Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: Talkin' Track w/Texas Track Dad featuring Mike Cunningham

Transcript

BONUS: Talkin' Track w/Texas Track Dad featuring Mike Cunningham · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

0:11
Bam, I'm here. Hey guys, what's up?
0:15
Welcome to the show guys. Welcome to the show.
0:17
We got a good show today. I got my buddy in here, Mike
0:20
Cunningham. We going to talk some track
0:23
today guys. We going to talk some track
0:25
today, but before I do, you know what I got to do before every
0:30
show. I got to give my shout outs.
0:31
All right, I got to give my shout outs to my guys over there
0:33
at track barn. If you need any apparel spikes,
0:38
anything you need hollering my guys over there, they also or
0:43
they they're doing AAAU bag giveaway right now so make sure
0:48
you go on their social media platforms to get registered for
0:51
that. Also shout out to my guys over
0:54
there at TTFCA. Make sure you get registered for
0:58
the mean of champions is going to be on mile split.
1:00
Just go to mile split put that in is going to get you
1:03
registered. Also y'all men seeing me with
1:07
the icy breeze. And make sure y'all get your icy
1:09
breeze buddy before it heats up in the summer.
1:12
This is going to be a portable misted fan.
1:15
You can cool those athletes off after the race cooler team off.
1:19
Also cool yourself off. Also we have an air conditioner
1:22
cooler. It's a bigger product than that.
1:26
Go to the description and if you want more information go ahead
1:30
and look that up. My God, Mike, what's going on?
1:34
Let's get help me in here. Sorry, I I'm hydrating because I
1:41
had the craziest thing happened to me today.
1:45
It put me back in training mode. I don't know if you heard this
1:50
Vance, but I had somebody call me out on Twitter today and
1:53
challenged me to A60A60 race. We're still I think we're
1:58
finalizing to the 50 meters. I I just couldn't believe the
2:03
the disrespect that came at me on Twitter this morning.
2:06
Hey, you, you know well it is what it is.
2:09
And all I can tell you Mike, I already been working out.
2:12
I was on that roll machine this morning.
2:14
Hey, I did a minute strong on there.
2:18
Full pools, you know. Hey, you you you are.
2:22
You ready? Are you ready?
2:24
No. The good news is January 2025 at
2:31
the TTFCA winter clinics. That's when it's going to go
2:34
down. Someone asked if we were going
2:35
to stream it and I was like, you know who you talking to?
2:38
Right, Mr. Mr. Streamer, we're going multicasting this thing.
2:42
I'm like you know I got inside connections to the the Paul
2:47
camp. You know the the the Logan Paul
2:49
or Jake Paul Mike Tyson fight connections.
2:51
I might get this on pay-per-view man.
2:53
I don't know. Hey, we.
2:54
We need it. We need it all.
2:57
Yeah, yeah. Only you and I would sign up for
2:59
pay-per-view, so we probably should just keep this streaming
3:02
on IG and Twitter and and all that so.
3:05
You know what? Shout out to everybody on
3:08
Twitter. Well, hold on, X.
3:10
Sorry about that. Y'all been going crazy right
3:14
now. We appreciate the post and make
3:17
sure y'all get out there. It's going to be live stream
3:19
too. If you can't make it, chime in.
3:21
But who you got? Who you going with?
3:23
Hey, so I got to I didn't even talk to you about this, but I
3:27
thought as long as everything's legal, and I think it should be,
3:30
I think you and I should put $100 on it.
3:34
But now listen, I got a caveat because we got enough.
3:37
We don't need the bet. You know, I'm just a gambler at
3:39
hearts. That's why I want to do it.
3:41
And the winner gets to pick where the losers $100 goes.
3:47
OK. OK, the charity of your choice,
3:50
A school program. You know a track program of your
3:53
choice. Special Olympics AAU.
3:55
You Who? Well, not you.
3:57
I will be naming where your $100 will be going.
4:01
You. You down with that?
4:02
Mike, what? What?
4:03
What's your time right now in 100, Mike?
4:05
Well, what's your time right now?
4:07
What? What's your time, mate?
4:08
I'm looking. I'm not talking about a hand
4:10
time. I'm going to need electronic
4:12
time because, you know, hand times on count around here.
4:15
I'm looking for my calendar because that's probably how it's
4:17
measured right now. But it's March, man.
4:21
I got time. Let me tell you what, I got
4:25
time. Let me tell you this.
4:27
I'm going to put, I'm going to, you going to know what's going
4:30
to happen? Because I'm going to put video
4:31
on Twitter as we go along. You're going to see.
4:35
You're going to see. That's all I'm going to say,
4:36
man. Like I said, are you going?
4:38
To wait, Hey buddy, we don't hey buddy, we don't do a lot of
4:41
talking down here in Texas. We just line it up.
4:43
That's all I can tell you. Hey, we we going to line it up,
4:46
Mike, we go line it up. Hey, make sure y'all follow me
4:49
in, Mike. Follow me on X.
4:52
Follow Mike on X. He's always on Instagram.
4:55
So y'all can see those videos as well.
4:56
But who y'all got putting in the comments?
5:01
Who y'all going with? Hey, you got to go with Texas,
5:03
baby. We all about speed down here.
5:09
All right, so Mike. So if you don't know who Mike
5:15
Mike is, he's the national. Hold on one second.
5:24
I got it. Here is a national business
5:27
developer of Gills athletics. He's out.
5:32
He also has a podcast. He's the host Gill's Connection
5:37
podcast. Man you he loved track coaches
5:43
so if you're a track coach look him up on X.
5:46
Hit that follow button, DM him so you can get on that show.
5:50
Mike, can you tell us a little bit about your podcast And after
5:54
that I have a coach I want to recommend to you for your for
5:58
your show as well? Absolutely, man.
6:00
Thanks for this opportunity. You know, the podcast, the Gill
6:03
Connections Podcast is now in its fifth season, which is still
6:08
just boggling to say out loud. We started actually, right
6:12
before COVID, so January of 2020, and our goal was to create
6:17
a platform where we could uplift and honor coaches around the
6:22
world, Literally the world. And so, you know, when I
6:25
started, I had a a real wow, what's the word here?
6:30
I really wanted to strive that this wasn't going to be a
6:33
Division One track and field coach interview.
6:37
You know, it wasn't going to be just Power 5.
6:39
Now we got plenty of Power 5 and Division One coaches there, but
6:42
I am really dedicated to having high school coaches, club
6:47
coaches, junior college coaches, NEIA, Division One, Division
6:51
two, Division Three. And we from time to time, we'll
6:54
have people kind of behind the scenes, if you will, of track
6:58
and field people that are doing something in our sport that I
7:00
think people should know about that.
7:02
You know, this world doesn't just run with coaches and
7:05
athletes. We need officials, TV people,
7:07
things like that. So, you know, we just have a
7:10
blast over there. What we do is we interview that
7:13
coach and we discussed their entire journey, how they got
7:16
into coaching mentors along the way, lessons learned, why'd they
7:19
go from this school to that school?
7:21
What's got them excited? We don't talk about X's and O's.
7:23
There's a lot of other great places, including your show
7:26
right here that talks about, you know, training type stuff.
7:28
We talk about the person who chose to be a track coach.
7:32
And man, I'm in Season 5 having an absolute blast.
7:36
Can't see, unlike our race, I can't see a finish line on this
7:42
one. It's going to be it's it's the
7:44
proverbial marathon. Shots fired.
7:49
Shots fired. OK.
7:51
Don't forget you started this. I'm just saying.
7:54
And I'm going to finish it. No, I'm going to finish it.
7:59
So how can if a coach want to come on your show, Mike, how can
8:02
they get in contact with you? Yeah.
8:04
So the only way that we're taking guest starting today,
8:08
really starting here recently is recommendation.
8:12
Someone has to nominate you for the show.
8:14
It's just it, it's it's overwhelming.
8:16
We do one show a week, so that means I get 52 shows a year.
8:20
That seems like a lot and it's a lot of work, but there are
8:24
thousands of coaches. Everybody who coaches track and
8:27
field at any level deserves this uplifting and honoring.
8:31
I truly, truly believe that. So it's going to take a long
8:34
time for me to get every track coach.
8:35
So if you are nominated for the show, I have a running list that
8:39
I keep that I'll make my way through.
8:42
I've had guys that were nominated three, 3, 1/2 years
8:45
ago that are just now getting on the show again because it's just
8:48
scarcity of of the number of episodes show.
8:50
Hey and by the way, I would like if you if you'll permit me here
8:54
a little bit of a promotion here for the pop.
8:57
Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Really excited about this and I
8:59
think it's going to be big starting April 2nd.
9:03
So, gosh, 10:00-ish days from now I went out.
9:07
I wanted to find out more about high school, track and field,
9:10
state meets, you know, public versus private schools.
9:14
How many classes, how do you qualify?
9:17
Is it regional, sectional, state?
9:19
You know, all these kind of things?
9:20
What events do you run? Because that's different in
9:22
every state. Do you have a meet of champions?
9:25
I went out and interviewed 1 high school coach from every
9:29
state in the country and even Washington DC and we so we talk
9:35
about 20 to 30 minutes roughly. And we're going to air those
9:38
episodes one a day starting April 2nd, all the way through
9:42
May. It's a lot of I learned so, so
9:46
much. I thought Texas was the only
9:49
state that doubled up relay points.
9:52
I learned that's not true. I learned about a couple of
9:57
states that have the shuttle hurdle relay for the state meet.
10:00
We talked about how many states have the javelin, states that
10:02
have the hammer, states that have muted champions.
10:05
And I'm going to finally settle the debate.
10:09
The last question that I asked every one of these coaches was
10:13
when you qualify for the state meet, did you qualify for state
10:16
or did you qualify for states? I'm going to end the debate.
10:20
We're going to figure out, we're going to, we got 51 people who
10:23
have voted on this essentially. And so I'm going to end the
10:25
debate and we're going to find out if it's state or states.
10:27
But that starts April, second one a day, every day until the
10:31
end of May. And I think it's going to be, I
10:33
had an absolute blast recording it.
10:34
So I think people are going to really enjoy this special series
10:37
that we're doing, man. That man, Mike, that's awesome,
10:40
man. And that and I appreciate what
10:42
you do. I appreciate what you do because
10:45
yeah, you bring, excuse me, a lot of attention to track and
10:48
field as well. I said all the time, you know
10:51
track and field, we don't get the promotion like football,
10:54
basketball or anything like that.
10:56
But I I appreciate what you do. I appreciate it.
10:59
And Mike, number one goal is to have every.
11:03
Coach in the. World Follow him on X on
11:08
Twitter. You doing you you doing an
11:11
amazing job, Mike. You doing an amazing job.
11:15
So were you surprised with the Christian Coleman versus Noah
11:20
Lyles outcome you? Know.
11:26
No. And I say that because if they
11:28
raced 100 times, the outcomes going to be different every
11:33
time. I mean you you just got too many
11:34
good kids and those guys are really good and you know
11:37
obviously Christian is just dominant in the 60 missed having
11:41
Trayvon out there to be honest with you.
11:43
I love seeing that entire match up, but certainly Noah seems to
11:47
be on a different level this year.
11:50
I think I saw right before we went live here he called out the
11:55
world record, I think. I think he said he's going to
11:57
break the 100m world record and I love that.
12:00
I love that attitude. I love self belief in your
12:04
coach, so it's exciting. It was exciting.
12:06
Races to watch, to develop through the semis, through the
12:09
finals, man, it was, it was a lot of fun.
12:11
Yeah, I man, 'cause I know they raised what, once, once before.
12:19
They erased her twice. And Noah lies actually beat
12:23
them. And I can just see the look on
12:26
Coleman's face. You know, I was just like, next
12:29
time it it might be something different next time.
12:32
But like you say, yeah, they're, they're both great athletes and
12:36
and I say this all the time also, anybody can be beat.
12:40
You just never know. You just never know, especially
12:44
with track and field. It's a unique sport.
12:46
And especially with the 60, I mean, you know how precocious
12:49
the 100m is, You know, you make one mistake that can cost you
12:53
the race. Well, cut it in half essentially
12:55
you you think about making a mistake in the 60 and that can
12:58
cost you. So it's just it's really an
13:00
unfair race in that sense that, you know, it's hard to get eight
13:03
guys, 8 gals lined up and everybody runs 60 meters to
13:06
perfection. Everybody's making mistakes in
13:08
that. So it's just tough it.
13:10
It really is tough. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's yeah,
13:13
it's going to be tough for you to lose at the TTFC area, look.
13:24
It is water it. Is water.
13:29
I'm gonna have to throw that. Mike, water is not going to save
13:31
you. You can drink all the water in
13:33
the world, Mike. This water is not going to make
13:35
you fast, Mike. It's not going to make you fast.
13:40
All right. Here we go here.
13:44
So the NCAA indoor championships as well.
13:50
Brianna Liston, have you heard about her?
13:55
I use. I followed her when she was in
13:58
high school and she used to race against the twins all the time,
14:03
all day in Jamaica. She went to LSU.
14:07
I think she had an injury or something or freshman year or
14:11
whatever. I because she didn't have a full
14:13
season. Something went on, something
14:15
happened. But she's back now.
14:17
She's back and she has been like, man, just like on fire.
14:23
She actually won the NCAA Indoor championships with a 703 and she
14:29
can run the 100 too. A lot of sprinters, you see them
14:33
out there, they're they're strong at 60 and 100 it it's two
14:36
different races, right? The 60 and 100 is two different
14:39
races. But this young lady here, she,
14:41
she's phenomenal at the 100 as well.
14:45
Did you know about her before the championships?
14:48
You You know I didn't. But what's interesting to me is
14:53
I definitely knew LSU and I know Dennis Shaver, so that doesn't
14:56
surprise me right now. I do know the young lady in
15:00
second there, Kayla Jackson, Carol Smith, Gilbert, you know,
15:06
the coach. It's interesting how the same
15:09
coaches perform, their athletes perform at the the top level.
15:14
You know, Dwayne Ross's kid is in there.
15:17
It's it's really fascinating. I know they get the the good
15:21
kids I understand that. But they you still have to be
15:23
better this I I guarantee this Brianna Liston didn't run seven
15:26
O 3 in high school. They they still have to be
15:29
improved here instead of because they're doing an amazing job.
15:31
So she beat a great field right. Kayla Jackson's Amazing Grace
15:36
Stark loves seeing her back love seeing her name back in the
15:39
finals. Man love you know the things
15:41
that have she's had to overcome. Florida State always put someone
15:44
in the finals. I mean, it's it's amazing.
15:47
Yeah, yeah, Kayla. Kayla Jackson, she she man.
15:52
Yeah she's she's been she's she's been a good runner.
15:55
I think she's from Detroit. Detroit MI I believe I used to
16:02
watch her run and AAUA lot and you know that transition from
16:07
high school to college it it it is, it is huge.
16:11
It's kind of like middle school to high school but probably like
16:16
10 times worse. Yeah.
16:18
Yeah, yeah. Because you got to get used to
16:19
the workouts. You got to get used to the
16:21
environment. You might be out of state you
16:24
know and you haven't been away from home you know and you know
16:29
you might be from Texas but you going to USC right.
16:32
So you in Cali now so you got to get used to Cali weather and
16:37
everything that goes on out there.
16:39
But would like to say it's it's been a good transition for you
16:42
know, all the athletes and in in this major, this major and I
16:47
think the parents, parents should talk to the athletes as
16:50
well. You know high school athletes
16:52
about that transition to college, right.
16:55
I think they need to develop you know friendships with people who
17:00
are already there. Call them see how the campus is,
17:04
see how practice is. You know just just just try to
17:06
build on it before you get there, you know.
17:09
But but yeah that's they doing good.
17:11
They doing good for sure. They doing good?
17:13
For sure. Let's What do you think about
17:16
the 400 women? Let me back up.
17:21
Who do you think? The top three?
17:23
Yeah. Who?
17:24
Who did well there? I can't remember.
17:26
On the women's side. I know the men, the Georgia kid,
17:29
because that had its own let's. See.
17:32
Shoes, that's the prelims there, I think.
17:34
Is that the? Prelims.
17:35
Yeah, Yeah, that's prelim. I kind of gave it away.
17:37
Oh. Yeah, Women's 400.
17:38
You mean Arkansas's whole team? That's.
17:41
What I got it gave it away when I That's right.
17:44
Right. I kind of.
17:45
Gave it away when I clicked over there.
17:46
Let's see where it is for that's premium.
17:52
But yeah, Arkansas, they went 1-2 and three man, are they
17:58
recruiting quarter horses down there or?
18:01
I mean, they've been. They've been.
18:03
Strong on that floor for like. Ever.
18:06
Quite a while now. Chris Johnson, who's been on the
18:09
Gill Podcast, does a really amazing job.
18:12
I think that's kind of his, Well, I was going to say I kind
18:15
of think that's his wheelhouse, but honestly, coaching is his
18:17
wheelhouse. I I I truly think if he got
18:20
forced to coach the Hammer throwers one day, he'd do a
18:22
really great job. But really amazing.
18:25
You know, it's it's really hard to have one kid, you know,
18:30
Georgia, having the number four girl there, Leah Butler, that's
18:33
hard. That's really hard.
18:35
Three of them, man. Come on.
18:40
Yeah. 3, Three strong. I was looking at the four by
18:44
four. It looked like they got dequeued
18:46
on that. I don't know what happened on
18:48
that, but yet Arkansas, they're they're strong on that four.
18:52
Shout out to Kanisha Phillips down there at IU in the mix.
18:57
Shout out to her. She's been doing good this
18:59
season too. But yeah, yeah, yeah, that's
19:03
beating Arkansas on the four is tough.
19:06
Yeah, Speaking of IU, you know, I've told you this on Twitter,
19:11
but I haven't had a chance to tell you personally.
19:14
Great job to you, mom, the family, you know, that it takes,
19:20
you know, I think we talked about this before.
19:22
I believe, you know, I think you and I are both kind of in line
19:25
that, you know, it takes a village.
19:27
And so a lot of people have poured into your daughter and
19:30
what she has accomplished up to this point right now is amazing.
19:34
I mean to be able to to go to Indiana is a great school.
19:37
You know, our customer service manager here at Gill was an all
19:40
American thrower at Indiana. So I got a lot of respect for
19:43
for IU. So that alone is quite amazing
19:47
And it feels like just kind of watching the results from afar.
19:51
It, you know, you tell your own story because you're not in the
19:54
huddle. So I don't know the what's
19:55
actually going on, but it feels like she has this kind of like
19:58
weight off her of her shoulders. I'm like, OK, I know where I'm
20:00
going. I made my decision.
20:02
And she, it's showing in her results, man, let me tell you
20:06
what, I'm much happier that I'm racing.
20:08
I'm sorry that I'm beating you in January and then I'm not
20:10
racing her, 'cause that was no contest.
20:14
I wouldn't take the bet. So who you think she got it
20:17
from, Mike? Who you think she got it from?
20:19
You know, you think she got a frog?
20:20
I. Think you need to be.
20:22
Worried about that or some? Genetic test to find out.
20:27
I have my be worried. You need to be worried about
20:30
that, buddy. Yeah, I mean, she got it.
20:32
From dad yeah. But yeah Mike, I I I appreciate
20:36
that, man. But yeah it's man.
20:40
It it was the recruiting is it's tough.
20:44
It's tough. It's aggressive.
20:47
It's stressful parents and athletes.
20:51
But all the schools she went to shout out to all those coaches,
20:56
and they're great coaches. She went out there, man, and
21:00
when she came back she said I felt like home, you know, and
21:03
and and that's where she want to be.
21:05
You got to like that. Hear that?
21:06
As the dad, don't you? Yeah.
21:07
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, man. And everybody I talked to man,
21:11
about IU, they they just tell me man, it's man, it's some, it's
21:15
awesome school, man. And a lot of great things going
21:18
down there. And yeah, I'm excited, yeah.
21:21
Beautiful campus, awesome academics.
21:25
And Ed Bethea, another Gill Connections podcast alum.
21:29
One of the best guys. Like trust your daughter with
21:32
him. Like that's dad.
21:33
Two point O over there for you, man.
21:36
A lot of trust in him. So I was really happy when I saw
21:39
the announcement. I was like, oh man.
21:41
Grateful. I will tell you too.
21:45
When she got contacted by IU, guess where I went to research?
21:50
The coach? I went to Gil.
21:55
I watched the whole thing. I watched the whole thing,
21:58
'cause you interviewed? Yeah.
22:00
You interviewed Coach. There I.
22:02
I wondered, you know we're we're on episode 200 and 52151.
22:07
I wondered after a while with our college coaches I wondered
22:10
if it if it would be used recruiting wise like hey man,
22:13
you know I've got this guy or gal for you know we we go an
22:17
hour and a half hour and 45. I'm like you're getting the real
22:19
deal with this person. I wondered and I've heard that
22:22
story a few times. I've had a couple of dads
22:25
parents DM me on Twitter saying hey thank you.
22:28
I listened to coach so and so made us feel even better about
22:31
the decision or things like that.
22:33
So that's really cool to hear. I appreciate you sharing that
22:35
and. I'm glad.
22:37
I'm glad you get those coaches on there.
22:39
You talk to them. You asked some really good
22:42
questions, really good questions.
22:45
Of course I have. I have coaches on here, but it's
22:48
majority athletes. But I I appreciate that.
22:53
I I appreciate that, 'cause I was able to go on there and see
22:56
what type of person he was. And he's a great person.
23:00
That's why she's in IU. That's why she's going to IU,
23:03
That's why she's going to IU. But yeah, man, that's that's
23:06
what's up. Mike, let's talk about this.
23:09
I know I'm kind of jumping around on this, but this new new
23:15
long jump rule, Yeah, I know you talked to me about it briefly.
23:18
I haven't been able to research that much.
23:20
What's going on with that? Yeah, so I actually kind of was
23:25
not. I don't want to overstate this
23:27
and say that I was on the inside, but I had an inside
23:29
track into this a few weeks before it was announced, which
23:34
it was announced on a podcast, by the way.
23:36
It tells you the power of podcasting the the guy from the
23:40
World Athletics. I can't remember the name of the
23:42
podcast but came on and talked about the long jump roll boat.
23:44
A couple weeks before that I had the honor of being the host MC
23:50
of the Wisconsin Track Coaches Associations Track Clinic,
23:55
specifically doing their anniversary dinner.
23:58
And the keynote speaker for that dinner was the great Willie
24:02
Banks Triple Jump Royalty World record holder, American American
24:05
Holder, also Guild podcast alum. It seems like I've.
24:08
I've gotten everybody on the show.
24:09
Not yet not yet. But Willie Banks was the speaker
24:14
and did a great job, told the story, pumped up the crowd and
24:17
at the end he kind of had a little bit of time for kind of
24:21
Q&A. Ish, if you will.
24:22
And he talked about he's on the World Athletics Committee.
24:25
That's looking at changes for events.
24:29
And so some of the events that he talked about, he talked about
24:33
something with race walking. I'm afraid I didn't listen very
24:36
much on that one, although I have a race Walker coming up on
24:40
the podcast and it blew you. Yeah, yeah.
24:42
But they're being pretty dismissive about that event for
24:46
good or bad. So but, so he talked about the
24:49
recent he said that the World Athletics is considering a men's
24:53
and women's combined Coed 4 by 1.
24:59
So we have the four by one mixed relay.
25:00
There are 4 by 4 mixed relay. They're thinking about a four by
25:02
one mixed relay. They're talking about moving the
25:06
women's implements up. So right now women do 4K from
25:10
high school college all the way to pro for the shot put.
25:12
They do 1K for the discus all the way through they're talking
25:15
about up and those after NCAA's. What were the other two things?
25:20
Moving the heptathlon for the women to a decathlon.
25:24
So those are all kind of things we'd known about.
25:26
And then he dropped this nugget and this is where it comes up
25:29
with a long jump. The way he described it, he
25:32
described it as they were trying to lengthen the long jump board.
25:38
So right now it's an 8 inch board with a four inch foul foul
25:43
board. This is the way he described it,
25:45
was lengthening the board. So no, he didn't describe any
25:48
changes with the foul. He just said yeah, instead of an
25:51
8 inch board, they're thinking about going longer.
25:54
He says I don't think they're going long enough.
25:56
I think it needs to be three feet now I I think that would be
26:00
a mistake the way he was describing it but my digress and
26:04
the reason he was talking about he was really explaining what
26:06
the I don't want to call it the new rule but the experiment
26:09
that's coming up he was really explaining that the reason
26:12
behind that is they did surveying.
26:15
I can't remember what me I don't know if it was the World
26:18
Championships or whatever but they surveyed.
26:21
I will make up numbers here. 1000 people that were at the
26:23
meet and asked them, you know, how satisfied were you with the
26:27
meet, the presentation, having fun, those kind of things,
26:30
right. And out of the again, I'm making
26:32
up the number of 1000, but out of the people that responded to
26:35
the survey that were at the meet, it was a very high #90
26:39
something percent. Again, I'm making up numbers,
26:41
but you get where I'm saying it was really high.
26:43
Said they really enjoyed the meet.
26:45
Then they did that same survey to people who watched the meet
26:48
on TV and it was the exact opposite.
26:53
Very few people said that was a good presentation.
26:57
I enjoyed that, I was entertained, etcetera.
27:00
And so they went to the long jump and they did research on
27:03
the long jump. 2 facts stuck out to them.
27:07
One was 30 plus percent 3033, about 1/3.
27:10
Every, Every 3rd jump in the long jump is a foul.
27:15
And that's disappointing to watch, right?
27:18
Whether you're on TV, whether you're a casual fan, a hardcore
27:20
fan that's tough to watch. And then the other thing that
27:24
stood out as they researched the long jump was after the first
27:28
round, the people that are first, second and third, some
27:32
high number. Again, I don't remember the
27:33
specifics. Let's call it 90% of the time
27:36
those three people were the same three people at the end.
27:39
They may have changed order, but if you were in first, second or
27:42
third after the first round, high likelihood you were first,
27:45
second or third at the end of the sixth round.
27:49
So then, so that was kind of interesting that night.
27:52
You know, I had a great time for boosting all that kind of stuff.
27:54
And then a week or so later, this bombshell comes out from
27:57
the podcast that, hey, we're going to look at taking the long
28:00
jump, basically taking the board out of it and creating a zone
28:06
and allowing you to jump anywhere in the zone and
28:08
wherever you take off, that's where we'll measure you from.
28:14
I don't know about that, Yeah. So.
28:17
So taking the board completely out out of it, right it just
28:21
saying you got this area right here, you can jump anywhere in
28:24
there and we going to measure it?
28:27
Nah. Let's go.
28:30
I always have to do my CYA here, yeah.
28:34
Yeah. I I have no opinion of it.
28:39
I have a small opinion as a manufacturer of track and field
28:42
equipment, they're going to take the board completely out of it.
28:44
Well, that sucks for us. So I do have a little bit of
28:47
opinion that way, but I don't have an opinion one way or the
28:51
other whether this is a good or a bad idea.
28:53
I do have a bias of change. I love change.
28:58
So I kind of I'm in favor maybe it for that reason.
29:02
But I also know, you know, I've heard a lot of the complaints
29:05
I've heard. Here's here's where the World
29:07
Athletics did a terrible job to be real.
29:10
They went on the podcast. They threw this statement out.
29:14
Hey, we're going to, we're going to look into this.
29:16
We're going to experiment with this to see the stone.
29:19
No more fouls, longest jump wins, etcetera, etcetera.
29:22
And then they hit stop recording And then what do we get to do?
29:26
We go on Twitter. We're track geeks.
29:28
We're we're well, what about this?
29:29
Why is that? And then you know this really
29:31
good current long jumper, well, why in the world would they do
29:34
that And then you know king long jumper Carl Lewis gets on there.
29:37
That's just terrible because the world didn't flesh it out.
29:41
We get to now hypothesize about a million things, and that's
29:47
where I think the World Athletics did a major
29:49
disservice. Yeah.
29:57
He's muted so I can talk smack about this race and he can't
30:01
reply at all. In January when he gets toasted,
30:07
this is awesome. I want to take over the show,
30:09
'cause now he's having microphone problems, so I get to
30:13
just fill the air here, 'cause he's on mute and we can't hear
30:17
him at all. We cannot hear you, Sir.
30:22
I know it's your show. I.
30:26
Know you were nervous? No, I know you got nervous.
30:31
So but. But yeah, so man, that's just
30:38
man, I I I don't. So what?
30:40
What issues? You heard you as you heard it
30:41
described. What issues do you have with it?
30:44
It's just. I mean, how can they determine
30:46
if the athletes are going to be jumping from different spots?
30:50
It's not going to be the same spot, they just jumping, they
30:55
jumping in the general area, right?
30:56
So, so you telling me they just going to mark off this area
31:00
here? How?
31:02
How is it going to be the same? I just don't get it.
31:05
I guess I'm just going to have to read up on it, but.
31:08
Let's say, let's say they use a laser grid.
31:11
Let's say they go really high tech.
31:12
Maybe, I don't know. They actually already do this in
31:16
our Paralympians. They put down chalk and so when
31:21
the athlete takes off, it leaves a foot imprint.
31:22
And now I can tell exactly where that that athlete takes off.
31:25
So this is not, well, we've done this.
31:28
The, the, the, the, the actual implementation part, I don't
31:31
think is all that hard. They'll probably use some kind
31:34
of laser grid at the, you know, we're talking about the World
31:36
Athletics here. And so people started asking,
31:38
well, you can't do that at high school.
31:40
We can't afford that. And you know, most colleges
31:42
aren't going to be able to afford that.
31:43
That's right. So you'll just have a human
31:45
actually doing it, just like you do in every other event.
31:47
We, we have humans involved in our sport every day.
31:50
You know there's there's fouls called in the shot put that a
31:53
lot of people would argue, but a human is sitting there calling
31:55
it heck, the foul of the long jump today is called by humans
31:58
most of the time. So I don't think that part
32:01
changes. That part doesn't scare me at at
32:03
all. Yeah, it's oh, man, It's just
32:06
tough, man. But I guess, you know, it's
32:09
things changed, you know? I mean, we can't do the same
32:12
thing forever. You know, this might be better.
32:16
I just I just have to see it, you know, I I just have to see
32:20
how it works, you know? Here's what I do when I have
32:24
people say, oh, it will be a different event and it's not
32:27
true. It's not the pure long jump and
32:29
all that stuff is true. It it it'll be a different
32:31
event. There'll be a new world record.
32:33
It won't be the, you know, the world record as it stands today
32:36
will be retired. And you know that the doing it
32:38
this way will not break that record.
32:39
It'll be a different event. But I always turn it back to him
32:42
and say, you know, when track first started in Olympics, the
32:46
long jump didn't exist. It was the standing long jump,
32:49
the broad jump. And somewhere someone had to
32:54
say, hey, you know what we should do instead?
32:57
We should actually be allowed to run 100 feet back, 140 feet,
33:02
whatever, and jump and let's give them a foul line.
33:05
And I guarantee you there were people who said, yeah, I don't
33:09
know, that's not really the event.
33:11
You get to run and jump the vent is huge.
33:14
Stand and use power and jump as far as possible.
33:17
I'm just going to have to see it.
33:19
It's always kind of my, my, my counter punch is like, hey,
33:23
things have changed in the triple jump.
33:27
They used to be allowed to hold rocks weights in their hands and
33:32
as they're going through the triple jump phases, drop them,
33:35
throw them. It would, you know, so you you
33:37
take a heavier mass. Now you make it lighter once
33:38
you're in almost like in orbit, in flight.
33:42
And it would make you long jump, I'm sorry, triple jump farther.
33:45
And eventually someone said, you know, maybe we shouldn't do
33:48
that, we should just run and then do the triple jump.
33:51
And someone said, yeah, I don't know, that's not the triple jump
33:56
that I grew up with. That's.
33:58
A. Different event.
33:59
It's like yeah, you know, we have to here's here's what I
34:02
ultimately think what the World Athletics is doing.
34:05
I think they said this in the podcast.
34:07
We've got to make track more attractive.
34:11
We've got Now whether this does it or not, you know, I know one
34:14
thing is the one thing. So it's going to take you know a
34:16
lot of things to maybe move our sport in a different direction
34:19
as far as popularity. But if this is part of the
34:22
solution, then I'm all for it. We we need more eyeballs and
34:25
therefore more money in our sport and you know, doing the
34:29
same thing over and over is is called insanity.
34:32
And I'm. I'm good with change, you know,
34:34
as as long as it makes sense, you know.
34:39
But if it's going to make it any worse than it already is, you
34:42
know it's why do it? But yeah, like, I'm all for it.
34:46
I just need to know. They might be to.
34:48
Go out there and try it myself. It's.
34:50
Just like, here's the thing, it's this ain't rocket science.
34:53
They're going to do the exact same thing.
34:55
But now, all those times you've seen come on me and you see this
35:00
on Twitter every single weekend, oh man, my girl jumped 19 feet,
35:05
but she was a foot behind the board.
35:06
She's a 20 footer and we all go, no, she's a 18 or whatever, you
35:11
know, Now we'll be able to actually know that she jumped 20
35:15
feet. In that example, we'll be able
35:17
to know that's cool. That's kind of, that's kind of
35:20
attractive to me. That's kind of cool to see who
35:22
can actually jump the farthest without having to worry about
35:25
almost at an arbitrary line, but you know, an arbitrary a line
35:28
that that's in there. Yeah, I Caitlin Johnson.
35:35
She's a elite jumper now And so my daughter, they they they used
35:44
to train back in the day. Well they were younger and me
35:47
and my wife used to watch Kayla jump.
35:50
I'm like, man, she's like 3 feet, all 2 feet behind the
35:55
line. I said she hit that line She she
35:59
going to be jumping out the wouldn't?
36:02
It be cool to see what she she did jump.
36:04
And like, now she's on it, man, I think she, her best jump was
36:08
like a 19111910 somewhere around there.
36:13
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, yeah, it makes sense.
36:17
Yeah, it makes sense. Again, the World Athletics, just
36:22
to me this is the real travesty of it all is they just dropped
36:25
the ball by going on this podcast, making this statement,
36:29
not giving any specifics and then just walking away and
36:33
letting us all go. What do you mean, what about
36:35
this, what about that? And, you know, you hear people
36:38
saying, well, did they talk to any athletes?
36:40
They should have athletes on the panel, etcetera, etcetera.
36:43
Current athletes would be a disaster.
36:46
There's a reason why we haven't had the heptathlon for the women
36:48
who moved to decathlon today. And it's typically because the
36:51
heptathlon today don't want to be immediately out of the
36:54
market. You know, they'd have to learn a
36:56
whole new event. They're the top of the
36:57
heptathlon. They don't want to go to the
36:58
decathlon. That's fine for 20 years from
37:00
now, but not today, right. So that's a disaster.
37:03
But let's not forget the name I dropped at the very beginning of
37:06
this Willie Banks triple jump Royalty is on that committee.
37:14
He's an extremely smart individual.
37:16
That dude's got a Juris Dr. He's a, he's an intelligent UCLA
37:19
alum. He is on that committee.
37:23
I don't know who the others are, but they do have jumpers.
37:26
They do have people with experience, Olympic experience,
37:28
world record experience in these events, speaking into it.
37:32
So I have a lot of faith of of trying things and see what
37:36
happens. Yeah.
37:37
We'll we'll see. We'll see what happened and for
37:42
the people who watching. So my counter said we have 127
37:47
people in here right now. What do y'all think about this?
37:52
Would it be good for the athletes?
37:53
Would it be good for track and field?
37:56
Yeah, Y'all dropped Y'all comments in that section and
37:59
we'll talk about it. So you went down to Nike indoor
38:04
nationals. I Did you enjoy that or?
38:09
I did. You know, I travel this country
38:13
for track and field meets. I've been to every major
38:17
facility around, right? But I had never been to the
38:21
Armory in New York. So kind of shame on me.
38:25
You know, I I enjoyed it. They put on an amazing show,
38:33
amazing athletes. You know What was awesome is New
38:35
Balance Nationals was happening, you know, in the same time zone
38:39
over in the New England states there and there were 4000 high
38:43
school athletes at Nike Indoor Nationals and there were 4000
38:49
athletes at New Balance Nationals.
38:50
And I just thought that was really amazing.
38:52
I know a lot of people complain about why is there so many
38:55
different nationals and all that.
38:56
I just love that our sport is so healthy that it can withstand 2
39:00
huge indoor track meets at the same time.
39:04
And the performances were out of this world.
39:07
Great Texas athletes down there. Got to see my friend from Jump
39:10
Smart Texas. He was up there doing it.
39:13
It was a blast, man. It was a great facility, great
39:16
performances. It was awesome, yeah.
39:18
That's. Yeah, that that.
39:20
I heard that the Armory is nice up there.
39:23
Yeah, I heard it was nice. It looked nice.
39:25
I. I thought the Armory was this
39:28
kind of dungy dark facility. Man, there is ribbon LED screens
39:36
all the way across, plus a huge like like from the middle, like
39:40
in a basketball arena that kind of like LED scoreboard drop down
39:44
in the middle, plus two more huge screens on both left and
39:47
right. It it's well lit.
39:49
The track is fast. It was awesome, man.
39:52
I really, yeah, really. I got to give a shout out to the
39:55
CEO of NSAF, Josh Rowe, who invited me up there.
39:59
I'm really grateful for his invitation to kind of come up
40:02
there and hang out for the for the day.
40:04
Hey. That's what's up, that's what's
40:05
up. I'm I'm about to get out there
40:06
and and take a look at that Armory because I'm every time I
40:11
see it and I'm just like man that that is really nice and a
40:14
New Balance. Yeah.
40:15
New Balance track is have you been out?
40:17
I know you've been out there, right?
40:18
Yeah, I did that track, so I've been out there several times.
40:21
It's an amazing, you know, they designed it really well.
40:25
They've got a huge warm separate warm up area, 300m track on the
40:30
third floor for warm up so you don't have to warm up on the
40:32
actual track. You know as far as you know,
40:34
running track meets and things like that, awesome throws area.
40:38
They did a great job. New Balance.
40:41
Oh, my forgetting the owner of New Balance, he he did a he, he
40:45
had a vision. And man, they carried it out.
40:47
He did a great job. Oh, nice.
40:49
Nice. Nice.
40:50
Nice, John. Davis, Jim Davis.
40:52
John Davis. Yeah.
40:54
Jim. John Davis.
40:55
Yeah, Jim Johns. Yeah, I'm sure Mr. Davis is the
40:59
actual let's. Go with that.
41:04
Yeah, guys, on IG we get some questions in, but I can't pull
41:09
it up right now. If y'all would y'all can go to X
41:16
and put it there or go to YouTube or Facebook, then I
41:21
should get it. There you go.
41:24
Yeah, Mike, I see you there. I think the people on IG that's
41:29
asked some questions, but yeah, that's that's what's up.
41:35
So indoor season is done. What?
41:38
What are your trips for outdoor? You going to watch some high
41:40
school? You going to go to Junior
41:42
Olympics? You go go to, Well, you got some
41:45
state meets coming up. What's your plan?
41:48
Yeah, right now I am going to the Penn Relays for that week.
41:51
Oh wow. They're building a new indoor
41:54
facility there that we have been humbled that they've chosen us
41:58
to do. So I'm going to go and do kind
42:00
of a check in on the new facility, see that everything's
42:03
going well and then of course the meet, which is you know,
42:05
it's just phenomenal. It's really it's kind of like
42:07
that New Balance Nike combo on the same weekend.
42:10
It's really amazing that our sport has two of the biggest, my
42:15
favorite meat in the world. You know, I grew up with Drake
42:17
Relays guy. But Drake and Penn are on the
42:19
same weekend. Unbelievable performances are
42:22
going to happen at both places. I'm I'm, I wish I could clone
42:26
myself so I could go to both. I'll be going to Penn.
42:29
My teammate Tim will be going over to Drake, but definitely
42:32
doing Penn, doing the Big 12 championships.
42:34
They're down in Baylor. Hey, Baylor got that new track
42:37
down there. They did a good job.
42:39
Oh yeah, resurfaced that track down there.
42:41
That's going to be a good meet, fast meet down there.
42:44
They had a. Pretty good NCAA they got you
42:45
know don't don't sleep that you know the the 400 is dead at
42:49
Baylor because that is not true. Yeah.
42:52
We, in fact, we had a talking about the podcast.
42:54
We had a great Baylor 4 by 4 series to kick off season five.
42:57
We had Mike Ford, the current head coach.
42:59
We had Jeremy Warner. I don't need to describe who he
43:02
is, right? Our CEO, David Hodge, who's a
43:05
Baylor alum and then we ended it with an instant classic.
43:09
Clyde Hart was on the show as well.
43:13
So excited about Big 12. I'll do Division Three this year
43:17
out of Myrtle Beach and then Division One in Oregon and then
43:20
Nike Outdoor Nationals where I'll be the host of the coaches
43:24
social all four days. Really.
43:28
OK. OK, that's that's big.
43:31
That's big. I had a chance to go to Oregon
43:35
last year for USATF Junior Olympics.
43:38
Yeah, man, that place there, blue wine, it look, it looks
43:47
like a spaceship landed. Now, guys, if y'all haven't been
43:52
to Oregon to to to the stadium, you know, to the track in
43:56
Oregon, it's man, get there. I'm telling you, it's it's
44:00
phenomenal. It's normal.
44:02
I know people complain about travelling out there and and
44:07
yes, it's expensive, it's a college town.
44:09
But you know, heck, the track meets bring in more people than
44:12
sometimes the football games, right?
44:15
But it's worth it. I mean there is no and you know
44:18
this is not putting down Mike Meyer.
44:19
That's an amazing stadium. Florida's got a great place.
44:24
Penn and Drake like we mentioned of course.
44:26
Heck, Indiana has a really, it's kind of people kind of forget
44:30
about Indiana's track facility. That's an amazing facility.
44:34
The Oregon facility is not the top track facility in this
44:37
country. It's the top track facility in
44:40
this whole world. It is.
44:42
It was a bear to complete because, you know, we worked on
44:46
it all the way before COVID and then where as COVID hits, there
44:49
are a lot of complications, but man, they knocked it out of the
44:52
park. Yeah, that man.
44:55
I Me and my wife still talking about that place.
45:00
Are you coming out this year for maybe Nike Outdoor?
45:03
That's the plan, that's the plan.
45:06
We'll we'll see. We definitely been talking about
45:09
it if if she's not going to run so much this summer, but that's
45:16
one of the spots we're thinking about going to.
45:19
Can so if you if you're there can you and I cohabitate in the
45:22
same city before our big January matchup.
45:26
We we have no pre race. We can't we.
45:30
We we can just go to track and try to, you know, if you want to
45:33
get a little taste we can just walk down there for a little bit
45:36
and I can we can do about a 20 meter Sprint.
45:40
I need all nine months or whatever it is until next year.
45:44
I need, I need all the time. So no, we we may do this.
45:48
Box it when you get that picture in, but no, there won't be any
45:50
racing. No, all right.
45:54
Don't try to back out of the race I need.
46:00
A lot of preparation, that's what I'm saying.
46:03
If you just said, hey, the race is today, I'd have been like,
46:05
Nah bro, I ain't taking that race.
46:06
You said January is like I got a shot in January.
46:12
So you got to get mentally prepared by three months, then
46:15
going mentally. Physically, a lot of prayer
46:19
between now and then, yeah. Oh man, that is funny.
46:24
That is funny. Oh, let me ask you this, this.
46:27
I like this question. I I asked this question at the
46:30
TTFC Winter Clinic as well. If you had to create a relay
46:34
team full of animals, what animal is what you pick?
46:39
So you going to pick your team and I'm going to pick my team?
46:43
You know, I thought you were going to say if like any
46:45
athletes in the world, I'm like, man, I don't pay attention to
46:47
athlete, I pay attention to coaches.
46:48
So I was, I was already prepared to give like the best relay.
46:51
Coach answers what I was going to give, but.
46:53
You. Said animals.
46:55
Animals, yeah, yeah, animals. Who you?
46:57
Got on 1st, Mike, who you got on 1st?
47:00
So we're going to go leg by leg. All right.
47:03
So golly man, you know you need someone that's going to come out
47:07
the blocks, spring out the blocks, right?
47:09
I do I get to change the size of each animal or is it realistic
47:14
animal size You? Can change the size, whatever
47:18
you want, whatever you want to put on there all.
47:20
Right, I'm going to go with a human sized grasshopper.
47:26
Oh, first like, Oh yeah. You can spring out the blocks.
47:30
When he got the, what he going to do after he spring out the
47:32
blocks the. Grasshopper was human size.
47:36
It will only take one hop for my second to get to my second leg.
47:38
Oh, we. Beating y'all go ahead, you go
47:40
ahead, put that grasshopper there.
47:42
Y'all y'all already down. Who you got?
47:44
Who you got? Who you got on the first leg?
47:45
I'm going. To go with a Falcon on the first
47:48
leg, I'm coming in hot. That's a.
47:50
Good one. That's a good one.
47:51
That's a good one. That's a good one.
47:53
But. Go ahead and keep the
47:54
grasshopper. Second leg.
47:56
I always like to put my fastest guy on 2, by the way.
48:00
It's a human sized grasshopper that I think that's critical
48:03
that we know that this is not a little teeny tiny grasshopper.
48:06
This is a, you know, really big grasshopper I.
48:11
Think. That's key.
48:12
I think that's key. I think that's key.
48:15
On second leg, I like to go with my fastest.
48:17
Yeah, you didn't see the grasshopper coming.
48:19
I know, I know. We're going cheetah for the
48:23
second leg, OK? So you make up some ground.
48:26
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
48:27
You kill some ground, I'm running the lead.
48:30
Put that grasshopper buddy. Not at all.
48:35
Not at all. You you go work the cheetah, the
48:41
he go kill it. Long legs put the cheetah by. 50
48:45
meters already because of the grasshopper.
48:48
Oh, let's go. With let's.
48:51
See. See.
48:53
What I want? I'm going to go.
48:56
I'm going to put me a cheetah on that second.
48:59
Leg versus a cheetah. All right.
49:01
Cheetah. Cheetah.
49:02
OK. All right.
49:03
So we. Neck and neck now going to third
49:05
leg. Oh.
49:06
Good. OK, so I caught up.
49:07
Good, good. You've got the slow cheetah.
49:08
So I got. I'm done.
49:09
Good. OK, good.
49:10
Good. Good.
49:10
All right. You said Falcon.
49:12
I'm going to be more specific. OK.
49:15
I like that answer. You you kind of, I think.
49:17
I think you're cheating. You were kind of already you had
49:19
these answers queued up. So I yeah, I did.
49:21
I I took it from some of the coaches, from the.
49:24
So I'm going to go with, I think it's pronounced like a paragon,
49:27
Falcon or paragon. It's the world's fast.
49:30
Yeah, it's the one that like just dive bombs, you know, 200
49:33
mph. I'm putting them on 3rd because
49:37
you know with the wing he's he's going to be able to easily glide
49:40
the turn. OK, OK, that's a good one.
49:44
That's a good one. Let me go with a I'm going with
49:51
a rabbit on 3rd. I'm going with a rabbit.
49:55
You. Know that's that's appropriate
50:00
because there's a famous story. You guys probably don't tell
50:03
this down in Texas, but where I'm from, we tell the story of
50:07
the tortoise and the hare, and the tortoise wins.
50:11
And I think that's going to be what happens in January as well.
50:13
My friend. It's appropriate that you picked
50:18
him. Appropriate.
50:20
I think you just kind of foretold the future.
50:25
Mike, I'm, I'm going to tell you this, I'm going to need some of
50:28
those gills starting blocks out there, those.
50:32
Carbon blocks are the best starting blocks in the world,
50:35
but they do not perform miracles.
50:41
You all what today, but you. I've got the perfect anchor.
50:46
You I'm ready for the anchor. Are you ready for the anchor?
50:48
I've got the perfect anchor. All right.
50:50
All right, so I got the Jack rabbit and you have the What was
50:54
that, the Falcon? Paragon or paragon?
50:57
Yeah, yeah. All right.
50:57
All. Right.
50:58
So you, you're going to be ahead of me a little bit, yeah.
51:00
I'm about to. I'm about to bring it all the
51:02
way home. I'm.
51:02
I'm taking the Usain Bolt of animals.
51:04
You ready for this? Go.
51:07
Ostrich That's a good one. Bro, they're fast.
51:12
They're fast in the end. He's got that big long neck.
51:15
He's got the lean ah. OK, OK, OK, I'm going to go with
51:20
a giraffe then. But kind of slow.
51:24
I don't think they're that fast, but that neck is, you know.
51:29
As soon as we. As soon as we get done tonight,
51:31
I'm Googling the the, the speed, the high speed of each one of
51:35
these and we're going to put it out on Twitter.
51:38
This mythical 4 by 1. This is truly mythical 4 by 1.
51:43
But yeah, definitely let me know.
51:44
Let me know. So I'm going to ask you this,
51:48
Mike, and let me ask you this. Are you faster than Texas Track
51:53
Dad? You know, I have been looking
52:00
for a purpose in life for a long time and today I found it.
52:07
I am ever since, you know, 12:00-ish hours ago.
52:12
I have now been singularly focused on beating one person.
52:19
And thank God you chose 60 meters, not the full 100.
52:21
By the way, thank you for that. Yeah I yeah, that would that
52:25
would have been bad. I I.
52:26
Appreciate that. I appreciate that.
52:28
That would have been bad. But.
52:30
I'm looking forward to one. Being there at TTFCI didn't get
52:35
to make it this year. My wife made me take her on
52:37
vacation so I couldn't make it. So I'm looking to go back.
52:40
I believe Stu's going to allow me to to humble me and allow me
52:43
to be the host in MC for the weekend, which it just it's
52:46
amazing because I love the coaches that are there.
52:49
There's unbelievable. So I get to have a good time
52:51
there. We're going to have a race,
52:53
we're going to do this race for charity.
52:55
We're going to have fun with this.
52:58
You will somehow figure out how to fun, how to have fun in the
53:02
defeat, but I think you'll find a way to also still have fun.
53:06
I'll tell you what I'm I'm already going to donate that
53:10
$100 to track team, trip, charity or whatever.
53:13
Also, I'm going to throw in one of my icy buddies to go with
53:16
that donation to a track club or whatever.
53:19
So I have that out there, and I might even have a icy breeze air
53:25
conditioned cooler too to go with it.
53:28
I. Love it.
53:29
Who's doing? Mike, Who was your first?
53:30
Leg again, I'm going to research this.
53:33
This week Falcon. We had a Falcon.
53:36
Falcon. Was #1 OK?
53:37
Yeah, Falcon. Was #1 I got cheetah.
53:40
Yeah, Cheetah. Jack Rabbit Giraffe.
53:43
I'm winning that, Mike I. Got a human sized giraffe?
53:46
Again, that's key. I'm sorry, which doesn't.
53:51
Exist at all I. Asked the news and you said that
53:54
was OK. Yeah, yeah, cheetah.
53:57
The pyragon Falcon specifically had an ostrich I sometime this
54:01
weekend. I'm going to research this and I
54:04
have a feeling. Let me.
54:07
Let me know, let me know, let me know.
54:10
But yeah, this is hey guys I'm this has been a great show.
54:14
We got like 130 people, 33 people this, that's just the
54:20
only ones I can see is more than that on the show right now.
54:23
And man, this is awesome. This is awesome.
54:27
Once again, Mike, go ahead and shut out your podcast where they
54:31
can find your podcast. If they want to be a guest, what
54:35
they need to do, go ahead and shout that out too as well,
54:39
yeah. Absolutely.
54:40
So the Guild Connections podcast, you can find it on
54:43
whatever podcast app you like to use.
54:45
So the two most popular currently the listen to our
54:48
podcast is the Apple podcast app which is on every iPhone that's
54:52
ever been built and then also Spotify which is downloadable
54:56
and probably a lot of you guys maybe listen to your music on
54:58
Spotify. You can listen to podcast there.
55:00
If you're not a podcast listener and you what to know how and
55:03
learn how to listen to podcast just hit me up on Twitter.
55:06
I love you know find helping people find their voice in the
55:09
form of podcasting. And so there's a lot of great
55:11
shows and informational stuff you can listen to on on podcast.
55:15
They're amazing, quite amazing. To be on the show, you have to
55:18
be either invited by me personally or you have to be
55:21
nominated and we can't skip over.
55:23
You had a nomination, I need to hear.
55:25
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
55:28
Keenan Briggs. I know they're saying yeah, he's
55:31
a jump. Coach and I will send you his IG
55:37
and his I. Think I'm.
55:39
I think we're following each other on Twitter.
55:41
That name sounds very familiar. Absolutely.
55:43
Yeah. Yeah.
55:44
And he he phenomenal, phenomenal coach.
55:47
Yeah, you'll you'll love him. Yeah.
55:49
I tag you on all this stuff and I'll send it to you.
55:52
But yeah, yeah, that's my recommendation.
55:54
Good as well. How can they follow you on IG
55:57
and Twitter? Yeah.
55:58
I'm mostly active on Twitter, so it's real easy.
56:01
It's at Mike Cunningham, all one word, no dots, dashes, all that
56:04
kind of thing. So at Mike Cunningham over on
56:07
Instagram, I do follow and I post every once in a while
56:09
there. But again, certainly way more
56:10
active on Twitter. But on Instagram, it's at Mike
56:13
Cunningham 1976. Some other joker stole my name,
56:16
so I had that. I had to do the real I don't
56:19
know why people do this. I had to give you my birth year,
56:21
so that's why. My e-mail is like that.
56:24
Yeah, I. Don't.
56:24
I don't know why we do that, but yeah, there it was.
56:27
That's how old I was. Give me.
56:29
Up on IGI. Guess yeah, I don't know.
56:32
But definitely Twitter. And you know, my DMS are always
56:34
open and you know, I'm really not that shy.
56:37
You could Google Mike Cunningham, Gill athletic cell
56:40
phone number. My cell phone number pops up on
56:42
Google. So text me, DM me, smoke
56:45
signals. Just just get a hold of me if
56:47
there's ever anything I can do with Serbia and really, you
56:50
know, my passion, my life is to gas you up, man.
56:54
If you're a track coach out there, I can't overstate what
56:57
you do. The positive impact that you
56:59
make on young people, it's it's immeasurable, you know, 99.9% of
57:04
all the coaches. This is high school or college
57:06
coaches by the way, are not going pro in this sport.
57:09
It's too tough at this point, right?
57:11
But 100% of them are going on to be moms, dads, business owners,
57:17
clergy, track coaches, teachers, etcetera.
57:20
And that impact that you make on these young people, that is the
57:24
what? What that goes out into society.
57:26
So you're actually helping society way more than you're
57:30
given credit for. And so it's my mission to uplift
57:33
and honor what you do, how you do it on a daily basis, because
57:37
you absolutely deserve the accolades, the kudos and
57:41
everything that comes along. Hey, Mike, you onto something,
57:46
You hit it. You hit it on the head with
57:48
that. It's in the heart, yeah.
57:50
You man, parents, you need to tell your kids.
57:57
Ask your kids more about what? What do they want to do, who
58:01
they want to be in life. Right.
58:03
You running fast, you you winning medals.
58:05
But when it's done, what do you want to do?
58:10
Don't. I'm not saying they can't GoPro.
58:13
I'm not saying that. But it's tough.
58:15
It's it's tough. I mean it.
58:18
It is what it is. It's tough, you know, but you
58:21
need to make sure they know they it's a lot more out there.
58:24
You can be successful doing some more stuff other than track, but
58:27
track would definitely get you that free scholarship.
58:30
Where you. Can go to school free.
58:32
Use it. Hey, do it.
58:35
You know. And yeah, I'm.
58:36
I'm glad you brought that up. I don't want to get on my
58:38
soapbox about that. But that's that that's a big
58:41
deal. That's why I always preach on
58:43
the show about academics. You know, when athletes come
58:46
come on here, and a lot of them already watch my show before
58:50
they come, they know I'm going to ask them.
58:52
They give me excellent answers, right?
58:54
They give me answers. And I just want to get them to
58:56
thinking, you know, you, you know, you're going to run fast,
59:00
you're going to have fun, but, you know, you got another life
59:02
too. You need to make sure you take
59:04
care of that to prepare yourself for the future, for sure.
59:09
But yeah, Mike. Oh yeah, as far as coaching too,
59:13
you know, Then we go get out of here, guys.
59:16
Man, I just want to say I appreciate the coaches who took
59:20
time with my daughter and helped make her what she is today
59:26
because hey, I tried to coach you when she was little and she
59:29
wouldn't listen to me, Mike. She thought, hey, you ain't
59:34
running up for 40 yards of football.
59:36
How you going to? Take She was like one day in
59:39
2025, you're going to lose to some other dude and it's going
59:42
to be embarrassing. So you ain't coaching me today.
59:44
I know she could see the future. But what you don't know, Mike,
59:47
is she's my trainer. Mike, she's my trainer.
59:53
She'll. Be in college, Sir, so you
59:56
better find another trainer. Well, we go put this away before
1:00:00
she go. We go put this to work, but
1:00:02
shout out to all the coaches, make sure y'all go follow.
1:00:06
Mike, you got anything else before we get out of here?
1:00:08
No. Man, just love you guys to
1:00:09
death. I love what you're doing, man.
1:00:10
You know, you talked about the athletes that you're
1:00:13
interviewing. It's a real key thing that
1:00:16
you're doing with these athletes and the other you know you've
1:00:18
got coaches and such on here as well.
1:00:20
You know you're you're preserving for the future.
1:00:23
You know we're we're we're cataloging what's happening
1:00:25
today so that in 203020402050 we can go back, think about it.
1:00:30
Wouldn't you like to have seen more pictures from when you were
1:00:33
kid or even more appropriate? Wouldn't you like to have seen
1:00:35
pictures and video about your parents and what they are doing,
1:00:39
how they're doing, their passions and things like that?
1:00:41
And we didn't have that technology back then.
1:00:44
Today we do. And so for people like you that
1:00:47
are doing this, you're cataloging stuff that is going
1:00:49
to be invaluable, worth more than gold in the future.
1:00:54
So I appreciate what you do. I'm glad you continue to stick
1:00:56
with it. Stick with it at a very high
1:00:58
level. You continue to improve your
1:00:59
craft. I'm so grateful for you and what
1:01:01
you do for our sport, man. Thank you for what you do.
1:01:04
I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
1:01:06
Not. Like I said, I tell people all
1:01:08
the time. I mean, I enjoy.
1:01:09
I enjoy doing it and I enjoy doing it.
1:01:11
I enjoy talking to you. Talk to the athletes, parents,
1:01:15
trainers, everybody involved in track.
1:01:17
It's fun to me. But yeah, yeah, I appreciate it.
1:01:21
I do appreciate it, man. We like at 147 right now.
1:01:26
It's awesome, man. Let's.
1:01:27
Do this again. Yeah, we are, We are.
1:01:30
But hey guys, go follow Mike, You follow him on IG, follow him
1:01:34
on Twitter, go check out his podcast, do what you need to do
1:01:39
if you want. Interested in getting this show.
1:01:41
He gave you all that information as well.
1:01:43
You can follow me on YouTube, you can follow me on Twitter, X,
1:01:47
LinkedIn, any social media platform.
1:01:51
You can follow me, follow me on and if you don't see me on
1:01:54
there, let me know so I can get on there.
1:01:56
So this is going to be the final goodbye.
1:01:59
Make sure y'all stay tuned. Mike is going to take a loss in
1:02:04
the 60 meters. He's he, he's at trying to act
1:02:08
like he don't know what's going on, but he's going to lose.
1:02:11
Guy. He's he's going to lose.
1:02:14
But thanks again guys, we are out.