Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #310: Marc Bierbaum-Iowa Western Community College

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#310: Marc Bierbaum-Iowa Western Community College · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world juvenile
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tuned in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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extraordinary message for Gil Athletics Connections.
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We go back on the Gil op edx Connections podcast again.
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So humble view press play right here.
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I want to hop right into it. You always do these.
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I always do these spiels and 5 minutes of the guest sitting
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here listening to me yap for a little bit.
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I'm going to hop right into it. Help me welcome the head coach
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of Iowa Western Community College, the wise and wonderful
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Mr. Mark Beerbaum. Mark, how are you today, my
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friend? I'm good, I'm good.
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Thanks for having me. You know, I always assume Iowa,
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western Iowa, it's like freezing cold.
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We're we're recording this in April.
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Is it like freezing cold and snow or do you actually have
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good weather at this point? Hey, it's so up and down in the
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Midwest, you never know. I yesterday it was like 75 today
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it was windy and cold at like 47 this morning, but I think it's
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just it's 60. We've had a lot of up and down
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over the last couple weeks for sure, and the wind's kind of
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popping in, which is April, but. Which is April?
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Yeah, that's a good idea. Which is just April I.
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Guess it's just April. I mean, we're Wichita this past
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weekend and and Friday's distance carnival is always
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amazing. It's amazing how the weather
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just works, but then Saturday the track stuff happens and it's
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always windy. Yeah, every day, every Saturday
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I feel like that that Wichita meet, that first day is great.
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Second day it's, I don't know, Midwest.
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Yeah. You never know what you're going
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to get from day-to-day. I coached junior college at
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Neosho County in Kansas and went to the state meet at Wichita
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State and I just remember, I mean just windy.
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In fact, it was so windy. I remember driving home and
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there was dirt in my ears just from the wind and sand.
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It was, I mean, holy cow, it was bad.
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Yeah, it not, not short of wind in in Kansas.
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Exactly. Well, Mark.
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It's great though, like this morning we did our yesterday
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morning we did work out the weather was.
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Perfect, perfect. Good, good, good.
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Love to hear, Love to hear. Well, man, I am super excited.
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You know, we've known each other for a while.
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You're in, you know, I've said this many times on the podcast,
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you're in one of my favorite areas of track and field, junior
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college. I just have such a heart for the
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athletes and the coaches that are in that division.
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And so I'm excited to learn more about you, excited to learn more
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about junior college track and field.
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There's been a few changes because of the NCAA, so I'm sure
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we'll talk about that. And maybe there are no answers.
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So maybe we'll just talk about what we think is happening and
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maybe we can help some people understand about junior college
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and maybe help some people learn more about you.
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Does that sound like a good plan for the day?
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Sounds wonderful, love it, Mark. Well, man, let's get in our
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Wayback Machine here. You know, assuming you are an
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athlete, that's an assumption. Not every every coach was an
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athlete. Where does track and field start
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for you? Elementary really.
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Yeah. I, we, we had this track and
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field day at my school and it was like a full on track meet.
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It wasn't like you're like getting a sack and jump in it
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type stuff. It was a full on track meet.
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We high jumped, we hurdled, we sprinted, we long jumped.
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High jump was where I navigated to when I was when I was little.
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And it became a big competition between me and a couple of my
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friends. And that grew into Junior
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Olympics. And Junior Olympics was really,
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I mean, back then it was really kind of the only one, I think
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kind of, but it was the one we did and had the regional one was
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usually at our place or a school not or not regional.
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The, the, the local meet to qualify for state was like the
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close one. And high jump was the thing.
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And I did everything we did 4 by 1:00.
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We, we had a group, we called them the Four Horsemen back
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then. That was fun.
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But I qualified for nationals in the high jump when I was, I
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don't know, like 9 or 10. And so that grew and then it
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just kind of kept going from there.
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And by the time the Junior Olympic circuit was over, I was
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in high school and I was doing 400 hurdles and 800.
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And basketball was my love, though.
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Like, that was basketball. My dad was a coach.
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I grew up playing basketball and track was the secondary thing.
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I was never really into football.
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I, I did a little bit of wrestling when I was little,
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little, I feel like almost everybody did that, but jumped
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into that and, and the basketball, the head basketball
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coach when I was going into freshman year was also the cross
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country coach. And so I went out for cross
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country because he was there and, and that was really the
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reason I started that I was a foreigner, hurdler, 800 guy.
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And, and I never ran over the 800 meters in the high school
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other than cross country, like never got on the track further
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than that. And Coach Bergstrom, who just
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passed not too long ago, was my history teacher and our track
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coach. And he did these gum questions
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in the morning. He did, he did history class.
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He'd, he'd ask a question. If you got it right, you'd throw
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the gum at you. He, he was something.
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And he is my track coach. And and yeah, I just had some
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really good people growing up with between my father and and
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coach B and as coaches to to be around and and grow.
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And I didn't get to compete my freshman year track.
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I got in a car accident and fractured my skull and couldn't.
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I know, right? Like just yeah.
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Hold on, let's pause there, because there's a lot to unpack
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on all. Of yeah, yeah, sorry.
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No worries, no worries. All good.
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Go back you you had back in elementary school like we had
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field day. So like to your point, we would
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do the three legged race probably.
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I think we probably did a softball toss and I'm sure we
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did the mile and then tug of war if I remember correctly.
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But you guys did like a full blown track meet.
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Full blown track meet. We never did the tug of war or
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all that other stuff like that wasn't field day.
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Our field day was like we had two elementary schools that were
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about 15 miles on each side of town and and then the high
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school was in Griswold. Lewis and Elliot were the
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elementary's and the elementary's would come together
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and do the field day against each other.
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Wow. That's really cool.
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You know, a small town, but yet I still didn't really see those
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kids from Elliott very much. You know, we come together.
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Field day was probably the most we saw them.
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I feel like until we were in in 7th grade and and that was like
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our main competition against each other.
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That's cool. It it was full on track meeting.
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It was. It was awesome.
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And and you grew up a coach's kid, but a, a basketball coach's
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kid? Yep, Yep.
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Yeah, you dad. Dad ran track and played
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basketball in college. He did both at Prue State.
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He ran at Texas Relays, did the Drake Relays.
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He was a foreigner guy and and then also basketball guy.
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He ripped a rim off a hoop once. He he was, he flew stories I
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heard from different parents that were around, you know,
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watching or playing or or whatnot in his, his age frame.
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And yeah, it was. It was pretty cool.
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And, and you're, you keep mentioning foreign hurdles, but
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Junior Olympics probably was foreign hurdles, but in high
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school are, are you from Iowa? Yeah, I'm from Iowa.
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I Yeah, OK, 40 miles from here. Griswold, Iowa.
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Yeah. Oh, cool.
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OK. Yeah, love.
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You know, foreign hurdles is growing a little bit in the high
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school level. You know, Florida just added it
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recently, New Jersey and obviously Iowa's had it for a
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long time. So anytime I hear foreigner
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hurdles in high school, I'm like, OK, I can kind of peg
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where you're from just from from that alone.
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OK. So you go ahead.
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And that's that part's wild. Like when I started coaching in
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high school in Nebraska and they said three in a hurdles, I was
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like, what is this? Oh, you had no clue?
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That's true, yeah. You.
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Didn't know there was anything different.
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I mean, I wasn't a track nut or a nerd or anything like that in
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high school, as, as you would say, or something like that.
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I just did my thing and I played basketball, yeah.
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That's funny. So you are going up into high
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school and you know, you're probably excited.
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Everybody's excited. My son's 8th grade, so he's
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getting ready to become a freshman next year.
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He's excited about things and his sports and and stuff like
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that. And you get into a car accident.
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Yep. You, you weren't driving.
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Yes, I was. So I I was, I was 14, so I'd
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like my school permits. I lived in the country.
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It's. OK, Yeah, yeah, OK, good.
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Yeah, driving in the country, I don't, I don't remember anything
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other than what I was told, I said in the helicopter.
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Oh wow dude. Yeah, I was.
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I was driving my car and somebody passed me on the gravel
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and I flipped. For all I know I was probably
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driving too fast and that didn't happen, but who knows.
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Flipped and ran my car into a fence post and the neighbor in
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the area found me pretty bad and they life flighted me.
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No no, take that back. They trying to remember they
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couldn't life flight me right away.
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They had to drive me, drive me an ambulance somewhere because
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the weather, and then they got me a helicopter and got me where
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I needed to be. Yeah.
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Dude it was pretty bad I guess is this I don't remember any of
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it. Yeah, right.
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I saw the car later, it was pretty jacked up.
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Is this summer summer going into freshman year?
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Yeah, it it was trying to remember the date.
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No, it was like right after basketball, like a spring was
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changing before track started. So did you?
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So you didn't get to compete freshman year, obviously.
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How long did this affect you? Like when were you able to get
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back? I was back at it over the
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summer, back playing basketball and and whatnot.
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Like it it just they and it just had because it just happened and
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going into season, they didn't feel comfortable with letting me
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compete and stuff like that. Freshman track, you're like
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freshman, you're going into track.
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Yeah, duh. Yeah, I'm I I gave up on that
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season. Yeah, but yeah, come this
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summer. Yeah, come this summer, I I
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couldn't even, I don't so long ago.
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I don't even remember when I got started back up, but somewhere
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in the summer I started playing basketball again and and did,
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I'm sure I did Junior Olympics. I don't feel like I ever missed
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a year of Junior Olympics. Any problems like?
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No, you know. My my arm didn't move the right
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way after that or anything. Well, I mean how I am now,
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right? No, no, no, no.
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I just, I had some, I had some scars in my arm and, and you
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know, I'm sure there's probably a scar somewhere up in there
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under my hair, but no. But no physical you were able
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to. Nope.
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Everything was fine. You're clear.
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Do you went right back into it. Yep.
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Holy cow. I was really lucky.
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Really. Really.
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Yeah. But don't remember.
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No, I don't. I don't.
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I don't. Other than what they told me, I
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said. I I venture to guess probably no
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one passed me. I was probably driving too.
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Fast. Sure, sure, sure.
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That would be my guess, but that's what I I said in the
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there that someone passed me. How did that?
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It's funny because this has nothing to do with tracker
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coach. I'm just curious.
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You know, at your age today, we have hindsight, right?
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So now you can look back on you can, you know, remember what you
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can remember. You can remember what emotions
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you had when you started playing again, but you also can remember
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how you were then as a 15 ish year old, you know, sophomore.
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How how did it affect? How did that affect you then and
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how does it affect you now? And what I mean by that is not
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physically. So we checked on you there.
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You're all you're all good there.
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But like, I mean, if you can't remember it and you got life
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lighted off, this was a serious accident.
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Like, you know, whatever degree away from I'm not sitting here
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talking to Mark basically, right.
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Did you have any as a 15 ish year old?
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Did you have any understanding like oh wow, maybe I'm getting a
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second chance here or oh man, maybe I shouldn't take things
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for granted. Whatever.
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That's academics, a girlfriend, family, sports.
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And now as you know, as a 40 something, I think we're roughly
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the same age. Like I look back and I'm so
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lucky. Or it was just AI mean.
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You're kind of giving off vibes of like that happened.
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I moved on, which is crazy to me because Mark, he almost died.
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Let's be real here. Yeah, back then I definitely, it
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didn't faze me, right? Like back then, I know it
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didn't. Now I know I'm lucky.
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I am. I played off, I think mostly
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because it was just so long ago and I and I forget half the time
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that it happened, you know it. But yeah, now, like thinking and
12:53
looking back at us, so lucky. I mean, so many different
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accidents happen with kids and and things nowadays that, you
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know, almost every other day you see something on social media or
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hear something on social media again that could have been me
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that didn't make it. And so, yeah, I just very lucky.
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You can be excused for being a 15 year old who thinks they're
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invincible like I, you know, I was 15 once.
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I get it. I'm just so grateful now today
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that you're here. I mean, seriously, it kind of,
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you know, honestly, it makes me think about that.
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You know, Mark, I've known you for a while now and it's like,
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oh, I didn't, I didn't know about this.
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Like man, I like, I don't know it kind of, I don't know.
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It's it kind of is giving me like thoughts and feelings of
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like, you know, I already know that I don't know everybody's
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story, but I don't know that I sit back often enough and go,
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man, I'm glad that person's here.
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I I guess because I assume like, like no one died, you know, up
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to my age, you know, that's, that's future stuff for me to be
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thinking about when all my friends start passing away and
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stuff like that. But in reality, it's like, oh
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man, there was a, a split second that I don't, I almost didn't
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have mark in my life. And, and other people, you know,
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much, much closer to you Mark your, your family and friends
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and athletes. You know, that's just, I don't
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know, that's interesting. That's that's really.
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Yeah. All right, All right, let's.
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Keep moving. Let's no, no.
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That's. Good.
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That's good. Awkward Segway.
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So you sophomore year. Yeah.
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So so you're a it's interesting IIA lot of times we'll have
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we'll have football players who ran track.
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And so one of my favorite questions to ask them is were
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you a football player who ran track or were you a track
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athlete that ran that played football?
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You were a basketball dude. So were you and your dad was a
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basketball coach. Were you a basketball player who
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ran track or. A track athlete, basketball
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player that ran. Yeah, realistically, a
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basketball player that ran and you know, I ran cross country
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again, like I said, because the basketball coach was was the
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cross country coach. I can't imagine not doing
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something during a season anyway.
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I would have, I probably would have navigated somewhere.
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But yeah, I basketball was life and and really up until my
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senior year and even through majority of my senior year, I
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thought I was going to play basketball in college.
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I kind of had a rough, rough senior year basketball,
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basketball wise with the coach and and kind of pushed me away
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from that a little. And and I qualified for state my
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junior year for foreigner hurdles.
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And then my senior year, I was pretty pumped about you trying
15:37
to break the school record and, and, and growing on my
15:40
experience for my junior year. And I had it, it was, it's an
15:45
awkward thing. I, I, I got out off the couch.
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I was laying down. I got off the couch sideways and
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kind of pushed my arm on the floor to get up and something
15:55
like kind of popped And it, it was towards the end of
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basketball. So he was right before district
16:01
final, actually a week before district final, which ended up
16:03
being our lap. My last basketball game.
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I couldn't, it was weird. I couldn't stand really right
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and went and saw saw a person and I'd pop 3 vertebrae and a
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rib out of place and, and, and it's a local chiropractor,
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right? And he pops me back into place
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twice a day, every day for like 7 days straight, pops my pelvis.
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My pelvis is tilted. And so I could play, 'cause I
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just wanted to play. I wanted to play my basketball.
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And so I'm wrapped up. I play my last game and lose.
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I go to go run for the first time to get ready for track and
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I'm automatically just sore and which is not abnormal.
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You know, basketball is a weird different movement than running
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And and I was like, OK, it'll go away.
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And little I know next seven months.
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I it didn't like my calves were initially like immediately, like
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immediately sore, basically just moving for the next seven
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months. I don't really necessarily know
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why. Like as I'm older, I have a
17:08
theory that I what happened in the chiropractor shouldn't have
17:12
happened as much as it did. And it kind of re it reformatted
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like reformatted my bones to not really match up where where my
17:24
muscles were. I think I don't know
17:27
realistically, but I couldn't run anymore really.
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Like I went from like a 50 point guy to where I could struggle to
17:33
break 60. I was struggling to run the
17:37
hurdles again and I, I went into the and Fast forward and I
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didn't, I didn't make state, which sucked and, and it is what
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it is, but went into the summer. You know, now I'm getting ready
17:49
to go to the college to run. I'd signed a scholarship to run
17:52
and I couldn't really train like, but I did anyway.
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I'm a small, small school. No one's there.
17:58
Tell me no. And I'm lifting my legs up to
18:03
the bleachers because my hips are so jacked that I couldn't
18:06
get my legs up. But I'm still running because I
18:09
need to because if I don't run, I'm going to be out of shape
18:11
when I get to get to my freshman year.
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And just kind of really probably destroyed my body.
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And, and it was maybe 7 months until I didn't have that
18:22
soreness soreness anymore. And I went to run the foreigner
18:27
hurdles. I tell the story to my kids.
18:29
It's kind of now embarrassing is the right word.
18:32
But I go to University of South Dakota to run my first indoor
18:37
track meet and I'm in the 400 and the 800 and I run 60 and I
18:41
run 220. I get beat by like a 40 year old
18:45
guy. I call my father.
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I'm like, Dad is this isn't going to work.
18:50
This, this, this isn't going to work.
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And and dad's like, well, you committed to something you need
18:55
to finish. You need to finish it out
18:58
probably. And there's so many things my
19:01
father has told me, but that 6th at me being probably the most
19:05
important thing he had told me to do.
19:10
And yeah, so I kept running and kept going and, and I sucked
19:16
pretty bad and pretty bad and foreigner hurdles didn't end up
19:20
being a thing anymore because I couldn't Sprint like that
19:22
anymore and and got into the steeplechase and then became a
19:26
long big time distance in the distance and ended up a marathon
19:31
national qualifier. Oh my God, so.
19:33
Foreigner hurdles to marathon. Which, you know, the foreigner
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hurdles feels like a marathon to hurdler sometimes that that
19:40
makes sense. You know, Mark it, it's
19:43
interesting. Your bookends of your high
19:45
school career were pretty tough. Like maybe you had two sophomore
19:49
junior year, you qualify for stage, you're like, oh, man,
19:51
things are going really good. Basketball's cool, all that.
19:53
And then senior year, which is, you know, supposed to be our
19:55
pinnacle, we're going out on top.
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And I love your attitude of like, you know, after you got
20:00
hurt of like, well, yeah, I got to play basketball.
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This is my senior year. You know, it'd be different
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maybe if I was a sophomore junior, but this is this is it.
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So take me up and and let's go do do you?
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I don't know, this is kind of a maybe AI don't call it
20:12
controversy. It can be a controversial topic.
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Do you think the chiropractor the not the person who's the
20:19
chiropractor. So the chiropractory, the, the,
20:22
the, the essence of chiropractor, was that a
20:27
problem? You know, I, I go back and
20:28
forth. I have a very good a good friend
20:31
who's a chiropractor and I've been to him and my wife
20:34
intermittently goes to him. And then I see like, you know, I
20:37
listen to a lot of podcasts. I've listened to a podcast like
20:39
how chiropractor, how do you say chiropractory chiropractorship?
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I don't know. It is the the thing of
20:45
chiropractor of chiropractic. I'm bumbling as 100% whatever
20:53
the act of chiropractory is, like it was started from like
20:57
bunk science, like just, you know, a snake oil salesman.
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So so I had this like, you know, I don't know that it's really
21:03
good. And I've seen horror shows of,
21:05
you know, maybe they're bad chiropractors.
21:07
I don't know. But I've seen like horror shows.
21:08
Do you think that that had something to do with this?
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And actually before you, as you answer that, do you think your
21:14
car accident had, you know those can show up later in life too?
21:19
Never really thought about the car accident thing being a thing
21:22
until you just said it. I've never really thought about
21:25
it that way. My pelvis is tilted probably I,
21:30
I don't know. I don't know the answer to that
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chiropractic wise, like I, it took me a long time.
21:37
So after college, I'm in high school, I'm coaching high
21:41
school. I did meet a guy through some
21:43
running friends of mine, Tony Ellis, and he does ART, which I
21:51
kind of explained for me personally, it's, it kind of
21:55
feels like like chiropractic for the muscles type thing.
21:57
It's not just simple chiropractic.
22:01
And I start seeing him and I really, it was hard to go to
22:05
because of knowing what I knew and, and he just listening to
22:09
him and working with him. That's where I kind of came up
22:12
with the theory of the, the realignment of my bones and
22:16
muscle fiber stuff and everything like that.
22:21
And like I, Tony's awesome. He's great, He's amazing.
22:27
And I think he helped me through a lot of things, you know,
22:31
after, you know, after college because of it.
22:33
So I, I know a lot of people are kind of iffy about it.
22:37
Some people are sold, sold with 100%.
22:40
Some people aren't at all. You know, I think there's a
22:44
place for it and I think some people for me, the place for it
22:52
you need, you need to do the other little things.
22:55
It can't just be going and getting your back cracked and
22:57
walk away. I, I think there's some probably
23:00
some PT and strength stuff to go with it that probably makes it
23:05
work the best. I don't know if that answered
23:08
the question. Yeah, yeah, I think you nailed
23:10
it there. We we could have we, we can
23:12
interview 100 people and 50 people will swear by it and 50
23:15
people will swear the opposite. By the way, too.
23:17
It's a very. Absolutely.
23:19
Like I said, it can be a controversial topic because
23:21
there's a lot of emotions and science behind some of the
23:23
stuff. And I and I and even me, I'm
23:25
still I, you know, I don't want to say 5050.
23:27
I told I told I love Tony. Yeah, yeah, Tony.
23:31
Did some amazing things for me and I still.
23:33
He's a good friend of mine and. And yeah.
23:37
Yeah, interesting. OK.
23:39
So senior year, thanks for explaining some of the things
23:42
that happened. That's amazing actually.
23:45
It's it, you know what he talked about.
23:47
It's it seems easy to make fun of, like, you know, you're
23:49
getting off the couch and you got hurt.
23:50
But it is amazing how very resilient the human body is and
23:53
then also how very fragile the human body is as well.
23:57
So but as your senior year, you're thinking about college
24:00
and maybe basketball, maybe track things like that.
24:04
Talk to us about, you know, that kind of transition to college
24:07
and where was, if at all, coaching as a profession as
24:12
you're looking towards college. So, you know, I I went into
24:16
college still basketball player, but I, I was running cross and I
24:21
was running track as our coach was an ultra marathoner.
24:25
Oh jeez. Yeah, At the time, he had the
24:28
record for the fastest unassisted run from California
24:32
to New York across the United States.
24:34
He also was one of the original people to run Death Valley
24:38
before it was bad water. Dude.
24:41
Yeah, yeah, some crazy stuff back then.
24:45
And and so he had everyone running across you sprinter you
24:50
run across like essentially except for the like straight
24:53
hardcore sprinter people. We're all running small school
24:58
Dana College, NAIA kind of a not I think he restarted it in 96 or
25:04
something like that. And, and so not long before or
25:07
not too much before I got there and a lot of southwest Iowa guys
25:12
on the team, couple of Nebraska, I knew quite a few of the guys
25:15
on the team. And, but I, I, I'm in basketball
25:20
shorts, running shorts weren't a thing for me back then.
25:23
I got made fun of all the time, you know, showing up in the, the
25:30
knee length, you know, baggy basketball shorts to run.
25:34
So that didn't last long. I had to get rid of those and
25:36
figure out what running shorts were.
25:40
But I ran, I wasn't good and I ran with the two top girls most
25:46
of my freshman year and part of my sophomore year.
25:48
And but I am, as the kids would say, built different.
25:52
I suppose I just not working out wouldn't be a thing for me.
25:58
Not figuring out how to be better was was not a thing, not
26:02
not working harder. And I didn't need a coach to
26:05
tell me that. I just did it.
26:07
And so each summer I ran and our coach didn't have these
26:10
intricate summer training plans. He gave us this little like
26:14
rectangle sheet that would say freshman run this much over the
26:17
summer, sophomores this much over the summer.
26:19
Don't race, don't need to do workouts.
26:22
Maybe do something in August and be here.
26:26
And he had and and actually, I forgot this part of the story.
26:30
He had a an Octagon house in San Luis.
26:35
It's outside Alamosa. He was a non traditional GA for
26:39
V Hill at Adams, right? Yeah, crazy background in I went
26:46
out there the summer before my senior year.
26:49
I I had met him before that. I went to.
26:52
Gosh, I can't believe I forgot this part of the story.
26:54
I went to Dana College to play basketball.
26:57
To yeah, OK, I was going to say, where's basketball, right?
26:59
Yeah, yeah. I went to Dana College do
27:01
basketball. Camps.
27:02
So you run, you run cross, and then basketball season starts.
27:05
Yeah, yeah. But no, like every summer I did
27:07
like 6789 different basketball camps, team camps, individual
27:11
camps, all this stuff. So I went to God.
27:13
I can't believe I forgot this. So I went to Dana College for
27:16
basketball camp two years in a row in that summer after my
27:20
junior year, my dad's like go talk to the track coach.
27:24
And I was like fine, OK. So I went and talked to the
27:28
track coach when I was there and he's like, hey, we got this camp
27:32
in Colorado, come along. And so I get in the car with
27:38
couple of the older kids and I go out to Alamosa, Co.
27:42
I have no background in distance running.
27:44
Right. You're a hurdler.
27:45
Yeah, Yeah. Yes, the mile and P class and in
27:51
wanting to be the best P mile guy and and so we go out there.
27:57
I'm out there for a couple days, not very long, scared to death.
28:00
I, I, we ran Rock Creek, which is like it's like 5 or 6000 feet
28:06
at the at the bottom and then at 10 miles up it's like 10 or
28:10
1112, something like that. It's, it's kind of a famous long
28:14
run for Dina Castor and, and back in the day with those guys
28:18
that you know that, that group and I don't know if you know
28:21
that name. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:23
And, and so we go, we do that one first.
28:28
I only make 6. I probably walk majority of the
28:31
last three switchbacks because there was a 10 mile start, There
28:34
was a Six Mile start and then we go to sand dunes and we're going
28:38
to run through the sand dunes. I have no idea what I'm doing
28:42
and. So you're just surviving?
28:44
Yeah, and, and all these college kids take off and I'm like, I'm
28:48
not going to be able to survive it.
28:52
Wait a second. We're running What?
28:55
And they, they get like me. So it's flat first.
28:57
So we're running the flat and then we get to the first dune.
29:00
They get about 200 meters up and they start walking.
29:02
I was like, OK, sweet, I'm going to survive.
29:04
We're walking up and running down coach just running the
29:07
whole way. I don't know how he's doing
29:09
that. And that's camp, right?
29:13
And so then I go into my senior year and I'm like, OK, I guess
29:15
I'm doing this. And and then that senior
29:19
basketball happened and I was like, I'm definitely doing this
29:21
because it just didn't didn't go right.
29:23
Anyway, back to college. And so I'm not very good.
29:26
I get to, you know, fresh mirror track and and so you did.
29:31
You did not do basketball at Dana.
29:33
No, no. OK, OK, OK.
29:34
And and. And what are you what are you
29:39
majoring like what was your thought and and where is
29:40
coaching at all at this as an 18 year old going into college?
29:43
I'm an I'm an art K12 major with a with graphic design.
29:49
I'm double major in graphic design.
29:51
Art K12. Where did?
29:52
This come from I mean was this a like you draw a lot of?
29:55
Security. I was.
29:56
I loved wheel pottery. Yeah, in high school.
30:00
Yeah, I had an awesome art teacher.
30:02
Mr. Adams was amazing, loved it, loved everything about it and
30:06
got into Wheel Pottery and really liked it.
30:09
And I didn't know how to do that really life wise is starving
30:17
artist thing. And so dad's like computers.
30:20
Computers is a thing. Computers think so.
30:22
I had graphic design and I had a backup in education and and so.
30:28
But I'm not hearing coaching necessarily.
30:30
No, Nope, Nope, not yet all. Right.
30:33
Yeah. So you're just like, I'm going
30:33
to go become an art teacher essentially.
30:35
Yeah, yeah. And, well, graphic design.
30:37
I was going to be a graphic. Designer, right, Right.
30:39
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we got two years in the
30:42
two years in the graphic design, and there's a senior football
30:44
player in there and the teacher, we, the teachers we are with
30:50
left. We got a new graphic design
30:52
person. She hated athletes.
30:54
Jeez. Yeah.
30:58
And the football guy, he was in his fifth year.
31:02
He had one class left. She wouldn't pass him.
31:04
Failed. Failed him.
31:05
I don't understand. Football player and she wasn't
31:08
going to pass him and so I watched that happen and I was
31:11
like well I guess I'm out of this because I'm I'm not going
31:14
to sit here and. I know that's the minority.
31:17
You know, when you hear of a teacher, an academic who hates
31:19
sports because I never hear the reverse of like, oh, I hate
31:22
chemistry majors like no one ever, you know, but it's like
31:24
what big deal. The the the extra
31:26
extracurricular activity this kid does is a sport versus a
31:30
drama club or chemistry club. And you just hate this person
31:33
because they do something that like that.
31:35
Again, I know it's minority. It's not the majority of
31:37
professors and teachers, but I just never understood that.
31:40
Like this is mindset of like, oh, because you do something
31:44
athletic, I automatically dislike you.
31:45
It's like it'd be different if they didn't like you.
31:48
Like, Oh, I don't like Mark because of XYZ.
31:50
Oh, it happens to be an athlete. It's like, no, no, you're an
31:52
athlete automatically don't like you.
31:54
What a what a small mindset there.
31:57
So you were, you were like, oh bro, I can't.
31:59
I'm not going to put myself in that situation.
32:02
So then I went into my education background, but I'd already
32:04
started the art classes and, and so I, I, I went into art K12
32:09
full force and student taught high school and elementary.
32:15
And I redshirted during during that period and, and, and I'll
32:19
come back to the running part, but like during that period and
32:22
realized I really wanted to teach elementary more than high
32:25
school, which was super contradicting to why I started
32:28
it because wheel pottery is in high school.
32:30
Oh, right, yeah. Level of it, but I did get a do
32:35
a couple 4th grade sessions over the summer with some wheel
32:38
pottery stuff. But yeah, I, I wheel pottery, I,
32:41
I would get done with our long run on Sunday.
32:44
I'd go down to the I'd get lunch for breakfast, whatever it was
32:48
brunch, and then go down to the studio and I'd just throw for
32:52
hours and I'd 1516 pieces of pottery and that'd be my kind of
32:57
my Sunday is that. What is that what you call it?
32:59
You said I would. Throw.
33:00
Is that what you throw? Is that right?
33:02
Is that because you this movies and TV shows?
33:05
You take a piece of clay and you throw it on the wheel, That's
33:07
why. I don't remember to be honest.
33:10
It's just. That's cool though.
33:11
I just never heard like, you know, I went to the studio and
33:13
threw I'm like, what are you talking about?
33:14
Yep and I took it. I took a special project so I
33:17
could do it another semester and like 80 some pots a semester.
33:22
So what? OK, I was gonna say so.
33:23
You know, I did pottery as a kid.
33:25
You know, I probably had your art teacher, right?
33:26
And I, you know, this, this dates me.
33:28
I remember making a cigarette ashtray for my mom.
33:34
I still remember this thing and you know different but it was
33:37
always. But like, what else can you make
33:38
besides a bowl and and ashtrays? Well, I mean, you got cups and
33:42
plates. OK.
33:43
All right. Yeah, Yeah, you can make a
33:44
plate. And yeah, yeah, different sizes
33:48
and different firing techniques and, you know.
33:52
But you can't make like a figurine, right?
33:54
Like you're making. I did, I was not a fan of hand
33:58
pottery. I, I did not like anything to do
34:00
with handmade stuff. I, I was a wheel wheel very like
34:04
almost, I'd say OCD with symmetry and, and stuff like
34:08
that. And so wheel pottery I, I, I
34:11
could not do handmade stuff to save my life.
34:13
Nothing. Was good when you were throwing.
34:16
I love that term. You use tools I've seen like
34:19
videos, like whether you know they're doing that helps span it
34:21
or not. Span.
34:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's so cool.
34:24
A little bit all of it and and we were very very lucky at Dana.
34:27
We had a professional Potter that came in and taught our
34:30
classes. Hubble.
34:32
Hubble's awesome. He's, you know, like your
34:34
typical, like Woodstock guy that comes in and.
34:37
That's what I imagine all of these guys are.
34:40
And he was so much fun and and he was great and taught, taught
34:44
me a lot and did a lot and, and I probably had hundreds of
34:48
pieces of pottery when I was done.
34:51
It was Is that Christmas and birthday present?
34:53
Yeah, so is that what all your family got?
34:54
For the next like 15 years they. Opened up your box, They get
34:58
your box. I'm like, all right, what is it?
35:00
Is it a bowl? Is it a ashtray?
35:02
What has he got this time? Yeah.
35:04
And, and it I probably have about 14 or 15 left in the house
35:11
that are kind of my favorites or things that I've held on to and,
35:14
and that are in the house and displayed in the house and, and.
35:19
Tell me this is how you got dates as well.
35:23
Like you were like, oh, look, I bring you a bowl.
35:27
No, no, no, I I don't think wheel pottery was the was the
35:33
thing that girls were coming after.
35:37
No, OK. So it's quite common that when a
35:43
kid goes from high school to College in track and field, they
35:47
move up an event, right? You hear a lot of times like,
35:50
yeah, this half miler, they're good.
35:51
But you know, in this level, they're going to be a miler.
35:53
And a miler has to be a 5K kid and 5K has to be a 10K kid and
35:56
all that stuff. And you know, my, my mind, I'm
35:58
always like, well, where does it stop?
35:59
Like eventually you have to stop.
36:01
Like do we have, do we not have any 100m runners?
36:03
Because all 100m runners move up to the four and all this kind of
36:05
stuff. You have never heard this one.
36:07
You moved from 400 hurdles to the marathon.
36:10
OK, how do we how do we get there, bud?
36:13
Oh man. I was 110 high hurdler my as
36:17
well my coach in high school if I if we weren't running the four
36:21
Bay or if I wasn't going to run the four Bay, I ran the 110
36:25
highs. OK, so it's 4 by 8 or 110 highs.
36:28
Yeah, definitely a good mix, right.
36:30
And then it was 400 hurdles or 800 or it was 4 by 4 or 4 by 4
36:35
at the end, usually, always. But you're in Iowa, so you have
36:37
the shuttle hurdle relay, too. Yes.
36:40
My all time favorite event, Yeah.
36:42
Junior high, undefeated, we rocked the heck out of that, but
36:45
we never really ran it in high school.
36:49
All the kids, I think the three that were on that shuttle hurdle
36:53
that never lost with me, didn't run high school track.
36:57
Yeah, most of those kids navigated out.
36:59
I, I was really almost the only senior left there towards the
37:03
end. But anyway, so college, you
37:08
know, like I said that chiropractic thing and I lost
37:11
all my, like, I, I, my whole life, I focused on, I, I had a
37:16
weight vest and a hill in the backyard and I ran it because I
37:18
wanted to dunk. I wanted to dunk.
37:22
And so all of that was gone. It was gone.
37:25
I couldn't jump, I couldn't Sprint anymore.
37:27
I, it was gone. And, and so I asked coach, I was
37:33
like, what am I going to do? And he's like, well, just run
37:35
the steeple. It might be just an automatic
37:40
jump. 400 Run the steeple. I ran across the ball.
37:44
Just run the steeple. That was our coach.
37:47
He was like, yeah, yeah, he was still like, it's still a Sprint,
37:50
bro, just run 3. 1000 just run far and we go to Crete NE and
37:56
and we're done. And which is this weekend
37:58
actually and and. OK, but let's like, I'm thinking
38:01
of like an 1819 year old kid who, you know, is going through
38:05
some physical pains and there's some mental side of it too
38:07
because, you know, we have our identity, right?
38:09
So I'm a hurdler, you know, and it's like, man, I just can't do
38:12
this for, you know, all these varied reasons.
38:14
And then coach says, cool, let's do the 3000 steeple.
38:16
I'm venturing to guess 99% of kids 1819 ish years old would be
38:22
like, well, I guess track isn't for me because I'm not, I'm not
38:25
going from one lap to, you know, 8 or whatever it is, right?
38:29
Why? Why did you like, did you have
38:32
any doubts or did was it just like, OK coach, let's go.
38:35
OK, Coach, let's go. Yeah, I love it.
38:37
I mean, I the kids, the kid, the term the kids use these days
38:41
built different. I, I, I just did it.
38:44
I, I just, I don't know, like it just, I just did it.
38:49
There was no like questioning it.
38:52
There's no like you're crazy. There's no, hey, I'm going to
38:54
transfer or any of that stuff. It was just, OK, let's, let's go
38:58
ahead and go do it. It was just the the way it
39:01
worked for us at Dana or way it worked for me, I guess.
39:06
So what was your first steeple event?
39:07
Because you know, the steeple, no, no matter how good you're
39:10
prepared. It's a tough event for the first
39:12
one. How'd it go?
39:13
So at Crete, NE, I remember it, it sucked.
39:17
It was hard as I was pain in so much pain.
39:22
I got done and it wasn't fast and I looked at coach I go, when
39:26
can I do that again? Nice.
39:28
Wow. I don't know why, it was just
39:31
something like. You're kind of fun.
39:33
You're kind of a challenge guy. Like there's kind of a little
39:36
bit of like like you going back to that camp story, like again,
39:41
99% even I mean I'm talking about, you know, 99% of kids and
39:45
I'm talking about there's some tough kids in that 99% here.
39:48
When y'all took off in the well, first of all, when they said we
39:50
were doing a 10 Miller and you're looking around like when
39:52
these guys are like distance distance people.
39:54
I'm not AI ran, I ran cross, but I'm not a distance guy.
39:56
They would have been like, all right, cool, can I do the Six
39:58
Mile and you know I'm going to walk a lot here guy and all this
40:00
kind of stuff. Actually, they wouldn't even
40:01
have gone to camp soon as they knew it was a cross country
40:03
camp. They would have been like, all
40:04
right, well, that's that's not me.
40:05
I'm a basketball guy, right? You're kind of a challenge guy
40:08
of like, all right, well, let's, let's try it.
40:10
Let's see what happens. I guess I, my longest running
40:13
night ever ran before I went to camp for six months.
40:15
I did three times in my 4 years in high school.
40:21
I guess I, I just just did it. I guess I just did it.
40:26
And, you know, I can't imagine not doing sports.
40:30
I can't imagine not pushing myself in some way.
40:34
And and my dad, I very lucky my father, you know, depending on
40:40
how you look at it, my dad didn't make me work.
40:44
Yeah. We grew up on the farm and I was
40:47
never a farm kid. I, I did more when I was 12 and
40:50
13, driving tractors and all that stuff than I was than I did
40:53
in high school. Dad didn't want me to farm.
40:56
He didn't see a great future in it and he pushed me away from
41:01
it. And as long as I did sports, I
41:03
didn't have to get a job. And so I just I.
41:07
That's not the norm. You know that obviously I've got
41:10
a farm kid on our team here, Peyton, who, you know, grew up
41:13
on the farm, you know, an hour from here.
41:14
And I mean you're you own a farm, you work.
41:18
I mean, that's just, Yep, I mean a lot.
41:19
Of my dad still farms. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
41:21
My grandpa farmed. He farmed.
41:23
The rest of our family doesn't like.
41:25
He has a couple brothers and none of those kids ever farmed.
41:30
Only one of the brothers helps dad and it it's done when Dad's
41:37
done, probably. And yeah, well, the land will be
41:40
inherited and we'll probably cash, you know, rented or
41:44
whatever. But I don't, I don't get a Nope.
41:51
And and he's out planting right now probably.
41:53
And and so. Farmer's life never stopped.
41:56
And again, you, you know better than anybody.
41:58
All right, So you do that first steeple chase.
42:00
It goes horribly, which I'm kind of glad to hear.
42:03
And what I mean by that, Mark, is I get a little annoyed when
42:05
people try something for the first time and they're like
42:06
naturals because I was never a natural.
42:08
I'm like, you bastard. So I'm glad that you struggled,
42:11
but you got better at it. You were like, let's tackle,
42:13
let's keep going. It was, it was a natural
42:17
progression, I think coming from the hurdles and being cross
42:20
country and coach being, you know, who he was as rocker with
42:25
making us run a ton. But it's, it was a struggle and
42:29
I continued to struggle throughout that freshman year
42:31
and then sophomore year I'd, you know, I needed to run over the
42:34
summer and I ran over the summer and got, it was probably the
42:37
first time I was like maybe a real distance kid per SE.
42:42
And, and because I never really ran over the summer in high
42:45
school, I play basketball and ran a little and did Junior
42:48
Olympics and that was about it. And, but ran a lot and came back
42:52
sophomore year was better. I got better.
42:54
And you know, we, we did a lot. I had, we had a 15 mile long run
42:59
on Sundays, every Sunday. And I did not make it 15 until
43:03
probably halfway through my sophomore year was the first
43:06
time I made it through the 15. Miller progress got a little bit
43:10
better, got to where I was running with the guys a little
43:13
bit, not just the 2 girls. And Fast forward Steeplechase
43:18
went OK Fast forward to my junior summer, summer going into
43:21
my junior year. And I ran a lot and, and really
43:27
trained hard and I PR Ed in a road race at Atlantic Fest and
43:31
8K and got into cross season and I was the 14th guy when we
43:35
started. But I had put in the summer and
43:39
so every week I got a little bit better.
43:41
And then at conference I was 12th.
43:45
No, it was 10th, 10th guy. And then I made the national
43:49
team at regions and was, was seventh guy.
43:51
And then at nationals, I was the 5th, 5th guy at nationals and,
43:58
you know, ran at Kenosha and, and, and did that and it, it
44:01
sparked a little bit and coach had been kind of giving me a
44:05
hard time, like you should run the marathon, you should run the
44:07
marathon. And I was like, and I, and I
44:10
know I cussed at him. I know, I told him.
44:12
You know you're. Crazy.
44:15
And like, that's not going to be a thing.
44:17
And I don't remember when it was because I didn't do the December
44:21
1. Their Midland and Fremont NE had
44:25
a hat. You run the half marathon to
44:26
qualify back then actually you ran the half marathon and if you
44:29
qualified, you're qualified for the next two years.
44:33
And so I know I didn't do that one and I came somewhere in
44:38
there. I, I think I was at don't indoor
44:40
because I remember going on a run after that saying, you know,
44:42
I guess I'm going to do this. And, and I told him, I guess I'm
44:45
going to do this. And I got in a plane and, and I,
44:48
we went to Vegas because the international, it was the
44:54
masters international half marathon or something like that.
44:56
And a couple guys always went there to try to qualify.
45:00
I'd actually not that this is any, any of importance, but I
45:04
had met my future ex-wife the night before we got on the
45:12
plane. You know, we had the, the the
45:14
winner formal. And then I get on the plane, we
45:17
go to Vegas, and I missed qualifying by less than a
45:23
second. What?
45:24
Would you run for half? I ran 115 point something and
45:29
the 115 was the qualifying and the Vegas the 1st 5 miles
45:33
downhill and then it flattens out and I had never been
45:38
anything like that. You ride the bus out in the
45:40
morning and get off the bus. There's all these people and you
45:45
know, I'd like 62nd at the thing or whatever and I was like, OK,
45:49
I got to try that again. And so coach hosts 1.
45:54
He hosts A qualifier. Questionable on how because it
45:58
was just us, but we ran one in Blair and we had a couple post
46:04
collision guys he trained and we ran in March.
46:07
So that was February. It was like February 5th was the
46:11
Vegas one and then we ran March and I ran 112th and so I
46:16
qualified. I was so pissed off.
46:18
Coach made me run it again because there was a provisional
46:21
qualifying. He could have took me without
46:22
running again and but that was probably my greatest college
46:28
race. Was that 112?
46:30
I mean, I just was in it and I ran well and I had a pacer and
46:34
and just found the zone and finished and ran 112 qualified
46:38
and I got to go to British Columbia.
46:40
Canada or not. No, no, gosh, Darren, take that
46:43
back. British Columbia is the one
46:44
that's left. Basically Simon Fraser,
46:47
Abbotsford, Canada, which was an amazing trip.
46:51
And I ran the marathon and I ran 242.
46:54
I got 9th overall. The last three miles was
46:58
amazing. I was rolling.
47:00
I was 15th with with three miles left.
47:03
I rolled on people. We went out.
47:06
We, we Dana was Danathon. Greg Craig Einspar coached at
47:11
Concordia a while back. He would yell at us like that
47:14
because we'd always have 456 qualifiers on the men's side and
47:17
then we'd have 3-4 girls qualify.
47:19
It was, it was Birmingham's thing.
47:21
My college coaches thing was the marathon and we came through.
47:25
We were 9/10/11. No, wait, 151514131211 at
47:31
halfway. Wow.
47:33
And we finished 36911 and 11 struggled and just that was that
47:40
was us. It's what we did.
47:41
We ran with the girls the first mile and then we kind of get
47:43
going and roll into the back half.
47:46
So that got me rolling and I went into the summer and that
47:50
next summer was probably where everything changed for me.
47:54
I ran 100 to 125 miles a week for the last seven weeks of the
47:59
summer. What was hard wasn't hard.
48:03
Like the mentality of what's really hard isn't really hard
48:06
now that I've seen and done all that and, and but then I
48:11
redshirted because I was going to student teach.
48:14
So I didn't run cross that summer, which I wish I would
48:19
have really, but then went into track with AI want to be all
48:24
American. I want to be all American.
48:25
I want to be all American in the marathon.
48:28
Got to the marathon fitter than I've ever been.
48:31
The weather was warmer. We had five, five of us qualify.
48:37
We had one fifth year senior that freaked out like maybe a
48:43
mile and 1/2 in. It was like, we got to get
48:45
going. We can't, we got to get going.
48:46
We got to get going. It was completely against the
48:48
game plan, against everything we had done.
48:51
And but I just listened because he's he's older, he's he's the
48:55
guy. We got to 10 miles to look at
48:57
Ian Lattelle and I'm like, Yep. We're dead.
49:00
Yeah, I was like, that just happened.
49:03
And so I'm the other way around. I'm the one struggling, but I I
49:06
could literally when it was over me so about 5 feet was all
49:11
American. I was ninth again same exact
49:13
time 9th again. So and then my summer, my next
49:18
summer going to senior my last cross season was that was OK.
49:22
I wasn't as motivated and I still ran because I wasn't going
49:25
to not run and got a teaching job in December start teaching
49:29
elementary taught elementary that that that spring and then I
49:35
saw in the paper of high school job was open.
49:37
I was like kind of be kind of fun and so I applied and got the
49:43
job and, and start coaching high school cross country at Westside
49:46
High School. It was never I, I didn't do any
49:49
coaching classes. I, I guess I did, I did a little
49:51
bit because coach had this studies of human endurance
49:55
class. He taught.
49:57
I, I wrote a paper on Everest. You had to do like you got to do
50:01
1 of the this is my coach in a nutshell.
50:05
You had to do one of the challenges, which was POW for 18
50:09
hours, run 30 miles, swim a mile fast for 24.
50:15
I did all of them, but the POW thing, I wasn't really big fan
50:18
of that. And I ran the 30 mile.
50:20
I tried the 30 mile because all the kids on the team could try
50:23
it. So I tried it for three years
50:26
and nose yeah, I 18 then I was 21 and then that last year I
50:30
made 30 in it it it's in January, so I can't feel my
50:36
fingers the first like 12 miles out in the country roads.
50:40
But yeah, so I did that. I did some science classes with
50:44
coach and but I didn't really do any coaching classes.
50:47
I just kind of like got into it and did it and then Westside
50:51
just took off and yeah, I don't know, I keep going, but I mean.
50:57
That's crazy. I mean, like, like out of all
51:02
the marathoners that you had, how many of them were not from a
51:05
traditional distance running background like you were not?
51:08
Yeah, that's what I thought. OK, Just ma'am, you know, I
51:12
truly believe that all of us all, I don't know how many
51:16
people are in this world. Three billion, 8 billion
51:18
billions of us are put on this earth to do, like one thing,
51:22
like amazing. But rarely do any of us actually
51:26
find it. Like maybe point OO 1% find it.
51:29
If you take that down just a notch, I think there's a track
51:33
event for all of us that will do the best in.
51:37
I don't know that we all find it to be real frank with you.
51:40
You know, it's interesting that you your identity was you're a
51:43
foreigner hurdler. You're a hurdler.
51:45
And in reality, it's like, no, you're supposed to be a distance
51:48
runner and thank goodness, this crazy ultra runner guy.
51:51
And I'm sorry, if you're an ultra runner, I'm always going
51:53
to call you crazy because you are.
51:55
I call marathoners crazy. So for you to do these 50s and
51:57
hundreds and all that kind of stuff is just nuts.
52:00
OS But because of this, like unique combination of a lot of
52:06
things, he had to be there. Your injury had to be there.
52:10
You had to go to to Danica, like all these unique things that
52:13
happened for you to actually find the path towards distance
52:16
running. And he became a pretty good
52:19
freaking marathoner. Man, that's crazy.
52:21
Yeah, well, I mean, like you look at camp.
52:23
I went back to camp, went back to camp, spent a week, then I
52:27
went back to camp, spent a couple weeks, like the longest I
52:29
spent was three weeks. Some of those guys would stay
52:30
that there was no running water, no electricity.
52:33
It's 7000 foot Mesa in San Luis Co and you know, I went back to
52:39
Rock Creek. I ran the whole 10 miles.
52:40
The fastest I ever ran. It was just under 8 minute pace,
52:44
which it's a pretty hardcore run, sand dunes doing that.
52:49
I was always you go back to that challenge thing.
52:51
I guess I never really thought. About that but.
52:52
We go out, we all go out together to the Star Dune and
52:57
then on the way back we would kind of challenge who could get
52:59
back quicker and I always was a challenge to figure out the best
53:03
way to get back. I remember the first year we
53:05
went straight to the flat and I remember I'll never do that
53:07
again. That was the worst decision and
53:10
having the downhill stuff was helpful.
53:13
And then I took my West side crew out to Adam States track
53:18
camp or cross country camp, which is one of the best high
53:21
school cross country camps in the country.
53:22
I there's so much information and things they do there that
53:26
are that are just so right for that camp.
53:29
And I remember the, the seniors from Adams that were helping and
53:34
would go out to the dunes and we go to the, the top of just the
53:37
very first dune and they're like, OK, we'll go back down.
53:39
I was like, I look at them, I go, go back down.
53:41
What do you mean? We got to go over there like
53:44
we're at the start of the like, what do you mean?
53:46
Like I was like, that's where we go.
53:48
And so I drag them all out there and they're, and the last one to
53:53
go up, you can't like if you're at the top, you can't see the
53:55
people at the bottom like your face crawling in.
53:58
And I remember the the, the, the, the senior out of state
54:02
seniors that were doing it or whatever they were just like,
54:04
what are we doing out here? It is funny.
54:06
But yeah, anyway, that's an unusual Rd.
54:10
Yeah, All right. I feel like this will be my last
54:12
comment on ultra running, but because I just watched this.
54:16
What's the it's funny, I just, we just talked about this on the
54:18
podcast within the last month or two.
54:21
What's the ultra running race? It's very famous in Tennessee.
54:25
I think it is the guy starts it by smoking a cigarette and you
54:31
know it's you had to. I don't know that bad water.
54:34
Bad water is the one I know. I I'm not in that world.
54:37
Yeah, other than the only reason I know probably anything about
54:40
that world is is coach. Because bad water, the Death
54:45
Valley run and is really the only reason I know that world
54:49
and the run across America and that type, of course, that's the
54:53
records and stuff like that. The only reason I know about
54:55
that is because of coach. Yeah, there's nothing.
54:58
In that world. One of my favorite podcasts is
55:00
Stuff You Should Know. And they did an episode on this
55:01
race and it's like, and they alluded to a YouTube video movie
55:06
documentary an hour long about it.
55:08
So I watched it. It was just is this crazy guy in
55:10
Tennessee who like there's no registration.
55:12
Like no one knows how to actually like register for it.
55:15
And people come from all around the world and there's loops.
55:17
Then you got to go back the other way and like maybe one
55:20
person a year finishes it and things like that.
55:22
It's just it's nuts. Well, and like that world is an
55:25
interesting one too. You know, you you envision it
55:30
being these crazy athletes, right?
55:34
But it's more like you, you have, I watched a video
55:38
documentary on bad water one year because, you know, just
55:40
Birmingham and my coach had been in it.
55:42
So I was like, I found this and I watched it and you watch some
55:45
of these people that are in it. They're not crazy athletes who's
55:50
got this mind that takes them through this and they like they
55:55
hobby jog their way through. That's a horrible way to say.
55:57
Yeah, I'll say you said it, not me.
55:59
I want to make sure everybody heard that they.
56:01
Shouldn't have said it. They shouldn't have said it.
56:04
It's slower because they're going so long.
56:06
Yeah, yeah. It's a different type of, you
56:08
know, running. They, the people that they kind
56:12
of highlighted on this one, it really attracts like intelligent
56:15
people. Like these guys were like, like
56:17
astrophysicist type smart people.
56:19
Like there really is some kind of like you mentioned about your
56:21
brain. There is something about it
56:22
attracts like these high level intelligent people that, that do
56:26
this stuff as well. Which again, you know, I say,
56:29
well, it must be crazy high intelligence people cuz you
56:31
know, to run 50 miles, 100 miles and all that stuff is nuts.
56:34
OK, so you graduate, you want to start coaching elementary
56:40
school, but then see this high school job and you start
56:42
coaching college. I'm sorry, you start coaching
56:44
cross country. What I'm curious about my
56:47
experience with coaches is that initially when we get into
56:51
coaching, we fall back to how we were coached because we don't
56:54
know anything else. You know, very rare as athletes
56:57
are we taking level ones and USTFCA academies and stuff like
56:59
that. Did you have these poor cross
57:02
country kids running 100 miles a week straight off the back,
57:05
'cause you're like, that's what we do is what Coach told me to
57:06
do. No, no, I, you know, I just we
57:12
ran, I mean, we ran because we needed to run and and it was it
57:16
was more about just just getting runs in and and having, you
57:22
know, getting them to enjoy it and getting in, building a a
57:26
atmosphere in the environment. You know that that's probably
57:30
your Birmingham was Birmingham with that ultra background, but
57:34
I'd say one of his not necessarily as Physiology and
57:38
all the other stuff, but the way he brought us all together to
57:42
want to do it was his thing. You know, that I that I look
57:48
back at as being his biggest, biggest thing and I feel like I
57:53
just tried to build a fun, happy environment.
57:57
That kid just wanted to do it and be there.
57:59
Now, when I started, they were like everyone at the school was
58:04
required to, not required. If they did a sport, they didn't
58:08
have to go to PE class. And so when I got there, the
58:14
assistant coach Bushnell explained to me half the kids
58:18
that were there were there because they didn't want to do
58:20
PE. Well, that ended in the about
58:26
two years that wasn't as much of a thing anymore because now they
58:30
had to run. Evidently, whoever the coach was
58:32
before, they didn't really have to.
58:34
Do that. Sure, sure.
58:36
And I'd get a couple of those kids that would want to do it
58:39
and get into it and fun like my favorite story of my group,
58:44
Clayton, he, we went to Fremont, NE.
58:47
He ran his first 5K. It was 40 minutes.
58:50
And I was like, hey man, like. And we held up the next race.
58:55
I was like, hey, we need to train.
58:57
We need to run a little bit. You know, we, we, we've got to
59:00
be better at, you know, we not in a jerkish way, but just try
59:05
to explain to him how we can't really race so much at some of
59:09
these things because of that, you know, we held up the next
59:12
meet or the next race. His senior year he ran 2023.
59:17
Wow. Yeah, just insane and you know,
59:20
almost 20 minute improvement such and just he enjoyed it, he
59:25
loved it. And he's one of those kids that
59:26
he came out for pee, but like, if he would have ran, who knows?
59:29
Like, and now he's, from what I've been told, he's on nuclear
59:33
submarines now. I was waiting for you to say
59:36
he's a marathoner. That's honestly that's where I
59:37
thought this was going. It could be for all I know now I
59:40
haven't talked to him. I lost track of him, but just
59:44
what that would have never happened.
59:46
And I had a couple of kids like that.
59:48
Like I have a kid that was at West Point and and a girl and a
59:52
guy I think that went to West Point and but just talking them
59:57
into enjoying it and we got better and we got better and I
1:00:00
still this actually the first year I missed it.
1:00:03
We get together on Thanksgiving morning at a coffee shop.
1:00:08
Anybody that wants to come back from that time period, I was at
1:00:11
West Side and we used to run this three mile loop.
1:00:14
Anybody that came back and it was it was fun.
1:00:17
It was just an atmosphere that we built and it's cool and and
1:00:21
grew and it was fun. It was never the ultra marathon
1:00:25
thing like. Good.
1:00:27
I mean, they, some of those guys got into it and ran quite a bit
1:00:31
and I was still running. So like it was, I ran everything
1:00:34
with them. I would teach elementary art.
1:00:36
I would sneak out of school early because I was teaching in
1:00:40
a rival district. So I was in Omaha Public
1:00:43
Schools, but I taught at West Side, different school districts
1:00:46
and I drive like changing in my car while I'm driving, going
1:00:52
straight to the practice. I'd hop out the car and I'd run
1:00:55
1000 repeats with them or I'd do the mileage.
1:00:58
I'd run mileage with them all summer and eventually I lost
1:01:02
that job because of the district.
1:01:04
So Omaha Public Schools tried to take over all the other
1:01:07
districts and so one school, one district thing or whatever.
1:01:11
And that was basically how I lost the West side job.
1:01:16
And because I was still teaching OPS and I, my one of my team
1:01:23
mates was coaching Dana. And it was the, I think the
1:01:26
second Birmingham kid to take over Dana since Birmingham had
1:01:30
quit and transition out of high school.
1:01:35
And I applied and I didn't get called and I was angry because
1:01:40
they, they hadn't hired anybody. I hadn't got called.
1:01:44
What the heck? Because I, I was, it was Dana
1:01:47
was me. I went back for all the alumni
1:01:50
cross country meets. I went, I, I supported
1:01:52
everything. I was, it was Dana.
1:01:54
I, you know, I say this side note, I say this to my kids, you
1:01:59
know, nowadays these kids, they like, they have fun in different
1:02:04
ways, right? Like if you go to the smallest
1:02:07
school in the country, you can have fun, you can go to the
1:02:11
largest school in the country and hate it.
1:02:15
And the main reason is what do you do?
1:02:19
How do you involve yourself? Do you leave your dorm room?
1:02:24
Do you get involved? Do you go to things?
1:02:26
Do you do things? Because if you don't do
1:02:28
anything, you're going to hate it.
1:02:30
No matter it could be the biggest party school in the
1:02:32
world, you're going to hate it. I was at 550 kids and it is my
1:02:38
life. I love it.
1:02:39
I it's closed now, by the way. It closed and it's sad.
1:02:43
But so anyway, I just drive up there.
1:02:47
I just drove up there. I found the AD and I'm like,
1:02:49
what is going on? Why are we hiring anybody?
1:02:53
You know, I want to be, I want to be this coach.
1:02:55
And he looked at me and goes, there's been 2 Birmingham kids
1:02:59
here. They haven't been successful,
1:03:00
they haven't got anything done. We're not going that route.
1:03:03
I was like, listen, I'm not Birmingham.
1:03:06
I'm not those other two. I don't do it the same way.
1:03:09
I'm a track kid. Side note, you talked about the
1:03:12
ultra marathon stuff and get those kids into it.
1:03:14
When I got into track of coaching I literally actually
1:03:18
called 2 of my teammates because like crap man.
1:03:21
We haven't done track training. It was only marathon stuff like
1:03:25
he didn't do anything. Right, right.
1:03:29
And and so I kind of literally found my own way in in the
1:03:34
middle distance side of it. So I just went to him.
1:03:37
I was like, listen, this is what's going on.
1:03:41
I don't know is later on that day he called me said Hey, we're
1:03:44
going to hire you and and so I kind of talked my way into the
1:03:49
job, I guess. Well, OK, what I see is, oh,
1:03:52
there's a challenge. I want this job.
1:03:54
They're not calling me. Well, I'm not going to give up.
1:03:56
How do I figure out how to get this job?
1:03:57
I guess there's that challenge again, man, Holy cow.
1:04:00
So. Then I started coaching my alma
1:04:02
mater and, and, you know, coached it basically the way it
1:04:07
was being coached when I was there because this is what I was
1:04:09
known with a couple slight tweaks.
1:04:12
And I coached it the last 4 1/2 years.
1:04:16
It was open, did the marathon thing, did did some more stuff
1:04:21
on the track a little bit and had some fun and and Dana was
1:04:28
great and and and then it closed.
1:04:32
Are you? At like, I was still teaching.
1:04:34
Still teaching. Yeah, I was still teaching.
1:04:36
Still teaching. I was wondering, are you?
1:04:37
I mean, your DNA is in basketball, you know, coach's
1:04:40
kid. Are you fully in track, though?
1:04:42
Is there any? Like, are you thinking about
1:04:45
basketball coaching basketball, basketball camps, anything like
1:04:48
that? Are you all in on?
1:04:49
I was watching basketball. I even watched it and, and it's
1:04:54
interesting, you know, my, you know, I'm a marathoner, but my
1:04:59
favorite track athletes were, you know, Alan Johnson, you
1:05:03
know, hurdler, you know, you know, Oliver.
1:05:08
I, I was, for whatever reason, I kind of navigated the 110 hurdle
1:05:11
guys. Alan Iverson, I'm a Westbrook
1:05:15
fan, even though that could I could talk about that for 1/2
1:05:18
hour. But you know, I can't tell you
1:05:24
really that that like distance track kids have any of those
1:05:30
guys have really been my favorite athletes.
1:05:33
That's what I coach. I don't know why I just Jaeger.
1:05:36
I probably the first one like I don't know.
1:05:41
Anyway, kind of from the question.
1:05:44
You know, we've had coaches on that have started programs from
1:05:48
the ground up. I don't know that we've ever had
1:05:51
anybody that took a program and they closed.
1:05:54
What? What happened?
1:05:57
Oh, in my AD here was he he he'll tell you he closed it
1:06:03
because he got hired as women's basketball coach there closed in
1:06:08
money. Long, Long story short, they so
1:06:13
as short as I can make it, they had a couple people take it over
1:06:16
at financial issues and they had a couple people take it over to
1:06:19
do as a for profit. They were doing a great job with
1:06:24
it in my opinion. There was no marketing going on.
1:06:26
And so like we're in Blair, NE, about 30 miles outside of Omaha
1:06:30
and no one knows in Omaha that we exist.
1:06:33
Mostly in my opinion is it was a beast.
1:06:36
So ABC and D are Nebraska sizes for class sizes, right?
1:06:41
B&B and Blair in A in Omaha and they never mingle.
1:06:46
They never go against each other.
1:06:47
So all these Class A schools, Fremont Midland is our rival.
1:06:51
Fremont's a Class A, everybody in Omaha knows Fremont.
1:06:54
No one knows Dana. So these guys take over.
1:06:57
They put these billboards and radio spots up and all of a
1:07:00
sudden it is going to be, I think they had like a class of
1:07:02
300 coming in or something. It's crazy.
1:07:05
And then the HLC, the HLCHLNI don't HLC, the learning
1:07:10
Commission says, Nope, we're not going to do it.
1:07:12
We're not going to, we're not going to, we're not going to
1:07:14
validate, validate. It's not the right word.
1:07:18
I can't remember the, I can't think of the right word.
1:07:20
Anyway, they say no. And it was a political thing
1:07:23
from my understanding, where like the government was not
1:07:27
having a, there was the schools like Phoenix and stuff like that
1:07:31
were taking advantage of federal funds.
1:07:33
And so the HLC looks and goes, hey, we shut this down.
1:07:37
The government will look at us in a good way.
1:07:39
We put all our money into getting as much debt away as
1:07:42
possible so these four people could take over.
1:07:44
Like it was like a A per the the the head of the Department of
1:07:51
Education for Reagan. There was a military guy that
1:07:54
was going to start overseas stuff business wise.
1:07:58
There's a graphic lady from USC, can't remember the 4th, but good
1:08:03
group of people and it just, and that and then that was it.
1:08:07
I, I'm at Missouri Valley, I'm at a softball game getting ready
1:08:10
to watch one of the girls I had signed and another girl that I
1:08:13
had signed was there with me to watch her.
1:08:15
And I get the call and like I have to tell those two.
1:08:20
Oh wow, yeah. Yeah, it just, it was just
1:08:23
brutal. It's brutal.
1:08:25
And my wife at the time, she's Danigrad and brother played
1:08:30
football there. And, and it was kind of it just,
1:08:34
it was surreal. And then I call everyone and I
1:08:37
spend the next weeks trying to find homes for all those kids
1:08:42
and closure and, and all that stuff and then find a job
1:08:46
because I, I want to code. And we're randomly just hanging
1:08:49
out at, at, at one of the apartments with the guys just
1:08:54
trying to, you know, put some closure to it.
1:08:56
And, and the kid was like, Hey, my high school coach said that
1:09:00
you nose open. I was like, you know, like, what
1:09:03
do you mean like that? I know the guy that's there.
1:09:05
He's like, no, he laughed. I was like, what do you mean he
1:09:07
laughed? OK.
1:09:09
And, and so I, I call Steve Smith up, who's the track coach.
1:09:15
And I was like, hey, like, what's going on?
1:09:18
Like I, I, I teach in Omaha and I, I want to keep coaching
1:09:22
college. And and he's like, well, I don't
1:09:25
want to coach the distance kids, so please come over and babysit
1:09:29
them. Essentially.
1:09:32
And I was like, fine, whatever. I mean, yeah, I didn't really
1:09:35
care if I was, I'm very, very lucky in my journey in regards
1:09:38
to the money part of it. I didn't need, I was getting, I
1:09:42
was teaching. I was full time.
1:09:43
I the the finances there, the coaching part actually is why
1:09:51
the coaching part is what helped me get my loans paid off earlier
1:09:54
because I I used all that to pay to pay that off and I got in,
1:09:58
you know, we didn't have full team and their D2 at the time.
1:10:05
Really good wrestling program football still there and they
1:10:11
Steve has these two girls there Anya Boots and and Katarina and
1:10:16
Katarina's from Russia. Anya's from Slovenia's first
1:10:19
experience with their international kids.
1:10:20
Really, Dana was very against international what my coach was
1:10:25
we and we grew up the my freshman year, the winner of
1:10:29
national cross country was 29 year old Kenyan.
1:10:32
And then my soccer year when I was 30 and then 2030 year old
1:10:35
Kenyan and then 29 year old Kenyan.
1:10:37
And we are very against that. And then and then actually I, I
1:10:43
had this kid move into West side, sorry sidebar.
1:10:47
And he is a prisoner of war. He's a lost boy of Sudan.
1:10:51
He's chained to a tree for a long period of time to protect
1:10:57
the camp, to watch the camp for lions.
1:11:01
Garang Garang was his name. And that's my first experience
1:11:04
of being around that. And Grang ended up helped.
1:11:09
He ended up running D2 college at Wayne, Wayne State.
1:11:13
Awesome. And And so anyway, back up.
1:11:16
So Anya and Katarina and we go through the cross season.
1:11:19
We don't have full team, but we we've got it.
1:11:21
We've got to run a conference team.
1:11:23
See, he's like, we got to run a conference team.
1:11:24
It's got to it's got to happen, not on sponsorship or whatever.
1:11:28
And so he makes Anya and Katarina run conference cross
1:11:32
country. They're 800 kids.
1:11:34
Anya started a sprinter and and then KK ran it.
1:11:38
She's a 400 kid on their 4x4 to give us a full squat and 'cause
1:11:43
I got there, I got the job in like August 1.
1:11:47
Right. Yeah.
1:11:47
No, no recruiting, Yeah. No.
1:11:49
And I just, I didn't even know what to say to them.
1:11:53
Like Steve's there. He's like, just finish they
1:11:57
they're, but they're freak athletes.
1:12:00
Anya had just been named the D2 Athlete of the Year.
1:12:03
Oh wow. She was like A2 O3 801.
1:12:06
Oh dude, OK. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:12:08
This isn't just a random. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:12:10
Girl Katarina had ran I think it was like 412 and a 15104.
1:12:14
She was like AU 23 Russian champion.
1:12:18
Unreal nuts go out in like 315 first K it's a 6K and I'm like
1:12:25
what are we doing? We didn't go finish coach.
1:12:29
And they get 3rd and 5th or no, no, it was fifth and 7th.
1:12:32
They get 5th and 7th. And I'm like, what in the heck
1:12:36
is going on? And Steve makes them run
1:12:40
regionals. So we go to regionals.
1:12:43
I don't see them because they train with him and I'm teaching.
1:12:46
I'm not there full time. We get to the start line.
1:12:49
I just look at them. I go listen, I know you don't
1:12:51
want to be here. All I ask is is just if you
1:12:55
start a little bit slower you'll like your life a lot more.
1:13:00
They get 3rd and 5th and qualify for D2 cross nationals.
1:13:07
Dude. So I fly down to Louisville.
1:13:09
We're in the backseat of a car. 20 minutes for the start line.
1:13:13
It's snowing. Anya's crying.
1:13:16
Katarina has no idea what's going on and I'm, and I'm like
1:13:21
just convincing him to get out the car to get on the line.
1:13:25
They don't run well, which is not surprising.
1:13:29
And that was my introduction to U&O and D2 cross and and we we
1:13:37
went into the year 2 and we built and then I think it was
1:13:41
year 2. You noticed that when do you
1:13:43
does is U&O, is there a time at U&O or maybe it's later after
1:13:47
that that you become full time? Like, are you still teaching?
1:13:50
I'm still teaching, still teaching and, you know, decides
1:13:53
they're going to get rid of wrestling, get rid of football
1:13:56
and they're going to go D1. And so they and they let go
1:14:01
Steve and and Chris Richardson takes over.
1:14:05
We go D1 where we're we can't compete, you know, nationally
1:14:10
for four years and you know, but I, I keep building the squad and
1:14:15
keep doing our thing and, and having fun and but I, I just, I
1:14:21
don't know if I say this out loud, I'm not a Trev Albert's
1:14:24
fan. If we're being honest, I wasn't
1:14:26
a huge fan of the change. I didn't like the D1 thing at
1:14:30
that the time. And I don't know what happened
1:14:35
to this day, I still don't know what happened.
1:14:38
I got we're, we're building, we've got up to 17 on our
1:14:43
numbers. We're getting, everybody's
1:14:45
getting better. I don't know if I just couldn't
1:14:47
be there full time or what the problem was, but I got called
1:14:51
in. I got called from the head track
1:14:53
coach. I, he said, hey, you need to go
1:14:55
to HRI, go to HRHR says we're going in a different direction
1:15:00
and that's it. And I say, wow, nation going in
1:15:03
a different direction. So nothing going in a different
1:15:05
direction took about 60 seconds and I'm out and the head track
1:15:10
coach never calls me, my volunteer assistant never calls
1:15:13
me. No one ever communicates with
1:15:16
me. I ask a meeting with Trev and
1:15:19
and Mike Kemp and, and Trev says, hey, you're just too nice.
1:15:23
You're just too nice. Those are the only words that
1:15:27
meeting with. And that was it.
1:15:32
Wow. And I took a semester or a year
1:15:36
off. Are you?
1:15:37
I'm always interested. First of all, I appreciate your
1:15:40
openness and authenticity with, you know, being fired.
1:15:44
Let's just call a spade a spade, right?
1:15:47
I appreciate that because like I'm reminded of we had Karen
1:15:50
Dennis, now retired from The Ohio State University.
1:15:54
And when she was going from UNLV to Ohio State, I thought I was
1:15:58
asking a pretty softball. This is early.
1:15:59
I think she might be guest like #50 or 70.
1:16:01
We're on 300. So this is years ago, right?
1:16:04
And I said I thought a pretty softball question like, oh, so
1:16:06
why'd you go from UNLV to Ohio State, right?
1:16:08
I'm like, who wouldn't rights Big 10?
1:16:10
She was from Michigan. So is back home, all this kind
1:16:12
of stuff. And she goes, well, Mike, I was
1:16:13
fired. And I remember just being
1:16:15
floored like, oh, like, you know, you're going through the
1:16:17
process, but you know, this process here, Mark, you get to
1:16:19
tell the story, your story, how you want that.
1:16:21
There was no coaching before this or anything like that.
1:16:24
Like you get, you can say you were fired or not, right?
1:16:28
And I asked her. I was like, hey, so Karen, like,
1:16:30
you know, you didn't have to say anything.
1:16:32
You know, you could have just said, Oh, what the house they
1:16:34
Mike, what do you think? You know, and I said, why, you
1:16:36
know, why did you say that? And she goes, well, it's
1:16:38
important for people to know that, you know, bad things can
1:16:41
happen to you in within or with an out without your control and
1:16:45
you can still grow on. So when I hear this mark, I
1:16:48
almost called you Dana, because I'm looking at your keyboard.
1:16:50
And when I hear this, Mark, it's important for me.
1:16:54
I think the kind of double click in when someone is is being open
1:16:57
to being vulnerable like this, because I think it is important.
1:16:59
I think there are people who do get fired for their for the for
1:17:04
their reasons and not for the reasons that that makes it, you
1:17:06
know, you know, if you do something bad and you get fired,
1:17:09
it's like, OK, well, it's just a matter of time before I got
1:17:10
caught, I guess, or whatever, you know.
1:17:13
Dana, closing down was something that you had.
1:17:16
It wasn't your fault, but you had negative things happen to
1:17:18
you and so you had to figure it out.
1:17:20
Here is you're being too nice, which that what a cop out by the
1:17:23
way of of a it's not even I don't know what it is.
1:17:27
I mean, it's just bad leadership, honestly, is what I
1:17:29
hear when I hear that is the story.
1:17:32
So how do you, you know, here's two major setbacks within a
1:17:36
fairly short amount of time, Your alma mater that that adds
1:17:39
to it emotionally. Your alma mater shuts down you,
1:17:42
you go to Nebraska, Omaha, you get fired for weird reason, like
1:17:46
no one's talking to you. I mean, it's very exclusionary.
1:17:50
How do you mentally deal? Like, was there any thought of
1:17:54
like, man, maybe that just isn't for me.
1:17:55
Maybe I'm supposed to just be a freaking art teacher.
1:17:57
Let me get out of this part of the profession, this coaching
1:18:00
track and field stuff. It was hard.
1:18:04
It it, I was angry for a very long time.
1:18:10
I am better with Chris and Cliff.
1:18:13
I still don't talk to Chris. I I talked to Cliff every once
1:18:16
in a while. He Cliff, my volunteer five
1:18:18
years is now the head coach and director of UNL.
1:18:22
He took my job at when I got fired and and I was extremely
1:18:28
angry for a long time. And I probably just this year,
1:18:31
last year and a half is probably the most words I probably spoke
1:18:33
to him and it's I don't know. And it kind of leaves something
1:18:41
with you because now it wasn't a thing before that, right?
1:18:44
And and now it's a thing. So I, I always double, you know,
1:18:49
kind of overthink things now. Probably I was just angry and I
1:18:54
took a a year and I volunteered with my, with one of my college
1:18:58
team mates at Omaha South High School and just taught and just
1:19:02
trying to figure out what I was going to do next.
1:19:04
And at that point I knew I, I think I, I just, I really wanted
1:19:07
to coach full time and then I needed to figure out how that
1:19:11
was going to happen. So this didn't persuade you?
1:19:13
I'm, I'm not hearing like, I, I'm not hearing like doubts that
1:19:17
I'm really supposed to be a track coach.
1:19:19
No, I, I, I loved doing it and I, you know, I, I don't always
1:19:26
have confidence in myself and what I'm doing, but I, and I
1:19:31
probably lack some self-confidence sometimes here
1:19:34
and there. But going back to, you know,
1:19:39
just when I was younger, I, you said it and now I think about
1:19:43
it, challenge the challenge person.
1:19:45
I, I've never heard anybody tell me that, but that maybe that's a
1:19:49
thing. I, you know, and it just, I
1:19:53
wasn't sure what I was going to do.
1:19:55
I, I, I remarried and just a second.
1:19:58
I'm I'm doing something, OK. I don't have any.
1:20:02
I, it's going to be probably another hour.
1:20:04
I have the keys, please. Yes, Sorry.
1:20:09
I have a booth. No, they're, they're right
1:20:14
there. Sorry.
1:20:16
I'm not sorry, guys. My bad, my bad.
1:20:18
No worries. Real.
1:20:21
Real life happens man. Just because we hit record don't
1:20:23
mean real life stops. All good, Mark.
1:20:25
And so was and I, I, I'd remarried, we had kids.
1:20:33
She's teaching, I'm teaching. Life's going, teaching starting
1:20:39
to change. It's, it's not as fun.
1:20:42
The parents are kind of controlling things now.
1:20:47
We're kids, kids are running the, running the asylum at this
1:20:51
point. And, and it, it was becoming, it
1:20:55
was just difficult. And, and so I'm, I'm, I'm
1:20:59
helping out of Omaha S I'm applying to a couple places.
1:21:03
I get a couple interviews and actually just driving by Salina
1:21:07
at Kansas Wesleyan. I was interviewing at Kansas
1:21:10
Wesleyan. I walk out of the interview and
1:21:12
I get called or call from Kurt while I'm in the interview.
1:21:16
So I have to call him back at Missouri western like, Hey, why
1:21:18
don't you come interview? And is that OK?
1:21:21
Cool. And the other programs I'd
1:21:24
interview for were smaller. I'd I'd interviewed you and I,
1:21:28
I, you know, that's a little bit bigger, but I was never going to
1:21:30
be hired there. They were always going to hire
1:21:32
who they did. Will and I were both Will Palmer
1:21:36
at Florida and I were both interviewing for that job is
1:21:41
what I was told. But anyway, Side Story.
1:21:45
But you know Kansas Wesleyan and some of that and then MO W calls
1:21:51
and it's a unique thing that they don't have a program.
1:21:54
They don't, they, they're trying to start a program.
1:21:57
And so I was like, wow, this is crazy.
1:22:00
And so I did a ton of research on the MI double AII did so
1:22:05
much. I, I had sketch, I made-up a
1:22:08
whole schedule for cross indoor and outdoor.
1:22:10
I had the Griffin logos on it. I went through the MI AA with a
1:22:15
fine tooth comb on. Where could we score?
1:22:18
What do we need to recruit first to score and try to dig in
1:22:22
there? It wasn't like, hey, we're going
1:22:23
to build a program and survive. Like I wanted to be competitive
1:22:27
and so I went into the interview and I just had is.
1:22:30
This for the head coaching job. Yes, to run the.
1:22:33
Thing. Yeah, yeah.
1:22:34
Yeah, to run the thing. And I had all this stuff.
1:22:41
And I know I wasn't the best candidate and I can tell you
1:22:45
that for I know because the head coach at Pittsburgh State was
1:22:49
one of the candidates and not the most experienced or anything
1:22:52
like that. But I had so much stuff.
1:22:54
I was told that later on, like you just had, you were just so
1:22:56
much more prepared on what you wanted to do, what you were
1:22:58
going to do, where you were going to do it, how you're going
1:23:00
to do it. And I'm on the golf course with
1:23:04
my step dad and I get the phone call like, hey, we're going to
1:23:07
hire you. And like I didn't really think I
1:23:10
was going to get the job. Right, right, right.
1:23:14
And I was like, Oh my, what? And like, now I'm going to move.
1:23:18
I'm going to call my wife like, hey, we've already started the
1:23:23
school year. We're three weeks in and we're
1:23:26
going to move you good. And and so I do that and I move
1:23:33
into the dorms and I'm in the dorms for a little bit.
1:23:36
Why we're we actually decided to build a house.
1:23:38
Jill stayed with the kids. Josie was 1 maybe we we got the
1:23:44
house sold in like 12 hours. We should ask for more but she
1:23:50
moves in with my sister in this little little little spot and
1:23:55
with the kids and keeps teaching because she can't break her
1:23:58
contract yet and house getting built.
1:24:01
I hire an assistant and he leaves Saint Greg's.
1:24:08
Saint Greg's in Oklahoma, which actually closed like a year
1:24:11
later. It's wild which one of my Dana
1:24:15
guys that told me about the Uno job was the coach there when it
1:24:19
closed. Wild Tree.
1:24:23
But, and we live in a Drury Inn right off, right off Interstate
1:24:30
there in Saint Joe for a month while the house was finishing.
1:24:34
And we start a program and I signed him and I signed.
1:24:39
It's like 87 kids in the first year.
1:24:42
Holy. I the things I did like we
1:24:46
didn't have to coach the 1st. Year, right, Right.
1:24:48
And the whole first semester I'm there by myself because he
1:24:51
didn't come. Like I remember one road trip we
1:24:55
so I drove to so I drove to Omaha first, saw some kids and
1:25:01
then drove from Omaha to Carney to catch the state Nebraska, the
1:25:07
Nebraska state meet because I want to see my family too on the
1:25:09
way through. I'd do that.
1:25:10
I'd plans. I had a lot of Nebraska kids
1:25:12
there because I planned some trips that way.
1:25:13
But and then I went from Carney to a district in Kansas and and
1:25:19
caught a high school meet Kansas.
1:25:21
And then I went from there to Allen County and caught some
1:25:24
JUCO kids there, watched their last practice and then got a
1:25:28
migraine actually, and then drove back to Missouri Western.
1:25:33
Sorry, I went to Southeast Polk before I went back to Omaha.
1:25:38
So I went to Des Moines and caught a four and a hurdler
1:25:40
there and then went and then did the full circle.
1:25:42
It was like 1400, a hundred mile.
1:25:44
Dude. Something like that.
1:25:46
But that was my weekends and my weeks.
1:25:48
I was going to meet, so I was going to schools, I was having
1:25:51
group visits, so many kids on campus and B first was the
1:25:56
motto, selling the daylights out of that.
1:25:59
And, and it was nuts. And we had a tremendously
1:26:07
talented group. I, I signed Riley Gorham was one
1:26:12
of two people in the at the time 99 year history of Missouri to
1:26:16
win. I think it was like 12 state
1:26:19
championships. Oh wow.
1:26:21
And he is a small school kid, but he'd won everything we had
1:26:26
signed. What, what makes a kid talk
1:26:29
about that kid for a second? What makes a kid like that old,
1:26:31
you know, very successful, Whether a small school or big
1:26:33
school doesn't matter. You get notoriety for winning 12
1:26:36
titles, right? Things like that.
1:26:37
Why would a kid like that choose a new program over?
1:26:41
He had to have other interests from other programs, big or
1:26:43
small, doesn't matter. But you know, there's an unknown
1:26:46
with MO West right there, right? You've never had a program?
1:26:50
At least the other guys I know, they got something.
1:26:53
So this is gonna be an arrogant answer.
1:26:57
My energy was nuts that year. Yeah, that plays into it nuts.
1:27:02
And we sold like the B first thing and the teammates.
1:27:07
And as we started to get a couple others, I just did a
1:27:10
really good job of a like, hey, you're going to have these
1:27:12
teammates, you're going to have this, we're going to do this,
1:27:14
we're going to do that. It's going to be it's going to
1:27:15
be the first. And like when you have your kids
1:27:18
20 years from now, you're going to be able to come back here
1:27:21
with your head held high and go, hey, I started this thing, I did
1:27:24
this. And we just, I think I did a
1:27:29
really good job of that. I think that's important and,
1:27:32
and I get what you're saying how it can, it can sound arrogant.
1:27:34
You're a humble person. So I get why you would say you'd
1:27:37
precursor that, but I think that is important.
1:27:39
Like I, I wonder about these things when we talk about good
1:27:42
recruiters or you know, one ever says a bad recruiter, but you
1:27:45
know, there are people who are labeled good recruiters and
1:27:47
things like that. And we also see where, you know,
1:27:50
a program, whether they're successful or not when they get
1:27:53
new coaching Staffs a lot of times at least, you know, this
1:27:57
could be just anecdotal evidence, but you know, a
1:28:00
surgeons of new recruits and things come in and I do wonder
1:28:04
like it actually makes me think of like someone on the football
1:28:06
world, like Nick Saban, like, you know, he was at Alabama for
1:28:09
whatever it was 10/15/20 years. And it's like anyone won a lot.
1:28:13
And I'm always like, wow, like to have that, the energy you're
1:28:17
talking about, he had to have had that and imparted into a
1:28:20
staff every year to keep winning.
1:28:22
Like winning is hard, right? So to keep winning is, is
1:28:24
harder. And it's easy to like, think,
1:28:27
well, I built the machine. Now I don't have to, I don't
1:28:29
have to do 1400 mile round trips anymore because I built this
1:28:33
thing and it, you know, it attracts more people.
1:28:34
And I still got to work, but I don't have to maybe hustle, you
1:28:37
know. Yeah.
1:28:38
So it is interesting. Like when a new program that
1:28:41
you're describing here at MOS, it's like, OK, well, what did
1:28:43
you do differently? And I think, I think that's an
1:28:45
important lesson for someone who's at their 10th year at
1:28:47
their school right now going, you know what, maybe I need to,
1:28:51
maybe I need to do that every once when maybe I need to jump
1:28:53
back and act like I'm a new program and don't have anything
1:28:56
to sell. I don't know.
1:28:57
Easier said than done, but for sure 100% what you just said.
1:29:01
I and I was just, I, I was scrappy.
1:29:05
I was, I, I was everywhere. Like I signed the state champ,
1:29:10
5A state champion in the shot put with no shot put coach and
1:29:14
no facilities. And now he's the shop.
1:29:17
Now he's the throws coach in Missouri Western.
1:29:21
But you know, he's a local kid and I kept him there and you
1:29:23
know, we we the school, there was a school that closed down.
1:29:27
I got the their triple jumper jumper from there.
1:29:29
He actually was an all American very first year MO W was open
1:29:34
Phil and you know, his girlfriend came with him.
1:29:37
Now they're married, got a baby and that kid I was telling you
1:29:39
about Riley. He married a girl that I brought
1:29:42
on. They're living great now and and
1:29:45
together and it was just wild. But you know, I make it sound
1:29:51
like it was everything, but it was crazy rough because so March
1:30:00
rolls around and it's March. I think we go into Cody and I go
1:30:04
in Ingold, who's the director there now We walk into this
1:30:09
meeting and it's AAD and all the support people, the the
1:30:14
trainers, the Sid, the support people.
1:30:19
And he's like, hey, and, and at this point, I think we had like
1:30:23
60 maybe or something like that. It was, it was starting to get a
1:30:27
little out of hand and the president wanted to fill, fill
1:30:30
dorms. The AD, the AD wanted to, you
1:30:33
know, just keep going, keep going, keep going, OK.
1:30:37
And we're in this meeting and he's like, what are we going to
1:30:42
do to support Mark? This is what's going on.
1:30:44
This is about what's what's about to happen.
1:30:46
What are we going to do to support these these guys and
1:30:48
doing this. And everybody in the room just
1:30:51
looked out for themselves and they just wanted more people.
1:30:54
They wanted more people to be hired, more people to be hired.
1:30:58
That's all the only way we can handle it.
1:31:00
Kurt looks at them and goes, well, Kurt looks at them and
1:31:04
then looks at me and asks me and Cody to leave.
1:31:10
So we leave. I find out later that Kurt
1:31:13
basically looks at all of them and goes, listen this that's not
1:31:15
going to happen. You're going to find a way to
1:31:18
support him or you're going to find a new job.
1:31:22
And so that happens. So we keep going, we keep going,
1:31:25
keep going. Kurt takes a different job and
1:31:29
goes to Tennessee Martin. He wants to coach, he wants to
1:31:32
be D1AD. He's still there.
1:31:34
And I quickly find out he was the only person that wanted
1:31:38
track and field. No one else wanted it there.
1:31:42
So we get all the kids there and no one wants us anywhere.
1:31:47
It it was an uphill battle at every single turn.
1:31:50
Yeah. You're a nuisance.
1:31:51
Yep. Nuisance, And that is where I
1:31:54
first learned, truly learned how rough freshman year was for
1:32:01
kids. We had 87 and 70 of them were
1:32:06
freshmen and it was crazy and and it was hard and there was
1:32:16
great issues. There was behavior issues.
1:32:19
There was just the kids quit and it was it was not great.
1:32:26
And we hire a new AD. He has no clue Like the build up
1:32:33
and the energy and all the stuff that went into it in the amount
1:32:37
of time I put into it and how how dedicated I was to the
1:32:41
community. And because I was in, I was full
1:32:45
force in the community too. And the year comes to end, we we
1:32:53
go to indoor nationals, we get Phil gets all American unreal
1:32:56
first year crossword. OK, our women, our women were
1:32:59
top half in the region. Caitlin who was the 10K national
1:33:02
champion of JUCO does well, just almost qualifies and she was
1:33:09
third it in my AA's first year first year program.
1:33:13
Kip Javerin, who, you know, is fairly annoyed with me with
1:33:18
recruiting because I'm basically up on the recruiting trail.
1:33:22
And such an awesome friendship from that too.
1:33:27
By the way, Kip and I are still close.
1:33:29
It did love that guy. Just got to talk to him this
1:33:32
last weekend. Anyway, it's Victor too at
1:33:34
Lincoln. I like Victor and anyway, we go
1:33:41
to outdoor. I, my jumpscoach can't come.
1:33:45
I forget why. Why couldn't he be there?
1:33:48
Oh my goodness. Can't remember why I couldn't be
1:33:50
there and Phil's there. Phil's old, he's a fifth year
1:33:54
senior. I had a friend, La Ron, that was
1:33:57
coaching D2 at the time. He helped him and I worked it
1:34:00
out. He helped us get it done and our
1:34:03
SI DS there. I get back and I get pulled into
1:34:07
the office and here's Baber. You can resign or we'll fire
1:34:13
you. Dude.
1:34:15
And I'm like, what the heck? And I don't tell this story
1:34:19
ever. I just say new AD wanted his own
1:34:21
person to say and I go with that route.
1:34:25
But he he at the time, I, I don't believe it's true.
1:34:29
I don't really know what the story is.
1:34:31
No one ever told me but your your GPA is rough, your
1:34:34
behaviors are rough, and your retention rates rough.
1:34:38
Which is all in the breath before that different AD,
1:34:42
obviously, but still was, hey, go get a bunch of people no
1:34:45
matter what. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, right.
1:34:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and in all reality, GPA was
1:34:50
rough. Well, yeah.
1:34:51
No, Nope. I almost cussed.
1:34:53
No duh. With 70 freshmen who you think
1:34:56
it's going to be and retention rate, well, yeah, it looks rough
1:35:00
with 70 freshmen. Every program has the same
1:35:04
percentage of kids leaving. We were we were below the
1:35:07
percentage, the national average, but it looked worse
1:35:11
because all these freshmen and and then behavior.
1:35:15
Well, yeah, the freshmen. Yeah.
1:35:18
And you know, inside signed the resignation thing.
1:35:24
Looking back, I kind of wish I wouldn't have just to force him
1:35:26
to say, say what, say something because it wouldn't have been
1:35:31
true. And that it was crushing because
1:35:39
we had we had built a house. This was going to be lifelong.
1:35:43
This was going to be kind of my, I don't know if coaches say
1:35:49
these things, but kind of legacy type thing like this is where I
1:35:52
was going to grow up and be and do and kids were getting kids
1:35:54
were involved in the community and do this.
1:35:56
And my best friend is my assistant coach and in all of
1:36:00
that. Wow.
1:36:03
And, and it took a couple days for that to soak in and, and
1:36:07
what I fought it, I fought it tooth and nail.
1:36:10
I, I had one of the bigger donors that is sort of my
1:36:15
person. And he, he, you know, we tried,
1:36:22
but it just wasn't going to work.
1:36:24
And, and he ended up, long short story, he ended up pulling one
1:36:29
of his major donations to the to the athletic department.
1:36:34
Yeah. And, and so it, it, it was, it
1:36:36
was messy and stupid. And so now I had to figure out
1:36:39
my life. Yeah.
1:36:40
What am I? What am I going to do 'cause I
1:36:41
don't have teaching anymore? You have a lot of back to square
1:36:44
ones. Like I think about the injuries
1:36:46
that was back to square 1, you know, you know, and now here
1:36:51
again, you know, your own personal life, you'll get a
1:36:54
divorce. That's back to square 1.
1:36:56
What do you do? You know again, challenge
1:36:59
fighter, What do you do again? I would be like no judgement if
1:37:04
you're like, you know what, Mike?
1:37:05
And then I was like F coaching. I'm just going to go.
1:37:08
I know teaching has its own issues, but at least I'll go do
1:37:10
that. At least I can play around with
1:37:11
the pottery or something. I don't know.
1:37:14
But you don't. A spoiler alert, you don't.
1:37:16
Yeah. And I don't know.
1:37:19
So I start applying because it just I needed to.
1:37:21
I needed a job. Yeah, right.
1:37:24
I needed I had two kids and, you know, my wife's teaching and we
1:37:27
get this house and figure out what I'm going to do and how I'm
1:37:31
going to do it and and just start applying.
1:37:34
And that was a blur. And I thought I'd build up
1:37:39
enough stuff to kind of get some things rolling and it didn't
1:37:43
really didn't really grow into anything.
1:37:48
And then Emmett, you know, is, is not a western.
1:37:52
They I applied for the head job and I don't get that.
1:37:56
And I applied for the assistant job.
1:37:59
Doug Marshall gets the head job and I applied for the assistant
1:38:03
job is back home. And it's not it's like a
1:38:07
ginormous pay cut. And he wasn't, he wasn't going
1:38:11
to hire me right away. There was some skepticism there,
1:38:14
I guess. And but then he he did and thank
1:38:17
God and start Iowa Western. And I'll be honest, I, I wasn't
1:38:21
here that first that first year, I, I wasn't super present.
1:38:26
I was still really very much crushed.
1:38:29
And wife is not here and kids are not here because she got to
1:38:32
finish out a contract there. We got to get house sold.
1:38:34
I'm living in the dorms again. And, and yeah.
1:38:40
And then we, we get back here and we're not living in CB.
1:38:43
We got a rental that we, that we've got in Omaha and then we
1:38:48
finally get a house and it's kind of, you know, there's no
1:38:52
program. We have 4 distance guys and one
1:38:55
girl start, you know like I said start over again and just go
1:39:02
back at it again and and grow it again and and get it rolling
1:39:06
again and. Do you have the same to you
1:39:11
like? Not right off the bat.
1:39:13
Yeah. Not right off the bat.
1:39:14
I was the the middle W thing really, and it's still way
1:39:19
better place than I was, but I it still angers me off and on.
1:39:22
I visit now, which I didn't there for a long time, but it
1:39:26
and I'll come back to that. But no, but you know, I needed
1:39:30
to recruit and I needed a team. And so I started having group
1:39:35
visits again and got some kids in here and got some energy
1:39:38
going again and just trying to build some stuff.
1:39:41
I knew I didn't really know much about JUCO except I had had JUCO
1:39:44
kids from Iowa Central. I had recruited a lot from Iowa
1:39:48
Central and had some JUCO kids there and some others from that
1:39:52
that region, our region and it. Yeah, I just built it and
1:40:00
through that understood something I didn't know.
1:40:03
Which is comes back to the, you know, we'll go into the
1:40:07
recruiting part later. But like I used to think that
1:40:12
kind of full, full circle with the freshman thing at MOS.
1:40:15
I used to think that the kids that I had from junior college
1:40:19
from D were successful because D and I had a same type of
1:40:25
coaching background like training and stuff.
1:40:29
And now I don't believe that as much.
1:40:31
It was freshman year is hard and it's chaotic.
1:40:39
It's tough. It's story after story of ups
1:40:44
and downs and and difficulties. And that's why the transport
1:40:49
transport is a whole another conversation.
1:40:50
But why the transporter was so crazy?
1:40:53
And but somewhere in that like halfway through sophomore year
1:40:59
ish, this maturity takes place and they get to graduate and
1:41:06
leave that chaos and that background in that environment
1:41:11
and that that the stuff that happened behind and go to that
1:41:17
next school with this new sense of energy.
1:41:21
But a new outlook, a new maturity, a new set of ears that
1:41:27
are actually going to listen with real, real thought.
1:41:35
And, and they just take off. And, and that is now looking
1:41:42
back at all the, the, the IC kids that ran for me is, is the
1:41:45
background. And I see it now with my kids
1:41:48
where kids go into all these different programs and they're
1:41:51
being so successful. And, and that is, it's why, it's
1:41:56
why junior college is so awesome.
1:41:59
Yeah, it's why the transfer portal is a mess.
1:42:03
It's, it's why grad transfers and these these older kids going
1:42:08
to these programs are doing so well.
1:42:11
I wish I could figure out a way to bottle it and say it the
1:42:14
right way, but yeah. And, and so I got off topic, but
1:42:18
so then I just grew at IO Western and and try to find my
1:42:23
way again And and and then Doug took a job at at North Texas and
1:42:28
and I got the director job. You know, it's funny, we I
1:42:33
invited Doug onto the podcast to talk about Iowa Western and
1:42:37
literally in between when he said, yeah, let's do it.
1:42:41
And then, you know, we had it scheduled.
1:42:42
He took the job at North Texas. So literally got to, I was his
1:42:46
first interview as the North Texas head coach and he hadn't
1:42:49
been there for like, you know, a day.
1:42:51
So just interesting to have a Doug on and seeing that.
1:42:53
So we learned a lot about Iowa Western through Doug because he
1:42:56
didn't know anything about nortexis except for that he was
1:42:58
the new head coach. Yeah.
1:42:59
So how how do you like when you're describing that MO W
1:43:05
experience of like, all right, you know, 1400 miles we got, we
1:43:08
got nobody. So it's going to be, you know,
1:43:10
99% freshman that that's like when you're saying that I was
1:43:13
like, Oh my God. Well, I mean, that gave you the
1:43:15
best practice you can have for junior college, regardless if
1:43:17
it's an established program or not.
1:43:19
Because one of the things that I am like I, I just tell people
1:43:23
like, like, like I'm so enamored with junior college coaches.
1:43:26
It's the toughest job in the world.
1:43:27
And, and the reason I say that is, you know, as a high school
1:43:30
coach to get your kids recruited to college, that's hard, right?
1:43:34
You got to make connections and network.
1:43:36
You got to advise the kid and their family in proper wage.
1:43:39
You got to drop your ego and say, you know what?
1:43:41
It's not? I'm not choosing the school.
1:43:42
So whether they pick power 4 or junior college, it's what's best
1:43:46
for the kid. That's super, super hard.
1:43:48
When you're a four year school and you're recruiting athletes
1:43:52
to your program. That's super hard.
1:43:53
You got to convince that these kids have a lot of choices out
1:43:56
there and you got to convince them that you and this school is
1:43:59
the right place. That's so hard.
1:44:01
You're doing both as a junior college coach, both of those
1:44:04
jobs all day every day, every year.
1:44:06
You are constantly trying to get freshmen onto your team from
1:44:10
high school and other places. And at the same time you're
1:44:13
trying to find homes for your sophomores to go to continue on.
1:44:18
No one has that. You've got the hardest part of
1:44:20
both jobs every day. Oh, and by the way, you're still
1:44:23
coaching. You're still trying to actually
1:44:25
help them get better on the track and on the the cross
1:44:28
country course. So do you think so as you were
1:44:30
telling that MO MO West story, I was like, Oh my God.
1:44:34
Well, that's I mean what I mean, I would have probably hired you
1:44:37
just for that. Like, well, you already did the
1:44:38
job. You just did it at a four year
1:44:39
school. Now just do it at a two year
1:44:41
school. Did did you learn things?
1:44:43
Were there things, were there some things at Iowa Western that
1:44:47
were I'm going to say easier meaning OK, I've I've had some
1:44:50
practice at this of recruiting a bunch of freshmen because of
1:44:54
those that experience at MO West and maybe other places.
1:44:56
Or was it still because junior college is different?
1:44:58
Was it still kind of starting from scratch learning that
1:45:00
system? I mean, at that point I had mass
1:45:07
recruited basically everywhere I'd been, right.
1:45:11
Like even with you and O because we were rebuilding the program.
1:45:15
It was, but it was only girls being a guys, you know, it was
1:45:17
only girls. It was still a little bit of
1:45:21
mass recruiting at the beginning because no one really, it had
1:45:25
not really been a program that was known really.
1:45:29
And Dan was NAIA and MOS were starting and, and it is, it's,
1:45:36
it's almost mass recruiting to a sense here.
1:45:38
I mean, it is here because you got to find the kids that want
1:45:40
to go to junior college. And so at the beginning, yeah,
1:45:49
'cause like I took a lot of the group visits and the in person
1:45:53
visits that I made at MO WI felt like that's really got to be the
1:45:57
way you go to really make things work because you got to build,
1:46:02
especially on the distance side, you got to build the family part
1:46:05
and it that experience parts big I think.
1:46:09
And that's why something right now I don't do enough of it is
1:46:11
too much going on. Like you said, trying to coach
1:46:14
still too. I need to get out to the
1:46:17
schools. I the school visits.
1:46:19
I think we're very important when I was at my WI, just don't
1:46:24
I I finding the time for now. It's tough, but I don't know if
1:46:29
that answered that question. So how have you, you know, Doug
1:46:34
was there and you guys continue to improve the, the program.
1:46:39
How have you what, what are some of the like someone's right now
1:46:42
is listening in their in their first, second, third year of
1:46:45
coaching and they say, oh man, look what Iowa Western has done.
1:46:48
You guys have done a good job. What, what's been the secret
1:46:50
side? What have you done?
1:46:51
I mean, cuz let's think about you have a lot against you from
1:46:54
the outside looking in one year, junior college, it's automatic,
1:46:56
you know, air quotes. No one wants to go to junior
1:46:59
college, right? Two, you're in Iowa, not a
1:47:02
populous state. You know, you're butted up
1:47:04
against Nebraska, another non populous state.
1:47:07
You're in western Iowa. You're not even like in the Des
1:47:09
Moines area for crying out loud. You're way out there.
1:47:12
So you got a lot going against you.
1:47:14
So what have you done? How have you?
1:47:16
What's the magic sauce that you're doing Mark, because you
1:47:18
guys are successful. How are you attracting good kids
1:47:21
and really athletic kids to your program?
1:47:24
Well, I mean, our, our, I feel like I say it so much, but like,
1:47:29
our campus is just different. The way we do things here is
1:47:33
different. We're not in the middle of
1:47:35
nowhere either. Like Constable us in Omaha metro
1:47:38
area, we're 25 minutes away from just about anything that you
1:47:41
would want or need, you know, minus your, your, you know,
1:47:45
local things. But we, we function as an
1:47:51
athletic department at such a high level.
1:47:55
I, I mean, this year alone, football got second.
1:47:58
They were in their fourth final. Women's soccer was in the final
1:48:01
four. And they, if they would have won
1:48:03
that have been three straight titles.
1:48:06
Men's soccer won. Our cross team was second.
1:48:09
We won the national half marathon championship.
1:48:13
We had a national champion with Barnabas winning the half
1:48:16
marathon, breaking the national record.
1:48:18
That's just the fall and and and I'm missing something probably,
1:48:24
you know, dance. Just one last night cheer.
1:48:27
Won a World University title. What?
1:48:29
One of them? I don't even know the difference
1:48:31
between the two. There's so many different group
1:48:32
things they do. But they won again, I'm sure.
1:48:38
A bowling one. Yeah.
1:48:39
Bowling one on the men's side. We won indoor on the women's
1:48:44
side, got third on the men's side.
1:48:47
Shotgun Sports 1 that's just the winner now we saw spring and and
1:48:55
it's just and when we got here, volleyball won a back-to-back
1:48:58
title. Doug, you know, took the track
1:49:01
program to back-to-back indoors and won an outdoor women's
1:49:04
soccer or men's soccer won another one in there.
1:49:07
You know, football, it's we do things different in a, in a, in
1:49:14
that aspect, we really are AD and our president loves the, our
1:49:21
president loves sports. He wants to win the director of
1:49:23
Natica Cup like that's he wants to win it and he recognizes, and
1:49:27
this is very rare by the way, he recognizes track and field in
1:49:30
cross country as six sports. Yeah.
1:49:32
Oh wow. Yeah, which is rare, but it's
1:49:35
easy to recognize because we're six scoring sports for the
1:49:38
Natica and the Directors Cup stuff because they score 5 on
1:49:42
each side. And and so so that part's
1:49:44
important. But and then you look at just
1:49:47
what is put into this campus, you know, baseball field and
1:49:50
softball field are redone. They're artificial turf.
1:49:53
They just put in a soccer football complex.
1:49:55
It's artificial, just huge area. They put a this when Doug was
1:50:00
here, they were finishing up the Wellness Center, which is A2
1:50:03
tier Recreation Center with it's got it's a 2 tier athletic
1:50:08
weight room, equipment, treadmills, all that.
1:50:10
There's six hard courts and there's a 70 yard indoor
1:50:13
football field in there. Dude.
1:50:16
And then you got the suite, you got three different styles,
1:50:18
dorms, you got a really nice cafeteria area.
1:50:20
Like it's when I, when I was growing up in the area, there's
1:50:24
55 buildings on this campus in the late 90s, late 90s.
1:50:27
And now there's probably 20, some buildings, 2425 buildings
1:50:31
on here. So they're not very old either.
1:50:34
I got this right. You are a community.
1:50:36
You're a junior college, right? Yeah.
1:50:37
This does not sound like a two year school.
1:50:40
We have. We have.
1:50:41
Better Yep, we have better facilities than a lot of
1:50:44
three-year campuses. The the football locker rooms
1:50:48
are D1 locker rooms. Those the soccer locker rooms
1:50:51
are right next to my office. They got the the wood, you know,
1:50:54
oak frame stuff and and it's you know, and the tracks next our
1:51:00
track needs to be redone. It is older and NRAD recognizes
1:51:03
that and, and there's talk of it was talk of this summer and
1:51:07
we're going to move it to next summer that we're going to redo
1:51:09
the outdoor track and it's going to be blue and black.
1:51:11
It's going to be so sweet. But now there's actually talk of
1:51:15
building going to the same space and putting a Dome and putting a
1:51:18
bubble over it, doing 300m indoor instead.
1:51:22
You know, we won't have an outdoor track, but they'll be
1:51:24
more growth and more things that we can do with that indoor track
1:51:28
financially and and having meats and doing different things like
1:51:31
that. And and if built right, maybe
1:51:34
host I they host national wrestling here at the mid
1:51:38
America center and it's and that's just it's we're I'm lucky
1:51:46
in black. I don't, I'm not going to sit
1:51:49
here and and say I live the same JUCO lifestyle.
1:51:53
Some other people we're we're very lucky, very blessed to what
1:51:58
we have and where we're at. And I'm 3 1/2 miles away from a
1:52:01
crushed limestone trail that goes 80 miles as well.
1:52:05
And we got a cross course on campus and we, you know, we, we
1:52:11
go to all the different meats too.
1:52:12
I mean, we're going to Nebraska, we're going to Iowa, we're going
1:52:15
to Iowa State, we're going to northwest Missouri, we're going
1:52:17
to Washburn, South Dakota State. You know, we're, we're flying
1:52:21
out to California tomorrow with some kids to Brian Clay.
1:52:24
Now that's a special thing. We don't do that all the time
1:52:27
and whatnot. But Texas Relays, we were down
1:52:30
there for a couple years in a row.
1:52:32
We traveled too and our administration supports it.
1:52:35
That's cool and stuff, so. So how many years now what?
1:52:38
What season is this for you at Iowa Western?
1:52:40
I've been here 7 this is my third as the director.
1:52:43
So 7 years, you know, things change regardless.
1:52:48
You know, obviously athletes change and you know, maybe
1:52:52
athletic trainers, you know, change is constant.
1:52:54
It's the only constant really that's out there.
1:52:55
But here recently things have really changed, although I
1:53:00
should say it, we think things have changed.
1:53:02
Very little actually comes down as like actual guidance and
1:53:05
rules right now. You know, the last we heard with
1:53:07
junior colleges that now maybe kids one or two years at junior
1:53:13
college isn't going to count against their NCAA.
1:53:16
NIL has made its way into sports, things like that,
1:53:18
recruiting, Power 4, etcetera. You certainly have plenty of
1:53:23
Power, 4 kids as well as other divisions.
1:53:25
What have you seen change? What are you, How are you
1:53:28
adapting to this? You know there's a lot going on.
1:53:31
How are you continuing to be on the cutting edge that your your
1:53:34
program stays successful and your athletes move on to other
1:53:38
places where they can be successful?
1:53:41
A lot of changes, you know, some some similar things and some
1:53:44
changes like the international piece for me has grown.
1:53:49
I, I didn't recruit international kids before I came
1:53:51
here, you know, so that piece has been completely different
1:53:54
and, and really in track and field almost to be successful in
1:53:59
the high level, you got to have, you got to have a piece of, you
1:54:03
know, piece of the international some somewhere in that
1:54:05
international piece that's definitely changed and grown.
1:54:11
COVID kind of shut it down maybe a little bit there and then the
1:54:15
floodgates open completely after as it as it's opened up after
1:54:19
that. But the transfer portal thing
1:54:23
is, is wild. The NLI thing is that's my
1:54:32
soapbox on that. I guess I, you know, it it, you
1:54:35
know, everybody yelled and complained.
1:54:38
Oh, kids need to be paid. Kids need to be paid.
1:54:40
Kids need to be paid. They were, they're getting free
1:54:45
education, free food, cutting out cutting edge, all this stuff
1:54:52
and all they still need to pay. They need to pay now.
1:54:54
They're getting paid now. Look at the chaos.
1:54:58
It comes with that. But the other day I just read
1:55:00
the Tennessee kid wanted more money, so he's just going to
1:55:03
show up to practice. Like what are we doing?
1:55:07
It seems wild to me. But is that is nil affecting you
1:55:11
on the on the gene college, I think it probably and maybe the
1:55:14
recruiting side of it maybe. Yeah, probably the recruiting
1:55:16
side, you know, people look at it and like, hey, I, you know,
1:55:19
I, you know, because I don't think anybody as wild as it
1:55:23
sounds, but not because kids, you know, hey, I run 24 seconds,
1:55:28
200. I want to go to the Olympics.
1:55:30
You know those things happen, right?
1:55:32
Well, it's the same thing, Like, hey, I want to get paid.
1:55:35
Are you paying NI money? I'm not doing what these schools
1:55:40
are doing. But like, you're not going to
1:55:42
get that from there either, right?
1:55:44
You know, And then you take that into this Vanderbilt thing,
1:55:48
which is crazy. It's crazy.
1:55:51
How did this even happen? And maybe I don't know the full
1:55:54
story, but like, I went to junior college and got better
1:55:57
like I was supposed to and got on at Vanderbilt because I got
1:56:01
better at junior college and now I can make money.
1:56:04
So I need my years back. I didn't know.
1:56:08
I mean, that's the little gist of it that I understand it.
1:56:10
Doesn't it doesn't make sense to you?
1:56:12
This is not a debate, this is just a conversation.
1:56:15
So when I heard that, you know, I'm former junior college coach
1:56:18
here by the way, and former SEC coach.
1:56:19
So I'm looking at all this and I'm like, oh, you know, they are
1:56:23
two different organizations. So, and I don't know that I'm
1:56:27
pro or again, pro or positive towards it, but it did like, you
1:56:32
know, I'm a curious person. I like to ask all the questions
1:56:34
and think about solutions and stuff.
1:56:35
And it's like, well, they are two different organizations.
1:56:37
Why does it count? I don't know, maybe, maybe maybe
1:56:40
he's right. And, and who care?
1:56:42
Are you concerned? Because I, here's an argument I
1:56:44
hear. Oh, we're going to have 27 year
1:56:47
old football players and track and all that kind of stuff.
1:56:50
And I'm like, well, we have that now.
1:56:52
So what, what, what does that matter?
1:56:54
Because because you know, you talk about being, you know, this
1:56:57
all kind of interplays, right? You talk about international
1:57:00
recruiting and you know, there are plenty of people that will
1:57:02
say, Mark, how dare you have. And I don't know if this is true
1:57:05
or not. So I'm not, I don't pay
1:57:07
attention how people, how old people are that win these
1:57:09
championships and stuff like that.
1:57:10
Because again, it for the main reason of it's not against the
1:57:13
rules. So what do I care?
1:57:14
As long as you're not breaking the rule, I don't care.
1:57:16
So right now the rule is you can't have a 29 year old
1:57:19
international kid who comes into freshman year.
1:57:22
I mean, it doesn't matter junior college or four year and win the
1:57:25
national title. But you know, Mark, you know
1:57:27
this, there are people that wag their fingers and say I just
1:57:30
it's ruining sports, right? Same people, not the same
1:57:33
people. There are also people who wag
1:57:34
their fingers and say Nils ruining sports.
1:57:37
There's people say the transfer portal wagging their finger.
1:57:39
Everybody's got their own little which ones they are wagging
1:57:42
fingers and stuff like that. I'm cool with it all because I
1:57:45
don't think it matters, you know, saying like is again, as
1:57:48
long as the rules are say that I can go international and have a
1:57:52
27 year old or if they change the rule and say, hey, I can go
1:57:55
to junior college and that doesn't count against, I still
1:57:57
get four years or five years in the four year, then cool, then
1:58:01
figure it out. Your coaches, you have figured
1:58:04
out all this crazy stuff throughout your entire career.
1:58:07
This is just the next quote UN quote crazy stuff.
1:58:11
Yeah, I don't. First off, it benefits me if
1:58:17
they do all that. That that's true, right?
1:58:19
Which is which is great, but like I don't understand how it
1:58:23
got here because that kid knows. He can say he didn't know, but
1:58:30
he knew someone knew, and someone told him.
1:58:33
Sure, sure, sure. Sure.
1:58:34
And so and that's how it's functioned forever.
1:58:39
Four years is 4 years and now we've got all this like, hey,
1:58:43
maybe four years shouldn't be 4 years thing and fine, if that's
1:58:47
what they're going to do, that's what they're going to do.
1:58:49
We'll figure it out. You're right.
1:58:50
Like, we'll figure it out, but a lot of people don't know.
1:58:53
They don't understand. Like you don't have any kids
1:58:56
I've talked to. They're like, hey, like, you
1:58:58
know, so I, I'm going to go there and I'm gonna have four
1:58:59
years left or, you know, because.
1:59:01
It's all. It's not, it's not.
1:59:04
Nothing's changed right now. My.
1:59:06
Understanding. My understanding is if you are
1:59:08
exactly like the Vanderbilt kid, exactly like that, then you're
1:59:15
getting another year. You're a senior that went to an
1:59:18
NAI school or JUCO. You you get another year if
1:59:22
you're a junior, No, for now, if you're a senior.
1:59:26
Well, how do they, if they're letting it for seniors, how do?
1:59:29
They not because it's the exact, because you're the exact same
1:59:32
situation as this kid and they haven't figured anything else
1:59:36
yet because I don't think any, I don't think all this.
1:59:38
I think there's still appeals and all the other stuff going
1:59:41
on. I, I, I again, only the little
1:59:43
bit of understanding I know about it is, is that piece.
1:59:49
And so, but no one knows that and no one under it seems like
1:59:53
because I'll talk to kids and they just think this think that
1:59:55
thing. And I'm like, Hey, if someone's
1:59:57
recruiting you telling you that, they're lying.
2:00:00
Oh yeah, you got to deal with that.
2:00:01
Sure. That's not what it is, and I
2:00:06
think that's going on too. Yeah.
2:00:08
And it just, you know, and then to to the age thing, I'll go
2:00:14
back to my story about Greg at West Side It up until then, I
2:00:21
would have been hardcore staunch against all of international
2:00:25
stuff and all of the age stuff and everything like that.
2:00:28
I would have been because the way I was brought up, but being
2:00:33
around Grang and understanding his background and what he went
2:00:37
through and how important it was for him to be in America and be
2:00:40
alive had had opened my eyes to it.
2:00:45
And as I've grown and had different kids and you know, and
2:00:50
seen and been around them and learn from them and understand
2:00:54
what they've been through and why they're older.
2:00:56
And now here I have a different feel on it.
2:01:00
But now I will say, yeah, it's like I just had this dilemma
2:01:04
with with couple friends. Like we have a kid that we're
2:01:08
recruiting and he's older and and I'm just like, God, is this
2:01:13
the right thing? But you do kind of go into go,
2:01:18
hey, everybody else is doing it. If I don't do it, I know where
2:01:23
he's going and I'm going to have to run against him and.
2:01:28
Yeah, right. The fact of the matter is, take
2:01:33
Noe, the Arkansas girl. She's an Iowa kid, right?
2:01:38
You know who I'm talking about. I think so.
2:01:40
Peyton, and he's Peyton. Is she freshman?
2:01:43
She may be a sophomore now is. She the girl that won Like the
2:01:46
3000 SEC. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
2:01:48
Yeah, yeah. Came out of nowhere or something
2:01:50
like that. Yeah, yeah.
2:01:51
Yeah, yeah. I could start talking to her
2:01:55
when she in her family when she was in 8th grade, I could go to
2:02:00
every meet. I could go to family functions.
2:02:03
I could do that for four years straight from 8th grade to
2:02:08
junior year, just to pray that she comes and visits my campus
2:02:14
and she's not visiting, she's not coming here.
2:02:19
But I could get on Instagram, I could find a girl from a
2:02:23
different. I did actually.
2:02:24
We'll just tell the story. I'm Morocco, Moroccan girl from
2:02:29
the world list, talk to her for 10 minutes on Instagram and then
2:02:32
sign her and she runs the same exact time as Peyton did in high
2:02:38
school. I would love to have all these
2:02:44
athletes from America that are 18 all over Iowa and I'll
2:02:49
continue to recruit them. I would love it, but the fact
2:02:54
is, and I think this is the same thing with probably some of the
2:02:58
universities is that multiple things.
2:03:01
First off, I'm they're not coming here 99 out of 10 times.
2:03:06
Second, you have no clue how they're going to deal with
2:03:08
freshman year. None, none.
2:03:12
You don't know if they're going to sleep right.
2:03:14
You don't know if they're going to eat right.
2:03:16
You know, you don't know. Everybody wants to blame the
2:03:18
coach for injuries, but if you're not eating and sleeping,
2:03:25
no matter what the coach is doing you, you may get hurt.
2:03:29
Anyone in in in the stress of freshman year and then are they
2:03:35
going to pass classes? Are they going to go to class
2:03:39
versus, we'll go to this, the international kid.
2:03:43
My kids from Africa have some of the best Gpas on my team.
2:03:50
Why? Why ask the question?
2:03:52
Why? Because they care, they, they
2:03:56
were given this opportunity that's going to change their
2:03:59
family, change their village, change their way of life and
2:04:04
they care about it. And so they can't screw it up
2:04:08
because they're not just screwing it up for themselves.
2:04:10
They're screwing it up from their family in their village.
2:04:14
And so there's perspectives that all the people that are angry
2:04:19
and annoyed with that, I get that they don't fully
2:04:24
understand. But then like, you get to the
2:04:25
age thing and this professional stuff is kind of a little out of
2:04:28
hand. And I'm in that boat too.
2:04:33
But you know, that part of it's getting a little questionable.
2:04:37
I would say, you know, we're bringing some professional
2:04:39
runners over, probably already been paid.
2:04:43
But then again, you know, some of these kids are getting paid
2:04:45
in college more than they're going to be professionally to
2:04:48
run too. Yeah, I, I just the kind of, I
2:04:52
have a kind of the contrarian view to a lot of the these
2:04:55
things is, again, as long as it's within the rules, then you
2:05:00
make your choices there. There are programs out there
2:05:02
that do not recruit any sprinters.
2:05:04
They're going to be a distance only program.
2:05:06
Am I supposed to wag my finger and say, how dare you not have a
2:05:09
full track team? You, you how dare you exclude
2:05:11
sprinters or does that coach get to to look at other schools and
2:05:15
go, Oh my God, you're recruiting sprinters?
2:05:17
I'm I'm a distance only program. How dare you.
2:05:19
I can't compete against that. It's like, well, that's your
2:05:21
choice or your school should be. Sport, right?
2:05:23
Like sport is. You can do that.
2:05:25
I'm going to do throwers and distance sprints.
2:05:28
Or how many distance programs? So if you're someone who, you
2:05:32
know, whatever the term is, you know I'm only going to recruit
2:05:34
Americans. Cool.
2:05:37
That is your choice. Bravo, I hope you're I'm rooting
2:05:39
for you, coach. If you're a coach that says,
2:05:41
hey, well, it's within the rules, I can go.
2:05:43
I got the whole world to recruit here.
2:05:45
I'm going to do that. Bravo, I hope you're successful,
2:05:48
coach. I mean it.
2:05:48
Just again, as long as you're not breaking the rules, have at
2:05:53
it. You know what?
2:05:54
You know what's fun? I can take all of them and you
2:05:57
get 2 years to get better and then you can go to those
2:05:59
schools. That's right.
2:06:01
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
2:06:02
I mean, it is did kind of I, I got off on what you were talking
2:06:06
about by saying that, but it's true.
2:06:09
Like you have all this woe is me on Twitter and and social media
2:06:15
about the high school senior not getting recruited.
2:06:19
And they're not wrong. They're not wrong.
2:06:21
You you can't fool yourself. It's it's grad transfers and
2:06:24
internationals or transfer portal and internationals.
2:06:28
And then it's the high school senior that that is what it is.
2:06:33
And but like, you have all this woes me stuff, but you don't
2:06:39
have to have that. You just got to pick a different
2:06:42
option. You just got to think outside
2:06:44
the box. Yeah, how am I going to get
2:06:47
there in a different way? You know, Do you come to junior
2:06:51
college? Do you go to an extremely
2:06:53
successful D2 program? You know, you know, there are
2:06:58
some with track specifically. There's so many ways to be
2:07:04
successful. You don't have to go to SCC to
2:07:07
do that. That's right.
2:07:08
You know, we're going to Brian Clay, right?
2:07:11
Where'd he go to school, right? Like he's NAIA.
2:07:15
He was at my NAIA national meet in Canada when he won the multi.
2:07:19
Is that right? Oh, that's.
2:07:19
Good. Yeah.
2:07:21
Yeah. Nick Simmons, D3.
2:07:24
You're talking two of the best male athletes in US track and
2:07:27
field history. They can go D1, right?
2:07:31
They didn't go SEC, they didn't do any of that.
2:07:32
And so like, but the, the the same, you know, I try not to
2:07:38
piss anybody off by saying what I want to say.
2:07:40
But like these same people that are woe as me are also the same
2:07:44
people that are not allowing their mind to open up to
2:07:48
anything else. It's got to be D1.
2:07:51
And if it's not D1, I'm just not even going to do it.
2:07:54
Yeah. Yeah, we could we could have a
2:07:57
long discussion on, you know, a lot of coaches will again, that
2:08:01
wagging your finger at kids at the D1 or bust mentality.
2:08:04
And then, you know, and you know, there's no bigger fan of
2:08:06
coaches than track coaches and this guy right here.
2:08:08
So it's hard sometimes to say this, but there's plenty of
2:08:11
coaches out there who have AD one or bust mentality with their
2:08:15
kid that are crying about, well, how come the D ones aren't
2:08:17
recruiting my kids? And it's like, well, who cares?
2:08:19
To your point, tons of great junior colleges, tons of great
2:08:21
D2. Go go look at the Olympics last
2:08:24
year. Plenty of kids from D2D3, NAIA,
2:08:27
junior college, not just D1 and not just Power 4.
2:08:31
So. The record that was broken at D
2:08:36
at JUCO Nationals Veronica Campbell Brown Her record was
2:08:41
broken Veronica Campbell Brown One of the best ever do it JUCO.
2:08:48
Lord, Lord, I know that was my conference in my time for it.
2:08:52
Yeah. It's.
2:08:52
Just it's it's wild and and you know, and then you got the other
2:08:56
thing, like, Oh, well, it's D1, it's D2, it's D3, it's NAI and
2:09:00
the Juco's at the bottom. I remember having this
2:09:03
conversation with the low with the Omaha coach about a jumper.
2:09:07
He's Oh my, my kid jumps 22/22/10.
2:09:11
He needs he needs a scholarship. He needs a big scholarship to
2:09:13
come to come to I Western. I was like, listen, man, like
2:09:16
we're friends and and I and I hear what you're saying, but
2:09:19
like, you don't. I don't think you understand.
2:09:24
And so I was like, do you have your laptop in front of you?
2:09:27
He's like, yeah. So like put in T first.
2:09:30
He had no clue what T first is. Puts it in I so put it in and go
2:09:33
long and go to the long jump. You could hear his mind.
2:09:40
Whoa through the phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is crazy
2:09:45
in today's world. I mean, I can find any results
2:09:47
at all time anywhere. Like yeah, Mark, you know what's
2:09:51
interesting is in our pre interview, one of the things I
2:09:56
do is kind of behind the curtains for you guys and guys
2:09:58
that are listening. We always talk.
2:09:59
We have the schedule, we have it on our calendars.
2:10:01
But I always, I just do a kind of a check in like, hey, are we
2:10:05
still good until, you know, noon our time And you're like, oh
2:10:08
man, 2 hours, Mike. And I was like, you know, for a
2:10:10
little bit I was like, Mark, it's been on your calendar, bro.
2:10:12
Yeah, two hours. And you know, I can see the
2:10:14
little bit of like, I don't know, 2, I don't know that I'm
2:10:16
good. You know, I got to, we are well
2:10:19
over our two hour mark. And I could continue having this
2:10:24
conversation because for many reasons, 1, you know, junior
2:10:26
college air quotes here, being on the bottom of all these other
2:10:31
divisions is right in the thick of all of these changes.
2:10:35
That change is happening. And we could continue this
2:10:37
conversation in many, many ways, not only the importance of
2:10:40
junior college, but maybe the continued more importance of
2:10:44
junior college as it relates to college athletic.
2:10:47
So it's just funny to me that, you know, you were like 2 hours
2:10:49
and I'm like, we, we over, man, I got another one coming up.
2:10:51
I got to get one. We got to go.
2:10:53
So we are going to wrap this up. But Mark one, thank you.
2:10:57
You know, the most valuable thing you can ever give me is
2:10:59
your time. And I'm really grateful, you
2:11:00
know, you're getting ready to fly out.
2:11:01
You're in the middle of the track season.
2:11:03
Sometimes I'll have somebody, you know, apologize to me about
2:11:06
doing something, you know, not being able to do something for
2:11:08
me. And I'm like, dude, you ain't
2:11:09
got to apologize. It's track season, bro.
2:11:10
I get, trust me, no one gets it more than I am.
2:11:13
I'm dealing with all of y'all at one time here.
2:11:15
So, so just completely grateful for your time too.
2:11:19
Let's continue this conversation.
2:11:20
You know, we just started a few weeks ago the Guild 1918
2:11:23
project, kind of the, the Ted talks of track and field
2:11:26
podcast, if you will. And I think there's a lot of
2:11:28
great topics that you and, and many of your, you know, peers,
2:11:31
Dee and, and other people. I, I think you know what a great
2:11:35
way to the story to end there when you talked about your
2:11:37
friend in Omaha. How do we continue, even though
2:11:41
I can Google it and teefers it right now?
2:11:43
How do we continue that message of like, hey man, I know you
2:11:46
think junior college is down here because it's two years or
2:11:49
whatever, but performance wise, dude, go look at 8th place at
2:11:54
nationals in the long jump. I guarantee it doesn't start
2:11:56
with a 22. Maybe the maybe the women's
2:11:59
starts with a 20. 2. But the men starting with a 22,
2:12:02
trust me, trust me. So let's continue those type of
2:12:05
conversations on the Guild 1918 projects.
2:12:07
I think those are extremely valuable to others out there.
2:12:10
And, and for you, Mark, you said something earlier, I can't
2:12:15
remember where in your history, I want to say it was around U&O
2:12:19
and MO West and stuff. You said something about, you
2:12:22
know, not having a great self-confidence.
2:12:26
And what you're describing, there's something we've talked
2:12:27
about in the past here in the podcast is a little bit of
2:12:29
imposter syndrome. We, we, we all get it that we,
2:12:32
we can either fool ourselves and tell us that, tell ourselves
2:12:34
that we don't know. I've never had imposter syndrome
2:12:36
or we can be open and honest with ourselves.
2:12:39
You know, we can have imposter syndrome around being a dad,
2:12:41
being a, a spouse, being an athlete, being a coach.
2:12:45
There's sometimes you think, like, man, am I really, I mean,
2:12:47
gosh, sometimes I, I pinch myself.
2:12:49
Mark, honestly, I was sitting in this chair as a, as a host of
2:12:52
this show and I'm like, wow, am I like, like I have a pretty
2:12:56
important job here in the sense of like, there's going to be
2:12:59
something 20 years from now that's going to be able to hear
2:13:01
your story because of this podcast.
2:13:02
And that's important to me. Like I think about that legacy
2:13:05
you mentioned that word earlier about like others hearing you
2:13:07
guys's story. So I'm like, man, how do, am I
2:13:10
really the right person to help present Mark's story correctly?
2:13:13
And then I realized like, oh, OK, well, no one else is doing
2:13:15
it. So I guess I am, I am prepared
2:13:17
for it because no one else is doing it.
2:13:19
But I, I heard you say that and I kind of because I'm from the
2:13:23
outside here, I kind of chuckled a little bit, like a little bit
2:13:26
like what a like Mark, what a foolish thing to say because I
2:13:30
just heard your story. A guy who lacks self-confidence
2:13:35
doesn't bounce back from a car accident that nearly killed him.
2:13:40
A guy that lacks self-confidence doesn't bounce back from your
2:13:45
senior year. But we all talk about our senior
2:13:47
year in high school and how great it was.
2:13:51
Someone who lacks self-confidence doesn't bounce
2:13:53
back from their alma. It's one thing a school closes
2:13:55
down, it's devastating. We hear about that every once in
2:13:57
a while. Alma mater is special to us, no
2:14:00
matter what you think. So being at the school when it
2:14:04
closes down, that's your alma mater.
2:14:05
A guy with self-confidence doesn't back jump back from
2:14:09
that. And then again, I could go
2:14:11
through, I could repeat the whole podcast.
2:14:13
We just did five other instances where I'm like, yeah, bro, a guy
2:14:15
with self-confidence, lack of self-confidence doesn't bounce
2:14:18
back from you. I, I, I know internally you may
2:14:21
struggle with that. I appreciate you again, you
2:14:23
being so open and authentic. But dude, you are a warrior.
2:14:28
I, I mean, I think about it and, you know, we don't get too much
2:14:31
into personal lives when we talk about, you know, marriages and
2:14:34
children and things that for, for maybe obvious reasons, but,
2:14:37
you know, I don't really want to get into some personal lives
2:14:38
here. But there's challenges there
2:14:41
that you have overcome. There's challenges
2:14:44
professionally you've overcome, there's challenges as a son that
2:14:48
you've overcome in your family. And bro, I just, you know, I
2:14:52
kind of just, I push back on, you know, lack of
2:14:56
self-confidence, bro, be confident because you're a
2:14:59
leader. These kids that are in your
2:15:01
program need you. They're not.
2:15:04
We're confused as adults. What do you think?
2:15:06
And you know this, what do you think?
2:15:07
1819 first in the college, first time in their family probably
2:15:12
going to College in some instances.
2:15:13
How confused are they? Well, they need guys and gals
2:15:17
like you and your coaching staff and other coaches in the junior
2:15:20
college and other world to lead. And that's, that should give
2:15:23
you, that's what I want you to leave from today of that
2:15:25
confidence of like, man, you're a leader, you're a warrior,
2:15:27
you're a challenger and you are helping other people.
2:15:30
Maybe some of the help you didn't have as an 18 year old,
2:15:32
you're helping other 18 year olds to have that support system
2:15:35
so they can go on and be awesome coaches and husbands and wives
2:15:39
and business owners and teachers and the clay artist, everything
2:15:44
in between, man. So I just, I just want to kind
2:15:46
of speak that on you, man, that you, you know, I, I know that
2:15:49
we, we all struggle, but first of all acknowledge that, that we
2:15:51
all struggle with that. We all have some lack of
2:15:53
self-confidence. But man, from the outside,
2:15:55
brother or I got all confidence in you, in what you do
2:15:58
professionally and you know, learning more personally about
2:16:01
you as well. So I just want to kind of leave
2:16:03
you with that. Thank you guys, thank you so
2:16:08
much. It is, it's so comical to me
2:16:10
again that, you know, Mark started off again before we hit
2:16:13
record and was like 2 hours. And I'm and you guess what, by
2:16:16
the way, very common, even though, you know, I know Mark
2:16:20
knows about the podcast. So it was no secret that you
2:16:22
know how long our podcast goes. But most coaches don't think
2:16:27
that their life is interesting enough out there, they've done
2:16:29
enough or that they're worthy of like this deep dive into their
2:16:33
journey and their career. And, and I'm here to tell you
2:16:35
after 300 episodes, let's just bunk.
2:16:37
I mean, I've done it 300 times. Guys and gals that choose to be
2:16:41
track coaches, the positive impact you make on young people,
2:16:43
it's it's immeasurable. I was just on Twitter talking
2:16:46
about that there Tony Holler who's been on the show was
2:16:50
talking about, you know, the what his kids did and some
2:16:56
waitresses and stuff where we're marking about how positive they
2:16:58
were and things like that. And I was like, that's it Tony,
2:16:59
no matter how many state titles you do or don't win or whatever,
2:17:02
that is your legacy. And I'm so proud to be the guy
2:17:05
that kind of sits behind the mic and brings guys like Mark and
2:17:08
Tony and other people to show you that they're positive impact
2:17:11
that they make. So I'm never going to get off
2:17:14
the soapbox. By the way, track coaches are
2:17:16
just amazing. And I'm so happy and proud of
2:17:19
Mark being here. And again, you know, Mark's a
2:17:23
great example. Again, you know, I don't want to
2:17:25
call you foolish, Mark, but this lack of self-confidence, bro,
2:17:28
you were so open and honest and authentic and that is going to
2:17:32
help so many people. So, Mark, thank you so much,
2:17:34
man. I'm grateful, grateful for you.
2:17:36
And I'm grateful for your time with us today as well.
2:17:39
Thank you. Guys, thanks for being here
2:17:41
today. Join us next week, we'll do it
2:17:43
all over again. And don't forget, so Monday,
2:17:45
this stuff goes on, right? These long forms we're doing
2:17:48
Tuesday through Sunday, the Guild 1918 project, 10 minute to
2:17:51
30 minute Ted talks of track and field where we'll talk about
2:17:54
some X's and O's culture, things like that.
2:17:57
I hope you're enjoying them. You're right in the middle of
2:17:58
them if you're listening to this right now.
2:18:00
And so give me some feedback. And by the way, it's by coaches
2:18:03
for coaches, so it doesn't happen without you.
2:18:05
So hit me up on Twitter, text, smoke signals, whatever on how
2:18:10
to create your own episode and we'll get to publish.
2:18:12
Thanks guys. Have a great.
2:18:14
Day if it goes to appreciate the coach the ones that point people
2:18:17
most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth
2:18:21
you got to prep before you carry the load ice coffee to the soul.
2:18:24
For those of us who stay on the go pop a hand off and stay in
2:18:27
the zone which you packing for the road.
2:18:29
There's more than one way to go. Taking notes that's paying you
2:18:32
told it ain't practice If you're perfect Saint Clair.
2:18:34
It can't happen until you listen.
2:18:36
We're both is can't mentor without a mentor years of
2:18:39
experience. You can reinvent those years.
2:18:42
Every plan's got to stand to deliver to and the price
2:18:45
sacrifice. Can you give up you.
2:18:47
It's a choice and a fight, not a win or lose.
2:18:49
It's not a ploy boy device. Y'all can make more moves.
2:18:52
It's not about how to it's all about why you don't know till
2:18:55
you know who you are inside 6,000,000 waste of time Choose
2:18:58
none so we all cross the finish line.
2:19:00
The work ain't done so we learn from the experts.
2:19:03
But y'all got to put in the leg work you'll athletic.