Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #161: Gill1918 presents Track Tribe LIVE: (Part 2) "Building Hurdlers" with Kenny Anderson hosted by Kyle Jones
Transcript
- 0:00Welcome to the Gill 1918 Project, a podcast series by
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- 0:06Think of this as the Ted Talks of track and field coaching.
- 0:09Short, insightful, and packed with valuable strategies to help
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- 0:21Check out the show notes below For more information.
- 0:23Now let's get into today's topic.
- 0:27With that, we, we got programs around the country, right?
- 0:31And weather is typically an obstacle, especially like in the
- 0:35Midwest and you know, upper part of the northern part, the
- 0:38northern parts of the states. So how do you build hurdlers
- 0:41that in an environment where you don't have perfect weather or
- 0:45you don't have perfect surfaces or there's no perfect time to
- 0:51try to pull people together, right?
- 0:52So how do you how do you build hurdlers in that kind of hard
- 0:56environment? A lot of drilling, a lot of
- 1:00technique work like quick three steps, one steps in the hallway
- 1:08doesn't matter. We do have like a small turf
- 1:12room indoors about 40 yards so we we can get maybe 2-3 hurdles
- 1:17in there, but a lot of technical work and a lot of acceleration
- 1:23work. And then I also, you know, for
- 1:27are you know, tempo or endurance or strength training.
- 1:31We do a lot of runs on high job mats.
- 1:34Really. Yeah.
- 1:36So OK. I need to hear this.
- 1:37You got to talk. You got to talk to us now you,
- 1:39you got. And is it OK to share this this
- 1:41secrets? I don't have any secrets like I
- 1:44don't have any secrets all. Right y'all, so if you first of
- 1:47all let me tell you stuff, if y'all listening to this live and
- 1:49you got questions ask them in the chat and we'll get to them.
- 1:52I want to know how what are you doing on the high jump mat that
- 1:57is producing some results. I I got to hear this.
- 2:00So imagine your workout today. Let's say you're doing 4 to 5,
- 2:05two hundreds, you know, anywhere from 30 to 35 seconds.
- 2:10You know, on the 200 you can do the same work and you probably
- 2:15get more from running on a high jump mat because it's not
- 2:20stable. So you're working harder, you
- 2:22know, trying to keep your posture, your frequency.
- 2:25And so we're just running the hydro mat for a time, 35
- 2:28seconds, we'll go 35 seconds and then we'll come off the mat and
- 2:32then do 35 seconds worth of core.
- 2:36I'll give you last week our, our workout, we had the short
- 2:40sprinters go 30 seconds on, 30 seconds core, 30 seconds on.
- 2:46That was one set and we did 6 to 8 sets of that and then I had
- 2:51the long sprinters. We did 454545 but they feel it
- 2:56sounds. Brutal.
- 2:58I mean, they, they feel it and it's, it's safe because it's,
- 3:01you know, instead of being on a hallway all the time or, you
- 3:05know, wherever, whatever concrete, you know, it's less
- 3:08pounding. So we have, we have to be
- 3:12creative, you know, here with, you know, the stuff that we do.
- 3:15That's that's one example. I love it.
- 3:18I, I, I don't, I've been around this up around track and field
- 3:21for a very long time and I've, I've heard some things, but I've
- 3:24never, I've seen people run on the high, but I've never
- 3:27occurred to me to go, hey, we could use this, use this as like
- 3:30a hit type of workout, right? Because that's essentially what
- 3:35it kind of boils down to. It's it's a HIT type of workout
- 3:38And are is it mostly like high knees or you trying to do
- 3:41anything else besides the high knees kind of like quick feed or
- 3:44anything like that? Mostly, mostly high knees.
- 3:47For the most part, yeah. Mostly high knees.
- 3:49Do they look at you crazy when you first tell them?
- 3:52Yeah, and once you do it one time, like, you know, but like
- 3:57the first time, like we run on the high jump mat, we here I'm
- 4:00like, yeah, we go right here. Space is small.
- 4:03I don't need a whole lot of room.
- 4:05I can rotate y'all in and out. We we get it done all.
- 4:10Right. So high jump mats, now you go
- 4:12have about 400 coaches across the country and somebody like
- 4:15the high jump coach is going to be pissed off because he can't
- 4:17get his high jump kids on the mat because the hurdlers are
- 4:20running. Except for me, because I coach
- 4:25all in, I coach the hurdlers and the high jumpers.
- 4:28So yeah, I get it by right, Right.
- 4:30So with the with the coaches out there now they may be listening
- 4:34and they hearing all right. Well, you got to be creative
- 4:36sometimes. Sometimes you don't have the
- 4:37perfect stuff, the perfect environment, the perfect space,
- 4:41the perfect surface is the perfect whatever right weather,
- 4:47unless you're in Texas for some reason, right because it I don't
- 4:51understand. This is always like beautiful.
- 4:53I know it gets cold down there too.
- 4:55I'm I'm Josh in Texas. Don't come for me Texas.
- 4:57I'm just joking. So you are producing hurdler
- 5:03after hurdler after hurdler after hurdler, right.
- 5:05Obviously you got a system that is sustainable for success and
- 5:11most coaches want to know, well, how do I, how do I build up this
- 5:14pipeline? How do I get people interested
- 5:18in hurtlers And maybe even like, let's, let's take a step back.
- 5:20Maybe you got some new coaches out there who don't even know
- 5:23how to evaluate a hurdler in the 1st place.
- 5:27Where do you start? I start with my best athletes.
- 5:33You know, if you're fast, you can jump.
- 5:35You know, we going, we going to try.
- 5:37We going to see what it looks like.
- 5:39I said before, I think the hurdlers are the most athletic
- 5:43people in track and field. You can Sprint, you can hurdle,
- 5:46you're basically sprinting with obstacles.
- 5:50So I start with my best athletes and just kind of see, you know
- 5:53what they look like, flexibility, understanding.
- 5:57And you know, the biggest thing is like No Fear.
- 6:00They're not scared of anything. To be an effective and efficient
- 6:03hurdler, you have to have a sense of reckless abandonment.
- 6:07So just not being afraid to try is very, very important.
- 6:13And if you're not afraid to try, then you know, it might take you
- 6:16a minute to learn, but you know, everybody has the ability to
- 6:19learn. So that's why I start.
- 6:22And then I start with as far as like a technical component, I
- 6:28start with teaching the trail egg, trail egg and lead on.
- 6:31So one thing that I see sometimes with novice hurdlers
- 6:39and you know, they, they look, they, they hear the term or
- 6:45getting coached, look at the watch to where they, they're
- 6:48looking at the watch and they're coming here.
- 6:51I no knock to anybody that teaches that, but I don't
- 6:55believe in that. And the reason why I don't
- 6:57believe in that is because if this is, this is a normal
- 7:01running motion. Now, if you can see me like you,
- 7:04you're sprinting, you're here cheek to cheek, face, cheek,
- 7:06butt cheek. When you do this, when you do
- 7:10this, this is not a normal running motion.
- 7:14So now when I come here, for me to get my arm back down, I have
- 7:18to swing it out. But now I'm swinging and I'm,
- 7:22I'm swimming, I'm turning butter, you know, when I'm
- 7:26looking at the watch here. So what we teach is wrist higher
- 7:30than the elbow. So the wrist is higher than the
- 7:33elbow, then I can punch down. I mean, you might have a slight
- 7:37diagonal, but if the wrist is higher than the elbow, I can get
- 7:40it right down back into my pocket.
- 7:43So hurtling wrist higher than the elbow.
- 7:45So that's, that's one thing that I work on very early with the
- 7:48hurdlers that I, that I work with and the trail leg.
- 7:52So me personally, I don't really coast the Lee leg too much and
- 7:59we do a couple of one step drills, but I drilled the hell
- 8:03out of a trail leg. We do a lot of ISO trail leg
- 8:06drills. We talk about getting the trail
- 8:09leg high and tight. What I mean by that is high up
- 8:12into that trail knee, high up into your armpit.
- 8:14Here if you have deodorant on, you should have deodorant on
- 8:18your kneecap because because your trail leg is so high and
- 8:22tight up under your armpit and then you got a bug on your knee.
- 8:26So with that lead arm, you swiping the bug off your knee
- 8:29and I can't do it really do it because I'm sitting down.
- 8:31But we, we do a lot of trail leg work very, very early.
- 8:39I believe in the trail leg. I believe if you have an
- 8:41efficient trail leg that takes care of everything else so.
- 8:47That man, I would say that that was some Nuggets right there.
- 8:50And ladies and gentlemen, if you're listening to this on
- 8:53maybe the The Guild podcast or just in an audio somewhere, you
- 8:58couldn't see this, but Coach Kenny was, is, was hurtling in
- 9:02an office chair almost here doing trail leg drills, almost
- 9:05like pull throughs. It's a sight to see.
- 9:07So I implore you to go to the to go come to the YouTube channel,
- 9:10watch that. That was fun to watch.
- 9:13I would try it, but I feel like my hip would take it off, would,
- 9:15would, would disconnect and then run away and pack up and leave.
- 9:19So, but yeah, so and that, that's one of the things we
- 9:23talked about. And I, I said I would bring this
- 9:25up just full transparency because I wanted to make sure
- 9:28that people understood that this isn't a coach's theory.
- 9:31This is stuff that works, right. And we had a talk and he was, he
- 9:36had posted something in the track tribe and he was working
- 9:38with one of his hurdlers. And I thought it was a really
- 9:41good video. And I was he kept saying stuff
- 9:43and you're like, punch down, punch down, punch down.
- 9:45And it killed me. I was like, OK, wait a minute,
- 9:47coach, that's something different.
- 9:48What are you, what are you talking about?
- 9:50And so obviously he, he, he brought to my attention, he's,
- 9:54she's talking about drive that, you know, kind of punching
- 9:56forward, punching down what using that, that wrist higher
- 10:00than the elbow. But also what he brought to my
- 10:03attention was the positioning of the trail leg and bringing it
- 10:07actively pulling it through your, your, your hurdle, right,
- 10:10your technique. And so for me, when I was coming
- 10:15out, we were always taught to get your lead leg down fast,
- 10:19right? Snap down with your lead leg.
- 10:21And what you showed me was it's more effective to have an active
- 10:26trail leg pulled through and in a high position because you've
- 10:29run off the hurdle faster and better.
- 10:32And then when you showed me, I was like, holy crap, it was,
- 10:35that was a moment of if those are the epiphanic moment I got
- 10:39you could call, right? It was epiphany.
- 10:42And I was like, oh, because we're so used to snap down, snap
- 10:44down, snap down. But I saw the position change
- 10:47when you snap down versus when, like you said, I'm going to
- 10:50focus on their trail leg, bringing it through and now I'm
- 10:53in a better running position. So this is in theory y'all.
- 10:57This is stuff that actually works.
- 10:59And we tried it without hurdlers.
- 11:00And I'm going to tell you there's a huge difference with
- 11:02them just pulling that hurdle that that trail leg through like
- 11:05you said. Yeah.
- 11:06So I, I think, you know, if you, if you think about it and you're
- 11:11actually standing up, if you can stand it up, you're, you're
- 11:14watching or listening, you stand up and you go through the hurt
- 11:18of motion. If you try to snap that lead leg
- 11:22down fast, you know, you jump, try to snap it down.
- 11:27What happens is your trail leg a lot of times get left behind and
- 11:33if it gets left behind and your trail leg is not to the front,
- 11:3612:00 for your D is coming down the track, then you are waiting
- 11:39for the trail leg to get around. And if you're waiting for the
- 11:43trail leg to get around, you're off balance and you're slowing
- 11:46yourself down. Your, your trail leg has to be
- 11:51in the front of your body when the lead leg is down or it
- 11:54touches down. If it's not, then you're, you're
- 11:57fighting yourself, you're going to twist, you're going to be out
- 11:59of position and you can't push or Sprint to the next hurdle.
- 12:03So what we focus on is pulling that trail leg to the front.
- 12:07And by the time it gets to the front, the lead leg will be in
- 12:11position. That way when the lead leg
- 12:12touches down, you can run off the hurdle.
- 12:15So we, we don't, we don't talk about snapping the lead leg down
- 12:19for that very reason. You snap the lead leg down 9
- 12:22times out of 10, you're snapping the lead leg down in the trail
- 12:25like it's not in the right position.
- 12:26So now you're, you're fighting yourself, You know, you're
- 12:29defeating the purpose of being able to run off the hurdle.
- 12:31So I wish I, I wish I could show y'all a video, but if you go try
- 12:37it and you know, just, you know, maybe over a chair or something
- 12:41and you try to snap your lead leg down.
- 12:44Notice how your trail leg is still in that, that position to
- 12:48where it's not all the way to the front.
- 12:50But if you go and pull your trail leg to the front as fast
- 12:54as possible, pull it to the front, snatch it.
- 12:59Notice how much more efficient you are trying to push off of
- 13:05that hurdle or whatever, you know, whatever you're jumping
- 13:08over. And I don't, we don't jump
- 13:09hurdles, but I'm just using this as an example.
- 13:13So we we talk about punching the lead arm, you know, pushing into
- 13:17the hurdle, punching the lead arm and pulling the trail leg
- 13:21three piece push, punch and pull.
- 13:25You heard it y'all Push punch and pull.
- 13:28Don't get kids suspended thinking that's a fight.
- 13:33Push punch, pull and it is effective and I've seen it in a
- 13:37matter of fact. If you if you wonder what he's
- 13:38talking about, find the track tribe on the school app or
- 13:42platform SKOOL the track tribes of the forest free to get in and
- 13:46always be free. And he has some pictures posted
- 13:51in there which showed the the drastic difference of snapping a
- 13:56lead leg down versus pulling your trail leg through.
- 13:59And you could see that the athlete initially when they
- 14:02snapped the lead leg down, they were like a little off center,
- 14:05right off balance where they're they're center of mass when
- 14:07they're it's like center of gravity was just not under the
- 14:11body versus where the trail leg pull through.
- 14:15And you could see where they have more control and we're able
- 14:18to force themselves or force themselves, but be able to put
- 14:21more force or apply force into the ground to accelerate forward
- 14:24towards the next next obstacle, obviously being a hurdle.
- 14:27So I implore you, if you haven't seen that yet, make sure you go
- 14:29into the track, track and look that and then you can ask
- 14:31questions as well, right? That's what we're all about,
- 14:34this connecting and bringing knowledge and helping each
- 14:36other. And that, that was a mentorship
- 14:38moment for me because of what I've been told.
- 14:39But there are so many myths out there from what we thought was
- 14:43real. Wasn't that it was stupid.
- 14:45It was just what we knew, what we thought we knew at the time.
- 14:48And with better science and with better understanding, we
- 14:52inevitably get better, right? So with that coach, I have some
- 14:55questions because I, I, I'm having fun here, man.
- 14:57I'll be honest, I don't understand.
- 15:01It's exciting, man. What do you notice that most
- 15:05hurdle coaches miss when they're training athletes that you kind
- 15:09of pick up on and have to retrain?
- 15:12Outside of that trail leg, obviously, right?
- 15:15They don't Sprint enough. I noticed that.
- 15:20I have a young lady, she's a freshman now in high school.
- 15:24She, she came and, you know, she hurdled.
- 15:29That's all she did. And she has some talent she had,
- 15:32she has some upside. And you know, we were having a
- 15:35conversation today. And so this weekend she's
- 15:39running the 60 hurdles and the 60.
- 15:42And she was like, coach, why am I in the 60?
- 15:44And I was like, if you want to run fast in the hurdle sheet, we
- 15:48got to, you got to get fat, we got to Sprint.
- 15:51So I see a lot of times hurdle cultures, OK, we're going to
- 15:55hurdle every day or not every day, but we're hurdling 3 * a
- 15:59week. I think that sometimes it's good
- 16:03depending on, you know, what you're doing, but you got to
- 16:05Sprint, you got to, you got to move the hurdles out.
- 16:08You got to, you know, teach them acceleration patterns.
- 16:11They have to learn how to Sprint.
- 16:13So I think that's, that's the biggest thing that hurdle
- 16:15coaches could miss sometimes is they're not sprinting enough.
- 16:20We Sprint any time we hurdle, we're going to Sprint.
- 16:24You know, sometimes we Sprint before.
- 16:27This is a nugget too, whatever, whatever event that you have
- 16:33your athlete in. So I say, say your hurdler is on
- 16:38the four by one. Sometimes you need to Sprint
- 16:41before you hurdle and the reason for that and the meet most of
- 16:46the times, well at least at the college level, the four by one
- 16:49is before the hurdles. So everything that we do in
- 16:52practice is training for a competition.
- 16:54So I know that you are on that 4 by 1 and you got to Sprint.
- 16:59We're going to Sprint, then we're going to come back and
- 17:01then probably do a hurdle workout.
- 17:03So your body is used to that. Or if you know, if you aren't on
- 17:07the four by one, we're always sprinting after practice.
- 17:11So it could be, you know, like I love 90s, I love one 20s on the
- 17:16curve. And this is a nugget.
- 17:18This is specific to me. I love one 20s on the curve,
- 17:21especially for short hurdlers because on the curve I feel like
- 17:25you're more frequent. When you get on the straight,
- 17:28you tend to open up. On the curve you're trying to
- 17:31get your feet down so it mimics more so the rhythm in between
- 17:35the hurdles. Another thing that we like to do
- 17:40is I like you know, the wicked face down or cones or sticks,
- 17:46whatever you have at a discounted.
- 17:50So 1.83 meters for the women, 1.94 meters for the men.
- 17:56So we'll go, I'll put the first one at where the first hurdle
- 18:00is, we'll go 30 meters and at that spacing.
- 18:04And so now you're mimicking the rhythm of the stride length in
- 18:08between the hurdles. So maybe before we go do a
- 18:12hurdle workout that is part of our warm up where we're getting
- 18:15our feet down and learning how to be frequent so.
- 18:20Yeah, I think what you're saying is, is, is is on point because I
- 18:23mean, I'm honestly transparency initially far thought about hey,
- 18:27let's hurdle, hurdle, hurdle. But no, no, no, you got to learn
- 18:30how to Sprint, right? And you just seen one of my
- 18:33athletes, Tim. I'm kind of laughing about it
- 18:34because in the back of my mind I'm cracking up because I can
- 18:37see myself in practice the other week.
- 18:39And one of our newer hurdles, she goes, we got to run too.
- 18:43Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do. You got to run.
- 18:47So question just just for transparency and understanding,
- 18:52if you have a high CNS day, right, central nervous system
- 18:55day, right, and you know you're attacking, do you when you
- 18:58finish with that hurdle portion, do you pull them more into a
- 19:02rhythmic tempo after that? Or do you try to, you know,
- 19:07still blast them within that Sprint framework?
- 19:11If it's a high CNS day, we don't blast them in that Sprint
- 19:14framework. OK.
- 19:16So high CNS day we're doing, you know, 30s forties.
- 19:21I'm always finished with something fast like a 9120, you
- 19:26know, if I wanted long 150. But we're always going to blast
- 19:32them with something fast. I just don't feel like if it's,
- 19:38you know, we're, we're working on trying to be fast, finishing
- 19:41with the tempo. Now, if I, if it's a tempo day,
- 19:49say I'm doing tempo, I'm not afraid to finish with something
- 19:53fast. But if it's a if I'm starting
- 19:57off fast, I'm gonna finish fast. But a tempo day, I'm not afraid
- 20:02to. Coaching is an art.
- 20:03So I learned this from. Charles Ryan, Charles Ryan, he's
- 20:10the head coach at San Jose State now.
- 20:12He did a presentation and he was he said coaching is an art and
- 20:17you have to learn the rules to to know how to break the rules.
- 20:22And you know, every athlete is is different.
- 20:25And as coaches, we are the artists.
- 20:29The athlete is the canvas and we have to paint the picture.
- 20:33And so some, some athletes, every athlete is, is very
- 20:38different and, and every painting is going to be
- 20:40different. So you got to, you know, learn
- 20:41what's best for them. But you know, I say that, say
- 20:45all of that to say, and I'll just being creative.
- 20:50Being creative is very, very important.
- 20:52So, for example, like a tempo day, we're doing like repeat,
- 20:59I'm gonna say repeat 33 hundreds, you know, maybe 3 to
- 21:024, three hundreds, just tempo. But I'm not afraid to finish
- 21:08with like a fast 50, you know, a couple of fast 50s.
- 21:13So like in a in a race, you got to learn how to, you know,
- 21:16finish. So your body's fatigue, you
- 21:20know, and you can finish with a fast 50 technical sound like
- 21:26you're learning how to will you learn how to run rounds?
- 21:29You learn how to finish races. So if I am, if I go off on
- 21:35tangents a lot, please excuse me because I, I just be, you know,
- 21:38I'll be, I'll be talking and then I'll just go all over the
- 21:42place. Listen, you're fine with me.
- 21:44If they, if they don't like it, they can always Fast forward,
- 21:47right? I, I, I love hearing
- 21:50authenticity, right? And, and people, people have a
- 21:52lot of theories. There's a lot of noise out
- 21:54there. There's a lot of theories out
- 21:56there. There's a lot of science out
- 21:58there. And I've often said this is you
- 22:02can, you can take somebody's plan, but it doesn't necessarily
- 22:07work for the athlete you have in front of you.
- 22:10And. We have to.
- 22:12We have to coach what's in front of us, not what we think is in
- 22:17front of us, right? And that that's a big
- 22:20difference. And I always, I try to encourage
- 22:23coaches to just, hey, it's great to have some ideas and to get
- 22:26some mentorship. But you got to find the things
- 22:29that work for your athletes because those are the things
- 22:31that work for your athletes. And principles never change.
- 22:36Real principles don't change over time.
- 22:38They're timeless. Principles are timeless.
- 22:40No matter what you're studying, the principles will always be
- 22:44timeless. The approaches change and the
- 22:47information that changes, but the principles do not right,
- 22:51right. If you look at history,
- 22:53principles don't change and you can argue me down.
- 22:56You got to listen to me go, Luke, go do the research for
- 22:58yourself, right? And there's certain principles
- 23:00that just don't change. So obviously there are some
- 23:04things that work timeless time and time again.
- 23:06I think one of the guys on Twitter, the one of the sports
- 23:10sciences guys, Fred Duncan, he talks about those things, mate,
- 23:12looks at old stuff from the 70s and 80s and look at what they're
- 23:15doing. Look at what they're doing.
- 23:16Look what they're doing. But you got all these other
- 23:18scientists that say all these things.
- 23:20Come on, let's get real. Let's get back to the the simple
- 23:22stuff. So the question here is now
- 23:25there are some principles that matter when it comes to getting
- 23:30to the next level, right? This is this is the this is the
- 23:34fun segue. I'm, I'm a watch how I do this
- 23:36right. There are a lot of kids who are
- 23:39interested in running at the next level and the majority of
- 23:43high school kids won't run track and field at the next level.
- 23:47There's a lot of space and opportunity there, but most of
- 23:50them won't do it. You have a pipeline of really
- 23:56good athletes and developmental athletes coming into your
- 23:59program and you're, you're, you're, you're producing a lot
- 24:02of results for them. People can see it and now
- 24:04they're wondering what it is that you do, right.
- 24:07So if an athlete was interested in joining your program or you
- 24:13were interested in that athlete joining your program, what are
- 24:17some of the do's and don'ts of the recruiting process that you
- 24:21would lay out there? So people have a very firm
- 24:25understanding of the expectations.
- 24:30Oh, that's a great question. Loaded question, but great
- 24:34question. Go for.
- 24:35It. I think, you know, some of the
- 24:38dues are if you're interested in a program, reach out first.
- 24:44You know, close mouths don't get fed.
- 24:48I tell people all the time. So if you know what I'm saying
- 24:50that then people that we're there's, I don't know, hundreds
- 24:54of thousands of, of athletes across the country.
- 24:57And you know, a lot of college cultures recruit internationally
- 25:00as well. So like that's, that's even
- 25:03more. And we miss people sometimes.
- 25:07So I think, you know, the first do is, you know, research
- 25:11schools, research schools that you know, have your major size,
- 25:15location, you know, things like that and research the the
- 25:22program. So, and this, this brings me to
- 25:27a don't I find it somewhat offensive.
- 25:36Not all the time, you know, you know, I, I don't charge it to my
- 25:40heart, But when, when people say, OK, and I'm running such
- 25:45and such a time, you know, I need a full ride at your
- 25:47university. Oh, you, you'll be surprised at,
- 25:52you know, the type of type of emails, you know, that we get.
- 25:56So I say like, do your research, do your research on, you know,
- 26:00what scores in the conference. So a lot of times college
- 26:03coaches like you're not getting a big scholarship if you can't
- 26:07come in and score right away. You know, you know, they can
- 26:10give you some money, but the more versatile you are, the more
- 26:15valuable you are, the more money you can get.
- 26:17And if you're a 1 trick pony, that's all you can do.
- 26:21And you're not going unless you are a guaranteed national
- 26:25champion. Guaranteed.
- 26:29You know the that say you're not really getting the full ride.
- 26:37Research the divisions. Track and field is one of those
- 26:41sports to where you can be successful anywhere.
- 26:43It doesn't matter what division, Division One, division two,
- 26:45Division Three, you've had Olympians that have gone
- 26:48Division Three, we've had Olympians that's gone NAIA,
- 26:51which our our university is. So do your research.
- 26:55I think the biggest thing is finding a program that is good
- 26:58for you, finding a coach that you believe in, that believes in
- 27:01you and y'all have a plan to get you to where you want to be.
- 27:06This is a this is a don't and this is more so for like high
- 27:13school coaches and also a high school coach.
- 27:18Sometimes high school coaches sometimes reach out to college
- 27:21coaches and say, Hey, I have this kid, I have this, you know,
- 27:23young lady, that would be great for your program, XY and Z.
- 27:28And then, OK, so we we reach out and we talked to the the student
- 27:33athlete and the student athlete, if they're from Florida, Oh, I
- 27:37don't want to go that far. So like high school coaches, you
- 27:41know, I do for you. Like when you're helping your
- 27:45student athletes find programs or looking for programs, ask
- 27:48them what are they looking for? Yeah.
- 27:51You know, so I I get it all the time.
- 27:54Oh, coach, you know, like I ain't really trying to go that
- 27:57far from home. Well, yeah, your high school
- 28:00coach just told me like he was interested in you.
- 28:02So it's just like communicate, just communicate on, on, on all
- 28:08levels, express what you want, express what you're looking for.
- 28:13For us here, we have, you know, developmental athletes, we have,
- 28:17you know, I consider top tier athletes, you know, we have a
- 28:19range. And so for me, it's here.
- 28:23And this is a, a plug to CMU, you know, since you know, since
- 28:27I'm, since I'm on, it's more so like your mindset.
- 28:33So I don't have a problem with taking a developmental athlete
- 28:36and, and, and working with them if you have the right, right
- 28:39mindset. I like to be around like minded
- 28:42people. And Nick Saban said high
- 28:44achievers don't like mediocre people and mediocre people don't
- 28:47like high achievements like I, I believe in that.
- 28:49So I'm just looking for somebody that wants to be elite at
- 28:52everything they do. I have a standard of excellence
- 28:55the way like everything matters to me, The little details matter
- 28:59to me. We're in a sport to where a 10th
- 29:02of a second could be the difference between you sitting
- 29:04in the stands and you being in the final 1/10 of a second,
- 29:09100th of a second could be the difference between a contract, a
- 29:13gold medal or nothing at all. So when you have that mindset
- 29:17that, you know, perspective, it changes like what you need to do
- 29:22to be great. And so I don't believe if you're
- 29:26going to put if you're going to do something, you got to be
- 29:28elite at it, at least how to be elite.
- 29:30You know, we not going, you know, excuse my language half
- 29:33ass, you know, anything that we do.
- 29:37And so like in recruiting at central Methodist, you know,
- 29:40that's what I'm looking for. Can you be great in the
- 29:42classroom? Can you be great in life?
- 29:44Can you be great on track? If you can do that, this is the
- 29:47place for you. If you looking for some other
- 29:49stuff, this ain't this ain't it. I'm not it.
- 29:53It's. Got to fit.
- 29:54I think you draw some good Nuggets here because a lot of
- 29:56coaches, and I've done this, I'm guilty of this too, right?
- 29:59I think I got a good athlete, right?
- 30:01I think they'd be great because I know the coach.
- 30:04I'm like, oh man, I see what you do.
- 30:06This would be perfect. But again, you got to go back
- 30:08and ask that athlete, hey, where are you willing to go?
- 30:11Yeah, yeah. What?
- 30:12What part of the country? That's one of the questions I
- 30:14started asking a few years ago. Hey, what part of the country do
- 30:16you are you willing to go to right?
- 30:18Do you want to stay in the southeast?
- 30:19You want to go up north? Are you OK going out West?
- 30:22Are you going to are you OK with going away?
- 30:24You know, and then but. You want big, but you want
- 30:27small, Yeah. Right.
- 30:29Yeah, yeah. So you're on point, right.
- 30:31So I think that's a good call out for coaches.
- 30:33Hey gang, Mike Cunningham here. Hey, I hope you enjoyed this
- 30:37episode of the Guild 1918 Project series.
- 30:40It's really my mission, my passion to bring you massive
- 30:43amounts of value and I hope this one hit the mark.
- 30:47The Gill 1918 Project is really dependent on you if for you to
- 30:52build your own episode, to hear your voice, to have your voice
- 30:55heard you have something to say and teach other coaches out
- 30:59there. So please get a hold of me,
- 31:01e-mail, text message, Twitter, smoke signals, get a hold of me
- 31:06and let's help create your episode of the Gill 1918
- 31:09Project. Hope you enjoy the day, they
- 31:10will see you tomorrow.