Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #303: Keinan Briggs-Leap Squad Track Club

Transcript

#303: Keinan Briggs-Leap Squad Track Club · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  You're listening to the Guild Athletics Connections podcast
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  with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world UNL tuned
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  in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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  extraordinary message for Guild Athletics connections.
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  Here we are back on the Guild Connections podcast again.
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  Just so humbled you would press play today.
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  I'm your host, Mike Cunningham, and I'm excited.
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  You know, we were kind of talking before we hit record
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  here. We have, you know, we're at 300
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  plus, which never could have seen that when we published
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  episode #1 back in January of 2020.
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  Never could have seen that we'd hit 300.
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  I don't know why, but I just couldn't vision that.
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  So super excited for that and inside of those 300 because you
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  know, if you're a regular listener, you know, kind of my
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  background coaching and then obviously here at Gill for a
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  long time now, you know, I know some guests really, really well,
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  like they're, you know, as close as you can be into family for
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  some of them to me. And I've done a lot of work with
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  them and maybe coached with them and things like that.
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  And then there's people that I get on the show that I didn't
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  even know they existed. And I love that.
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  That sounds terrible when I just said that out loud, but I hope
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  he understands here. Just people I've never met
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  before. And I'm just super excited
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  because there's a lot of coaches out there, and I know for a
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  fact, whether I know you or don't know you, the positive
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  impact you make on young people is immeasurable.
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  And that's why we started the podcast.
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  So I'm super excited to hop into it right here.
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  Help me welcome from the Leap Squad Academy out in beautiful
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  California, the wise, the wonderful Mr. Keenan Briggs.
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  Keenan, how are you, Sir? And I'm doing great.
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  Thanks Mike for having me. Absolutely.
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  I'm sorry. I didn't know you even existed
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  until today. I'm so sorry for that.
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  I I've taken as feedback it means I get to a better job at
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  marketing. Well, love that and you know, I
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  bless and, and and encourage all coaches to be well or well
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  known, whether it's in your circle of, you know, middle of
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  Kentucky or, you know, you're a large NCAA Division one or
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  professional coach. I absolutely, because you know
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  what I I'm so irritated with this Keenan is when I watch like
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  Milrose games or USATF indoors or even the Olympics and things
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  like that and great athletes love watching the Noah's and
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  Shakaris and and everything. It's awesome, right?
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  So much fun. And I never know who the coach
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  is and that just now those two, I specifically do know their
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  coaches real well, but it just irritates me.
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  It's like man, behind that great performance is some guy or gal
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  coaching. When when The Who who just won
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  the the Eagles, when the Eagles win the Super Bowl, when the
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  Chiefs go to the Super Bowl, I know who their coach is.
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  When the whoever I don't pay attention to baseball whenever
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  whoever goes to the World Series, we know who their coach,
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  slash manager, whatever they call it, right?
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  But for the Olympics and for USA, you know, our best in
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  American best in the world, we got no clue.
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  And I, I hate that. I really, really do.
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  So I want more. I want more athletes to shout
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  out your coaches. And I want those broadcast to
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  also say, hey, so and so just won the shot put, coached by so
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  and so that that seems to me. All right, I'm off my soapbox.
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  Let's get back to what we're really doing here.
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  I didn't warn you before we hit record that I'm kind of a
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  tangent interviewer. So we may go.
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  You never know what we're going to talk about here today.
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  And I, I have my soapbox ready at all times to, to get on and,
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  and go off on things that irritate me.
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  But let's focus on what we're focusing on here today, man.
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  Again, so excited. Thanks again for joining us
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  here, man. This is, this is going to be a
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  lot of fun. I hope for you, even if it's
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  not, it's going to be a lot of fun for me.
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  And so we'll, we'll see what happens, man.
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  Keenan, are you a, a marvel guy like the MCU?
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  Do you watch those movies or anything like that?
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  Did you ever collect comic books back in the day?
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  No, I didn't. Like I was one of those people
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  that probably watch 1000 movies in my whole lifetime.
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  I just was always outside. So the opposite, you know, he's
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  like, you ever seen this movie? I'm like.
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  Well, I grew up collecting comic books and watching the MCU and
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  all those kind of things. And my favorite episode, my
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  favorite comic books are the origin stories like how did
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  Spider, how did Peter Parker become Spider Man?
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  How did Bruce Wayne become Batman?
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  So let's find your origin story, assuming that you were a track
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  athlete. We've had plenty of great
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  coaches who did not. But maybe, assuming you were,
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  where does track and field start for you?
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  Track and field started for me honestly it started when I was
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  like 9 years old. I went to a Long Beach Wilson
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  track meet. My aunt took me to the meet and
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  I don't know, I just was just there and I saw a young girl run
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  AI think it was a 2 mile and she was not doing well.
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  She was lapped and she was crying.
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  And then I told myself, I'm never running track.
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  I'm never doing that. And Fast forward to 8th grade,
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  we had some regular track meet at the school and I remember
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  doing long jump the first time, 8th grade, no coaching, just
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  went out there and did it. And then in high school, my
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  football coach, you know, was also the track coach.
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  He said, hey, you know, what are you doing in spring?
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  I was like, I don't know, baseball or something.
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  He's like come out to track and that's where track and Pill
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  started. Wait, so first of all, I love
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  that origin story of seeing that kid.
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  First of all, that kid was probably me back in the day.
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  I was the guy getting laughed and crying.
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  And what am I doing here? What when when you you did a
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  little bit in 8th grade, obviously.
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  But then when high schools where things kind of get real in my
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  opinion and my experience of, of talking to people.
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  So freshman year, Coach asked you, hey, what are you doing?
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  Why don't you try? What stopped you from going?
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  Yeah, Coach, I don't see it. I'm just, I don't feel like it's
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  me. I'm going to go do the baseball
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  or whatever. What What actually?
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  Like, how did you get over that initial traumatic event?
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  Really seeing that kid, that poor kid.
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  I think it was the track in 8th grade because I thought track
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  was a mile and running long distances.
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  Oh sure. But I was I learned that oh,
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  this is long jump and I was like I didn't even break a sweat.
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  I was like, OK, so then when he said come to be track, I was
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  like, OK, there's options I have within it so.
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  So track to you was the torturous, you know, 8 laps and
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  no matter what you. Yeah, OK, That that makes a lot
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  of sense. The the three ring circus that
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  is track. There are other things for you
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  out there. Very cool.
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  Did you you mentioned that traumatic event.
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  I love that. I wonder how many kids that kid
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  dissuade from doing track in the future.
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  I'm glad you're glad you got over it.
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  That's good. You said that was an LB Wilson.
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  Did you did you go to high school at LB Wilson or Polly?
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  I mean this. I just know there's a great
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  track history for. Those two schools, so my parents
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  went to Polly, they graduate from Polly, right?
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  And all my family went to Polly. I ended up moving out to Orange
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  County, so I went to Valencia High School in.
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  Yeah, OK, perfect, perfect. So what was it like again?
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  Your 8th grade? You know, I was just having a
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  conversation with some of my teammates about youth track and
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  field. And I kind of consider middle
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  school and my kids doing middle school track and field.
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  And you know, I just, God bless all the coaches who coach on
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  that level. I just, I, I just can't, I
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  can't, you have to have a special level of patience to do
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  that kind of 8th grade and age and, and younger.
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  So when you get to high school and you know, you did a little
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  bit of long jumping. So OK, I'm going to do long
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  jumping. So tell me how did, how did high
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  school track and long jumping? How did all that go?
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  Well, first it wasn't even long jump.
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  It was actually when I came up with track, coach said, hey, you
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  know, you were receiver quarterback for football, hop in
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  the blocks, let's get you on the 100.
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  I ran it and it was just he and I, I, I just, I think it was a
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  quick little trial for me to figure out what I can do.
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  And then I ran and he was looking at me like, you're slow.
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  You know, I was like, I don't know.
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  To the two mile with you. Yeah, you know, And then he was
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  like, I want to try hurdles. And I was like, OK, what's that?
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  And then he showed me what the hurdles were.
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  He's like, I want you to take three steps in between the
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  hurdles and run them. And I my first ever time trying
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  the hurdles, I ran a three-step. My three-step then.
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  At 39 and at distance I was. Probably at 30, but at distance.
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  Sure. Wow.
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  I have a much different experience the first time I did
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  hurdles. Wow.
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  OK, that's awesome. Your reaction was his reaction.
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  Yeah. I didn't know what to say from
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  and I was like, did I do it wrong?
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  He was like, you're on varsity? And I was like, OK, so freshman
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  year I ran, I ran varsity and I was always a hurdler.
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  So that was my my thing. And long jump and triple jump
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  came just kind of A tag along because I was running the 100
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  hurdles, 300 hurdles and then long and triple.
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  Right. First of all, I knew there was
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  something cool about you, Keenan.
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  So hurdles are my absolute favorite, my my very first ever
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  e-mail address, washurdlelove@hotmail.com.
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  Yeah, I'm a hurdle guy. Anybody who knows me knows that
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  that is my absolute affinity is hurdles.
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  It is the best event out there and there are other amazing
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  events, but hurdlers are just they're just a step above cool
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  man. I love that.
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  I love that. So how tell me what kind of high
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  school athlete you were and what I mean by that?
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  I I really don't care what your PRS and stuff work because that
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  does you know, that doesn't tell me who you are right.
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  But I'm wondering like we we like to as adults, we like to,
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  you know, do the old man shake our hands of the sky?
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  And, you know, these kids, they don't know who Grant Holloway is
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  and they don't know Messiah Russell and things like that.
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  I'm always curious about guys like, you know, when I get them
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  here on the show. What about you?
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  Did you know who the hurdlers were?
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  And I don't know what maybe maybe tell us what year you
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  graduate. That'll give us a kind of a time
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  span of what year. But did you know the Alan
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  Johnson's? And I can't even think of the
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  other names right now, but. Yeah, Alan Johnson was one, but
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  I didn't know I hadn't watched track and field.
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  Yeah, I I had seen the Olympics, you know, so then it would have
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  been the 96th Olympics. So I graduated O 1.
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  So I was familiar with Michael Johnson.
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  Of course, that's what I can think of at the moment right
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  now, but that's who stood out the most.
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  But I was like, I'm not doing the 400.
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  That's a lap. That's we don't do that in
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  basketball, so don't. Nope.
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  So, but yeah, so I think, you know, during that time, that's
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  what I was really coming into identifying myself with being a
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  top tier athlete though, you know, I always played humbly.
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  I guess you can say I was always the best athlete on the teams,
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  but I didn't want to outshine my team.
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  I was always just the best athlete.
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  But I brought my things with me, which was a great skill that I
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  had that naturally that I had. But when I got to high school, I
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  did football 1st and then I did basketball second.
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  So football, I missed all the preseason training.
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  The first day of school I showed up and I tried out and I played
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  the game that Thursday. So I did, you know, I just, I
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  didn't do it thinking like I'm the best.
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  I just went there. I was like, I didn't know about
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  summer football. And I showed up and they're
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  like, OK, you're on the team, you're starting.
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  So I just played. It was just a game to me, you
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  know, So that was kind of my mentality.
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  Basketball, I was a freshman, played basketball freshman that
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  year. So I just was a normal, you
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  know, I'm a kid, you know, But that's when I realized, OK, I
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  can jump a little high, touching the backboard at that time,
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  things like that. And then when track came,
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  because I was on varsity, I had no expectations.
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  I was just like, I'm just going to run and that'd be it.
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  So that freshman year was more of just I was doing whatever the
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  coach told me to do. I was probably the best type of
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  coachable athlete. Yeah, exactly.
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  That's what. So we all kind of as coaches, we
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  like, well, how can we just bottle that and keep that
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  throughout the years? Yeah.
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  So obviously a lot of natural athleticism and you know, that's
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  what we do here is we, you know, this is one of the reasons why
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  we wanted to have a podcast like this to uplift an honor coach
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  because it's like, OK, you can have a lot of natural talent,
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  but if you don't have coaching that it's only going to get you
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  so far and not very far typically.
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  So where does that natural athleticism?
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  Like does your family have a history of athleticism?
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  Like, I don't necessarily know if mom or dad was NBA or
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  anything like that, but like, is there a, did other family
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  members play sports? Like was this a part of like
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  maybe kind of a, call it family identity, if you will, but you
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  know that this was something we did as a as the family?
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  Yeah, when I looked up the history of like the Briggs last
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  name, we've been historically athletes.
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  So like my biological dad was baseball player, I think someone
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  on the line, Tony Gwynn, is my cousin.
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  I don't know. I can't prove it.
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  I just that's what I was told. But I would tell, I would tell
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  people that that's a good thing, yeah.
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  Yeah, baseball runs in the family, so it just makes sense,
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  I guess. You know, Shannon Briggs is a
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  boxer, really very known famous boxer somewhere down the line as
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  well. So, yeah, there's athletes
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  there, you know, and then just looking at our my brothers,
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  we're very just gifted when it comes to athletic ability.
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  And it's just a blessing. You know, it's just, I was just,
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  you know, giving up the ability to compete at at a high level.
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  And then, yeah, so I mean, that was kind of the base that was
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  there. So did you transition, You
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  mentioned, you know, kind of long jump and high jump, long
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  jump and triple jumping kind of came in later.
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  Did you stay in high school? Did you transition from a
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  hurdler to more of a jumper or did both those kind of paths
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  stay like senior year? Are you doing high level hurdles
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  plus jumping at the same time or how did that play out?
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  Well, I I did trip on and and long jump the whole time, like
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  all through high school. When I got to junior college,
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  same thing. I actually added in more events.
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  I was doing the four by one 4x4 long trip on high hurdles and
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  javelin each track me. I was really doing everything.
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  I didn't do the decathlon because they said pole ball and
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  I was like, no thanks. That's that's not me because I'm
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  not that fearless. You know, there are other people
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  that can do that and I can't. But but I kept that going all
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  the way through, even through Cal State.
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  Lai went to Cal State for my university and I still was a
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  hurdler jumper. There was just hurdles and
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  triple jump only because we had elite jumpers at that level.
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  So stay, stay at high school for me, talk to me.
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  You know, one of the names that we considered for the podcast
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  was the Gil shout out podcast. We love shout outs of coaches,
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  right? So talk to us about your
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  relationship with your your coach or coaches specifically
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  track. But obviously there may be some
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  that, you know, mentored through football and and basketball as
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  well. Yeah, Coach Van Damme was the
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  track coach. That is first name, but Van
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  Damme was the last name. Coach.
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  Every coach's first name is Coach, Yeah.
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  And then coach Dean Winter. So Dean Winter had the most
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  impact on my life, hands down. Hands down.
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  How so? So I was again known as the
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  athlete, right? And I was on campus known as
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  that guy. But Dean Winter was my English
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  teacher and my junior year, he just would look at me a certain
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  way, like just proud, you know, And I was like, I never had
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  teachers look at me in that way to where I felt the need to sit
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  in front of the class because I was the cool guy, you know, sit
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  in the back. So we got to sit.
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  So I sat in the front. Notice my grades changing
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  because I'm paying attention now because I have to, you know.
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  And one of the days he said, Hey, I enrolled you into a
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  leadership retreat. And I was like, but I'm not a
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  leadership because that was a class, you know, that's like an
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  actual community group. He's like, no, you're a leader,
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  you know, and told me what he saw in me.
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  And I went to the free tree. And that's the time stamp of my
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  life where I was able to connect with people that normally I
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  wouldn't have connected with because as an athlete, you're
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  always around athletes the whole time.
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  So now more people that don't even know about sports.
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  And I'm like, we get to connect as people, you know.
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  And so that was huge. And so he was also my triple
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  jump coach. And he said, I have no idea what
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  to teach you in triple jump, but let's figure it out.
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  And so that's where I was able to take more ownership of my
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  results and start to search and do research and we learn
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  together. You know, I've said this many
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  times and I will say it If I could say it every, if I could
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  figure out how to work it in every podcast and every
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  conversation I have, I would. To me, the real superpower of a
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  coach is that they see something in other people before they can
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  see it themselves. And you know, you could erase
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  the word coach and put in teacher into that.
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  You know, good coaches see things in other people before
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  they see themselves. Good teachers see things in
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  their students before they can see themselves.
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  That leadership class him as a teacher.
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  You know, it was him as a teacher, not as a coach.
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  Necessary, right? No athleticism there, but he saw
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  that in you before you did you were like, Oh yeah, no, I'm not
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  in that class. Like what are you talking?
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  That's that's for those guys, not for me.
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  And he was like, no, bro, you you're a leader.
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  You need to be learn how to become how to bring that out.
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  How did you see? Did you notice kind of you know,
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  we've got hindsight is 2020. So we have experience.
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  We have hindsight today may have been hard to see it in the
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  moment as a sixteen 1718 year old kid, but did you see the way
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  you LED on the track in in in your other sports after that
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  kind of that class or that that that retreat?
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  Did you, did it it affect you of like, Oh, I, I'm going to do
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  things a little differently amongst my team mates.
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  Yeah, I created the community that I wanted to be in.
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  So when I noticed that that leaders, right, are the ones
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  that have impact on community and they're they find followers
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  to to go to lead, right. When I saw that that year is
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  when I then said I need to be captain, you know, for
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  basketball, for track, for every event sport that I'm in.
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  You know, I was kind of just already that because of my
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  ability. But then I realized, wait a
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  minute, like it's my duty to make sure that if I'm being seen
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  as this, everyone else can also be seen as that as well.
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  So I brought the rest of the team.
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  So I was always captain of the teams after that point.
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  So from junior year after. That's a great point about
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  captainship. And you know, we, we named
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  captains in different ways in different sports and even
• 18:21
  throughout just track. We we, you know, there's a lot
• 18:23
  of different ways and reasonings to to name captain.
• 18:27
  And sometimes, and I don't know, maybe it's often I haven't
• 18:29
  coached in a long time. Maybe your best athlete or
• 18:32
  athletes are also your best leaders sometimes, but I have a
• 18:35
  hunch that sometimes not. And you know, as a coach, are
• 18:39
  you looking at the greater team of like, what am I telling the
• 18:44
  rest of the team? If I pick Keenan, the great
• 18:47
  athlete who's not a very good leader as captain versus Joe,
• 18:50
  who may not be as great of an athlete but is a leader, What am
• 18:53
  I saying? If I still make the best
• 18:54
  athlete, the captain, what am I telling the rest of the team?
• 18:56
  It's like, oh, your leadership doesn't actually matter.
• 18:59
  It just matters. Can you jump far or run fast or
• 19:01
  whatever, You know, so there there's some real like make sure
• 19:05
  you're doing, make sure you realize what you're telling your
• 19:08
  team by your actions. And captainship is, is one of
• 19:11
  those very cool. So as you get towards senior
• 19:15
  year and you start looking at colleges, where did you
• 19:20
  mentioned you went to a junior college?
• 19:21
  Where, where and why did you end up going to junior college?
• 19:24
  And as you're looking at colleges, it is coaching at all
• 19:29
  in your mindset or were you thinking about going to be a
• 19:31
  doctor or a business owner or what not?
• 19:35
  So to add to that to that, before I go into a basically 20
• 19:41
  or not 20, but when I was a junior, I was doing football,
• 19:44
  did all the summer stuff. And then my mentality was from
• 19:50
  the Poly, Long Beach Poly mindset.
• 19:52
  So whatever you think of Long Beach Poly football, I was in
• 19:55
  that same mindset and there was a different mindset at the
• 19:58
  school I was at. And so I didn't feel that the
• 20:03
  directions of the mindset fit. My actual mission statement, So
• 20:08
  I let go of football, was able to focus more on track and
• 20:12
  basketball, so. Was that a?
• 20:15
  Was that a hard decision? It was easy decision, hard to
• 20:19
  talk to an adult, to let an adult know that I didn't want to
• 20:23
  do what he was requesting of me. OK, let's let's tap into that.
• 20:27
  That's a that's a great. I love this because here we have
• 20:29
  the mindset of a were you 1617 years old, 1616?
• 20:35
  Did you actually go talk to an adult like a coach and say, hey
• 20:39
  coach, here's the decision. Why?
• 20:40
  Or do you phone it in with a, an e-mail or a text or a note or
• 20:45
  hey ma, can you tell them or, or just not even show up, just
• 20:49
  ghost them? Did you actually?
• 20:50
  Hey coach, we need to talk. I am 100% old school.
• 20:54
  I walked straight into the coach's office with all the
• 20:56
  coaches. Bravo.
• 20:58
  And sat down with him and let him know exactly how I felt and
• 21:02
  that was my decision and that that's how I felt.
• 21:04
  It was nothing to do with his program, nothing to do with
• 21:06
  anything other than I just felt that the direction, where I was
• 21:10
  going and that's the decision that I made for myself.
• 21:12
  Looking back again, you know, hindsight is like the greatest
• 21:15
  thing in the entire world, right?
• 21:16
  Did you do it respectfully? And what I mean by that is, you
• 21:19
  know, hey, coach, I don't like how you're calling play or
• 21:21
  whatever, you know, that kind. That's kind of disrespectful of
• 21:24
  like, you know, I'm 16, I know better than you.
• 21:25
  I don't like it. So I'm moving on versus like,
• 21:27
  hey, I, you know, I'm just not fitting in with what you're
• 21:31
  building and that's OK. I'm going to go do something
• 21:33
  else. When you look back at it, how
• 21:35
  how respectful were you as a 16 year old doing this?
• 21:37
  Very respectful. I probably cannot read
• 21:39
  everything you know but it, but I didn't leave with any stories.
• 21:43
  No emotion towards experiences. It was just where I'm at now.
• 21:48
  It's just what I'm looking for and you know, yeah.
• 21:51
  Was that before or after this leadership retreat?
• 21:56
  After. OK, I was about to say because
• 21:58
  it first of all if it was before.
• 22:02
  No, it was after. It was after because I I quit
• 22:07
  before football season started. So, so leadership retreat and
• 22:10
  then the quitting of football. The leadership retreat, I
• 22:13
  believe, was junior year, so I quit junior year, so I did.
• 22:16
  I don't remember. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:18
  Well, what I'm wondering is, yeah, because what, what you're,
• 22:21
  you're the example that you're, you're sharing with us that that
• 22:23
  experience is that is leadership.
• 22:25
  And that's hard, boy. I mean, I'm 48 years old.
• 22:28
  That's sometimes hard as a 48 year old man adult to go in and
• 22:32
  talk to someone who has authority over me, a boss in
• 22:36
  that sense, or you know, my wife and have these like difficult
• 22:39
  conversations right here you are as a 16 year old, you have all
• 22:44
  if you would have told me, hey, yeah, Mike, dude, I was 16.
• 22:46
  I didn't want to see those dudes.
• 22:48
  I was quitting on them. I don't know how they were going
• 22:50
  to take it, but it's what I had to do.
• 22:53
  So I just ghosted and they just realized after seven days and I
• 22:56
  wouldn't go to the team. I've been like, man, I get it.
• 22:58
  You probably would do it differently today.
• 22:59
  But man, you're 16, bro. I get it.
• 23:01
  I get it. So they have that kind of
• 23:03
  leadership. I mean that that is that's
• 23:05
  character and leadership as a 16 year old, that's amazing.
• 23:10
  That has to be. I don't think we're necessarily
• 23:12
  born with that. I think we have to see that has
• 23:15
  to be modeled Where where did you like you?
• 23:18
  You had to have seen that somewhere in a family teacher
• 23:21
  friend. How did you get to that?
• 23:24
  Yeah, so I can tell you where I got it from.
• 23:27
  Basically when I moved from Long Beach to Orange County was
• 23:32
  Garden Girls specifically. I went from in Long Beach being
• 23:35
  just a kid to being the black kid where I was at.
• 23:41
  And so I had experiences there. Why I quickly grew up to, to
• 23:46
  have different perspectives and to learn different sides, to
• 23:49
  experience things to, you know, deal with experiences that
• 23:53
  allowed me to get outside of me to figure out solutions.
• 23:57
  So when I got to this point now, you know, 10 years later, I was
• 24:02
  able to, to now say, OK, I understand his perspective
• 24:04
  because I, I see it, but here's what I'm feeling and able to
• 24:08
  express that because I didn't have chances to express how I
• 24:10
  felt before so. First, first of all, I
• 24:13
  appreciate you sharing that, you know, it's, you know, obviously
• 24:17
  a story I would not have any experience with.
• 24:20
  So I appreciate you sharing that.
• 24:21
  That's I, I, when, when I hear stories like that, I always
• 24:26
  think of like how many other people don't have that
• 24:29
  experience. They stayed in an environment or
• 24:31
  something where they couldn't grow in, in those ways.
• 24:33
  So I, I just kind of always think about others, you know, So
• 24:36
  I love that. All right, so football direction
• 24:40
  not going well. So we're going to focus on the
• 24:42
  other sports. So we get back to the question
• 24:44
  of, OK, a senior year and you're looking into schooling.
• 24:47
  Where did you go? Why did you go junior college
• 24:49
  and was coaching in your mind at all?
• 24:51
  Or were you just thinking about becoming a doctor or a lawyer or
• 24:53
  something like that? Got it, got it.
• 24:55
  So the college process from the school I was at, it was OK to go
• 25:02
  to junior college. It wasn't expected to go to AD
• 25:06
  one or whatever. And sports wise, because I was
• 25:08
  one of the better athletes, not many had been in my shoes.
• 25:12
  There were a few. I think Chris Draft was a
• 25:14
  football player that came out of our high school.
• 25:16
  He went to the the Falcons and so he was more I was like, OK,
• 25:20
  going Pro is possibility, but there was just one not there
• 25:23
  wasn't 30, you know. So I talked to a counselor, Mr.
• 25:28
  Jimenez. And so at 17, I was able to
• 25:31
  retain the quote of you don't need SAT to go to junior
• 25:37
  college. He said a lot more.
• 25:40
  I just remember that's what I took from that.
• 25:43
  Yeah. And so I was like cool, like
• 25:45
  whatever's. And so senior year comes into
• 25:49
  play and I'm like breaking records.
• 25:53
  I'm winning everything. And all of a sudden I'm getting
• 25:57
  letters from UCLA, you know, these big, you know, Power 5
• 26:00
  schools. And I'm saying like, what do I
• 26:03
  do with these? You know, like, you know, my
• 26:05
  name's on them. And at that time, Wes Felix was
• 26:08
  was competing. So Allison Felix.
• 26:10
  Yep. So they were sending his letters
• 26:12
  to our school because he went to Valencia in Valencia, right.
• 26:17
  That's. Funny.
• 26:18
  Correct. SO we were getting those letters
• 26:21
  and I was like, OK, I want to beat his letters.
• 26:23
  I want to get more letters than he does.
• 26:24
  But the problem was getting letters doesn't mean you're
• 26:26
  having a conversation with the coaches, you know.
• 26:29
  So at the end of the day, I ended up getting recruited by a
• 26:32
  couple schools that were like local, but I was just better
• 26:36
  already than their school records.
• 26:37
  And I'm like, I need to be able to grow in wherever I'm going.
• 26:41
  So that I ended up going to junior college at OCC Orange
• 26:43
  Hills College. But I will say, I mean, I'm
• 26:49
  drawing a blank. It'll come into play.
• 26:51
  But at the time, coach at Fullerton College was Coach
• 26:56
  Kiefer. Coach Kiefer was at at Fullerton
• 26:59
  College and he was recruiting me.
• 27:01
  He was like, hey, you're going to be a 50 foot jumper.
• 27:03
  I see where your talent is, you know, and and you got to get rid
• 27:08
  of basketball. And I was like, no, that's not
• 27:11
  going to happen. So stubbornly knucklehead me, I
• 27:15
  went to OCC and I played basketball the first year, did
• 27:19
  well and was starting, did all that stuff.
• 27:21
  And then I realized I'm like, wait a minute, track and field
• 27:24
  started already and we're still got like four games left in
• 27:27
  league plus playoffs if you make it.
• 27:29
  I'm like, coach, I got to go because Jack and field is my
• 27:33
  passion, you know? And when I left, I was like, I
• 27:36
  have to do well with track because I'm leaving the program.
• 27:41
  But to answer the question about my decision of where I wanted to
• 27:44
  be as a person at 17, I was in the weight room, a voice came
• 27:48
  over me and said, what do you want to do with your life?
• 27:50
  And I was like, I don't know, but I want to help people.
• 27:53
  So my I ended up getting a job at family Fun Center, which is
• 28:00
  now boomers did that for a year with the champ sports for a
• 28:04
  year. And then after that 19, I became
• 28:07
  a certified personal trainer. So that was my my thing.
• 28:11
  So the person that inspired me was as a hurdler, I was running
• 28:15
  against the Orange County record holder.
• 28:18
  His time. His name is Dominique de Gramit,
• 28:21
  and he had the Orange County record.
• 28:24
  So my goal was to beat his record.
• 28:26
  And one day he walked into Champ Sports to buy shoes.
• 28:29
  And I was like, hey, I know you. And then, you know, he had this
• 28:34
  bravado like, you know, yeah, you know, I'm fast and this and
• 28:36
  that. And I was like, I've been trying
• 28:38
  to beat your records, you know, all through high school.
• 28:40
  And then so he had on a some type of fitness shirt, you know,
• 28:45
  for some company. And that kind of sparked the
• 28:47
  idea of like, I could be a trainer.
• 28:49
  And then that's kind of what led there.
• 28:51
  So a lot of these these signs kind of came in then I was like,
• 28:54
  that makes sense to me. And so, yeah, that's kind of up
• 28:57
  to that point. What stuck from Mr. Hernandez's
• 29:02
  conversation, the the guidance counselor of you don't have to
• 29:05
  take SAT if you go to college. I I would love that as a guy
• 29:08
  that you know, I, I took the ACT my junior year only because it
• 29:13
  was like, oh, you need to have something to go to college.
• 29:14
  I had no clue about going to college, No clue how I was going
• 29:17
  to pay for it. Didn't even know if I would go
• 29:18
  to college. I was like, all right, I'll take
• 29:20
  it. Took the ACT did fairly well.
• 29:22
  And then it was like, oh, other people also take the SAT.
• 29:24
  That's another test that people and I started this back in the
• 29:27
  day when I don't know how they register now, but we used to get
• 29:29
  this book to fill out to register for.
• 29:31
  I mean, you have to scan, try and bubble in all this
• 29:34
  information. I remember I was like halfway
• 29:36
  through my name and I was like, bro, my AC TS good enough to get
• 29:39
  me anywhere. I think I can go.
• 29:41
  I am not doing this SAT. So when you said that I was like
• 29:43
  in my head, I actually said it right before you.
• 29:45
  So I was like, cool. Yeah.
• 29:47
  And what's interesting is, you know, while there's an amazing
• 29:50
  junior college, Community College schools around the
• 29:53
  country, California has a very deep tradition not only in great
• 29:57
  community colleges, but great athletic community colleges
• 30:00
  there as well. So that's that's really cool.
• 30:02
  So, so coaching is, I'm not hearing coaching is in your mind
• 30:05
  necessarily helping other people.
• 30:07
  And at this point, like in a fitness instructor type of that
• 30:13
  profession is kind of where we're going in track.
• 30:15
  So did you study exercise phys or things like that in the
• 30:19
  Community College or we still on the, I don't wanna call it basic
• 30:24
  track. What's it called?
• 30:25
  General. Yeah, yeah.
• 30:26
  General studies, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:27
  Yeah, just general studies. Yeah, in junior college, I was
• 30:32
  just trying to get past my classes to be out, you know,
• 30:35
  because I never really grew up with, you know, how to study and
• 30:40
  how to, you know, get. I was told 2 point O get you,
• 30:44
  you compete. And so I got a 28 because I was
• 30:46
  like over 2 point O but no one told me 4 point O is what you
• 30:50
  should have, you know, but but yeah, so in college, junior
• 30:54
  college, I was just doing that there.
• 30:56
  I had some amazing coaches. Eric Moreno was my hurdle coach.
• 31:02
  He was the one that wood forest me to get up every Saturday
• 31:04
  after a track meet and do a full day's training, just me, you
• 31:09
  know. So that was something that I was
• 31:10
  just like making it work. Alan Hodge, who was my triple
• 31:16
  jump high jump coach, and he was just a great guy and he'd never
• 31:20
  wear shoes ever. He was just out there with his
• 31:23
  feet out. It looked like he had socks on
• 31:27
  even though the socks were off. But you know, but, and then
• 31:31
  Coach John Knox was the head coach there at that time.
• 31:34
  Just just great people. The community that they built
• 31:37
  there was amazing. Our team warmed up together.
• 31:40
  I knew every person's name on the team.
• 31:44
  The different events knew each other.
• 31:46
  We hung out outside, outside of track.
• 31:48
  It wasn't just, you know, jumps with them.
• 31:50
  And it was completely a whole, it like a whole team, just a
• 31:55
  really, really fun experience. And I learned a lot about how to
• 32:00
  jump. I learned how to hurdle, learned
• 32:02
  how to triple jump. You know, I was able to break
• 32:05
  the records there as well. Just a lot of a lot of great
• 32:07
  experiences that that happened there.
• 32:11
  Yeah. So it was just those those
• 32:13
  coaching impacts just added on to the high school experience.
• 32:17
  And I was like, OK, I'm excited for what comes next.
• 32:20
  Yeah. You know, up to this point we're
• 32:22
  about to get to the, you know, finishing off the four year side
• 32:24
  of it. I'm just kind of struck.
• 32:27
  You seem to have like had just like a really good on the track
• 32:29
  specific and hopefully in other sports as well.
• 32:32
  But it seems like you just had like a a great environment
• 32:35
  coaching athlete wise all the way through this high school,
• 32:39
  through Community College, track life so far like that.
• 32:44
  It's funny to watch your face. You know, I I've done this, you
• 32:47
  know, 300 times. So I've gotten a lot better had
• 32:49
  interviewing and and kind of body reading, if you will, and
• 32:52
  your face is lit up when you talk about like when you said
• 32:55
  the experiences I had, you're like, oh man, I had a lot of
• 32:57
  good experiences. And I don't get the sense it's
• 32:59
  like, oh, I had a lot of good experiences partying and stuff
• 33:01
  like that. It's like, no, no, coaching like
• 33:03
  you being coached was a good experience for you.
• 33:06
  Yeah, because I I didn't really focus on the track.
• 33:11
  These were just good people, you know, even my coaches that had
• 33:14
  no idea what they were doing, they were great.
• 33:16
  They were there. And my love language is quality
• 33:19
  time. So I interpreted them being
• 33:22
  there like, you know what, you must really love the kids around
• 33:24
  you because you don't have to be here, but you choose to, you
• 33:28
  know, and I would look at athletes on our team that will
• 33:31
  be frustrated and, you know, having all these emotions and
• 33:34
  bring it to track and then make the coach feel a certain way.
• 33:36
  I'm like, you know, the coach is doing a lot more than you think
• 33:39
  he's doing, you know, so I kind of had that perspective even
• 33:43
  then. Yeah, just about to remark on
• 33:45
  that. So I'm hearing you have an
• 33:47
  understanding of what a track coach is doing, not just on the
• 33:50
  surface level of like, oh, they're barking out orders like,
• 33:52
  oh wait, they're they're putting a lot of time and effort into to
• 33:56
  me and and my teammates. So you're kind of already seeing
• 33:59
  this what I would, you know, as the the role that I my passion
• 34:03
  as far as uplifting coaches, you're already seeing this like,
• 34:05
  oh, coach is a big deal. Like they're doing these things
• 34:08
  for for us. Yeah.
• 34:10
  That's cool. I love that.
• 34:11
  All right, so the good news and bad news about community.
• 34:16
  I'm a former junior college coach myself, so I have a ton of
• 34:19
  admiration. In fact, the the junior college
• 34:21
  national championship, I'm so blessed I get to go to, you
• 34:24
  know, all the big meets around the country and I will still
• 34:28
  tell you the junior college national meet is my absolute
• 34:30
  favorite. I think it's because it's kind
• 34:32
  of where I'm from, meaning like I'm a kind of guy that I needed
• 34:36
  a second and third and fourth chance.
• 34:38
  And, you know, and I just look at these kids and, and coaches
• 34:40
  and I'm like, man, these are kids that are just, they're
• 34:42
  grinding. You know, some of it's a
• 34:45
  passion. Just I love track.
• 34:46
  They're not going to go on to a four year side or, you know,
• 34:48
  grades were an issue, so they had to go there and they're
• 34:50
  grinding on their grades to get to a four year and get a degree.
• 34:53
  I, I just look at those kids and coaches at that, those meets at
• 34:55
  the junior college national meet and I'm just my heart.
• 34:59
  It's, it's all my heart. I just love, love, love, love
• 35:01
  those guys. And the bad news is you only get
• 35:03
  2 years. It's a very short amount of
• 35:05
  time. So you mentioned you went to, I
• 35:08
  think you said Fullerton. No, no, you went to Northridge.
• 35:11
  Cal State, Los Angeles. I was wrong on everyone of them.
• 35:14
  You went to Cal State LA. OK, so how did you pick Cal
• 35:17
  State LA? It picked me.
• 35:19
  So again, when it comes down to the the academic side, I just
• 35:25
  did the minimum, you know, and with that, 12 units is the
• 35:30
  minimum for junior college to transfer out of JC, you need 60
• 35:37
  units. Well, the math didn't math,
• 35:41
  Yeah. Carry the one.
• 35:44
  Regional championships. I jumped 50 feet, 3 inches,
• 35:46
  broke a record, but it happened to be Sheldon Blockburger's
• 35:50
  record. Oh yeah.
• 35:51
  Wow, that UNC and daughters and. No, Sheldon, yeah.
• 35:55
  So he called me and he's like, at the time he was at Cal Poly
• 35:58
  Slow. He's like any person that breaks
• 36:01
  our records has a full scholarship wherever I'm at.
• 36:05
  So I was like, cool, because I was not going to go to college
• 36:08
  to a four year without a scholarship.
• 36:09
  That's just how my life was at the time.
• 36:12
  And so that was that. So I had that on the table.
• 36:16
  So I'm calling schools. Athletes who are listening.
• 36:19
  You're listening. You called the schools and you
• 36:22
  present to them what it is that you can offer to them, and
• 36:24
  they'll let you know what works or it doesn't.
• 36:27
  So I called Washington, I called Michigan.
• 36:29
  I called a bunch of schools, and they were like, yeah, we can
• 36:32
  offer partial, we can do all these things for you.
• 36:34
  And then what came down to everything was I didn't have the
• 36:37
  units I need to take another year of school.
• 36:40
  And so I was like, oh man. So then I transferred to
• 36:43
  Fullerton Junior College. You know what's OK?
• 36:45
  That's where you said Fullerton. You know, what's interesting to
• 36:47
  me, you know, as a as a guy so far that is showing leadership
• 36:52
  and character. And, you know, I love your
• 36:56
  admiration of coaches at this age.
• 36:58
  And sometimes we don't really see that until we're, you know,
• 37:00
  we think back about our track coaches.
• 37:03
  So I so I'm hearing a lot of like maybe it's like stereotypes
• 37:06
  that I would put in like, oh, that kind of person would be
• 37:08
  very prepared and would, you know, always be on their P's and
• 37:11
  Q's and yeah, yeah. But I'm hearing this like I know
• 37:15
  it's a little bit of a dichotomy this.
• 37:17
  I don't want this to offend you, Keenan, but I'm hearing a lot of
• 37:21
  minimism, minimalism that, you know, 12 hours.
• 37:23
  Have you 12 hours, Cool. 12 hours, 2 point O, you're lucky.
• 37:26
  I'll get you a 2.8. No SAT sign me up or don't sign
• 37:30
  me up. It's just interesting, like
• 37:32
  hearing this, like, I don't know, it's two sides of a of a
• 37:36
  very different coin here. Like, wow, this kid is loving
• 37:39
  coaches and doing great athletically and I'm not hearing
• 37:42
  you causing any problems and yet you're 48 hours instead of the
• 37:47
  60 because you didn't take 15 hours and all that kind of
• 37:49
  stuff. It's just, it's striking to me.
• 37:52
  Yeah, so I put all my eggs in one basket.
• 37:55
  So when I would train and work hard and study, film, all that
• 37:58
  stuff, I didn't have time to do What was the job description,
• 38:02
  which is pass your classes? OK.
• 38:04
  All right. You know, so I was all in for my
• 38:06
  sport and to me, I didn't see I felt like I was so wise, but I
• 38:12
  just didn't see much value at the way the education system was
• 38:16
  presenting itself. We.
• 38:17
  Could have a whole podcast about that because I agree with you,
• 38:20
  but let's keep. Going, yeah.
• 38:21
  And so, you know, I just was very visual with my actions.
• 38:28
  If I'm learning something that I don't see makes sense to me in,
• 38:33
  in, in my life, then I was not active in that learning
• 38:37
  experience. So I took responsibility on
• 38:39
  that, you know, and my grades were still up and down in junior
• 38:43
  college. So then I, now I go to Fullerton
• 38:46
  College and I can't run track because I finished my
• 38:48
  eligibility. I chose to go there because I
• 38:51
  was living in Fullerton. So, you know, instead of driving
• 38:54
  to OCC, I'm like, let me just say close.
• 38:56
  And, and so that's where I was now a certified personal trainer
• 39:03
  and I was doing that. And I'm thinking like at the
• 39:05
  time, I'm like, I have a $40.00 bill to my name.
• 39:08
  That's all. I have my phone bill and I'm
• 39:10
  making almost $2000, like $1500 per month.
• 39:13
  And I'm like 19. So I'm rich.
• 39:15
  You're rich. No, I, I was in the same spot.
• 39:17
  I remember I I was a a a a security guard up in Chicago and
• 39:22
  I was making 1250 an hour. And I remember telling my
• 39:24
  parents I don't need like, I am rich.
• 39:28
  And now I look like 1250 an hour.
• 39:29
  Holy crap. You know, Yeah.
• 39:32
  So I'm with you. You're like, you're rich.
• 39:33
  I get it. Yeah, so I'm just enjoying it.
• 39:36
  And, you know, I didn't have any motivation.
• 39:40
  Like I was training you know, so I was doing my own training,
• 39:43
  couldn't run track meets. I didn't know at that time I can
• 39:45
  run an attached. I had no idea I was training for
• 39:48
  the whole year playing basketball too cuz the same
• 39:50
  extra shape and then cuz I couldn't play the previous years
• 39:53
  after. But are you going to Fullerton
• 39:56
  to get to your 60s so you can transfer and do track?
• 39:58
  Or is it like, well, OK, that's the next step.
• 40:00
  We'll see what happens when we get there.
• 40:02
  But. Yeah.
• 40:03
  So I'm going to full attend to transfer to the to the track at
• 40:06
  the next school. OK, OK, so I'm just.
• 40:08
  So that is a goal you have, yeah.
• 40:09
  Correct. So yeah, my vision, my North
• 40:11
  Star is track and field at the next level.
• 40:13
  Got it. So then I get hurt playing
• 40:16
  basketball. I had a high ankle sprain and
• 40:19
  that takes a while to recover. So now I'm just like going to
• 40:23
  class, which I don't enjoy. And then I'm very, I voiced my
• 40:29
  opinions. So I was being told a certain
• 40:32
  perspective in a class and I just said, Hey, this is my
• 40:35
  perspective. It didn't agree.
• 40:37
  My grade went down because I didn't agree.
• 40:40
  And I was like, I don't understand this process.
• 40:42
  So now I had to retake that class, you know, and it was
• 40:45
  just, it was a lot going on that I'm like, the only piece that I
• 40:48
  had was me being an athlete in the weight room with my with my
• 40:52
  clients, because I was still athletics to meet.
• 40:54
  And and so I just randomly went to Cal State Fullerton because
• 40:59
  that was closer to where I lived in Cal in Fullerton JC.
• 41:02
  And the coach there was an assistant, which Chris Ash was
• 41:06
  Christopher Asher. And I had, I think I did a meet
• 41:11
  or I had ran there from junior college.
• 41:13
  But then he was, he saw me. He was like, hey, I thought
• 41:15
  you'd be gone out of college somewhere, you know, And I was
• 41:18
  like, yeah, that's one of my story.
• 41:20
  And he was like, oh, wow, you know, OK, well, good luck to
• 41:22
  you. That was it, right?
• 41:24
  And then while I'm in my second semester of Fullerton Junior
• 41:29
  College, I get a call and he's like, I don't see you on a
• 41:32
  roster yet. And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm
• 41:35
  not. He's like, OK, well, I'm at Cal
• 41:36
  State LA now. I'm the head coach here.
• 41:39
  Come over here. And I was like, I can't because
• 41:42
  I still have two classes that I failed that I took already.
• 41:45
  And he and he politely cussed me out, politely put me in check,
• 41:51
  politely put me in classes. I it was summertime and it was
• 41:57
  already like deep into summer. He got me into a late start
• 42:02
  English class and another math class.
• 42:04
  My job was in Fullerton. I was going to work driving to
• 42:07
  LA Valley College, LA, I'm sorry, LA City College, then
• 42:12
  back to Irvine Valley College. And now with my, my days and I'm
• 42:17
  like, I can't let him down. I'm passing his classes, which
• 42:20
  is what I did, and then I got on campus at Cal City LA and was
• 42:25
  able to entertain a full scholarship.
• 42:27
  Dude, I mean the perseverance there, like I was a little
• 42:31
  concerned hearing your story. Like, OK, there's no, not
• 42:36
  tragedy, but there's no like I'm not hearing like where's the,
• 42:39
  the overcoming and and academics are a little bit of an
• 42:41
  overcoming and things like that. So yeah, that's again,
• 42:45
  persistence because that's, you know, experience teaches us
• 42:48
  better than anything. So I'm sure we're going to find
• 42:50
  out how that carries through in your coaching here as well.
• 42:53
  OK, let's let's keep moving forward because we got to get to
• 42:55
  this is a coaching podcast, not an athlete podcast, right?
• 42:57
  That's OK. Let's keep this is my fault.
• 42:59
  I'm the interviewer. I'm the one who's supposed to
• 43:00
  keep this this trainer running here.
• 43:02
  All right, So Cal State Fullerton, give us a synopsis of
• 43:04
  how that go in. And again, as you're getting
• 43:07
  into Cal State LA and you're getting closer to your degree,
• 43:12
  where's coaching? Where's actually like track
• 43:14
  coaching? Is that at all?
• 43:15
  Has it triggered at all as you get towards graduation?
• 43:19
  So from 19 when I was still at in junior college, through that
• 43:24
  whole process, I was coaching as a personal, as a private
• 43:28
  trainer, right? And so I had amazing mentors in
• 43:33
  that process. So I had a maternal manager that
• 43:37
  was a woman who lost like 80 lbs.
• 43:39
  She was very eccentric, just loud.
• 43:41
  When she was in the gym, you knew that she where she was at
• 43:44
  all times and she walked me through every machine because
• 43:49
  back then machines were the Safeway to lift weights.
• 43:52
  So she said machines are all made by men, so they're tailored
• 43:55
  for the male body. So when you are a woman, you
• 43:59
  must work out a certain way. Are you going to start building
• 44:01
  a muscle in the angles of the male body?
• 44:04
  So you know this is it heard philosophy, right?
• 44:07
  And so I just learned from that concept.
• 44:11
  And then while I was training, I would just, I was one of the
• 44:15
  popular trainers and I started having fun with this concept
• 44:17
  where I was like, you know what, let me train my clients without
• 44:20
  me showing them. I'm going to articulate what
• 44:22
  movements I want them to do. And so I just would always train
• 44:26
  them outside the box. They never sat down, they always
• 44:28
  moved around all that stuff. And I had huge results with that
• 44:31
  time frame. So now I'm leaving that space
• 44:36
  with I've mastered movement and the how to reach the goal
• 44:42
  outside the box. So that's the piece that I was
• 44:44
  able to create, right? And also how to use my words
• 44:48
  versus showing someone how to do it.
• 44:50
  And then when I got to Cal City, LA National Underclassmen, it's
• 44:56
  a football combine company that would travel the US and just
• 44:59
  test kids under under these skills.
• 45:02
  They needed people to help at the event they were holding at
• 45:04
  our at on our campus and they came out and I had football
• 45:08
  experience. And so they just loved how I
• 45:10
  work with the kids because I'm a natural with the with the
• 45:12
  athletes and I'm a leader and all those things kind of came
• 45:14
  together. I was hired by them to be the
• 45:17
  West Coast correspondent. So whenever they had anything on
• 45:19
  the West Coast, they would fly me out to these events.
• 45:22
  But now I went from personal training to now I'm working with
• 45:26
  405 hundred kids at a time, right?
• 45:28
  And so now that took me from, you know, being great
• 45:32
  communicated with one person. Now I need to yell across the
• 45:35
  track or yell across the football field to, you know,
• 45:39
  these kids that don't care about anything but catching the
• 45:42
  football and running fast. You know, so I did that for
• 45:46
  about another 4 years and then that went all through the
• 45:51
  college time frame. And so it took me a long time to
• 45:54
  graduate Cal City, LA. So we'll come back later on.
• 45:57
  But coaching wise, they ended up saying, hey, we're going to open
• 46:00
  up a facility in New Jersey. So they took over a velocity.
• 46:05
  Remember velocity. I do.
• 46:07
  Perfect. OK, so for those who don't know,
• 46:08
  it's a training Center for athletes and they took it over
• 46:13
  and I moved out there to help them run this company.
• 46:17
  Before or after you graduated from Cal State LA?
• 46:20
  Right after. Like, OK, good.
• 46:22
  That's all I was wondering. OK.
• 46:24
  I graduated winter quarter and I went to Vegas to go party, and
• 46:28
  then I went straight to Vegas, straight to New Jersey.
• 46:30
  Like it was quick. That I mean, that's, that could
• 46:33
  be daunting. I mean, for a kid, you grew up
• 46:35
  in California. There's a you know, I've met a
• 46:38
  lot of Californians in my life and every California who's
• 46:40
  Californian, who's out of California, you know, lives
• 46:42
  somewhere else, always wants to get back to California.
• 46:46
  You would, I mean, you can't go farther E you went all the way
• 46:49
  to Jersey. Yep, went out there just really
• 46:54
  enjoy. Plus at that time I was
• 46:56
  frustrated with the the system of track and field.
• 47:00
  So what I always say is there's a similar format how most
• 47:04
  coaches coach at the track and field level, college level.
• 47:09
  And also when I was in kinesiology, I was told these
• 47:13
  capital T truths that I just didn't all the way agree with
• 47:16
  because I had came from experiencing different variables
• 47:21
  to the same result. So I'm being told running
• 47:24
  mechanics are just like this. And I'm like, but I found
• 47:27
  another way to get there with this.
• 47:29
  And I couldn't have that conversation because I wouldn't
• 47:31
  pass the the test because the test gave me only options is to
• 47:34
  scan Tron in AB or C, you know, so, so when I took this to New
• 47:41
  Jersey, I was there because I was done with track.
• 47:43
  I was like, I'm done. You know, I kept getting hurt.
• 47:45
  I never got hurt before like that.
• 47:49
  And then yes, we went there. And then Long story short, that
• 47:52
  was a nice fun summer in New Jersey.
• 47:54
  I was on the shore. It was fun, but that job didn't
• 47:57
  work out and I moved back. So, but I haven't you.
• 48:00
  Didn't get the experience in New Jersey winter.
• 48:03
  And I'm glad I didn't. Because I was just saying good
• 48:05
  luck. Yeah, exactly.
• 48:06
  That's what I was really wanting to get to.
• 48:08
  I was like, how was the winter buddy?
• 48:10
  You, you used to. You missed that one.
• 48:12
  That's good. Bullet to dodge.
• 48:13
  Absolutely. All right, so we get just like
• 48:15
  every California I've ever known, you get back to
• 48:17
  California. Yes, you're back to California
• 48:20
  and I was like, you know what? I feel stronger like I've been
• 48:24
  training myself, putting my concepts into action and my
• 48:28
  philosophy, like really hardening that philosophy of
• 48:30
  what I wanted to do and, and created my program.
• 48:35
  And then that year 2010, I came back 22,000 2010, I became 13th
• 48:40
  in the US PR of the trip at the outdoor championships.
• 48:43
  No coach, just just my training program applied what I've
• 48:49
  learned through my years. Of course, you know, but but
• 48:53
  yeah, so that was what really showed me all those things.
• 48:57
  Mind you, I was still building a personal training, group
• 48:59
  training business. And so I built my clientele base
• 49:03
  in Irvine. That's where I was where I was
• 49:05
  living at that time. And then and then I decided to
• 49:10
  take a couple athletes through a training program that I learned
• 49:14
  from Athletic Republic. It's like a national franchise.
• 49:16
  It's like velocity kind of thing.
• 49:18
  And so there's these protocols that they run.
• 49:23
  They just follow the protocols. The trainer just follows these
• 49:25
  running protocols. Mind you, it's like running on
• 49:27
  treadmills. It's just like plow press.
• 49:29
  It's like science meets athletic ability.
• 49:31
  Kind of like Rocky where he's writing, you know, Rocky's
• 49:33
  fighting the Russian guy, right? So all these boys, right?
• 49:37
  And I was like, OK, I'm, I'm learning it.
• 49:40
  And then I saw how it works. I'm like, it's crazy how they
• 49:42
  can guarantee a set number of results for as a as a franchise.
• 49:47
  So I was like, OK, that, that's something to follow.
• 49:50
  So then I started studying their program.
• 49:53
  Then I personally ran all the programs that they had.
• 49:55
  They had soccer programs, running programs.
• 49:57
  I did all those things that helped me because I was able to
• 50:00
  get in more shape. But and then I said, OK, I
• 50:02
  understand what's happening with this program that I met with the
• 50:05
  lead scientist that designed all the programs and I said, I'm
• 50:08
  seeing these trends. I'm seeing this, this process,
• 50:11
  this philosophy. And he was like, that's, that's
• 50:14
  the program. And I was like, cool, So that I
• 50:17
  take 3 athletes. Nicole Reece, she's a pole
• 50:21
  vaulter. Then two sprinters, Dustin Holtz
• 50:24
  and Kale Kavanaugh. I said, OK, I'm going to put you
• 50:28
  guys through this program and I'm going to spit you out on the
• 50:30
  other side. You're going to be better and
• 50:32
  that's exactly what happened. GAIL and Dustin went from 11/4
• 50:36
  to 10/9 that year in the 100. Victoria Reese ended up she she
• 50:41
  broke all the records for pole ball.
• 50:42
  So I just got her in jump shape. Not I didn't pole ball to great
• 50:46
  pole ball coaches, but they all had the same baseline
• 50:49
  improvements and then had a couple of the kids that I was
• 50:53
  working with as well. But that tied me into modern day
• 50:57
  because the company I was with got the contract to train the
• 51:05
  teams in the weight room at modern day.
• 51:07
  So 2011 is where I ended up going to modern day as an
• 51:11
  athletic and public employee. And I worked with girls
• 51:13
  basketball and boys bought that time 2011 that's.
• 51:17
  Interesting. I haven't heard that in other
• 51:19
  high schools. I don't know if that's a
• 51:21
  California thing or a private school.
• 51:23
  That's interesting. I think it's a private school
• 51:25
  thing. They didn't were able to
• 51:26
  outsource companies to come in because you know, it is most
• 51:30
  time after school when the gym's open.
• 51:33
  But the downtime is that the gyms closed all day in trying to
• 51:37
  cram in, you know, 17 sports versus make it a class.
• 51:41
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's how that kind of
• 51:44
  worked. So I think a lot.
• 51:47
  You coach the yeah, yeah, you are all over.
• 51:48
  I love this though. No, it's all good.
• 51:51
  You're challenging me cuz I try to keep like a visual of the
• 51:54
  journey as we're moving along and you've got a lot of pieces
• 51:57
  to the journey. And that's OK cuz why that's
• 52:00
  important to me and important for me to have an individual
• 52:02
  like yourself on the show and showing that is to show other
• 52:06
  people that it, it, it can happen.
• 52:08
  Like there's not this like, Oh, clean cut journey.
• 52:10
  Keenan went to junior college and then a four year and then G8
• 52:14
  somewhere and then started coaching high school and what
• 52:16
  you know that that's somebody's journey.
• 52:18
  Some people have had that journey, but I do like this
• 52:21
  journey of, you know, hey, man, I went to this junior college,
• 52:26
  went there for two years, didn't do the, the classes that I
• 52:29
  needed to take. So I had to go somewhere else
• 52:30
  and finish out classes there. Then I get to a four year.
• 52:34
  I I love that because again, there are people listening that
• 52:36
  need to know that are in the middle of that journey right
• 52:39
  now. They need to know, oh, my goal
• 52:42
  of becoming a coach. It, it can happen.
• 52:44
  This guy did it. So I, I can do it.
• 52:45
  There is a path there. So I, I absolutely love it and
• 52:48
  really, really grateful for it. OK, so you, you that athletic
• 52:52
  Republica, you coach those three track kids.
• 52:54
  I thought, OK, this is where we're going to get to coaching.
• 52:56
  But now you're talking about modern day and you're talking
• 52:57
  about boys volleyball and and girls basketball.
• 52:59
  I think what? Yeah, so I was just following
• 53:02
  Athletic Republic's program for, for that.
• 53:04
  So I was just connected with that community.
• 53:07
  And then from there, the Rick Martinez, the head coach there,
• 53:13
  their jumps coach resigned in 2011.
• 53:16
  So because I was already on campus, I was already known.
• 53:18
  Cuz mind you, I'm still, I was just coming off of you were
• 53:22
  saying outdoor championships and I'm still have this buzz.
• 53:25
  And also I train, I'm in the area.
• 53:27
  Yeah, a lot of kids. JT Daniels was another kid, the
• 53:30
  kid that I worked with. Now, I didn't make him who he
• 53:33
  is. I was just around in that space.
• 53:35
  He's also from Irvine, Nico Amigio, all those kids.
• 53:38
  But but that was a connection there.
• 53:41
  So somehow he noticed me and then, hey, you know, the spot's
• 53:44
  open and it worked out that I can coach there at modern day
• 53:48
  and I was able to be the head coach of the jumping the jump
• 53:52
  group there. So how did you, you've got a lot
• 53:54
  of experiences through velocity and through athletic Republica,
• 53:58
  your own ideas, your own education.
• 54:01
  You have formal education with things and then you have your
• 54:03
  own experiences and, and thoughts about doing things.
• 54:06
  How did you? Because that's what coaching is,
• 54:10
  right? It's an amalgamation of a lot of
• 54:11
  different things. You know, you probably heard the
• 54:13
  saying, you know, good track coaches, a thief, meaning they,
• 54:16
  you know, listen to Boo shacks night and go, I like that.
• 54:19
  OK, I'm going to put that in my program.
• 54:20
  Oh damn, path said that. I like that.
• 54:21
  I'm going to put that and you can you create your own program?
• 54:25
  You know, there's a Boo way of doing things, a pathway of doing
• 54:27
  things. You create your own from all
• 54:29
  these different amalgamations as you now start coaching high
• 54:32
  school and high school kids, 14 to 18 year old kids, you
• 54:35
  yourself, you know, your experiences of being a 14 to 18
• 54:38
  year old athlete. How do you take all those things
• 54:41
  into, OK, here's the Kenyan Briggs way of of doing things.
• 54:46
  So I actually did that prior to even starting high school.
• 54:49
  So the the benefit that I had was already had ten years of
• 54:53
  coaching experience before I even started high school and I
• 54:57
  also tested my program physically.
• 55:01
  Yeah, but so I hear that and I'm with you.
• 55:05
  I'm perfectly fine calling personal training, coaching.
• 55:07
  I'm OK with that. It's not my you know what I'm
• 55:10
  focused on, right? The the track coach, right?
• 55:14
  All those things are important. I I used to be a personal
• 55:16
  trainer, which kind of tells you it's not that hard to do
• 55:19
  Bridachkins But but so I'm I'm with all that, but coaching a
• 55:25
  you said you're the jump squad coach at modern day.
• 55:29
  That means triple jump, long jump, high jump, what have you.
• 55:32
  There's technique in that as well, not just trying to make
• 55:36
  the person stronger, less way less things like that like
• 55:41
  physical health. It's a technique driven thing.
• 55:44
  How do you and you did take you know, you coached yourself,
• 55:47
  right. So you do know there's technique
• 55:48
  involved this. How do you now output that into
• 55:52
  your program with now modern day?
• 55:55
  Correct. And so that's where I was going
• 55:56
  with, because of that personal training piece, I was able to
• 56:00
  get to the result in a different way, right?
• 56:03
  Then when I applied that into athlete movement, I realized
• 56:07
  athletes weren't moving and doing the things they wanted to
• 56:09
  do on the field because they didn't have the motor skills
• 56:12
  developed yet, right? They didn't have that neural
• 56:15
  connection. And so from there, teaching
• 56:17
  those bio mechanical movements is what I specialized in, right?
• 56:21
  And so once you have that set up, then the next part goes
• 56:25
  into, OK, let's be a coach. The trainers and the coaches,
• 56:29
  they're that's right. Right.
• 56:31
  Thank you. Thank you for saying that.
• 56:32
  That's right. OK, so I took the trainer
• 56:34
  mentality and the athlete mentality, then put that into a
• 56:37
  mentor mentorship mentality to make it to become a coach.
• 56:41
  So my job description has changed, right?
• 56:43
  So I was able to do all that process before I even got to the
• 56:46
  high school levels. What essentially what I'm trying
• 56:48
  to say. I'm hearing it more.
• 56:49
  OK, I got you. I'm with you.
• 56:50
  I'm with you. And so when I got there, you
• 56:53
  know, I got there right when she getting started, I said, OK, I'm
• 56:57
  here. This is what's going to happen.
• 56:58
  And we changed everything. And one part that I didn't cover
• 57:02
  was Sheila Hudson was my triple jump.
• 57:04
  Coach, dude, come on All right, well, that that that helps a lot
• 57:08
  of things there for sure for. Sure, a technique that's that's
• 57:12
  a bonus. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 57:13
  So so when I got there, my biggest thing was these kids are
• 57:17
  out of shape. PT get them in shape.
• 57:21
  Now their mentality is starting to develop.
• 57:23
  Great. Let's mentor them.
• 57:25
  Now they need to learn how to put being in shape into
• 57:28
  technical movements. Great.
• 57:30
  That's the the trainer, the the coach piece, right?
• 57:34
  So I put all these together and that's where the program kind of
• 57:36
  came together. And so at the end of the first
• 57:39
  year, I had great success. A lot of athletes have huge PRS.
• 57:43
  I'm talking about three to four feet and long triple jump for,
• 57:46
  you know, 2 feet and long and long.
• 57:48
  And Art Hinojosa and Ryan Finney were the two guys that stood out
• 57:54
  the most. They both improved.
• 57:56
  Ryan went from 40P to 46, eight triple jump.
• 58:00
  Art went from 4038 to 4311. And so everyone else who was
• 58:06
  just there ended up just not making, not making team.
• 58:10
  Next year. They either quit or chose
• 58:12
  differently. And I had that turnover for
• 58:14
  about 3 years. But there's a core group about 6
• 58:16
  athletes that stuck with it. And the freshman there was Kyra
• 58:20
  Coley and Jasmine Moss. Jasmine Moss broke the school
• 58:24
  record 3838 and a quarter. And then Kyra Coley went 3711.
• 58:30
  And so now I'm having athletes that are 3430 fives and up,
• 58:34
  just, you know, athletes over athletes.
• 58:37
  And so as that kept developing, it kept turning over and
• 58:40
  improve. The marks kept going up because
• 58:42
  I was training the freshman, the, the base training to build
• 58:46
  up to the varsity athletes. So I had this program set, which
• 58:50
  was where the success started to really show.
• 58:53
  So in, in that at your time frame, I had five CRF champions
• 59:00
  and I it's, I get it with relays, it's easier.
• 59:03
  But these are individual champions that beat out, you
• 59:06
  know, I had brother and sister that won the same triple jump
• 59:09
  the same year, 2018, Just yeah, there's a lot of stats there.
• 59:15
  But at the end of the day, what I did was I put them into a
• 59:19
  college development program in high school.
• 59:23
  So at that time, too, I was doing the weight training.
• 59:25
  I was doing everything. What did you know?
• 59:27
  This is my own curiosity. I hear that from sometimes from
• 59:30
  time to time other sports as well, right?
• 59:32
  You know, we, we, we trained our quarterbacks in college.
• 59:36
  What does that mean? Because when I, when I asked
• 59:39
  that question, you know, I coached at a fairly high level.
• 59:42
  I was in the SECI had long jump SEC champions and some kids that
• 59:47
  end up, you know, running Olympics and things like that.
• 59:49
  So I, you know, I was pretty, I was on top of my game for, for a
• 59:53
  guy who's only in it for 10 years, you know, I, that's a
• 59:57
  little ego talking. Now I look back, I'm like, I
• 59:59
  knew nothing, but I had some good kids.
• 1:00:02
  I also coached high school a little bit.
• 1:00:05
  At the beginning of my career and what I wonder is now sitting
• 1:00:09
  in the seat that I sit now where I talk to coaches daily, right,
• 1:00:12
  whether it's through the podcast, through Twitter,
• 1:00:15
  obviously traditional means, phone calls, texts, etcetera.
• 1:00:18
  There are some really good coaches.
• 1:00:20
  There are a lot of good coaches. When I say that, I mean every
• 1:00:24
  coach is good because what you're doing is amazing to me.
• 1:00:27
  I talk about the technical side of it, like, oh, OK, you know,
• 1:00:30
  you understand the event or events a little bit better when
• 1:00:33
  I hear I put them through a college type training.
• 1:00:36
  I don't know what that means because I don't know what the
• 1:00:39
  difference. Like I've seen what I would
• 1:00:41
  consider not great. We'll use jumps as an example,
• 1:00:44
  not great jumps training on the high school level and college
• 1:00:47
  level and professional level, by the way.
• 1:00:48
  And I'm just saying that's my opinion, right?
• 1:00:49
  Because it's like, well, if they're coaching professionals,
• 1:00:51
  they're they're doing something, they're doing good, right?
• 1:00:55
  What what did that mean? Maybe the better way and fairer
• 1:00:58
  way of asking this to you, Keenan, is what did that mean to
• 1:01:01
  you when you said I put them through a college type training,
• 1:01:04
  these high schoolers, what did that mean to you?
• 1:01:06
  When you say that, what does that mean to you?
• 1:01:08
  Yeah. What it means to me basically is
• 1:01:10
  I put them through just the type of technical work that they
• 1:01:14
  should begin at the college level.
• 1:01:16
  You wouldn't study film sessions that they should be having.
• 1:01:19
  A lot of high schools. I don't know if they do that or
• 1:01:21
  not because you would have to have a knowledge to be able to
• 1:01:24
  say here's a flaw, here's a solution.
• 1:01:27
  And then they also put them just through like the rest, like
• 1:01:31
  Stratton putting in, rest putting in so we didn't have to
• 1:01:34
  train 6 days. You know, most high schools will
• 1:01:37
  train every day plus track meet. And I was like, OK, well I
• 1:01:40
  didn't like that for me when I was doing because I was doing,
• 1:01:43
  if you do the math, a Thursday dual meet, Saturday
• 1:01:45
  Invitational, and another Thursday dual meet.
• 1:01:47
  Well that's three track meets in seven days.
• 1:01:50
  So be at the college. Traditionally it's about two
• 1:01:52
  track meets per month. So what I would do is I would
• 1:01:55
  remove days and put in active rest.
• 1:01:57
  I would put in visualization. We would have recovery days like
• 1:02:01
  that would be part of my training.
• 1:02:02
  So I don't here's where I struggle when when people say
• 1:02:05
  that. And you know, Keenan, I forgot
• 1:02:07
  to tell you this before we record.
• 1:02:08
  It's my podcast. So I get to push back where I do
• 1:02:11
  it respectfully. Keenan, you're not, you're not
• 1:02:13
  wrong in what you're saying. Don't hear me saying that.
• 1:02:15
  These are actually, it's kind of a selfish for me.
• 1:02:18
  It's like, oh, I'm curious. So this is just me.
• 1:02:20
  Like I want to become better and understand things more.
• 1:02:22
  So here's where I push back on what you just said.
• 1:02:25
  I wouldn't call what you the examples you just gave college
• 1:02:28
  training necessarily because there are plenty of colleges who
• 1:02:31
  are also not doing what you do. What you just did.
• 1:02:35
  The examples you just gave, I just call it good coaching.
• 1:02:38
  So I don't care if it's the 8th grader.
• 1:02:41
  I'm sorry, the 8 year old kid who's learning long jump, triple
• 1:02:44
  jump and doing film sessions and you know, smartly only does
• 1:02:48
  maybe one meet a week. That's its own.
• 1:02:52
  Every coach gets upset. Every coach.
• 1:02:55
  That's a strong word. A lot of coaches that I talked
• 1:02:57
  to are upset about these Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday type
• 1:02:59
  meets, but yet we're still doing them.
• 1:03:02
  So I don't understand like why we're all upset about it.
• 1:03:05
  Stop doing it just through the weekend ones.
• 1:03:06
  All right, so see soapbox again. OK, I'm going to title this, I
• 1:03:11
  guess Mike's soapbox featuring Keegan Briggs.
• 1:03:14
  That's what. This would be.
• 1:03:16
  So whether it's an eighth grader or 8 year old who only does one
• 1:03:19
  meet a week and does film studies or a 11th grader or a
• 1:03:23
  junior in college that's or a professional, that's not college
• 1:03:28
  or elite training, that's just good training.
• 1:03:30
  That's where I always kind of, it's a little semantics.
• 1:03:33
  I know you're, you're kind of laughing at me, Keenan.
• 1:03:35
  That's good. I know.
• 1:03:35
  It's good, yeah. It's a little semantic, but I
• 1:03:37
  just here's what I don't like about it.
• 1:03:40
  Here's why I kind of push back. Like it's not college level
• 1:03:42
  training, it's just good training is I don't like the
• 1:03:46
  pedestal of like, oh, well, it's a college coach.
• 1:03:49
  They know everything they don't. There's plenty that and the good
• 1:03:53
  ones admit they don't know everything and it's it's less
• 1:03:56
  about the college coach of knowing quote UN quote, knowing
• 1:03:58
  everything. It's it's more about the well
• 1:04:00
  then that means you're saying, and I'm not saying you that that
• 1:04:03
  type of thought philosophy is is inferring that high school
• 1:04:07
  coaches are not very good coaches and that is also
• 1:04:10
  absolutely not true. You're a good example of that,
• 1:04:13
  Keenan. But there are other great
• 1:04:15
  examples of high school coaches that could coach me in circles,
• 1:04:19
  for crying out loud, you know, so that that's all I'm kind of
• 1:04:22
  getting at Keenan. I don't know, Yeah.
• 1:04:24
  I, I think it's, it's more of I'm using these words because
• 1:04:28
  it's more specifically college prep for preparing them for
• 1:04:30
  college, not college training. OK, that now I love that, that
• 1:04:34
  to me, like as soon as you said college prep, I'm like, Oh yeah,
• 1:04:36
  you're preparing them for what the next level might be.
• 1:04:39
  I love that, Keenan, that that that resonate, that that doesn't
• 1:04:43
  put down a high school coach nor a irresponsible, constantly
• 1:04:47
  uplift a college coach. I love that.
• 1:04:50
  OK, All right, so we've got you to change your language.
• 1:04:52
  You're going to say college? Prep for No, it was college prep
• 1:04:53
  the whole time. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:04:54
  Got it. So, but from there, it's, yes,
• 1:05:00
  there's a lot of layers to it. So the goal is to have them
• 1:05:03
  prepared for whenever they go to the next level.
• 1:05:06
  They're already in that rhythm of, of what to expect.
• 1:05:09
  Same thing with SAT preps. That's exactly.
• 1:05:12
  Right. I love this.
• 1:05:13
  OK, yeah, we're we're In Sync now.
• 1:05:16
  Yeah. And and so you know, another
• 1:05:20
  layer of that it's parents don't know the verbiage.
• 1:05:24
  So a college prep, that's a good point.
• 1:05:27
  Allow them to connect dots. That's a great, great point.
• 1:05:30
  Great point. So how how long were you at
• 1:05:33
  modern day? Modern day, modern day?
• 1:05:35
  Modern. Day Modern day How long were you
• 1:05:37
  at modern day? So from 11 to 19 those seasons,
• 1:05:41
  but I was there for track from 12 to 19.
• 1:05:43
  How did you're having success obviously with your jumpers?
• 1:05:48
  How did meshing with the other coaches and therefore there are
• 1:05:52
  other athletes or even share an athlete.
• 1:05:54
  Your jumpers probably also spreaded a hurdler and hurdled
• 1:05:56
  for the Sprint turtles coach or you know relays things like
• 1:05:58
  that. How are you meshing with the
• 1:06:00
  other staff? I was actually able to retain a
• 1:06:04
  lot of the athletes that I had, which is how hard as you do a.
• 1:06:08
  100% this is freaking 14 to 18 year old kids. 100% absolutely.
• 1:06:13
  The reason for it is this is something I made-up in my mind
• 1:06:16
  that there are developing athletes, then there's don't
• 1:06:21
  mess it up athletes. So for example, we had a pole
• 1:06:25
  vaulter that was really good and she was like, I want to do the
• 1:06:28
  100. And the coaches were like, no,
• 1:06:31
  you're not right now you're doing pole ball.
• 1:06:33
  You're going to continue doing pole ball.
• 1:06:35
  So in my mind, if you make an athlete that develop an athlete
• 1:06:37
  to be so good that it's like we don't want to mess something up,
• 1:06:42
  then that it kind of helps keep the athletes rhythm and
• 1:06:45
  consistency with their training. Because you might have two
• 1:06:48
  amazing coaches with two different philosophies. 1 coach
• 1:06:51
  may say we need to do hard sprints every single Monday but
• 1:06:55
  then you have another coach that says we had a 18 jumps on on
• 1:06:59
  Saturday. Monday isn't the best day to
• 1:07:01
  spread. What you just described is the
• 1:07:06
  thing that probably holds back most multi combined event
• 1:07:09
  athletes, Hepta athletes to athletes is, you know, it's very
• 1:07:13
  rare. It should be more common that a
• 1:07:16
  coach, a multi coach coaches all the events, you know, all 10
• 1:07:20
  decathlon events. I think of like the great Harry
• 1:07:22
  Mirror and and people like that. It's usually parceled out.
• 1:07:26
  You have one coach that works with the sprints, hurdles
• 1:07:28
  portion of the Cathlon or heptathlon.
• 1:07:30
  You have a pole vault coach. Maybe you have a long triple
• 1:07:32
  jump coach, maybe you have a high jump coach.
• 1:07:34
  Maybe somehow a distance guy gets our disc, you know, throws,
• 1:07:36
  right? So we have to throw shot, things
• 1:07:38
  like that. And the thing that hurts the
• 1:07:40
  Catholics the most when it's that way is if the coaches can't
• 1:07:44
  communicate. That is one O 1 for combined
• 1:07:47
  events coaching. If you're going to do it this
• 1:07:49
  way, if you're going to have a coaching by committee, you guys
• 1:07:51
  and gals better be talking daily because you're exactly right.
• 1:07:55
  Monday you have a hard workout and then you go to the throws
• 1:07:57
  and they decide to have a hard workout.
• 1:07:58
  And then Wednesday you go to the jumps and they have a hard
• 1:08:00
  workout. And then Thursday go to pole
• 1:08:01
  vault. They have a hard work.
• 1:08:02
  Well, guess what happens to the athlete They break.
• 1:08:05
  Yeah, you're exactly right. Communication between the
• 1:08:09
  coaching Staffs is paramount if that athlete is going to have
• 1:08:13
  success. Bingo.
• 1:08:14
  Bingo. The biggest solution to that is
• 1:08:16
  having a a governing piece to the decision making.
• 1:08:20
  You mean like one person who's going to be the guide keeper of
• 1:08:25
  you're not doing this today? Sorry, boss.
• 1:08:27
  Yeah. OK.
• 1:08:28
  Yeah. This this chess master, if you
• 1:08:29
  will. Yeah.
• 1:08:30
  Yeah. So I'm a big person on whenever
• 1:08:32
  it's an issue, here's a solution or an idea for a solution,
• 1:08:36
  right? So I was a hurdler jumper, so I
• 1:08:38
  would jump and run different days.
• 1:08:40
  Now I'm back in the six days of training, right?
• 1:08:43
  Right. So when jumpers run the pools on
• 1:08:44
  pool workout recovery, I'm doing repeat one 50s and two hundreds
• 1:08:48
  and it's like that was hurting my body.
• 1:08:51
  Right. Absolutely.
• 1:08:53
  When it comes to the high school level, that was recognized
• 1:08:55
  conversation in the beginning. I said, hey, I need to be the
• 1:08:58
  head coach for the jump team, you know, so I can have the
• 1:09:01
  governing decisions on the primary jumpers.
• 1:09:05
  And so anyone who's not a primary jumper, then you know,
• 1:09:08
  what will make everything work for the kids.
• 1:09:11
  So that worked out was great teamwork with with that process.
• 1:09:16
  And it got to the point to where I had 50 athletes.
• 1:09:18
  I had 50 jumpers because they're like jumping is cool to do
• 1:09:21
  because the success there, right?
• 1:09:24
  And then Rick saw that there was a level of durability from the
• 1:09:30
  athletes to where the jumper athletes would now start to fill
• 1:09:33
  in with the relays and support them.
• 1:09:37
  And we agreed that, OK, I would take some of the the training
• 1:09:41
  athletes and say, like, let me get them developing too.
• 1:09:44
  So we have even more bodies to work with that are ready to go.
• 1:09:47
  And that's where it started to kind of be this where I would
• 1:09:50
  handle all the offseason stuff. He's going to allow the coaches
• 1:09:53
  to like have time off, you know, and then show up and the kids
• 1:09:56
  already have that base training set, you know.
• 1:09:59
  So it worked out great with that, with that process.
• 1:10:03
  Yeah. So that was kind of that how
• 1:10:05
  that worked out with the athletes.
• 1:10:07
  So you said that was through 2019.
• 1:10:09
  What, what happens next? Where do we go next?
• 1:10:11
  So 2019, I guess I can be transparent.
• 1:10:17
  So because of the the communication with the athletes,
• 1:10:21
  I was with the athletes pretty much all year round because I
• 1:10:25
  was able to create offseason trainings with the kids.
• 1:10:27
  We were all we're together through the summer, all the
• 1:10:29
  whole season and and couple of the athletes felt really close
• 1:10:34
  to me. Just saw every coaches you know
• 1:10:37
  and there were a couple that felt that they just didn't mesh
• 1:10:41
  with the old school style of coaching.
• 1:10:44
  Pretty sure you and I coach would yell at you to get you
• 1:10:47
  motivated nowadays. From my experience yelling at
• 1:10:50
  the kids triggers them in a certain way and don't work out
• 1:10:53
  so there was miscommunication in in that process.
• 1:10:57
  I won't go into too much detail, I don't think it's important on
• 1:10:59
  this one, but either way modern day stopped 20/20/20 along the
• 1:11:05
  world and everything but I was still able to keep my club team
• 1:11:09
  training at modern day so I'm still there.
• 1:11:11
  So when did the club actually start?
• 1:11:13
  Because that that that's, I was kind of wondering when Leap
• 1:11:15
  Squad, which is a great name by the way, when that actually
• 1:11:18
  started. Leap Squad started started in
• 1:11:20
  2012. OK.
• 1:11:21
  All right. So it's been going.
• 1:11:22
  Overlapping all the stories. Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I know.
• 1:11:25
  That's what's confusing me, Keene.
• 1:11:27
  I'm not smart enough for this stuff.
• 1:11:28
  I need very simple lines and cuts.
• 1:11:31
  OK, perfect. So after things happened in
• 1:11:35
  modern day, the the the the club is already there.
• 1:11:38
  So it's just are we building the club now is or we focus on the
• 1:11:42
  club 100% at this point? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:44
  So once that was done, I was like, let me find out of school.
• 1:11:47
  And I was like, wait a minute, I have, I'm a head coach already.
• 1:11:50
  I've been head coach. I'm have huge success with
• 1:11:52
  athletes, you know, top three in the in the US for U20, all those
• 1:11:56
  things like I want to keep this going.
• 1:11:59
  So then I already had a virtual team working.
• 1:12:03
  It was at 20201516 that I had virtual athletes from Canada and
• 1:12:06
  all over. And so once COVID hit, I was
• 1:12:08
  like, let me launch the virtual team, relaunched that and then
• 1:12:12
  also build up my my in person team.
• 1:12:16
  And so that's where in person team doubled in size, went up to
• 1:12:20
  about 60 to 70 athletes. And he had another at that time
• 1:12:24
  another 4 virtual team athletes. So I'm working with them do
• 1:12:29
  doing whatever else, writing programs for them and then just
• 1:12:33
  the results kept being consistent.
• 1:12:36
  So they were consistent in person already, but now it was
• 1:12:39
  virtual and the club team that was only two days of practice
• 1:12:43
  and the virtual team is all virtual and the results were the
• 1:12:47
  exact same, if not more. And so since that 2021, it's
• 1:12:51
  just been growing every single year, like multiplying each
• 1:12:53
  year. What is?
• 1:12:58
  What are your biggest struggles or differences as a club coach?
• 1:13:02
  You know, you've done high school coaching, you've been
• 1:13:06
  high school and college athletes.
• 1:13:07
  So you've seen you know what those type of programs, whether
• 1:13:11
  it's, you know what type, when practice can start, when it
• 1:13:13
  does, you know, I'm talking about the year, not just the
• 1:13:15
  day, right? You know, college, I can go fall
• 1:13:17
  and spring high school and typically in the spring.
• 1:13:20
  Things like that. For a club, you have different
• 1:13:24
  strengths and weaknesses and struggles and, and advances.
• 1:13:27
  Talk to me about the, I've never owned a club, you know, I know a
• 1:13:30
  few club owners, of course, but I'm just curious about that side
• 1:13:33
  of, of track and field because it's, it's grown, it's, it's
• 1:13:35
  huge. I mean, whether you like clubs
• 1:13:37
  or not, you got to deal with them.
• 1:13:39
  They're out there. That's a part of our sport.
• 1:13:42
  Yeah, the, the club space, it's there's no rules.
• 1:13:50
  You know, you don't have to be a coach.
• 1:13:55
  You can just be a parent. That just puts the kids together
• 1:13:57
  and just go. So you have that level of
• 1:13:59
  coaching. Then you have coaching levels
• 1:14:01
  that, you know, where I have experience coming in, right?
• 1:14:06
  There's no real rules other than knowing the high school rules.
• 1:14:10
  So a lot of club coaches get in the way of high school because
• 1:14:13
  they haven't read the CIF handbook and understand you
• 1:14:17
  can't be with kids in this. If if they're in season, they
• 1:14:19
  can't run with your club because it's going to suspend them,
• 1:14:23
  suspend them for a certain amount of time.
• 1:14:25
  You know, there's even if you have a club, you can't take them
• 1:14:28
  through the the dead period and still work with them if you're
• 1:14:32
  also their high school coach. Like there's a lot of rules that
• 1:14:34
  are in there that a lot of coaches miss.
• 1:14:36
  And that's where the kind of clash kind of happened between
• 1:14:38
  high school and club. But I truly feel that the
• 1:14:42
  athletes who are getting additional resources are going
• 1:14:45
  to be able to do or have more resources to do better only if
• 1:14:50
  there's a governing faculty of what the season looks like.
• 1:14:54
  It always comes down to who I mean this trip.
• 1:14:59
  All right, let's talk about that.
• 1:15:00
  That's great. I love that you have that verb
• 1:15:02
  that helps helps with this next year because we've had some
• 1:15:04
  amazing, you know, Danny McCray from down Texas has been the
• 1:15:07
  show. He is going to call himself a
• 1:15:09
  club coach, which I love, but he he's not he's a non high school
• 1:15:11
  coach, you know, working with kids and you know, so I get both
• 1:15:16
  sides of it, right, like, and one of my goals and again, in
• 1:15:19
  the passions that I have for uplifting coaches is
• 1:15:22
  communication. We, we go back to talk about
• 1:15:25
  that with like combined event athletes, right?
• 1:15:27
  And it's not I, I don't, it's going to sound weird.
• 1:15:30
  I don't care about like, I'm not here to, to, to help with the
• 1:15:33
  communication of coaching the athlete.
• 1:15:35
  There's other great avenues for that.
• 1:15:36
  I'm here about the, the coaches. So I, I like to talk a lot about
• 1:15:41
  the, the disagreements of a college coach and high school
• 1:15:46
  coaches. Like where there's a clash, like
• 1:15:47
  how, how do we talk about there are things that you're, you're a
• 1:15:51
  high school coach, you don't like when a college coach
• 1:15:53
  doesn't call you during the recruiting process.
• 1:15:54
  They only talk to the kid. Well, let's talk about that.
• 1:15:56
  Here are some reasons why the college coaches don't do that.
• 1:15:58
  And a college coach you don't like that the high school coach
• 1:16:02
  isn't an expert long jump, triple jump coach.
• 1:16:04
  Well, hey, you know, that high school coach is also teaching 8
• 1:16:06
  hours a day and has a family and, you know, they can't get to
• 1:16:09
  all the clinics and they have other, you know, they're
• 1:16:11
  coaching for a different motivation than you are.
• 1:16:12
  You're in college, you're coaching there because your
• 1:16:14
  motivation is to, you know, get real deep in the track and
• 1:16:17
  field. And so the same clash is
• 1:16:20
  happening between it is happening between college and
• 1:16:23
  club as well, But the majority of the disagreements are club
• 1:16:27
  and high school. Correct.
• 1:16:29
  Now, in most states, I assume there is some rule of in season
• 1:16:33
  whether you can or cannot compete with an outside coach.
• 1:16:37
  However, there is no rule that says you can't go train with a
• 1:16:40
  club that, you know, that's that's private stuff.
• 1:16:42
  That's if mom and dad wants to pay for it, they can do it in
• 1:16:44
  the middle of track season, right?
• 1:16:47
  How do we And maybe the better way to ask is how have you?
• 1:16:51
  And I appreciate your transparency.
• 1:16:52
  So I feel like I'm going to get a real like authentic answer.
• 1:16:55
  Like, yeah, maybe I don't do a good job.
• 1:16:56
  Mike, how do you handle the that that that governing body that
• 1:17:04
  that chess master with the high school coach because all your
• 1:17:09
  kids, this is an assumption. All your kids have a high school
• 1:17:11
  coach who all have different degrees of motivation for
• 1:17:17
  coaching somewhere. Be like, oh man, thank God you
• 1:17:19
  get to go to Keenan. I don't know anything.
• 1:17:21
  I don't want to know anything. I'm trying to grade my math
• 1:17:24
  class, you know. And then you have others
• 1:17:27
  assumably in in through the years, have coaches that are
• 1:17:30
  maybe just as good. And if you can drop your bad ego
• 1:17:35
  better than you that are like Keenan or, you know, they
• 1:17:38
  probably wouldn't even talk to you to be a kid.
• 1:17:39
  This guy, I know more than this guy.
• 1:17:40
  What are you doing? Just stay with me and we'll be
• 1:17:42
  fine. How do you handle that
• 1:17:45
  communication and different levels of motivation of coaching
• 1:17:49
  and even the ego side of of all of this too.
• 1:17:51
  How do you how do you do that? Yeah, a lot of layers to that,
• 1:17:55
  yeah. There we go.
• 1:18:01
  Yeah, a lot of layers. Yep.
• 1:18:02
  The, the, the first layer is stay consistent with the brand,
• 1:18:07
  whatever your brand is. I mean, as in like company is if
• 1:18:11
  you're a coach that believes in kids first, then always default
• 1:18:15
  on that and that will always show through everything that you
• 1:18:19
  do love that. So that's number one.
• 1:18:20
  So I always stick say true to the lead mentality.
• 1:18:23
  So lead stands for lead, elevate, achievement, prevail.
• 1:18:25
  Those are the four. Others hold on, what was it?
• 1:18:28
  Lead Elevate. Achieve and prevail.
• 1:18:34
  So we're leaders in our community.
• 1:18:36
  We elevate our standards, achieve all goals we set for
• 1:18:38
  ourselves and prevail through all types of adversity.
• 1:18:42
  So that's always, if I have questions, I default and ask the
• 1:18:47
  brand and the brand always tells me the the best answer.
• 1:18:52
  So now from there, the conflicts that I always run into is I
• 1:18:58
  have, like you said, coaches that are like, hey, we don't
• 1:19:01
  have a jump coach. Like go with Coach Briggs and
• 1:19:05
  we'll run them here. We're good to go.
• 1:19:07
  All right. Then I had the extreme, which is
• 1:19:10
  don't go to that coach, which is I get it.
• 1:19:13
  I wonder what saying get it? It's not me.
• 1:19:16
  It's not the coach's decision. The governing faculty is the
• 1:19:20
  parent. And so the parent has this
• 1:19:25
  belief system, which is old school, old school system, which
• 1:19:29
  is the coaches know best, which 99% of the time coaches do
• 1:19:35
  because there's experience there, There's, there's
• 1:19:37
  everything there. But when it comes down to the
• 1:19:40
  parents are the ones that put the kids in the situation that
• 1:19:43
  they're in. The parents are the ones that
• 1:19:45
  hired this personal trainer or that hired this club team or
• 1:19:49
  that brought in this, you know, speed coach.
• 1:19:51
  That's a distraction towards the high school team, right?
• 1:19:54
  The parents are the ones that have the kid in club volleyball
• 1:19:57
  all year round and the kid wants to do track.
• 1:19:59
  Now the kids doing volleyball on track because they're paying
• 1:20:01
  bills over here too, you know. So the parents are a very
• 1:20:05
  important piece of this process. And so with that, it trickles
• 1:20:10
  down to the kid because the kid saying mom, dad, I want to get
• 1:20:13
  faster. I feel like I'm not getting fast
• 1:20:15
  enough with my high school speed high school coach because I'm
• 1:20:18
  comparing because nowadays my phone.
• 1:20:22
  You know, I can take what you're saying right now and double
• 1:20:25
  check. In fact, that's.
• 1:20:25
  Right, that's. Right.
• 1:20:27
  You know, as I think I should be running, you know, flying 30s
• 1:20:29
  and not one 50s. And if the coach can't
• 1:20:33
  articulate and be transparent on this division, this is the
• 1:20:37
  reason why this how then it creates confliction, the tension
• 1:20:44
  between the two. And then that kid then says,
• 1:20:46
  well, I can go to that coach and get what I'm looking for.
• 1:20:50
  And then now it becomes this whole process that goes on and
• 1:20:53
  off, right? So I never get in between the
• 1:20:57
  coaches and the athletes. I just educate the athletes on
• 1:21:01
  understand that if you're here, I need to know everything that
• 1:21:04
  you're doing. But also you have to communicate
• 1:21:07
  with your coach that you're coming here so the coach
• 1:21:10
  understands what's happening. Because ultimately I understand
• 1:21:14
  too, when I was a high school coach, I had a handful of kids
• 1:21:17
  that want to do up a training because like high jump has been,
• 1:21:21
  it's on the tier. It's #3 between long and triple,
• 1:21:23
  it's like triple, long and then high jump.
• 1:21:25
  So I had high jumpers that were like, I need more high jump
• 1:21:27
  because I had 50 kids and I was the only coach, you know.
• 1:21:31
  So I said, hey, I will watch every jump.
• 1:21:33
  When you're on varsity, if you're not, you know, teammates
• 1:21:36
  will work with you. So they thought that they were
• 1:21:38
  getting up with the high jump. So then they went out and got
• 1:21:41
  high jump coaches. So I was like, OK, then that
• 1:21:43
  affects the training here. But by the way, sorry to
• 1:21:45
  interrupt. I, I, I was just struck by that,
• 1:21:47
  that what you just said there no judgement at all.
• 1:21:50
  But but when you said, you know, hey, you're high jump, high
• 1:21:53
  jumpers, If you're not on varsity, you're gonna have to
• 1:21:55
  get help from your teammates, things like that.
• 1:21:56
  That is exactly what I mean when I say when a college coach says,
• 1:22:00
  oh, look at Keena, if he would just do more with high jumpers,
• 1:22:04
  It's like, bro, he's got 50 athletes and the majority are
• 1:22:07
  long and triple. By the way, that's his personal
• 1:22:09
  passion from background, he's doing I when you just described,
• 1:22:13
  I know some people listening were like, oh, wait a minute,
• 1:22:17
  here's this big club coach and what do you mean he's letting
• 1:22:19
  the high jump? And it's like you were you were
• 1:22:21
  doing. I from what I can tell from the
• 1:22:24
  way you're telling story, from how I now know you a little bit,
• 1:22:27
  you were doing the best you could.
• 1:22:29
  Was it perfect? No, by the way, is there a
• 1:22:31
  perfect situation? I don't think so.
• 1:22:34
  You were doing the absolute best for the majority of the kids.
• 1:22:37
  So I just know somebody was like, oh, there was a judgement
• 1:22:40
  there. And it's like, no, I could would
• 1:22:44
  I have done it differently? Maybe I probably wouldn't have
• 1:22:46
  had as many athletes. That's you know, so I started to
• 1:22:49
  interrupt you. I just thought that was a good
• 1:22:50
  point of just like, hey, you were as the high school coach in
• 1:22:53
  that example, you were doing the absolute best you can.
• 1:22:55
  Bravo. No judgement should have come
• 1:22:58
  down from anybody in that situation.
• 1:22:59
  But please continue. Received.
• 1:23:01
  Thank you. And you know, and, and so I
• 1:23:06
  didn't combat it because I was like, I understand what you're
• 1:23:09
  what you're ultimately looking for.
• 1:23:11
  And so self reflection is, if I can't offer this service at the
• 1:23:16
  level that he's looking for, then who am I to get in the way
• 1:23:20
  of that? So have you as a club coach,
• 1:23:23
  have you had a talk with a parent?
• 1:23:25
  And and so hey, tell me more about your coach or maybe you
• 1:23:29
  knew about him because you know, it's in the area and stuff like
• 1:23:30
  that and you're like, hey, you know what, maybe I'm not the
• 1:23:33
  right person for that coach is doing a great job.
• 1:23:35
  And because you're also playing baseball or what, you know, all
• 1:23:37
  the different factors that playing all this, I'm not sure.
• 1:23:40
  I don't think necessarily you should come to my club.
• 1:23:43
  Have you ever had that conversation?
• 1:23:44
  All the time. Is that right?
• 1:23:46
  That's hard. That's hard, right?
• 1:23:47
  Because let's be honest, you're a club coach, you need the
• 1:23:49
  money, you need the guy to the parent to pay you.
• 1:23:52
  So that's hard. It as a trainer in the trainer
• 1:23:56
  needs the money, but I have so I'm an entrepreneur like I've
• 1:23:59
  coached full time, so I don't need the money right, because my
• 1:24:02
  brand is where I always go off of And so it's like if the kids
• 1:24:06
  coming to me saying, Hey, I have seven O 7.
• 1:24:08
  I have football this and that and I say, OK, well, the demands
• 1:24:11
  from this program twice a week and also the days of recovery
• 1:24:15
  that doesn't fit the schedule for our program.
• 1:24:17
  So there aren't this program is in the best for you.
• 1:24:19
  Like, I have no problem, no problem saying that because at
• 1:24:23
  the end of the day, it's helping the kid.
• 1:24:25
  It's the one that's going to right.
• 1:24:27
  And if they choose to go off and still do 30 hours of training
• 1:24:30
  per week and they're 12, you know, college is going to be
• 1:24:32
  more hours of training, It's going to be a lot more.
• 1:24:35
  So, you know, this is your 21 for me.
• 1:24:38
  So I've seen, I can't say everything, but I've seen a lot
• 1:24:41
  of a lot of different examples and the times that I think I'm
• 1:24:45
  going to be right, I'm kind of right.
• 1:24:47
  And it sucks to see the kids burn out, you know?
• 1:24:50
  But again, the parents have their perspective, which is why,
• 1:24:53
  Michael, how do we resolve this is by educating the parents on
• 1:24:56
  the different perspectives and how layouts may come out.
• 1:25:00
  But but I guess to stay on topic because I'm also a tangent
• 1:25:03
  person. Yeah, we're good.
• 1:25:03
  We're good. I'm enjoying this.
• 1:25:05
  But how I handle, you know, that piece is I had an athlete who
• 1:25:09
  was the national champion for the multis.
• 1:25:12
  I don't teach multis. I specialize in getting you the
• 1:25:16
  best that you can be in each individual event one at a time.
• 1:25:20
  All right, so let's master your long jump versus have you top 15
• 1:25:25
  in the US, the long jump to get you the top one.
• 1:25:27
  And then when that's done, we add in the high jump and
• 1:25:30
  whatever, whatever, whatever. And so that athlete was doing a
• 1:25:34
  lot and I was like, OK, well, we got to back them off because
• 1:25:38
  we're not adding in. There's hurdle, there's there's
• 1:25:41
  rounds of all these events that takes them from three events to
• 1:25:45
  seven, you know, So I'm still going on a tangent, feel like
• 1:25:50
  I'm coming back, coming back. You're good.
• 1:25:51
  You're good bro. At the end of the day, what I
• 1:25:56
  introduced to the program is what athletes are with our
• 1:25:58
  program for the first year, then it's let this program work
• 1:26:01
  itself out. And then if you feel that you're
• 1:26:04
  not we're not meeting their expectations, then we'll look at
• 1:26:07
  other resources. That's kind of how I put that.
• 1:26:11
  And I have the freedom to because I'm a club coach versus
• 1:26:14
  a high school coach may say, you know what, I had a kid who came
• 1:26:17
  here, was a best kid, went to a private gym with this one guy
• 1:26:22
  and the kid kept coming hurt every single day at practice.
• 1:26:25
  And I understand that as well, you know, and now it's like, OK,
• 1:26:29
  well, you know, it's, it's hard to coach you because you're
• 1:26:33
  being trained and now the development piece can't come in
• 1:26:36
  there, you know, So if there's no answer for it, it's a
• 1:26:40
  headache. And what I've done is I've shown
• 1:26:44
  that you can trust leap squad because every year I have 70
• 1:26:49
  athletes, 6070 athletes, and they're all always the best of
• 1:26:54
  their program and they're healthy.
• 1:26:56
  I had five soft tissue injuries in the past 1013 years
• 1:27:01
  throughout the season and none of them have been to a point to
• 1:27:03
  where they couldn't finish competing.
• 1:27:06
  It's a great point about your, your roster numbers, because I
• 1:27:09
  was going to say, you know, how, how do you quantify that people
• 1:27:12
  can trust you and things like that because you know, you can
• 1:27:14
  say everything. You know, it's kind of the
• 1:27:17
  drawback of everybody having a podcast.
• 1:27:18
  We can say everything we want. It's what we do, our actions
• 1:27:21
  that, you know, that actually mean something.
• 1:27:24
  But when you said about your roster, it's like, oh, well, a
• 1:27:26
  lot of people are trusting you every year like that.
• 1:27:28
  That says a lot to me. It's like no matter what you
• 1:27:30
  say, if, if only 5 kids choose to actually come to your club,
• 1:27:34
  it's like, well, somebody's sniffing something out, it ain't
• 1:27:37
  working. So your roster size.
• 1:27:38
  So how do we, I, I just, I continue to want to like
• 1:27:45
  demystify this club versus high school coach thing.
• 1:27:50
  And some of it is, you know, there is always going to be, you
• 1:27:54
  know, in a, in a field of a of 100 club coaches and 100 high
• 1:27:59
  school coaches, there is going to be some percentage small of
• 1:28:04
  both of those groups that high ego, high bad ego.
• 1:28:08
  I am the best. Everybody should just get out of
• 1:28:10
  my way. And and when those two, again,
• 1:28:15
  small percentages of each of those groups get involved,
• 1:28:18
  that's where problems happen. You know, if a high school coach
• 1:28:20
  has a high ego of I'm the best in the world, if there are no
• 1:28:22
  clubs around, well, then they never get into conflict.
• 1:28:25
  But if they're in a situation where there are other clubs,
• 1:28:28
  there's going to be automatic conflict.
• 1:28:29
  And if there's a club that is headed up by another person who
• 1:28:31
  has high bad ego, well, now we get the war of like, you know,
• 1:28:34
  and then we go these big generalizations of all club
• 1:28:36
  coaches are the devil. And then we reverse and say all
• 1:28:39
  high school coaches are the, you know, and it's this big point
• 1:28:42
  thing. So there's a little bit of like,
• 1:28:43
  yeah, I want to help bring these groups together.
• 1:28:46
  But it's also like, oh, but those groups are made of
• 1:28:48
  individuals and you're not going to solve that through any
• 1:28:51
  through any generalization communication that has to go
• 1:28:55
  one-on-one. So all that to say, what is your
• 1:28:59
  best advice to high school coaches?
• 1:29:02
  They get a kid that comes to and says, Hey, I heard about this
• 1:29:05
  club and we're going general. Like not just, you know, jumps
• 1:29:09
  in your club, like just in general, any club, you know, I,
• 1:29:12
  I want, I want to be the best long jumper I can for you coach
• 1:29:15
  or whatever event they do. And so I just, you know, we're
• 1:29:18
  working hard. Just, I'm not condemning you at
• 1:29:21
  all. High school coach.
• 1:29:22
  I just want to go with, with this guy, they got a facility
• 1:29:24
  and so I can go jump on the weekends or whatever.
• 1:29:27
  What, what's your best advice for that high school coach?
• 1:29:30
  Should they call the club coach? Should they just bless it and
• 1:29:34
  say make sure you're hopefully they know the rules or what,
• 1:29:39
  what is what, what's a coach should do in that situation?
• 1:29:41
  A high school coach should do in that situation.
• 1:29:43
  Well, I can ask you from from both sides.
• 1:29:45
  So as a high school coach, if, if you feel that, well, one, do
• 1:29:54
  the research on that coach that's like #1 and let it be
• 1:29:58
  known to the kid that you're doing the research on the coach,
• 1:30:00
  OK? What that does for the kid is it
• 1:30:03
  tells the kid that you're open to at least hearing the
• 1:30:05
  perspectives. If you don't, then the kid just
• 1:30:10
  says, I'm going anyway because you don't trust me.
• 1:30:12
  And I think I have the best decision for myself.
• 1:30:15
  All right, second part is listen to the feedback and ask the kid
• 1:30:20
  what's missing from this program that you're getting from that
• 1:30:22
  program That also allows you to figure out, do you do you have
• 1:30:26
  the capacity to add this to your program or not?
• 1:30:29
  OK. And then, and then from there,
• 1:30:33
  it'll come down to the kids going to go there anyway.
• 1:30:36
  If they are going to go there anyway, how do I keep control of
• 1:30:39
  this team? Because if you have one kid that
• 1:30:42
  goes to a club team and does well, it implies that your
• 1:30:45
  program isn't good enough. So this is what I've been trying
• 1:30:50
  to create with a lot of teams is make like a fake vendor list of
• 1:30:57
  approved club teams that you approve of that you maybe you
• 1:31:02
  can work with that. Kids going to go anyway, but
• 1:31:04
  they have open line of communication that at least
• 1:31:07
  makes you feel safer. Now the school district will
• 1:31:09
  never say, oh, allow that, right?
• 1:31:12
  But the kids are, if the kids are going to go regardless and
• 1:31:15
  you kind of kind of figure that out, then that's the best way to
• 1:31:19
  kind of work, work do it. That's an option.
• 1:31:23
  You know, the other option from the club team is to make sure
• 1:31:31
  that they tell the the athletes to communicate with the coaches
• 1:31:35
  what's happening and that at least creates some conversation.
• 1:31:40
  When you say what's happening, you talk about the training so
• 1:31:42
  that they can modify or be be aware so they know what's going
• 1:31:47
  on there. Yeah, because, you know, I had a
• 1:31:50
  virtual athlete where his coach basically said we're going to
• 1:31:54
  train today and there's a full training box.
• 1:31:56
  Jumped all this training stuff, the day before I tracked me, I
• 1:31:59
  jumped, you know, and I'm like, oh, from my perception, my
• 1:32:03
  philosophy, that isn't the best thing to do.
• 1:32:06
  And so now he's going back saying I shouldn't jump.
• 1:32:09
  And it's like, no, that's not what I'm.
• 1:32:11
  That's what I'm telling you to tell.
• 1:32:12
  Tell him something. Just, you know, you're learning
• 1:32:14
  philosophy, trying to develop a process and have that
• 1:32:17
  conversation. Yeah.
• 1:32:19
  I know you're going to say it depends.
• 1:32:21
  I just know it. I'll try to get.
• 1:32:23
  You whoosh, whoosh, because I'm asking a very definitive answer
• 1:32:27
  or question here. Who should be the at least
• 1:32:31
  default lead, the high school coach or the club coach?
• 1:32:34
  I have my I have my thoughts here in your eyes and knowing
• 1:32:40
  you're biased, right? You're a club coach.
• 1:32:41
  I know you've been a high school coach, but you're a club coach.
• 1:32:43
  Who do you think should be the default lead?
• 1:32:53
  Club to start based on experience resume.
• 1:33:04
  There's a qualifier there. I I, I believe that, yeah.
• 1:33:07
  Because I think that's where maybe high school coaches, like
• 1:33:10
  I'm kind of putting my, myself in the high school coaches
• 1:33:13
  shoes, right? I've got a squad of 40 to 100,
• 1:33:16
  doesn't matter, you know, the whole team and out of all the
• 1:33:19
  different little groups, right. So jumps, throws, distance,
• 1:33:22
  sprints, whatnot. I've got maybe one sprinter that
• 1:33:26
  goes to a club and I got a jumper over here and I got or
• 1:33:28
  maybe I got 3 jumpers over here and one thrower over here,
• 1:33:30
  things like that. I'm still responsible for this
• 1:33:33
  team. So as it relates to whatever
• 1:33:36
  this regular schedule is and then for sure, you know the most
• 1:33:40
  important part, the championship season, so regionals and state
• 1:33:43
  meet. How do I've got this job?
• 1:33:48
  They're in high school, they're high schoolers first.
• 1:33:50
  How do I you're telling me they shouldn't do this meat, Keenan?
• 1:33:55
  But I think this is the the meat that I that has to be it's it's
• 1:34:00
  the right meat for to know where we are in our training to get
• 1:34:02
  ready for districts in two weeks or what not.
• 1:34:04
  And by the way, it's not just you Keenan, because now I've got
• 1:34:06
  this throws club over here coach that's telling me this stuff and
• 1:34:09
  I've got this Sprint guy, you know, in this distant and you
• 1:34:12
  know. Oh, and by the way, there
• 1:34:14
  there's still this big umbrella of parents have their own ideas
• 1:34:17
  of what should, but it should not be.
• 1:34:18
  I'm the worst parent. I was a former coach.
• 1:34:20
  I hope my kid doesn't do track in high school because I'm like,
• 1:34:22
  oh, those poor high school coaches.
• 1:34:23
  If they ain't doing what I think is right, I hope I can hold back
• 1:34:27
  and not tell them right, My kids throwing, which is perfect
• 1:34:29
  because I know nothing about throws right now.
• 1:34:31
  Stay there, son. So, so I think, I think when you
• 1:34:35
  say that I hear a high school coach being, dude, you're
• 1:34:39
  getting ready for the summer. That's where your, your
• 1:34:41
  competitions happen in your championships.
• 1:34:44
  Let me do my thing. I need you to talk to me like,
• 1:34:48
  hey, I'm going to do like I'm the high school coach.
• 1:34:49
  I'm going to do plyos on Monday. So on Tuesday, when Joey comes
• 1:34:53
  to you, don't do plyos, bro. If you, if you know what you're
• 1:34:56
  doing, you know, you not, don't do plyos on that, right?
• 1:34:58
  That's where I think a lot of tensions happen.
• 1:35:00
  Yeah, 100% because you know, the kids wearing the high school
• 1:35:04
  jersey, not the club jersey. That's.
• 1:35:06
  Right, that's right though it that's.
• 1:35:09
  Where on paper it should be the high school coach, right?
• 1:35:15
  But then that's where these variables come in of the high
• 1:35:19
  school coach is doing his or her job.
• 1:35:21
  And if the club coach understands this process, that
• 1:35:27
  would be great to cross reference information to say,
• 1:35:30
  hey, for the jumpers, here's their thresh, their their
• 1:35:34
  calendar for sprinters, here's this.
• 1:35:37
  But if you're only for jumps and it's OK, here's calendars that
• 1:35:40
  we would like and then you do what you want to do.
• 1:35:42
  So I, I give it all to the coaches and we'll work around
• 1:35:46
  what's happening. So for example, I had an athlete
• 1:35:49
  hurdler that was doing all the hurdle running, but never
• 1:35:52
  technical stuff. And we'll come to our practice
• 1:35:55
  just to watch, to assistant coaches, to be supportive, to
• 1:35:59
  learn. Some days we do block starts
• 1:36:01
  this and that, and we realized, OK, your step count is off.
• 1:36:06
  So let's figure out, let's get you to, you know, 21 for the
• 1:36:10
  first first hurdle, then keep and you're going to be on the
• 1:36:13
  left leg on the wrong leg on this other hurdle.
• 1:36:15
  We figured that part out. She dropped a second at TI
• 1:36:18
  prelims, CI final drop, another second, drop 2 seconds in the
• 1:36:21
  last two weeks, you know, and it wasn't that we trained her and
• 1:36:26
  it's all us. It was as a group, the multiple
• 1:36:29
  levels of information was able to see a new perspective that
• 1:36:32
  added to that. And she wore the high school
• 1:36:34
  jersey, you know, so the high school, my goal, I can speak for
• 1:36:37
  myself, is to make any athletes that are part of our club team
• 1:36:41
  and do in high school the best high school athlete they can be
• 1:36:44
  for their team. I think a lot of these issues
• 1:36:48
  that was great, Ken, and and applaud you for that attitude
• 1:36:52
  and and helping coaches like that because I think because I
• 1:36:55
  because I see the reverse of it too.
• 1:36:56
  You know, maybe I'll say it for you, putting words in your mouth
• 1:36:59
  a little bit. Yeah, Mike.
• 1:37:00
  But when that coach is the type of coach that's going to do
• 1:37:02
  playos the day before I meet, I should be the lead because they
• 1:37:05
  should not do that. And really what this comes down
• 1:37:08
  to is the you know, I've said it many times, ego is not bad.
• 1:37:12
  Bad ego is bad and when it when it comes to like ownership of
• 1:37:18
  athletes, which I and I know, I know some great, great coaches
• 1:37:23
  that will say, you know, my team, my athlete, my jumper and
• 1:37:26
  I just cringe. It's like they're not, I don't
• 1:37:30
  care if you're the only one who coaches them.
• 1:37:32
  There's so much that goes into it, from parents to teachers to
• 1:37:37
  the kids own mentality. It's not it they're on your
• 1:37:42
  team. Then maybe it's your team, you
• 1:37:43
  know, maybe maybe it's the team for that coach, but it's this
• 1:37:46
  possessiveness of athletes. It's this, you know, Keenan
• 1:37:50
  wants to be able to say he had all these kids that, you know,
• 1:37:54
  one state titles, He's the club coach and the high school
• 1:37:57
  coaches a lot. You know, I want to say that I'm
• 1:37:59
  the one who coached all these state titles and and things like
• 1:38:03
  that. And it's this possessiveness and
• 1:38:06
  I just don't know how, because because possessive
• 1:38:09
  possessiveness is also not necessarily a bad thing, right?
• 1:38:11
  Like when you talk about, you know, my spouse, my wife or my
• 1:38:15
  husband, I, I want to do well for them because they're my wife
• 1:38:18
  or my spouse and things like that.
• 1:38:20
  Like those are, those are good things that make you want to,
• 1:38:22
  you know, be better and learn more and coach better and be a
• 1:38:25
  better spouse and things like that.
• 1:38:27
  It, it's just, it's funny with athletics and then with the high
• 1:38:32
  school, even more so high school athletes, it's this possession,
• 1:38:36
  this is, I want to say my ego, my, my self worth is built on me
• 1:38:40
  being able to say that was my, I did that.
• 1:38:43
  I know they, I know they work, they go to that high school.
• 1:38:46
  But if it weren't for me, they wouldn't have done that.
• 1:38:48
  And that's who you know who ultimately who loses on that.
• 1:38:52
  The kid. The kid, the kid, all this, you
• 1:38:56
  know, one of the things, you know, back on my soapbox,
• 1:38:58
  Keenan, when, when I hear coaches say I do it for the
• 1:39:03
  kids, I love that. I think every coach would say
• 1:39:05
  that I really, if I were to survey a 1000 coaches, I do you
• 1:39:08
  do it for the kids. I do it for the kids.
• 1:39:10
  And then like on the college level, we'll we'll get mad that
• 1:39:13
  they transfer and it's like, wait a minute, I thought you
• 1:39:15
  were doing it for the kids. So if the kid transfers, if
• 1:39:17
  that's better for the kid, good job.
• 1:39:19
  You know, I thought you did it for the kids.
• 1:39:21
  If I'm a high school coach, I do it for the kids.
• 1:39:23
  OK, You, you admittedly are weaker in coaching the jumps.
• 1:39:26
  Then why are you upset? They go to Keenan's club,
• 1:39:29
  they're getting, they're getting better coaching.
• 1:39:30
  I thought you did it for the kids and Keenan, you're like, I
• 1:39:32
  do it for the kids. I'm like, all right, then you do
• 1:39:34
  it for the kids. Then why can't they enjoy
• 1:39:36
  A-Team, You know, a full team atmosphere of the high school
• 1:39:38
  and wearing the team jersey. And that's a special thing.
• 1:39:40
  But I thought you did it for the kid.
• 1:39:41
  You know, it's just it's this real interesting thing.
• 1:39:44
  One side, I do it for the kids and then actions sometimes are
• 1:39:48
  not aligning up there. Yeah, it it's it's tough and
• 1:39:53
  it's almost like no matter how long you talk about the
• 1:39:56
  conversation, there's always going to be that contradictory
• 1:39:59
  of each side is just, you know, like 1.
• 1:40:02
  I believe all track and field coaches are very competitive.
• 1:40:05
  We're just competitive because we're taught to be competitive.
• 1:40:07
  And I think because the quote individual sport like philosophy
• 1:40:13
  goes into I have a program, I got to hide it from everyone so
• 1:40:19
  I can get these app pieces to develop.
• 1:40:20
  So it's my program. I did it.
• 1:40:22
  Interesting. And in that concept is where,
• 1:40:26
  again, the kids are hurt because now there's a kid that somewhere
• 1:40:29
  else that couldn't get to your school that's not getting the
• 1:40:32
  benefit of your your coaching, You know, which is why I was
• 1:40:35
  like, OK, in high school, we were the top jumpers in our
• 1:40:38
  league. And I was like, man, there's
• 1:40:40
  other kids that go to other schools that could do so well,
• 1:40:43
  but then they're on my club team.
• 1:40:45
  So my kids were like, you're coaching the competition.
• 1:40:46
  I'm saying I'm coaching all the kids because if they come to me,
• 1:40:50
  I'm going to say yes if they fit the requirements of the program,
• 1:40:53
  you know? I wonder if these issues happen
• 1:40:56
  in other sports. Like I think about volleyball
• 1:40:59
  because I know volleyball is a big year round club is a huge
• 1:41:02
  thing in volleyball. Like I mean, you know, I
• 1:41:05
  volleyball might be my favorite sport behind track and college
• 1:41:09
  football. I've heard it said before, you
• 1:41:13
  know, if you don't play college, if you don't play club
• 1:41:15
  volleyball in high school, you can't get recruited.
• 1:41:17
  I guess that's where all the recruiting happens.
• 1:41:18
  I wonder if there's like this tension between a high school
• 1:41:22
  volleyball coach and the club, all the club coaches that are in
• 1:41:27
  their area, if there's like this, you know, what do you
• 1:41:29
  mean? You coach so many high school
• 1:41:31
  Allstate your club. You didn't do that.
• 1:41:33
  I did that. And then it's like your setters
• 1:41:35
  like, yeah, but I got better because I was at this.
• 1:41:37
  You know, I just wonder if other sports I don't I've heard of
• 1:41:40
  like quarterback camps and gurus and stuff like that.
• 1:41:43
  I wonder if, like, is a high school football coach like, oh,
• 1:41:46
  you don't need to go work with that quarterback guru.
• 1:41:49
  I'm, I'm your coach. I'm, you know, I'll coach.
• 1:41:51
  I I don't know, I wonder about other sports.
• 1:41:54
  It it sounds weird in that context, right?
• 1:41:57
  It sounds weird to be a teacher and say you're going to a tutor
• 1:42:01
  for math. What?
• 1:42:03
  Oh dude, you. Say that, dude.
• 1:42:05
  That math, that math tutor is going to really tell you some
• 1:42:08
  different strategies and that's not fitting the structure that
• 1:42:11
  we have here. Bro that's you just said that.
• 1:42:14
  That actually blew my mind because no one would say that
• 1:42:17
  the math teacher like, oh, you're going to math tutor,
• 1:42:18
  Good, you're getting extra work. Correct.
• 1:42:21
  But but in track and and maybe other sports, we go wait, you're
• 1:42:24
  going to like it's automatic like you're going to club coach.
• 1:42:27
  Why are you going to club coach? Wow.
• 1:42:29
  And I think it starts to dilute a little bit when it's sports
• 1:42:32
  where it's normal because I play football and basketball.
• 1:42:36
  Football. What do you do?
• 1:42:36
  Go to practice? What's next?
• 1:42:37
  Go to speed coach? Go to the weight room, Right.
• 1:42:40
  The kids who are bigger and stronger, the ones who go to a
• 1:42:42
  specific weight training guru that understands, you know,
• 1:42:47
  movements in the actual weight room, right?
• 1:42:50
  All these little, little pieces, you know, but they would track
• 1:42:54
  is like, I have a jump coach here and I jump coach there.
• 1:42:57
  And it's like you can't have two jump coaches.
• 1:42:59
  And the reality is you can't because you're not just
• 1:43:03
  teaching, it's a philosophy that's being taught.
• 1:43:07
  So if you were to put the track conflicts that we have into
• 1:43:10
  basketball terms, it'd be like RIP Paterno, and that's
• 1:43:15
  football. But the basketball that
• 1:43:16
  Louisville coach, right, teaching his offense and the
• 1:43:21
  offense is being ran different at JV, right?
• 1:43:25
  When it comes to basketball and football, it's typically the
• 1:43:27
  same playbooks all the way down, different coaches all the way
• 1:43:31
  down. And so, you know, but when it
• 1:43:35
  comes to the training piece, they don't care where you go and
• 1:43:38
  you're not fast enough. Go get faster, come back for
• 1:43:41
  next practice. But in track it's almost like it
• 1:43:43
  needs to be in that same house. But when kids go outside, then
• 1:43:47
  it seems like it's the It's blasphemy should never.
• 1:43:51
  But that's really interesting. You know, I have these
• 1:43:53
  conversations every day. You know, these are almost
• 1:43:56
  always, I bet you if you look at all of our interviews with high
• 1:43:59
  school coaches and club coaches, this topic comes up.
• 1:44:02
  It's and I tell you, it kind of blew my mind a little bit with
• 1:44:06
  the the tutor analogy that, that really, because I can't imagine
• 1:44:10
  like I'd, I'd be mad at my high school math teacher that got
• 1:44:15
  upset or was jealous because I took my kid to a math too.
• 1:44:18
  I'd be like, what do you mean? You're upset that I'm I'm
• 1:44:20
  getting extra help now. I know there's a little, you
• 1:44:23
  know, I don't know, there's mental fatigue.
• 1:44:25
  I was about to say there's something with athleticism like,
• 1:44:27
  well, you could, you know, you could hurt a kid if you do high
• 1:44:29
  level works every day with no rest, things like that.
• 1:44:32
  But so there's a little bit difference in that sense, but
• 1:44:35
  that that really kind of like I can't wait for my next high
• 1:44:37
  school coach interview because as when we invariably get to
• 1:44:40
  this top, I'm like, hey, but what about your teacher?
• 1:44:42
  What about, you know, I'm going to bring that.
• 1:44:44
  That's really, that's really interesting.
• 1:44:46
  All right, Keenan, as we wrap up, we're we're getting near the
• 1:44:48
  end of our time here. What what else?
• 1:44:49
  What else didn't I ask you, man, this is AI.
• 1:44:52
  Sometimes these interviews like this look, feel maybe and maybe
• 1:44:55
  you guys listening, you feel like it's just off the rails
• 1:44:58
  here. It does.
• 1:44:59
  It does take, first of all, I, I do want to publicly say before
• 1:45:02
  we, you know, start wrapping up here, Keenan, it takes a special
• 1:45:04
  person to have this type of conversation, especially with a
• 1:45:08
  stranger. It'd be different if me and you
• 1:45:09
  were homeboys for, you know, a decade plus.
• 1:45:11
  And it's like, well, there's just our conversation.
• 1:45:13
  Here we go. Here's Mike with this soapbox
• 1:45:14
  crap. So I do very much appreciate
• 1:45:17
  your openness and candor to having these conversations and
• 1:45:20
  being pushed and and pushed back on in certain terms.
• 1:45:23
  So, so, so grateful even again, just selfishly that I've become
• 1:45:27
  better from having a conversation like this.
• 1:45:29
  So truly, truly grateful for that.
• 1:45:31
  And I do believe that that type of conversation and again, your,
• 1:45:34
  your background and journey is very important for people
• 1:45:36
  listening to see that as well. So just want to, before I even
• 1:45:40
  forget, just want to say I appreciate that.
• 1:45:42
  And it says a lot about you and your character in regards to
• 1:45:44
  having those conversations again, with a, with a stranger.
• 1:45:46
  That's, you know, maybe we should have more conversations
• 1:45:49
  with strangers out there and we'd all be better people.
• 1:45:50
  So I do appreciate that. So as we wrap up though, Keenan,
• 1:45:53
  what else, What else, What am I missing?
• 1:45:56
  Are you still doing the club now?
• 1:45:58
  Are there ambitions to coach, go back and coach high school at
• 1:46:01
  all? Is there ambitions to coach
• 1:46:02
  college one day? Where?
• 1:46:03
  Where are we at? As you kind of stare 2025 in the
• 1:46:07
  future in the face, What what are you?
• 1:46:08
  What are you thinking about career wise?
• 1:46:11
  I'm in it, living the dream. I'm, I'm doing exactly what I
• 1:46:15
  want to do. I'm I'm creating avenues for
• 1:46:17
  parents, athletes and coaches. Just continuing to scale to
• 1:46:21
  scale that I have over 1000 plus videos on YouTube teaching.
• 1:46:25
  I was OK, I'm glad you said because I was going to ask.
• 1:46:27
  I'm like, you know, knowing, hearing your story and the the,
• 1:46:30
  the, the impact of teaching from athletic Republica and formal
• 1:46:33
  teaching that kinesiology teacher, things like that.
• 1:46:35
  Are you doing anything education wise?
• 1:46:37
  That's exactly what I was going to ask.
• 1:46:38
  Tell tell us more about that. Yeah, So what came from the
• 1:46:41
  Academy was I would, yeah, get asked questions like, hey, you
• 1:46:45
  beat our kids and it was for your kids.
• 1:46:47
  Like what's happening or I, I tried one of your drills and how
• 1:46:50
  did you set the drill up? So I was like, let me just
• 1:46:52
  automate this whole process because I can't answer every
• 1:46:55
  every e-mail, every phone call. So I have a long jump, triple
• 1:46:59
  jump virtual training course that explains everything for
• 1:47:02
  athletes and coaches. I've had a lot of success with
• 1:47:06
  drills that I've done with for coaches to help resolve issues.
• 1:47:11
  You know, some coaches say, hey, I don't know, I don't have the
• 1:47:13
  eye for it. But that video explained it so I
• 1:47:16
  can teach it to my kids, you know, so that's the teaching
• 1:47:20
  part. I have programs for both coaches
• 1:47:22
  and athletes. And then coming out in the next
• 1:47:24
  couple of months, I have a book coming out for parents on their
• 1:47:29
  role as managers, how to raise athletes.
• 1:47:32
  Right. So the the normal pieces, let's
• 1:47:35
  say you and I are like, OK, we got kids.
• 1:47:37
  They're going to just do what we know because that's where I'm at
• 1:47:39
  already, you know? And so, but the reality is their
• 1:47:44
  experience they have with their coaches is you hired the
• 1:47:48
  coaches. What if you had a vetting
• 1:47:51
  process for the coaches before you even allowed them to have
• 1:47:53
  any interaction with your kid? Then you're going to qualify
• 1:47:56
  these coaches in a certain way that gives a certain level of
• 1:47:59
  quality in a training, right? What if you prefer no yelling on
• 1:48:03
  a football team? Well, there's only one team in
• 1:48:06
  the area. What does that mean?
• 1:48:08
  Well, you're going to get, you know that, but then what does
• 1:48:10
  that do to your child? You know?
• 1:48:12
  So what I've done with The Academy Is I have from training,
• 1:48:16
  from peak performance is mentally how to perceive wins,
• 1:48:20
  losses, adversity. I have classes in that specific
• 1:48:24
  area, specific technical like PS and QS up it jumps.
• 1:48:28
  I have those things, I have everything.
• 1:48:30
  So the Academy has all those workshops and so.
• 1:48:34
  Where do I find that? Do I go on YouTube?
• 1:48:36
  Do I just Google? Sir, there's a website where
• 1:48:38
  where do I go to find this information?
• 1:48:40
  Yeah, it's at leapswideacademy.com and that's
• 1:48:43
  where like the courses are going to be.
• 1:48:44
  But you can also go to YouTube those videos for free, you know,
• 1:48:48
  just to kind of pick and choose the videos right before.
• 1:48:51
  But the the jump course is in order from beginning to end.
• 1:48:55
  So there's no trying to find, you know, a bunch of random
• 1:48:58
  videos in the philosophy, things like that.
• 1:49:00
  And are you speaking at clinics? What?
• 1:49:01
  What else are you? You're writing a book.
• 1:49:03
  I mean, for crying out loud. That's hard enough, bro.
• 1:49:05
  That's a bravo to you for that. What else are you doing
• 1:49:07
  education wise? I love that.
• 1:49:08
  I'm a huge coaching education advocate.
• 1:49:11
  So anything that is in this Ave. really is is great for me.
• 1:49:16
  But no clinic set for this year. But I've done, I was requested
• 1:49:20
  for LA 84. It doesn't work out time wise,
• 1:49:22
  but I've done the Minnesota Coaches convention, I've done
• 1:49:27
  Minnesota, Missouri, nothing local yet, you know.
• 1:49:31
  But I mean, you know, I do it anyway on my social.
• 1:49:36
  What is what is local anymore? I had someone say something
• 1:49:39
  today about, you know, this California kid who fit in at
• 1:49:42
  Texas and I'm like, yeah, I know there are some different
• 1:49:44
  cultures and stuff a little bit. But I mean, there's plenty of
• 1:49:48
  people in Texas who are not from Texas.
• 1:49:49
  There's plenty of people, you know, I, I don't get this like,
• 1:49:52
  you know, we, we prejudice down to the state level for crowds.
• 1:49:56
  Like, man, you know, it's first of all, it's an artificial line.
• 1:49:58
  And so someone who lives on the Alabama, Georgia border, which
• 1:50:01
  way are they like really a a mile?
• 1:50:04
  It effects. It's just crazy to me.
• 1:50:06
  So. So when I hear you say Missouri
• 1:50:08
  and Minnesota, I'm like, cool, there's great track coaches.
• 1:50:10
  Like it's all track. We're all doing the same sport.
• 1:50:12
  Triple jump is the same in Minnesota is in California for
• 1:50:14
  crying out loud. So yeah.
• 1:50:17
  What what I've learned when I went to the Minnesota Coaches
• 1:50:19
  Convention. It's cool.
• 1:50:21
  I taught just how to manage a multi event athlete, so just
• 1:50:26
  schedule looks like. But I've also did the keynote
• 1:50:28
  speech there and what I learned from the coaches there is that
• 1:50:31
  they will coach each other's athletes if they're not
• 1:50:34
  available and I've never heard that.
• 1:50:37
  So what I've learned from other states so far is that California
• 1:50:42
  is a little more rigid with the coaching styles versus other
• 1:50:48
  states I've seen more of like more community.
• 1:50:51
  You might enjoy last year 2024 in April and May.
• 1:50:56
  I think I did it, but you know, you can just search and it'll
• 1:50:58
  pop up. So I did a bonus series for the
• 1:51:01
  podcast where I interviewed a high school coach from every
• 1:51:04
  state. So there's 51 because I included
• 1:51:06
  Washington, DC. So 51 unique high school coaches
• 1:51:09
  at one of each state to talk about how they qualified for
• 1:51:12
  their state meet, for the outdoor, for the outdoor state
• 1:51:15
  meet. Because I thought, yeah, well,
• 1:51:17
  you're in California. You already know that.
• 1:51:18
  That was one of the more like I still JT Ayres, great coach,
• 1:51:22
  helped us with that one. And I still and JT here is a
• 1:51:24
  super smart guy, great communicator and I still was
• 1:51:27
  like JTI don't know that I could qualify a kid to California
• 1:51:30
  because I still don't understand it for some reason.
• 1:51:32
  But but it was wild. The difference of there is, you
• 1:51:37
  know, I about to say the exact opposite of what I just said.
• 1:51:39
  There is such a difference of culture in each state for many,
• 1:51:42
  many reasons. Like one of the questions we
• 1:51:45
  asked every state was, you know, do you have a Oh gosh, like like
• 1:51:51
  New Jersey has they have their divisions, but then they have
• 1:51:54
  one, I'm gonna call it an All Star meet.
• 1:51:56
  You know, a true state meet, if you will, in some states do,
• 1:51:59
  most don't. Most don't.
• 1:52:00
  But like California was like, no, it's that's called our state
• 1:52:02
  meet. We have one state meet.
• 1:52:03
  So that is our all classes state meet.
• 1:52:06
  I asked that question to like Montana or Wyoming and they're
• 1:52:08
  like, dude, our state is so like, do you know how long it
• 1:52:11
  takes to get from east to West in our state to try to come back
• 1:52:14
  after the state meet and do that would be impossible.
• 1:52:17
  And I was like, that's a great point.
• 1:52:18
  Never, never thought about that. You know, and then, you know,
• 1:52:21
  there's some New England states, you know, we asked about like if
• 1:52:23
  there's any kind of like unofficial state meet, like
• 1:52:25
  Alabama after the state meet, we'll do an unofficial
• 1:52:28
  heptathlon and decathlon. So anybody who's interested in
• 1:52:30
  doing those events, they've been doing it forever.
• 1:52:32
  It's awesome. Some states do the another state
• 1:52:34
  does a hammer unofficial state meet and things like that.
• 1:52:37
  Up in I think it was Connecticut or New Hampshire, they do a
• 1:52:41
  decathlon, but they do the decathlon to all boys and girls
• 1:52:46
  who wants to do a multi do a decathlon?
• 1:52:48
  And I was like, wait a minute, no one's doing a girl to cat.
• 1:52:51
  Like that's a big talking point in our sport of, you know,
• 1:52:53
  moving the tap on to decathlon. Here's this little state up in
• 1:52:56
  New England and gets 100 kids. Wow A. 100 girls are going up
• 1:53:01
  and doing the decathlon. And so it just blew me away the,
• 1:53:05
  the, the, when you talk about Minnesota, the different
• 1:53:08
  cultures of just in their state, it's really, it's fascinating.
• 1:53:12
  Even though we're all, you know, it's so easy to move.
• 1:53:14
  Half the New Jersey coaches are from other states, You know,
• 1:53:16
  they, they grew up in other States and things like that.
• 1:53:18
  And, and all the states have that example.
• 1:53:21
  It's just amazing to me. The difference for geography,
• 1:53:25
  weather, we've just always done it this way.
• 1:53:28
  It's just, it's crazy. It's amazing.
• 1:53:29
  It's amazing. Yeah, I love it and I think it's
• 1:53:33
  great. It's a fun, fun experience and I
• 1:53:37
  do want to just to add this last piece in with for just all
• 1:53:43
  coaches in general, the more work you do for yourself allows
• 1:53:48
  you to be the best version for the kids.
• 1:53:51
  This means if you're a high school teacher full time and you
• 1:53:53
  coach a sport, please get a certification of some sort.
• 1:53:57
  Not for proof, just to and give you additional questions in your
• 1:54:01
  mind to add to your training. Maybe self reflection.
• 1:54:04
  I've done leadership work for myself.
• 1:54:06
  I've done, I'm big on self help, you know, metaphysics.
• 1:54:09
  I study all these concepts. I study film.
• 1:54:12
  Like the more education you have for yourself, it bleeds on to
• 1:54:15
  the the kids you work with and they can sense it and they feel
• 1:54:19
  it. And that's what I mean by
• 1:54:20
  coaches that are in shape. The kids see that not
• 1:54:23
  necessarily like 6 pack. It's just when you're in shape,
• 1:54:26
  maybe you can hear what they're saying from it from their
• 1:54:28
  perspective. Just more, more of that allows
• 1:54:31
  us all to be better coaches, which makes this process so much
• 1:54:33
  easier. That's true, I love that.
• 1:54:35
  Well Keenan, I've got a challenge for you.
• 1:54:39
  You just challenged a lot of high school coaches, so I got a
• 1:54:41
  challenge for you. I think you might be in a unique
• 1:54:46
  situation with your experiences and your background to lead the
• 1:54:52
  charge of high school clubs and high school track teams working
• 1:54:57
  together because I don't see either of them going away.
• 1:55:03
  Luckily, I don't see our high school coaches and programs
• 1:55:06
  going away. In fact, we're growing.
• 1:55:08
  I love that. And I just see as, as as many
• 1:55:12
  clubs track specific clubs that we have out there, it feels like
• 1:55:15
  every year I'm hearing more and more and more and, and I love
• 1:55:17
  that it's, it's all good, all good, but there is conflict
• 1:55:21
  there. And so someone has to, you know,
• 1:55:24
  to use political terms, reach across the aisle and talk about
• 1:55:27
  that and knowing again, you're going to have, you know, 1%,
• 1:55:30
  less than 1% of each that just they don't want to work with
• 1:55:33
  anybody. They're they're God's gift to
• 1:55:34
  track. And so we just, we just got to
• 1:55:36
  get get out of the way for those people, I guess.
• 1:55:39
  So I'm going to encourage you challenge you speak at more
• 1:55:43
  clinics. You obviously have a teacher's
• 1:55:46
  heart because you're doing these YouTube videos and your courses.
• 1:55:49
  So you have a understanding of like, Oh, I, I, I do have things
• 1:55:52
  to, to help other people. I want to tell that you, you
• 1:55:55
  heard that voice back in the weight room that said, you know,
• 1:55:57
  what do you want to do with your life?
• 1:55:58
  And your only answer you can come up, you can come up with a
• 1:56:01
  specific like, Oh, I want to be because there's a lot of avenues
• 1:56:03
  you could do. But your, your, your response
• 1:56:04
  was, I want to help people. That was your response.
• 1:56:07
  So you could have went on to become an EMT that that helps
• 1:56:09
  people. You could have gone on and
• 1:56:11
  become someone who adopts kids like, oh, I'm going to be I'm
• 1:56:15
  going to be a foster pants that helps people and you chose to go
• 1:56:18
  into track. Thank you, by the way, that
• 1:56:20
  helps me if more people go into track.
• 1:56:23
  So you have that that servant heart to serve others, to help
• 1:56:27
  others. So while you certainly and
• 1:56:30
  rightfully so have focused on the technical side and you know,
• 1:56:34
  I know you talked about mental and things like that, but the,
• 1:56:36
  the, how to coach an athlete, how to make them a better
• 1:56:38
  athlete. I'm going to challenge you on
• 1:56:41
  how do you create a platform speaking style topics around how
• 1:56:48
  do we get communication? How do we what, what did you
• 1:56:53
  call it? Not, not I, I, I was using chess
• 1:56:54
  terms. So I was thinking like
• 1:56:55
  Grandmaster or whatever they call chess experts.
• 1:56:57
  Governing Faculty. Yeah, like that kind of language
• 1:57:00
  like like that. Let that be your theme of like,
• 1:57:03
  OK, and here's what I mean by that high school and club
• 1:57:05
  coaches, that means it really means communication.
• 1:57:08
  Like I spell communication governing.
• 1:57:12
  You know, I just want to challenge you that and and
• 1:57:14
  encourage you that because, you know, again, that'll help the
• 1:57:18
  kids at the end of the day that will we will have higher
• 1:57:21
  participation rates. We'll have kids who don't, you
• 1:57:23
  know, are frustrated because this coach is saying this and
• 1:57:25
  this coach is saying that, and they don't really seem to care
• 1:57:27
  about me. They can't kind of seem to care
• 1:57:28
  about themselves. So I'm going to go do basketball
• 1:57:30
  or volleyball or math club or there's a lot of options for
• 1:57:33
  kids out there guys. So I think that will increase
• 1:57:36
  our participation and I think that will also increase our
• 1:57:38
  athlete satisfaction of the sport, doesn't it?
• 1:57:41
  Obviously, I think will make them better athletes and that's
• 1:57:43
  great. But I, I would love for a kid
• 1:57:45
  even who, who's not going to go on to do college.
• 1:57:46
  You know, 99% of the kids aren't going to go to college to do
• 1:57:49
  their sport. I would love for them just to
• 1:57:51
  walk away from our sport going boy.
• 1:57:52
  You know what, though? While I didn't compete in
• 1:57:54
  college, man, I had a great time.
• 1:57:57
  My coach, you, you, you, when you talked about your coaches in
• 1:58:00
  high school, they cared about you 100%.
• 1:58:04
  We need more kids walking away from our sport going, man, that
• 1:58:08
  coach loved me like that coach cared about me.
• 1:58:11
  Because then they'll do that with their whether their own
• 1:58:14
  kids or if they coach or teach or whatever teammates at a
• 1:58:16
  business that they'll they'll go with that posture because
• 1:58:19
  leadership matters. And that's what they'll see in
• 1:58:21
  front of you. And I think you have certainly
• 1:58:23
  learned that leadership matters from a very, very young age.
• 1:58:25
  And so I'm just really excited for hopefully you do that.
• 1:58:30
  You know, I don't do very good job of checking in.
• 1:58:32
  So you're not going to get a check in a year from now going,
• 1:58:33
  Hey, what have you done? I just bless you to do that.
• 1:58:36
  And just know it's on wax. People are going to hear me
• 1:58:38
  challenging you doing that. And just I think you could be a
• 1:58:41
  great person to help bring our sport forward on the coaching
• 1:58:45
  side, specifically with club and high school coaches.
• 1:58:48
  So you didn't know you're going to get challenged on this
• 1:58:50
  podcast or you might not have come on.
• 1:58:51
  So that's why I don't tell anyone.
• 1:58:53
  Keenan, thank you so much, man. You know, the most valuable
• 1:58:57
  thing that you can give me is your time.
• 1:58:58
  You know, there's a lot of things.
• 1:58:59
  I know you're busy. You're obviously busy.
• 1:59:01
  There's a lot of things. You probably got 100 text
• 1:59:02
  message and voicemails during this time.
• 1:59:04
  So truly grateful for you spending time and sharing your
• 1:59:07
  journey with us and just really, just really thankful for you,
• 1:59:10
  man. I really appreciate it.
• 1:59:12
  And the answer is yes, with the challenge.
• 1:59:15
  You got it. And yeah, I think we can all
• 1:59:17
  make this a great experience for the kids and we can, you know,
• 1:59:20
  one by one make everything fall into place.
• 1:59:23
  So. I love it.
• 1:59:24
  I love it. All right, my man, thank you so
• 1:59:26
  much. I appreciate you guys being here
• 1:59:27
  today. You know, I know this felt a
• 1:59:29
  little, this was a unique one. Yeah.
• 1:59:31
  Again, I've done 300 of them. And it's interesting to me when
• 1:59:33
  I get kind of a unique vibe in a very positive manner.
• 1:59:36
  And again, very grateful, Keenan, for your ability to have
• 1:59:40
  those conversations and be challenged and challenge back.
• 1:59:42
  I really do. I appreciate that.
• 1:59:44
  So I had a great time. I hope you had a great time.
• 1:59:46
  This might be one of those where you have to, you might have to
• 1:59:48
  rewind and listen to it again there.
• 1:59:50
  There's a lot of Nuggets there. There's a lot of information
• 1:59:52
  there. And you know, we'll check back
• 1:59:53
  in in a year from now and see if he really accepted that
• 1:59:56
  challenge. Guys and gals, thank you guys so
• 1:59:58
  much for being here. Join us next week.
• 2:00:00
  We'll do it all over again and have some fun.
• 2:00:01
  See you guys. If it goes to appreciate the
• 2:00:05
  coach, the ones that point people most every season needs a
• 2:00:09
  voice of reason speaking the growth you got to prep before
• 2:00:11
  you carry the load. Ice coffee to the soul.
• 2:00:14
  For those of us who stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
• 2:00:17
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 2:00:19
  There's more than one way to go. Taking notes that's paying.
• 2:00:21
  You're told it ain't practice if you're perfect Saint Clair, it
• 2:00:24
  can't happen until you listen with both ears.
• 2:00:26
  You can't mentor without a mentor of years of experience.
• 2:00:30
  You can reinvent those years. Every plan's got to stand and
• 2:00:33
  deliver to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
• 2:00:36
  It's a choice and the fight not a win or lose.
• 2:00:38
  It's not a ploy boy device. Y'all can make more moves.
• 2:00:41
  It's not about how to it's all about why you don't know till
• 2:00:44
  you know who you are inside 6,000,000.
• 2:00:47
  Waste of time choose none. So y'all cross finish line.
• 2:00:50
  The work ain't done so we learn from the experts but y'all got
• 2:00:53
  to put in the leg work. Guil Athletics is the network.
• 2:00:56
  It's all about connections put together for the profession to
• 2:00:59
  where every track coach could be blessing.