Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #304: Caleb Seal-Throw Town Ramona

Transcript

#304: Caleb Seal-Throw Town Ramona · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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  with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world UNL tuned
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  in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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  extraordinary message for Gil Athletics Connections.
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  All right, welcome back here to the Gil Athletics Connection
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  Podcast. So humbled to be your host, Mike
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  Cunningham, National Business Development manager here at
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  Gill. And you know the podcast guy.
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  I get to the host podcast and you know, when I was growing up,
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  obviously track was a big deal to me.
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  Football, I couldn't stand baseball.
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  I played one year, 5th grade and just, you know, I think I had a
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  0 batting average and it just, you know, I'm just not a fan.
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  So if you're a fan, I'm so sorry, but I'm just not a fan.
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  But here I find myself a couple weeks ago, we had a coach on
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  here up in Hall, Connecticut, who was a baseball first guy,
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  loved baseball. That was his love.
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  And I was like, Oh my gosh, what are we going to talk about?
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  And today we're going to talk about like, I do know this movie
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  called Field of Dreams about baseball.
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  And we're going to talk a lot about this Field of Dreams for
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  throwing. So bear with me as this baseball
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  stuff is right over my head. Help me welcome from throws
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  Town, Ramona, the Seal throwing club, the wise, wonderful Mr.
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  Caleb. Seal Caleb, how are you?
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  Doing great. Do you have a baseball
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  background? I saw you kind of shaking your
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  head. No, no.
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  Baseball I. Enjoy watching it in October of
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  course, but no, no baseball playing in my background.
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  I can't even like like I'm not a basketball fan, but I like
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  March. We're recording this right now
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  in March Madness. Like I, you know, I'll watch a
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  game or two. You know, my, my beloved Trojans
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  made the tourney this year. So that was cool.
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  And you know, my wife's an Illinois grad.
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  So Illinois made the tourney. They just got booted out
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  yesterday. But you know, I'll watch that.
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  I'll, I don't know if I'll actually watch the NBA Finals or
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  not, but I'd be more at even the World Series.
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  I'm not watching, bro. I just can't.
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  There's nothing about it. I don't mind watching the World
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  Series. I like sports in general.
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  Once once things start getting heated up and intense, it
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  usually draws my attention. So whatever, whatever it is.
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  There is something about the, you know, win or go home, you
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  know, in the regular season, it's like, well, you just, you
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  know, you play 164 games. I'll just see you tomorrow, you
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  know, type of thing. But when there's I can get that.
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  I get that. Well, Caleb, my man, thanks for
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  being here. First of all, you know, really
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  appreciate your time. It's one of the most valuable
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  things you can give me. And I know you're busy.
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  So I'm just really excited to learn more about you and more
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  about your journey and then to talk about this, you know, I
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  alluded to this Field of Dreams, but this thing that you built
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  and it's growing and I don't think it's done, girl.
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  I don't think you got like a, a fully formed thing.
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  I think it's still evolving, which is really exciting out
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  there. No, it, it really is still
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  evolving. We're just in our third season
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  competitive season here at Ramona and you know it.
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  I'm surprised, you know, I'm just kind of reviewing some of
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  the entries, the number of entries from, from a couple
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  years past where we are now and things have picked up here at
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  Ramona. It's still March, so it's still
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  pretty early, still cut. You know, we, we've got chilly
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  temperatures. The temperatures are a little
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  cooler in March, but the wind still blows.
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  But once things start picking up closer to April, things really
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  pick up at Ramona. So.
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  Well, we're going to get more into it here near the end when
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  we get to that stage of your career.
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  I do want to as we, you know, kind of tease a little bit here.
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  So tell us where is remote? Some people have maybe seen this
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  on social media, other people here Ramona and have no idea.
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  We're we're typically talking about discus.
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  And so maybe people are thinking about, you know, there was a a
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  huge area in California people used to go to a lot and Hawaii
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  used to go, but now Ramona is the place.
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  Tell us a little bit about where Ramona is And, and maybe, yeah,
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  maybe let's go ahead and get into this.
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  Why Ramona as well? Why Ramona?
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  Well, I, you know, I needed out of the city limits 1 You know,
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  land costs were just extremely high in city.
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  So that was definitely an out. And then so I just kind of drew
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  kind of a radius around Tulsa within 30 minutes outside of the
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  city limits. And, you know, I was focused on
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  some areas to the, to the, to the east of Tulsa for a little
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  bit. But, you know, I, I work with a
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  realtor, you know, you set up some filters and things, you
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  know, automatically just kind of pop up on your phone.
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  And, you know, this place at Ramona popped up and, you know,
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  I was in my hometown, Childress, Texas at the at the time and
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  doing some farm work. And that immediately drew my
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  attention. You know, I kind of stopped what
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  I was doing and kind of really looked at it in detail and
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  couldn't wait to get back to to Tulsa to go check it out.
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  So Monday morning, I was already out the out of the property to
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  check it out. And, you know, it really drew my
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  attention at that point. And so I made a phone call to a
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  good friend of mine, Don Milliken, who gave me a green
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  light to do this from day one. And I, you know, I just briefly
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  mention him. I think you need to come out
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  here and take a look at this property.
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  I think I found the place that we, that I don't want to build
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  the facility on. So he's, he's been supportive
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  and behind me since day one. In fact, he motivated and, and
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  really pushed me to do this. You know, Don has, you know, he
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  kept reminding me, like, have you been looking at for, you
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  know, land? I really think you'd need the
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  to, to venture out and, and, and do this.
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  This is what you do. And this is what you're, you're,
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  you're great at it. So I, he kept encouraging me and
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  pushing me to go find a place and let's get this started.
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  You know, for I guess ever since 2015 I hosted competitions at
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  local high schools in the area. So this is how all this got
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  started. So.
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  Let's not get into that just yet.
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  I want to build into that. So, so where Ramona is you?
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  So Tulsa and then are you, you said you were looking east but
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  not east. Where are you?
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  North Southwest. Yeah, we are.
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  We're actually north of Tulsa. 25 minutes.
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  North, OK. All right.
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  So we would if for the people that are going, we typically fly
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  into Tulsa and then drive. Yeah, in fact, if you fly into
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  Tulsa International Airport, we're we're literally 20 minutes
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  N on Hwy. 75. Oh, wow.
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  Nice. OK.
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  Perfect. We're actually closer to the
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  airport than we are anything so perfect.
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  It makes it so easy. Ramona's so simple to get get
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  to. Good love that it must be
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  because again, then we're going to learn more about it.
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  The people that are showing up is it's it's become a Mecca.
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  It's there's no other way around it.
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  If you're not going to Ramona and you're a thrower, I'm not
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  sure you're you're throwing. So we'll learn.
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  Good. You're you're not.
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  You're not. Yeah, you're not.
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  You're not on, basically, you're not paying attention, right?
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  Yeah, you're not at Ramona. That's a good way of putting it.
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  Yeah. I love it.
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  I love it. Well, we'll learn more because
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  it's, it's truly exciting. I love unique things around
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  track and field. And you have certainly built
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  that. And I totally forgot this is
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  only year three. I for some reason I had like 456
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  in my head, you know, like, oh, this has just been going on for
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  a while now. And yeah, it's still a, it is a
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  little baby. It's it is still an infant
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  that's growing into its its full, full body.
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  Right. We, we existed for, you know,
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  probably five years prior to Ramona with the Oklahoma Throws
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  Series competition. But those were those were held
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  at high school venues. And that was that's, that's kind
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  of a no go. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense at.
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  This level. Well, let's take a step back and
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  let's learn more. You know, we're talking about
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  throws and, and, and this Mecca and Ramona throws time.
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  Ramona, where, where in the world does you know, what are
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  you doing in throws? Why, why don't we take us a step
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  back? Where does track and field and I
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  guess maybe throws start for you.
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  You know, kind of how I got into track and field in general goes
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  all the way back to going to, you know, school, junior high
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  and high school and Childress, Texas, it's in the Panhandle
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  between Wichita Falls and Amarillo.
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  So it's a, you know, like a 3A school, farm and ranch
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  community. So it's kind of like it's who,
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  you know, that could possibly be a mentor in a small community
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  like that. And, you know, my, my mother
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  really kind of helped push me and, and motivate me to go, you
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  know, try out shot and discus. You know, I was tall and, you
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  know, had long, long levers basically.
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  So at the time, we had a high school senior that practice
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  every day. She was very determined and
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  dedicated. And it was DM Bragg at the time
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  and her dad basically coached her and and her brother Darren
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  put them to through college at ACU.
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  And so there was a lot of knowledge there.
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  And I kind of nick that kind of drew my attention.
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  So, you know, I got the nerve up to go go to his house, John
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  Bragg and knock on his door and ask him if he'd help coach me
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  and teach me the shot and discus.
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  And obviously, you know, he, he, he did he, you know, just told
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  me to be there at five 5:00 every day after school.
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  And, you know, that's when they started practice.
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  And you know, basically I was a sponge from that then on so.
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  Did did you play any other sports or was this?
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  Oh yeah, I, I played football. I was a Allstate football player
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  there at Childress defensive side.
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  And yeah, I, I really enjoyed playing football for the, for
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  that Childress. And then I obviously through the
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  shot and discus in the springtime.
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  Any you know, Caleb, that you strike me.
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  You know, we've known each other for years.
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  You're not a kind of air quotes here.
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  Typical big guy. You're you're tall, but you're
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  not a you know, like I'm good friends with John Kadena.
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  I look at John, I'm like, oh, yeah, you're you're born to
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  throw. You're of course you're a
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  thrower. Did you venture into any other
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  events as well? Did you try long jumping or
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  anything like that? No, no, not at all.
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  As I say, dynamite comes in small packages.
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  I was just powerful and wrong and aggressive naturally and hot
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  and discus was just a natural thing that I could pick up and
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  really well. What, what drew you to those
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  events? They're, they're, they are
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  unique of every event is unique, right?
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  But those two events that you're talking about and even between
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  those two events, their, their uniquenesses between those two,
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  what drew you like? What do you remember, like that
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  first time you showed up to Coach Bragg's house at 5 and he
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  put a shot in your hand and like, it was an immediate like,
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  oh, I love this. Or was there a learning curve
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  for? You well, I can tell you the man
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  was a great motivator, still is today a great storyteller.
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  And and also, you know, he, he motive, he, he had had his ways
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  of motivating just about any athlete that he worked with.
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  And he took me out, he took me everywhere.
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  He he took me down to ACU and watched the college
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  competitions. And you know, we, we saw three
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  guys throw over 200 feet and on the same day from SMU, you know,
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  with Dave's crew. So he had his ways of motivating
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  me and teaching me who's who and, and how you threw the shot
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  and disc. We'd go down to the Texas State
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  track meet every single year. And that was pretty fascinating
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  to me to see and to learn who's to, you know, basically to learn
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  who's who in the high school level as well.
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  I saw some major records broken and those weekends that still
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  stick with me today. And I'm I'm friends with both of
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  most of those pass throwers still today.
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  They're bringing their kids to Ramona, right?
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  Yeah. That's what's mind blowing.
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  You know, Rodger Raisler was one of the best throwers in the
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  country, played football for University of Texas.
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  And he brings his son Bryce up. And, you know, I just remember
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  the he shut down the Texas 5A state meet inside the Texas
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  Stadium. No, inside the football stadium.
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  Everybody stopped to watch him throw the shot, put in the
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  corner, throw 72 feet and it just erupted like a football
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  game. That's amazing.
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  It's quite amazing. So that you know, if that can't
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  motivate you, you're probably in the wrong.
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  Sport, right? Yeah, that's exactly right.
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  That doesn't. Yeah.
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  Pick something else. Exactly.
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  Did you, You know, it's always amazing to me, like with the
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  sprinting or distance running or even like long jumping, like
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  it's a pretty natural movement, right?
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  Like if we take one of our kids onto the long jump, say, OK, run
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  and when you get here jump, you know, maybe not jump far because
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  they need coaching, but you know, they'll know and feel it
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  pretty good. A discus and even a shot put is
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  a little different. There's no just like, hey,
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  here's a discus, go throw at it. You know, it'll go 10 feet
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  because you don't know what the heck you're doing.
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  Did you, was it natural for you like the first time you picked
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  up that discus or was there like, or was it a quick learning
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  curve or was it like frustration that that discus can be tricky?
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  Yeah, I mean, there's frustrations for sure in the
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  sport or in the events. Just learning it and I
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  understand and I can kind of resonate with some of the high
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  school kids that I work with and I already know what they they're
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  thinking before they're actually thinking it.
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  I can see their frustrations and.
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  And you know, I try to help them through through those learning
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  curves. But yeah, it was a quick
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  learning curve for me, but I had my daily frustrations that I
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  worked through it, achieved, you know, the things, you know,
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  milestones that I was able to, to, to do.
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  And with a, with a discus, at least I was always drawn to the
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  discus more than shot, but, and didn't even know what hammer,
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  hammer throwing was in high school.
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  Didn't care about, but you know, in the Panhandle, you know, from
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  Lubbock to Amarillo to Wichita Falls, you, you have high winds.
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  And anyways, I learned how to throw the discus perfectly on
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  almost every attempt and watch the discus fly for and it would
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  catch the wind and it would go forever.
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  So I I knew how to play the wind.
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  And so that's kind of where my knowledge came to this facility
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  design. That's interesting.
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  Oh yeah, true. That's interesting because that
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  feels like a secondary to even tertiary learning process for an
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  athlete. You know, first of all, they got
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  to learn just how to hold it, OK, how to release it.
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  Those are kind of the basics when comes like, you know,
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  second or third step down, when you get a little bit more
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  advanced, like, oh, OK, I see how the wind effects it.
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  So I've got to throw it differently.
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  You because of where you grew up, you had to like almost right
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  off the bat like, OK, I see quarter winds and I see
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  headwinds and tail were like, OK, those are a little bit
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  different. Yeah.
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  Absolutely. I mean, we had we experienced 20
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  to 30 mile an hour winds almost every day in April.
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  You don't want to go out and throw in a headwind or a
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  backwind makes a crummy practice, probably will would
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  shut you down mentally. And you know, nobody wants to
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  throw in visions like that so. Did did coach Brad coach you all
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  four years in high school? Yes.
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  Yeah. Yeah, well, even junior high
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  school, you know, I could throw the throw the one kilogram
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  discus in, in junior high, you know, extremely far for 14 year
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  old, 13 year old, you know, over 160 feet.
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  So, you know, and then that carried over.
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  You're just converting over from A1K to a 1.6 and then learning
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  how to throw the 1.6 as far as you did the 1K in junior high
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  school. And so, you know, it has its
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  challenges, but, you know, progressing in the weight room
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  and just being patient and letting yourself develop over,
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  you know, a year or two, you'll get back to where that 1K was
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  going. Yeah, I didn't think about that.
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  I always think about the 1-6 to 2K transition, but yeah, our
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  middle school typically throw in one K Yeah, I didn't think about
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  that. And that gets it gets I wonder
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  percentage wise, like from the one to the 1.6 versus the 1/6 to
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  the two, it's a big jump. 1-6 is a much bigger discus than A1,
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  just like the 2K is much bigger than the 1-6.
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  Yeah. Yeah, it definitely impacts the
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  distance that you're throwing. I mean, just it's just a heavier
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  implement and you have to learn how to to so to continue to work
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  and to progress to catch back up.
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  Even with the 2K2K from the 1/6 was was a transition.
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  Yeah, for sure, for about a year.
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  So OK, so that I was going to I didn't want to ever assume, but
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  OK, so you threw in college as well.
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  So talk to us about, you know, it's senior year, you're doing
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  well. You know, Allstate and football.
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  That's amazing in in any state. But you know, Texas feels like
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  it's that's a little bit higher for calling no matter what
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  classification you're in. What were you thinking about for
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  college? And what I mean by that is so
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  where did you look at and things like that?
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  Did you play football in college as well?
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  And what were you thinking about professionally?
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  Meaning you went to go study English because you're going to
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  be a teacher. You went to go study business
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  because you're going to own your own business.
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  Tell us what your thoughts were. And maybe they were coaching.
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  Usually as a 1718 year old kid, coaching is not in the the
• 17:43
  thought process of that point, but maybe it was.
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  Talk to us about that transition.
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  Well, you know, as, as most all of our, you know, you know, guys
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  at the high school level, they're especially the ones that
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  are dual sport type of athletes, you know, being all state
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  football and track, you're going to have to make a decision, you
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  know, probably your junior year in high school, whether you want
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  to go to the football route or the track route, you know, very
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  few can do both at a Division One level.
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  So you kind of need to figure out, you know, it's fairly quick
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  decision for me. I'm kind of an undersized, you
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  know, when it comes to football. I'm undersized for the positions
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  that I played on the defensive line, you know, so you just have
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  to pick your battle. And I didn't want to fight the
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  battle going up against a six, eight £300 offensive lineman
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  from wherever, you know, So I kind of knew I needed to go the
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  the track and field route. You know, I had opportunities at
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  the Division One level at in in football money wasn't as good as
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  what I was seeing at the track level.
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  So you know, obviously and and my passion and love for track
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  and field. So it was kind of a no brainer
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  that we need to go the track route.
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  So we're, so I always like to ask this question and you maybe
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  have just answered it. Were you a a track guy?
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  Were you a thrower who played football?
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  Or were you a football player who threw?
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  And it sounds like you were the the former.
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  You were a thrower who also played football, yes?
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  Or at least evolved. Into I mean my, my passion
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  really resided with throwing the discus hot.
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  So yeah, I was kind of a a track guy playing football so.
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  What was it stay there for a second When you talk about your
• 19:36
  passion was throwing the discus, you know, that's a fairly
• 19:39
  cerebral event, right? There's a lot of things that you
• 19:41
  got to do and do right and you can do wrong and and you
• 19:44
  actually have to. It's not pure aggression.
• 19:46
  You can't just go out there and just where the shot put is
• 19:49
  closer, you know, air quotes there, but closer to pure
• 19:51
  aggression. That obviously a lot of
• 19:52
  technique there too. But the discus like there,
• 19:54
  there's a lot of thinking that has to happen with that.
• 19:58
  What what was it about the like your your eyes kind of lit up
• 20:01
  when you're like, I was a discus guy.
• 20:03
  What? What was it about that event
• 20:04
  that you that was like, Oh yeah, this is really who I'm supposed
• 20:07
  to be? I think some of the self
• 20:09
  research that I did on my own going home, you know, after
• 20:13
  practice, it's what I did after practice with what makes you
• 20:15
  good. You know, some of the things
• 20:18
  that I thought about, watched and prepped my mind and
• 20:23
  understanding the physics behind throwing a discus and the way it
• 20:27
  feels to throw it correctly was so addictive.
• 20:30
  It's, and I think a lot of the discus throwers that are
• 20:35
  successful today can say the same thing that, you know,
• 20:39
  during training and the way, the way it feels to throw the discus
• 20:43
  correctly and throw it far, it just, it's effortless, that
• 20:46
  effortless throw, you know, you hear a lot of the, the record
• 20:50
  holders describe the record throw as effortless.
• 20:53
  It just felt amazing. You know, it was kind of like a
• 20:57
  daily thing for me. I'd go out and really prepare
• 21:00
  for practice and and try to do my best every single day to the
• 21:06
  point where I'm racing the sun going down every single day,
• 21:10
  going home completely exhausted and then learning how to recover
• 21:14
  by the end of the week for the competition on the weekend.
• 21:16
  So, and usually that would that would, you know, help me to
• 21:22
  throw a personal best, you know, throughout every almost every,
• 21:28
  I'd say probably every almost every week.
• 21:31
  I remember when I was a freshman in high school, converting to
• 21:35
  that 1.6 discus was a challenge and I felt so defeated week 1
• 21:41
  and 2 because that discus wasn't going anywhere.
• 21:44
  And it was March. No, it was February in Texas and
• 21:47
  Texas track season starts in February sometimes.
• 21:51
  And I remember throwing the discus in Wheeler, Texas, and
• 21:54
  snow is on the ground and I wanted to go out there and throw
• 21:57
  160 feet. You know where I was in a year
• 22:00
  ago with that 1K, super motivated, super prepared
• 22:04
  mentally and it just didn't happen.
• 22:06
  And I was just, Oh my gosh, I think I even got beat by my own
• 22:09
  teammate. Not really hacked.
• 22:14
  So I had to learn to be more patient mentally and just take
• 22:22
  it slower and allow the season to mature.
• 22:28
  You know, when I always, even today, I tell my athletes, you
• 22:31
  know, March, I don't really care about Mark, you know, distances
• 22:36
  in March because I mean, the, the weather conditions aren't,
• 22:40
  aren't really favourable. We're, we're, we're trying to
• 22:43
  adapt physically to what we're trying to do through the
• 22:46
  training. And, but when April rolls
• 22:50
  around, we should be in good shape and start hitting some
• 22:52
  better marks. And so I had to learn that as an
• 22:55
  athlete that, you know, March is a transition month.
• 23:02
  Take it as a grain of salt, but whenever April rolls around, we
• 23:06
  kind of need to be ready to hit marks because not only the
• 23:09
  temperature, the weather temperature is warmer.
• 23:12
  We usually have more favorable wind conditions for further
• 23:15
  throws. And that's true.
• 23:19
  So that's whenever I started working with, with, with high
• 23:24
  school kids 20 years ago when I was 24 years old, you know, I
• 23:29
  had to basically teach that to them and get them, you know,
• 23:34
  mentally and physically ready for April and May.
• 23:37
  So but anyways. I like how you put that about
• 23:40
  that, the the release. When you get a good release that
• 23:43
  you were addicted to, it's like, oh, that.
• 23:45
  Feeling. Yeah, I love that feeling.
• 23:47
  All right, so you're going more towards the track side than the
• 23:50
  football side. Where'd you end up going and
• 23:52
  what'd you end up majoring in? What?
• 23:53
  What were you thinking about becoming a professional?
• 23:56
  Well, I chose Sam Houston State is yeah, it's a university just
• 24:03
  North East of Houston. I, you know, I took several
• 24:09
  visits to other places. I felt more connection with the
• 24:14
  coach there, Rich Gonzales, who was also a thrower at Sam
• 24:18
  Houston, and he was very dominant.
• 24:22
  I like, I like to his coaching style.
• 24:27
  Just the environment they had at Sam Houston.
• 24:30
  They had a group of guys and girls that were that made it
• 24:35
  feel amazing at practice. It's just a camaraderie and, and
• 24:41
  the environment at Sam Houston at the time that kind of drew me
• 24:45
  and they paid for my school. So I was, I'm very grateful for
• 24:48
  that. So, but yeah, Sam Houston was a
• 24:52
  great place for me to learn and grow from not only Chris, Coach
• 24:56
  Gonzalez, but the other coaches that came after Chris when he
• 25:00
  left. So I, I, you know, I, I really
• 25:04
  appreciate and enjoyed learning from different individuals at
• 25:08
  Sam Houston who, you know, I've, I've taken so, so many bearable
• 25:13
  and, and coaching pointers from a lot of folks that that'll
• 25:18
  learn from Sam Houston. So.
• 25:21
  What, what was it about? You mentioned you like to Coach
• 25:24
  Gonzalez's coaching style for someone who you know you, you
• 25:28
  grew up throwing literally from infancy to you know what, what
• 25:32
  you did as a high school senior with one coach, Coach Bragg.
• 25:34
  So you know, he had a style that obviously you liked some of it
• 25:38
  because you kept with it and stayed with them.
• 25:40
  What was it about Gonzalez and how to and were they were there
• 25:44
  similar styles between Gonzalez and Bragg or like what drew you
• 25:47
  there and what was it? About just just watching a
• 25:49
  normal practice, just, you know, a couple of days that I was
• 25:52
  there on visit, you know, I would, I would listen to some of
• 25:56
  the coaching cues and watching some of the drills.
• 25:59
  And it's just things that were very similar to what I was
• 26:03
  already doing. And some of the cues and the
• 26:05
  words that he used or chose to use as effective cues, those
• 26:12
  were important to me to hear. And it was just the other guys
• 26:17
  that were there at the time that were they almost had a
• 26:19
  competition at a practice every day.
• 26:22
  They would just Duke it out it, it practices almost like a mock
• 26:26
  meet in practice kind of that scenario.
• 26:29
  This game was I was probably visiting at the end of the week.
• 26:32
  So they were probably doing like a mock situation.
• 26:34
  But they were it was competitive at practice and practice seemed
• 26:38
  to to be fun. It was a fun environment, good
• 26:42
  environment to learn and just a a good work environment there.
• 26:47
  And did you say did you have several?
• 26:49
  Like did Gonzalez move on? You had several coach throwing
• 26:53
  coaches at at Sam Houston. Yes, Darrell Robinson, who
• 26:59
  coached a little bit at Riots, he he coached quite a few
• 27:02
  places, but he was very instrumental in the way the
• 27:07
  coaching methodology that he chose to use was different than
• 27:12
  Coach Gonzalez. Everyone was different, but I
• 27:16
  got a different angle from a lot of folks.
• 27:18
  And then Curtis and Charlotte Collier, I was let's see, they
• 27:26
  came in two year my my last two years at Sam Houston.
• 27:30
  Those Curtis and and Charlotte were, were my coach and they
• 27:36
  were they were very good. Charlotte was a a hammer thrower
• 27:39
  from Denmark. And so honestly, you know, I, I
• 27:45
  listen to the way that she taught the hammer and talked
• 27:51
  about it and the drills and the queues and her, her methodology
• 27:55
  of, of hammer, hammer coaching. Basically, it stuck with me.
• 27:59
  I didn't get to, to start coaching hammer until probably
• 28:04
  2015. So I had to really like think
• 28:08
  back 15 years ago when I was at Sam Houston when Charlotte was
• 28:12
  trying to coach me in the hammer, you know, So I had to
• 28:16
  really remember. But she did a good job of
• 28:18
  explaining hammer throwing, the way it was thrown and her
• 28:23
  approach the things that I remembered so I can transfer it
• 28:26
  to from a high school kids. You know, it's interesting.
• 28:30
  This reminds me of I can't. It was a past guest we've had
• 28:34
  where they had, and I can't remember what if I don't think
• 28:36
  they were throwing throwers, but they had a different coach every
• 28:39
  every year. So like they, they graduated 4
• 28:40
  years. They had four different coaches
• 28:41
  like, oh man, that you know, that that's got to be hard on
• 28:44
  you. And, and I remember they said,
• 28:46
  well, you know, it wasn't great. Obviously, you know, I wish I'd
• 28:49
  had maybe one they said, but but because I became a coach, I
• 28:53
  actually got to see four different unique ways of
• 28:56
  coaching to help direct how I could.
• 28:58
  So when you said that, like, oh, we had a few, it's like, oh, but
• 29:01
  you know, that would, you know, you would kind of think, you
• 29:03
  know, if I were to ask you your freshman year, hey, would you
• 29:05
  like the same coach all four years?
• 29:06
  You're like, Oh yeah, of course I'd love to, you know, to have
• 29:08
  that. But then you look back on, it's
• 29:09
  like, oh, well, I got to experience him and how they
• 29:12
  coach. I experienced her and how she
• 29:14
  like you got to see. And then, you know, what
• 29:16
  coaching is, is kind of an amalgamation of all the things
• 29:18
  and the ways that you were coached and coaching education
• 29:21
  that you take and that's how you develop your style.
• 29:23
  You're able to take all those individuals to move towards your
• 29:26
  style. Well, that's another transition
• 29:28
  that, you know, athletes have to make is, is, you know, moving
• 29:32
  from 1 coach to another, you're you, you absolutely have to
• 29:37
  learn how to transition through those different coaching styles.
• 29:42
  You know, moving from Mr. Bragg was a big transition for me as
• 29:46
  far as like, man, I, I, I, I enjoy being at practice with,
• 29:50
  with Mr. Bragg, you know, and listening to his motivating
• 29:55
  stories almost every day, but learning to embrace Coach
• 30:00
  Gonzalez's method and the way he coaches, you know, you know, I
• 30:06
  could have, you know, you know, probably gotten upset or not
• 30:13
  done as well from moving coach to coach.
• 30:17
  But you know, you kind of have to step back and say, Hey, the,
• 30:20
  you know, I'm getting a different angle from another
• 30:25
  source that I can use later on because I knew I was already
• 30:31
  going to coach even long ago, but just become a sponge and,
• 30:35
  and evaluate kind of the information and the way they,
• 30:40
  they talk about different events and, and their approach and
• 30:45
  methodology of coaching discus and hammer, you know, but later
• 30:50
  I can we explain it to someone else, you know.
• 30:54
  What's that saying? Life is less about what happens
• 30:56
  to you and more about how you react to that.
• 30:58
  So yeah, you just said there when you're like, you know, I
• 31:00
  could have gotten upset. I don't know how that would have
• 31:03
  been good for you. Right.
• 31:05
  Well, it's like, OK, I'm going to here's what's in front of me.
• 31:07
  I better make the best of it. Yeah.
• 31:09
  Well, Coach Gonzalez was a great coach and a great, great mentor
• 31:12
  and, you know, for the coach to, you know, take another path and
• 31:17
  it kind of hit me on hit us all sideways, Sure, but it's
• 31:22
  learning how to, to, to go through those adversities and,
• 31:28
  you know, embrace something new and just be patient and see if
• 31:33
  there's something new to learn. And and that's the way you,
• 31:36
  that's the approach that you have to have.
• 31:37
  Yeah, yeah. I wish more people had that.
• 31:41
  Approach it's it's so common though, to to have multiple
• 31:43
  coaches, you know, almost every year at at smaller Division One
• 31:48
  schools and maybe even division two, Division 3 all the way down
• 31:52
  to NAI schools is, you know, coaches come and go at those
• 31:57
  places and you know, don't think the replacement's not, you know,
• 32:03
  worthy of, of coaching or or better for or better.
• 32:07
  They can be better absolutely. You have to give that a chance
• 32:10
  so. Our number one episode here is
• 32:13
  is probably rightfully so, Boo Scheck Snyder, right?
• 32:16
  And when we had Boo on the show, he mentioned he was talking
• 32:19
  about like, you know, ego as a coach and things like that.
• 32:22
  And he's like, you know, if you're really doing it for the
• 32:24
  kids, because he is in a huge favor of if you have a better
• 32:28
  opportunity as a coach, particularly if it pays more,
• 32:30
  because we don't pay our coaches very much, you should take it
• 32:32
  and don't, don't let the excuse of, well, the kids are here, I
• 32:35
  recruited them, etcetera, etcetera.
• 32:37
  And his statement was, how do you know that you go into
• 32:40
  someplace else, a coach that's better for those kids that you
• 32:43
  love, right? You recruit them, all that kind
• 32:44
  of stuff. It doesn't come in and it's
• 32:45
  better for them. And it's like, whoa, that's,
• 32:47
  that's hard of the ego, right? Because we want to say as
• 32:49
  coaches, well, well, I'm the best for these kids, right?
• 32:53
  So it's it's kind of hard to sometimes think it's like, well,
• 32:55
  you're right, maybe the next. So you're talking about from the
• 32:57
  athletes perspective of like, man, I came here from Gonzales.
• 33:00
  What do you mean he's leaving? Oh, my gosh, it's like, well,
• 33:02
  maybe the person who comes in next is even better for you.
• 33:05
  Not not. That doesn't mean better than
• 33:06
  Gonzalez. It just means better for you
• 33:08
  where you are. You're a couple years into
• 33:10
  college throwing at that point. Maybe you have a different
• 33:12
  mindset of what throwing and coaching in college could be.
• 33:15
  You know, there's a whole lot of factors in there.
• 33:17
  Can't be scared and be angry. If something we have no control
• 33:19
  over, you ain't. You ain't going to get Gonzalez
• 33:21
  if you'd have gotten angry about it.
• 33:22
  Gonzalez doesn't stay just because you got angry about it,
• 33:25
  right? Yeah, exactly.
• 33:27
  Exactly. OK.
• 33:29
  You said, you know, coaching was in your mind.
• 33:31
  So as you were looking into schools and things like that,
• 33:34
  did you like, were you like, I'm going to be a coach?
• 33:36
  Like even this early? Is that like a high schooler?
• 33:39
  Or, or college or where did that start?
• 33:41
  I was, you know, being sports oriented for, for my whole, you
• 33:45
  know, my whole youth years at, you know, I kind of already knew
• 33:50
  I was, I was going to be a make a coach.
• 33:52
  Is that right? But yeah, I mean, I went to Sam
• 33:55
  Houston. I majored in kinesiology and
• 33:58
  minored in chemistry. You know, I I just, I just
• 34:03
  needed a four year degree and get the heck out of there.
• 34:05
  Yeah. Hey, I, I know that one, this
• 34:07
  public relations major guy right here.
• 34:08
  Trust me, that's what I I was saying.
• 34:10
  Did you were you when you were thinking of this idea of like,
• 34:13
  OK, I'm, I'm sports oriented. I love that, you know, the
• 34:16
  culture of sports and so I'm going to become a coach.
• 34:19
  Were you thinking or did you even have any kind of mind space
• 34:22
  of like, oh, I'm going to become a high school coach, a college
• 34:25
  coach, you know, outside a private sector?
• 34:28
  Did you have any thought about that or was just like, hey, I'll
• 34:29
  figure that part out. I just know I want to coach.
• 34:32
  I knew I was going to be kind of more of an individual coach
• 34:35
  outside the school setting, You know, working for somebody else
• 34:40
  is not really. Sure.
• 34:43
  What I'm, I enjoy the most, but, you know, creating my own world
• 34:49
  and, you know, making things work, that's what I enjoy.
• 34:55
  And you graduated high school in what year?
• 34:59
  Oh, High school, 2000. So college recall it roughly
• 35:02
  2000. 4I graduated 2004 from Sam Houston.
• 35:05
  You know, it's interesting that you said you already kind of had
• 35:08
  that mindset of like, I'm going to be more private sector
• 35:11
  because it was, it's rare today. It's 2025 and it's, you know, I,
• 35:15
  I don't know if I can count on my hand specifically in throws,
• 35:19
  private sector type throws coaches, not not counting elite
• 35:22
  coach. Like, you know, I'm not counting
• 35:25
  Don Babbitt, you know, because he coaches the pros, you know,
• 35:27
  he coaches for universities. I'm not counting, I'm not
• 35:29
  talking about people like yours situation.
• 35:32
  I don't know that I could name 5 people.
• 35:34
  So it was super rare back then. It's rare today.
• 35:36
  But you kind of had that mindset even back then of like, all
• 35:38
  right, I'll have to figure out how to forge this this myself.
• 35:41
  That's the impact that that Mister Bragg had on me.
• 35:45
  Oh, 'cause Bragg didn't coach at the High.
• 35:47
  School he wasn't he was at the high school.
• 35:50
  He actually had a machine shop in the town.
• 35:52
  I mean, Mr. Bragg had interesting he he fabricated
• 35:56
  farm equipment and he was a welder in the town.
• 35:59
  He had his own machine shop. And but you know, after 5:00
• 36:04
  when the door shuts, he's down at the Biscuits ring coaching
• 36:07
  his son and his daughter. And, and then here I here I come
• 36:11
  banging on his doors like, Hey, I want I want to learn what
• 36:14
  you're teaching them. And it looks so much fun.
• 36:16
  That's what fascinates me. We, we try to an essay, we mean
• 36:20
  in kind of society, try to boil down coaches to, you know, oh,
• 36:23
  they coach XS and OS, They know how to teach a kid to release
• 36:26
  the discus or they know how to, you know, set up a relay,
• 36:29
  whatever, etcetera, etcetera. And and certainly that is part
• 36:31
  of coaching for sure, but there's such a greater, greater
• 36:35
  part to it. Bragg was teaching you about
• 36:39
  life without even probably knowing that he was like, he was
• 36:42
  setting this example that you're, you're just like, you're
• 36:44
  taking it all in. You're like, oh, wow.
• 36:46
  So he owns a business. Oh, and at 5:00, OK, the shop
• 36:48
  closes and then he'd start like, that's pretty interesting.
• 36:50
  You know, you already, you're kind of as a 171617 year, 18
• 36:53
  year old kid, You're, you're absorbing this.
• 36:55
  No one has a clue what this turns into, but you're absorbing
• 36:58
  this. It's the it's.
• 37:01
  The the quality and the impact of one-on-one teaching.
• 37:05
  Yeah. Outside of a school setting that
• 37:09
  just boost your confidence. That's so.
• 37:11
  Interesting. Times 10, I mean.
• 37:13
  Literally times 10 I mean. What a great lesson about
• 37:16
  someone is always watching you and, and usually we take that in
• 37:20
  the negative of like, hey, be good because someone's always
• 37:22
  watching you. This is more of like, hey,
• 37:23
  someone's always watching you and the impact you make.
• 37:27
  And I know, I assume Mr. Bragg, I love how you call him Mr.
• 37:31
  Bragg, not Coach Bragg, by the way, but Mr. Bragg knows like
• 37:34
  what impact he made on you. I'm, you know, I know you well
• 37:36
  enough. You're the kind of guy that you
• 37:37
  would say, hey, Bragg, man, look, this is because of you.
• 37:40
  You, you're start of this foundation.
• 37:41
  But I wonder, no, I don't wonder.
• 37:43
  I know even you, Caleb, that there are people that have seen
• 37:47
  you move in this world, specifically track and field
• 37:51
  that you have no clue about that are doing something because they
• 37:54
  saw like, well, man, Caleb's doing that.
• 37:56
  That's pretty cool. Maybe I could do that.
• 37:57
  You know that that's the you know, sometimes we know about
• 38:00
  the impact right in front of us. You know, kids that we coach and
• 38:02
  they PR college. We see that there is a Rep in
• 38:06
  the rearview in there. There's a just as big impact
• 38:09
  that we have no idea that we're making positively specifically
• 38:13
  as as coaches in this sport. That's that's.
• 38:15
  Really cool. I've got athletes that that are
• 38:18
  competing right now for universities that I know they're
• 38:20
  going to make good coaching. Yeah, just by the relationship
• 38:24
  we had whenever I coached them. That didn't even think they were
• 38:27
  going to become coaches like they were they were going to go,
• 38:29
  you know what, Yeah, I love throwing Coach Seal, but you
• 38:31
  know, I'm going to become a doctor.
• 38:32
  I'm going to become a lawyer. And it's like, wow, you know
• 38:34
  what? One day you're going to become a
• 38:35
  coach, dude. Well, one of my high school
• 38:37
  athletes right now, I can turn him loose and he can coach the
• 38:39
  hammer just about as any as good as any collegiate coach around,
• 38:44
  I promise. You.
• 38:45
  And so I can trust him and I can, I can be working with some
• 38:48
  discus guys over here and then trust, trust my athlete over
• 38:53
  here to. You.
• 38:54
  Know and he's he actually helped the teammate get to nationals
• 38:59
  the indoor nationals wow that's. So cool.
• 39:02
  That's it. It is.
• 39:03
  I love it, I love it. OK, kids help each other.
• 39:05
  So you go through four years of Sam Houston, you have a couple
• 39:08
  of coaches, you have some success, you're studying
• 39:11
  kinesiology. You know I'm going to coach and
• 39:13
  probably private probably. I'm not a a high school or
• 39:15
  college teacher coach type situation.
• 39:17
  So what do you do? You get that degree, What's the
• 39:19
  first thing? Get the degree and and start
• 39:21
  looking for a job. I need AI, need a job that I
• 39:26
  could that I could, you know, in an industry that that holds my
• 39:31
  interest and now I can do well in and oil and gas industry drew
• 39:38
  me to Tulsa and so. That's how you got to Tulsa.
• 39:41
  Got it. That's how I got to Tulsa, the
• 39:43
  oil and gas industry. And so I worked in the
• 39:45
  engineering department. I I I started working downtown
• 39:48
  Tulsa at a oil and gas a private company.
• 39:52
  Hold on, so oil and gas, but your major was kinesiology.
• 39:55
  So how? Does that I had that strong
• 39:57
  science background with the the chemistry chemistry minor.
• 40:01
  OK, OK, OK. That's right.
• 40:03
  So the the physics and the math and the.
• 40:06
  OK, I was trying to figure out how that connected there at all,
• 40:08
  right, right. Right, it was all there.
• 40:09
  I was like, did you join them to become like their health and
• 40:12
  Wellness coordinator? What did you do now?
• 40:14
  No, I was actually a part of their development team on the on
• 40:18
  the, well, basically the engineering department.
• 40:22
  So running financials and and, you know, creating wellbore
• 40:28
  diagrams and yeah, very, very interesting.
• 40:30
  Don't know what that is. Yeah.
• 40:31
  Yeah, yeah, Very interesting. Interesting.
• 40:32
  Yeah, Yeah, it's not. A lot of engineering work.
• 40:34
  It's not an engineering or oil podcast here.
• 40:36
  Oh, right. So you're doing that.
• 40:40
  Did you immediately start coaching or what?
• 40:43
  Where does that come in? Yeah.
• 40:45
  So after 5:00, I would just look for one person that I could
• 40:52
  possibly work with. And I was at the Division One
• 40:56
  regional meet at the University of Oklahoma.
• 41:00
  And yeah, a guy with the same with a ball cap on it had my
• 41:05
  hometown on it, had brought his daughter and son there to watch
• 41:10
  the regional meet. And I just offered to work with
• 41:14
  them. If you guys need some help, sure
• 41:17
  thought they would probably call me November, December, January.
• 41:22
  It got to like March. I bet they probably won't call.
• 41:26
  But then they did you know, the the young lady threw in her
• 41:29
  first track meet, you know, 100 feet and then dad calls and
• 41:34
  like, hey, would you mind coming out to the disco training and
• 41:36
  helping my daughter? Like, sure, I'll be there. 5:00
• 41:39
  you know? When you said hometown, you
• 41:41
  didn't mean childers, you meant no.
• 41:43
  Up in Tulsa now. Yes, Owosso.
• 41:45
  So I live in Owosso. I live in Owosso, Oklahoma,
• 41:47
  which is I was. Trying to connect how?
• 41:49
  Because you're you're at the meet in Oklahoma.
• 41:51
  So Norman. But I was like, OK, this is
• 41:53
  chill. OK.
• 41:53
  I was trying to figure this out. OK, so come to the discus ring.
• 41:56
  Yeah, yeah. The local discus ring.
• 41:57
  OK. All right, so, yeah, I live here
• 42:00
  in Owosso yeah, they, they reached out to me.
• 42:04
  And so yeah, I after work show up at the discus ring and just,
• 42:10
  you know, take it day by day, just working individually
• 42:14
  working with them. And she went from 100 to 120 to
• 42:18
  130 a 140 the next week. Totally, actually, totally
• 42:24
  skipped the the one 40s. She went from 1:30 to 1:52 and
• 42:31
  the 3rd or 4th week of just working with her.
• 42:34
  So she went 152, her third, basically three weeks after I
• 42:40
  started working with her. And, you know, I was in
• 42:44
  Childress when I get the phone call and it's like, you're not
• 42:47
  going to believe this. She just threw 152 feet.
• 42:49
  And I'm like, what? Wow.
• 42:52
  OK, well, we got something special.
• 42:54
  So we just took our time and practice was quality.
• 42:58
  And she continued to progress. She ended up setting the state
• 43:02
  record in after 2 1/2 months of work.
• 43:05
  He set the state record here in Oklahoma at 100.
• 43:08
  And it was like 158 feet, but at that time.
• 43:11
  But she went on and competed that summer and went through 160
• 43:17
  feet at the Golden West Invitational out in California.
• 43:20
  So this is a girl that went from literally like reading books in
• 43:24
  her room to ending up at the Golden West Invitational by June
• 43:28
  and just a few months. OK, lots to unpack there.
• 43:31
  That's amazing. So first of all, was she a legit
• 43:35
  100 footer? Meaning like she really threw
• 43:37
  1:30 but that first meet she threw 100 and they called you
• 43:39
  like was like 100 like her. PR She had thrown 128 the
• 43:43
  previous year. OK.
• 43:44
  OK, 120 A. 125I. Think and I'm not doing that to
• 43:47
  bad I'm just trying to I just want to get perspective here.
• 43:50
  OK, when you got called to to come help with her, you know,
• 43:57
  it's, it's different being a coach than being an athlete,
• 44:00
  right? There's a it's different
• 44:02
  responsibilities when when you're when you're an athlete,
• 44:04
  you're listening to coach and how do I, OK, how do I take what
• 44:07
  he or she said so that I can do my craft, you know, throwing in
• 44:10
  this instance better when you're coaching, you're now trying to
• 44:13
  take all those things you've learned and are still learning
• 44:15
  and OK, how do I communicate that to her?
• 44:17
  That's different. Some people can't enjoy that.
• 44:20
  They just don't. And some people came to, when
• 44:23
  you think back to those first couple of days, weeks of
• 44:25
  practice with her. So now you're coaching, you're,
• 44:27
  you're now exporting your expertise to her.
• 44:32
  Was there like, did you kind of like when I asked you about did
• 44:35
  the discus come naturally to you?
• 44:37
  Did this come now? Like you're like, oh, I, I get
• 44:39
  this. I see the frustration.
• 44:40
  She's not understanding when I say XY or Z.
• 44:42
  So I've got to say it this way. Yeah, it's completely natural.
• 44:46
  Yeah, the, the, the drills and the queues and the knowing what
• 44:50
  she's thinking and, and feeling and the frustrations that, you
• 44:56
  know, helping her through the, the, the frustrating points of
• 45:00
  learning to throw the discus. You know, we, we, we basically
• 45:06
  just take the guesswork out of it, you know, for them.
• 45:10
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the learning curve was just
• 45:14
  insane because there was no guessing at it.
• 45:17
  It's, you know, we do this and this is how we do it and things
• 45:22
  naturally came to her just like it came to me and we saw 10 foot
• 45:25
  increases every single week and in three weeks we're, you know,
• 45:29
  we're looking back. Hey, we're 30 feet from where we
• 45:32
  were just three weeks ago. That's pretty insane.
• 45:36
  It is. It is.
• 45:37
  So and then she just kept progressing all the way through
• 45:39
  the summer. Now she had a coach before they
• 45:43
  called you and said, Hey, can you come help us out?
• 45:45
  How did you, I'll call it handle, but how did you work
• 45:49
  out? Like, you know, there is a,
• 45:50
  there's somewhere there's a coach going.
• 45:51
  Well, wait, you know, dude, what are you doing?
• 45:53
  I, I had her on a plan or, or whatever, you know?
• 45:56
  Well, she did have a coach before and that was her dad.
• 46:00
  OK, OK, OK. He didn't have a school coach.
• 46:02
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
• 46:04
  But dad had a background in throwing.
• 46:07
  He, you know, was a state qualifier.
• 46:09
  He took her as far as he could take her and then clearly saw
• 46:13
  that, OK, we were at 120 last year.
• 46:15
  Now we're at, like 108 feet. Now.
• 46:18
  I may need to to call Caleb here.
• 46:21
  He offered to help. So that's kind of how that
• 46:22
  worked. Right.
• 46:23
  Good, good, good. OK, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 46:26
  And was there any, you know, now looking back on it, you know,
• 46:29
  not every athlete is going to progress like that.
• 46:31
  There's a little bit of like, oh man, you can get get into a
• 46:34
  trap. You work with one kid and they
• 46:35
  go from, you know, a hundred 120 to 160.
• 46:38
  It's like, oh, this is easy. I take any a hundred, 120 foot
• 46:41
  or 160. You know, you know, that's not,
• 46:43
  that's not truth, right? Was there any of like, like, did
• 46:46
  you have the next athlete and they, I'm going to say only
• 46:49
  progress 20 feet and you're like, oh man, what the what the
• 46:51
  heck? Well, in, in my experience, you
• 46:56
  know, I always had a from, from, from that point on coaching
• 47:01
  Kylie Spurgeon, My phone rang off the hook.
• 47:04
  And so I had to figure out a way to manage the, the kids that
• 47:09
  were wanting to come and learn. And so I would have camps and
• 47:13
  clinics. I have basically Saturday
• 47:15
  clinics to to invite new kids that wanted to learn, OK.
• 47:22
  And then from there I can hand pick the ones that I wanted to
• 47:25
  really work with during the weekdays as my core group.
• 47:27
  So if any young coaches are out there, that's kind of my method.
• 47:33
  But from my core group, we had maybe four or five girls, not
• 47:40
  many guys. I don't know why, but, you know,
• 47:41
  the girls kind of stuck with it. They were the ones who were
• 47:45
  really wanting to help. But I always had a good core
• 47:48
  group that really wanted to work.
• 47:50
  And out of those 5, four of them were state champions, different
• 47:53
  classes here in Oklahoma almost every single year for, I don't
• 47:58
  know, 10 years straight. And so we broke a lot of the
• 48:02
  overall state records. We set most of all the class
• 48:05
  records and throwing the discus and then some of the guys
• 48:10
  started coming to to learn as well.
• 48:13
  And then, you know, we had a couple of guys win the state
• 48:17
  title. So after we're in our 20th year
• 48:21
  now it's 2025. I started coaching in 2005 and
• 48:28
  we. Did that start the throwing club
• 48:30
  or where did that evolution come from?
• 48:32
  Yeah, after, well, after, after, you know, Kylie, I, I, I formed
• 48:37
  the Silk Throwing club in 2006. So whenever we started competing
• 48:43
  her outside of Oklahoma, I just came up with the Sill throwing
• 48:46
  Club and then we just competed under that as a club name.
• 48:51
  And but yeah, we've always had a good, you know, I mean, probably
• 48:56
  a small, a small core group of throwers every year for 20
• 48:59
  years. This thing is not composed of 20
• 49:02
  kids. It's composed of like 5 or 6 or
• 49:06
  like today we're we probably have 10 kids within the club,
• 49:10
  but all of those are college bound kids.
• 49:12
  They've all worked hard, they're dedicated and they're there
• 49:16
  every single day. So.
• 49:18
  We've had lots of high school coaches on the podcast.
• 49:22
  We had lots of club coaches on the podcast and there is, you
• 49:26
  know, I'll say always that's a pretty close to accurate
• 49:30
  statement. There is typically a friction
• 49:34
  between the two, right? A lot of it happens because
• 49:38
  there's a lack of communication. Some of it happens because egos
• 49:42
  we, you know, egos aren't bad, bad egos are bad.
• 49:45
  And so there's a, you know, some of it is ownership, right?
• 49:47
  Well, that's my athlete. Well, that's my athlete.
• 49:49
  You know, things like that. How have you, you know, you're
• 49:54
  working outside of the high school setting.
• 49:56
  So most, not all, you know, there are some kids who are not
• 50:00
  going to have a throws coach at their school for for many, many
• 50:03
  reasons, right? But most of these kids probably
• 50:05
  have a throws coach at the school.
• 50:07
  How have you, I'm going to say handled and maybe that's not the
• 50:10
  right word. You can correct me there.
• 50:12
  The relationship of the high school coach with the athlete
• 50:15
  and what you do and bring to the table as well.
• 50:17
  And the parents are involved in all this.
• 50:19
  How have you handled that aspect of of coaching?
• 50:22
  You know, for probably like 15 years, most of the kids that
• 50:26
  came to the clinics every Saturday didn't have a coach.
• 50:31
  And so that's what brought them, you know, seeking help from
• 50:35
  somebody. Well, I was a resource for the
• 50:38
  kids that didn't have coaching. And so it, that made it so
• 50:42
  simple. I didn't have to, I didn't have
• 50:44
  to fight it, fight that battle. Now today, like right now here
• 50:52
  in Oklahoma, like every school has a has a throws coach.
• 50:55
  And so some of them are brand new.
• 50:58
  Some of them think they know you know, but you just have to.
• 51:05
  There certainly is a scale of coaches, not just throws and not
• 51:10
  just high school, by the way, in college, in sprints, in distance
• 51:13
  there. There is, you know, people who
• 51:15
  know and are motivated to know everything about their event and
• 51:18
  people who are brand new who had that motivation, but they're
• 51:20
  still brand new. They have lack of experience
• 51:22
  there. There certainly is that in every
• 51:23
  aspect. Correct.
• 51:24
  Yeah. There, Mike, can you hear me?
• 51:30
  Yep, you're good. Yep.
• 51:31
  OK. I just missed the last question
• 51:33
  you asked. Well, no, I was just saying that
• 51:35
  what, what you're describing there is not unique to throws
• 51:39
  nor unique to high school. That there is a the gamut of
• 51:43
  people who know and are motivated in their event for
• 51:46
  their their college or high school or club, whether they're
• 51:49
  distance throws, jumps versus people who are brand new, have
• 51:52
  lack of experience or, or just, you know, they think they know
• 51:56
  and they don't. That's a bad ego aspect.
• 51:58
  So there is that that gamut of all the coaches.
• 52:00
  So you're you're seeing the ball.
• 52:02
  Yeah, well, I think both sides, you know, school coach and a
• 52:05
  club coach, I think they have to absolutely, you know, be
• 52:10
  respectful of each other and you know, we're a school coach too.
• 52:17
  Not be in favor of kids coming or going to a club coach.
• 52:22
  I think that's, I think that's hurting an athlete.
• 52:26
  I think, I think it's good for kids to work with club coaches
• 52:30
  as long as they have a, a good 10 year track record.
• 52:37
  You know, if you know the club coach has a great 10 year track
• 52:40
  record, then there's no issues. So I think most of the school
• 52:46
  coaches respect kind of what I've been able to do over the
• 52:50
  last 20 years. And so I don't there hasn't been
• 52:53
  any friction in that way. And you know, in our respect,
• 52:57
  some of the most of the the school coaches as well.
• 53:01
  So you just have to learn to work together and at the end of
• 53:04
  the day, it's about the athlete and, and, and the athlete is, is
• 53:11
  basically the spotlight. So yeah, I think that's the
• 53:13
  biggest issue. It's interesting.
• 53:15
  I I think every coach, even including you, Caleb would say I
• 53:18
  do it for the kids. Like you, you just kind of
• 53:20
  alluded to. It's like, hey, it's about the
• 53:21
  athletes. I do it for the kids and then we
• 53:24
  allow our egos to come in sometimes ago.
• 53:26
  Yeah, I do it for the kids, but I don't want them working with
• 53:28
  Caleb. This is my athlete.
• 53:30
  They're my high school. They should be.
• 53:31
  I'm a I'm a as good a throws coach as him.
• 53:33
  Whether they are or not doesn't matter.
• 53:34
  You know, we don't rank in that aspect.
• 53:37
  But then I'd go to that coach and be like, well, wait, but I
• 53:38
  thought you did it for the kids. So if it's so, if it's good for
• 53:42
  the kid to work with Caleb, what?
• 53:44
  What's? The problem I'm speaking, I'm
• 53:45
  speaking for myself. I can learn something from just
• 53:50
  about anyone. And so I, I, I would never, I
• 53:54
  would never discourage an athlete from going and working
• 53:58
  with another coach, you know, as long as they have a track record
• 54:03
  there and it's been successful. You know, we've, I've taken my
• 54:07
  core group over the last 20 years and we've worked with so
• 54:11
  many coaches and I've invited so many coaches to come to our
• 54:15
  practices or small clinics and work with us, You know, over 20
• 54:20
  years, I can tell you the mentors that I've had will blow
• 54:23
  your mind that have come to our practices or have we put on
• 54:29
  clinics. When we're talking about Mac
• 54:31
  Wilkins, we're talking about Dave Wolman.
• 54:36
  I'm talking about, you know, in something I I failed to mention,
• 54:40
  whenever I was in high school during the summer time, I would
• 54:44
  go to UCLA and work with Art Venegas.
• 54:46
  Did you really and. So a lot of the way I teach and
• 54:52
  talk comes from those mentors that I've had over the over my
• 54:56
  career. So you're going to hear a lot
• 54:59
  of, you know, Dave's methodology and art Venegas the way, you
• 55:04
  know, I worked for John Godina for about four years.
• 55:08
  That's right. So.
• 55:10
  That might be that might be how we were introduced.
• 55:13
  Actually, I'm trying to think. I thought it was before John,
• 55:15
  but John, I've worked with John now for a long time.
• 55:18
  But yeah, that's an anytime, yeah, anytime John name is
• 55:21
  brought up, I'm I'm good because I just love that guy, dear
• 55:24
  friends. So that's super interest.
• 55:27
  I appreciate that. So where did talk to us about
• 55:31
  the progression of the the seal throwing club because it so it
• 55:35
  started out with, you know, dad calling saying, hey, I need help
• 55:37
  with my daughter and then a couple more kids start joining
• 55:39
  and then this it becomes an official thing.
• 55:41
  You started doing this Oklahoma throws series.
• 55:44
  Talk to us about kind of the. Progression.
• 55:45
  Well, the the wholesale throwing club thing is not about numbers.
• 55:48
  I don't have 20 kids. I don't have 30 kids or 50 kids.
• 55:51
  I don't want that. I want one athlete to work with
• 55:55
  that has the ability to learn, listen and, and to progress and
• 55:59
  it's got the physical capabilities of doing something
• 56:01
  at a national level. So I'm just looking for one
• 56:05
  athlete to coach every year and you know it.
• 56:10
  Obviously we have more than one. What, you know, if I can just
• 56:14
  keep the numbers down to about 10 kids, you know, 50% of them
• 56:20
  will probably be at the national meet.
• 56:23
  You know, like over the weekend we've had five athletes out of
• 56:28
  the 10 compete at the indoor national championships this
• 56:31
  year. And three of them were all
• 56:34
  American and 1 broke the state record throwing away and the
• 56:38
  other one was the winner of the emerging elite competition.
• 56:42
  So all five kids did something great.
• 56:45
  And so that's my goal. It's to keep things small
• 56:49
  quality and, and, and, and all 5 kids will go compete at the
• 56:54
  Division One level somewhere. It may not be Division One, that
• 56:57
  doesn't matter either. But they're all going to go get
• 57:00
  their school payment. And that's what that's what's
• 57:04
  important. Most important is we, we did our
• 57:08
  job. We got them to the next level
• 57:10
  and we got, we helped get school paid for for them.
• 57:13
  College is extremely expensive these days and so this is one
• 57:17
  way that that I can give back. That was, you know, obviously
• 57:21
  given to me. It's the gift to coach and the
• 57:24
  transfer knowledge and to help get somebody from nothing to
• 57:27
  something and get get a college education out of it.
• 57:30
  Just a step up in life. So so that that is a lot, right,
• 57:33
  Like if if that was your completely what you did 24/7 365
• 57:37
  that that's a lot. Even with 10 or 15 kit,
• 57:40
  whatever, you know, that's a lot, but you've continued to
• 57:42
  grow this. Where did the throw series
• 57:45
  start? You you were doing that?
• 57:47
  Right, so with honestly, I kind of got bored with each teaching
• 57:52
  shot and discus every single day for 15 years straight.
• 57:56
  And and we're we're, we're basically, you know, winning the
• 58:02
  state title in every classification in the discus.
• 58:05
  I'm like this. I I really want another
• 58:08
  challenge. So the hammer throw, the
• 58:10
  learning to teach and talk about and to develop and hammer
• 58:14
  throwing has become, it's been amazing from, from my point of
• 58:23
  view, not knowing a whole lot about it.
• 58:25
  You know, ten years ago to, you know, taking a group of kids and
• 58:32
  competing at the national level in the hammer and, you know,
• 58:37
  placing in the top 6, which is all American status.
• 58:42
  It's it's been fun. So just incorporating hammer
• 58:48
  throw for these high school kids has been so beneficial and
• 58:52
  rewarding. But there we had to have a way
• 58:56
  develop these kids. You can't just go and take a
• 58:58
  hammer and go throw at the high school.
• 59:01
  You're throwing a hammer on the football practice field.
• 59:03
  You're I mean, you're getting ran off, getting hate emails and
• 59:07
  texts and getting ran off from the facility in general.
• 59:11
  But I did find a place that we could have practice and throw
• 59:14
  the hammer at one of the local high schools.
• 59:17
  And but it's, it's one circle and we had 10 kids on hammer.
• 59:21
  And so it wasn't really efficient way to, to developed a
• 59:26
  group of kids that throw that are on a hammer.
• 59:30
  And so a, a facility of our own is what we've needed for
• 59:36
  development and a hammer. And it's been a way that that we
• 59:41
  can compete. So the Oklahoma Throw Series
• 59:43
  provided us a way to to host competitions every other week or
• 59:49
  you know, 10 years ago it was, you know, we had a competition
• 59:52
  every other week, like twice a month, you know, but it gave our
• 59:56
  kids an opportunity to actually competitively throw the hammer
• 1:00:01
  and to get used to that and be rewarded from the work that they
• 1:00:05
  put in throughout the week. So Oklahoma Throw Series was for
• 1:00:11
  hammer development? So it was a way you couldn't
• 1:00:14
  just add hammers because you know you need to compute.
• 1:00:17
  You could. But like, you know, they want to
• 1:00:19
  compete their kids. And what does that mean?
• 1:00:21
  So you get and there was no opportunities out there.
• 1:00:23
  So you decide then I'll just I'll just create it myself.
• 1:00:26
  Right. So creating, creating
• 1:00:29
  competition dates that are sanctioned is so important.
• 1:00:34
  You can't go anywhere and throw a hammer and USATF meets,
• 1:00:38
  there's one, there's not enough USATF meets within driving
• 1:00:43
  distance to go to, to throw a hammer.
• 1:00:46
  And so we basically utilized local high schools to host these
• 1:00:51
  competitions for, you know, 5 or 6 years before Ramona.
• 1:00:59
  But we ended up getting run off from almost every location that,
• 1:01:04
  that we held competitions. It just felt like we weren't
• 1:01:09
  really invited and and we were attracting post collegiates at
• 1:01:15
  these competitions eventually that were driving 10 hours to to
• 1:01:21
  be there for the competition. That was just blowing my mind.
• 1:01:25
  And then that's How I Met Don Milliken.
• 1:01:28
  He showed up as a master's athlete and you know, the 68
• 1:01:35
  year division age group category, but he was there to
• 1:01:41
  compete and he still throws today and he could see, he could
• 1:01:47
  clearly see the frustration behind the need for a facility
• 1:01:52
  and what I was trying to do for the young, younger athletes, not
• 1:01:57
  only just hammer throwing, but shot just as two and, and most
• 1:02:01
  of the facilities here don't have a level field.
• 1:02:04
  It was kind of in the backyard throwing type situation and but
• 1:02:08
  we've I was starting to attract a lot of really good throwers.
• 1:02:12
  In fact, we were at a high school and, and we had Joe Brown
• 1:02:17
  and we had Rachel Denkoff and we had so many good Lizzie Burgle,
• 1:02:25
  so many really good throwers that that were throwing biscuits
• 1:02:28
  and hammer. So, yeah, one I think the the, I
• 1:02:36
  think the, the, the break in this, this straw was the police
• 1:02:42
  officers showed up at the competition and wanting to run
• 1:02:46
  us off the facility. No way.
• 1:02:48
  So yeah, I was anyways, we had some high level throwers there
• 1:02:54
  and we weren't we weren't very well welcomed at the facility at
• 1:03:00
  all or at the school. So I.
• 1:03:02
  Love this that's. When Dawn, that's when Dawn
• 1:03:04
  approached me. It's like we need to create our
• 1:03:06
  own facility. You need to go out and, and
• 1:03:09
  build your own facility. And here's the green light to do
• 1:03:12
  it. So it's, it's up to you to go
• 1:03:15
  find the place, build it, do whatever, whatever you need to
• 1:03:20
  do. I'll, I'll, I'll help fund that.
• 1:03:23
  Yeah, so I I love this progression of, you know, first
• 1:03:28
  of all athlete, then coaching and coaching the shot in the
• 1:03:31
  discus because that's what you knew and that's that was your
• 1:03:33
  background. And then like, hey, I I want to
• 1:03:35
  figure out this hammer thing. OK, well, there there is no just
• 1:03:39
  place to go and Start learning and coaching that.
• 1:03:41
  So I'll figure out my own throwing series.
• 1:03:44
  And so you figured that out and started doing that and you're
• 1:03:46
  kind of, you know, I kind of got this picture of like like a like
• 1:03:51
  a picture that has been like ripped into like, you know,
• 1:03:54
  78910 different pieces and you're you're Scotch taping it
• 1:03:57
  together. So I can see the picture, but it
• 1:03:58
  but it's still held by Scotch tape, right?
• 1:04:00
  It's not a full picture. And then it's like, OK, well to
• 1:04:03
  get that full picture, I've got a creative, my own.
• 1:04:05
  I've got to have a facility. So I just love this progression.
• 1:04:08
  Are you up to this point we're about to get into now your own
• 1:04:11
  facility here at Throwstown, Ramona, are you still working in
• 1:04:16
  the oil and gas industry or has just become a full time thing at
• 1:04:18
  this point? Where are you professionally
• 1:04:21
  regarding, you know, still got a paycheck?
• 1:04:23
  And Co, several years ago, you know, oil and gas industry kind
• 1:04:28
  of went through some hard time tearing Pulsa, lots of layoffs
• 1:04:32
  and lots of companies being shut down and moving to other
• 1:04:35
  locations and face bankruptcy issues.
• 1:04:38
  And I was kind of a part of that downturn in the industry.
• 1:04:43
  And so really the only thing that kept me sane was just
• 1:04:47
  working with high school kids during the day.
• 1:04:49
  I was OK, that was kind of my medicine.
• 1:04:53
  And I really did not well, I just didn't feel, I couldn't
• 1:05:01
  find a job that I felt like I fit into, you know what I mean?
• 1:05:07
  And I, you know, the coaching thing has always been a measure,
• 1:05:14
  a mesmerizing world for me experience wise.
• 1:05:19
  And it's, it's, it's a joy to go out to practice every day and
• 1:05:22
  work with these kids that want to get better.
• 1:05:25
  That's what makes it easy. And you know, to work from
• 1:05:31
  Sunday through Thursday, recover, jump on an airplane and
• 1:05:35
  go to a national meet, that's like quite an amazing experience
• 1:05:41
  in itself. And it's an amazing experience
• 1:05:44
  for these athletes too. So I just kind of focused on
• 1:05:48
  doing the best I can with with these kids.
• 1:05:51
  They've always been the focus day one so.
• 1:05:56
  Did you ever, have you ever considered, you know, I know
• 1:05:59
  what you said up front about, you know, working for someone
• 1:06:02
  else, but but you have been working for other people right?
• 1:06:03
  In the oil and gas industry. Did you ever consider going into
• 1:06:06
  college coaching or even you know, you have a kinesiology
• 1:06:08
  degree, you could go into high school coaching and teaching?
• 1:06:11
  Did you ever consider that? I did, I did, I, I did coach.
• 1:06:16
  I was an assistant coach at the University of Tulsa for about
• 1:06:19
  four years, about four or five years.
• 1:06:23
  That was a great experience. It was a, but that's when, you
• 1:06:27
  know, I had my, my, my children were a lot smaller and it was,
• 1:06:33
  it was kind of a struggle there with traveling and recruiting
• 1:06:36
  and things like that and then wanting to be home with the
• 1:06:38
  kids. And that was a challenge in
• 1:06:40
  itself. So we had quite a bit of success
• 1:06:47
  there at University of Tulsa, which just you know, some
• 1:06:51
  younger kid, I mean basically freshmen, freshmen, sophomores,
• 1:06:56
  breaking the school record at most of all the school records
• 1:07:00
  at Tulsa. And then we actually took a a
• 1:07:04
  guy from Canada and as a basically a freshman qualifying
• 1:07:10
  for the Division One national championships indoors in the
• 1:07:13
  weight throw. So, you know, taking a guy off
• 1:07:17
  the hockey ice hockey rink in Canada and then transitioning to
• 1:07:22
  the throws world and, you know, three months later he's at the
• 1:07:26
  Division One national championships.
• 1:07:27
  That was mind blowing experience.
• 1:07:31
  But you know, some of the coaching methodology that I used
• 1:07:35
  to to develop him rapidly, you know, came from Gary Cooper and
• 1:07:42
  John Smith. And so, you know, those were my
• 1:07:47
  hammer and wait throw mentors. That really not bad, I mean.
• 1:07:51
  No, it's not bad at all. So yeah, I've had lots of
• 1:07:53
  mentors and all this, the coaching aspect of this.
• 1:07:59
  So Speaking of those mentors, I haven't heard you talk about it,
• 1:08:02
  so I'm going to ask it. And then maybe it's because of
• 1:08:05
  these mentors. What have you done?
• 1:08:07
  I'm a huge proponent of coaching education, and I think of
• 1:08:10
  coaching education formally and informally.
• 1:08:13
  So formally, you know, USATF level ones and twos, USTFCCAS,
• 1:08:17
  Altis, things like that, right. And then informally and and I
• 1:08:21
  don't know that one is more important than the other.
• 1:08:24
  Or, or maybe I should say that one is more effective. 1 is
• 1:08:27
  better than the other informally.
• 1:08:29
  Like I like you mentioned John Smith and I think like, oh man,
• 1:08:32
  boy, get you 2 at the top of the stands that attract me and let
• 1:08:35
  you guys just literally hammer it out on how to coach the
• 1:08:38
  hammer. Like what an education you would
• 1:08:40
  get from a guy like John Smith, right?
• 1:08:41
  Or even Connie, right. So what have you done up to up
• 1:08:44
  to the point where we're at, where we're getting close to
• 1:08:46
  where we're about to have our own facility?
• 1:08:48
  What have you done coaching education wise?
• 1:08:50
  Has it been more informally, formally talk to us about?
• 1:08:52
  Not much. Yeah, not much.
• 1:08:55
  I don't have certifications of any kind.
• 1:08:58
  I have maybe my Level 1, maybe 15 years ago, Level 1 USATF,
• 1:09:04
  Level 1 coaching credential and that's it.
• 1:09:08
  I'll tell you what the best coaching education is.
• 1:09:12
  Actually getting on the phone with somebody and talking for
• 1:09:14
  three hours, you know, or having them come out to practice or
• 1:09:19
  that's the best coaching education you could possibly
• 1:09:21
  get. And that's what I've always been
• 1:09:24
  an advocate for, and that's the way I and so.
• 1:09:28
  I I would agree with that. I like I said, that's why I say
• 1:09:30
  I don't know. And I was a huge coaching
• 1:09:32
  education guy, both sides, but but in the formal side.
• 1:09:35
  So you know, I did USTTF ones. I got a several level twos.
• 1:09:39
  We didn't have USTFCA and Eltis when I was around, but I
• 1:09:41
  guarantee I would have never gone through anything.
• 1:09:44
  But I think, but I know I can also in a lot of this happened
• 1:09:48
  actually at level twos. I can remember distinctly even
• 1:09:50
  today, you know, it's decades ago now where you know, me and a
• 1:09:54
  couple of guys and gals were in a room or in the hallway till
• 1:09:57
  midnight 1:00 talking shopping. I was like, oh man, I learned a
• 1:10:00
  lot during that. I was like, oh, that works for
• 1:10:03
  you at this school. I wonder if that would work for
• 1:10:05
  me. And Oh, this is how you solve
• 1:10:07
  that problem. Well, maybe I should try that.
• 1:10:08
  You know that, that you don't get in the formal side.
• 1:10:10
  So I, I, I don't like when you say I don't have many of their
• 1:10:13
  certificates. I don't like automatically go,
• 1:10:15
  Oh, well, you know, you aren't doing the thing.
• 1:10:16
  The mentor side, that the informal side is just as
• 1:10:19
  important. Clinics, clinics are not formal.
• 1:10:21
  They're they're maybe in between, but those are just as
• 1:10:23
  important too. So I, I, I I I like this style.
• 1:10:26
  I've had the best mentors in the United States on the coaching
• 1:10:31
  side that you could possibly ever have from Art Venegas in
• 1:10:35
  high school. Not only art, you know, you go
• 1:10:38
  to those camps, you got art. David Dumble was there, all of
• 1:10:42
  those, all American athletes that he had, Nautical R sele la
• 1:10:46
  SUA. John Godino was there.
• 1:10:49
  Just would blow your mind. You don't think I learned
• 1:10:54
  anything from those camps. I was a sponge, you know, and,
• 1:10:59
  you know, I was able to do exactly what they were doing.
• 1:11:02
  And, you know, John working for John, you know, I went through
• 1:11:05
  his coaching education, you know, scored 100 on his test.
• 1:11:10
  He called me like, how the heck did you do that?
• 1:11:11
  The national average is like 80. And it's like you're hired.
• 1:11:15
  You're you're going to work for me.
• 1:11:17
  And, you know, I worked it drills for all of his classes.
• 1:11:21
  So he put me to work, for example, in Albuquerque in July,
• 1:11:28
  I was, you could literally take my shirt and wring it with sweat
• 1:11:31
  after doing all of the drill demonstration.
• 1:11:34
  And, and so I know how to do the, the drills and the queues
• 1:11:40
  to the point where you're dripping in sweat.
• 1:11:43
  So Mac Wilkins has been a, a great mentor over, over, I don't
• 1:11:49
  know, 15 years. Dave Woman is also been a great
• 1:11:55
  mentor. So I have this large toolbox of,
• 1:11:58
  of, of different resources and tools in order to be able to fix
• 1:12:01
  somebody or fix, fix anything. I, I swear that, you know, a kid
• 1:12:08
  can come with a bad habit or a problem.
• 1:12:11
  And I promise you, I'll we'll find a way to fix it.
• 1:12:14
  Yeah. The throws.
• 1:12:16
  Thanks, Pistol. It's it's it's anything.
• 1:12:18
  The throws seem to lend themselves more to the, you
• 1:12:22
  know, hanging around the discus ring and you got a few athletes
• 1:12:24
  doing things. And I don't know if it's because
• 1:12:26
  it's slower, meaning, you know, I can see a discus specifically
• 1:12:29
  or a shot putter, you know, more than someone runs a family 30 in
• 1:12:33
  the Sprint. I can still see that, obviously,
• 1:12:34
  but it's harder to go. OK yeah.
• 1:12:36
  You see where his foot with Airwatch now I'm going to tell
• 1:12:37
  him to do this and that'll be the cue.
• 1:12:39
  Wearing throws, It's like, oh, yeah, you see how the hand
• 1:12:40
  dipped? Well, to do that, we're going to
• 1:12:42
  talk about the step behind that. That'll help.
• 1:12:43
  You know, it just seems to lend itself more to that.
• 1:12:47
  Oh yeah, to that type of almost like, I don't know, like I keep
• 1:12:50
  thinking like, like garage style of, of education, like, oh,
• 1:12:54
  we're just hanging out and drinking beers and and coaching,
• 1:12:56
  you know, don't do that at the ring.
• 1:12:58
  But you know what I'm saying kind of that that imagery of
• 1:13:00
  that. I'm sure that actually has also
• 1:13:02
  happened at rings before as well as well.
• 1:13:05
  OK, so we're continuing the progression athlete to coach,
• 1:13:08
  coaching shot putting discus. Hey, I want to do the hammer so
• 1:13:11
  well, I got to figure this out and do this Oklahoma throw
• 1:13:14
  series, which I love knowing you know what we're about to get
• 1:13:17
  into how like that throw series you had to learn a lot about
• 1:13:20
  putting on me certification. You know those kind of like this
• 1:13:22
  all is building up to what? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:13:25
  Today, it's just quite. Learning how to paint a sector
• 1:13:28
  line straight, you know, it's got to be straight, you know,
• 1:13:31
  and the right degrees. Right, right, right.
• 1:13:33
  I love how this is building up. OK, so you meet Don, Don's like,
• 1:13:38
  look, I can see the frustration. I'll, I'll help support this,
• 1:13:41
  but you're, you're going to go out and, and do this, do the
• 1:13:44
  work. What talk to us about this
• 1:13:47
  infancy because it's one thing to say I want my own facility.
• 1:13:50
  And, and you know, I said this before we hit record.
• 1:13:53
  You know, I, I obviously in the position that I'm in only with
• 1:13:56
  Gil, but you know what I do and how I do it for, for track and
• 1:13:59
  field. I hear this a lot, right?
• 1:14:01
  Like I hear I've been pitched on, you know, a million pole
• 1:14:04
  vault series, 1,000,000 throws only facilities, etcetera.
• 1:14:08
  And the vast majority don't ever come to fruition for many, many
• 1:14:12
  reasons. Not not necessarily because of
• 1:14:13
  the coach finances is typically the biggest one.
• 1:14:16
  Land is is the biggest one that stops you from doing things.
• 1:14:20
  But you've done it and you've done it successfully.
• 1:14:22
  So talk to us about the process. You already kind of gave us an
• 1:14:25
  insight in like how we picked Ramona, but give us a insight
• 1:14:28
  into, you know, like really kind of peel the onion back here so
• 1:14:32
  that people that are listening can learn from this as well.
• 1:14:35
  Like some of the mistakes you made or some of the roadblocks
• 1:14:37
  that you found that you had to get over.
• 1:14:39
  Like let's help kind of maybe remove those from other people
• 1:14:41
  so they can maybe we have more facilities, throws, jumps,
• 1:14:44
  sprints, etcetera. Talk to us about the start the
• 1:14:47
  journey of Throws Town. The start was meeting Don
• 1:14:50
  Milliken for fun, you know, but he had the same passion as I do.
• 1:14:57
  So it was so easy. And he had and he could see the
• 1:15:00
  vision of what I was trying to do.
• 1:15:03
  So that, that also made that, that transition so, so easy, you
• 1:15:10
  know, for two people to see at the same vision and experience
• 1:15:14
  some of the same frustrations just made the experience easy.
• 1:15:20
  Don gave me the green light to, to go out and find a, a, a, a
• 1:15:25
  place or property to, to build a, a basic throwing facility
• 1:15:33
  that we can host competitions. These competitions, obviously
• 1:15:39
  we'd get sanctions for these and then allow some of our post
• 1:15:43
  colleague getting professional athletes it, it basically just
• 1:15:46
  gives them opportunity to hit, hit marks, qualifying marks for
• 1:15:51
  bigger competitions later. That was kind of the the other
• 1:15:55
  Ave. other than youth development is providing
• 1:16:01
  opportunity for a professional athlete.
• 1:16:04
  And so there's 222 sides to this to be able to provide for
• 1:16:11
  different groups of athletes basically, which is a huge need.
• 1:16:17
  There's just not that many competitions that are sanctioned
• 1:16:21
  correctly in the United States at the world athletic level for
• 1:16:25
  these professional acts, for sure.
• 1:16:29
  So, and you know, for our youth athletes, this is a perfect,
• 1:16:34
  perfect vehicle for development. We train through the week.
• 1:16:38
  We, we compete on the weekend and not have to travel anywhere.
• 1:16:42
  What's better than that other than going and in qualifying for
• 1:16:45
  these national meats, perfect scenario.
• 1:16:49
  We have a good, we have a great facility for for hammer throwing
• 1:16:52
  now. OK, I'm going to dig the onion,
• 1:16:54
  peel the onion back here a little bit.
• 1:16:56
  You're, you're already into the, the competitions and things like
• 1:16:59
  that. And that's great.
• 1:17:00
  That, that's, that's amazing that that's the end result,
• 1:17:02
  right? That's where we are today.
• 1:17:04
  Go back. So you find a piece of land, you
• 1:17:08
  know, land no matter what, no matter how perfect the land is,
• 1:17:11
  it it's not ready. So you have to figure out, you
• 1:17:14
  know, how do I grade this thing? What do I do?
• 1:17:16
  You had to call people, including myself about the cages
• 1:17:19
  and facilities and that that's what that's the part that trips
• 1:17:23
  people up. I don't want to say it's easy to
• 1:17:24
  help hold the competition because you know your own and
• 1:17:26
  we'll get into that, the own the hills that you have to climb for
• 1:17:29
  that. But I'm talking about just the
• 1:17:30
  the groundwork of like, OK, I see it, I see the vision.
• 1:17:33
  Oh, but this guy just put a roadblock in front of me.
• 1:17:36
  Oh, now I got to figure out this side and talked about give me
• 1:17:38
  the nitty gritty. Well, once we found once, once I
• 1:17:43
  narrowed this thing down, I found a place in Ramona only had
• 1:17:48
  two, two sheds that was full of farm equipment, had a fence
• 1:17:54
  where where cows were basically were grazing and you know, they
• 1:18:01
  were basically running cows, cattle on the on the place and
• 1:18:07
  or in their farm equipment. And I called Don come out and
• 1:18:11
  take a look at this. You know, we literally like walk
• 1:18:13
  out in the middle of the of the property and wind has got our
• 1:18:17
  shirt just completely hide back and can't even keep a ball hat
• 1:18:23
  on. And you know, I was like, this
• 1:18:25
  is the place, Don, this is just what, what, what I really want.
• 1:18:30
  And he he, he agreed. But the whole the obstacle about
• 1:18:35
  the property was it had a huge hill in the middle of it.
• 1:18:38
  OK, here we go. So we were, we were, we were
• 1:18:45
  kind of worried about that. So we should we just turn it
• 1:18:47
  back and go find another place. And I right, right.
• 1:18:49
  You know, I think the buildings being being on the property was
• 1:18:53
  basically the the the catch moving forward with it.
• 1:19:00
  What do you mean? By the the hill was definitely a
• 1:19:04
  set back, but so he called us like he called I was probably in
• 1:19:11
  Texas again. He he basically suggested that
• 1:19:18
  we just cut that heel just back a little bit and and put a
• 1:19:21
  discus ring there and we have just enough room.
• 1:19:24
  But in my mind, it's like we have to take out the whole heel
• 1:19:28
  and, and he'll, he's going to have, he's, he's going to, he's
• 1:19:32
  going to see that. And, and we, we got to that
• 1:19:36
  point where we're going to have to take the whole hill out and
• 1:19:39
  use that, use the dirt that we had to build our foundation, our
• 1:19:44
  field, our throwing field. So if, if you go out to Ramona
• 1:19:49
  and you walk out on the field, you're basically walking up on a
• 1:19:54
  10 to 12 foot incline to get to the field.
• 1:19:58
  We took the dirt that we already had and then just spread it.
• 1:20:02
  We worked. We worked.
• 1:20:04
  You know, I think the whole, the whole thing, what what has made
• 1:20:09
  the, the the development of Ramona was finding an engineer,
• 1:20:15
  which was Amy Bagel. That's right.
• 1:20:18
  It was a javelin thrower at University of Oklahoma.
• 1:20:21
  She. She.
• 1:20:22
  She's an engineer now. And so I called Amy, heard some
• 1:20:28
  recommendations for my own kids. I can't even remember Amy Bagel.
• 1:20:31
  Yeah, I sure do. Well, so I called Amy and and
• 1:20:36
  gave her my pitch and she was on board immediately.
• 1:20:38
  It's like a dream project for her.
• 1:20:40
  So she helped me get my elevations.
• 1:20:43
  She did all the engineering work.
• 1:20:46
  My next obstacle was hiring the correct guy to do the dirt work.
• 1:20:51
  That was the most critical piece to this whole.
• 1:20:54
  That's a lot of dirt that we moved to make Ramona or Throw
• 1:21:00
  Town and I can't remember. It was like 100, you know,
• 1:21:04
  100,000 cubic feet of dirt or something like that.
• 1:21:09
  It was an enormous amount of dirt that we moved to, to build
• 1:21:14
  the field up. It needed to utilize our, the
• 1:21:17
  dirt that we had on the property.
• 1:21:19
  So we're not trucking in dirt, But so we, we saw a few
• 1:21:23
  problems. We we, we got we got rid of the
• 1:21:27
  hill and then the number two we, we, we now have a level playing
• 1:21:33
  field throwing field. So that's kind of how it was
• 1:21:39
  developed on a good engineering and dirty.
• 1:21:42
  Was there any time during that that you're like, I don't think
• 1:21:46
  this is going to work? Oh, no, no, no, I, I hand
• 1:21:51
  sketched this on a napkin and gave it to him like right, right
• 1:21:54
  away, within 15 minutes, because I already had this planned out
• 1:21:57
  in my mind long ago. You know, I think the obstacles
• 1:22:02
  were whatever the dirt guy was experiencing or Amy was
• 1:22:05
  experiencing on the engineering side of finding ways to make
• 1:22:08
  things happen. Because there were, there were,
• 1:22:13
  there were some obstacles that we face, but nothing too,
• 1:22:21
  nothing too serious, you know, like houses filled going to
• 1:22:27
  drain and how are we going to keep the field together?
• 1:22:30
  So we, we've got some retaining walls that we experienced and
• 1:22:34
  some drainage issues fixed and then outfitting the buildings or
• 1:22:39
  the sheds into buildings that we could use as conference or
• 1:22:45
  athlete hang out, come hang out building and then our own weight
• 1:22:52
  room. So a built, well, we, we
• 1:22:57
  basically outfitted one of the buildings and turned it into a
• 1:23:00
  weight room. And so most everything came off
• 1:23:04
  of marketplace. So.
• 1:23:08
  But it's the best garage gym that you could ever imagine.
• 1:23:12
  You know everything that we need and, you know, to see
• 1:23:17
  professional athletes and they're working out and they
• 1:23:19
  love it. That's yeah, it's made it made
• 1:23:23
  my day. So no prima donnas there, I know
• 1:23:26
  that. No, they no, in fact, they're
• 1:23:29
  sometimes working without the lights on.
• 1:23:30
  It's like we have lights guys. We.
• 1:23:32
  Can turn the lights. On, you know.
• 1:23:36
  So you get the land. There's a lot of work you have
• 1:23:38
  to do with the no matter what you get, there's work to do with
• 1:23:41
  land. You got this big hill, so you
• 1:23:42
  got to figure that out. The buildings, What'd you do
• 1:23:44
  with the cows? Did you get them shut?
• 1:23:47
  We have before we closed on the property, they had to move the
• 1:23:49
  cows off the property and took down the fence because I knew
• 1:23:53
  that we're fixing to do some dirt work.
• 1:23:55
  So I took the fence down and yeah, that's that's kind of how
• 1:24:01
  how it all got started. And when you did this napkin
• 1:24:04
  sketch, I remember you calling me telling about the napkin
• 1:24:07
  because, you know, that's like a like a stereotypical like TV
• 1:24:10
  movie thing. And it's like, no, no, no.
• 1:24:11
  I literally had a napkin. I was like, all right, here,
• 1:24:13
  here. And then Amy professionalizes
• 1:24:15
  it. I remember seeing her, her
• 1:24:16
  drawing, the first drawing that she did there.
• 1:24:19
  So you get that. How has it evolved?
• 1:24:23
  And what I mean by that is when you initially put in the cages
• 1:24:26
  and circles and things like that, is that what it is today?
• 1:24:29
  Or was it like, OK, let's get through the 1st cage and circle
• 1:24:32
  and then we'll add how's that evolved from only in three
• 1:24:35
  years? From the napkin sketch to where
• 1:24:38
  it is today, we've got, you know, it's, it's, it's close,
• 1:24:40
  but it, it wasn't there. There was things that, that we
• 1:24:44
  had to move around to fit the pieces to the puzzle.
• 1:24:46
  And then how do you get 120 foot javelin runway to fit the puzzle
• 1:24:50
  too? And I'm like, Amy, you're the
• 1:24:52
  jab thrower. Are you going to be happy to
• 1:24:54
  come here to throw the javelin? And if you say yes, then I'm
• 1:24:57
  good with it. And, you know, she found ways to
• 1:25:00
  move things around and fit the pieces.
• 1:25:02
  And, and you know, we have now we have like 220 by 50 drill
• 1:25:07
  pads that we can fit, you know, 10 kids on to do drills.
• 1:25:12
  You know, we, we now have 6 discus rings and two shot rings
• 1:25:19
  and one huge hammer cage. So we have everything covered.
• 1:25:25
  Yeah, from just about every direction.
• 1:25:27
  So, OK, appreciate that. That's, that's helpful for
• 1:25:30
  people to see like I, I, you know, sometimes chuckle, I'll
• 1:25:33
  have a coach. It's usually not a coach
• 1:25:35
  actually, but I have someone calling us, hey, we want to
• 1:25:36
  build an indoor facility. How much would it cost?
• 1:25:38
  I'm like, well, first of all, our side of it will be this
• 1:25:40
  much. Do you have land?
• 1:25:41
  There's your first cost. Oh, walls, there's your second.
• 1:25:44
  You know, those are way more expensive.
• 1:25:45
  So it's not just as easy as like, oh, I want to do this.
• 1:25:48
  Like there's a lot of logistics here.
• 1:25:49
  So I appreciate you kind of like said, peeling that onion back
• 1:25:52
  and let us see in those aspects. So now you get it done and I
• 1:25:55
  don't want to say that's the easy part because that is hard.
• 1:25:58
  But you know, one of the hardest things to build and easiest
• 1:26:03
  thing to destroy is culture. And what you have grown there is
• 1:26:07
  the like this is a throws Mecca. You know, this is throws down.
• 1:26:10
  So how did you, you know, again, I alluded in the, you know,
• 1:26:15
  during our intro about, you know, the Field of Dreams, if
• 1:26:17
  you build it, they will come. That that's sort of true.
• 1:26:19
  There's a lot of times you build stuff, people don't come.
• 1:26:21
  And then other times you build it and they do come and you
• 1:26:23
  forget, holy crap, here they are.
• 1:26:24
  I got to figure them out. So how did you build to this?
• 1:26:28
  You know, again, you had the Oklahoma Throws series, Now
• 1:26:31
  you're doing this Throws Town series.
• 1:26:32
  You got, you know, the world record last year, world leaders
• 1:26:35
  this year. How did it did it?
• 1:26:38
  Like as soon as you cut the ribbon and opened and everybody
• 1:26:40
  just started coming Or how did you get the word out?
• 1:26:42
  How do you, Yeah, how do you build now what you built as far
• 1:26:44
  as the competition side of it all?
• 1:26:47
  So once, once Amy did her work and we had had the engineering
• 1:26:53
  completed and the dirt work was completed, we, we needed a
• 1:26:57
  surveyor to make ensure that the field is, is level as World
• 1:27:02
  Athletic calls for. They have stipulations on it's
• 1:27:06
  about everything. And so and, and, and really it's
• 1:27:10
  the time frame when I called you, it's like, Hey, I need, I'm
• 1:27:13
  going to need like 6 discus rings and I need a hammer cage.
• 1:27:17
  I don't know, it's like 1/4 of $1,000,000 worth of worth of, of
• 1:27:22
  facility equipment. You know, none of that's cheap,
• 1:27:26
  but we absolutely have to have it.
• 1:27:29
  And it's got to be within World Athletic specs.
• 1:27:33
  So that's when you and I kind of.
• 1:27:35
  So. So you had the idea when you OK,
• 1:27:38
  it's hard to keep interrupting. But I hear, I hear this a lot
• 1:27:40
  too, where someone will want to build a facility and they're
• 1:27:43
  like, oh, but I want to, I want to host World Athletics meets.
• 1:27:46
  And you know, the number of World Athletics meets actually
• 1:27:48
  held in America is, you know, I definitely can count on one
• 1:27:51
  hand. Basically actually you've made
• 1:27:52
  it to where I have to count 2 hands now.
• 1:27:54
  So I'm always telling people like, Hey, you know, Bill to
• 1:27:56
  your clientele, if you're going to host more high school or
• 1:27:58
  college or club, Bill to that World Athletics you can figure
• 1:28:01
  out later. But you have that mind of like,
• 1:28:04
  Oh no, I want to hold, hold big time right here, right off the
• 1:28:07
  bat. Yeah, well, if we're going to
• 1:28:10
  spend this kind of money, we want to do it right the first
• 1:28:12
  time. And so, you know, we need to
• 1:28:16
  build this so that we can host sanctioned competitions that
• 1:28:21
  would encompass our professional athletes.
• 1:28:23
  And so and we can't take shortcuts.
• 1:28:27
  We, we got to make sure everything's correct and to
• 1:28:30
  World Athletic standard and make sure that our engineering is
• 1:28:34
  done correctly and our dirt works done and have everything
• 1:28:37
  surveyed from a third party surveyor.
• 1:28:40
  And so those, those people that that helped me build throw town
• 1:28:44
  were very intricate in, in those aspects so that we can meet
• 1:28:50
  World Athletics specs. I mean, and, and all of our
• 1:28:55
  rings and cages are up to specs and tow boards and javelin
• 1:29:00
  runways. And so it, it, it's again, it's
• 1:29:06
  the people that helped build throw town and, and they've,
• 1:29:11
  they've made throw town Ramona what it is today just by doing a
• 1:29:17
  great job of, you know, from engineering the dirt work and
• 1:29:20
  surveying and all the pieces to the puzzle fit.
• 1:29:25
  And you'll be surprised, you know, at the World Athletics
• 1:29:28
  level, you know, your, your sectors have to be a certain
• 1:29:32
  length and obviously width of the, the arcs and whatnot trees,
• 1:29:38
  but they have to be a certain length.
• 1:29:40
  You know, you have to have an area that can, you know, reach
• 1:29:45
  out to 90 meters, you know, to have these type of throwers here
• 1:29:50
  that they can throw 7070 to 75 meters with a discus, you're
• 1:29:55
  going to have to have some room to do that.
• 1:29:58
  And so the decision of taking the heel out was was the right
• 1:30:04
  decision. And just, you know, just
• 1:30:07
  working, letting Amy do her, her her due diligence on the
• 1:30:12
  engineering side and trusting that's that's correct.
• 1:30:15
  And you know, the dirt guy, he had absolutely was master at his
• 1:30:21
  craft, you know it working the dirt every day.
• 1:30:24
  And I was out there working with him and, you know, overseeing
• 1:30:27
  the operations that did daily operations that went on, making
• 1:30:32
  sure that we get it right. We're spending an awful lot of
• 1:30:35
  money to do this. You know, we just don't want to
• 1:30:39
  go back and do it over you. So, right, right.
• 1:30:41
  OK, so you build this monumental task to do it, first of all,
• 1:30:45
  just to build. If you just built it, no one
• 1:30:46
  would have showed up and I'd still be like, man, it's pretty
• 1:30:48
  impressive kill. But now you built it and now,
• 1:30:51
  OK, well, we. Need to prove it.
• 1:30:52
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, we need to have.
• 1:30:53
  Absolutely. To prove it.
• 1:30:54
  So was the. First meat, like was it nerve
• 1:30:57
  wracking was by the way, we're kind of even glossing over a
• 1:31:01
  little bit. You had mentioned at the
• 1:31:02
  beginning, OK, so you have a meet.
• 1:31:04
  We still need to have officials and all this kind.
• 1:31:06
  I mean, there's so much to this, it's unbelievable.
• 1:31:08
  This is not just a yeah, it's simplified when I say yeah, it's
• 1:31:13
  simplified when I say if you build it, they will come.
• 1:31:15
  There is so much more you have to do to actually.
• 1:31:18
  Run this off yeah, you, I mean, you do have to have you have to
• 1:31:22
  have individuals that know, know this, know the sport, know the
• 1:31:27
  events and how to to officiate it.
• 1:31:29
  And so, you know, we, we, we have, you know, the officials
• 1:31:36
  that I've used in the past for the Oklahoma throw series, you
• 1:31:39
  know, they continue to help me when I, when I got throw town
• 1:31:42
  Ramona built. But you know, my man, hats off
• 1:31:46
  to Devin Randall. He's he was a thrower at
• 1:31:49
  Arkansas and he happened to move back home to the Tulsa area.
• 1:31:56
  He, he was originally 20 minutes north of, of Throwtown Ramona
• 1:32:01
  growing up. So, you know, he, he moved back.
• 1:32:04
  So I reached out to him to see if he would help me on the
• 1:32:08
  officiating side of making this whole thing work.
• 1:32:11
  And, you know, at Throw Town, I think Devin Randall's probably
• 1:32:14
  pretty much marked every, every discus that's hit the ground out
• 1:32:20
  there, you know, thousands of throws that he helped me mark.
• 1:32:25
  And so I really appreciate Devin's contribution to the
• 1:32:30
  officiating side to this. I couldn't do it without him,
• 1:32:32
  obviously. And then we have some other
• 1:32:36
  officials that can help watch the circle or all in fouls and
• 1:32:41
  and whatnot. But my, my, my job is shooting
• 1:32:45
  the the laser. I run the laser.
• 1:32:50
  Well, yeah, not much coaching going on, but you know, I'm
• 1:32:53
  shooting every Mark and Devin and I've shot pretty much every.
• 1:32:58
  Has it ever been thrown out? Wow, how did you get the the
• 1:33:01
  word out? Like how do people know like?
• 1:33:04
  Play word of mouth, some of the guys that that were that had
• 1:33:09
  already competed in some of the Oklahoma throw series at the
• 1:33:11
  high school meets at the high school locations, they were
• 1:33:15
  already eager to come and try it out.
• 1:33:17
  And so, you know, on good days in April, I mean, those guys
• 1:33:24
  have thrown so many throws everywhere, different different
• 1:33:30
  universities, different championship meets.
• 1:33:32
  And to come here and throw a 4M PR just spoke volumes to me.
• 1:33:37
  Like we got it right, you know, like a Joshua Rachen and Darian
• 1:33:42
  Brown and Joe Brown and Marcus Gustafson and, and, you know,
• 1:33:49
  those guys were throwing 4M PRS and competitions that I was
• 1:33:53
  hosting at Ramona and they're, it was kind of blowing their
• 1:33:56
  mind, you know, and, and you'd be surprised how many
• 1:34:01
  professional athletes that don't know what a good wind is.
• 1:34:04
  Like ask them like what, what kind of wind do you like?
• 1:34:07
  Oh, like a headwind or, you know, some, you know, quartering
• 1:34:12
  wind of some sort, but, you know, set them up for like a
• 1:34:15
  right cross and they're experiencing 4M PRS and, you
• 1:34:19
  know, it just speaks volumes. And then they're getting on the
• 1:34:21
  phone and calling, you know, we're going to get Alex Rose to
• 1:34:24
  come in and, and try this out, you know, in a couple of weeks.
• 1:34:28
  I'm like, sure you are. And you know, Alex, Alex came,
• 1:34:35
  he, he, he called and said, I'm, I'm on my way.
• 1:34:39
  And so that was really blowing my mind.
• 1:34:41
  It's like, man, we're actually going to have an Olympian come
• 1:34:43
  and throw here thrown 65 meters, you know, awesome.
• 1:34:49
  And so it was 2000. What was it?
• 1:34:53
  2020 three 2023 April Alex, you know, he was kind of frustrated.
• 1:35:00
  He had some travel problems and training hasn't been going all
• 1:35:04
  that great, you know, And so he was just, you know, I'm here
• 1:35:09
  type of thing. I'm here.
• 1:35:10
  I'll, I'll, we'll throw. We'll see how it goes.
• 1:35:13
  Well, I don't know what throw it was, but you know, he launches
• 1:35:18
  the discus and it goes 70 meters 39, which was the world lead.
• 1:35:22
  He threw the world leading mark, you know, and he was a
• 1:35:27
  consistent 65 meter guy just threw the world lead in the 70
• 1:35:31
  meter, his first ever 70 meter cost.
• 1:35:34
  And so, yeah, the aftermath of that throw and his reaction for
• 1:35:40
  the next hour and a half was just so much fun to watch.
• 1:35:44
  He was on the phone with everybody in Congress, you know,
• 1:35:48
  like, like, it just blew his mind and so.
• 1:35:52
  And it wasn't. That 70 meter throw was the
• 1:35:56
  Oceana record area. So yeah, so I can see how this
• 1:36:00
  builds, right. Like, you know, your high
• 1:36:03
  schoolers go there and throw big and the college kids get wind of
• 1:36:05
  it. College kids come and do it.
• 1:36:06
  Then you're I'll call it your sub elite, you know, non
• 1:36:09
  Olympians. They start doing that, you know,
• 1:36:11
  and we all know, you know, we all this web of network and you
• 1:36:14
  know, it's Alex, like, all right, I'll call, you know,
• 1:36:15
  let's I hear about this. Let's see.
• 1:36:17
  You know, he goes there and you know, does that.
• 1:36:19
  So other people start. I see that.
• 1:36:22
  That's amazing. The way it's done so quickly
• 1:36:25
  though, is a little I mean, that's the the interesting part.
• 1:36:28
  I mean it's. It was just growth from year to
• 1:36:30
  year and it's just getting a small group of athletes that had
• 1:36:33
  success. In the next year.
• 1:36:34
  We added to it and we encompassed some of the Olympic
• 1:36:38
  throwers and they were setting enormous records.
• 1:36:41
  And that one weekend when Alec threw 70 meters, we also had the
• 1:36:46
  African area record, CC through the African record on top of
• 1:36:54
  Alec to Zociana record. And then Julia Tont set the
• 1:36:58
  Canadian under 20 record. So you 20 Canadian record Julia
• 1:37:03
  talks through. So you've had to learn like all
• 1:37:06
  that stuff too, you know, like when they set records how what
• 1:37:09
  is world's war? That one for all that the
• 1:37:11
  paperwork and paperwork have you had to deal with?
• 1:37:14
  You know, Boston University has a great track and you know, a
• 1:37:19
  lot of, you know, 5K very similar in the distance side
• 1:37:23
  would be what you just explained, right?
• 1:37:24
  Like a lot of Oceana records and American records and things like
• 1:37:27
  that. And so every year, and it may
• 1:37:30
  just, this may just be a distance thing, I don't know,
• 1:37:32
  they start, you know, all the track is short and all this kind
• 1:37:35
  of stuff. And you know, Boston's had it
• 1:37:36
  certified. It's actually a tad bit over 200
• 1:37:38
  meters and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:37:40
  But it's still like this myth. Stanford.
• 1:37:42
  I don't hear so much about Stanford anymore, but Stanford
• 1:37:44
  had the same thing. If you wanted to, to qualify for
• 1:37:47
  nationals in the 10K, you had to run the Stanford meet.
• 1:37:49
  So then it became, oh, the Stanford track is short and all
• 1:37:51
  because we just don't want to believe like this place has
• 1:37:53
  something, right. Have you had to deal with that?
• 1:37:57
  Because I mean, you can you now have a world record, by the way.
• 1:37:59
  It's it's Oceana record. Oceana record, very cool.
• 1:38:02
  Canadian record. That's very cool.
• 1:38:04
  The world record, that's a whole different ball game.
• 1:38:07
  Have you had, you know, what's going on out there?
• 1:38:10
  That guy shoot, that guy shooting the laser doesn't know
• 1:38:12
  what he's doing, you know, right.
• 1:38:14
  Well, you know, setting the stage for 2024 was the success
• 1:38:19
  that we had in 2023, setting all those area records and country
• 1:38:24
  records. And so Don and I came up with
• 1:38:30
  with hosting a bronze level competition.
• 1:38:35
  So it's just putting up, you know, $30,000 prize money and
• 1:38:44
  you know, is coming up with the performance bonus structure,
• 1:38:47
  which will attract some of the professionals.
• 1:38:50
  I was just trying to figure out a way that we can attract and
• 1:38:53
  keep the professionals here at Ramona.
• 1:38:56
  So the performance bonus structures and the and the prize
• 1:39:00
  money for the bronze level where they get a little bit more world
• 1:39:06
  athletic points for coming. So that attract that attracted a
• 1:39:11
  whole slew of professional discus was within the top 30 in
• 1:39:18
  the world last year. And so Mikolos hadn't registered
• 1:39:22
  until probably like 3 days out from the bronze level.
• 1:39:27
  I get a phone call, Mikolos is coming.
• 1:39:29
  And so that was kind of on the burn back burner for for a long
• 1:39:34
  time. But we had, we had a, a great
• 1:39:36
  field already assembled. And then, you know, Coach Moe's
• 1:39:40
  like, yeah, I'm going to bring Mikolos.
• 1:39:43
  He's throwing really well and I think he's ready for Ramona.
• 1:39:46
  So that kind of set the tone and the stage for what we had last
• 1:39:51
  year for the bronze level competition.
• 1:39:55
  And the expectation of this could actually happen.
• 1:39:59
  You know, we could actually see a world record set at Ramona.
• 1:40:04
  And so, you know, just the the buzz and the energy surrounding.
• 1:40:12
  Situation and in the moment you know was pretty unbelievable so
• 1:40:18
  you know you make sure the facility is like spick and span
• 1:40:21
  everything is like is that sector line as straight as I can
• 1:40:25
  get it. You know, you know, everything
• 1:40:27
  was going through my mind just getting everything ready and
• 1:40:30
  getting the right officials is was the most important thing is
• 1:40:33
  in a team of officials that meet world athletic standard.
• 1:40:37
  If something did occur like setting a world record, we have
• 1:40:41
  to have the right people in place along with drug testing.
• 1:40:45
  We actually have to have a a person ability for drug testing
• 1:40:50
  or that world record would not have stood, you know.
• 1:40:54
  So that was important. Just having the right people at
• 1:40:56
  the right place at the right time and then getting the
• 1:40:59
  athletes that show up. It was just, you know, getting
• 1:41:05
  all the dominoes in in order to make it happen, you know what I
• 1:41:08
  mean? So, you know, Kara Winger, you
• 1:41:13
  know, as I talk about my officials, the gratitude that I
• 1:41:17
  have for my officials to make Ramona successful like in 2024.
• 1:41:24
  And like we are like, we're, you know, here we are fixing to go
• 1:41:27
  into another bronze level competition in 2025.
• 1:41:31
  Our officials are the most important people on the ground
• 1:41:36
  that make this happen. And flight coordinating and the
• 1:41:39
  announcing, you know, we, we appointed Cara Winger to do that
• 1:41:44
  handle that task. Dan McQuaid and his wife Alice
• 1:41:49
  were instrumental in helping transport these athletes from
• 1:41:54
  hotel to airport to facility and, you know, helping with some
• 1:41:59
  food, you know, food runs as well.
• 1:42:04
  And just, you know, the officials that we had to make
• 1:42:08
  this thing happen is awesome. And then I'm just getting the
• 1:42:11
  athletes there is is is incredible.
• 1:42:15
  So. I love it.
• 1:42:17
  It's it's quite an amazing story.
• 1:42:19
  And again, you know, a little blown away three years, you
• 1:42:22
  know, if this was 10 years into it here in these stories like,
• 1:42:25
  wow, that's, that's that's pretty quick actually, three
• 1:42:28
  years to make this happen. When 11 record falls, there's
• 1:42:32
  five records that fall, then there's 10 records that fall.
• 1:42:35
  And now we have, I think we had, we've had four world leading
• 1:42:40
  marks set there by different individuals.
• 1:42:44
  Alex Rose, Ralford Mullings, you know, Nicolos obviously.
• 1:42:49
  And then remember the other one. But we've had four world leading
• 1:42:53
  marks. We've had 11 country records all
• 1:42:57
  over the world and then we've got 4 area records set European,
• 1:43:04
  the African Harry record in Oceana and the world record
• 1:43:13
  finally fell last year so it is mind blowing.
• 1:43:17
  It is. I agree.
• 1:43:19
  I know you're literally staring into this season right now.
• 1:43:22
  You got the bronze medal meat. You got all the things that are
• 1:43:25
  going on. Yeah, but how do you, I know you
• 1:43:29
  well enough. It's three years in.
• 1:43:32
  Where does this go? How do you?
• 1:43:33
  I mean, first of all, it's a little bit like, how do you top
• 1:43:36
  the world record? But what?
• 1:43:36
  No, it's it's. What's the future hold?
• 1:43:38
  For this year is trying to rewrite history on both men and
• 1:43:41
  women's side. So we still have the women the
• 1:43:43
  women have we've had great marks on the women's side.
• 1:43:47
  You know, the top 10 records, top ten list on women's discus
• 1:43:51
  is, is really deep, but it's, it's my, my job is and, and
• 1:43:57
  focus is how do we set the dominoes once again to, to, to
• 1:44:01
  make them fall again? And, and so it's, you know,
• 1:44:07
  working your team of officials. It's completely different from
• 1:44:10
  last year. It's, it's, it's, it's working
• 1:44:16
  with agents to get the athletes to come again.
• 1:44:19
  And, and maybe it's bigger names this year.
• 1:44:23
  That's exciting. So we're going to have four guys
• 1:44:26
  that could break the world record.
• 1:44:28
  You can see the world record broken multiple times.
• 1:44:30
  We don't know, but we're going to try to set that stage for
• 1:44:33
  that to happen again. So yeah, just a few names on the
• 1:44:39
  men's side. We're going to have Matthew
• 1:44:40
  Benny from Australia. I'm really excited he's coming.
• 1:44:45
  Christian Shea from Slovenia, Mikalos is returning.
• 1:44:51
  So they can fight it out. They can fight it out.
• 1:44:54
  We might be able to to mark a few world records on the men's
• 1:44:58
  side, I hope we'll see. But on the women's side, we're
• 1:45:01
  going to have Yami Perez. Yami Perez set the 9th farthest
• 1:45:05
  throw in in history. It was the Pan American record
• 1:45:09
  last year at 73 meters, 0973 O 9, which is just just a
• 1:45:16
  centimeter short, short of 240 feet.
• 1:45:20
  But you know, listen, this facility at Ramona is a 240 foot
• 1:45:25
  facility. Like discus throwers can come
• 1:45:27
  here and expect to see 240 foot throws.
• 1:45:33
  You know, like I said, we're trying to set the dominoes to
• 1:45:35
  fall again. And so getting the right people
• 1:45:37
  here, the drug testing agencies, making sure the facility is up
• 1:45:43
  to up to specs on a world athletic level and then getting
• 1:45:47
  the getting the athletes here. We need the athletes here to be
• 1:45:50
  able to do the job. And so working with agents and
• 1:45:54
  we're going to see Valerie Allman have a shot at the
• 1:45:56
  women's world record. Hopefully, you know, it's it's
• 1:46:00
  it's all weather driven as well, but it's probably probability
• 1:46:04
  here in in Tulsa is is pretty likely that we're going to have
• 1:46:08
  win in April just like we are in in March like this coming
• 1:46:12
  weekend. It's going to be insane at
• 1:46:14
  Ramona when conditions wise. So I just encourage, you know, a
• 1:46:21
  lot of the professionals that are looking for marks early to
• 1:46:24
  be here. Yeah.
• 1:46:25
  I don't know how. If you're a discus thrower,
• 1:46:27
  you're not. Ramona's not on your schedule
• 1:46:29
  somewhere circle. Yeah, just hit your qualifying
• 1:46:31
  mark and go to the World Championships and just take a
• 1:46:34
  break and go training. You know, that's kind of my
• 1:46:36
  meth. That's, that's kind of my
• 1:46:38
  mindset is, you know, hit the mark early if you go training
• 1:46:43
  so. Caleb, do you ever, you know, I
• 1:46:46
  think about this 16 year old Caleb in Childers, Texas,
• 1:46:49
  falling in love with the shot in the discus and you know, with
• 1:46:53
  Mr. Bragg there and thinking about what the future like.
• 1:46:55
  I'm going to be a coach and I'm going to do really well and
• 1:46:58
  you're still so young. That's the that's the amazing
• 1:47:00
  part. You're, you're still, you know,
• 1:47:03
  I usually usually use a like A1 lap, a 400 meter kind of
• 1:47:08
  example. You know, you're not at the the
• 1:47:10
  300m mark with 100 meters to go in your in your race.
• 1:47:12
  You're you're barely out the blocks in your journey here.
• 1:47:17
  Do you ever just pinch yourself and think, man, how did I get so
• 1:47:21
  lucky? Now that luck was preparation.
• 1:47:22
  You never just sit back and think, what in the world?
• 1:47:26
  No, I kind of, I'm focused on making things happen and I, you
• 1:47:32
  know, I like setting the stage and preparing and trying to make
• 1:47:36
  things happen even with these young high school kids.
• 1:47:39
  And you know, how do you prep, how do you prep a kid to PR at
• 1:47:43
  the end of the month or, or end of the season It all.
• 1:47:48
  It's all about stacking the dominoes and watching them all
• 1:47:52
  and, and on the facility side and, and, and setting the
• 1:47:55
  competitions up. You're setting them up for the
• 1:47:58
  professionals just like you do for the high school kids.
• 1:48:01
  And and they're having just as much fun as the high school kids
• 1:48:04
  when they come here. So I love it's fun.
• 1:48:07
  I love that sometimes I don't feel Young Mike that way.
• 1:48:10
  I'm older than you, so I I get that.
• 1:48:13
  Well, I love that you're too busy setting up Domino's to even
• 1:48:15
  pinch yourself sometimes, but you do.
• 1:48:18
  You've earned the right to kind of step back for a second and
• 1:48:20
  just look what you've built and, and knowing that you know,
• 1:48:22
  you've built this with a lot of people.
• 1:48:23
  Amy Don and like that. No, it's been very rewarding,
• 1:48:28
  but it's also I've had a lot of people to help me make it to
• 1:48:32
  what it is, you know, and just like this, this coming bronze
• 1:48:36
  level competition, it's, you know, appointing people to to,
• 1:48:42
  to do their expertise. We're going to have live
• 1:48:44
  streaming at a on a on a professional level this year.
• 1:48:48
  But we've partnered with, yeah, the Throes university crew.
• 1:48:52
  We've, we've partnered with to bring our live streaming crew
• 1:48:55
  for the entire world. So love that Basin and his crew
• 1:48:59
  were pretty instrumental last year.
• 1:49:01
  Yeah, that's cool. I love that.
• 1:49:04
  I'll I'll make sure to amplify that so we can watch these as
• 1:49:06
  well to get there. And I got to get there.
• 1:49:08
  I got to I got to get up there and visit one day here soon.
• 1:49:10
  So Caleb, man, thank you so much.
• 1:49:13
  Not only thank you for being here.
• 1:49:14
  I mean, that's I don't say it's obvious, but you know, I'm
• 1:49:16
  always very, very grateful for people that join us here in the
• 1:49:18
  podcast. But you know, it takes it takes
• 1:49:22
  some audacity to do things great, right?
• 1:49:25
  I mean, literally, when you think about the audacity, Caleb,
• 1:49:28
  that you're going to build this throws facility in the middle.
• 1:49:31
  I call it middle of nowhere. I know you're close to Tulsa and
• 1:49:32
  I and I do love Tulsa, but you're going to build this thing
• 1:49:35
  in Ramona and the world record is going to be set and you know,
• 1:49:39
  all these other records are going to be set.
• 1:49:40
  There's some audacity there. Like really, Kate, who do you
• 1:49:43
  think you are? You know, but you know what,
• 1:49:45
  greatness starts, I think sometimes with audacity.
• 1:49:48
  And I'm just grateful that you had it.
• 1:49:50
  I'm grateful that there were probably plenty of times that
• 1:49:53
  there was like, you know, this isn't going to work or maybe I
• 1:49:55
  shouldn't be doing this and I should go over here and do this.
• 1:49:57
  I'm glad and proud of you for your stick to itiveness with all
• 1:50:01
  of it as well and the many, many people in your network that have
• 1:50:03
  helped build this. I know it's not one man, but we
• 1:50:06
  need to have a leader to do those things.
• 1:50:08
  And so I'm just so happy and proud and just excited for you
• 1:50:13
  and what you're doing there through town.
• 1:50:15
  And just know that, you know, when we look back in 10 years,
• 1:50:17
  it's going to be funny to talk about the first world record.
• 1:50:20
  How many beyond that now, 10 years from now, what else is
• 1:50:23
  going to, you know, you're, you're a visionary.
• 1:50:25
  You're going to grow this thing continually.
• 1:50:27
  It's it's going to be it's amazing now.
• 1:50:29
  I can't imagine what it's going to be here in the very near
• 1:50:32
  future. We're trying to, we're trying to
• 1:50:34
  do a good job of capturing everything that happens and the
• 1:50:38
  data and, and, and 111 guy that we didn't mention is Doctor
• 1:50:43
  Christophe Kip at University of Marquette, who's, who's the
• 1:50:47
  chair of exercise science and the bio mechanics there.
• 1:50:51
  But he, he, he brings the team out to Ramona and, you know,
• 1:50:57
  captures everything on video and then does all the the data and
• 1:51:01
  analysis and he does a lot of the presentations on the world
• 1:51:05
  record last year in Europe. So he's going to be back again.
• 1:51:09
  But it is the people that that you know, has made Ramona, you
• 1:51:15
  know, the the officials and the like Jason's crew with Rose
• 1:51:20
  University and Doctor Kip with his bio mechanics study bio
• 1:51:29
  mechanics team. So we're looking forward to
• 1:51:33
  another big year this year. So, well, I love that you're
• 1:51:36
  leading and I love that people are supporting that as well,
• 1:51:38
  because you're right, it takes the whole village, so to speak,
• 1:51:41
  so the whole world. I mean, the whole world, we've
• 1:51:43
  already seen athletes from the Netherlands and Japan this year
• 1:51:49
  we're not even in the third weekend so.
• 1:51:50
  I love it. I love it.
• 1:51:51
  Well, Caleb, man, thank you so much.
• 1:51:53
  I, I think this is super valuable 1, you know, to be able
• 1:51:56
  to uplift and honor you and what you've done in our sport and
• 1:51:58
  what you're doing today in our sport and will continue to do.
• 1:52:00
  But also for other people that are listening to hear this and
• 1:52:03
  say, you know what, OK, if Caleb can do this, maybe I can do
• 1:52:07
  this. I, I think that's going to be
• 1:52:09
  tremendously important for our sport as we continue to grow.
• 1:52:11
  So man, I'm just again, so proud of you, so grateful for you and
• 1:52:15
  just just excited, man. I just, I just love what you're,
• 1:52:17
  what you're producing and allowing others to produce, man.
• 1:52:20
  So thank you. Thank you so much.
• 1:52:22
  Yeah. Thank you.
• 1:52:22
  Thanks, Mike. I appreciate it.
• 1:52:24
  Absolutely, brother, and thank you guys for being here again
• 1:52:26
  today, man. This is, you know, I just love
• 1:52:28
  these kind of things. Our sport is filled with
• 1:52:30
  amazing, amazing people and everybody has a role.
• 1:52:33
  You know Adan wasn't going to build this facility, right?
• 1:52:37
  But Adan was able to help Akayla build this facility and Amy
• 1:52:41
  wasn't going to design A facility like this, but she was
• 1:52:43
  able to help Kayla. You know that that's the role it
• 1:52:45
  all. We all have our places and they
• 1:52:47
  culminate when you add them together into some really
• 1:52:49
  greatness and that's what they're doing out in Ramona.
• 1:52:52
  Who would have known we'd have been talking about Ramona.
• 1:52:54
  OK, right. He's literally put them on the
• 1:52:56
  map here for the throwing world. And so if you don't know
• 1:53:00
  anything, this is your first time hearing about Throwtown
• 1:53:02
  Ramona. Google it.
• 1:53:03
  Go find out. Go look at again, look at the
• 1:53:05
  series of meats. Look at the pay scale.
• 1:53:07
  They have all this stuff for the bronze World Athletics meets the
• 1:53:10
  people that are going out there and pay attention to their
• 1:53:13
  social because in this live stream that's super exciting
• 1:53:16
  because maybe you'll be able to actually see a world record as
• 1:53:18
  well, not just, you know, read about it on a tweet or whatnot.
• 1:53:20
  So go check them out and and make a pilgrimage.
• 1:53:23
  I'm going to I got to get out there here soon.
• 1:53:26
  I'm going to go check it out. Maybe I'll get the maybe I'll
• 1:53:28
  throw. No, no, we don't want to.
• 1:53:30
  There's not a bottom of the world record, right, like the
• 1:53:32
  lowest throw. So I'll I'll stay away from
• 1:53:34
  that. So guys, thank you again for
• 1:53:35
  being here this week. Join us next week.
• 1:53:37
  We'll do it all over again. Thanks guys.
• 1:53:43
  Those who appreciate the coach the ones who pour people most
• 1:53:46
  every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth you
• 1:53:49
  got to prep before you carry the load ice coffee to the soul.
• 1:53:53
  For those of us who stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
• 1:53:56
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:53:58
  There's more than one way to go taking those that's paying.
• 1:54:00
  You're told it ain't practice if your purpose ain't Claire, it
• 1:54:03
  can't happen until you listen with both is you can't mentor
• 1:54:06
  without a mentor his of experience.
• 1:54:09
  You can reinvent those years. Every plan's got to stand and
• 1:54:12
  deliver to in the by sacrifice. Can you give up you?
• 1:54:15
  It's a choice and a fight, not a win or lose.
• 1:54:17
  It's not a ploy boy device. Y'all can make more moves.
• 1:54:20
  It's not about how to it's all about why you don't know till
• 1:54:23
  you know who you are inside 6 when you waste the time, choose
• 1:54:27
  none. So y'all cross finish line.
• 1:54:29
  The work ain't done, so we learn from the experts, but y'all got
• 1:54:32
  to put in the leg work. Guil athletics use the network.
• 1:54:35
  It's all about connections put together for the profession to
• 1:54:38
  where every track coach could be blessing.