we started with Alabama. It's April 15th when we
• 2:03:27
  published this. So we're probably into like
• 2:03:29
  maybe California or Delaware at this point, but alphabetically
• 2:03:33
  every state, even Washington, DC we are talking about their
• 2:03:38
  outdoor state meet qualifying. So how they qualify your
• 2:03:40
  regional sectionals. Some it's amazing, you're going
• 2:03:43
  to be blown away if you're already listening, you know how
• 2:03:46
  unique this is. Some are descending order list.
• 2:03:48
  We talk about what events they're doing.
• 2:03:51
  By the way California, it's crazy how they qualify for the
• 2:03:54
  state meet. When he was talking about
• 2:03:55
  coaching at Poway, I was just like dude, I was confused on the
• 2:03:59
  California system. So check it out every day about
• 2:04:03
  a 20 minute ish podcast April 2nd through the end of May.
• 2:04:07
  Alphabetical Alabama all the way through.
• 2:04:09
  I think it was Wyoming was the 51st because DC is in there.
• 2:04:12
  But I hope you enjoy that. So join us next week for Steve
• 2:04:15
  Dolan and join us tomorrow for the next state meet.
• 2:04:18
  Thanks everybody. Appreciate you being here.
• 2:04:19
  Have a great one. If it goes to appreciate the
• 2:04:27
  coach, the ones that point people most every season needs a
• 2:04:30
  voice of reason speaking. The growth you got to prep for,
• 2:04:33
  You carry the load to the soul. For those of us stand to go
• 2:04:37
  proper handoff. To stay in this home with you
• 2:04:39
  packing for the road, there's more than one way to go.
• 2:04:42
  Take notes. That's being you told it ain't
• 2:04:44
  practice. If your purpose ain't clear, it
• 2:04:46
  can't happen to you. Listen what both is.
• 2:04:48
  Can't mentor without a mentor. Years of experience you can
• 2:04:52
  reinvent those years. Every plans got to stand to
• 2:04:54
  deliver to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
• 2:04:58
  It's a choice and to fight not to win or lose.
• 2:05:00
  It's not a ploy boy device. Y'all can make more moves.
• 2:05:03
  It's not about how to. It's all about why.
• 2:05:05
  You don't know till you know who you are inside six.
• 2:05:08
  When you waste the time choose none.
• 2:05:10
  So we all cross finish line. The work ain't done So we learn
• 2:05:13
  from the experts. We all got to put in the legwork
• 2:05:16
  kill athletics network. It's all about connections put
• 2:05:19
  together for the profession. To every track coach could be
• 2:05:22
  blessed.