Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: OG Guest #10 Chad Gunnelson-Univ of Dubuque

Transcript

BONUS: OG Guest #10 Chad Gunnelson-Univ of Dubuque · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:01
  I hope you've been enjoying the OG bonus series.
• 0:04
  We've been running since August 29th.
• 0:05
  This is the last one. This is number 10.
• 0:09
  It's been interesting for me to see after five years, the
• 0:12
  improvements, the changes we've made in the podcast.
• 0:14
  Certainly the audio has gotten a lot better.
• 0:17
  This one. Number 10 here, Chad Gunnelson,
• 0:19
  at this time, he was the head coach of the University of
• 0:22
  Dubuque. This was our first non in person
• 0:25
  interview. So this was actually conducted
• 0:28
  over the phone over an app through what was then called
• 0:31
  Anchor. So again, audio quality is not
• 0:33
  as great as it is today. You know, we do video now as
• 0:37
  well today. We continue to evolve just like
• 0:39
  you do in your track coaching career.
• 0:41
  We continue to evolve, continue to improve 1% every day.
• 0:45
  And so, so grateful to just see the growth of the podcast and to
• 0:49
  see these young men and women who are in the coaching
• 0:52
  profession where they've gone over the past four, five years
• 0:54
  as well. Gunny, Chad Gunnelson here, not
• 0:57
  at the University of Dubuque anymore, at Augustana
• 0:59
  University, doing a great job and just super proud that he
• 1:02
  trusted me to sit down and talk about his journey in coaching
• 1:06
  track and field. So this is it.
• 1:07
  This is the last OG series. We're going to come up with
• 1:10
  another bonus series as we get closer to USTFCCCA.
• 1:13
  We'll rerun the five minute interviews that we do live
• 1:16
  there. We'll be doing that again.
• 1:17
  Spoiler alert, we'll be doing live interviews at USTFCCCA 2024
• 1:23
  down in OR. Lando but right now, OG series
• 1:27
  #10 the wise, the wonderful Mr. Chad.
• 1:30
  Gunny Gunnelson. Hey gang.
• 1:34
  Welcome to the Gala FedEx Connection podcast where we
• 1:37
  bring you the stories of track coaches from around the world.
• 1:40
  I am your host, Mike Cunningham, and it is my honor and privilege
• 1:44
  to bring you the stories of these men and women.
• 1:47
  This week, I've got Chad Gunnelson.
• 1:50
  He is the head coach of the University of Dubuque over in
• 1:53
  Iowa. Just had a great time.
• 1:55
  In fact, literally just recorded.
• 1:57
  So this is hot off the the, the press.
• 2:00
  Is that what they say? Had a great time learning about
• 2:04
  Gunny's career, how he got into it.
• 2:06
  Super unique. You know, he was a nine year
• 2:09
  head coach now at, at UD and was always the head coach there.
• 2:12
  So I think you'll enjoy that aspect of what led him to become
• 2:16
  a coach and how he got to become a coach and specifically how he
• 2:20
  runs this program there at at UD.
• 2:23
  And then, of course, because it is, you know, March of 2020, we
• 2:26
  definitely discuss what's going on in our world right now, how
• 2:30
  that's affecting coaches with the coronavirus and season in
• 2:33
  schools being shut down. So found that extremely
• 2:36
  interesting of how Gunny is really doubling down on his
• 2:40
  leadership of how he runs his program in community and family
• 2:45
  there in Dubuque, IA. So I think you'll enjoy this
• 2:48
  one. Please help me welcome the wise
• 2:50
  and wonderful Chad Gunnelson. All right.
• 3:02
  Good morning. Good morning, Mike.
• 3:04
  All right, we just jumped right into it, man.
• 3:07
  So Chad, thanks for joining me here.
• 3:10
  University of Dubuque, What let's start with, let's go back
• 3:15
  to the beginning and talk about your coaching career.
• 3:18
  How long have you been at at Dubuque now as the head coach?
• 3:22
  Yes, this is my 9th year or ninth season at the University
• 3:25
  of Dubuque and my 18th season overall coaching track and
• 3:31
  field. So I've been in the position I I
• 3:33
  was originally they're just the head men's track coach and head
• 3:36
  men's women's cross country coach.
• 3:38
  And then in my second year, I was head of both track and cross
• 3:41
  country programs and then have transitioned to a director role
• 3:44
  and now we have an incredible head cross country coach who
• 3:48
  handles cross in the fall and works with all of our distance
• 3:51
  runners. And so the program's evolved a
• 3:52
  little bit, but, you know, essentially we're all still
• 3:58
  fighting to try and win a championship.
• 3:59
  And we've had a few, but you know, we're nine years in.
• 4:04
  So nine years at Dubuque or were you and you said eighteen
• 4:06
  overall, where were you the the nine years before?
• 4:10
  Absolutely. I was.
• 4:11
  I was a head high school coach before that, so I was at Madison
• 4:15
  East High School. It's a public high school in
• 4:18
  Madison, WI, approximately 1800 students and that was really my
• 4:24
  first head coaching job. So I am I I was the head JV
• 4:29
  football coach my first year there and then had boys and
• 4:32
  girls track coach and had the chance to do that for six years
• 4:37
  before getting hired on at UD. So are you?
• 4:40
  Are you from Wisconsin? I am Madison.
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  Is my hometown so. Born and Born and raised in
• 4:45
  Madison and had a chance to basically be home, stay home and
• 4:50
  coach. And then I also owned a
• 4:51
  business. I owned a sports performance
• 4:53
  training franchise. So that was kind of my private
• 4:55
  sector, you know, day job. And then coaching was really my
• 5:00
  mistress in the afternoon. And I'm really glad I had the
• 5:03
  chance to go and actually make a living doing coaching because it
• 5:06
  was the only thing that I wanted to do.
• 5:07
  But something that kind of hurts my, I guess, professional growth
• 5:12
  in my business because that's where I should have been in the
• 5:14
  afternoons, but it's not where I wanted to be.
• 5:16
  So I sold my business away and came to UD and yeah, so that's
• 5:19
  that. What you said you're from
• 5:22
  Madison and you know one of the greatest schools around is UW.
• 5:26
  Of course, all the Wisconsin schools, Eau Claire, Oshkosh's
• 5:29
  are kind of actually amazing. Did you where did you go to
• 5:32
  college at one of those? No, I mean, are you, are you OK
• 5:35
  getting into a a long story regarding the college path?
• 5:39
  Hey, we are here as long as you let me be here.
• 5:42
  All right, So very, very uncommon trip to college
• 5:51
  coaching my college coaching position.
• 5:54
  So I I originally intended to enlist in the Army and I was
• 6:00
  going to leave basically in November as all my friends left
• 6:03
  for college after high school and had already gotten a waiver.
• 6:08
  I had a plate in 16 screws in my leg and.
• 6:11
  How did that happen? Skiing accident in 6th grade
• 6:14
  that's. Very.
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  That's so Wisconsin. And ended up getting that plate
• 6:20
  removed. And so I had a couple other
• 6:21
  injuries that I had been through.
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  And so I had a bunch of waivers, but I was still, you know, in a
• 6:26
  position to go and serve my country for four years.
• 6:29
  I had chosen my job, Cav Scout. My first station assignment
• 6:31
  after training was going to be South Korea.
• 6:34
  And so I had the next four years of my life planned out and was
• 6:36
  very excited. Well, a JV or sophomore football
• 6:42
  coaching accident, one of our athletes ended up tearing my
• 6:47
  MCL, blowing out my knee two weeks before I was supposed to
• 6:51
  leave. And so I got permanently
• 6:55
  disqualified for military service because I'd already used
• 6:58
  up all my physical waivers and. So I was like, well, there's
• 7:00
  only so many. Yeah, it's time to go.
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  You know it's time to go back to school.
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  So I ended up going take took that year off and I went to
• 7:07
  Southwest Minnesota State to play football.
• 7:11
  So Marshall, MN went up there. My best friend was at MATC and
• 7:16
  couldn't pass clearing house and he was very good.
• 7:19
  He was 63290, ran A-47. And, you know, we both went up
• 7:24
  there and we're grateful for the opportunity to go play some
• 7:28
  scholarship football. And so after our first season,
• 7:31
  the whole coaching staff got fired and we, you know,
• 7:37
  transition to the new staff basically to kind of save all of
• 7:41
  us a lot of time and me a lot of bad memories.
• 7:44
  It it wasn't at all what I originally planned on doing and
• 7:47
  wanted to do, so I I went through that next season.
• 7:49
  What was college? Not all you you thought it
• 7:52
  would. Be no college was playing
• 7:54
  football in college college was incredible and college football
• 7:57
  was incredible like I loved it. I, I loved school, was doing
• 8:01
  great in school, but the coaching staff that came in
• 8:06
  really they, I mean, I'm so grateful because they taught me
• 8:08
  so many lessons and my position coach made me realize the type
• 8:12
  of coach that I would never, ever want to be.
• 8:15
  And so I transferred back home, went to UW Madison for a
• 8:19
  semester, but it's just too big. I mean, 40,000 students and it's
• 8:22
  amazing. And so then I transferred to
• 8:25
  Whitewater and in Whitewater I coached, student coached the
• 8:30
  their football team the first year that they started their
• 8:32
  national run. So 2005 that fall, I was a
• 8:35
  student assistant coach for their team and we went to the
• 8:39
  national title game, played Mount Union just got shredded by
• 8:42
  Pierre Garzone. I don't know if you know that
• 8:44
  name. Obviously we know him from the
• 8:45
  NFL, but he went to the Union and he was on Mount Union's team
• 8:48
  that year that we went and played them.
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  And, and so from there at White, when I was at Whitewater, that
• 8:55
  was when I had kind of built some connections and had a
• 8:59
  chance to interview and get offered the job, the two jobs at
• 9:01
  Madison East, both coaching JV football and then coaching track
• 9:04
  and field. So another year went by I was
• 9:07
  going to do in class at Whitewater.
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  I bought my business and something had to give doing
• 9:13
  trying to commute to school for Madison, running my own business
• 9:16
  and coaching sports both fall and spring.
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  I actually dropped out of college so figured figured I was
• 9:22
  my own boss and my job security was pretty good.
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  So I was doing what I loved. And the whole thought originally
• 9:30
  was to be a teacher and coach and well, now I was both coach
• 9:34
  and I had my full time job. So stepped away from school and
• 9:39
  six years later, spring of 2011, it was June, we're up at the
• 9:43
  Wisconsin State track meet. Who was the offensive
• 9:46
  coordinator at Whitewater when I was student assistant coaching?
• 9:49
  There was now the head or the head football coach at the
• 9:52
  University of Dubuque. He saw me at the state track
• 9:54
  meet and their head track coach and head cross country coach had
• 9:59
  been, you know, being, you know, let go or pushed out or asked to
• 10:03
  resign or however we do things now.
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  And so he said, what do you think about being the next head
• 10:08
  track coach at the University of you can?
• 10:09
  I said, no way. I said, you know, that I haven't
• 10:11
  finished my degree and I'm an undergrad degree.
• 10:13
  And, and he said, well, well, you're going to get a call from
• 10:17
  our AD and we're going to ask you to come down to campus and
• 10:20
  we're going to find a way to work through that.
• 10:23
  So the University of Dubuque gave me my job as a head head
• 10:27
  college track cross country coach without an undergrad
• 10:29
  degree. So the first, yeah, the first
• 10:31
  senior class that I had at UD, those two seniors or two seniors
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  only on the team in 2012, that spring.
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  And they both graduated before me.
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  And then a year later, a year later in May of 2013 is when I
• 10:46
  officially graduated with my undergrad degree.
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  And then now this last May is when I walked and then in August
• 10:53
  finished my master's degree. So I've, I've fully, I've I've
• 10:57
  officially like gotten both my degrees, undergrad and master's
• 11:00
  degree from UD and both of them after I got hired as a coach,
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  so. You know, that's a great story
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  of perseverance for what you know, some people would look at
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  that story and be like, man, why, you know, why didn't he get
• 11:10
  his degree at Southwest Minnesota or Madison?
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  You know, it's like, but you know, I I hear that it's like,
• 11:16
  man, way to stay at it. I mean, that is amazing.
• 11:20
  Well, coaching, you know, coaching was, you know, coaching
• 11:23
  is kind of essentially what pulled me away from school.
• 11:24
  It's like I didn't like I wanted to invest my time and energy in
• 11:27
  our teams, you know, like our, our football team and our our
• 11:30
  track team. And that's really all I wanted
• 11:33
  to do was coach. And so, you know, I personally
• 11:36
  felt that I made a a smart decision at that time with what
• 11:39
  I, you know, had in front of me to step away from school and
• 11:43
  knowing that school was always probably going to be something
• 11:44
  that I would go back to at some point in time.
• 11:46
  But I never, I expected it to be like night class or, you know, I
• 11:51
  never expected it to be me as a undergrad student sitting in
• 11:55
  classes on campus while being a head coach at a, a university.
• 11:59
  And you have no idea like how grateful I am for the
• 12:04
  administration at UD to be willing to take that chance, you
• 12:08
  know, willing to take a shot on me and put me in that position
• 12:12
  because I imagine a lot of them were challenged.
• 12:13
  And I know just to be completely honest, a lot of faculty was
• 12:15
  very upset. And there were certain folks
• 12:18
  within academia at our institution when they found out
• 12:20
  that I got hired under that pretense that I was like, I was
• 12:23
  not an easy situation at all. So, you know, it it, it gave me
• 12:28
  perspective on how important it was for me to finish my degree,
• 12:33
  but also how important it was for me to honor the people who
• 12:35
  gave me that chance, because not many people ever would.
• 12:37
  What do you think about that? And I think most colleges either
• 12:42
  unofficially and some officially require all track coaches and
• 12:48
  all coaches to have a degree because on one hand, it's like,
• 12:51
  you know, there's no degree in, I guess there actually are
• 12:53
  degrees in coaching now. But you know, you can definitely
• 12:55
  be a successful coach without having a degree in a science.
• 12:59
  There are plenty of coaches out there that are history majors
• 13:01
  and philosophy majors and such that are excellent track
• 13:05
  coaches. Yet there's also, I get that
• 13:08
  understanding of, well, you're leading other student athletes.
• 13:11
  You should be the model for that.
• 13:13
  You should have the degree that you're trying to lead them
• 13:16
  towards a degree as well. What?
• 13:18
  What do you think about that? It's true that like there's
• 13:25
  there's such a wide variety of degrees.
• 13:28
  You know what I mean? Like you, you know, coaching is
• 13:30
  really in a degree earned in the school of Hard Knocks, not
• 13:34
  experience and, you know, an academic path, you know, and,
• 13:38
  and that was one, you know, your question about modeling is like,
• 13:42
  that was one thing that was presented to me was, you know,
• 13:44
  what type of example are we setting to these young people
• 13:47
  that they need to pursue this, you know, or have this done and
• 13:50
  completed to achieve what they want to achieve?
• 13:52
  And I, you know, I, I guess that's a really hard question to
• 13:56
  answer because, you know, I, I don't know, the way I look at it
• 13:59
  is I had, you know, I had the exact same amount of experience
• 14:05
  that anybody else has before their first job.
• 14:08
  You know what I mean? Virtually none.
• 14:10
  Like they had that, you know, you have to, you have to
• 14:12
  evaluate a person, not their credentials.
• 14:15
  You have to evaluate a fit, you know, not a degree with someone
• 14:21
  in your organization or your institution or your team.
• 14:24
  And I think that they did that. I think they realized that the
• 14:28
  things that they valued and what they wanted to see grown as a
• 14:31
  program and kind of how that fits into the overall
• 14:35
  university, like was went beyond something as simple as a piece
• 14:39
  of paper. And so I just, I was very, very
• 14:44
  grateful for them. And you know, in regards to kind
• 14:47
  of the model for my team is like, I guess it's, it's really
• 14:49
  just comes down to like passion and perseverance.
• 14:52
  Like those are really the two only things, you know, that
• 14:54
  really matter. I think anything that we do.
• 14:57
  And I had a passion for coaching and I was willing to kind of
• 15:01
  persevere through that. And with that and, you know,
• 15:06
  they, you know, I was lucky enough to express how well I
• 15:10
  could recruit, how well I could coach and bring people together.
• 15:15
  I think that gave them the willingness to kind of, I guess
• 15:20
  call it maybe a trial run or trial period while I was getting
• 15:24
  my degree done. And then after that it was
• 15:26
  pretty much, you know, I guess, you know, all copacetic, you
• 15:31
  know. So say, don't say smooth
• 15:32
  sailing. It's never.
• 15:33
  Smooth. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was.
• 15:34
  But I mean, it was, it was in line with, you know, where
• 15:36
  anyone else would be, you know, so.
• 15:39
  And what was the the getting degree a condition of continuing
• 15:43
  with the job where they're like, hey, all right, we're willing to
• 15:45
  take a shot, but man, you, you got to do some class that you
• 15:47
  got to get your degree. Yes, absolutely.
• 15:50
  So that was and it's like navigating that was challenged
• 15:53
  too because some folks didn't want me in like the kind of
• 15:56
  everyday, you know, undergrad classes.
• 15:59
  Some folks wanted me to be more in a, a night school format or
• 16:03
  in an independent study format. And my stance on it was like,
• 16:08
  I'm the one who has to handle any type of stigma with this,
• 16:10
  you know, directly. And so let's just find the way
• 16:14
  to move for me to move towards graduation, you know, in the,
• 16:21
  the best process possible for me to get the good degree that I
• 16:24
  want and do well within the classes that I'm taking and, you
• 16:28
  know, make an impact in them. And so, so I did, I did a
• 16:31
  combination, I did some, I did some as kind of independent
• 16:35
  study. I did some actually sitting in
• 16:37
  the undergrad classes with, you know, a bunch of younger
• 16:40
  teenagers, you know, and, and I did some in our adult
• 16:44
  accelerated program as well. So I was, I was able to kind of
• 16:49
  work through those, you know, multiple options there and get
• 16:52
  it done. Your athletes.
• 16:57
  I don't, I don't think I did. The team was the the the team
• 17:02
  was very small. Back then, the odds were low.
• 17:06
  Yes, the odds were certainly low.
• 17:08
  So no, not that, you know, not directly.
• 17:13
  And so I think that helped. And I really, I wasn't very
• 17:17
  comfortable talking about it with anyone really.
• 17:20
  And probably until this year. Like there's even some like
• 17:23
  alums and, and some of my athletes who graduated, you
• 17:26
  know, that you kind of have that, OK, they're 22 now and
• 17:29
  they graduated and you kind of let go of all the, you know, the
• 17:33
  secrets, you know, that you they can hear now that they're,
• 17:37
  they're graduates. And but this was one that it's
• 17:40
  been hard for me. And I, I pretty much finally, I
• 17:43
  guess probably in the last year as students have asked or, you
• 17:46
  know, people always ask me like, oh, so I see you got your degree
• 17:48
  at UD. Did you run at UD?
• 17:50
  Like, no, you know, I didn't know.
• 17:52
  Like tell me more. And so like I, I'm more open to
• 17:55
  kind of expressing it because, you know, I don't know, I just,
• 17:58
  it's, it's, it's, it's how it happened.
• 18:00
  And so I can't change that. And like I said, I'm just, I'm
• 18:03
  grateful And, you know, people can now judge.
• 18:07
  I guess maybe it's because people can now judge based on my
• 18:09
  performance as opposed to my credentials and when I was
• 18:12
  hired. And so I guess I feel more
• 18:14
  comfortable talking about. It Well, I certainly don't think
• 18:17
  you have anything to be ashamed of.
• 18:18
  Again, it's a great lesson really in the two words that you
• 18:23
  said, their passion and persistence.
• 18:25
  And you could easily still be a high school part time coach
• 18:30
  because you probably couldn't teach obviously without a degree
• 18:33
  or, you know, working in someone else's business or owning your
• 18:35
  own business and still contributed to society.
• 18:37
  And yet you stuck your neck out there and when and, and really
• 18:42
  humbled yourself at that age to come back and be taught and get
• 18:46
  a degree. Man, I think you you should be
• 18:48
  applauded for that, man. I know it's been taking a long
• 18:50
  time to maybe process that, but definitely something to be proud
• 18:54
  of. That's that's awesome, man,
• 18:55
  That's, that's really cool doing these podcasting interview and
• 19:00
  different coaches. You know, a lot of them I know,
• 19:03
  and some of them I know really well.
• 19:06
  But my favorite part is learning new things.
• 19:08
  Every everyone that I've interviewed so far, I've learned
• 19:10
  something new that I had no idea.
• 19:11
  That's that's that's my one for you so far.
• 19:15
  Well, good, good, good. So nine years at Dubuque all is
• 19:21
  the head coach. Yes, interesting.
• 19:24
  What's it been? So that was your first time as a
• 19:26
  head coach of a college, obviously because your first
• 19:29
  college job. What have you learned in the
• 19:33
  nine years? How, how, how, how are you doing
• 19:35
  things differently today than you did the first year as it
• 19:38
  relates to the the leader of your own program?
• 19:42
  Oh, that's, that's such a good question.
• 19:43
  And I'll tell you like that. I feel like there are more
• 19:49
  adjustments, evolution that needs to occur now than even has
• 19:53
  occurred over the nine years we've been doing this.
• 19:56
  But I had, I had virtually no, I had no college experience in
• 20:01
  recruiting, but my business was, you know, you know, basically
• 20:05
  sports performance and fitness sales.
• 20:06
  So I mean, there's a concept of recruiting there, you know, and,
• 20:09
  but. I had no idea what to expect.
• 20:12
  I had no idea really what I was doing.
• 20:15
  And the biggest, I guess look at it, one of the most challenging
• 20:22
  things for me in my career is I don't feel like I was ever part
• 20:24
  of like for a long term, like a long standing period.
• 20:27
  I was never part of a championship program.
• 20:29
  So you know, when in high school, you know, we we won a
• 20:33
  couple football games when I was coaching, you know, we won a
• 20:35
  championship once when I was at Whitewater, we went to the
• 20:39
  national title game, but I was only there as a student
• 20:41
  assistant. So like I never was ever part of
• 20:43
  something that I could see. This is how you create long term
• 20:47
  success. And so for literally nine
• 20:50
  straight years and even today and even tomorrow, it is trial
• 20:56
  and error. It is just constant trial and
• 20:57
  error. And the things that I tried a
• 21:00
  lot of in the beginning was to be like, to be very, very like,
• 21:09
  I guess strict, organized, very, very structured, much more to
• 21:13
  how I coached high schoolers. And over time, I have moved
• 21:19
  towards more of a, you know, allow the team to guide how we
• 21:24
  want this to go and like who we want to be and kind of give them
• 21:27
  more umbrella, overarching direction and leadership and
• 21:32
  allow like young adults to grow into adults and allow that
• 21:35
  growth to be kind of part of our vision and purpose as a program.
• 21:42
  And I can tell you that going through that, even hearing
• 21:45
  directly from them is like, I don't think that was like as far
• 21:50
  as I went with that. I, I think it's time to go back
• 21:53
  to more structure, more direction.
• 21:56
  And it's, it's really hard finding a balance because like
• 21:59
  I'm a firm believer in both. Like when you're talking about
• 22:02
  developing everything from a technical skill to like a
• 22:06
  communicate or like communication skill or
• 22:09
  leadership, like more of the soft skills.
• 22:10
  Anyone else use the term soft skill?
• 22:12
  But like, I think all those things are learned better
• 22:15
  organically, but the process in which it takes to have those
• 22:19
  learned organically takes longer than the time that I get with my
• 22:23
  athletes. And so, you know, this is, you
• 22:27
  know, those the changes are going to go more towards like
• 22:30
  being much more direct with much kind of stricter guidelines and
• 22:35
  expectations and letting them find their own a kind of freedom
• 22:41
  within that level of discipline rather than giving them freedom
• 22:45
  and hope we find discipline, I guess.
• 22:47
  And so that's really the biggest thing that I've learned from a
• 22:52
  kind of a, a global thought or more of a holistic thought with
• 22:55
  our, our team and our leadership.
• 22:56
  But some of the important, very important lessons and changes
• 23:01
  that we've made from year one to now, you know, the first thing
• 23:05
  that we did was we needed to get people involved.
• 23:07
  And so the team, like I said, the team was small.
• 23:09
  We only had two seniors. And so when we went to
• 23:12
  recruiting, like it did not matter if you could run or jump
• 23:16
  or throw or chew gum and even get on the bus at the same time.
• 23:20
  And we just, we needed a team like we needed to have people
• 23:24
  who were excited about being a part of who we were.
• 23:26
  And so in year three at UD, we had 105 on the roster to start
• 23:31
  season. And so now I will tell you like
• 23:36
  the biggest thing that happened with that is many of the folks
• 23:39
  that were initially excited about being a part of track and
• 23:42
  field when they weren't necessarily serious about being
• 23:45
  an athlete or we're really able to contribute on a championship
• 23:49
  level as an athlete. Even though so many folks at
• 23:53
  that coach have made such like different and bigger impacts on
• 23:56
  our program over the years. You realize that it's a lot
• 24:00
  harder for them to sustain a nine month season, basically a
• 24:03
  year round commitment and to invest four years of their life
• 24:08
  towards track and field goals or track and field purpose.
• 24:13
  And so retention was not great with a lot of the athletes who
• 24:17
  weren't serious athletes. And so over time we have changed
• 24:21
  our recruiting kind of threshold and our emphasis and focus on
• 24:28
  impact performers and when we recruit.
• 24:31
  And so kind of the, you know, I would say the middle of those
• 24:34
  nine years, we spent a lot of time and energy on really,
• 24:37
  really good athletes. And that as well was a big
• 24:42
  challenge because it was kind of at the like expense or without
• 24:48
  kind of too much depth and thought at the person and the
• 24:51
  teammate that they were. And so now the biggest things
• 24:55
  that I tell all of my recruits that come on campus, all the
• 24:58
  folks who want to try out for the team every year, and even
• 25:02
  those people who are kind of being challenged themselves with
• 25:05
  where they are in this process as an athlete on our team,
• 25:08
  that's the most important criteria for you that I'm going
• 25:12
  to evaluate you on. And being a part of our team is
• 25:14
  how good of a teammate are you? The second most important
• 25:18
  criteria is how much of A contribution can you make to the
• 25:22
  team? Like so like, so not going all
• 25:25
  the way back to like letting everyone on the bus, but going
• 25:27
  back to the fact that we need people who are great teammates,
• 25:31
  great ambassadors, just great people who are going to help
• 25:34
  grow what we're trying to do as a team.
• 25:36
  But we also, you know, we also at the end of the year are
• 25:40
  evaluated in the simplest form of the rules of our sport.
• 25:43
  And that's whoever scores the most points wins.
• 25:45
  And so you have to be a great teammate and you have to be able
• 25:49
  to contribute on the track. And so that's really kind of how
• 25:52
  things have evolved for me. And what I've learned over time
• 25:55
  is that we can't sacrifice the teammate for the points, and we
• 25:59
  can't sacrifice points just to have a big team.
• 26:02
  You know, we've got to be in a position to be a family and a
• 26:06
  family that competes and competes really, really hard on
• 26:09
  set. So what I heard over the nine
• 26:11
  years and as the program evolves, there should be
• 26:16
  changing, evolving motives and goals.
• 26:20
  I heard when you first got there you were in bodies on the team
• 26:25
  mode. I don't like you said yes, you
• 26:28
  can't even you said. Warm bodies was said to me a
• 26:31
  lot. Of times you made a funny, you
• 26:34
  know, most people say chew gum and walk at the same time.
• 26:37
  You you at least moved it one step further and said chew gum
• 26:40
  and get on the bus. So at least you're already
• 26:41
  thinking about, yeah? You had steps, you had steps to
• 26:44
  the equation and it's a bigger dynamic, you know, So there's.
• 26:47
  So you go from all right, we just need people and then it
• 26:51
  sounded like you transitioned to OK, well, you know we are track,
• 26:54
  we want to win. So then it sounded like it went
• 26:56
  to more stats focused recruiting, OK, this kid can run
• 26:59
  the 100m hurdles in this, this kid can long jump this,
• 27:03
  etcetera. And then you evolved and I think
• 27:05
  this is an important step as I've spoken with coaches around
• 27:09
  the country and even throughout my my own former coaching career
• 27:14
  is now there is an aspect of that iron sharpens iron.
• 27:19
  So if I have a bad piece of iron, doesn't matter how fast
• 27:22
  they are, it ruins the other four athletes because that's
• 27:25
  what we're talking about here. And then we overall are not as
• 27:28
  good as we could have been. That this kid was just a 10th of
• 27:32
  a second slower, but a better person, a better teammate.
• 27:38
  It's interesting. So how has that evolved?
• 27:41
  How has that, what results have you seen in regards to your
• 27:46
  placing in conference nationally?
• 27:49
  Has that half followed upwards as well?
• 27:55
  Well, our university hadn't won a conference championship since
• 28:01
  the 60s in track and field and in 2017 our men won the indoor
• 28:09
  conference championship and then 2018 we were able to repeat go
• 28:13
  back-to-back. So we won two indoor conference
• 28:15
  championships on the men's side. Our women have finished as high
• 28:19
  as third and they were a a perennial dead last program for
• 28:23
  a long time. And so, and you know, last year
• 28:27
  indoors, our men were were top ten in the nation at the
• 28:32
  national meet and our women were top 10.
• 28:34
  They. Were 9th so so but what I'll
• 28:38
  tell you is like the those two years that we won the men's
• 28:42
  title in conference we we were still more on the contributor on
• 28:51
  the track not good enough of a teammate situation.
• 28:56
  And that's really what challenged you know me in
• 29:01
  especially so in 2018 that second year when we repeated as
• 29:04
  conference champs indoors. We had some issues at the
• 29:07
  conference meeting in the hotel and it made me realize after we
• 29:11
  had won that conference championship, I didn't feel like
• 29:13
  we won anything. I felt, I felt I was frustrated,
• 29:17
  angry, upset, disappointed and just I felt completely let down
• 29:21
  by some young people who I trusted.
• 29:24
  And I realized that, you know, there is far more to this than
• 29:29
  winning the championship. And if I can't even be excited
• 29:33
  or happy and our coaching staff can't be excited, happy and our
• 29:35
  team has to now be like ashamed of things that happened through
• 29:39
  the process of and kind of casting a shadow over a
• 29:42
  championship. Like we have to do it right for
• 29:46
  it to be what it truly can be like.
• 29:49
  And so to actually feel this, you know, feel what could have
• 29:52
  been this excitement of winning a second, you know, and
• 29:54
  back-to-back conference championship and to have it not
• 29:56
  even feel good, to be completely honest with you, made me realize
• 30:00
  that we needed to start back from square one.
• 30:02
  We're going to build this the right way.
• 30:04
  And when we win, we will know that it's because we did
• 30:09
  everything. Take a step back.
• 30:12
  Yes, so. Winning, winning, winning
• 30:16
  back-to-back conference championships actually made me
• 30:19
  realize things that we were doing wrong, not things that we
• 30:21
  were doing right. And so, you know, it was, you
• 30:26
  know, just, we had, you know, we've, we've had some folks and
• 30:30
  that haven't yet realized that the type of person that we are
• 30:34
  does matter, not just, you know, how well we compete.
• 30:38
  And, you know, I know the amount of hours and time that coaches
• 30:42
  put in and the amount of time and energy that athletes put in.
• 30:45
  Like when you're surrounded with people who you want to be
• 30:49
  around, when you're surrounded with people who are gracious and
• 30:53
  appreciate what they have and people who truly believe in each
• 30:59
  other and fight for each other, it's a, it's such a better
• 31:03
  experience. And I think such a a greater and
• 31:05
  more like everlasting experience to fight through that regardless
• 31:10
  of the outcome. And so I was not willing to
• 31:14
  sacrifice that anymore, regardless of how many points we
• 31:19
  could score, you know, and so that's where we're at.
• 31:22
  And that that's kind of how we've, we've revamped our
• 31:24
  recruiting to address this issue.
• 31:26
  We've revamped our kind of how we handle our team and our team
• 31:30
  meetings and our team leadership.
• 31:34
  So there's a lot of things that we've adjusted to basically say
• 31:38
  at the end of the day, we really love doing what we doing what
• 31:41
  we're doing, you know what I mean?
• 31:42
  So like, and I think once we can all get everybody on that on
• 31:44
  board and we can start getting, you know, we, I think we'll get
• 31:48
  better people to buy into that. Then when championships come, we
• 31:53
  know that we like, we truly won this championship because we had
• 31:57
  a team collectively that bought into what we were trying to do
• 32:00
  and we earned it. We didn't just have some people
• 32:03
  who were there simply to do track, some people who are just
• 32:06
  simply there for themselves, you know, and some people who, you
• 32:11
  know, just didn't, you know, really care for the things that
• 32:14
  mattered. And it's going to make a
• 32:16
  championship mean so much more when we get there again.
• 32:19
  So they said that, you know, you're a collection of the five
• 32:22
  people that are closest to you when it comes to your coaching
• 32:26
  and your coaching philosophy. And and really for you going to
• 32:30
  your coaching growth, specifically over these nine
• 32:34
  years as the the leader of the program, there who are some
• 32:37
  mentors that you've that you've that you have not even that
• 32:40
  you've had that you had now that you know, you talk to you listen
• 32:44
  to you bounce off ideas. Who's who's been influential in
• 32:48
  in this growth for you? That's such a great question and
• 32:52
  I'm so glad you asked it because, you know, it's, it's
• 32:55
  those people that are also those five people that are also so
• 32:58
  close to us that are the ones that we really mentioned on
• 33:00
  these. Isn't it like they don't get,
• 33:02
  they don't get the credit because they always get the
• 33:04
  that, you know, the, the conversation, their nature?
• 33:07
  To be that way too, though, you know what I'm saying?
• 33:09
  They they don't, they're not looking for credit, but they,
• 33:10
  they absolutely deserve it. So the, the person that I would
• 33:15
  start with, so Jake Malm is our throws coach and he's our
• 33:18
  recruiting coordinator and he started at UD as a graduate
• 33:22
  assistant. So he, he threw jab at Minnesota
• 33:24
  and so graduated from there, came to UD to do his master's
• 33:28
  degree. And then we were lucky enough to
• 33:30
  offer him a full time job after he was done with his two years
• 33:33
  as a grad assistant. And so he, we literally went
• 33:36
  from scoring 0 points in the throws to last year we won
• 33:41
  outdoors, we won seven of the eight throwing.
• 33:44
  And he's had he's had two national champions, a male and a
• 33:49
  female, both in the shot put national runner up.
• 33:53
  And he's just done an incredible job.
• 33:56
  But he like he is someone who has like truly helped show.
• 34:02
  And I think, you know, like track, track is usually this
• 34:05
  like, unfortunately like this culmination of a bunch of
• 34:08
  individual coaches about their individual athletes or
• 34:10
  individual event groups that just happened to come together
• 34:13
  on Saturdays. And it's not, there's not like
• 34:16
  this like collective like pursue like a really good programs do
• 34:20
  this really, really well because they understand how everyone
• 34:23
  coming together can help win titles.
• 34:24
  And that's when you see these perennial powerhouses doing what
• 34:27
  they do. But like he really helps, like
• 34:33
  really helped kind of springboard me and my kind of
• 34:37
  confidence towards building a true team rather than being a
• 34:41
  head coach with a couple assistant coaches who just coach
• 34:44
  their own things and do their own things.
• 34:46
  And you know, and just his his like, just such like incredible
• 34:51
  level of commitment to the program and commitment to
• 34:56
  helping our team like be the best it could be as a team with
• 34:59
  what he's done through his like recruiting, what he's done
• 35:03
  through the throws group and how he's changed their impact and
• 35:06
  understanding, like giving examples.
• 35:07
  So it's like, you know, hey, coach, what what is our chance
• 35:10
  of winning a conference championship this year?
• 35:12
  You know, we talked about this a couple weeks ago at our indoor
• 35:14
  me. It's like, well, school X is
• 35:17
  going to score over 100 points just in the distance events.
• 35:19
  So we've got to make up that difference.
• 35:23
  And it's like, well, they have how many events?
• 35:25
  And we only had two. It's like, well, until we go
• 35:27
  1234 in both the shot and the weight throw, we haven't done
• 35:31
  enough. And like that's his stance.
• 35:33
  And so like he, like he has helped be like my rock and my
• 35:38
  right hand man and my biggest like supporter in making sure
• 35:43
  that we can push team in a sport that really is so broken when it
• 35:47
  comes to operating as a team. And so that's, you know, so he's
• 35:52
  and just, he's such a like he just, he's just a great kind of,
• 35:58
  I guess what's the term kind of just great person to bounce
• 36:00
  ideas off of. And he just, he's, he's helped,
• 36:05
  he's made me a better coach, He's made me a better head
• 36:07
  coach. He's made our program a better
• 36:09
  program and just having him in the office every day and also
• 36:12
  when he's out of practice, just knowing that you have someone
• 36:15
  there who is pushing to make get to gain every piece of growth,
• 36:21
  make every benefit they can and to move their athletes towards
• 36:26
  being better leaders through that process.
• 36:29
  It's just, it's really, really like uplifting.
• 36:32
  And so when it comes to our program and our team, you know,
• 36:35
  he's been there 7th through this is his 7th year.
• 36:38
  So he's been there most of the through most of this.
• 36:40
  And you know, when it comes to when you talk about like what
• 36:44
  Kobe Bryant says about finding excellence in applying that to
• 36:47
  your life, you know, and, you know, being a true champion like
• 36:52
  that, he's a man who knows that. And he, he, he just, and he
• 36:57
  breeds that and grows that within his group.
• 36:59
  And, and so he's he's really helped me to be a better.
• 37:03
  Coach, you know, I don't, I don't know him as well as I know
• 37:05
  you, but I've, you know, met Jake several times and and I
• 37:09
  know you know what kind of program he came from with the
• 37:12
  the Golden Gophers up there. But one of the words that you
• 37:15
  said to describe him is exactly how I would describe him from
• 37:19
  the outside. And that's the rock that you
• 37:22
  know. Yeah, not seeing him.
• 37:24
  Coach, I don't know his excitement level at coaching,
• 37:28
  but like he seems like the type of person who is not going to
• 37:31
  get too high, but at the same time and equally as important is
• 37:35
  not going to get too low. He's going to be there nice and
• 37:38
  steady in the bad times and the good times and seems like would
• 37:42
  be AI bet he was a awesome teammate at Minnesota.
• 37:47
  It has to have started earlier. Couldn't have just started when
• 37:50
  he became began coaching. He had to have something
• 37:52
  imprinted on him of just, you know, being there for other
• 37:55
  people and being steady. So I I could that that word when
• 38:00
  you said that rock was like, Oh yeah, that's, that's Jake mom
• 38:03
  from everything I can see. Absolutely.
• 38:05
  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's true. And he just, he's, he just, he
• 38:10
  stays, he stays solid, you know, through everything.
• 38:13
  And I'm like, I'm much more of an extrovert and emotionally
• 38:18
  driven, which, you know, which I, I, I certainly like.
• 38:23
  I think both of those things are needed.
• 38:25
  But you know, he's like I said, he just, he's helped, he's
• 38:29
  helped keep me grounded and he through all the challenges and
• 38:32
  the, the, everything that I've been through in these nine years
• 38:35
  of kind of growing as a young head coach, to have a friend in
• 38:39
  someone like that that you get a chance to see and work with
• 38:42
  every day. He's he's made my career better.
• 38:45
  He's made my life better. And so I can mention five people
• 38:50
  I've planned. I've got four more certainly to
• 38:52
  talk about. But if you want like, there's
• 38:54
  one at the top of the list. That's awesome.
• 38:57
  So who let's go to the other side of the pendulum because you
• 39:00
  know, you talked about Jake was a grad assistant there and his
• 39:04
  was lucky enough the school was lucky enough and he was lucky
• 39:07
  enough to come on as a full time coach.
• 39:10
  Who on the more mature side is there a coach that has been
• 39:19
  coaching for twenty, 30-40 years that you look up to, you bounce
• 39:24
  ideas off of? Yeah, absolutely.
• 39:28
  So our, our, our head men's soccer coach, Brad Johnson, he's
• 39:31
  someone who, you know, realistically it's probably been
• 39:35
  only in the last couple years, but kind of other, you know,
• 39:38
  typically like it's usually just water cooler type talk and
• 39:40
  discussion. But you know, we, you know, have
• 39:43
  beers together, hang out and have gotten to know each other
• 39:45
  really, really well over time. But just through like more in
• 39:50
  depth conversations as kind of the landscape of Division Three
• 39:53
  recruiting and Division Three athletics.
• 39:55
  And things have started to change.
• 39:56
  Our conversations over the last couple years have really shifted
• 39:59
  to more like proactive measures and, and evaluate evaluation of
• 40:04
  ourselves. And I've learned so much about
• 40:06
  Brad and what he's doing to create champions in his sport.
• 40:10
  And you know, even though it's, it's, it's a, it's a smaller
• 40:14
  group, it's men only. And it's, you know what you'd
• 40:17
  call it a team sports, you know, like the things that he applies
• 40:20
  and what he does with his program are universal in terms
• 40:25
  of kind of building consistency and building success in my
• 40:29
  opinion. And so, but both in both in like
• 40:32
  in coaching and in life, he's been someone, he's just two, two
• 40:35
  doors down the hall for me in our office building.
• 40:38
  And so he's been someone as well.
• 40:41
  And so yes, I don't even know if he's older than me, but he's he
• 40:44
  was, he's been coaching at the college level certainly longer
• 40:47
  than I have, you know, and he's had success and and won some
• 40:50
  championships and has built an incredible young man.
• 40:53
  And so he's certainly someone our head women's softball coach
• 40:58
  at UD as well. Jeff Lamb.
• 40:59
  He just came on staff a year and a half ago.
• 41:01
  And so he's only been at you, I guess.
• 41:03
  I don't even know if you can call this season a season, but
• 41:06
  he's been he's been there for two seasons and he was actually
• 41:09
  in town at Clark, but his approach as well.
• 41:12
  And he coaches women only, you know.
• 41:14
  And so being able to kind of take what I've learned and what
• 41:17
  I hear from them and just our daily conversations and bouncing
• 41:20
  ideas off each other has helped kind of shape and formulate what
• 41:25
  we're trying to build and what we want to build that we can
• 41:27
  help make a better impact in our program.
• 41:29
  And so outside of that, I would say like, there's there's, you
• 41:34
  know, I Dan pass, you know, that name.
• 41:39
  I mean, and nobody in track and field doesn't know that name.
• 41:41
  And I don't know if it's even cliche to mention him as a
• 41:43
  mentor, but Dan has been, Dan has been someone I've had the
• 41:49
  ability to kind of reach out to through Altus.
• 41:53
  That's right, Center. When they said yeah, you did a
• 41:54
  few of those. Right.
• 41:55
  And then, yeah. And but also Kyle Hierholzer,
• 41:59
  who has kind of brought Dan on and they do this coaches
• 42:03
  council, it's a monthly kind of call this kind of open up the
• 42:06
  doors to kind of talk more with Dan.
• 42:08
  And the big area that I think everybody reaches out to Dan
• 42:12
  about is usually like technical acumen, you know, it's sprints
• 42:15
  and jumps and stuff like that. Dan has been the person who has
• 42:20
  helped shape my opinion and stance on mindset and sport
• 42:25
  psychology. And I've used so much of what he
• 42:28
  has taught me and what we have discussed in educating my
• 42:32
  athletes on that. And like the kind of his stat
• 42:35
  air quote is like when you get to the Olympic final,
• 42:38
  everybody's fast at that moment, you know what I mean?
• 42:41
  So it's like you put you put not, you know, eight guys in a
• 42:45
  heat that are running 98 and 100.
• 42:47
  The separator in mental skills, you know that the big separator
• 42:51
  is mental skills. And so he's helped me kind of
• 42:54
  shape or shift my philosophy towards making sure that we're
• 42:57
  more holistic with what we do and providing education to our
• 43:01
  athletes about how to approach what they do with the right
• 43:04
  mindset, not just with the right skill or technique.
• 43:08
  And then another man would be James Thomas, the he's the jumps
• 43:13
  coach at Texas Tech. So he is my, I'm doing the high
• 43:18
  jump masters endorsement and he's been my mentor for that.
• 43:23
  But like, there's been so much more discussion around him and
• 43:27
  like how he believes in what they do as a program and what
• 43:31
  Texas Tech, Texas Tech is doing as a as, you know, an overall
• 43:36
  team. And so just and being a parent
• 43:40
  and everything else. And so I mean, those those are
• 43:42
  really kind of the the couple close ones on campus and then
• 43:47
  two of the ones abroad that I think it's kind of shaped how I
• 43:52
  like, you know, I guess they kind of more shape my
• 43:54
  accountability. Like those people, those five
• 43:56
  people. Like those are the people you
• 43:57
  think about like how like, how is Coach Johnson going to look
• 44:00
  at me making this decision with my team?
• 44:02
  You know what I mean? How is Coach Lamb, you know,
• 44:04
  what is Jake going to think when I send this e-mail out?
• 44:08
  You know what I mean? Like, what would Dan say if he
• 44:10
  saw how I coached in this moment?
• 44:12
  Or what would James James think if like I chose to do this
• 44:17
  instead of that right now with what's going on?
• 44:20
  And so, you know, I those guys, those guys in terms of like
• 44:23
  their, their level of ethics and morality and just overall grasp
• 44:31
  on the bigger picture is why I really truly appreciate those
• 44:35
  guys because there is more to this than just coaching.
• 44:38
  There is more to this than just track and field or our sport.
• 44:41
  And they all believe that and help me move forward when that's
• 44:44
  really sometimes a challenging task when you could just easily
• 44:48
  go to practice and take a long jump.
• 44:51
  But the truth is you got to teach life and life doesn't
• 44:54
  score you points always at the conference meet, but your
• 44:57
  bonuses and your future get, you know, they they get your life
• 45:01
  actually hinges on that. So they've helped me kind of
• 45:05
  stay focused on what. Really we so that's a good point
• 45:08
  You talked about. We can just go to practice and
• 45:10
  coach long jump and we a lot of times when we're having
• 45:12
  conversations as coaches, we're talking about our top long
• 45:18
  jumper, top 5K person. We're always some of the top
• 45:21
  athletes. And when you think about some of
• 45:23
  the top business people, people, you know, so life goes on after
• 45:28
  college athletics and you think about some of the top athletic
• 45:32
  directors, top business owners, things like that, that were
• 45:35
  involved in track. It's rare that they actually
• 45:37
  were the top athlete as well. It's most of the time they were
• 45:41
  just part of the team and we're just happy to be there.
• 45:44
  But obviously that coach or coaching staff imparted in them
• 45:49
  about contributing to the team and to life outside of just
• 45:54
  being the best long jumper and things like that.
• 45:56
  I'm thinking about like the guy that is the now CEO of Top golf
• 46:00
  who is a now a Masters vaulter and things like that.
• 46:03
  And he was not an he was not an athlete at all, but you know,
• 46:09
  top athlete and but obviously coaches such as yourself
• 46:12
  imparted on him about being a part of the team and
• 46:15
  contributing and being a member of society in a positive way.
• 46:19
  And you know, that guy is now, you know, he's running one of
• 46:21
  the top hottest companies there are with Topgolf.
• 46:24
  So just interesting. Yeah, I love that you mentioned
• 46:26
  James Thomas. Like I kind of feel like he is
• 46:29
  one of the most underrated coaches out there on the
• 46:33
  Division One level. I think a lot of those Texas
• 46:35
  Tech guys, they kind of get lost out in Lubbock and people don't
• 46:38
  think about him very much. And I'm so happy when they won
• 46:41
  the national title. But James specifically, I've
• 46:45
  always kind of admired him from afar.
• 46:47
  You know, he's quiet, does his job, does it really, really
• 46:50
  well. Had a conversation with his
• 46:52
  boss, Wes Kitley, I think it was last year at Texas Relays.
• 46:56
  And, you know, W just sung his praises.
• 46:58
  He's like, man, In fact, he said this about this entire coaching
• 47:01
  staff and it was kind of telling the future because they won the
• 47:06
  title that year. He was like, I fought and I
• 47:09
  continue to fight tirelessly to keep those guys and gals here in
• 47:13
  Lubbock. He goes, they're awesome.
• 47:14
  He goes, they go other places, they're going to win titles.
• 47:16
  If I keep them here, we're going to win titles.
• 47:18
  So that's interesting that you mentioned that mentioned James.
• 47:21
  I love that. That's awesome.
• 47:23
  So you talked about coaches and mentors being your rock and
• 47:29
  accountability, which is maybe a word that we don't talk about
• 47:33
  enough in coaching and society overall.
• 47:38
  I know your, your family life, your your family.
• 47:41
  I've met them a few times. Talk to me about what your wife
• 47:46
  and your kids do for you as it relates to coaching.
• 47:52
  Oh, that's what a great question.
• 47:55
  And so my wife has been in higher education for over 20
• 47:59
  years. And so she and she's been a
• 48:03
  director of admission. And so she, she's knows so much
• 48:08
  more than I do. And she is just so much more
• 48:12
  tuned in and, and a veteran at all the things that I am trying
• 48:16
  to find a way to work through and get better AT.
• 48:18
  And so when it comes professionally, my wife, like
• 48:23
  she's my, she's my go to. She's my proofreader, you know,
• 48:28
  Oh my gosh. Like, yeah.
• 48:30
  Like, and the, the craziest thing, like, like, so we might,
• 48:34
  we might get on a tangent here, but I suppose we're coaches and
• 48:36
  that's what our life is just a bunch of tangents thrown
• 48:38
  together. So she, she, she works, you
• 48:45
  know, higher education hours. And now some people might think
• 48:48
  professors, I don't know, but I'm talking like, I'm talking
• 48:50
  like your 50 plus hour work week.
• 48:52
  OK, she does all of that. She handles literally everything
• 48:56
  at home. She also comes to every single
• 48:59
  one of our home track meets and manages our coaches,
• 49:01
  hospitality, sells apparel, OK. She travels to every single
• 49:06
  track meet that she can that's within kind of a 2 hour radius.
• 49:10
  And we're AD 3 program and regional.
• 49:11
  So majority of those are meets are that way.
• 49:15
  And so weekends are spent still with track.
• 49:17
  And then when it's national meets or long distance meets,
• 49:21
  she even tries to find ways to do that as well.
• 49:24
  And that's not even like, and it's not even like me.
• 49:26
  I don't even say like, honey, I would love to have you at this
• 49:28
  meet, but I realize it's important for me to say, but
• 49:31
  like she's just there because. And she doesn't ever ask if I
• 49:36
  want her to be there. She's never asked.
• 49:37
  She just knows that. Like she knows that being there
• 49:41
  allows me to be better at what I do.
• 49:43
  And I've never had to say that to her.
• 49:45
  I've never had to ask that to her, although I have thanked her
• 49:48
  so many times because I realize in the moment, like when things
• 49:51
  get tough, like I talked about that conference meet a couple
• 49:54
  years ago and you know, with stuff that's going on right now
• 49:57
  with, you know, having to have these conversations with our
• 49:58
  seniors whose careers may be done.
• 50:00
  Like she's always the one who is there and I come home to or stay
• 50:07
  home with because I don't want to go in on that given day
• 50:10
  because of what's going on. And she's, she is the one who
• 50:16
  helps me through everything that I have to do and somehow finds a
• 50:20
  way to still get. Everything.
• 50:21
  Else done that's on her list. And so when you say Rockstar,
• 50:25
  you are right like this, like it is, you know, it's not
• 50:28
  superhuman because she does it, which means we can all do it,
• 50:32
  but she, she does it and she gets it done.
• 50:37
  And, and on top of that, she's also raising 3 great kids, you
• 50:42
  know, three incredible kids. And so being able to be in a job
• 50:47
  and do what we do for the hours that we do it and spending so
• 50:51
  much more time with other people's kids than our own.
• 50:55
  And usually dealing with and working through, you know,
• 50:59
  teaching moments with other people's kids more than our own.
• 51:03
  It is, it is, it is such a wonderful, wonderful situation
• 51:08
  to be able to know that like in my life, I have the best person
• 51:15
  on earth to be able to take care of me essentially and take care
• 51:20
  of anything and everything that matters most to me.
• 51:23
  And that she does it with me. And so, and then to be
• 51:27
  completely honest, like our kids are great too.
• 51:29
  Like my, my stepdaughter Taylor, she goes to UD, She's one of our
• 51:32
  team managers. So she chose to come, you know,
• 51:34
  be involved. She never detract.
• 51:36
  She's a softball player and but she helps out with recruiting
• 51:39
  events and home track meets and things like that.
• 51:42
  And then Evan, my stepson, who is a freshman at UD, you know,
• 51:47
  he's thought about possibly coming back to the sport.
• 51:49
  He was a good athlete. He was state qualifying athlete
• 51:52
  in high school and he stepped away from track this year.
• 51:54
  But you know, he's those two are just such great Big Brother Big
• 51:59
  Sisters to dash our five year old.
• 52:02
  And so it just when you have a family that cares about the
• 52:05
  things that matter and people at home that, you know, when you
• 52:09
  know, mom and dad are gone and the big kids got to watch the
• 52:12
  little kids. Or, you know, when, you know, we
• 52:16
  have to work through things like the challenging things that
• 52:18
  we're going to be dealing with here with kind of the state of
• 52:20
  our nation. Like it just they, they give me
• 52:24
  they give me a reason to come home and they give me a reason
• 52:27
  to be better at what I do when I leave home.
• 52:29
  And so I. Want to make sure we don't gloss
• 52:34
  pass something that you just said.
• 52:35
  I want to make sure everybody hears this and and knows about
• 52:38
  this. You got a 5 year old say his
• 52:41
  name again. Yeah, I suppose like the the
• 52:46
  real, the the real. Celebrity.
• 52:48
  Just like have a brief mention so dash.
• 52:52
  Now you're you're not a chef, so this isn't a dash of pepper.
• 52:55
  You're not a grammar major. No, A-A colon, a semi colon.
• 52:59
  This is dash like Sprint a dash, right?
• 53:03
  Yeah. How did first?
• 53:04
  Of all, how did she? Let you name your child Dash.
• 53:10
  Oh man, and that's funny, I'm glad you brought that up 'cause
• 53:13
  I thought, I thought, I don't, I didn't know if I ever had won
• 53:15
  anything. And now I'm reminded that
• 53:16
  there's at least one if you don't have one.
• 53:19
  So oh man, no, we so we had, we didn't.
• 53:23
  Know oh boy or a. Girl and we we had two male
• 53:27
  names, so it was going to be Dash or Max.
• 53:29
  And so she actually allowed Dash to like, make it to the final
• 53:32
  two was in the championship. Because of like like a bench
• 53:35
  press Max or was it just Max? Like like Max No.
• 53:38
  No, no, I just, I, I don't know. I like, you know, we both like
• 53:43
  kind of single syllable, like just simple names.
• 53:47
  And so Dash, yes, so Dash worked and Max worked.
• 53:54
  But Max is kind of like this like alpha gladiator name, you
• 53:58
  know what I mean? I think about Maximus and
• 53:59
  whatever else and and then Dash and so so he's more.
• 54:05
  We found it as people names. And.
• 54:07
  OK, we had none. That was, that was the
• 54:09
  challenging things like we had no girl's name.
• 54:10
  So we were really, really lucky that when he was born that it
• 54:14
  was a he because we, he might still not have a name.
• 54:18
  We might still be calling the baby three or something like
• 54:21
  that or like, you know, like by initials or whatever.
• 54:24
  But anyway, so, so we, they, the nurse, the nurse takes me into
• 54:29
  the other room to weigh him and she says, So what do I write
• 54:32
  down as his name? And I said, well, I, I, I can't
• 54:35
  make that decision right now. Like I, like she's in the other
• 54:38
  room. What are you thinking?
• 54:38
  Attribly is she? Trying to get me in trouble so
• 54:41
  but he was he was born he was born early and he was a kind of
• 54:47
  not emergency but scheduled C-section because he wasn't
• 54:51
  growing anymore in the womb and so he.
• 54:53
  Was almost. 12 ounces. And so Max just didn't fit.
• 54:57
  You know, Max is like a big German shepherd attack dog kind
• 55:01
  of thing, you know what I mean? So, yeah, so when I, you know,
• 55:04
  Melissa, I came back in the room and maybe she was because she
• 55:06
  was still, you know, I don't know, under medication, I don't
• 55:09
  know. But she I said so I said, so
• 55:10
  honey, what do you want to do? And she goes, it's Dash.
• 55:13
  And so. Yeah.
• 55:15
  So that's so Dash is born. But the reason, the reason Dash
• 55:18
  made the final cut is because track is the, the thing that
• 55:23
  brought us together. I met Melissa at the University
• 55:25
  of Dubuque. Like, and it's because of track
• 55:29
  that led me there. It's because of track that kept
• 55:31
  me there. It's because of track that I met
• 55:32
  her, and it's because of track that essentially we're together.
• 55:36
  And so he like his life as a track baby came to be because of
• 55:42
  track and field. And so we couldn't really name
• 55:44
  him anything other than a track name.
• 55:46
  And so. Yeah, so.
• 55:49
  That's awesome. I I didn't realize, you know,
• 55:52
  the culmination of all this is that UD really is a family
• 55:55
  affair. It is, it absolutely is.
• 55:59
  And he did file well 4 1/2. Years ago.
• 56:01
  Oh, that's right, he did. His first year of pre-K.
• 56:04
  So so Taylor, Evan are both at school at UD, Dash did 4 1/2
• 56:09
  years at UD and Melissa and I both work at UD and we both got
• 56:13
  both Melissa got her undergrad and her master's from UD2.
• 56:15
  So yeah, it's yeah, I don't. Know well and I.
• 56:19
  We're a We're a spark. Videos of Dash.
• 56:22
  I'll tell you what, for a kid who was born under £5, you
• 56:26
  wouldn't know it. That kid is, he lives up to his
• 56:28
  name. Dash he is.
• 56:29
  It seems like he's always dashing somewhere.
• 56:33
  Yes, he is. I thought you brought up a dash
• 56:36
  of a dash of this or a dash of that 'cause I think, you know,
• 56:38
  we love to cook too. But yeah, there is, there is
• 56:42
  nothing in small quantities for everything is in abundance with
• 56:46
  him, whether it's energy, activities, excitement.
• 56:50
  So yeah, he, he, he, he loves life.
• 56:54
  And I just, I as a father, I need to make sure I do
• 56:58
  everything I can with him. Not getting his enough time to
• 57:00
  spend at home with him to make sure that I continue to breathe
• 57:03
  that into him. And you know, the truth is he
• 57:06
  just, he breathes a lot of life into me.
• 57:08
  And so I'm, I'm glad he he keeps me young and I'm glad he's got
• 57:13
  kind of the a positive outlook because he's going to need that
• 57:16
  and that's going to serve him well as he grows up.
• 57:19
  So yeah. That's a good segue.
• 57:22
  So it is, you know, in the world of podcast, you record one day,
• 57:27
  but you don't know someone could be listening to this from a
• 57:29
  year, a year from now, 10 years from now.
• 57:32
  So in today's world, it is March 18th, 2020.
• 57:37
  And for anybody who's listening to this, within days of this
• 57:42
  recording knows that life changed last Thursday.
• 57:48
  Everybody, most people were at their NCAA national
• 57:53
  championships. You were down in North Carolina.
• 57:57
  I was over in in Albuquerque. And not only did the indoor
• 58:01
  championships get canceled, but essentially the rest of the
• 58:05
  season got canceled. So you are like most other
• 58:10
  coaches. I think 99% of the coaches are
• 58:13
  in the same boat. You have no season.
• 58:17
  The outdoor season is canceled officially and sometimes it's
• 58:20
  unofficially right now but it's a matter of hours.
• 58:23
  It seems to for everything will be officially canceled.
• 58:25
  There officially is no incident blade championships.
• 58:29
  Your kids are probably kids. Being that the student part of
• 58:33
  your kids are probably doing remote classes for the rest of
• 58:37
  the semester, which means, and I know incident of lay has a
• 58:40
  moratorium on recruiting in regards to on campus visits or
• 58:45
  you going to visit other kids. You can still call and text
• 58:48
  things like that. So the world is different in
• 58:53
  just one week. What are you doing right now as
• 58:57
  a coach that's different? Like how?
• 59:01
  How are you adjusting to this new this new reality?
• 59:06
  That's God, what a good question.
• 59:09
  So we, we as a staff are we've already, I mean, I, I invested
• 59:18
  in Zoom and we're doing our kind of staff meetings remotely.
• 59:23
  We're doing everything like the most important thing that we're
• 59:24
  going. To do is so you're at home right
• 59:26
  now all the. Coaches are at.
• 59:27
  Home, OK, is that mandated or is that because it's spring break
• 59:30
  or you're a track coach so. No, we, So I basically, I, our
• 59:36
  university said yesterday that, you know, kind of gave us the
• 59:38
  note that students are going to be asked to move off campus or
• 59:41
  move out of campus, go back home.
• 59:42
  We're going to do distance learning for the rest of the
• 59:44
  semester. And basically like for any, any
• 59:47
  employees who have the ability to work remotely can work
• 59:51
  remotely essentially with approval.
• 59:53
  And so maybe major of our job is remote anyway, whether we're at
• 59:56
  the track or on the recruiting, you know, on the recruiting
• 59:58
  trail or whatever else. But you know our coaches, our
• 1:00:02
  staff, you know we, we have. We have already been meeting
• 1:00:08
  remotely via Zoom and we have already put together a
• 1:00:11
  recruiting plan for how we're going to address the next two
• 1:00:15
  weeks because we don't have practices every day like we
• 1:00:17
  typically would. And the biggest thing that, you
• 1:00:22
  know, the first kind of point of business was how like we need to
• 1:00:26
  reach out and communicate with our current team first, our
• 1:00:29
  seniors. And then we need to reach out to
• 1:00:31
  all of our committed athletes who are also seniors.
• 1:00:35
  And I think, you know, a lot of discussion is about realizing
• 1:00:38
  that, you know, these seniors have had their senior year
• 1:00:42
  essentially stripped away from them and at the college level,
• 1:00:46
  but every single high school senior is having the exact same
• 1:00:50
  thing happened. And so basically that the
• 1:00:53
  biggest thing that we talked about is like we need to make
• 1:00:56
  sure that we are there for our athletes, there for each other,
• 1:01:00
  there for our recruits and kind of work through this initial
• 1:01:05
  kind of time of just kind of dealing with this kind of
• 1:01:11
  horrible news. Like this really heartbreaking,
• 1:01:14
  heart wrenching situation where everything you've worked for and
• 1:01:19
  all the goals that you've set and what you hope to achieve,
• 1:01:23
  you know, for miss, some will not be achieved period.
• 1:01:28
  Like that's the hard thing to deal with.
• 1:01:29
  But for many, like realizing that now all of a sudden you
• 1:01:32
  have to wait for something far beyond, you know, tomorrow or
• 1:01:36
  far beyond this spring season. And so that's the biggest thing
• 1:01:40
  that we talked about is like we're going to make sure we are
• 1:01:42
  there for them, we educate them and we help them through what's
• 1:01:46
  going on right now. But we have to realize that like
• 1:01:50
  our, our programs, like our, our creed, our mission and like our
• 1:01:55
  intentions don't change. You know, like our, our goal is
• 1:01:59
  still to earn a championship. Our goal is still to impact our
• 1:02:01
  community. Our goal is still to be better
• 1:02:03
  leaders. And so we're going to take the
• 1:02:05
  time and do it how we can. And so trying to find ways to
• 1:02:10
  deliver that stuff remotely and, you know, basically just finding
• 1:02:15
  ways to make sure that we can get back to that.
• 1:02:17
  The most important thing we can do is get back to some level of
• 1:02:20
  common, you know, normalcy. And so that's what's going to
• 1:02:25
  help people cope with this. That's going to help us get
• 1:02:26
  through this. And so we're trying to provide
• 1:02:29
  that for each other and we're trying to provide that for our
• 1:02:31
  team and, you know, going to work to try and provide that for
• 1:02:35
  our recruits as well. And so that's really what we've
• 1:02:39
  done initially. And so a lot of things we can't
• 1:02:42
  really think about our address because we don't have enough
• 1:02:45
  information, you know, if we don't know if we're going to be
• 1:02:48
  allowed to have campus visits on campus yet fully, you know what
• 1:02:52
  I mean? And the situation, the situation
• 1:02:53
  is only going to get worse. So it's like things are going to
• 1:02:55
  change too. Like this is such a like ever
• 1:02:58
  changing situation and will be for months.
• 1:03:00
  And so we're going to take things in stride.
• 1:03:03
  We're going to be as proactive as we can and we're going to
• 1:03:06
  keep the people that are most important at the heart of what
• 1:03:09
  we do. And that's our team and that's
• 1:03:11
  those who are going to be a part of our team in the future.
• 1:03:14
  And that's us as coaches as we help kind of take care of each
• 1:03:17
  other. Because realistically, like
• 1:03:18
  really coaches, the truth is to really think only thing that
• 1:03:20
  they want to do is go to practice.
• 1:03:22
  You know, it's so like the one thing like, you know, recruiting
• 1:03:26
  is great because it's the most important thing we do to build
• 1:03:28
  the future of our team. You know, like the
• 1:03:29
  administrative tasks are great because we can do things like
• 1:03:32
  spend money at Gil or, you know, book our buses to meets or
• 1:03:36
  whatever else, but all that stuff's gone.
• 1:03:38
  Like all like, like all we can do now or like the aspects of
• 1:03:44
  what we love to do is going to practice.
• 1:03:45
  Like that's gone. And so there's a lot of coaches,
• 1:03:48
  you know, who are out there and, you know, talking about how our
• 1:03:51
  athletes can cope with this and trying to find ways to build
• 1:03:54
  some healthy situations and even issues with mental health and
• 1:03:56
  what we can do to move forward. But this is going to be a big
• 1:03:59
  challenge on coaches too, because that one most enjoyable
• 1:04:03
  aspect of their day, practice is gone.
• 1:04:07
  And it's not just track coaches. It's every spring sport coach.
• 1:04:10
  It's every fall sport coach because all their spring seasons
• 1:04:13
  are gone. You know, it's like, and so we
• 1:04:16
  we have to find a way to work together to keep ourselves
• 1:04:20
  motivated and keep ourselves pushing towards delivering like
• 1:04:26
  delivering an experience without being able to connect in person.
• 1:04:31
  And it's going to be very, very hard.
• 1:04:34
  But you know, we're, I'm just, I'm grateful to have a good, a
• 1:04:37
  good, really good coaching staff and to have great athletes who
• 1:04:41
  will be forward thinking and we'll kind of dive into this,
• 1:04:45
  dig in where they need to and find ways to overcome.
• 1:04:49
  So that's, I hope that answered your question, but it's just,
• 1:04:52
  it's, it's I have no idea what to expect.
• 1:04:55
  So I'm just trying to kind of take it 1 by 1 and be as
• 1:04:59
  proactive as as we can with it. And.
• 1:05:02
  Yeah, I think you're doing a good job.
• 1:05:04
  There is no playbook here. So when you say, you know, hope
• 1:05:08
  I answered that, answered your question, I don't know that
• 1:05:09
  there is an answer. Yeah, these are questions that
• 1:05:13
  again, there is no playbooks. I don't know that there is an
• 1:05:15
  answer. But one of the hardest things to
• 1:05:17
  do is to look beyond what is right in front of you, right.
• 1:05:22
  So one of the things that you talked about is you mentioned
• 1:05:25
  that, you know, it's not just track coaches, it's our other
• 1:05:28
  spring sport coaches and even our fall coaches who while
• 1:05:32
  football season hasn't been cancelled, now there's no
• 1:05:34
  guarantees. Again, there is no no playbook
• 1:05:36
  here. We don't know what's going to be
• 1:05:39
  written. You also mentioned in one of the
• 1:05:41
  first things that hit me when the news came down last
• 1:05:43
  Thursday, my immediate thought was the college seniors that oh,
• 1:05:48
  man, they're you know, first of all, they are right here at the
• 1:05:50
  facility. They don't get a chance to try
• 1:05:53
  to accomplish the goals that they set.
• 1:05:56
  And now outdoor season. And so are they just done?
• 1:05:59
  You mentioned high school seniors as well.
• 1:06:01
  So not only are they faced with the prospect that they're not
• 1:06:04
  going to be allowed to compete at their conference and
• 1:06:07
  regionals and sectionals and maybe state to accomplish their
• 1:06:10
  goals, but you know, a lot of times that is also their way of
• 1:06:16
  earning scholarship or earning a position on a team.
• 1:06:18
  So you you lose that aspect too. You go another layer.
• 1:06:23
  I know that you guys have been doing community work with the
• 1:06:27
  Special Olympics. Talk to me about that and how
• 1:06:31
  that now that opportunity is not available for for those well
• 1:06:35
  deserving boys and girls. Oh, my Mike.
• 1:06:40
  Yeah. Now you just you open me to
• 1:06:42
  again, like you said, another layer.
• 1:06:44
  Oh, it's so we, yeah, we, we wanted to get our team more
• 1:06:50
  invested and involved in our community.
• 1:06:52
  And so we did a, a Special Olympics unified meet this
• 1:06:56
  spring. And I certainly want to talk
• 1:06:58
  about how great and incredible that was and not focus on the
• 1:07:00
  negative here, but part of that. And then they came back and did
• 1:07:04
  practices at our facility trials, you know, like they,
• 1:07:07
  they came and did time trials so that they could build towards
• 1:07:09
  their actual Special Olympics championships and, and their
• 1:07:12
  events in both community and state and even regional and
• 1:07:16
  national events that they were going to do as well.
• 1:07:18
  And so it's like, you know, yeah, it's there's, there's a
• 1:07:23
  lot of folks that are being affected by this in a lot of
• 1:07:26
  ways. And although like, again, I can,
• 1:07:30
  you know, it's, it is heartbreaking.
• 1:07:32
  It is heart wrenching. But the one thing that we have
• 1:07:35
  to start accepting and realizing is like, that's the way it is.
• 1:07:38
  And we've got to find a way to move forward.
• 1:07:40
  And I don't mean to be like unmotivating with that or
• 1:07:42
  negative with that, but you know, to kind of look back and,
• 1:07:46
  you know, think about something that I know all of our athletes
• 1:07:48
  like and they express such immense like excitement and
• 1:07:52
  gratitude towards this opportunity.
• 1:07:54
  So we we had we did a Special Olympics unified meet.
• 1:07:59
  And if speaking any other track coaches out there, anybody
• 1:08:01
  listen to this in the future, like what an absolute great way
• 1:08:06
  to connect our sport to make a difference in people's lives.
• 1:08:11
  So Special Olympics Unified meet means that a Special Olympian
• 1:08:17
  and an able bodied track athlete.
• 1:08:18
  Compete together. Oh, that's what unified.
• 1:08:19
  I was going to ask what unified means.
• 1:08:21
  OK. So yeah.
• 1:08:24
  And so yeah, so we did, we did broad jump, long jump, softball
• 1:08:28
  throw, turbo, jav. We did 2 by 200 meter relays
• 1:08:33
  because we were indoors. So we did full lap each and we
• 1:08:38
  I'm trying to think what else I'm missing shot.
• 1:08:41
  Did we do? No, we did.
• 1:08:42
  We might have done shot put. And just like it was such an
• 1:08:47
  incredible day. Like just to see like just to
• 1:08:52
  see how much like sport and competition like excites
• 1:08:57
  somebody's life and more importantly, why we do it at the
• 1:09:01
  end of the day, like the actual human connection we build with
• 1:09:04
  it. Like just seeing like the looks
• 1:09:06
  on my own athletes faces with it too, you know.
• 1:09:10
  And so so yeah, it's kind of, I guess it's kind of your segue.
• 1:09:13
  We're kind of a different note. But like we this is something
• 1:09:16
  that we got to do this year that I'm so glad that we got to do
• 1:09:19
  before, you know, everything ended but and something that we
• 1:09:23
  continue to do moving forward in the future.
• 1:09:24
  But it's something that just it really helps us realize like
• 1:09:28
  those are the things we do. Like, why come in on a Sunday
• 1:09:31
  when you know, and sometimes you know, you know, college kids are
• 1:09:34
  why am I up? Why am I awake?
• 1:09:35
  Why am I here? Why am I not sleeping?
• 1:09:37
  Why am I not playing video games?
• 1:09:39
  Why am I not, or even like, you know, the good students?
• 1:09:41
  Why am I not working on homework and studying right now?
• 1:09:44
  And then after we after we did this event, you know, they're,
• 1:09:47
  they're like, This is why, you know, like, so like it's tough
• 1:09:51
  when sport is that outlet to connect people and build
• 1:09:54
  relationships and give people like the motivation to not just
• 1:09:59
  make great decisions in sport, but to make great decisions
• 1:10:02
  beyond sport. And so it's really, really
• 1:10:04
  important that we find as many ways as we can right now to
• 1:10:06
  connect and do the things that we can to keep that momentum
• 1:10:12
  going. And so, yeah, so I, yeah, I know
• 1:10:16
  this is kind of somebody's listening to this kind of like
• 1:10:18
  an odd, odd shift in kind of the conversation.
• 1:10:20
  But like, it's, you know, we did that and that impacting our
• 1:10:24
  community mattered, You know, it matters to us and kind of the
• 1:10:28
  community, community is all kind of locked in their houses now.
• 1:10:30
  And so we've, we've still got to find a way to do that.
• 1:10:34
  And I, I sent an e-mail out to my team kind of, you know, how
• 1:10:37
  like every CEO is sending this COVID-19 update, you know, and
• 1:10:41
  so all those people are wondering how did I get on
• 1:10:43
  coach's e-mail list today? But it was that one time.
• 1:10:48
  That's right. One store and gave me your
• 1:10:50
  e-mail address you know so but like I sent them a note and I I
• 1:10:55
  I tied our creed and our mission to what's going on and I told
• 1:11:00
  them like what we set out to do has not changed.
• 1:11:03
  You know, the things that we've earned are still earned.
• 1:11:06
  And now our team, team first is the first part of our creed.
• 1:11:11
  And that's kind of our first rule.
• 1:11:13
  And I told them that, like our team has now expanded from just
• 1:11:16
  each other to our family, our friends in America.
• 1:11:20
  And we need to put our team first and we need to make sure
• 1:11:23
  that we do the right thing to put our team in the best
• 1:11:26
  position to be successful. And so it doesn't matter like
• 1:11:29
  these, like it's important we understand, like the lessons
• 1:11:31
  that we learn in sport that apply to life don't change
• 1:11:35
  because our season got canceled. You know, it doesn't change
• 1:11:38
  because we can't have, you know, March Madness bracket, you know,
• 1:11:43
  stuff right now. I think that none of that
• 1:11:45
  changes, you know, do we miss a few games?
• 1:11:48
  Yes. But can we allow ourselves to
• 1:11:51
  miss the message and miss what's important?
• 1:11:53
  No. And so just trying to connect
• 1:11:56
  that for them because it's it's so easy to get disconnected
• 1:11:59
  because of technology, which was our issue before and now get
• 1:12:03
  disconnected because of a global pandemic.
• 1:12:05
  And so we need to find a way to stay.
• 1:12:07
  First of all, I think it was really interesting what you just
• 1:12:09
  said about there. You said we can miss the things
• 1:12:13
  like March Madness and practice and competitions, but we can't
• 1:12:16
  allow ourselves to miss what's important that's in front of us,
• 1:12:20
  the team, the mission, the, the, the goals, etcetera.
• 1:12:24
  That's really, really important. You know, out of all the coaches
• 1:12:28
  that I've spoken with and Lord knows through a career as a
• 1:12:32
  track coach and now in my career at Guild Athletics, you know,
• 1:12:35
  I've spoken to literally thousands of coaches, the real
• 1:12:39
  good ones. And you're in this this camp
• 1:12:42
  here, Gunny, that that talk about you can only control what
• 1:12:48
  you can control. And so while the things in the
• 1:12:52
  past are the indoor champs being canceled, and honestly, even
• 1:12:55
  though the outdoor champs are May and June, those are
• 1:12:58
  canceled. So those are in the past.
• 1:12:59
  We can't control those things. So what do you have the ability
• 1:13:04
  to control your out, your team and your coaching staff and your
• 1:13:09
  programs outlook for 21? You can start to control that as
• 1:13:14
  you prepare. Well, you have the option as a
• 1:13:17
  head coach, right? You can either prepare for 21
• 1:13:19
  and make it better than what you thought 20 was going to be, or
• 1:13:22
  you can huddle in your office or home and lick your wounds and
• 1:13:27
  throw a pity party. And I'm not sure that that helps
• 1:13:31
  anybody or anything at all. So I like that you're doing
• 1:13:36
  conference calls with your coaching staff and as we
• 1:13:40
  navigate through this, this new normal until we can get back to
• 1:13:44
  the, to the, the, the real normal that we used to have.
• 1:13:50
  Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Earlier we talked about.
• 1:13:53
  Before we started recording, you're talking about, you know,
• 1:13:55
  using this time as a, a way to kind of take a step back and
• 1:14:00
  reflect on what's important to you.
• 1:14:02
  And that kind of goes with what we were just talking there.
• 1:14:05
  Maybe we'll make this our last segment.
• 1:14:06
  You, you, you're a rock star, man.
• 1:14:08
  You know, we're 70 minutes in and still going.
• 1:14:11
  You know, you're the kind of guy that I can learn so much from
• 1:14:13
  that we could keep going this for seven hours.
• 1:14:16
  But I, I know you do have some things you got to do today.
• 1:14:19
  But So what are the things that you're doing yourself and maybe
• 1:14:22
  counseling your team and coaching staff on taking a step
• 1:14:27
  back and working on something else?
• 1:14:30
  You obviously can't learn how to long jump better right now or
• 1:14:33
  you can't go practice how to long jump better.
• 1:14:34
  So what are some things that you're doing to maybe reassess
• 1:14:38
  what you and your life and your team and that includes your
• 1:14:41
  family are are working towards right now?
• 1:14:47
  Well, I haven't, I haven't gotten into full coach mode to
• 1:14:51
  kind of deliver those harsh messages or hard messages to the
• 1:14:54
  team. We've kind of focused on where
• 1:14:57
  we are now. And I've also tried to educate
• 1:15:00
  them a little bit on coronavirus because I don't think that many
• 1:15:05
  people are educated. So I, I'm, I'm just, I'm trying
• 1:15:08
  to have my young, especially when they're on kind of extended
• 1:15:10
  spring break. And with kind of the lack of, I
• 1:15:14
  think a realistic lack of responsibility for younger
• 1:15:16
  people, knowing that they're not affected by this.
• 1:15:19
  I've, I've really just tried to like educate them on where we're
• 1:15:23
  at and then help them understand that this is going to get a lot
• 1:15:26
  worse and that it's going to be a while until it gets better.
• 1:15:30
  Because I, I still think people are thinking that like the Iowa
• 1:15:35
  high school association with a four week, you know, suspension
• 1:15:39
  of track meets is somehow going to be the time frame of what
• 1:15:43
  this global pandemic does. You know what I mean?
• 1:15:45
  Helping them understand it like there's a, there's a lot more to
• 1:15:47
  come with this and that they need to, you know, they need to
• 1:15:50
  start, you know, accepting where we're at and start making, start
• 1:15:54
  helping make an impact how they can and trying to get back to a
• 1:15:58
  normal schedule and working towards that.
• 1:15:59
  So, but you know, that the evaluation piece like this, this
• 1:16:04
  like this shook me so hard. And it wasn't like, you know, it
• 1:16:11
  wasn't the, it wasn't the cancelling of the international
• 1:16:15
  meet that was as much of a challenge.
• 1:16:17
  It wasn't the fact that our outdoor season was cancelled.
• 1:16:21
  It was the fact that literally because I had, you know, I had
• 1:16:25
  23 seniors at home that Thursday night when we got the note that
• 1:16:29
  weren't in the national meet, you know?
• 1:16:32
  And they're finding out via Twitter that their college
• 1:16:37
  career either is over or could be over unless they decide to
• 1:16:42
  invest in another year of paying for school and another year of
• 1:16:47
  intense training and time and, and energy commitment to be in a
• 1:16:51
  track and field athlete. And it really like, it made me
• 1:16:56
  think about like, you know, we, we talk all these cliches and
• 1:16:59
  coaching about, you know, it's a game of inches or, you know,
• 1:17:02
  every centimeter counts or, you know, whatever.
• 1:17:05
  It's like, so obviously, like an athlete misses qualifying for
• 1:17:09
  the national meet, say by 100th of a second or by a centimeter.
• 1:17:14
  And, you know, we want to like reflect back on that and say,
• 1:17:19
  you know, hey, like, could you have eaten better or could you
• 1:17:23
  have foam rolled a few more times?
• 1:17:26
  Or could you have not drank or gone out partying?
• 1:17:29
  Like there's all these things that we can reflect on.
• 1:17:31
  But the truth is now we're not talking about a centimeter.
• 1:17:34
  We're not talking about an inch. We're not talking about 100th of
• 1:17:36
  a second. We're literally talking about a
• 1:17:38
  career. We're talking about the
• 1:17:39
  culminating final experience in every senior who doesn't get to
• 1:17:42
  have their senior day. We're talking about seniors who
• 1:17:46
  like never get to realize those four years.
• 1:17:48
  Like say you know, you know, some freshmen are national
• 1:17:50
  champions, some sophomores or national qualifiers, some folks
• 1:17:53
  are conference champs. However many times you know, but
• 1:17:56
  there are athletes who have invested 4 years just to find
• 1:17:59
  that growth and enough growth in that centimeter by centimeter
• 1:18:02
  experience just to get to a point where they can feel that
• 1:18:05
  it was all worth it. And so trying like trying to
• 1:18:09
  like put myself in their shoes and like realize that all that
• 1:18:15
  they have worked towards and them they have probably put all
• 1:18:18
  of their eggs, every ounce of energy into this last final
• 1:18:21
  basket, you know, and the baskets now gone, it's been
• 1:18:25
  stolen. Like it's not there.
• 1:18:27
  And so trying to like just trying to help them through that
• 1:18:35
  and help them understand that. And then realistically, like the
• 1:18:38
  harsh message and evaluating looking back like for me as a
• 1:18:40
  coach, like what didn't I do, you know, like if, if for any
• 1:18:45
  point in time, I mean never even see him again, you know what I
• 1:18:48
  mean? Like, you know, they, they could
• 1:18:48
  be back to home in California or back to home wherever else.
• 1:18:51
  And it's like, well, hey, coach, we're not going to have
• 1:18:53
  graduation now. We're not going to have classes
• 1:18:55
  in person. And I'm not going to come back
• 1:18:56
  and pay another, however many $1000 to do my senior year
• 1:18:59
  track, you know what I mean? Like the like, like, so the
• 1:19:03
  relationship is just like the relationship in which we knew is
• 1:19:06
  fractured. And so have I done enough for
• 1:19:10
  them in these last, you know, years to give them an experience
• 1:19:16
  that can go beyond the track? And so moving forward, I think
• 1:19:21
  that's why we know I talked a little bit about this earlier
• 1:19:23
  about how my kind of coaching philosophy is shifting back
• 1:19:28
  towards a little bit more structure and discipline.
• 1:19:31
  You know, and it's true. Like, I am not going to allow
• 1:19:35
  folks to take excessive time to figure things out.
• 1:19:39
  We're going to figure things out quicker.
• 1:19:40
  We're going to get to where we need to quicker.
• 1:19:43
  And we're going to like deepen the message and deepen the
• 1:19:48
  experience to be something that matters beyond their time at
• 1:19:52
  school. Because like nothing is
• 1:19:54
  guaranteed. You know, some athletes we know,
• 1:19:56
  like some athletes, you know, like are done after their
• 1:19:59
  freshman year because they don't want to do school.
• 1:20:01
  Some athletes are done because of an injury.
• 1:20:05
  And some athletes, now, we find out, are done because of a
• 1:20:07
  global. Virus crisis.
• 1:20:11
  And so I am not willing or interested to like feel ever
• 1:20:17
  again that I didn't do enough. And so that's, that's what, you
• 1:20:24
  know, I'm going to have a lot of weeks, a lot of months, you
• 1:20:28
  know, moving forward to do this. And I I frankly, I feel bad.
• 1:20:31
  For my team. Next year, because it's common,
• 1:20:34
  but but I am going to I am going to like I'm going to hug them
• 1:20:40
  harder, I'm going to coach them harder, I'm going to love them
• 1:20:43
  harder and I'm going to expect them to do the same.
• 1:20:50
  And it's because if what we do truly matters, and if we're
• 1:20:55
  truly going to miss this and be heartbroken when it's gone, we
• 1:20:59
  got to re evaluate and find out what we can do, what more we can
• 1:21:02
  do when we're in it. That if it is gone, like we can
• 1:21:08
  have everything that we did together, everything that we
• 1:21:10
  learned help make an impact beyond that time, you know, and
• 1:21:15
  that's I owe that to my seniors. I tell you owe that to that.
• 1:21:18
  That hits me hard when you talk about hug them harder, love them
• 1:21:22
  harder, coach them harder. I mean, that is a story of no
• 1:21:26
  regrets. You know, when, when you're in
• 1:21:28
  it, be in it. So that if and when it's taken
• 1:21:32
  from you, because it's all taken from us at some point, whether
• 1:21:34
  it's eligibility, exhausting retirement, global pandemic,
• 1:21:38
  something, you know, it's always going to be taken from you.
• 1:21:41
  So are you in the moment giving it 100% so that when you are
• 1:21:45
  done, you can have zero regrets that you, you put it all in
• 1:21:50
  there, man, I couldn't set it any better myself.
• 1:21:52
  That's awesome. That seems like a, a great place
• 1:21:54
  to, to stop right there. I'm not sure there's much more
• 1:21:57
  to add right there, my man. Chad, man, hey, really
• 1:22:01
  appreciate your time. I know you, while you may have
• 1:22:05
  more time for me right now than in the in the past, I wish you
• 1:22:10
  didn't. But I know it is an uncertain
• 1:22:12
  time. And I'm a huge believer in
• 1:22:15
  leadership and leaders. And I think when the chips are
• 1:22:18
  down, there's no more important time for the need for leaders.
• 1:22:23
  And so having you as a leader of the UD program and of your
• 1:22:27
  family and of the, the community there, they're lucky to have
• 1:22:31
  you. And I think that as we continue
• 1:22:34
  to all learn on the fly, as we go through this will come out
• 1:22:37
  stronger if we just continue to, to look forward to what the
• 1:22:40
  future can be. And I think yet a lot of great
• 1:22:42
  words and encouragement there for others to hear.
• 1:22:45
  So I think you can have a, a positive impact with this this
• 1:22:48
  podcast as well, man. So again, just can't say thank
• 1:22:51
  you enough for your time and and energy today.
• 1:22:55
  Mike, thank you so much. And I just, I want to, I want to
• 1:22:58
  thank you specifically, but I also want to thank you because
• 1:23:00
  you guys are just an organization that cares about
• 1:23:04
  coaches. And you know, you have taken
• 1:23:08
  obviously your time as a coach and truly applied it to being an
• 1:23:13
  incredible professional and colleague and friend.
• 1:23:16
  And to me specifically. And I just, I'm grateful for you
• 1:23:19
  and I'm grateful for what you guys do.
• 1:23:20
  And I'm praying for all of us that we can move through this
• 1:23:25
  and go back to making an impact. Through that means the world.
• 1:23:28
  I appreciate that so much, man. All right, Well, go do what you
• 1:23:30
  do best. Go go lead your family and your
• 1:23:32
  program and your kids, man. Take care of my brother.
• 1:23:38
  Well, hey there. If you've admitted this far,
• 1:23:40
  really appreciate you joining us.
• 1:23:42
  I hope you enjoyed your time with Chad as much as I did.
• 1:23:46
  Again, what a trying time we all have as it relates to, you know,
• 1:23:52
  the entire season's being ripped out from us and then uncertainty
• 1:23:55
  of what the future is. I think the real take away there
• 1:23:58
  from Chad is that you know what? You can't control what has
• 1:24:03
  happened in the past. You can only control what's in
• 1:24:05
  front of you and in the future. So you know, our word here at
• 1:24:09
  Gil Athletics is leadership to the future.
• 1:24:12
  What does 2021 look like? How can you make 2021 better
• 1:24:18
  than what you thought 20/20 was even going to be?
• 1:24:20
  So again, really hope you enjoyed our time with Chad as
• 1:24:23
  much as I did. Make sure to subscribe to the
• 1:24:25
  Gila FedEx Connection Podcast for future episodes.
• 1:24:29
  That way you are automatically notified when we publish a new
• 1:24:33
  one. And if you or someone you know
• 1:24:35
  would like to be a guest on the show, contact me at HUR DLE at
• 1:24:40
  gilathletics.com. That's right.
• 1:24:42
  It's hurdle at gilathletics.com. In the meantime, really hope you
• 1:24:46
  feel led to share this podcast on your social media network of
• 1:24:49
  choice. We're not really doing any
• 1:24:51
  advertising this. We want this to kind of be a
• 1:24:53
  viral word of mouth thing. So would mean the world to me
• 1:24:56
  and to Gil Athletics personally. If you would share this on
• 1:24:59
  Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, what else do you listen to,
• 1:25:05
  Instagram, you name it, we'd really appreciate that and join
• 1:25:09
  us next time when we once again connect you with another great
• 1:25:12
  track and field coach. Thanks for listening.