Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #352: Rick and Brett Witt-UW-Stevens Point | A 50-Year Coaching Legacy, A Father–Son Transition

Transcript

#352: Rick and Brett Witt-UW-Stevens Point | A 50-Year Coaching Legacy, A Father–Son Transition · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  Hey guys, thanks for being here today.
• 0:02
  Hey, real quick before we get on with the show, which is going to
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  be absolutely amazing. You're going to love this one.
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  They've got all the details, but I don't want you to miss this.
• 0:34
  So I had to come in real quick before we started the show and
• 0:37
  let you know about this. So enough of my yammering.
• 0:39
  Let's get on with today's guest. You're listening to the Gill
• 0:42
  Athletics Connections podcast with host Mike Cunningham.
• 0:49
  Track and field world juvenile TuneIn to our humble servant
• 0:53
  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message for Gill
• 0:57
  Athletics Connections. All right, you're back here on
• 1:02
  the Connections podcast, so humble to be your host, Mike
• 1:04
  Cunningham here from Gill Athletics.
• 1:06
  Hey, you know, if you're a regular listener, if you're a
• 1:11
  watcher on YouTube, you already know something's different,
• 1:12
  right? I got more than two screens, me
• 1:14
  and a guest up here. We've got 2 guests.
• 1:16
  And this is always, it's always more challenging here for your,
• 1:20
  your host here because one-on-one, it's pretty easy,
• 1:22
  right? There's only one person I got to
• 1:23
  worry about. I got 2.
• 1:25
  And spoiler alert, their father and son.
• 1:28
  I I hope the sun doesn't get in trouble.
• 1:30
  Does he still ground him? I don't know.
• 1:31
  We'll find out. Help me welcome from the amazing
• 1:34
  school. I really love this conference,
• 1:36
  the school, this division. I'm fascinated by it.
• 1:39
  Help me welcome from UW Stevens Point the I actually, I didn't
• 1:42
  even get clarification. Head coach, director emeritus.
• 1:45
  I don't know. Help me welcome the wise,
• 1:46
  wonderful Rick Witt and Brett Witt.
• 1:48
  Gentlemen, welcome to the show. Thanks.
• 1:51
  Thank you very much. The number one rule, I probably
• 1:54
  should have done this before we hit record too, is it's always
• 1:57
  hard for you guys to know who's going to talk.
• 1:59
  And you know what, since you're father and son, I'm gonna let
• 2:00
  you guys work that out. I'm not going to get in trouble
• 2:02
  here. I'm not.
• 2:03
  I can't spoil Christmas because we're past that.
• 2:05
  But I'm not going to get anybody in trouble here.
• 2:08
  Help me. Again, these are probably things
• 2:09
  I should have done before hit record.
• 2:11
  Help me understand the official titles.
• 2:13
  Because Rick, you and I have known and worked with each other
• 2:16
  for. I've been here 20 years now, so
• 2:18
  for a long time. You are now the emeritus, the
• 2:23
  director. What What is your title at UW
• 2:26
  Stevens Point? Actually, Brett gave me the
• 2:29
  title of Director of Operations because we didn't know what else
• 2:33
  to call it. Sure, Sir.
• 2:34
  OK. I love it.
• 2:36
  I love it. Pretty much he, I do what he
• 2:40
  asked me to do and then I throw in some things that I think
• 2:44
  maybe might work or things that we've done in the past that we
• 2:48
  felt like would, you know, continue to enhance our program.
• 2:51
  And so he gives me kind of an open end as to what it is.
• 2:56
  And after having coached for so many years, I pretty much coach
• 3:01
  whatever nobody else wants to coach or whatever we don't have
• 3:05
  other expertise on on our staff that can handle.
• 3:09
  So right now I'm I'm officially the javelin coach and the multi
• 3:13
  coach. Nice.
• 3:15
  I love that. You must be the most experienced
• 3:17
  director of OPS in all of our college system here in America.
• 3:23
  That's great. And Brett, you are now is your
• 3:26
  title head or director? I never know anymore with these
• 3:28
  different titles. What's officially your title
• 3:30
  there at Stevens Point? Now I am just head men's and
• 3:33
  women's track and field. My title has changed a couple
• 3:37
  times. When I first came back, I think
• 3:39
  I was technically the associate head coach.
• 3:41
  Then I was head of track and cross country for a while and
• 3:45
  now I can just focus and have the title, just men's and
• 3:48
  women's track and field. Does that mean do you have a
• 3:50
  separate? Do you have someone whose title
• 3:52
  is the head cross country coach then?
• 3:54
  Correct. I love that I it, it's a little
• 3:58
  not cringe, but I don't like when the head coach who is the
• 4:02
  throws coach or the jumps coach or the sprints coach has the
• 4:05
  full title head cross country and track, because I'm like, no,
• 4:07
  there's someone who's running cross country and, and and
• 4:10
  certainly they may have to run some things through the head
• 4:12
  tracker. I get that.
• 4:12
  But there's someone who is in charge of cross and it's not
• 4:16
  you, you know, I just so I like that you have a separate, this
• 4:18
  person is in charge of cross and assumably distance running.
• 4:21
  So I like that that that change there.
• 4:25
  My other love and fascination is mascots and I'm trying to
• 4:28
  remember. So UW Stevens Point, I want to
• 4:30
  say it's some kind of like it's some kind of dog or something,
• 4:34
  right? What is it?
• 4:35
  It is officially the pointer dog.
• 4:38
  If you visualize dog pointing at a pheasant or whatever, that is
• 4:45
  the official mascot, yes. Pointer.
• 4:47
  Yeah, I was. I was thinking.
• 4:48
  I knew I must have remembered something about hunting because
• 4:50
  I was thinking Bloodhound, but I knew that wasn't it.
• 4:53
  It's the pointer that's unique and I love that.
• 4:55
  That's really cool. Thanks.
• 4:58
  OK, gentlemen, we are here to uplift and honor your journey in
• 5:02
  this great profession. You certainly have been around
• 5:05
  for a long time. It's obviously very unique that
• 5:09
  we have a father and son duo, if you will.
• 5:11
  That's going to be fascinating to learn.
• 5:13
  If is Brett held hostage here. Maybe you wanted to be a a
• 5:17
  business owner, but you, you know, Rick wasn't having it.
• 5:19
  You were going to be a track coach.
• 5:20
  We'll find out. Rick, why don't we start with
• 5:22
  you as our as our esteemed director of operations.
• 5:26
  How in the world did you get into coaching track and field?
• 5:31
  You know, it's really an interesting Somebody asked me
• 5:33
  that once before. So when I when I was in high
• 5:36
  school, I was a little bitty guy.
• 5:38
  I was one of those guys that did not grow until I was about a
• 5:41
  senior in high school. I went to the premier wrestling
• 5:45
  high school probably in the country at the time.
• 5:50
  There was a wrestling coach named Bob Siddens who was in
• 5:53
  every Hall of Fame for wrestling that you can have, and he went
• 5:59
  through every class and recruited every kid to be on the
• 6:02
  wrestling team. So I went out for wrestling and
• 6:08
  I could. He wanted me because I weighed
• 6:10
  about 105 and they needed somebody that could wrestle 95.
• 6:15
  Well, there happened to be a guy that was a year behind me that
• 6:20
  all I ever saw were the lights, a guy named Dan Gable, who was
• 6:25
  The Olympian, and Needless to say, I didn't get to wrestle
• 6:29
  much. You went to school with Dan
• 6:31
  Gable. I know almost zero about
• 6:36
  wrestling. Very, very, very little.
• 6:38
  But I know Dan Gable's name. I mean like infamous, not
• 6:40
  infamous. Famous coach right from Iowa.
• 6:44
  Where? He was at Iowa, yeah.
• 6:46
  At Iowa. Holy wait, so that means you
• 6:49
  wrestled like you practice with him?
• 6:50
  Instead, our wrestling room was a who's who of, you know, guys
• 6:56
  that went on to be national champs, all American wrestlers,
• 6:58
  everything. And so that was but our coach,
• 7:03
  we had to run every morning because wrestlers have to be in
• 7:08
  fantastic shape. And so I was running and to make
• 7:13
  a Long story short, Bob Siddon said to me, he says, Rick, I
• 7:17
  don't know whether your future is going to be real great in
• 7:22
  wrestling. However, buddy, you can run like
• 7:27
  crazy. Said you should go talk to Mr.
• 7:30
  Argot Singer, who was the cross country and track and field
• 7:35
  coach. And so lo and behold, I just
• 7:38
  wanted to be an athlete, you know, And so lo and behold, I
• 7:41
  ended up going to talk to the cross country coach and the rest
• 7:45
  was history. I found my spot where I was a
• 7:48
  good runner and it LED, you know, going on and being
• 7:53
  coaching. It is.
• 7:55
  I know you went to Northern Iowa, which will be your next
• 7:57
  stop here. Is this in Iowa?
• 7:58
  Is this high school in Iowa? Waterloo is is very close.
• 8:02
  It's like like you guys being in Champaign Urbana.
• 8:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cedar Falls is right next to
• 8:08
  Waterloo and so I I went to college there, I got recruited,
• 8:12
  I actually had a fairly successful high school career
• 8:15
  and went to to Cedar Falls and, and ran it Northern Iowa.
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  I was a a good runner, not a great runner.
• 8:23
  Made a couple of national championships in cross country
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  and, and one in track, and I fell in love with the sport.
• 8:33
  I mean that just, you know, so I, you know, wasn't going to
• 8:38
  start out as a college coach, but my college coach got me a a
• 8:43
  teaching job at where he had gone to high school and I taught
• 8:49
  like many people, elementary to high school physical education
• 8:53
  and started coaching track and field Was there at a outstanding
• 8:58
  time where I lucked out. And we all know you got to be
• 9:01
  good and you got to be lucky. At the same time, there were
• 9:04
  some kids that fell into track and field that had never heard
• 9:08
  of it. And because I was really into
• 9:10
  it, they got into it. One of the guys ended up, he was
• 9:17
  one of the best distance runners to come out of Iowa at the time
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  and got a Division One scholarship, was in a car
• 9:24
  accident, broke his back, so he gave up his scholarship, went to
• 9:29
  MIT, was super smart, went to MIT, got healthy again, ended up
• 9:35
  winning the NCAA championships at Division Three and the 10K
• 9:40
  and then got 4th at the Olympic trials in the marathon about
• 9:45
  three years later. So I was lucky in that I got
• 9:48
  into where a bunch of guys were good at the time.
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  I had one of the fastest high school freshmen in the country,
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  ran 152 as a 9th grader in high school.
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  So you know, I was in the right place at the right time.
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  And the opportunity came to go back to my old college and
• 10:08
  coach. And when I went back there, the
• 10:10
  my college coach says, OK, here's the cross country team,
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  sink or swim, you do it, you know, and he gave me that
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  opportunity. When did so when you went to
• 10:21
  school in Northern Iowa, did you go to Northern Iowa going, I'm
• 10:24
  going to become a track coach, whether it's high school or
• 10:26
  college or when did that actually like, oh, that's a
• 10:28
  career I'm going to pursue. You know, that's a honestly, I
• 10:33
  was going to be like a history major I wanted to work for like
• 10:36
  the FBI or EIA or one of those types of things.
• 10:41
  And that I kind of pursued that the whole way through, you know,
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  and then the longer that I was in track and field, the more I
• 10:52
  fell in love with track and field, you know?
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  And so by the time that I was a senior, I pretty well knew that
• 11:00
  that's what I wanted to do. I just didn't know how to do
• 11:05
  what I wanted to do. And so starting out in high
• 11:08
  school is, was, you know, seemed to be the way that everybody did
• 11:12
  it at that point in time. And you know, my history, our
• 11:15
  history is typically, you know, within decades of where we are
• 11:18
  living, right? So my understanding and
• 11:21
  knowledge of the University of Northern Iowa, you know, they
• 11:24
  call the Miami of Ohio the coaches of cradle for football.
• 11:28
  A lot of football coaches have gone through University of
• 11:31
  Miami, Ohio. I think of University of
• 11:32
  Northern Iowa as well as North Central, by the way, we were
• 11:34
  talking about North Central earlier.
• 11:36
  It's kind of the cradle of track and field.
• 11:38
  Like there's so many track and field coaches that come through
• 11:41
  University of Northern Iowa. Was it like that back then or
• 11:44
  were you maybe the beginning of that?
• 11:47
  There were a lot of coaches that that came out at at that time.
• 11:51
  You need to realize that when that the the school at one time
• 11:55
  was like a teacher's college, that kind of was the foundation
• 11:59
  of people that went. There were people that were
• 12:01
  going to go into the educational field.
• 12:03
  And thus, you know, coaching was at that point in time, as you
• 12:06
  well know, if you were a teacher, you're probably a
• 12:09
  coach. And so it did kind of lend
• 12:11
  itself to those types of, you know, moving forward in that
• 12:15
  type of a profession. Yeah.
• 12:17
  Yeah, makes sense. OK, so how do we get to UW
• 12:19
  Stevens Point from coaching K through 12 PE and really good
• 12:24
  runners, by the way. Holy cow.
• 12:26
  We, as I said, I, my college coach asked me to come back and
• 12:30
  I was a graduate assistant there.
• 12:32
  And as I said, he gave me an opportunity to just kind of like
• 12:34
  sink or swim with the the cross country team and during the
• 12:38
  distance guys during the track season.
• 12:40
  And so we had a little bit of success.
• 12:42
  And then there was a position at UW Platteville.
• 12:45
  The guy was going to be gone on a sabbatical.
• 12:48
  And my college coach said, here's a chance for you to get
• 12:52
  your feet wet and like you and I well know you, you there's a a
• 12:59
  great line of communication between coaches and he knew
• 13:03
  somebody that knew somebody, you know, and one of those types of
• 13:07
  things. And so I, a guy named John Barth
• 13:10
  hired me, gave me an opportunity to to be a coach.
• 13:13
  And it was a, it was a goldmine waiting to happen.
• 13:18
  I stepped in at the right time. There was some outstanding
• 13:22
  athletes that were there. The coach that was there before
• 13:26
  me who had, he had done a good job, but he also was like a
• 13:31
  teacher. And I think he was more into
• 13:33
  the, you know, the teaching thing that he was into the track
• 13:36
  and field thing. Well, I jumped in and, and we
• 13:39
  had a a big success. We had gone from them not being
• 13:43
  very good in the conference to I think we got third the first
• 13:48
  year I was there in the, in the WIAC.
• 13:51
  And then he came back and I left and I moved down the road to
• 13:57
  Loris College is just like, you know, 25 miles from Platteville.
• 14:02
  And we, we were not very good there.
• 14:06
  I, the team was, I always tell people and, and cross country I
• 14:11
  used to run and stop and then time the guys as they came
• 14:14
  through because I was still competing fairly heavily at that
• 14:18
  time. And then the Stevens Point job
• 14:21
  came open and the guy that had been the coach was going to move
• 14:25
  up and become the AD. And he called me and said, you
• 14:30
  know, he knew what I had done at Platteville in that one year and
• 14:33
  that he gave me a chance. And we came to Stevens Point.
• 14:37
  Then, 50 years later, here we are.
• 14:41
  Wow, that's amazing. We had there's a conversation a
• 14:45
  bunch of guys and such at a USTFCA convention this several
• 14:49
  years ago, 5-6 years where we the the topic of people moving
• 14:53
  jobs, hopping jobs. And by the way, I coached for 10
• 14:55
  years and was at 5 different places.
• 14:56
  So I'm, I'm that guy that hopped every, you know, year to two,
• 15:00
  but we were talking about coaches who had been at an
• 15:02
  institution for a long time. And, you know, we got through
• 15:05
  like mouse. And before Curtis Frye retired,
• 15:08
  we, we came up with about 10 real quick, but then it was a
• 15:11
  little harder to keep adding people.
• 15:14
  You've been at Stevens Point for 50 years.
• 15:18
  It'll be this is year 49 right now.
• 15:21
  So did you? Did you know the original
• 15:24
  retriever then the the pointer? Pretty much.
• 15:30
  This OK, This seems like a joke question.
• 15:31
  This is actually true. Were they the pointers back
• 15:33
  then? You know, they.
• 15:35
  OK, All right. Yeah.
• 15:36
  Just making sure. Make sure.
• 15:37
  And Brett, are you? Forgive me.
• 15:39
  I don't think I've ever asked this question on air before.
• 15:42
  How old are you? I'm 50.
• 15:45
  So were you what I'm getting at? Were you born at Stevens Point
• 15:49
  or at Loris? Platteville.
• 15:53
  Plaidville, OK, so you OK, All right.
• 15:55
  Not that you would remember, you know, being one in Platteville
• 15:57
  and all that kind of stuff, but I was trying to think of are you
• 15:59
  always been Stevens Point in that sense?
• 16:01
  Wow, Holy cow. OK, you get to Stevens Point,
• 16:05
  you got some experience with Division Three and the WIAC, the
• 16:12
  WIC. It's, I don't know, I want to
• 16:16
  think that everybody knows about the WIAC, but of course not
• 16:19
  everybody knows about the WIC. The UW System is unstinking
• 16:23
  believable. Like if you want to win a
• 16:25
  national title, it's coming through the WIC.
• 16:28
  One of you guys are almost always pushing for the title
• 16:30
  with has it been that way for this, you know, 49, let's call
• 16:34
  it 50 years or is that been a more recentish 10 to 20 year
• 16:38
  thing? When we can't.
• 16:39
  When I first came to Stevens Point, all of us were in AI.
• 16:45
  The whole Wisconsin system was in AI and but we, you know, but
• 16:53
  however, the Wisconsin State system was non scholarship.
• 16:57
  So we were competing against at that time, you know, Abilene
• 17:02
  Christian and Eastern New Mexico.
• 17:04
  And I mean, there were people that had Olympians, you know, on
• 17:08
  their team at the NEI because you got to remember that's when
• 17:12
  the NCAA had an age limit, too. Yeah, that's gone.
• 17:16
  Yeah. So the, the NAIA probably was on
• 17:21
  par with, you know, Division One as far as the caliber of
• 17:25
  athletes. And so if we if we got one or
• 17:28
  two people that made nationals, we thought that was a a rousing
• 17:32
  success. And then in the early 80's the
• 17:38
  the whole conference went from NAIA to Division Three.
• 17:42
  The whole conference. Yes.
• 17:45
  Fascinating, and because you guys had decided to be non
• 17:48
  scholarship in EIA, can I assume that that transition to Division
• 17:52
  3 was a little easier than maybe it would have been if you'd had
• 17:54
  scholarships? I mean, nothing really changed,
• 17:58
  to be very honest. It became more reasonable us for
• 18:03
  us to be successful at the national level because we were
• 18:08
  basically playing on a level field now, not necessarily
• 18:11
  playing against the, as I said, Olympian type of thing.
• 18:15
  Yeah. And I have been fascinated with
• 18:17
  university, not University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin high school
• 18:20
  coaches. I've been through their clinic,
• 18:23
  you know, say 100 times, lots of times.
• 18:25
  And now, you know, one of the MCS for the clinic.
• 18:27
  And I just absolutely love what they do and what they do that
• 18:30
  clinic. And so I've spoken at that
• 18:31
  clinic before and you know, I've spoken to like sprints and
• 18:35
  hurdles and I've always had to be very cognizant.
• 18:37
  You basically have a three month high school season in Wisconsin,
• 18:40
  March, April and May and that's it, right?
• 18:43
  And Wisconsin is not our most populous state in the country,
• 18:46
  right? If you think especially in for
• 18:48
  track and field, if you think about that, you think about the
• 18:50
  California, Texas, Florida, you know, Ohio has a lot Illinois,
• 18:54
  Wisconsin as far as quality, but there's not a lot of kids in
• 18:58
  Wisconsin comparatively to some other states.
• 19:01
  How in the world does the WICI know they're not all Wisconsin
• 19:06
  kids? But I think the majority are
• 19:07
  Wisconsin kids. How in the world have you guys
• 19:10
  been so dominant in in C AA, Division Three and you're not in
• 19:15
  Tech? You know, if you guys were all
• 19:16
  in Texas, it kind of makes sense.
• 19:17
  I guess you're in Wisconsin. I think you hit kind of the nail
• 19:22
  on the head in the fact that most Wisconsin kids are very,
• 19:28
  very under coached and under trained not because we don't
• 19:33
  have good coaches because there is no time to do because you
• 19:39
  can't have pre season practice. I mean they start March 8th or
• 19:44
  12th or whatever, have 10 days and then they start having meats
• 19:49
  and they run 2 meats a week for 9 weeks and then the state meet
• 19:55
  and then you're done. And so most of those kids, the
• 19:59
  talent never really has an opportunity to shine, even
• 20:04
  though there is some really talented kids there.
• 20:07
  And once they, you know, get into a program where there's
• 20:11
  time to do some development and those types of things, if, you
• 20:16
  know, it shows up. And then a lot of those kids are
• 20:19
  multi event, are sport athletes, you know, and they're coming off
• 20:25
  the basketball court, you know, and.
• 20:27
  We're saying, OK, you're going to be high jumping next week,
• 20:30
  you know, that type of thing. And so I think that's the
• 20:32
  biggest thing right there. Yeah, that, that.
• 20:35
  Makes a ton of sense because yeah, if you were just to look
• 20:37
  at a paper, you might think, well, Wisconsin high school
• 20:40
  coaches aren't very good. And I know that to be the exact
• 20:42
  opposite. There are tons of amazing
• 20:44
  coaches in Wisconsin. They get 3 months.
• 20:47
  That first month is still under snow, by the way.
• 20:49
  When they start in March, it's still freezing and under snow.
• 20:52
  That makes a lot of sense that yeah, it's good kids, but you
• 20:56
  know, you don't have time to coach them.
• 20:57
  You can't get to their full potential.
• 20:59
  Well, maybe when we get closer to year round and some
• 21:01
  facilities we can get that done on the the college level.
• 21:04
  Makes sense. You know, I'd hop in there if
• 21:06
  you don't. Mind real quick too, and just
• 21:08
  full transparency, we're fortunate in the state of
• 21:11
  Wisconsin that there are not a lot of scholarship track and
• 21:14
  field cross country schools in the state of Wisconsin.
• 21:18
  You've got the Badgers obviously, who are an elite
• 21:21
  Division One program. So there's a very few kids that
• 21:23
  can fill their spots. And then there's Milwaukee,
• 21:28
  Marquette, Green Bay doesn't have track and field.
• 21:31
  And then we have one division, two school, UW Parkside, so.
• 21:37
  In full. Transparency, some of that
• 21:39
  talent from in other states that might go to a division two
• 21:41
  school or a lower level Division One school, we're probably
• 21:46
  getting some of those because there just aren't as many
• 21:49
  schools to choose from in the state of Wisconsin, you know
• 21:52
  each. State it's it's so fascinating
• 21:54
  to me. I didn't think about that.
• 21:55
  That's a great point and that made me think of almost the
• 21:58
  exact opposite like a state like North Carolina, you know,
• 22:01
  different weather but very similar in regards to, you know,
• 22:04
  not the most populated space state in the in the 50 states,
• 22:07
  but they have the exact opposite.
• 22:09
  There are like a hundred colleges that are 4 year
• 22:12
  scholarship type of schools there.
• 22:14
  You know, Catawba to obviously UNC's to Wilmington and
• 22:20
  Pembroke. I mean there's so many for that
• 22:23
  state and you're the Wisconsin's almost the exact opposite where
• 22:26
  it's like, yeah, there's just a handful of the scholarship
• 22:28
  schools. That's fascinating to me.
• 22:30
  Well, Rick mentioned talented kids, Brett, and that's you
• 22:32
  know, that was going to be my great Segway to well, then let's
• 22:34
  talk to to Brett and then thinking about the talented
• 22:38
  kids. So Brett, where do you come
• 22:39
  along here? You are the son of a coach.
• 22:43
  I think that's fascinating. I think there's a lot of
• 22:45
  positives to that. There also could be some some
• 22:47
  negatives there. What was it like growing up as
• 22:50
  the son of Coach Witt I? Mean, I don't know.
• 22:55
  I don't know any different. I was always the son of a coach.
• 22:58
  I can give him credit that he never pushed me to run.
• 23:03
  I my first love was basketball. I would played soccer.
• 23:07
  I enjoyed that a lot. I think I knew I was fast on the
• 23:12
  soccer field, comparatively speaking.
• 23:14
  But I I mean, as a kid growing up, who wants to run when you
• 23:17
  can chase a ball or bounce a ball or shoot a hoop or
• 23:21
  something like that? So like.
• 23:25
  I said those those were. My first loves and it was took
• 23:28
  me a while to figure out track was kind of where I needed to be
• 23:31
  or should be. Did did you ever wrestle?
• 23:33
  No, OK, I was wondering. Yeah, no, man.
• 23:36
  Well, at the same time as basketball, OK, because.
• 23:38
  You were very adamant. And I also saw Rick down there
• 23:40
  going, yeah, no. Maybe some?
• 23:45
  WWE playing, but not not wrestling.
• 23:48
  Wrestling. Yeah, my brother and I may have.
• 23:50
  You know, did some Hulk Hogan things in the basement or
• 23:52
  something like that, but nothing on an actual wrestling match.
• 23:56
  I love it. I love it so.
• 23:57
  How did track come along then? It was my ninth running in
• 24:03
  general kind of came along my 9th grade year.
• 24:04
  I was trying out for the freshman soccer team at the high
• 24:07
  school and didn't have a great experience during tryouts.
• 24:12
  I, I didn't even make it through tryouts.
• 24:14
  I don't know if I would have made the team or not.
• 24:16
  I'm not going to speculate. I just didn't care for how the
• 24:19
  coach was was doing things. And so my brother was on the
• 24:23
  cross country team and so I, I transitioned over to cross
• 24:27
  country with Don Binky. If you're, if you've been at the
• 24:30
  Wisconsin coaches convention, you've probably heard that name.
• 24:35
  He does an amazing job. It doesn't matter if you're the
• 24:37
  fastest runner or the 100th runner.
• 24:39
  He treats you like a great person.
• 24:42
  And that got me started in cross country.
• 24:43
  I did track in 7th and 8th grade as well and had a little bit of
• 24:46
  success. But that was kind of when I
• 24:49
  jumped into to running a little bit more in depthly by joining
• 24:53
  that cross country team as ninth grade and stuck with that.
• 24:56
  And I did track in the spring, still played basketball in the
• 25:00
  winter until I got cut my junior year.
• 25:03
  And then I think that's kind of when I full both feet in the
• 25:06
  water and said, well, I, I, I'm not playing soccer.
• 25:09
  I got cut from basketball. I guess I'm a runner.
• 25:11
  And that's when I kind of went all in as an athlete as far as,
• 25:15
  you know, running is concerned. A couple things there.
• 25:17
  You know, it's interesting you talk about that soccer
• 25:19
  experience you had and that that's one of the things, you
• 25:22
  know, when I think about my role as you know, I called myself
• 25:25
  like the track coach advocate. When I think about men and women
• 25:28
  who choose to become track coaches and we're the most
• 25:32
  participated sport in right. In high school, you take boys
• 25:34
  and girls together. We we have more people running
• 25:36
  track than football and basketball In college, when you
• 25:39
  take men and women together, we have more people running track
• 25:41
  and cross country than we do playing football and basketball
• 25:44
  and baseball and all those kind of sports, right.
• 25:46
  And I think, you know, there's and I don't even think it's a
• 25:48
  fine line. I think you can do both and I've
• 25:50
  seen plenty of people do both where you can run a very high
• 25:52
  level program, meaning kids going to nationals and whatever
• 25:55
  else you think might success be, but also have a good experience
• 25:58
  for the kids. And that that soccer experience
• 26:00
  tells me it's like, oh man, boy, soccer missed out soccer could
• 26:04
  have head coach Witt doing something to further soccer in
• 26:08
  this country within kids and stuff.
• 26:10
  And because of that bad experience, better for us as
• 26:13
  track people. We, we got you over here.
• 26:14
  It's just something to think about as track coaches when you
• 26:16
  have young people around, whether they are, again, air
• 26:19
  quotes are good or not so good. They're still humans.
• 26:23
  They're still young people under your care.
• 26:25
  And you got that's a that's a precious thing.
• 26:26
  So I appreciate that. How was it?
• 26:29
  You know, we've had a few, a couple at least I can think of
• 26:33
  off top of my head. Married couples, your father and
• 26:35
  son, don't stay with me. I'm not going to get weird here.
• 26:38
  Father, husband and wife coaching Staffs.
• 26:42
  And I'm always fascinated. Like, how do you separate your,
• 26:46
  your job, your career and your, your, your dinner table, right?
• 26:51
  You know, how do you not bring work at home sometimes?
• 26:53
  I'm thinking about with you, Brett, you're running track
• 26:55
  during high school. Rick, you're coaching the
• 26:58
  college kids. Brett, are you ever asking Rick
• 27:01
  for advice? Rick, are you trying to stay
• 27:03
  hands off, let the high school coach do his thing?
• 27:05
  How did how did you guys handle, you know, get a pretty
• 27:08
  knowledgeable coach here? And Dad, how did you handle that
• 27:10
  aspect I tried to make? Sure.
• 27:14
  My wife was really good at at making sure that I realized that
• 27:17
  I was dad and not just coach. And so when we were at school, I
• 27:24
  was coach, when we were at home, I was dad.
• 27:29
  And that's exactly the way we we didn't really talk shop.
• 27:33
  We didn't talk about you should have done this.
• 27:35
  You should have gone out harder. You should have gone out easier.
• 27:39
  We didn't even go there. You know, it was like, I'm dad
• 27:43
  and yes, here's you know, here's what we're you know, I'm going
• 27:47
  to come and watch your cross country meet and I'm not going
• 27:49
  to comment on did you do this or that?
• 27:52
  And I, I wanted him to have fun doing what it the sport was.
• 27:58
  Yes, Brett, we have. Real time fact checking.
• 28:00
  How did Dad slash coach doing that?
• 28:05
  I think he's spot on. I, I honestly don't recall ever
• 28:09
  coming home from a track meet or a practice and asking for his
• 28:12
  advice or him saying what you do at practice.
• 28:15
  Oh, what were your paces or anything like that.
• 28:17
  I mean, I even back in that time, I, I, I Don Bankey was, as
• 28:22
  far as cross country is concerned, was a great coach And
• 28:24
  so he knew I, I was being taken care of.
• 28:27
  Well, there ironically, Kevin Strebler, I don't think he was
• 28:32
  ever my head track coach in high school, but he coached me in
• 28:34
  junior high and then when I went up to high school, he ironically
• 28:37
  went to the high school at the same time.
• 28:39
  Well, he was on coach's team for a year.
• 28:41
  He took coaches coaching classes at UWSP.
• 28:44
  So I'm assuming he's thought that Kevin Strebler was probably
• 28:49
  using some of the things he learned from him.
• 28:51
  So once again, he assumed I probably was in pretty good
• 28:55
  hands. Pat Leahy was doing some
• 28:57
  coaching at at Smash at that time too, is doing a little bit
• 29:01
  more of the longer distance stuff.
• 29:02
  But he was on his team. So while he wasn't having a
• 29:06
  direct saying things, the guys that were having direct stays
• 29:09
  and things were kind of offshoots from him.
• 29:12
  So influence. Yeah, Well.
• 29:15
  Rick, you're better than I am because you know my son and I'm,
• 29:19
  I'm really actually, I think it's better that he did not.
• 29:22
  He doesn't do try. He did.
• 29:23
  He did some throwing in middle school, which I know nothing
• 29:25
  about growing, but as a pretty decent sprints hurdles coach and
• 29:30
  I always as my son was growing up, I was like, can I be the guy
• 29:34
  that just sits in the stands and as long as everything safe, can
• 29:37
  I just be like, cool, that's what coaches I've got a support
• 29:40
  coach. I don't think that I could.
• 29:42
  I would I'd be butting where I butting my putting my nose in
• 29:46
  where I shouldn't be and stuff like that.
• 29:47
  So Rick, you're you're better than me on that one.
• 29:49
  I I appreciate that. Well, Mike, it makes you feel
• 29:51
  any. Better.
• 29:51
  I sometimes get an elbow from my wife on the soccer field when my
• 29:54
  kids don't be telling them that, sorry.
• 30:00
  My son is fully into, he's a freshman this year, bass fishing
• 30:04
  like he's on he's I think they're 10th and state right
• 30:06
  now. They went to the national
• 30:07
  tournament last year and I know nothing about like he teaches
• 30:12
  me. So it's.
• 30:13
  It's awesome. I get to go.
• 30:14
  Oh, that's cool. It's fast.
• 30:15
  I have no idea. That's great.
• 30:16
  Are you doing it right? I don't know.
• 30:17
  You're safe. That's all I care.
• 30:18
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's probably, probably best
• 30:20
  that way. OK, Brett, when, as you're going
• 30:23
  through high school, you get to your senior year and of course,
• 30:25
  we start thinking about college and maybe what we want to do.
• 30:28
  Kind of two questions. One, was it a foregone
• 30:30
  conclusion that you're going to Stevens Point?
• 30:32
  And two, where are you in your thought of are you like, are you
• 30:36
  just destiny? You're going to be a track coach
• 30:37
  or did you have other thoughts of maybe being a a business
• 30:40
  owner, an astronaut who knows, a lawyer?
• 30:42
  Yeah, going to. Stevens Point was not a foregone
• 30:45
  conclusion. Dad was here, Brother was here
• 30:48
  and running. I'm.
• 30:51
  Blaming him for. This I, I think he went to the
• 30:53
  Wyatt coaches conference going into my senior year and told
• 30:56
  everybody they couldn't recruit me because I was a good runner
• 31:00
  in high school and I did not get recruited by a single Wyatt
• 31:03
  school except UW Stevens Point. I'm like, I got AI got a medal
• 31:07
  at the state meet from the 400 and I did not get recruited by a
• 31:10
  single Wyatt school, but Stevens Point.
• 31:13
  So they all, I was only looking at schools out of state because
• 31:16
  nobody in the Dang state was recruiting me.
• 31:20
  And ultimately it came down to two things.
• 31:21
  One, the tuition cost of staying in Wisconsin is hugely
• 31:26
  advantage. And I ultimately, as you've
• 31:29
  already kind of alluded to, thought it'd be easier at the
• 31:31
  Christmas dinner table to be running for dad versus running
• 31:34
  against Dad. Yeah, sure.
• 31:36
  Rick, you know there's assumptions as well, right?
• 31:39
  There's a lot of times where coach's son, we just like, yeah,
• 31:42
  why am I going to recruit him? He's going to his dad.
• 31:45
  But I noticed when you were saying that, Rick states, very
• 31:47
  stone face there. Is there some truth to that,
• 31:50
  Rick? Were you telling people like,
• 31:50
  yeah, yeah, he's coming. Don't even worry about him,
• 31:52
  guys. It's.
• 31:53
  It's very true. Honestly.
• 31:56
  I recruited him exactly the way I recruited everybody else.
• 32:01
  I, we, he's at the dinner table and there would be a letter that
• 32:08
  had been written because you got to remember at the time, this is
• 32:11
  before emails and before text and everything.
• 32:15
  And so there was a lot of handwritten notes and that kind
• 32:18
  of stuff. And his mom would have a letter
• 32:22
  at the dinner table when he came home, and it would have been
• 32:25
  from UWS Stevens Point track and field.
• 32:29
  And so I tried to make the you wrote that letter.
• 32:34
  Oh yeah, I. Wrote the letter, sent it to my
• 32:37
  son and mailed it to us so that he had it.
• 32:41
  And I wanted him to realize that, you know, this was the
• 32:45
  real deal. I this wasn't dad recruiting
• 32:48
  you. This was UW Stevens Point
• 32:51
  recruiting you as a student athlete to come to Stevens
• 32:54
  Point. Brett, was that cool?
• 32:56
  Or, you know, you're a kid. I have a lot of grace for 161718
• 33:00
  year old kids. Or was that corny?
• 33:02
  Because now we look back, that was cool, right?
• 33:03
  I mean, that's absolutely cool now.
• 33:06
  Back at the time, I probably didn't appreciate it as much as
• 33:10
  much older. I wish I still had the letters.
• 33:13
  I have no idea what happened to them, but absolutely right now I
• 33:17
  think it's super cool. That's so cool.
• 33:19
  Man, I love that that makes me think about like even like right
• 33:23
  now, not recruiting obviously, but like like writing a letter
• 33:26
  to my son. Just, you know, like we we talk
• 33:29
  every time, but there's something about putting thoughts
• 33:31
  on paper that there there's something special about that's
• 33:34
  pretty cool. That's pretty cool.
• 33:36
  So Brett, were you when you're looking at schools and where
• 33:38
  you're going to run and obviously goes you end up going
• 33:40
  to Stevens Point, were you thinking of becoming a coach or
• 33:43
  was there some other idea for a career?
• 33:45
  No. And this.
• 33:46
  Is where he maybe gives some credits.
• 33:50
  ESPN. When I was growing up was like
• 33:52
  kind of the new fancy thing. So I was every morning, every
• 33:57
  night glued to ESPN and watching.
• 33:59
  And so he planted the seed of maybe you should come to Stevens
• 34:04
  Point. We've got a great broadcast
• 34:05
  communications program. You know, you could try to be on
• 34:08
  ESPN. I'm like, I could maybe be on
• 34:11
  ESPN. That would be so cool.
• 34:14
  And so that was one of the things that he sold me on and
• 34:17
  coming to to UW Stevens Point I and that was my intention up
• 34:22
  until my my junior year is when I actually got to sit behind a
• 34:27
  desk with a camera on me and pseudo do sports broadcasting.
• 34:33
  And I'm not going to say it was an utter fail, but it was a huge
• 34:37
  disappointment. It's like, where's Stuart Scott?
• 34:39
  Where's the graphics? Where's the the boom Shakalaka
• 34:42
  colder on the OR cooler on the other side of the pillow.
• 34:45
  Like this is nothing like ESPN. And that was the moment in my
• 34:50
  head. I literally remember walking
• 34:51
  into his office, the one I'm sitting in and I'm like, I don't
• 34:56
  think I want to do this anymore. I was like, I think I want a
• 34:59
  more vested interest in the outcome of the sport or the
• 35:03
  event, not just talking about the results.
• 35:06
  And so he, I think he advised me to, well, you better pick up the
• 35:10
  coaching minor then and you're going to have to get your
• 35:13
  master's degree. And so that is when I, I flipped
• 35:16
  the switch from talking about sports to, to want to be
• 35:19
  involved in it. I.
• 35:20
  Love your thought process there of like, oh, I think I want to
• 35:24
  affect the actual sport instead of reporting on it necessarily.
• 35:28
  I love that it it does. You know, I'm still just boggled
• 35:31
  in, you know, our society that we make 18 year olds pick a
• 35:35
  major that's going to affect the rest of their life and they're
• 35:37
  18. They know nothing.
• 35:38
  We, you know, you think about yourself at 18 or you think
• 35:40
  about yourself at 18. We we, we're dummies at 18, for
• 35:43
  crying out loud, and they make us go to college and pick a
• 35:46
  major. Good luck.
• 35:47
  It's going to be the rest of your career.
• 35:48
  If you know, supposedly so I love that, you know, I love that
• 35:52
  you're thought I was a print journalism major in college,
• 35:55
  print journalism, public relations and same thing.
• 35:57
  I thought I was going to write newspaper and thank God I didn't
• 35:59
  go that route to be out of a job.
• 36:00
  You know, there's no newspapers, but but I love that, that aspect
• 36:04
  of it. So Rick, you talked about you
• 36:06
  coached or you taught a coaching class that I think that's
• 36:11
  foreign today, right? I don't think there's very many
• 36:14
  like coaching track and field classes anymore, right?
• 36:16
  No, there aren't. And at that point in time in
• 36:20
  Wisconsin, if you wanted to coach you, you needed to have a
• 36:25
  coaching certification. And so there was like a minor
• 36:31
  for coaching. And so that was, you know, it
• 36:36
  was a very, very popular class because everybody that wanted to
• 36:39
  be a teacher wanted to be able to do some kind of coaching no
• 36:44
  matter what it was. And it wasn't really
• 36:46
  specifically track and field. It was, I thought two classes, 1
• 36:52
  was scientific concepts of coaching and the other one was
• 36:58
  psychology and motivational aspects of coaching.
• 37:02
  And so those were two of the most popular classes.
• 37:05
  I mean, the class was full every time we offered it.
• 37:08
  And so it kind of, you know, set things up for, you know, people
• 37:14
  that wanted to go into the coaching profession.
• 37:16
  Yeah, I got. To show you some hold on, I got
• 37:18
  to grab something for you and show you.
• 37:34
  Sorry, it was right in front of my face and I couldn't find it.
• 37:36
  So this is a book called Track and Field Athletics Coaching
• 37:39
  Consultant. This was back in the 20s and
• 37:42
  30s. So before you, Rick, this is
• 37:45
  what they would teach coaching track and field classes back in
• 37:49
  the day. This is one of the original
• 37:51
  books. This was written by Harry Gill.
• 37:53
  So he. Yeah.
• 37:54
  Yeah. He taught and wrote the actual
• 37:56
  book that most schools around the country would teach coaching
• 37:59
  track and field from. Is this is written by Harry
• 38:02
  Gill. I thought you'd you'd kind of
• 38:03
  find that kind of neat. That's cool, yeah.
• 38:05
  That's pretty neat coaching. Contestant, not consultant.
• 38:08
  They probably called coaches consultants back then.
• 38:10
  Yeah, it's pretty neat. Pretty neat.
• 38:12
  OK, Brett, you make this switch that OK, I'm I'm going to go
• 38:17
  into coaching, maybe get that minor and things like that.
• 38:21
  You know, I hate to use the word assume because we know what that
• 38:23
  means, but OK, you graduate. Is it just you're going to coach
• 38:26
  for your dad? No, no, no, not at all.
• 38:32
  He told me I had to get a master's, so I knew that.
• 38:35
  So I senior year was applying for graduate schools.
• 38:39
  Fortunately I got well, I got into and accept offered a
• 38:44
  graduate assistant position for teaching at the University of
• 38:48
  Tennessee. And once again, maybe a little
• 38:50
  bit of what you're not what you know, but who you know.
• 38:53
  Buck Jones used to be the one of the track coaches at UW Lacrosse
• 38:57
  and he was teaching down there at the time.
• 39:00
  So I only can speculate that maybe coach put in a good word
• 39:04
  for me with Buck, who then put in a good word to my grades were
• 39:07
  everything were fine. But it's a very competitive
• 39:10
  market. And so I did get in there and
• 39:12
  got my master's degree there. But I maybe it's, I had thoughts
• 39:18
  of maybe at some point going back to Stevens Point, but
• 39:21
  definitely not while he was there was never in my mind that
• 39:26
  that wasn't a driver. Of like, I want to coach with
• 39:28
  dad necessary at this age and stage that we're talking about.
• 39:31
  No, no that. Definitely never crossed my mind
• 39:34
  and and you mentioned I. I wanted to ask this real quick.
• 39:37
  You mentioned and I think an older brother who was who also
• 39:40
  ran track, yes. Does he coach?
• 39:43
  He does not he. He's in the kind of a similar
• 39:47
  industry to you, except he just does like treadmills and weights
• 39:51
  and ellipticals and things like that.
• 39:53
  Oh, very cool, very cool. It's really interesting.
• 39:55
  Mike in that I actually thought that my older son would be the
• 39:59
  one that would go into coaching, OK, He went to Graduate School
• 40:04
  at Western Michigan and. Jack Shaw was the coach at that
• 40:11
  point in time. Jack had a heart attack and my
• 40:16
  son was forced to become the coach while Jack was recovering
• 40:22
  and he had to run a conference championship to Mid America.
• 40:26
  And so he thought that he was going to be the one that did
• 40:31
  that. And he it was kind of applying
• 40:35
  for jobs when he got out and his his wife, God bless her.
• 40:41
  And we all know if you're going to be a coach, your wife has to
• 40:45
  be in 100%. His wife did came from a family
• 40:51
  where coaching was not even a thought.
• 40:55
  And she wasn't sure that she wanted to commit to that kind of
• 41:01
  a thing. And so he found the next best
• 41:04
  option in that he stayed in sports and works for companies
• 41:08
  that sell a lot like you. He works with, you know, selling
• 41:13
  exercise equipment, that type of thing.
• 41:16
  So he stayed in the the almost realm of athletics, but in a
• 41:19
  different capacity where he's not gone every weekend.
• 41:22
  Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
• 41:24
  I, I speak to a few classes, typically 1A year of college
• 41:30
  kids and some kind of like careers of athletics class, you
• 41:33
  know, things like that. And I'm always telling, I was
• 41:35
  like, you know, I know the vast majority you probably want to be
• 41:37
  coach. First of all, that's not exactly
• 41:38
  a career for everybody. I go, here's the good news.
• 41:40
  There are so many other careers in sports and that you can still
• 41:45
  be involved in from ESPN to treadmills to everything.
• 41:48
  You know, there's marketers that are just for sports, etcetera.
• 41:50
  There's so much lawyers for, for athletics.
• 41:53
  I mean, there's anything in society you can add sports to it
• 41:56
  and there's a need for it in some form or fashion.
• 41:58
  So that's really cool. Any other siblings that did
• 42:01
  track or maybe coach 2? Boys, that's all you can handle.
• 42:06
  I. I get that.
• 42:06
  I get it. I get it, Brett.
• 42:09
  So you go to Knoxville. I mean, that's a in in what
• 42:12
  years was this ball of 90? 8 to the spring of 99 so.
• 42:20
  Right before Justin, a good friend of mine is Justin Gatlin.
• 42:24
  He was. He was a freshman.
• 42:25
  That's the year they won indoor, yeah.
• 42:29
  I'm trying to think. I thought that was 99 two
• 42:30
  thousand I'm getting. No, it was.
• 42:34
  They won football with T Martin and they Justin Gatlin was a
• 42:38
  freshman and they had, I'm going to draw a blank on his name, but
• 42:40
  they had the other short sprinter, Leonard Scott.
• 42:43
  Yes, thank you. I would.
• 42:44
  Not have come up with that name, so Jay's a good.
• 42:47
  Friend and then another guy that was hanging around during that
• 42:50
  time. It was Andreas Beam kind of in
• 42:53
  that air. It might have been just after
• 42:54
  you, but you know now amazing coach.
• 42:56
  Things like that, that that was a time.
• 42:59
  I mean, Tennessee is a long history of track and field,
• 43:01
  obviously, but that time for track and field was really
• 43:05
  something special. Were you coaching GA coaching,
• 43:10
  managing? I was.
• 43:11
  I was teaching classes for the physical education program and
• 43:16
  then I was still trying to just stay in shape.
• 43:19
  And so I was on the track one day and I was a good runner.
• 43:22
  And so I was doing a pretty challenging workout in the cross
• 43:25
  country team showed up and a couple of the guys walked over
• 43:28
  me like, Hey, who are you? What are you doing?
• 43:30
  And I, I told them and they're like, well, do you want to run
• 43:33
  with us sometime? I was like, yeah, sure.
• 43:34
  And they took me over and I met George Watts, who was a, a great
• 43:38
  man and he welcomed me with open arms.
• 43:41
  And so I, I kind of just started training with their half milers
• 43:44
  then for that year that I was down there and I got to run a
• 43:47
  couple races and wait. So like Mark?
• 43:49
  Sylvester would have been there. No, after Adrian Wheatley.
• 43:54
  Oh, Adrian, yes. Of course, yes, and there was.
• 43:56
  One other guy, Hassan stamps. But he was 400 hurdles.
• 44:00
  But Hassan would have been there.
• 44:02
  Yeah, he would have been there. I.
• 44:03
  Recognize that name? I can't remember the other half.
• 44:05
  Miller Debris. Debris Harris was.
• 44:08
  He there in that time I don't. Think about Azusa Pacific.
• 44:12
  Yeah. Anyway, you know, here's the
• 44:14
  thing, there's so many amazing athletes that were during this
• 44:15
  time. We can name 100 of them.
• 44:17
  Yeah, a time frame. That's so cool, man.
• 44:20
  It was an. Absolutely amazing experience.
• 44:24
  I wouldn't take it away. I wouldn't change anything.
• 44:27
  I did learn 100% though that Division One athletics, Division
• 44:32
  One track and field very different from the different.
• 44:35
  Theory and it. Did help me solidify that time
• 44:42
  D1 is not for me that that is not I want to coach but this is
• 44:45
  not the level I want to coach at yeah I've.
• 44:47
  Made you know, I coached for 10 years and majority of it in
• 44:50
  Division One beer, JUCO as well and a little bit of high school.
• 44:53
  But you know, doing this podcast, you know, we're at 350
• 44:56
  something episodes, whatever. I always tell people it's like,
• 44:59
  you know, I, I, I do, I'm very conscious about having coaches
• 45:02
  from all levels, middle school, high school, all the instant
• 45:06
  Blaze, any IA, JUCO professional, etcetera.
• 45:08
  And I always tell people was like, you know, who smiles a
• 45:10
  little bit more than any other coach?
• 45:12
  My D3 coaches, I was like, I don't know, they just, they,
• 45:14
  they've cracked the code, I think.
• 45:16
  And I wonder because I've been here 20 years, so I'd be on my
• 45:20
  30th year of coaching. I was like, I wonder if I'd have
• 45:22
  wisened up by now and, and figured it out that D3 is the
• 45:25
  place to be. You know, I'm so blessed that I,
• 45:28
  you know, coaching the SEC and stuff so much fun and great
• 45:31
  athletes and blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 45:33
  But it's also the reason I got out of coaching was Division One
• 45:36
  and all the stuff with it as well.
• 45:39
  UD three guys, man. I swear, you just seem happier.
• 45:42
  Just going to say it. You just seem like things are a
• 45:44
  lot better off there, man. OK, so you go to Knoxville,
• 45:49
  you're learning a lot, Rick. This might be from what I
• 45:51
  understand this the kind of the first time a kids may be farther
• 45:54
  away from you guys. And I kind of get the sense this
• 45:56
  is a you guys are family first type of family.
• 45:58
  How was that with Brett all the way out in Tennessee?
• 46:02
  It was good. I was happy for him.
• 46:04
  And you know, he had, he needed to get away and spread his wings
• 46:08
  and see what, you know, what was out there.
• 46:12
  As he said at that point in time, I think he he knew he
• 46:15
  actually wanted to coach at that point in time and he needed to
• 46:21
  see what it looked like in comparison to UW Stevens Point.
• 46:26
  And while, like he said, he was there kind of as a, he ran with
• 46:31
  them, he helped out a little bit, you know, was involved and
• 46:35
  got to see the how it, how it works at the Division One level.
• 46:40
  And so it was a it was a great experience.
• 46:43
  You know, I and he, he made it perfectly clear to me.
• 46:47
  And I always tell his wife, my mom, his mom and my wife laugh
• 46:51
  about this. He when he decided that he
• 46:54
  wanted to be a coach, he wanted to get a be a coach and he
• 46:57
  wanted to get it on his own merits.
• 46:59
  He didn't want dad to, you know, call so and so and say, you
• 47:05
  know, hey, why don't you give my son a job type thing, you know,
• 47:09
  a lot of. People sure, Yeah, absolutely.
• 47:12
  Yeah. Love that, Brett.
• 47:14
  Did we come back home after graduate work or what did we do
• 47:16
  after Knoxville for about two weeks?
• 47:19
  And then I was fortunate that Steve Ray at Carthage College
• 47:23
  gave me my first full time coaching gig in Kenosha and I
• 47:28
  spent 15 years there. Wow, is that?
• 47:30
  Right now, forgive me for not knowing everybody.
• 47:33
  Carthage Division Three Division Division Three in the.
• 47:36
  CCIW with the North Central's Augustanas.
• 47:40
  Got it. OK, that.
• 47:41
  Conference so you. Weren't in the same.
• 47:42
  Conference as dad, but you're in the same division and the same
• 47:46
  state. And the same state.
• 47:48
  So a lot of the same trek meets on the weekends.
• 47:51
  We cross paths a couple. Times across paths and
• 47:53
  recruiting a couple times for yeah Oh.
• 47:56
  Come on, there has to be a boar story or five on that.
• 48:01
  I think he won most of them. Rick's got the ultimate trump
• 48:05
  cards. Like, yeah, you know, my son's
• 48:06
  great. I love him to death.
• 48:07
  But you know who taught him everything he had?
• 48:10
  The teacher versus. The student card and I think the
• 48:12
  teacher card won every time that's.
• 48:17
  Cool. But you have the, you know,
• 48:18
  like, yeah, you know, my dad's old and, you know, you wouldn't
• 48:20
  even do that, though. That's the kind of thing that's
• 48:22
  the, that's the whole thing. I've said this to other.
• 48:25
  People, I mean I obviously wanted my team to to win and and
• 48:29
  beat his team, but I was always good with his team being second
• 48:32
  or his athlete being second as long as my guy was in front of
• 48:34
  his or gal. Well, I guess I didn't.
• 48:36
  I coached gals a little bit there, but for the most part
• 48:38
  guys. Was there ever the?
• 48:40
  One that got away that went to the other one that you're like,
• 48:42
  man, I really wanted Susie and gosh, she went to Brett and she
• 48:45
  did good and all but man, I wanted Susie on my team.
• 48:49
  He. Most, as he said, he did most of
• 48:53
  his recruiting down in Illinois in that area.
• 48:57
  And yeah, there, there were a couple of guys that I was
• 49:01
  recruiting that he ended up, you know, getting just because,
• 49:06
  well, he did a better job than I did.
• 49:08
  You know, they ended up going to the place that was right for
• 49:11
  them. So, yeah, there wasn't a lot of
• 49:13
  overlap though, because as you said, most of our recruiting is
• 49:16
  done in in Wisconsin itself. And Brett found that, yeah, his
• 49:21
  energies were better spent, you know, in the more populated
• 49:25
  areas of the suburbs of Chicago. And he had some good teams when
• 49:30
  he was at Carthage, that's for sure.
• 49:33
  We've got a Carthage alum on our team now here, Adam Kinzier.
• 49:36
  He was a multi at Carthage and then now overseas.
• 49:41
  Some of our construction items here for for GAIL.
• 49:44
  So love our our whole team is kind of weird.
• 49:48
  The majority of our sales team actually graduated from Illinois
• 49:50
  State. They're all red birds.
• 49:52
  And then we get this Carthage kid.
• 49:53
  I'm like, well, you're kind of a red.
• 49:54
  It's a red bird, you know that's that's.
• 49:56
  Like that's like we pretty. Much.
• 49:57
  Only if your mascot's a red bird.
• 49:58
  You got a shot at the job here. Otherwise, just go somewhere
• 50:01
  else. Yeah, that's awesome.
• 50:03
  So, Brett, what was it like? Was there ever.
• 50:07
  I'm gonna say like and again, I just I feel a strong I mean
• 50:12
  maybe it's just obvious. Maybe it's just because you're 2
• 50:14
  are in front of me right here. I feel a strong like family
• 50:16
  connection here, like the wit family really like protects each
• 50:19
  other and loves each other. As you're working at Carthage,
• 50:22
  was there ever a side eye looking at Stevens Point going
• 50:25
  man, if there ever was a during that time you were at Carthage
• 50:28
  for 15 years. I have to assume there were some
• 50:29
  jobs open at Stevens Point during that time.
• 50:31
  Do you ever consider hopping over or not the right time I.
• 50:37
  I don't think there was one that was ever open that obviously I
• 50:40
  had some inside information. I think it was open twice during
• 50:45
  my time. And I, I think he kind of said
• 50:50
  it's we have other needs. You don't check some of the
• 50:54
  right boxes for lack of better words, like it's, it's not worth
• 50:58
  it. He and I talked a little bit
• 51:01
  like what his retirement plans might be, how much longer he
• 51:04
  wanted to do it. As I said, I, I never gave a
• 51:10
  whole lot of thought to coaching with him.
• 51:13
  I always thought maybe I would replace him.
• 51:17
  And so no, I, I don't think I ever applied for a job here
• 51:21
  though prior to getting that. We're at the position I'm in
• 51:24
  now. How you know?
• 51:26
  It seems like you guys did a very healthy job of when during
• 51:31
  the recruiting process, you know, when you were younger.
• 51:34
  How was it during this time when you got together for
• 51:37
  Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners?
• 51:38
  Was dad still dad? Or now it's you're, you're,
• 51:42
  you're closer and closer to peer-to-peer at this point and
• 51:44
  you're both professional track coaches.
• 51:46
  Was there more track talk at the table or do you keep it, keep
• 51:49
  that separate? That's my profession.
• 51:51
  We're here to talk about maybe family, grandkids, maybe, I
• 51:53
  don't know. I think you would go ahead.
• 51:58
  Track is always. At the center when we're when
• 52:01
  we're together, I I've, I've said this and, and Mike, I know
• 52:06
  you my wife more as many as many people knew my wife as they knew
• 52:10
  me at the, because she went to conventions and all the socials
• 52:14
  that you guys hosted and all those types of things.
• 52:16
  She was there. So she's, she's been into track
• 52:19
  and field, you know, 100% all the time.
• 52:23
  When you've got a son that's in it and a husband that's in it,
• 52:26
  you better be. And so yeah, I mean, things
• 52:30
  revolved around track and field and you know, where are you
• 52:34
  going to be? What are we going to do at
• 52:36
  Easter? Are we even going to have a
• 52:37
  chance to get together or, or is it going to be at a track meet
• 52:41
  or are we going to have Easter at a track meet or, you know,
• 52:44
  those types of things. It always kind of, yeah.
• 52:48
  Or, you know, is half the team going to be here having hot dogs
• 52:51
  because they couldn't go home for their Easter, you know, just
• 52:54
  those types of things. Yeah.
• 52:55
  So it, we kept it, you know, it evolved around track, but it was
• 53:00
  also family. And you know, the one thing that
• 53:02
  I will throw out because our I stole this, it's not mine, but
• 53:07
  you've heard it before, but our, our AD was in our, our one of
• 53:11
  our ADS was actually one of my students in my coaching class.
• 53:17
  And she always tells me that the one thing that she learned from
• 53:22
  my coaching class is that kids don't care how much you know
• 53:27
  until they know how much you care.
• 53:30
  And that's kind of the philosophy that we've had at
• 53:34
  Stevens Point the entire time is we want to win, but we care
• 53:41
  about you as a person, as an athlete, as a student.
• 53:45
  And I know a lot of people say that and I'm a lot of people do
• 53:49
  it, but we are one that do it and we live that.
• 53:53
  And when my AD says that to me, I go, you know what?
• 53:56
  We were doing something right, right.
• 53:59
  So. So a kid in your class became
• 54:01
  your AD. She's our associate.
• 54:03
  AD right now, yeah. What a great lesson.
• 54:06
  Of be kind and be true to everybody, whether they're 20
• 54:12
  years, you're younger or the, the garbage man, the janitor.
• 54:16
  I mean, you never know. That's amazing.
• 54:20
  It it's fun. Yeah, it it is.
• 54:22
  And it, it makes you feel good when you feel like that.
• 54:25
  Yeah, you did have a little bit of an impact on somebody along
• 54:29
  the way. Absolutely.
• 54:30
  Tons of. Impact, not little impact, Rick.
• 54:33
  Yeah, Did you ever Speaking of administration, you know, I like
• 54:37
  to encourage our track coaches to potentially go into
• 54:39
  administration, not because I'm trying to get them out of
• 54:41
  coaching, but I know a lot of decisions about our sport are
• 54:43
  happening in the administration level and I certainly would like
• 54:46
  to have someone who has some knowledge and passion about our
• 54:49
  sport. Do you ever consider any kind of
• 54:50
  administrative role, Rick? Yeah, there were a couple of
• 54:53
  times when, you know, things came up and there was some
• 54:59
  people were asking me if I would, you know, consider, you
• 55:02
  know, taking over some kind of an administrative role.
• 55:05
  And and I tell people I'm a coach at 3:00.
• 55:11
  I need the it's almost like a fix.
• 55:14
  You know, you've you've got to have that time with the athletes
• 55:19
  right now. I mean, I'm, I'm retired, but at
• 55:24
  the afternoon time, my wife laughed, said, you know, that's,
• 55:29
  she knows what's going to happen.
• 55:30
  You know, at 2:00 or whatever, I'm out of here and I'm in there
• 55:34
  so that I have an hour to, you know, interact with kids before
• 55:37
  practice time, you know, just, you know, answer questions and
• 55:40
  that kind of stuff. And then I get my fix from 3:00
• 55:43
  to 5:00 when I have an opportunity to have an impact
• 55:46
  and, you know, do something I love to do.
• 55:49
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 55:50
  When I. First got to Gil about 2:00
• 55:52
  every afternoon. I almost described it exactly
• 55:55
  how you did, Rick. I get itchy and I was like, man,
• 55:57
  I'm supposed to be outside. I'm just being in the sand pit
• 55:59
  right now. Something that's like, oh, man,
• 56:01
  yeah, it is, you know, for lack of a better describer.
• 56:06
  It is a little bit like a fix. Like I kind of get maybe how
• 56:09
  people who are addicted to drugs get like, thank God and getting
• 56:11
  the drugs. I think I have that kind of
• 56:13
  personality. They got to got into coaching
• 56:15
  instead of some of those other things, man.
• 56:17
  Holy cow, Brett. So you spend 15 years at
• 56:21
  Carthage. How do we get back to Stevens
• 56:24
  Point? Ironically, I'm on the golf
• 56:28
  course on a trip with my wife and some some other couples.
• 56:34
  And I got a phone call from him and he said our women's coach
• 56:39
  just resigned to follow her husband to the West Coast.
• 56:43
  And I was like, holy crap. I don't know.
• 56:46
  When was that coach? July, August, something like
• 56:49
  that. Like in August.
• 56:52
  Yeah. And my wife wasn't on the golf
• 56:54
  course with me. So I, I called her and she's
• 56:57
  like, holy smokes, never saw that coming.
• 56:59
  And we had like a 3 or 4 hour drive home from wherever we were
• 57:04
  the next day or something like that.
• 57:05
  So she and I talked at length. Like, is this something that
• 57:09
  you'd be interested in? I'm like, I don't know.
• 57:12
  I, I don't, you know, I've thought about going back to
• 57:14
  Stevens Point. I never talked about working
• 57:16
  with him and happy wife, happy life.
• 57:20
  Don't tell her I said that. She doesn't like when I use that
• 57:22
  phrase. She's like, well, I hate my job
• 57:24
  and I would like a new one. And if you were to get the job
• 57:27
  there, I'm three hours closer to my parents.
• 57:29
  I'm closer to my sisters. You need to apply for that job.
• 57:32
  So I was like, yes, dear. So because you aren't so much
• 57:38
  for your dad? That's so good because of the.
• 57:41
  Timing. I let him know that I would be
• 57:44
  interested, and he passed that along to the athletic director
• 57:48
  at the time, who apparently had already wondered whether I might
• 57:51
  because it was such a late Phil and I.
• 57:54
  Don't know about a month. Later or so, we're trying to
• 57:57
  find a place to live and pack up two kids and uproot our lives in
• 58:02
  central Wisconsin from Kenosha. Wow.
• 58:05
  Oh. Man, so you go in, you go back
• 58:07
  to Stevens Point as the head women's coach.
• 58:12
  No, they, they. Changed the titles, I think for
• 58:15
  that he was the head of all six and I was the associate head of
• 58:19
  all six. OK.
• 58:20
  So you're working for dad, Dad's boss in that sense.
• 58:23
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. How is I'm always fascinated
• 58:26
  with athletes who go on to be coaches and coach with their
• 58:29
  former their former coach because you know, there again,
• 58:31
  there's a power dynamic here, right?
• 58:34
  And you're getting closer and closer to peer as you go, you
• 58:36
  know, coach and athlete as you become assistant coach.
• 58:38
  It's like, OK, I'm closer, you're still not there.
• 58:40
  But you know, there's a different dynamic.
• 58:42
  You look at little Joey differently.
• 58:43
  He was my long jumper. Now he's my jumps coach.
• 58:45
  That's a different thing, right? You've got a power dynamic of
• 58:49
  like, oh, dad as well and son and they'll never be a peer.
• 58:52
  You know, even now, your father, you're still not the same level.
• 58:55
  It's still dad. And now you come back as the
• 58:58
  associate coach, overhead coach. How any I never want to never
• 59:05
  necessarily ask this in a negative way like are there any
• 59:06
  strains? But how was that adjustment of
• 59:09
  like OK, now I'm I'm in the program that's my boss also my
• 59:14
  dad, which that's boss. How did that how did you guys
• 59:17
  handle that? I.
• 59:20
  I'll answer that I I want he made he made two things, but
• 59:24
  well known from day one. One he got to be called coach
• 59:28
  wit. I was like, OK, I'm, I'm fine
• 59:30
  with being called Coach Brad or Brad or anything like that's
• 59:33
  fine. And he he gets the.
• 59:36
  Oh, I get it. I thought you had to call him
• 59:38
  Coach Wit, not Rick or Dad. No, no, no.
• 59:40
  He got. To be coach wit.
• 59:42
  Yes. So I had to find something else.
• 59:46
  Was his first. Thing all right, we got to lay
• 59:48
  down the rules brother and. #2 was he got to coach the distance
• 59:53
  runners during the track season and at Carthage I was coaching
• 59:57
  the 100 through the 10K. So I was like that's fine.
• 1:00:00
  I've enjoyed coaching sprinter as I've had success there.
• 1:00:03
  So he he kind of put those two ground rules down and I thought
• 1:00:07
  the rest of it was pretty seamless, to be honest with you.
• 1:00:11
  Rick, what do you say? I the one thing that I had
• 1:00:17
  talked to Brad when he was a coach and I've lived by, I try
• 1:00:22
  to hire good people. I put them in a position where
• 1:00:26
  they're comfortable or where they feel like that they have a
• 1:00:28
  chance to do something and then I get the hell out of the way
• 1:00:32
  and let them do their own job. And I think that's how you build
• 1:00:36
  coaches is let them, you know, I was there to answer if they had
• 1:00:40
  a question and but I never second guessed.
• 1:00:44
  I they gave me their workout plans and said, here's what
• 1:00:47
  we're doing. And so, you know, he had
• 1:00:51
  sprinters and quarter milers and Brett had been a really good
• 1:00:54
  quarter miler. And so I let him just take them
• 1:00:57
  and run. And, you know, we had some some
• 1:01:02
  great success right away, you know, because our philosophies
• 1:01:07
  are a lot the same, though, like you said, you know, he's changed
• 1:01:09
  a little bit from people he worked with.
• 1:01:11
  But you know, a lot of the things that he thinks are things
• 1:01:14
  that that he learned through, you know, working with and and
• 1:01:18
  coaching with me that. You know, you you guys are
• 1:01:22
  really good at setting me up for my segways because I'd love to
• 1:01:24
  ask about coaching education because coaching education
• 1:01:27
  changed my life, literally my life, not just my coaching life,
• 1:01:30
  but my my life would like my mentor Boosh ex Nader and stuff.
• 1:01:33
  How did how have you guys individually handled coaching
• 1:01:36
  education for yourself? You know, how do you have
• 1:01:39
  improved as a coach? Rick?
• 1:01:41
  You grew up in a time where coaching education was radically
• 1:01:43
  different than it was today. Brett, again, same thing you,
• 1:01:47
  you've grew up in a different coaching education world than
• 1:01:50
  than Rick, but also you have one of the, I mean you have a
• 1:01:54
  personal coaching education with you everyday, your dad.
• 1:01:57
  How have you guys handled coaching education through your
• 1:01:59
  careers? I.
• 1:02:04
  I feel like I'm, I'm still learning all the time, even at
• 1:02:08
  this age. As Brett said, we we've hired a
• 1:02:10
  new cross country coach. He's, I had a lot of success in,
• 1:02:16
  in cross country at the time I was at Stevens Point.
• 1:02:19
  His he does things completely different than what I did with
• 1:02:23
  the new, you know, double thresholds and all the new stuff
• 1:02:26
  that's out there. He's been really successful.
• 1:02:29
  And so I'm, I'm learning all the time.
• 1:02:32
  I, I think that you have to evolve.
• 1:02:36
  Sometimes we all coaches get stuck saying, you know it.
• 1:02:39
  Yeah, well, that's the way you did it 30 years ago.
• 1:02:41
  And no, I think you have to be able to evolve because kids are
• 1:02:47
  different than they were 30 years ago.
• 1:02:49
  And so I love going to the coaching convention and
• 1:02:53
  listening to not just old guys my age talk, but the new guys
• 1:02:58
  that were coaching at Texas A&M or, you know, Baylor or forever,
• 1:03:03
  you know what I'm talking about, and the new ideas that were out
• 1:03:07
  there. And so and then you see if
• 1:03:09
  they're going to fit into what your environmental situation
• 1:03:13
  allows it and are some of those going to be good for you?
• 1:03:17
  What about like formal coaching education because you grew up in
• 1:03:21
  this profession before we had USATF coaching education, like
• 1:03:27
  you know, level 1, level 2, you grew up when it was back in TAC
• 1:03:29
  and things and I know we had some things.
• 1:03:31
  Was there any formal type stuff back then or was it more clinics
• 1:03:34
  and peer-to-peer? Yeah.
• 1:03:36
  There wasn't much, quote UN quote coaching education at that
• 1:03:40
  point in time. It was pretty much, you know,
• 1:03:43
  you call somebody up. I mean, I can't tell you how
• 1:03:46
  many times that you would as a coach, somebody would call and
• 1:03:50
  say, Hey, I'm going to be in Stevens Point.
• 1:03:52
  Let's get together and, and talk about coaching or how many times
• 1:03:57
  I've, you know, called Joe Piani at Notre Dame and, and said,
• 1:04:02
  Hey, you know, what are you thinking about right now?
• 1:04:05
  You know, on, on this kind of stuff?
• 1:04:07
  I think at that point in time, a lot of the old coaches, that's
• 1:04:10
  what we did, you know, we, we exchanged a lot of ideas amongst
• 1:04:15
  ourselves, you know, and it wasn't like everybody had a big
• 1:04:18
  secret. You know, everybody was just
• 1:04:20
  trying to get kids better, you know, and help people improve.
• 1:04:25
  Yeah, I think of. Coaching education kind of two
• 1:04:27
  buckets, formal and informal. Formal being our our level ones
• 1:04:31
  level twos, Altis, US TIF CA coaching academies and our
• 1:04:34
  informal being more peer-to-peer.
• 1:04:37
  And you grew up in a time frame when there was less formal.
• 1:04:39
  And it was, by the way, you didn't even have like the I can
• 1:04:42
  go on YouTube right now and get a pretty decent education on how
• 1:04:45
  to coach distance runners if I wanted to.
• 1:04:48
  You don't have that when you're going growing up in the
• 1:04:50
  profession either, Rick, no. Absolutely not.
• 1:04:53
  Yeah, you're right. And I mean, I, I did do go
• 1:04:56
  through the level, you know, when it first came out, I wanted
• 1:04:59
  to stay on top. So I did the level 1 and the
• 1:05:01
  level 2 stuff, you know, even though, you know, it's kind of
• 1:05:06
  what you needed to do to stay current and stay on top of
• 1:05:09
  things. Yeah.
• 1:05:10
  Did you ever teach? Any of those or no?
• 1:05:13
  I think the clinics. Yeah, at at the time you, like I
• 1:05:16
  said, you know, my boys were, were young and were involved in
• 1:05:20
  that kind of stuff. And as I said, during the
• 1:05:22
  summer, I did try to be dad and, you know, take in soccer and and
• 1:05:27
  those types of things. Yeah.
• 1:05:29
  And so, and, and to be honest with you, I, my other passion is
• 1:05:34
  playing golf and, and in the summer, my wife and I, that's
• 1:05:39
  the one time we get out and do something together.
• 1:05:41
  Yeah, your wife's a golfer too. Oh yeah, we play a.
• 1:05:44
  Lot Fred will tell you he anytime he calls me in the
• 1:05:47
  summer, he'll say you're on the golf course, aren't you?
• 1:05:49
  And I go, yeah, your mom and I are on hole 7.
• 1:05:52
  So that's so cool. You know, I'm a little bit of an
• 1:05:55
  anti golfer because we talked about addictive personalities.
• 1:06:00
  Golf and golfers are typically addicted to golf.
• 1:06:05
  I I live fairly close to a golf course in Mahomet, IL, just the
• 1:06:09
  West of Champaign, and there is someone golfing.
• 1:06:13
  Even if I think it's too cold, there's someone on the course.
• 1:06:15
  If it's raining, there's still someone on the court.
• 1:06:17
  It's too hot, someone's still on the course, it's too dark.
• 1:06:19
  There's still some people on the.
• 1:06:20
  It's unbelievable. And do you guys, I don't know if
• 1:06:23
  you guys listen to other podcasts, Do you know what an
• 1:06:25
  author named Malcolm Gladwell. Yeah, yeah, one of my favorite.
• 1:06:29
  Brett, do you know Malcolm Gladwell at all?
• 1:06:31
  Yeah. He wrote like Outliers and the
• 1:06:33
  Tipping Point. If you've heard of the, the rule
• 1:06:36
  of 10,000 hours that, you know, if you practice something for
• 1:06:39
  10,000 hours, that's what you need to be an expert, yadda,
• 1:06:41
  yadda. He's kind of the person that
• 1:06:42
  kind of. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:06:43
  He, he's an amazing storyteller and author.
• 1:06:46
  Like one of my and he's a Trek guy.
• 1:06:47
  He was a miler back in the days from he's born in Canada, but
• 1:06:51
  he's got Jamaican ancestry, etcetera.
• 1:06:54
  But anyway, he's amazing. Well, he has this podcast as
• 1:06:57
  well. And of course, you know, if you
• 1:06:58
  create a podcast, you have to listen to him.
• 1:07:00
  It's kind of a rule. I think there's an amazing
• 1:07:02
  podcast where he talked about the golf courses in California
• 1:07:05
  and just how much like water they take and the amount of
• 1:07:08
  space per person that utilizes it versus like a basketball
• 1:07:11
  court. Anyway, anti golfer here, not
• 1:07:14
  hardcore or anything. Oh, in my team, by the way.
• 1:07:16
  Oh my God, they'd be on the golf course every single day.
• 1:07:19
  But some of us golf. Some men specifically golf to
• 1:07:22
  get away from their families, Rick and to get away from their
• 1:07:24
  wives. It's an easy 456 hours.
• 1:07:26
  You have mom wife with you. That's so that's actually kind
• 1:07:31
  of like it's a little bit kind of sweet.
• 1:07:32
  Actually, it's really cool. It's it I I.
• 1:07:35
  Feel very lucky that I enjoys doing that.
• 1:07:38
  You'll you'll appreciate this because they've been on your
• 1:07:41
  podcast. Our my best coaching friend is
• 1:07:46
  John Zupon from UW Oshkosh and Deb Cotterin, who was the
• 1:07:51
  women's coach at Oshkosh but aware of there are our best
• 1:07:56
  friends in in coaching. John and I talked every day
• 1:08:00
  before they retired. Well, anyway, I told you we're
• 1:08:03
  going on a little trip. They have a place in Arizona and
• 1:08:07
  so on a golf course. So you can imagine we're going
• 1:08:10
  out there for a week. It's all old track and field
• 1:08:14
  stories and Oh my gosh. That's what we do for.
• 1:08:17
  A week and my poor wife. It's a good thing she's been
• 1:08:20
  involved in it because Deb was a coach and.
• 1:08:25
  Coach and. So it's a good thing she's a
• 1:08:27
  coach's wife and a coach's mother because she's inundated
• 1:08:31
  with old stories about track and field.
• 1:08:34
  If if I could. Do this full time, full time.
• 1:08:36
  You know, I have other responsibilities I have to do
• 1:08:38
  here at Gill and could actually do like editing and cutting and
• 1:08:40
  stuff like that. I one of the ideas I've had for
• 1:08:43
  like would be a cool show slash podcast would be.
• 1:08:46
  I always thought about like taking a, a lap around the
• 1:08:48
  track, but honestly and miking coaches up at at a golf outing
• 1:08:52
  and, and just, and, you know, and telling stories.
• 1:08:55
  It's almost like the fireside chats of our day of is going to
• 1:08:58
  the golf course. I think that would be that'd be
• 1:09:00
  really cool. You'd get some great stories
• 1:09:02
  from from guys and gals. Man, that's really cool.
• 1:09:04
  I love that. OK.
• 1:09:05
  Brett, you grew up in a little bit of a different time frame
• 1:09:07
  for a coaching education, meaning there's a lot more
• 1:09:10
  official or formal I should say with the USFC academies,
• 1:09:14
  etcetera, etcetera, Altos and those good guys.
• 1:09:17
  But also there's peer-to-peer. And you may have had the best
• 1:09:20
  peer-to-peer your your dad for every dinner table.
• 1:09:23
  You could have had a million questions for him.
• 1:09:25
  How did you How have you been handling coaching education?
• 1:09:28
  I mean, I started with the the formal, I did the level ones.
• 1:09:32
  I went to the prior to having kids, I was at convention every
• 1:09:36
  year and I was going to to every person that was talking to
• 1:09:40
  anything related to an event area that I had responsibilities
• 1:09:43
  for. But I also have used him a ton,
• 1:09:47
  especially early in my career, to ask questions of, you know,
• 1:09:52
  here's. What I did?
• 1:09:53
  Why? Why does does it make sense to
• 1:09:55
  you of why this order called was an utter failure?
• 1:09:57
  And he's like, well, yeah, you're you're not giving him
• 1:09:59
  enough rest or is something of that nature.
• 1:10:04
  And then, you know, I think, I think youth is is wasted on the
• 1:10:08
  young at times. I think when I was young, I
• 1:10:10
  thought I had secrets of how to coach people and oh, I've got
• 1:10:14
  this special workout and things of that nature.
• 1:10:16
  And now that I've been in it a long time, there aren't secrets
• 1:10:19
  that the XS and OS are the XS and OS and how you store them up
• 1:10:25
  and put them together. All right, maybe that's your
• 1:10:27
  secret formula. But now with my coaching peers,
• 1:10:31
  it's ask them questions and you know, this is what we're doing
• 1:10:35
  or this is my favorite workout for this and my coaching friends
• 1:10:38
  aren't. Oh yeah, that's similar or
• 1:10:40
  different to what we do here. And like you said, though, I
• 1:10:44
  just last night I was actually on the Internet trying to find
• 1:10:47
  Vince Anderson's mini hurdle spacing chart and trying to to
• 1:10:52
  utilize technology in that way too.
• 1:10:55
  So I think I've kind of used all of those different areas to try
• 1:10:59
  to educate myself. I.
• 1:11:02
  Think our technology. Guy got booted off.
• 1:11:04
  I know. I I was like, he'll he'll get
• 1:11:06
  back on here. Is he calling you?
• 1:11:07
  Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, he is.
• 1:11:11
  Remember, we don't do editing, so he's just talking to his dad
• 1:11:13
  right now trying to figure out how to get back online.
• 1:11:15
  So you you should be able to. Just go back to the link in the
• 1:11:18
  e-mail. Well, as we, is he still there?
• 1:11:25
  Yeah, he's. I told him to go back to the
• 1:11:27
  original link and he should. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:29
  You should be able to come right back in.
• 1:11:32
  Go back to your Outlook, Mike. Can you send him a new invite
• 1:11:40
  maybe? Oh boy.
• 1:11:42
  Yeah, I think I can do something here.
• 1:11:44
  Mike's gonna try to send. You an invite.
• 1:11:46
  If you can't find it, let's see here.
• 1:11:54
  Oh, maybe he just found it, Mike.
• 1:11:56
  OK, that's good. All right, He's he should be
• 1:12:00
  back shortly. OK, no problem.
• 1:12:02
  See, you know, for you guys and guys that are listening, I
• 1:12:05
  always tell every guest I don't do editing, so don't make me do
• 1:12:08
  editing. And I told people I've had cats
• 1:12:10
  jump on keyboards, restroom breaks.
• 1:12:11
  And if you've been a long time listener, you already know all
• 1:12:13
  that stuff. So this is all good stuff.
• 1:12:14
  It's just like it's much more casual conversation and I and I
• 1:12:17
  love it. So Brett, as we wait for him to
• 1:12:20
  pop on, what was I thinking? Oh, you said the youth is wasted
• 1:12:23
  on the on the young. You know, you know, it makes me
• 1:12:25
  think about that conversation. Rick, you're back.
• 1:12:27
  All right, there we go. Thank God.
• 1:12:29
  OK, we, we got all your secrets, by the way, when you were out.
• 1:12:32
  So you'll have to listen to the show to find out what we said
• 1:12:35
  about you. But we're talking about Brett's
• 1:12:38
  coaching education journey. And Brett, you mentioned that,
• 1:12:40
  you know, sometimes youth is wasted on the young.
• 1:12:42
  And I, I was thinking about earlier something I said about,
• 1:12:44
  you know, I can't be just crazy to me that we make 18 year olds
• 1:12:46
  pick a major. It's kind of the, the in the
• 1:12:48
  same vein of like when we first get into coaching and some of
• 1:12:52
  it's just youth, the youthfulness of like, we think,
• 1:12:56
  well, I had the best coach. I'm going to be the best coach.
• 1:12:59
  I already know it. All right.
• 1:13:00
  And then we get into coaching educate.
• 1:13:02
  Hopefully we get into coaching education and we realize like,
• 1:13:04
  oh, there's, there's steps to this.
• 1:13:05
  I can become, come, become better there as we we do those
• 1:13:09
  things. One of the things I think about
• 1:13:11
  with clinics, you know, I do a lot of clinics and host and MC
• 1:13:13
  them And so I see a lot of presentations and stuff like
• 1:13:16
  that. I think I think the best part of
• 1:13:21
  clinic presentations is not necessarily the presentation
• 1:13:25
  that's valuable because you're up on stage, but I think it's
• 1:13:28
  the ability to then have conversations based on what was
• 1:13:31
  presented. Like I, I started thinking like
• 1:13:33
  one of the best coaching educations that I've seen is
• 1:13:36
  actually at convention just because of the mass of coaches
• 1:13:38
  we have there. And it's, it's the, the one AM,
• 1:13:41
  2:00 AM hallway talks. I remember when I coach, I
• 1:13:44
  remember, I can't remember what clinic or what it was, but me
• 1:13:49
  and Caba Tolbert, Todd Lane, gosh, who else was in there?
• 1:13:55
  Tyler Wingard from over in Christopher Newport.
• 1:13:58
  I just remember us being, I don't even know whose room it
• 1:14:00
  was or what. And we're just up to one 2:00 in
• 1:14:02
  the morning, just talk and shop, just kind of like we, the
• 1:14:05
  example you gave Brett's like, hey, man, I did this workout and
• 1:14:08
  yeah, we crashed and burned. I thought she was going to be
• 1:14:09
  able to handle this and she didn't.
• 1:14:11
  And it's like, oh, you know, I tried that once and here's what
• 1:14:13
  happened. And you just kind of get to
• 1:14:15
  like, you almost get to get to the like overly specific, like,
• 1:14:18
  hey, this one athlete, this one workout.
• 1:14:20
  But it helps you in your macro of like, oh, all my sprinters,
• 1:14:24
  like, oh, the example you gave is like, I didn't give enough
• 1:14:26
  rest. That's that probably is the
• 1:14:27
  number one mistake most youth coaches make to be real when I
• 1:14:30
  say youth coaches, coaches early in their career is not enough
• 1:14:34
  recovery. So that probably is your answer
• 1:14:36
  for every question when you first start.
• 1:14:37
  But it's like, oh, maybe I need to add recovery to all my
• 1:14:40
  sprinters or whatever area you're working out.
• 1:14:43
  But I think that's one of the most valuable things is those
• 1:14:45
  peer-to-peer conversations. I agree with you there.
• 1:14:49
  Absolutely, yeah. And.
• 1:14:51
  Rick, that's why you know, again, thinking about, you know,
• 1:14:53
  where you're at in your age and stage of your career.
• 1:14:56
  I, I think that's why it's valuable to make sure we have
• 1:14:58
  guys like you at, again, specifically USTFCCCA
• 1:15:01
  convention, but all these clinics, you know, I, I get a
• 1:15:04
  little worried when I go to a clinic and I see all the
• 1:15:07
  speakers of a same relative age and experience.
• 1:15:10
  I'm like, even throughout different discipline, you know,
• 1:15:13
  throws a distance, etcetera, because I'm like, oh, you all
• 1:15:16
  have roughly the same amount of experience.
• 1:15:18
  I need a guy or gal up there who's done 40 years of this
• 1:15:20
  thing because they've seen more things.
• 1:15:22
  And by the way, I need someone who's only done a year up there
• 1:15:25
  as well, because there's some things I've forgotten in my 20th
• 1:15:27
  year that like, oh, I see how they're seeing it now.
• 1:15:29
  So we need a wide range of clinic speakers and topics out
• 1:15:33
  out there. And I think that's super
• 1:15:35
  helpful. I I would.
• 1:15:36
  Agree with you there, right. People my age, I, I tell people,
• 1:15:40
  you know, there's hardly any mistake that I haven't already
• 1:15:42
  made. And hopefully I can share some
• 1:15:45
  of those so that your kids don't have to suffer the consequences
• 1:15:49
  that maybe my kids did when I made that same mistake.
• 1:15:52
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, one of the things.
• 1:15:54
  That we started in 2025. I'm pretty sure my memory
• 1:15:58
  sometimes fails me. You know, we've done this
• 1:16:00
  podcast, like I said, this is our seventh season.
• 1:16:02
  And so we every Monday we publish a hour to two hour deep
• 1:16:06
  dive into a coach around the country and sometimes around the
• 1:16:08
  world. And we don't talk XS and OS,
• 1:16:11
  right? We haven't done that today.
• 1:16:12
  We won't do that today. We don't talk about what kind of
• 1:16:14
  long jump drill you did, what kind of mileage you did for
• 1:16:17
  cross country, but I know there is a place for that.
• 1:16:20
  So we started back in 2025 what we called the Gil 19 18 project.
• 1:16:25
  Remember I showed you that book of Harry Gill, right in
• 1:16:27
  education. So that was kind of my
• 1:16:29
  inspiration. He started the company in 1918.
• 1:16:31
  So that's where that comes from. But these are shorter, 10 minute
• 1:16:34
  to 30 minute and they are X's and O's and I don't give any
• 1:16:37
  guide rails or guardrails on the topic.
• 1:16:41
  Meaning if you're a one first year coach and you think all
• 1:16:45
  your distance runners should run 20 miles per week, cool, talk
• 1:16:47
  about it because you're going to first of all, you're going to
• 1:16:49
  learn more about your system when you actually kind of put it
• 1:16:52
  on paper and talk about it. And you know, there'll be some
• 1:16:54
  people who will maybe talk to you about that as well.
• 1:16:57
  And, and maybe learn something that maybe there is a kid or two
• 1:17:00
  on your team that should be at 20 miles versus 50 or 80 or 100
• 1:17:03
  or or whatnot. So that that's where we talk
• 1:17:06
  about XS and OS and that's where we try to kind of bring the, the
• 1:17:08
  clinic almost the Ted talks of track and field podcast together
• 1:17:12
  in those topics. Kind of get away from a physical
• 1:17:15
  building and do it on a, in a podcast setting.
• 1:17:17
  So I don't know, I don't know where I'm going with that, by
• 1:17:19
  the way. I'm just, you know, the world's
• 1:17:20
  worst commercial I think is what I just is what I just gave
• 1:17:22
  there. OK.
• 1:17:23
  Let's get back to you guys though, because that's what's
• 1:17:25
  we're here for. Brett, you come back to Stevens
• 1:17:28
  Point, you're the associate head coach.
• 1:17:30
  Is there a plan or when and how did that plan come about as far
• 1:17:34
  as a transition? It was it was actually natural.
• 1:17:39
  Coach had some health problems and had to step away for a while
• 1:17:43
  and so it not knowing what his return if when will be, it was
• 1:17:51
  just natural to promote me to being in charge of everything
• 1:17:55
  and yeah now. Rick, you're the one going
• 1:18:00
  through those health problems. I don't want to be, you know,
• 1:18:01
  minimize that. But Brett, your caring person,
• 1:18:05
  it's one thing that a Co worker is going through some health
• 1:18:08
  problems and you're going to step up to help that Co worker
• 1:18:10
  and lead their the program. And maybe they're they're their
• 1:18:14
  group, things like that, but it's your dad.
• 1:18:17
  How are you hand that? That seems a little distracting,
• 1:18:20
  if you will. It was initially fortunately
• 1:18:25
  the, the, the health scare, it was serious at the time, but we
• 1:18:30
  knew within days that he was probably going to be fine.
• 1:18:34
  And so it was just a couple days there of like, holy smokes,
• 1:18:37
  what's going on type of thing. Obviously his recovery took a
• 1:18:41
  couple months and stuff till he was fully back and ready and
• 1:18:45
  things of that nature. So it could have been way worse
• 1:18:48
  than it was. So of course it was just a
• 1:18:50
  couple days there where it's like, holy crap, do I have to?
• 1:18:53
  How do I do all this? Yeah, I mean.
• 1:18:55
  Again, I care very much for my coworkers, but they're not my
• 1:18:57
  family, right? My my father-in-law or my wife.
• 1:19:00
  That's a that's a whole different, different ball game,
• 1:19:03
  Rick. Sometimes, you know, health
• 1:19:04
  scares as we get to any age that's actually kind of the age
• 1:19:07
  can change or put some things in perspective anything.
• 1:19:12
  Did you regret spending so much time on the track?
• 1:19:15
  Did you regret this is a dumb question regret being dad at
• 1:19:18
  home and coach at the office and wish you were coach more to him
• 1:19:22
  anything like that Not really. I.
• 1:19:23
  Mean to. Be honest, you know.
• 1:19:28
  I knew I, I'm not afraid to say I had a heart attack, you know,
• 1:19:32
  And so it was, I thought I was just getting, I thought I was
• 1:19:37
  just getting old. You know what I mean?
• 1:19:38
  That the energy levels that I had normally had, I didn't have
• 1:19:43
  any more. And it was funny because Brett
• 1:19:47
  had been sick and we had a cross country meet and he had called
• 1:19:52
  me and said, you know, can you just take the team today?
• 1:19:55
  I think he had the flu or something.
• 1:19:56
  And I said sure. And so we went there and I was
• 1:19:59
  being myself. And it was a course where you
• 1:20:02
  couldn't get there everywhere. And so I had taken my bicycle
• 1:20:05
  and it was riding all over the place, you know, trying to get
• 1:20:08
  splits and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:20:10
  And I was like, man, I just don't feel good, you know what I
• 1:20:12
  mean? And my chest was hurting.
• 1:20:14
  And make a Long story short, you know, we came home and.
• 1:20:18
  I went to bed and I woke up in the middle of the night and told
• 1:20:21
  my wife, I said you got to take me to the hospital.
• 1:20:23
  I'm having a heart attack. And so I, yeah, they, I went in
• 1:20:28
  and I had 4 bypasses. And so they told me if I hadn't
• 1:20:32
  done all that running for all those years, I probably wouldn't
• 1:20:35
  be here. They were all plugged.
• 1:20:37
  So anyway, at that point in time, you know, I had no clue
• 1:20:41
  what I was going to be able to do, you know, or if I was going
• 1:20:44
  to be able to do anything. And I mean, I was at the point
• 1:20:47
  then, you know, it was, you know, I was 65 years old.
• 1:20:51
  So I was like, OK, is this telling me that it's time?
• 1:20:56
  And so that's when basically I said, OK, I'll, I'll just pull
• 1:21:01
  the plug now, you know, and retire and, and and that kind of
• 1:21:05
  stuff. Choose different words there.
• 1:21:07
  Rick Yeah. On this topic, let's.
• 1:21:10
  Choose Yeah. So I, I, I said to Brett, you
• 1:21:15
  know, you take over. And then he was gracious when I
• 1:21:18
  actually got back 100%, you know, feeling good again.
• 1:21:21
  He, he said to me, you know, the, the, the fire is still
• 1:21:25
  there a little bit, isn't it? And I go, yeah, it still is.
• 1:21:28
  It's not out of my system. And so he allowed me to come
• 1:21:32
  back at whatever level I felt like that I was able to handle
• 1:21:37
  at that point in time. And so it's even though I'm
• 1:21:43
  older, I still have the fire. I tell people, you know, you
• 1:21:46
  were talking about coaching education and, and learning
• 1:21:48
  anything. When I was the head coach, I I
• 1:21:51
  didn't know diddle about the javelin.
• 1:21:53
  Nothing about the javelin. I always had somebody that, you
• 1:21:57
  know, did that and we were pretty good at it.
• 1:22:00
  And Brett asked me if, you know, we don't have a javelin coach,
• 1:22:05
  do you want to be the javelin coach?
• 1:22:09
  And I go, well, yeah, of course, I guess so.
• 1:22:12
  Yeah, I'll take it. Well, I'm proud to say that then
• 1:22:16
  last couple of years we've scored more points in the jab
• 1:22:19
  line at our conference meet than any other event.
• 1:22:21
  So I feel like I still got a little bit of juice to be able
• 1:22:25
  to do something. First of all, there's some.
• 1:22:27
  Old dog, new tricks. I don't know bump that dude.
• 1:22:29
  That's I I love that Rick, because there is and I'm one of
• 1:22:33
  these guys back when I coached, there is fear of sometimes of
• 1:22:36
  coaching an event that you either didn't participate in or
• 1:22:39
  isn't adjacent to your event right.
• 1:22:41
  If you're a sprinter, maybe I can coach long jump.
• 1:22:43
  It's adjacent, but I there's fear in coaching other events
• 1:22:47
  that you're doing it at that age and stage, brother, it's a
• 1:22:50
  little bit like the next time a young guy or gal tells me
• 1:22:52
  they're a little scared to go learn a new event, I'll be like,
• 1:22:54
  hey, you need to shut up and go talk to Rick.
• 1:22:57
  He learned the you didn't go learn like the 100 meet the
• 1:23:00
  Sprint. You went and learned the
• 1:23:02
  javelin. That's a pretty technical, you
• 1:23:05
  know, there's people who do nothing but coach javelin their
• 1:23:07
  whole careers for crying out loud.
• 1:23:09
  That's awesome, dude. Thank you.
• 1:23:11
  I I. I'm proud of the fact that I've
• 1:23:13
  been able to, you know, try to educate myself on things that
• 1:23:17
  maybe I didn't have an expertise in prior to.
• 1:23:20
  Yeah, that, that reminds me. Some of the greatest coaches
• 1:23:23
  we've had on the show, Brooks Johnson is one that comes to
• 1:23:26
  mind. Cliff Revelto, they talk a lot
• 1:23:29
  about it really kind of shaped my thought process about
• 1:23:32
  coaching that you're not a distance coach, you're not a
• 1:23:36
  sprint's coach, jumps coach, etcetera.
• 1:23:39
  You're you're coach, you're track and field, field coach and
• 1:23:41
  every event is essentially the same.
• 1:23:44
  We're all the all the same goal. I believe is I'm trying to
• 1:23:46
  remember Brooks words here are essentially saying you're trying
• 1:23:50
  to move the center of mass from one area to the next where
• 1:23:52
  that's a long jump runway where that's 10,000 meters on the
• 1:23:54
  track, throwing a javelin, etcetera.
• 1:23:56
  So now how do you do that? And then add the little
• 1:23:59
  intricacies I'm spinning in a circle for the shot put,
• 1:24:01
  etcetera. So, but with their their take
• 1:24:03
  away was you, you got to coach them all like you, you should be
• 1:24:07
  able to coach all the events out there.
• 1:24:09
  So that's really amazing, Rick. Thanks.
• 1:24:11
  I it like I said, it just happened to be where we needed
• 1:24:15
  somebody at that point in time. And I tell people I, I believe
• 1:24:21
  purple and gold and I want to I want to help my son have the
• 1:24:25
  best team that we can possibly put together on the track.
• 1:24:29
  And if that means be doing something that's, you know, that
• 1:24:33
  I haven't done before, well, I, I'm not the sharpest knife in
• 1:24:37
  the drawer, but I, there's a lot of good YouTube stuff out there.
• 1:24:41
  I tell you, you can learn pretty much anything you want right
• 1:24:43
  now. You know, I just thought about
• 1:24:44
  this. You said you bleed purple and
• 1:24:45
  gold. I was like, yeah, that's right.
• 1:24:46
  The the pointer and they're like, wait a minute, but you and
• 1:24:48
  I was also purple and gold. Yes, it was I.
• 1:24:51
  Also. Hated the entire career.
• 1:24:53
  But Brett, when? He says he's not the sharpest
• 1:24:55
  knife in the the drawer. You know, genetics are strong.
• 1:24:58
  Do you get a little offended when he's?
• 1:25:02
  No, not at all. Because I'm I I fully admit my
• 1:25:04
  wife is smarter than me. So yeah.
• 1:25:07
  Therapist tool in the. Shed at home yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:08
  Thank God for. That I know I'm a byproduct of
• 1:25:11
  that now I do want to check in with you Brett.
• 1:25:13
  You know, I play a little bit psychologist when I'm hosting
• 1:25:15
  this show. I want to make sure you're OK
• 1:25:18
  here. You don't you don't or didn't
• 1:25:22
  harbor any faults feelings of blame because do you when Rick
• 1:25:28
  talked told us that story and again, Rick, thank you so much
• 1:25:30
  for being so open and authentic with that story.
• 1:25:33
  You were sick and asked dad to step in that day and that's
• 1:25:36
  later that night he has his heart attack.
• 1:25:38
  You don't you don't harbor or didn't harbor any like God, what
• 1:25:41
  if I would just I should have just been there and it shouldn't
• 1:25:43
  have been him. You don't.
• 1:25:45
  No, not at all. He he was right.
• 1:25:47
  I had the flu and sitting on a bus was not an option on that.
• 1:25:53
  That was not an option. And you know.
• 1:25:55
  I truly believe where you are today and and so back then is
• 1:26:01
  where you're supposed to be. May not be a doesn't mean it's
• 1:26:04
  the right place or the wrong place or that it's the place
• 1:26:06
  forever, but that's what was supposed to happen.
• 1:26:08
  It's kind of another way of saying what was what's supposed
• 1:26:10
  to be is supposed to be right. And what I think about sometimes
• 1:26:13
  people could feel some faults again, sense of blame of like,
• 1:26:17
  man, if I wouldn't have been sick or whatever, I think of it
• 1:26:21
  kind of the opposite way I go, Oh, man, Brett, I'm so glad you
• 1:26:23
  were sick that day. And Rick stepped up to do that.
• 1:26:25
  And that's when that's not what caused the heart attack,
• 1:26:28
  obviously, But that's, you know, later on we find that that's
• 1:26:31
  what happened because it could have been Rick by himself
• 1:26:35
  somewhere because he wasn't at the cross country course.
• 1:26:37
  And then, you know, he could be by himself.
• 1:26:39
  And then whatever, whatever you could, went to the golf course
• 1:26:42
  that day and he has a heart attack no one finds, you know
• 1:26:45
  what I'm saying? Like it was, it worked out the
• 1:26:47
  right way, thank goodness. And we have Rick here today
• 1:26:49
  because of that. So I just wanted to check in to
• 1:26:51
  make sure you don't you didn't or don't feel like.
• 1:26:53
  Yeah, I kind of feel some blank, none, zero blame at all.
• 1:26:57
  Couldn't. Anyway, because that it had been
• 1:26:58
  come, I was like a lot of dumb guys, you know, probably had the
• 1:27:03
  symptoms, but you know how it is.
• 1:27:05
  Like I said, I just thought I was getting old, you know what I
• 1:27:08
  mean? And didn't, didn't really
• 1:27:11
  realize what the symptoms were until, yeah, it was too late.
• 1:27:14
  Yeah, yeah. That makes that makes me
• 1:27:17
  unfortunate. My, I'm glad my wife doesn't
• 1:27:19
  listen to these podcasts 'cause these these are the kind of
• 1:27:21
  things I'm like, Oh yeah, that sounds a little too familiar.
• 1:27:23
  Actually. Rick, that's not good.
• 1:27:25
  All right, let's pop. Into some good news here.
• 1:27:26
  Let's talk about as you've done this transition and Brett,
• 1:27:30
  you're now the head coach and Rick, you're the world's most
• 1:27:33
  advanced director of operations. Talk to us a little bit about UW
• 1:27:36
  at Stevens Point. You guys have had some amazing
• 1:27:40
  success runner up at nationals and, and I know that's so close,
• 1:27:44
  but man, I, I think people forget, especially in our sport,
• 1:27:47
  we forget how hard it is to win. And I think it's because we
• 1:27:50
  have, you know, 22 events on each side and all these
• 1:27:53
  different meets that we score in conference.
• 1:27:54
  And, and you know, like when a team wins like 5 in a row,
• 1:27:59
  people are like, Oh well, you know, that must get old.
• 1:28:01
  Like bro, every one of those was extremely hard.
• 1:28:04
  You guys have won a lot of conference titles.
• 1:28:06
  You've had a lot of individual national champions.
• 1:28:09
  How have you kept the bus moving?
• 1:28:11
  I mean, it's, it's quite an accomplishment what you guys
• 1:28:13
  have done there in our doing. I think people ask that
• 1:28:19
  question. I think when you're a coach, you
• 1:28:22
  like to be put in a situation where your administration, your
• 1:28:27
  a DS, give you an opportunity to be successful.
• 1:28:33
  I've said that many times. Stevens Point is a unique place
• 1:28:40
  where I really feel like that all of our sports support
• 1:28:46
  everybody else. Our administration is has done a
• 1:28:50
  good job of making us aware that if one of us is successful, it
• 1:28:56
  enables opportunities for the rest of us to be successful.
• 1:29:00
  And so we had a lot of, I've had some really good ADS that never
• 1:29:07
  micromanaged. They did the best to give us the
• 1:29:11
  facilities and the equipment that we needed to try to be
• 1:29:15
  successful and then got the heck out of the way and let us do our
• 1:29:20
  thing. And so I think that that that's
• 1:29:26
  I'm there's a, there really is no secret, you know, it's just.
• 1:29:31
  I think we really. Care about our student athletes
• 1:29:33
  and I think that's the I think that shines through.
• 1:29:37
  And when you have a lot of people that are out there, you
• 1:29:40
  mentioned that I think it one time or another, I don't know
• 1:29:43
  how many college coaches I had, but I, I think I had it one
• 1:29:47
  time, like 30 or 35 different coaches that were college
• 1:29:51
  coaches that were out there. And it tells me that we did
• 1:29:56
  something right, that they would want to be able to continue to,
• 1:30:00
  to follow that type of a profession and to see them be
• 1:30:05
  successful is, I mean, as a coach that that's all you want
• 1:30:10
  to do is to see the people that you've had an opportunity to
• 1:30:13
  work with be successful too. I agree. 100% You know, I
• 1:30:17
  mentioned North Central when I think about Al and Grammy and
• 1:30:20
  it's like man, they. Helped spread the.
• 1:30:24
  Love of track and field so much all these people went on to go
• 1:30:27
  and do what they did. Same thing with you guys.
• 1:30:29
  That's exactly right. Because remember Brett, you
• 1:30:32
  ain't doing soccer right now. Partly not not that one
• 1:30:35
  necessarily that one incident, but you know, that was a player
• 1:30:38
  into it that you guys have put the love of our sport, the love
• 1:30:42
  of caring for other people that like other people saw that was
• 1:30:45
  like I, I want to do that. I want to be what Rick is.
• 1:30:47
  I want to be what Brett is. That is tremendous, man.
• 1:30:50
  I, I love that. Brett, what would you add in
• 1:30:54
  regards to just how you guys have done this at UW, Steven
• 1:30:57
  points year over year? It's quite amazing, the
• 1:30:58
  consistency, I mean, I think. Consistency is a important word
• 1:31:03
  there. I mean, he's been here for 50
• 1:31:06
  years. I'm starting year 12.
• 1:31:10
  I think maybe a little bump in the road here for a couple years
• 1:31:16
  prior to my transition when I was trying to do all six of them
• 1:31:19
  and having an assistant that was here for two years and then we
• 1:31:23
  go to greener pastures and then I'd get one for one year and
• 1:31:26
  then they go for greener pastures that made things, made
• 1:31:31
  the last four or five years not quite as good as we would have
• 1:31:33
  wanted. But the longevity of the
• 1:31:37
  program, I think it's that consistency in coaching.
• 1:31:40
  He's been here that long and people have known that back in
• 1:31:45
  the day we we had one of the Premier Division three indoor
• 1:31:48
  tracks. We hosted indoor nationals in
• 1:31:52
  1992. Is that right?
• 1:31:55
  Yes, yeah. So I mean, when we could bring
• 1:32:00
  kids in and have them see a premier indoor facility, I would
• 1:32:04
  argue for a distance runner, we have maybe the greatest training
• 1:32:08
  environment that you're going to find.
• 1:32:11
  We have something called the Green Circle Trail.
• 1:32:13
  It's 36 miles of trails that run all throughout town.
• 1:32:17
  They're crushed gravel or just compacted dirt.
• 1:32:20
  They there's bridges over wetlands there.
• 1:32:23
  They run along the river, they go through the woods.
• 1:32:26
  It's not like an out and back NS trail.
• 1:32:28
  So I mean, that environment for distance runners is absolutely
• 1:32:32
  fantastic. And then we've got some great
• 1:32:35
  academic programs to some that are a little bit more unique
• 1:32:38
  that not every school offers. So I, I think all of those
• 1:32:41
  components have kind of contributed to things as well.
• 1:32:45
  Does the are are other sports? At Stevens Point in it in the in
• 1:32:50
  the WIAC as successful as track meaning like, you know, I, I I
• 1:32:55
  don't think I was really joking when I said you know, if you're
• 1:32:57
  going to win the national title three you're going to go through
• 1:33:00
  WIAC at some point in time. Like if you're not winning it
• 1:33:02
  you're a top five. It's someone in that conference
• 1:33:05
  multiples in that conference. Are other sports like that in
• 1:33:07
  the WIC, like is tennis real strong and football, you know I
• 1:33:09
  don't pay attention to them. Yeah, I absolutely.
• 1:33:12
  That's all right. Yeah, I mean.
• 1:33:15
  I think right now I, I don't know.
• 1:33:17
  I just looked we've got like five of our teams are ranked in
• 1:33:21
  the top 20 in basketball. Our conference champion is
• 1:33:25
  playing North Central for the Division Three football
• 1:33:30
  championship right now. We have 4.
• 1:33:35
  I mean, if you ask people, Stevens Point's a basketball
• 1:33:38
  school. We have 4 NCAA Division three
• 1:33:41
  national championship banners on the wall and basketball.
• 1:33:45
  Holy cow. So.
• 1:33:47
  All of our sports have, you know, had an opportunity to be,
• 1:33:50
  you know, pretty successful. So when I say that, you know,
• 1:33:53
  our football's been a little bit down for a while.
• 1:33:56
  But like Brett said, those goes in cycles.
• 1:33:58
  You know when. Coaches leave it.
• 1:34:00
  It goes up and down, but but by and large, you're you're right.
• 1:34:04
  The whole Wisconsin State system, pretty much every sport
• 1:34:09
  is you're right there. I mean, somebody's knocking on
• 1:34:13
  the door. Oshkosh just won women's
• 1:34:15
  volleyball. So I mean every sport here is.
• 1:34:21
  Boy, I'll tell you if you're. Going to be in the top half of
• 1:34:23
  this conference, you're going to be a top 25 team in the nation
• 1:34:27
  like it's AI. Mean it's a big conference
• 1:34:29
  championships are my favorite meets out of everything,
• 1:34:32
  including incident Blaze, to be honest with you.
• 1:34:33
  But boy, you win the WAC, like that's a no matter what sport,
• 1:34:37
  but obviously track and field here, like that's a bit like you
• 1:34:39
  got to feel like we got a good shot here if we can win our
• 1:34:42
  conference. I mean, our conference is.
• 1:34:44
  So nuts the the best team that we had at the national level
• 1:34:48
  recently. We finished fifth at the indoor
• 1:34:51
  conference meet, but then we went and got 4th at the national
• 1:34:53
  championships. You're the.
• 1:34:55
  OK, I'm an SEC Homer, so forgive me if this offends you.
• 1:34:59
  And you know, bowl season is just over basically.
• 1:35:01
  And you know, SEC isn't doing their job, but you're the SEC of
• 1:35:04
  Division Three track and field. Because that's exactly how we
• 1:35:06
  would feel in SEC. It's like, man, we could when I
• 1:35:09
  was at Mississippi State, our goal, we, we, you know, it's
• 1:35:13
  hard to say. Our goal was not to win the
• 1:35:14
  conference championship. We just didn't have the death.
• 1:35:15
  We knew we weren't going to win SEC's, but we knew if we had the
• 1:35:18
  right 5 to 10 guys and things happen, all right, nationals we
• 1:35:21
  could win or get a trophy at nationals.
• 1:35:23
  You guys are the same thing. Your depth is unbelievable in
• 1:35:26
  your conference and that translates to sometimes higher
• 1:35:29
  nationals. That's amazing and I think.
• 1:35:31
  Very true. They they kind of caught
• 1:35:34
  jokingly. We call ourselves the the SEC of
• 1:35:37
  Division Three. You know, that's kind of exactly
• 1:35:40
  you're. Right.
• 1:35:41
  Yeah, you. Could could easily be better off
• 1:35:43
  in the Nationals than you were in the conference.
• 1:35:46
  When I was at level 2, USATF level 2 back in the day, it's
• 1:35:52
  when during that summer I got, that's when I got the job at
• 1:35:54
  Mississippi State. And so Al Schmidt, who's like a
• 1:35:58
  father to me, love and death, pulled me out of class and said,
• 1:36:01
  hey, congratulations, you got the job.
• 1:36:02
  You know, your very new sprints coach, whatever, blah, blah,
• 1:36:04
  blah. My teacher at the time was
• 1:36:06
  Dennis Shaver, who was at LSU, still at LSU, right?
• 1:36:10
  So he obviously knew, you know, one of his students, me, was
• 1:36:13
  going to be in his conference. So at the end of the class at
• 1:36:17
  the week, we all went up and shook her hands of our teachers,
• 1:36:19
  right? So Gary Winkler and all those
• 1:36:21
  guys. And Dennis Shaver shakes my
• 1:36:23
  hand, pulls me in close and says, you're the enemy now.
• 1:36:30
  What's? The, what's the vibe amongst you
• 1:36:32
  guys in the WIC? Are you guys friendly rivals?
• 1:36:36
  Is it, you know, we, we don't care who wins as long as someone
• 1:36:39
  from our conference wins? Or is there some heated
• 1:36:42
  rivalries? I think.
• 1:36:45
  Here's what he says. I think when?
• 1:36:49
  We get out of the conference. We.
• 1:36:52
  We are. When we go to nationals.
• 1:36:55
  We are hope hoping that our conference does extremely well
• 1:36:58
  no matter who it is. We we want our conference to be
• 1:37:02
  successful. So I think that makes a a huge
• 1:37:07
  difference. You know when we get there is
• 1:37:08
  that we're actually rooting for each other to do well.
• 1:37:11
  Yes, to answer your question. I I would agree with that.
• 1:37:15
  I've been on the other side of the coin in that at the private
• 1:37:20
  school for 15 years. I I I've heard the whispers and
• 1:37:24
  things that our. Conference is not the.
• 1:37:27
  Most well liked conference in the country.
• 1:37:29
  I don't think it's because of the people, it's because of the
• 1:37:32
  success. And so I would agree at a
• 1:37:36
  national championship, I would. I think most people are cheering
• 1:37:39
  against the Wyack. So internally, I think we cheer
• 1:37:44
  for each other at the conference meet.
• 1:37:46
  We absolutely would like to kick the garbage out of everybody.
• 1:37:49
  But when we get to that, those next level meets that we're
• 1:37:52
  cheering for each other, yeah, that makes.
• 1:37:54
  Sense, right? I mean, just in sports in
• 1:37:56
  general, you know, you guys knew Al Karius and you know, Grammy
• 1:38:00
  and stuff, some of the nicest people in the whole world.
• 1:38:02
  But trust me, people weren't rooting for their 36th national
• 1:38:05
  championship. You know, it's like, Dang it,
• 1:38:06
  North Central and same with SEC. That's why there's a million
• 1:38:09
  jokes going on right now of like, oh, I thought it meant
• 1:38:11
  more and all this kind of stuff. It's like, well, it's because
• 1:38:12
  you're good. You guys suffer air quotes of
• 1:38:15
  the same spoils that, you know, you have a great conference, you
• 1:38:19
  have a great team and you know, winning is the expectation
• 1:38:22
  there. And it happens a lot for many
• 1:38:23
  different reasons. So I'd rather be on that end of
• 1:38:26
  people, you know, hating again, the air quotes there versus
• 1:38:29
  like, we don't really think of those guys.
• 1:38:32
  That's not a good sign. No, I agree with.
• 1:38:34
  You there? Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:38:36
  Yeah, well guys as. We start to wrap up here a
• 1:38:38
  little bit. Tell talk to us about Stevens
• 1:38:39
  Point. You know, you guys are great
• 1:38:40
  coaches, you've great consistency.
• 1:38:42
  You've been there for a while. The way I like to ask this
• 1:38:44
  question is, is what's got you excited about the future at
• 1:38:47
  Stevens Point in the future could be the season at 26.
• 1:38:50
  It could be 2036 for crying out loud.
• 1:38:52
  What's got you excited there at Stevens Point?
• 1:38:56
  I've been excited ever since. Honestly, they took cross
• 1:38:58
  country off my plate and I don't mean that in a negative way,
• 1:39:02
  it's just I never realized how busy, how heavy of a lift it was
• 1:39:08
  until it was taken off my shoulders.
• 1:39:10
  And now that we have someone who's 100% dedicated to the
• 1:39:14
  distance and they are doing everything in the fall and I can
• 1:39:18
  just worry about track 365, it's helped our distance squad for
• 1:39:23
  him just focusing on them. And we've got some great
• 1:39:25
  distance crew now. It's allowed me to elevate my
• 1:39:29
  recruiting, I think in my effort and the people that we've
• 1:39:31
  brought in for track and field. And so I'm just excited.
• 1:39:35
  It's kind of a breath of fresh air to to maybe tunnel vision a
• 1:39:38
  little bit more than what I was doing for my first 8-9 years
• 1:39:42
  here when I was trying to OK track, go do this while I'm
• 1:39:45
  getting the cross country team ready for the conference
• 1:39:47
  championship and let me know how it goes tomorrow type thing.
• 1:39:50
  Like I'm not having to do those things anymore.
• 1:39:53
  So that's what's got me excited as we just we've got a little
• 1:39:56
  bit more specificity for the programs and and coaches that
• 1:40:00
  are dedicated to each versus me wearing too many hats.
• 1:40:03
  Yeah, I could see that. Makes a lot of sense I.
• 1:40:06
  I think that the biggest thing that that I'm excited about
• 1:40:10
  right now and I mean Gil May will be involved in this to a
• 1:40:14
  certain extent. We're in the process of building
• 1:40:17
  a brand new outdoor track. And so we've been behind, not
• 1:40:24
  that we use that as an excuse, but it has hindered to a certain
• 1:40:29
  extent when you are going on a 1960s track and competing
• 1:40:34
  against people that are in the 2025 facilities.
• 1:40:39
  It's a a little bit more challenging this, let's put it
• 1:40:41
  that way. And so we're going to be on a
• 1:40:44
  even keel, even par with some of the best facilities in the
• 1:40:49
  country in another year. And I, I think when you have an
• 1:40:54
  opportunity to bring people in and show them a purple and gold
• 1:40:57
  track in the middle of purple and gold territory, it, it will
• 1:41:01
  be able to make our recruiting maybe somewhat easier.
• 1:41:06
  I'm not saying that it's going to change things, but at least
• 1:41:09
  we're not ashamed to show people where we practice and things
• 1:41:11
  now. Yeah.
• 1:41:13
  Yeah, I agree. You know, you'll see in social
• 1:41:16
  media, in life, you'll hear the statement, you know, it's you
• 1:41:19
  don't need the Taj Mahala facilities and all these kind of
• 1:41:23
  stuff. And I don't necessarily disagree
• 1:41:25
  in that sense, but you do need to have facilities.
• 1:41:27
  You know, I'm reminded we just had Trent, the men's head coach
• 1:41:31
  at University of Rhode Island and Laurie, the women's head
• 1:41:33
  coach at University of Rhode Island and very similar what you
• 1:41:36
  just described their way, Rick, they, they had a, they have a
• 1:41:40
  track. They had a track but couldn't
• 1:41:42
  host any meets. Actually still went and went to
• 1:41:45
  other high schools to borrow track, you know, just wasn't, it
• 1:41:49
  wasn't safe to be real Frank with you.
• 1:41:50
  And they're right now, as we're speaking in the middle of
• 1:41:53
  construction of their brand new facility right outside their
• 1:41:56
  offices. And it's just going to be a boon
• 1:41:57
  for that program, for the community itself.
• 1:42:00
  And so while we don't necessarily need to be build
• 1:42:04
  Hayward Field everywhere, that would be awesome, by the way,
• 1:42:06
  I'd vote for that. But yeah.
• 1:42:08
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:42:10
  But we do need safe facilities. We need facilities that cater to
• 1:42:15
  all of our athletes, javelin throwers, distance runners,
• 1:42:17
  sprinters, hurdlers and throwers as well.
• 1:42:19
  So I'm excited for you guys because it's, it really is
• 1:42:22
  amazing what you guys have done with the facility that you
• 1:42:25
  currently have. I mean that's, that's certainly
• 1:42:28
  not a it's certainly not helping you guys currently.
• 1:42:33
  And so the new facility will. Yeah.
• 1:42:36
  That's it. That's it.
• 1:42:37
  But you are a great example of, you know, you can get it done if
• 1:42:41
  you got you got the right people and the right attitude, you can
• 1:42:43
  still get it done, that's for sure.
• 1:42:45
  Absolutely. I love.
• 1:42:47
  That guys, this is special to me.
• 1:42:49
  I, you know, I get to do this every week and get to really
• 1:42:52
  deep dive into people's stories and how they got into track and
• 1:42:55
  how they got into coaching and lessons learned and mentors
• 1:42:58
  along the way. I don't this is at least the
• 1:43:01
  second one. We did have coach Webb at the
• 1:43:04
  University of Pittsburgh and his son Alonzo the third on the
• 1:43:07
  podcast and that was cool to see dad and son relationship and how
• 1:43:12
  they grew up. And so these are special to me
• 1:43:14
  to be able to see. It's one thing to have to you
• 1:43:17
  know, I've done Staffs before and again, kind of what we
• 1:43:19
  talked about staff versus family.
• 1:43:22
  They care for each other for sure.
• 1:43:23
  You care about your staff there, Brett, that that's that's
• 1:43:26
  obvious. But you care about dad more, You
• 1:43:29
  know, dad is dad first. So it's special to see how you
• 1:43:33
  guys grew up, how you navigated. Seems very healthy, honestly,
• 1:43:38
  the way you guys navigated coach and dad and son and athlete and
• 1:43:42
  recruiting. I love the again, that story of
• 1:43:44
  you writing your son a letter, bro, that is like, that's
• 1:43:47
  precious. Really it.
• 1:43:49
  It really is that you had as much respect for him as you did
• 1:43:53
  as an 18 year old kid. Let's be real, you were a kid
• 1:43:55
  back then that you still said, Hey, I'm going to treat him as
• 1:43:59
  if he was Joey up in Kenosha that are down in Kenosha that
• 1:44:02
  I'm going to recruit. I'm going to respect him that
• 1:44:04
  way and not assume. I think that's really special
• 1:44:07
  and is it must be healthy because you guys are still at
• 1:44:10
  it. You guys could have gone your
• 1:44:12
  separate ways. You could I could be
• 1:44:13
  interviewing you at Carthage in your 20th year, but you chose to
• 1:44:18
  work together and I think Stevens Point is better, better
• 1:44:21
  off for it. Thank.
• 1:44:22
  You that's that means a lot. Well, thank you guys for being.
• 1:44:26
  Here, you know, one of the most expensive things you guys can
• 1:44:28
  give me is your time. I probably stopped you from
• 1:44:31
  playing the front 9 today, Rick, with being out there for these
• 1:44:34
  couple of hours here, but obviously it's 12° outside.
• 1:44:38
  I think he maybe would have been inside at a driving range.
• 1:44:40
  Yeah, somewhere, yeah. You know, I was going to say you
• 1:44:42
  say that, but I was like, I know somewhere someone's playing golf
• 1:44:44
  and similar as they're crazy. Man, I can't believe
• 1:44:48
  unbelievable that'll be. Next week.
• 1:44:51
  Exactly, but so grateful for your time today and your
• 1:44:54
  insights. Honestly, your openness and
• 1:44:57
  authenticity is really healthy. I think that helps a lot of
• 1:45:00
  people that are listening one to know about just careers and how
• 1:45:04
  you came up and did your career and how you chose the switch
• 1:45:06
  from broadcasting over how you went from teaching PE to to be
• 1:45:11
  in A to be Dan Gables punching bag, literally to, you know, a
• 1:45:15
  Hall of Fame career. I think that's super helpful for
• 1:45:17
  people to hear and to understand.
• 1:45:19
  And then even I know there's people that have maybe struggled
• 1:45:22
  with should I not that you pushed your son into coaching,
• 1:45:25
  but I struggle with maybe my coach, my son coaching or my
• 1:45:29
  daughter coaching with me. I think that's extremely
• 1:45:31
  healthy. And so I'm just grateful that
• 1:45:32
  you guys would sit down with us today and kind of open book it
• 1:45:36
  for us. And I'm just so grateful for you
• 1:45:38
  guys. Well, thank you for the.
• 1:45:40
  Opportunity. It's been fun.
• 1:45:41
  Yeah, this was a great time. Really appreciate it.
• 1:45:43
  Awesome. Well, guys, thank you.
• 1:45:44
  Guys, for being here again this week, season 7, I just might be,
• 1:45:48
  and this is hard to say because it feels like I'm putting down
• 1:45:51
  my other six seasons, but this string of the start to season 7
• 1:45:55
  has been some of my most fun. I think hopefully I'm getting
• 1:45:58
  better as a as a interviewer and host here as well.
• 1:46:00
  But I think we're just having some great guests that are maybe
• 1:46:04
  maybe as we've gotten more trust in people because we've been in
• 1:46:06
  in the podcast business now for seven years, more and more
• 1:46:09
  people are being even more open and honest.
• 1:46:10
  And I just think that's super helpful for our profession that
• 1:46:13
  we want to always continue to move that profession forward and
• 1:46:17
  make it better for our men and women who choose to be track
• 1:46:19
  coaches. So thanks again for being here
• 1:46:20
  today and join us next week. We'll do it all over again.
• 1:46:23
  Thanks guys. Bye.
• 1:46:24
  Take care, bye. The goals to.
• 1:46:29
  Appreciate the coach the ones that pour people most every
• 1:46:32
  season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth you got to
• 1:46:35
  prep before you carry the load ice coffee to the soul.
• 1:46:38
  For those of us who stand to go proper handoff to stay in the
• 1:46:41
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:46:43
  There's more than one way to go taking those that's paying
• 1:46:46
  you're told it ain't practice if your purpose ain't clear.
• 1:46:48
  It can't happen until you listen with both is can't mentor
• 1:46:52
  without a mentor of experience. You can reinvent those years.
• 1:46:55
  Every plan's got to stand and deliver to and Christ sacrifice.
• 1:46:59
  Can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight, not a
• 1:47:02
  win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device y'all
• 1:47:04
  can make more moves. It's not.
• 1:47:06
  About how? To it's all about why you don't
• 1:47:08
  know till you know who you are inside 6,000,000.
• 1:47:11
  Waste of time, choose none. So y'all cross the finish line.
• 1:47:14
  The work ain't done so we learn from the experts but y'all got
• 1:47:17
  to put in the leg work. Kill athletics, use the network.
• 1:47:20
  It's all about connections put together for the profession to
• 1:47:23
  where every track coach could be blessing.