Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #342: Mike McCarroll-Game One | From Pole Vault Passion to Serving Coaches Everywhere

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#342: Mike McCarroll-Game One | From Pole Vault Passion to Serving Coaches Everywhere · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  You're listening to the Gil Athletics Connections podcast
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  with host Mike Cunningham. Track and field world juvenile
• 0:12
  tuned in to our humble servant Mike Cunningham for another
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  extraordinary message for Gil Athletics Connections.
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  All right, you're back here on the Gila FedEx Connections
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  podcast, so humble to be your host, Mike Cunningham.
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  And if you're listening to this one we just published, it's
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  Christmas week and there is nothing better than Christmas
• 0:30
  week except for track championship.
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  That's actually pretty cool too. So maybe the second best week is
• 0:35
  right here, Christmas week. So Merry Christmas, happy
• 0:37
  Hanukkah. Is it Mary Kwanzaa, happy
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  Kwanzaa, whatever that is. I just celebrated.
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  Oh man, I don't care as long as you're being a good person and
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  having fun with friends and family.
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  That's all I I really care about.
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  And Speaking of friends and family, he's not family,
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  although we have the same name, so maybe it is, but it is my
• 0:53
  Christmas gift for the week. I'm super pumped to bring you
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  coaches from around the world every single week here on the
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  Gill Connections podcast. And every once in a while, I
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  like to bring you partners of ours.
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  So our dealer partners that are out there.
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  And this is one of our great partners out there.
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  And I'm super excited to learn more from him and what the
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  company does and how they serve track and field coaches around
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  the country. So let's get into it.
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  Help me welcome from the great game One sales Rep there and
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  help me welcome the wives. Wonderful.
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  Mr. Mike Mccarroll. Mike, what's up, man?
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  What's up man? How we doing?
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  You know, when they had, when you have the same last name,
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  they go, hey, are we are we related?
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  I don't think they do that for first names, though.
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  So I don't know. Yeah, I'm from Alabama, so I
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  just know I'm related to a lot of people.
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  The same name. You know what I'm saying?
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  So I just assume everybody's a brother or sister for me.
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  I just this is it's Alabama, buddy.
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  Man. How you doing, bro?
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  I haven't seen you in quite a while.
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  I know it's been a minute. I'm doing well.
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  Yeah. Am I going to see you at in
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  January at Texas Track and Field TTFCA?
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  I will be there. Yes, Sir.
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  Dude, that is one of my I actually have another convention
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  that I need air quotes to be at and I told my boss I was like,
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  man, it's the same weekend as TTFCA man.
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  I was like, that's my jam. That's one of my two favorite
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  conventions. The other one being USTF CCCA
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  that you're familiar with that has just happened by the time
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  everybody's listening to this. But if you're you're, if you're
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  listening and it's before January, I think it's like 4th
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  or 5th or something like that. If you're anywhere near Waco,
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  TX, check out TTFCA, Texas Track and Field Coaches Association.
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  They do an amazing job, amazing speakers and somehow I've conned
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  them into, they let me be the host MC.
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  So I get to be up there and just have some fun and really
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  uplifting honor the speakers. And that's a that's a fun time
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  for me. So I love that and I love that
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  I'll be able to see you there too as well, Mike.
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  Well, Mike, you work for one of our great partners.
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  Game one. I was going to call my game one
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  athletics or or something. But game one, they do a great
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  job there. We've known that team for a long
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  time. They do an amazing job selling
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  Gil athletics equipment. And so we want to learn more
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  about that. But first, I want to learn more
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  about you, my friend. So why don't we hop in our way
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  back machine here and assuming and we know what assuming does.
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  So who knows? We'll find out assuming that you
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  were an athlete back in the day. We're just track and field.
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  Where does it start for you? Yeah, it feels like it was a
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  long time ago, but I was an athlete at one point, so track
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  and field started for me really in middle school.
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  My dad was a was a pole vaulter when he was in high school and
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  set the 4A state record in the pole vault and held it for 14
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  years. In Texas, Yes, Sir.
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  And wait a minute, So you said 4A today, there's what 766?
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  Was there 6 back then? No.
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  So when they adopted 6A, everybody moved up a division in
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  Texas. So.
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  So was he the big school at 4A? That's what I'm trying to figure
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  out. No, there would have been.
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  There was 5A. Back there was 5A, OK, OK, but
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  he had the state record for like, dude.
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  Well, he jumped 16, two in high school and held that state
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  record for 14 years. And so obviously growing up, you
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  know, I was the only boy in the family, so he wanted me to be a
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  pole vaulter. And, and I always found the
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  sport interesting. So when middle school came
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  around, I wasn't fast enough to do any of the sprints or
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  anything like that. And so the very first middle
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  school track meet, they actually made me run the mile.
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  And I wanted a pole vaulter. I had to do a running event.
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  That was their rule in middle school.
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  And so they stuck me in the mile because I wasn't fast enough to
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  do anything else. Wait, your one running event was
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  the. Mile a mile, yeah, so.
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  I'm just happy you stuck with the sport, brother.
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  Yeah, I know it. I ended up walking two of those
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  4 laps and got chewed out by the coach and I was like, man, I'm
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  not a miler. I'm not AI just wanted a pole
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  vault. And so, so I, I pole vaulted
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  through middle school and then and then on into high school and
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  from there and into college for a couple years and.
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  So stay in stay in high school for me.
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  So what is it like? You know, Texas is an amazing
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  state for for for a lot of reasons, but for track and
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  field, for sure, some of it is there are some of the most
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  amazing coaches of all events and specifically pole vaulting
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  that we're talking about here. And also just for sheer numbers,
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  right, you throw a million people, million kids at the the
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  sport, some of them are going to be pretty thinking good, right.
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  So you have a little bit of a great combination of population
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  and coaching. What was it like growing up?
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  Not only a vaulter, but I would think, you, correct me if I'm
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  wrong here, a little bit of pressure on you because Dad's
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  got the family up until you tell me you broke it or something,
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  but that's got the like there's a family PR like how was it
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  growing up being a pole vaulter in Texas with a pole vaulting
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  dad? Yeah, it was, it was a lot of
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  fun. Obviously my dad had some
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  insight to the sport that, you know, he could share with me.
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  And I had a phenomenal high school coach, Craig Bethel.
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  He's been coaching at Joshua, which is where I went to high
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  school for, for quite some time. And he did a really good job of
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  making sure that we had everything that we needed as
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  pole vaulters. Like I never had to second guess
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  if the next pole that I needed was, you know, going to be in
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  the pulse shed because it was already there.
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  And so having him and then, you know, having some of the input
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  from my dad, you know, a lot of his, his advice was kind of
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  outdated and, and older and. You're like, Dad, it's not
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  bamboo anymore. Dad.
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  Dad. Dad, if you're listening, I'm so
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  sorry. You know, I had to make that
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  joke. I'm sorry, Dad.
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  I'm sorry. But yeah, having having him and
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  having Coach Bethel really helped me.
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  I did not. Unfortunately, I did not break
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  his record. Dad's over there.
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  Yeah, yeah. That one still lives on at
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  Joshua High School and will probably be there for a long
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  time. Yeah.
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  Now were you were you one of the guys?
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  So. So what year did you graduate
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  high school? I graduated high school in 16.
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  Oh my God, are you serious, bro? I mean, I knew you wasn't young
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  or old and my age or anything, but I didn't know you were still
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  a pup. You a pup in this world.
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  OK, so you graduated 2016. So see that helps me out.
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  Because I was going to ask, hey, back when you were in high
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  school, I already know the answer is yes.
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  Did you have all these guys like Chris Allison and Buzz and all?
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  And of course you did because I knew them all.
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  It's still no, you know, I worked with all of them back in
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  16 for Cry Out Loud. So what?
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  What club did you work with? I didn't jump at a club.
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  Well, wait a minute. That's not legal in Texas if
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  you're home. Right.
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  So the coach Bethel was really awesome in the fact that he
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  coached cross country in the fall.
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  And actually when I was in high school, he was the head
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  volleyball coach. So as soon as as volleyball was
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  over, you know, we were always all the vaulters were hoping
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  that they didn't make the playoffs because that just meant
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  we could vault that much earlier.
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  But we, you know, we had an indoor football field.
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  And so he would set up the pole vault pit in there and we would
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  start, you know, sometimes right around Thanksgiving, even
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  sometimes a little bit before that, we'd get to start
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  vaulting. And we would go to the, you
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  know, the indoor meets here in Texas.
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  We actually hosted a couple of them at Joshua when I was high
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  school and some smaller ones. But, you know, we'd go to the
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  Expo. I started going to the Expo my
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  freshman year. High school.
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  And we'd go to that every year. We'd have two or three at the
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  high school, and then John Rhodes and Alito would would
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  have a couple of them at his place as well.
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  So you know, we were able to start vaulting before track
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  season even started, which was awesome.
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  One of the crazy, you know, I've been track for a long time.
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  You know, it's hard for me to say as an athlete, I was an
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  athlete, not very good, but as a coach.
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  And then, you know, here at Gale and one of the things that
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  really like, like I don't get surprised in track very much
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  anymore, right? I hate to say that I'm old
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  enough that I've seen it all, but I've seen a lot, right?
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  And I remember going to the Texas State meet.
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  Now, a good friend of mine was a head coach of, I think it was
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  Anderson High School in Austin who's actually at the Catholic
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  Forest at Mississippi State. And I go to the stadium, you
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  know, at Gill, we just always sit by the pole ball pit.
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  That's just the place you go. If you work for Gill, you go to
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  the pole ball pit. And I remember, you know, you
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  see all the kids across that little fence, you know, where
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  you can vision it, where the pole ball pit is.
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  And they're all the kids are there and all the high school
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  coaches are like sit in front row or something like that.
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  If I remember, or maybe they're they're on the track.
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  I can't remember, but I remember a kid would vault, come off the
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  pit, you'd look up into the stands, somebody would be
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  walking down later found, well, I knew who was it was a club
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  coach. The club coach is not allowed to
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  talk to the athlete. So the club coach would speak to
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  the to the track coach, even though the kid could hear speak
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  to the track coach and be like, hey, move his grip, whatever,
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  take a step back, blah, blah, blah.
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  And then the track coach has to turn to the athlete and say hey,
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  move your grip. And I was like, what in the, the
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  vault, the club coach would walk back up.
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  Next athlete would go, here comes a different vault.
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  It was the I had to, I had to ask my guy.
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  I was like, So what, what's going on here?
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  He's like, well, it got a little out of control with all the,
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  the, the vault because there, I mean, vault clubs are an amazing
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  culture throughout the country, but boy, it's amplified as a lot
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  of things are in Texas. I guess it got out of a lot of
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  control. And so the UIL had to like, I
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  guess step in, make a rule and be like, look, guys, we're a
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  high school sport. We need to be working through
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  our high school coaches and high school coaches.
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  We're not like, you know, big swath there.
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  Obviously some probably had some issues with it, but they were
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  like, look, we don't we don't have a coach vault.
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  That's not safe. So I need my my club coach.
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  So I want to listen to him or her on this stuff.
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  But it was just crazy. Just this here comes the the
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  club coach and the high school coaches turns and says the exact
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  same thing. I'm like, we cut out the
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  middleman here. It's crazy.
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  You didn't have that. You had just your your, your
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  coach would would coach. Yeah, for sure.
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  It's definitely crazy down there in Austin during the statement.
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  So what's it like? You know, I, I tried vaulting
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  long time, one of my first years coaching back when we were still
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  introducing women to, to the vault and I got my feet off the
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  ground about maybe 2 inches. And I literally, it was the last
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  day I was like, never again. Like I, I can't, that's too
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  scary. I don't have any control, not a
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  fan. And now I'm, you know, blessed
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  to be friends with people who've jumped 20 feet in the vault.
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  What's it like being a vaulter? What's it like being a vaulter
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  in Texas? It's like practices and
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  competing and just what's it all like down there?
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  Yeah, so it was really cool, you know, especially when I first
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  got into it in high school, because, you know, you just do
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  it because you think it's fun. You're not really all that good.
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  And, you know, it's it's kind of fun to get off the ground and
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  and clear some bars. And especially, you know, and
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  like you mentioned in Texas, everything's just so amplified
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  when it comes to the vault because of the, you know, the
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  club system. And even some high schools have
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  some really good systems that consistently push out good
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  vaulters. And so like, I remember my my
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  very first indoor meet, I had, you know, come down taking a
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  jump and they called me up the next time, you know, Michael
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  Mccarroll, you're up and get down and cleared the bar.
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  And, and John Rhodes, who is the vault coach at Aledo for a long
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  time, he says, Mike Michael Mccarroll, are you Mike
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  Mccarroll's son? And I said, yes, Sir.
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  And he's like, I coached your dad in high school.
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  And you know, I'm 12 years old at the time, however old you are
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  when you're a freshman in high school.
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  And I just remember thinking like, wow, that was a long time
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  ago. And you're still here coaching
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  the pole vault. And he still coaches the pole
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  vault and has a 5A kid at the state meet every year, You know,
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  and so to, to be a part of that community and, you know, all the
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  club coaches in, in Texas, you know, I virtually have all their
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  phone numbers in my phone and, you know, can call them up.
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  And the, the cool thing about all of them is you ask them
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  questions and they're, they'll sit down and talk to you about
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  it, You know, their philosophies on what they do and all that
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  good stuff. So just the fraternity of, of
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  the Malden, Texas is amazing. And so to get to grow up into
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  that system and you know, a lot of those kids at the, at the
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  club level or the kids when I was in high school that I'm
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  trying to beat. And so it, it just, it elevates
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  the sport in a way that I don't feel like anything else does.
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  Especially like when I was in high school, I jumped 15 one and
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  that was ranked like #2 and 5A in the state that year.
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  Fast forward to now, everybody and their dog can jump 15 feet
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  now. And so just to see how much it's
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  progressed in the 10 years I've been out of high school, it's
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  been amazing. And it, and it's all just
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  because of the knowledge and the TTFCA and and conventions that
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  are elevating coaching education.
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  It's it all plays a factor into that.
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  Yeah, that's cool. I love that.
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  I agree. There's, you know, they call it
• 13:32
  trackflation, but I think it's, you know, I always blame the
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  coaches. Like when I do NCAA champs and
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  I'm giving out gifts and they, you know, get these teams that
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  you have 30 kids at the national championship and they're trying
• 13:44
  to figure out where to put all these presents and all this kind
• 13:45
  of stuff. And I was like, you know, this
• 13:47
  is your fault. Like you're the one who coached
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  them up and got them here nationals.
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  Like no one to blame by yourself, guys, when you see
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  these top ten, you see 15 feet is, you know, probably 30th now
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  on the five a list. It's like it's your fault,
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  coach, you didn't have a job. 52 is not #2 anymore.
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  You know you can only point thumbs, not fingers on on that,
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  right, That's for sure. So as you get you get to your
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  senior year, you're vaulting, you're going to the state meet,
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  you're ranked as high as #2 and those are all high accolades
• 14:16
  where at this point, so senior year ish, as you're starting to
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  look at schools, is coaching at all in your mind or are you
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  thinking about becoming an astronaut or a fireman or
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  whatever else those boys think about becoming?
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  Yeah, so. I always knew that I wanted to
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  to coach the vault in some capacity.
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  You know, I always wanted to be involved in it and keep getting
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  to do that when I couldn't vault anymore.
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  I didn't going to college, I didn't necessarily have, you
• 14:41
  know, a plan on on what I wanted to do.
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  I just knew that whatever I, whatever I ended up doing, I
• 14:47
  wanted to still be able to coach the vault or help out in some,
• 14:50
  you know, fast set of the next generation of these kids.
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  Isn't that that's interesting to me?
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  You know, we like to joke a little bit about, you know,
• 14:57
  vaulters being a special breed and you know, some of that's not
• 15:00
  a joke, right? Some of that's it's true.
• 15:04
  I, I can't think of another sport and maybe it's just I
• 15:08
  don't talk to other lineman or pitchers or midfielders.
• 15:14
  I, I just don't know that I hear from other sports.
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  Oh, I know, I don't know what I want to do, but I know I want to
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  coach volleyball or I know I want to coach tennis and, and
• 15:26
  I'm not sure, you know, I've done this, this is, you know,
• 15:27
  episode 300 and something. So I've done this 300 plus
• 15:30
  times. Well, on my way to 400.
• 15:32
  We're right around, we're about what, 2 weeks away from season 7
• 15:34
  starting, which is, you know, I don't know why I can never
• 15:37
  perceive season 7 happening, but we're going to start season 7 on
• 15:40
  this podcast. I've talked to a lot of great
• 15:41
  coaches out there and I hear it more from our vaulters where
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  it's like, yeah, I didn't know. And I didn't know how far I
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  would go in vaulting, whether I was going to go to college or if
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  I'd ever be able to make Olympics and things like that.
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  But I knew I wanted to be involved in pole vaulting.
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  Like it's a unique event in our sport of track and field, that
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  fraternity and sorority of of vaulters.
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  So you knew I don't know what I want to do, but it's going to
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  involve a stick. Yeah.
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  Yeah. OK.
• 16:09
  Senior year, you're thinking about school.
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  What are you thinking? Where you thinking about going?
• 16:12
  What are you thinking about majoring at this point?
• 16:14
  You know, you kind of want to do something coaching.
• 16:16
  So does that factor in what you majored in?
• 16:17
  Talk to us about that next step. Yeah, so I only took two visits
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  my senior year of high school, mainly because in my mind I knew
• 16:25
  I was going to go to Stephen F Austin.
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  Is that right? So I wanted to to go there and
• 16:29
  vault there. You know, that was in the height
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  of of Demi Payne and. Antonio, right.
• 16:33
  Yeah, they had, they were stacked in the pole vault.
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  And so I thought, you know, if I'm going to jump the highest
• 16:39
  that I'm ever going to jump, I need to go there because they've
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  got it going on. And so I visited there and I
• 16:45
  visited McMurray. Yeah.
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  I ended up committing to Stephen F Austin and then kind of last
• 16:53
  second didn't feel the best about it, you know, and last
• 16:57
  second I called the the head coach uniquely was the public
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  coach at McMurray. And so I called him and and
• 17:03
  flipped over to McMurray and literally 2 days before school
• 17:06
  started, enrolled in McMurray and ended up in school there.
• 17:10
  Is that right? Yeah, that's, that's
• 17:13
  interesting. You know, we, we've been
• 17:15
  exploring this a lot on the podcast about, you know, where
• 17:18
  you are right now is where you're supposed to be.
• 17:20
  That doesn't mean it's, it's you're in a good place.
• 17:22
  Does it mean you're in a bad place?
• 17:24
  And it doesn't mean that's what you're going to be tomorrow,
• 17:26
  right. So here you are.
• 17:28
  I mean, I could see, I, I remember that time frame during
• 17:30
  SFA, like they were, you're right, they were, they got it
• 17:33
  going on during that time, right.
• 17:34
  And still do. They're great program.
• 17:35
  They do a great job down there. But I remember this time, so I
• 17:38
  could see a vaulter be like, oh man, like I, I love your
• 17:41
  attitude. Is it reminds me a little bit of
• 17:42
  my coaching career of like, I was like, if I want to be the
• 17:45
  best, I got to beat the best. So for me, it's always to get to
• 17:47
  the SEC. That was my whole coaching
• 17:49
  career. So you're like, hey, if I want
• 17:50
  to be the best, I got to be around the best.
• 17:52
  Like I got to have teammates that can beat me and then push
• 17:54
  me. You know, I get that.
• 17:55
  I love that. I love that attitude.
• 17:57
  So you think like, oh, that's where I'm going.
• 18:00
  I'm I'm going to become a a lumberjack right now.
• 18:02
  SFA is yeah, yeah. But something, you know, where
• 18:06
  there was a gut feeling or something was like, I'm not sure
• 18:10
  this is the right place. And McMurray was there.
• 18:12
  And that's ultimately it's where we find out you, you were
• 18:15
  supposed to be there. That's where you were supposed
• 18:16
  to go. And uniquely, their head coach
• 18:18
  was a football coach. Yeah, so he was Brad Paris.
• 18:22
  He was awesome, really successful vault coach.
• 18:25
  He jumped 17/8 I think himself back in college and made the
• 18:30
  Olympic trials and all that back in his his college days.
• 18:34
  And so we had been in communication, you know, through
• 18:36
  the recruiting process. And I mean, I, I couldn't tell
• 18:39
  you what it just a gut feeling of, hey, I don't think I'm
• 18:41
  supposed to end up in Nacogdoches.
• 18:44
  And so I, I called him and of course he was like, yeah, let's
• 18:49
  do it. And, you know, had two days
• 18:52
  before classes started, you know, got me into a dorm, got me
• 18:55
  enrolled. Yeah, right.
• 18:57
  Stuff and I moved to Abilene and you can Fast forward sometime,
• 19:01
  but it's absolutely where I was supposed to be, you know, my
• 19:03
  wife and. Is that right?
• 19:05
  Yeah, she was an Abilene Christian Wildcat, and we met
• 19:09
  here in Abilene and not a. Vaulter was she?
• 19:11
  Not a vaulter. No.
• 19:12
  Not an athlete really at all. OK, but she knew what she was
• 19:15
  getting into marrying a vaulter. Oh yeah.
• 19:17
  OK, I don't know if we ever know that.
• 19:19
  So maybe she didn't really know what that is.
• 19:22
  So talk to us about your time at McMurray.
• 19:24
  What did you end up? What did you start your major
• 19:26
  in? We know, I think they said
• 19:27
  something like the average major change is something like four or
• 19:30
  five times, which is crazy to me because that means someone's
• 19:33
  doing it 10 times because some people don't change their major.
• 19:36
  I think I changed three Times Now they think about it, but
• 19:39
  that's crazy to me. Did you?
• 19:40
  What major did you start out with and what did you end up
• 19:42
  with? So I actually never switched it
• 19:44
  I I enrolled. It brought down the average.
• 19:46
  I did yeah. So I, I enrolled in the history
• 19:49
  department and, and stuck with it through the four years I was
• 19:53
  there. We had some amazing history
• 19:55
  professors that just made it fun, you know, studying boring
• 19:59
  history, you know, they're, they actually took an interest in, in
• 20:03
  making sure that that we were having a good time and, and
• 20:05
  learning things in the fun way. So.
• 20:07
  I'm just stuck with it. Why history?
• 20:09
  And what I mean by that is the history, like you're going to
• 20:13
  become a high school teacher, history teacher, or just I like
• 20:16
  history. Yeah, that was the plan.
• 20:18
  So I majored in history education 7 through 12, so you
• 20:21
  can teach high school history and virtually anything in the
• 20:24
  state of Texas. And so I had at that point, you
• 20:29
  know, I kind of knew, hey, I like pole vault.
• 20:31
  You know, I want to keep doing it.
• 20:32
  Maybe I should major in something where I can go be a
• 20:34
  high school teacher and coach. And so that was kind of my
• 20:38
  thought process behind it. And, you know, in the back of my
• 20:42
  head, the history department, they took trips to places and
• 20:44
  went and studied abroad and did all that stuff.
• 20:46
  So I was like, maybe I'd have an interest in in doing that, which
• 20:49
  I ultimately did. But that's kind of just why I
• 20:51
  stuck with it and stayed on the history route.
• 20:55
  Where where'd you go? That was cool for as your
• 20:57
  history major. I studied for two weeks abroad
• 21:00
  over the summer in Italy and master's worth the credit for it
• 21:04
  so. Wait, hold on, You were only
• 21:07
  over there for two weeks. I was doing it for two weeks and
• 21:09
  they gave me 12 hours of credit for it.
• 21:14
  The school paid for half of it so it was like a no brainer on
• 21:17
  why I should have. Been either.
• 21:20
  Wow. It would have cost me more to
• 21:22
  take the classes in Abilene than it did for me, yeah.
• 21:26
  So the other 12 weeks or whatever a semester is you were
• 21:30
  you were in Abilene. Well, it was over the summer, so
• 21:33
  the spring semester, and then left for Italy for two weeks and
• 21:36
  then came back and wrote some papers and got the credit for
• 21:39
  it. How how was that man that just
• 21:40
  I, I, I Italy's one of my like, I was just telling my wife
• 21:43
  actually, I was like, I'd love to just go stay in a villa.
• 21:45
  I don't even know if they have villas in Italy, but I want to
• 21:47
  be able to just like walk down to a coffee shop or whatever.
• 21:49
  Like it just seems like a cool place.
• 21:51
  How? How was it?
• 21:52
  It's amazing, you know, especially in Rome, Like we, we
• 21:55
  walked everywhere from our hotel, you know, if you want to
• 21:57
  go get lunch, just walk down the street to the.
• 21:59
  Yeah, yeah, the. Restaurant that you see here, it
• 22:02
  was, there's nothing like it. It was amazing.
• 22:04
  Highly. Recommended and you were a 2021
• 22:07
  year old. I don't even think I was.
• 22:10
  I was. 20 maybe. Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
• 22:12
  Like you're young. Like if you would have told me
• 22:15
  he's like, yeah, bro, I was just another country and like, you
• 22:17
  know, I was 20 there. So I got to drink wine because
• 22:19
  the drinking age is 18 or whatever.
• 22:20
  But like you like, seem to like really like enjoyed like the
• 22:23
  culture and the the, the atmosphere of it.
• 22:26
  Yeah, yeah, it was amazing. Have you been back?
• 22:29
  No, I haven't. I really want to take my wife
• 22:31
  back. Yeah.
• 22:31
  OK. My next question was, was she
• 22:33
  with you? But she went to ACU, so she
• 22:35
  wasn't even there, was she? Was she in the picture though?
• 22:38
  She was, yeah. We were engaged.
• 22:39
  Was she oh, OK, well, never mind.
• 22:41
  I was going to say, was she calling?
• 22:42
  Like, hey, so don't be getting looking at those Italian women.
• 22:45
  You got to come back to Texas. But she was you were engaged.
• 22:47
  She's like, yeah, I trust you, bro, You're good.
• 22:49
  That's so cool. I love that.
• 22:52
  So history major all the way through.
• 22:54
  Love that your vault all the way through.
• 22:56
  Only two years. So what happened vaulted my
• 22:59
  freshman year, my sophomore year, and then outdoor season my
• 23:03
  sophomore year. I tore my hip labrum and so that
• 23:06
  kind of ended things for me. And then at the same time coach
• 23:12
  Paris had gotten into selling insurance.
• 23:15
  So he had left McMurray and they had hired Coach Knight and kind
• 23:19
  of goes into the next phase of of all that.
• 23:22
  But tell. Me about this entry.
• 23:23
  Was this like a first of all, all right now, I'm no dummy.
• 23:27
  You were in college. I know what happens in college.
• 23:28
  Was this a dumb college incident or vault incident, an acute?
• 23:33
  Was it a chronic? Tell me more about that.
• 23:35
  It was, it was an overuse injury.
• 23:38
  I was the kind of person in vault practice where I was going
• 23:40
  to take 45 jumps into practice if I needed.
• 23:43
  And so ultimately that ended up being my downfall.
• 23:47
  So I, I tweaked it and then I had gone in and got an MRI and
• 23:52
  stuff and surgeon was like, well, it might be torn or it
• 23:56
  might not. And I'm like, well, you're, you
• 23:59
  know, suggesting that I have this hip labrum surgery, which
• 24:01
  is a nine month recovery process because they dislocate your hip
• 24:04
  and repair it and put it back in.
• 24:06
  Oh. My God, Seriously.
• 24:08
  Yeah, that's how it works. And so I'm, I'm like you're,
• 24:11
  you're saying all that on a maybe that it might be torn.
• 24:14
  I was like, I don't know if I'm going to go through all.
• 24:16
  That I need some higher odds in that bro.
• 24:18
  Yeah. And so your other option is you
• 24:20
  could quit, you know, vaulting. And I was like, I'm going to
• 24:23
  have to sit on that one for a while.
• 24:25
  So ultimately that's that's what ended up being the best choice
• 24:28
  for me was to to stop vaulting. And then, you know, they hired
• 24:34
  Cody over to McMurray, Cody Knight.
• 24:36
  And I was the work study for the track team for for my freshman
• 24:40
  and sophomore year. So I've done a little bit of
• 24:42
  recruiting and paperwork and expense reports and anything
• 24:45
  that Coach Paris had needed me to do.
• 24:47
  And so when Cody got hired, I went into the office and was
• 24:52
  like, hey, I've been the work study for, you know, a couple
• 24:55
  years. I would like to keep doing that
• 24:57
  if I can. And also I know a little bit
• 25:01
  about the pole vault. So if you need some help in that
• 25:04
  aspect, then, you know, I'd be more than happy to help out.
• 25:07
  And he told me, yes, I can continue being the work study,
• 25:12
  but he initially told me no to helping out coach the pole
• 25:14
  vaulters. And at the time he wanted to
• 25:18
  find a pole vault coach. So we'll give him the credit
• 25:21
  there. You know, he wanted to have
• 25:23
  somebody actually coaching. And his mind, he thought I could
• 25:27
  have the surgery and then come back and be on the team.
• 25:30
  Whereas in my mind, I had already checked out and and had
• 25:33
  crossed that bridge and was ready to move on to the next
• 25:36
  thing. So see.
• 25:36
  This is what I'm talking about, about where your feet are.
• 25:38
  This is amazing because as an 18 year old, I have a lot of grace
• 25:42
  for 18 year olds. It still boggles me that, you
• 25:44
  know, culturally here in America, we make 18 year olds
• 25:47
  pick a decision, pick a major that it's going to affect them
• 25:50
  for the rest of their lives. Like, you know, you're 18 years
• 25:52
  old, you didn't even know what you wanted to do for dinner.
• 25:55
  We're supposed to pick a major. It's going to affect the rest of
• 25:57
  your life. And so here you are growing up.
• 25:59
  I can totally see this, man. I like this, this not resonates
• 26:03
  with me personally, but like I can, I can see this and feel
• 26:05
  this of like, oh, SFA is the joint man.
• 26:07
  That's the place. That's where I'm going to go.
• 26:08
  I'm going to be able to practice with these guys and gals and
• 26:10
  this coach and yadda, yadda, yadda.
• 26:12
  And then you turn to go to McMurray.
• 26:13
  A lot of people could be like, you know, have like some regret,
• 26:16
  like, oh, the D1, you know, blah, blah and all this kind of
• 26:19
  stuff. And yet this, this, I don't want
• 26:22
  to call it a little decision. You know, where you pick for
• 26:23
  school is not necessarily a little decision, but it's not
• 26:26
  the most life changing decision in the world either, right?
• 26:28
  There's transfers and stuff, right?
• 26:30
  But you make this decision to go to McMurray, you meet your wife.
• 26:33
  You had no clue that you were going to meet your wife at SFA
• 26:37
  McMurray post collegiately. Whatever, right?
• 26:40
  You meet your wife, next thing happens, you get this.
• 26:43
  I mean, I have to believe devastating injury.
• 26:46
  Like like, oh, wait a minute, I got to not do pole vaulting.
• 26:48
  Wait a minute, I am pole vaulting.
• 26:50
  My dad was a like, this is like I told you.
• 26:53
  I didn't know what I wanted to be in life, but I knew I want to
• 26:55
  do something with pole vaulting. Now you're telling me I can't do
• 26:57
  it. And yet this starts leading you
• 26:59
  into coaching. Like this is where I just have
• 27:03
  this such a belief that where you are is where you're supposed
• 27:05
  to be. Whether you think that's good or
• 27:07
  bad, it doesn't mean it is the the the BL end all.
• 27:10
  It can change. But you were supposed to be at
• 27:12
  McMurray. You were supposed to have an
• 27:15
  injury. And it's the craziest thing to
• 27:18
  say, right? Like if I told you at 18, hey,
• 27:19
  man, in two years, you're supposed to get really hurt and
• 27:23
  not going to do the thing that you love a lot.
• 27:24
  By the way, you'd be like you crazy, like you're an A hole
• 27:26
  dude. What do you mean?
• 27:27
  Right. And instead it's like, oh, thank
• 27:29
  God, I got hurt. I know it's, it's easier to say
• 27:31
  hindsight than it was during the actual process, but thank God I
• 27:34
  got hurt. That helped me lead me to the
• 27:36
  next part of my life, my journey that, you know, is not very
• 27:39
  satisfying looking back on. So that's awesome, man.
• 27:42
  That's amazing. So Cody tells you, yeah, that's
• 27:44
  cool. You can still, you know, help
• 27:46
  out a work study or whatnot. But do you?
• 27:49
  20 years old, man, you can't coach you.
• 27:50
  Get out of here. So how how did did you start
• 27:53
  coaching for him at some point? I did, yeah.
• 27:55
  So I, I did really well on the work study side of things and,
• 27:58
  and helped him, you know, do his expense reports and stay on top
• 28:01
  of things. And lo and behold, we had a pole
• 28:04
  vaulter on the team that didn't have a coach at that point.
• 28:07
  She was a freshman that year. And so that slowly transitioned
• 28:11
  into me getting to work with her at practice.
• 28:13
  And, you know, then we, we did a pretty, pretty good job and she
• 28:18
  scored some points at the conference meet that year.
• 28:21
  And so then going into that was my junior year, so going into my
• 28:26
  senior year, we had recruited a couple pole vaulters to come
• 28:29
  there. And keep in mind, I'm a senior
• 28:32
  in college trying to recruit, you know, it's pretty close to
• 28:35
  my age to, to come to school. They're involved.
• 28:38
  And so I ended up landing my first, what I call my first pole
• 28:42
  vaulter who went four years with me and graduated McMurray and
• 28:46
  actually went Bible and graduated McMurray.
• 28:49
  And I'll never forget I went to go meet him in the welcome
• 28:52
  center at McMurray. And you know, I introduced
• 28:55
  myself and shook his hand and everything and he said, so
• 28:59
  where's the coach at? I was like, well, I'm right
• 29:04
  here, man. You're like man, I either got
• 29:06
  good news or bad news for you bro, what's you looking at?
• 29:11
  But he ended up, you know, 13 six guy at a high school that
• 29:15
  jumped almost 16 feet. And, you know, just from there
• 29:21
  started recruiting more and more, getting more vaulters in.
• 29:24
  And then, you know, I'm to my senior year fixing to graduate
• 29:27
  and there's not really going to be an opening at McMurray for me
• 29:32
  to stay on there. So I actually took a job at the
• 29:35
  high school teaching and coaching cross country.
• 29:38
  And then I volunteer coached for track in the afternoons at
• 29:44
  McMurray and did that for a couple years.
• 29:46
  And then a position opened up where I was able to go over
• 29:48
  there full time. And then we, I mean, we got to
• 29:51
  rocking and roll and I had, you know, upwards of 16 kids in my
• 29:54
  group, pole vultures and combined vendors and.
• 29:58
  Go go back to college for me real quick here.
• 30:01
  So before you actually started coaching before that kind of
• 30:04
  junior year and that that freshman girl and then senior
• 30:06
  year with the the guy who thought you were his teammates.
• 30:09
  I love that you were doing a lot of the not so fun stuff of the
• 30:13
  profession is what I heard. You're doing expense reports,
• 30:18
  maybe recruiting logs or something, but you're doing the
• 30:20
  work that Cody did not want to do.
• 30:22
  No one gets into coaching going man, I can't wait to do expense
• 30:25
  reports. I can't wait to do this
• 30:27
  committee meeting, whatever, blah, blah, blah.
• 30:29
  But you're doing that. None of that.
• 30:32
  I mean, I know the answer because it didn't, but none of
• 30:34
  that got in your head of like, wait a minute.
• 30:35
  I thought I thought coaching was just on the pit man.
• 30:38
  What? This is part of code.
• 30:39
  Like none of that kind of scared you off or anything.
• 30:41
  No, I mean, I had expressed to Cody, like when I asked if I
• 30:44
  could still be his work study, you know, he knew that I wanted
• 30:46
  to coach and that I wanted to, to be in that profession.
• 30:50
  And so he took a a keen interest in making sure that I knew about
• 30:54
  all aspects of of coaching. And obviously expense reports
• 30:58
  aren't fun, but it's part of it. And he knew that, you know, if I
• 31:01
  was going to be a coach one day, then I'm going to have to know
• 31:03
  how to do that. And so, you know, walk me
• 31:06
  through that process and, you know, how do you recruit?
• 31:09
  You know, how do you not recruit?
• 31:12
  And like I'll never forget his, his only role in recruiting was
• 31:16
  we do not negatively recruit. A difference.
• 31:19
  He said, I don't care outside of that, you know, obviously follow
• 31:22
  the recruiting rules, but never talk bad about another school or
• 31:26
  never down talk another school. And so that was always our
• 31:29
  philosophy and, and all that and.
• 31:31
  So I, I was, I was going to ask you because it's, it's
• 31:33
  interesting. Recruiting is a lot like sales,
• 31:36
  not only just in the, the mechanism of what you're doing.
• 31:39
  You're, you're, you're, you're selling your school to an 18
• 31:42
  year old to, you know that so they can spend money or time and
• 31:45
  energy to come to your school. I'm talking with, you know,
• 31:48
  track and field coaches just trying to hopefully see if we
• 31:50
  have a, a solution to whatever pain that they have.
• 31:54
  And then, you know, there's an exchange of money, things like
• 31:56
  that. And with the recruiting, it
• 31:59
  seems it, it's very similar in the sense of how people think
• 32:04
  about it. And what I mean by that is
• 32:05
  people think, oh, if you're going to be a recruiter, good
• 32:08
  recruiter, you need to be an extrovert and likable.
• 32:11
  And that's pretty much where it stops, where people say you're a
• 32:14
  good recruiter or not. And I could have changed
• 32:16
  recruiting to salesperson and said the same thing, like, oh,
• 32:19
  you're going to be good at sales.
• 32:20
  Oh, you need to be an extrovert and you need to be like, well,
• 32:22
  and you'll be, you'll be fine. And here's the crazy thing, you
• 32:25
  know, I've been in this profession now on this side, the
• 32:27
  sales side for 20 years. I was college coach for 10 years
• 32:30
  and recruiting was my my number one thing as well.
• 32:32
  I've seen plenty of people who are extroverts and likeable who
• 32:35
  are terrible recruiters and terrible sales people as well,
• 32:38
  by the way. And the opposite's true.
• 32:40
  I've seen people who are extremely introverted and
• 32:43
  extremely not likeable who are very good recruiters or sales
• 32:47
  people. There's more to it.
• 32:48
  It's, it's a skill, Just like pole vaulting is a skill,
• 32:51
  selling is a skill, IE recruiting as a skill.
• 32:54
  And that means if it is a skill, then you can be coached and get
• 32:57
  better at it. But I have never heard people
• 33:00
  saying, yeah, I sat down with my new assistants his first year
• 33:03
  or, or first year in my program and I, I, I taught him how to
• 33:06
  recruit. I don't hear that very much.
• 33:08
  I hear more of the like, hey, here's the list.
• 33:10
  Go call those people. It's like, OK, I guess I'm
• 33:14
  supposed to just get to know them.
• 33:16
  It's like you miss it. And here's what I think happens
• 33:18
  is This is why I think somewhat a part of no one thing is the
• 33:23
  one thing, but one of the issues of the transfer portal and why
• 33:27
  it's so rampant. One, it's become culture.
• 33:29
  I think it's a little bit like for 18 to 22 year olds.
• 33:32
  It's just like, yeah, you go to transfer portal.
• 33:34
  If you're good, you go to the transfer portal.
• 33:36
  Not even like if it's a bad situation anymore.
• 33:38
  It's like if you're good, you continue to level up, which I
• 33:41
  have a hard time arguing against because we do that in our lives,
• 33:43
  right? Like, you know, you've seen
• 33:46
  plenty of college coaches that you know, I'm supposed to move
• 33:48
  up from McMurray to D1, from mid major D1 to power 4I mean that's
• 33:52
  a story as old as time, right? But when the kids do it, we get
• 33:56
  we old people wag their fingers. But I think some of this mega
• 34:03
  transferring like a lot, you know, that we've got more people
• 34:05
  transferring transfer portal is we're not recruiting very well.
• 34:08
  Like we're not actually disqualifying kids from your
• 34:11
  program. Like we, we, we think every kid
• 34:13
  we call because they have the mark should be in our program.
• 34:16
  And then we we fool ourselves, in my opinion, until ourselves,
• 34:20
  like, oh, well, if they have bad character, I won't, I won't
• 34:23
  recruit them. And I was like, I've seen a lot
• 34:26
  of really, really good kids that I know had bad character.
• 34:30
  And they all got scholarship offers, not just one, by the
• 34:32
  way. They got plenty.
• 34:33
  I've never seen a kid Allen Iverson like to hit a kid with a
• 34:36
  chair at a bowling alley a senior year.
• 34:38
  They still gave him a scholarship, you know, and I
• 34:43
  don't, I'm definitely not a big fan of college coaches.
• 34:45
  Any coach saying like, oh, I looked at their Twitter and they
• 34:48
  had a cuss word. And so I pulled the offer and
• 34:50
  I'm like, how strong was that offer then?
• 34:52
  Because let's be real, let's be real here.
• 34:55
  Come on, dude. And by the way, that kid still
• 34:58
  had four other offers. Just saying.
• 35:00
  Yeah, on to the next. Anyway, I'm not sure that we're
• 35:02
  recruiting very well and I certainly see in the sales side
• 35:05
  where we're not selling very well to where we're not
• 35:06
  qualifying disqualifying. We just think that every kid,
• 35:09
  if, if I'm recruiting a 17 foot pole vaulter and that's going to
• 35:11
  be good in my, my program and my conference, I don't, I don't
• 35:15
  need to see if this is actually the right fit.
• 35:16
  I, I think I am the right fit. So you should come here.
• 35:19
  Oh, you want to be a history major and we don't have history.
• 35:21
  Oh, you can study anthropology here.
• 35:22
  So you know, and it's like, man, that kids not supposed to be in
• 35:25
  your program and you con them into it and con yourself that,
• 35:29
  that they're supposed to be in it.
• 35:30
  And then they get there and go, Oh, this sucks.
• 35:32
  Well, or, or the coach and athletes, by the way, this is
• 35:35
  both sides who during the recruiting act like someone
• 35:38
  else, like, oh, I think coach, I think coach wants me to be this
• 35:42
  type of person. So I'm going to act like that
• 35:43
  when I'm around them. And then you get to school there
• 35:45
  and it's like, that's not me. You become your real self
• 35:48
  because you can only fake it so long.
• 35:49
  And then coach is like, well, who the hell is this kid?
• 35:51
  I thought I was getting this, this quiet, hard working pole
• 35:54
  vaulter. And it's like, oh, you're a loud
• 35:56
  kind of jerk. Why?
• 35:58
  Why didn't you do this during the recruiting process so I
• 35:59
  couldn't recruit you? And it happens both sides.
• 36:02
  There's lots of coaches who when they're talking to recruits,
• 36:04
  they think, oh, I better act like this to the recruit, not
• 36:07
  their real selves. And then again, you can only
• 36:09
  fake it so long. So.
• 36:10
  Yeah. I don't know how we got on the
• 36:12
  topic, Mike, but it's something very passionate.
• 36:13
  The profession of coaching, as you know, Mike is very, very
• 36:16
  passionate to me. Like I want us to continue to
• 36:18
  move the profession of coaching upwards.
• 36:21
  And to do that we've got to educate ourselves and that means
• 36:24
  helping, teaching the right ways to recruit.
• 36:26
  That's what we were talking about.
• 36:31
  Where we at in your journey? I get these soap boxes.
• 36:34
  That has not changed as we get going into season 7 here.
• 36:37
  I still have my soap boxes and I always tell people like it's my
• 36:39
  show so I can do whatever I want, man.
• 36:41
  That's true. You have the right not to listen
• 36:43
  to the show, guys and gals, but I want you.
• 36:45
  Don't leave though. I want you to be here.
• 36:46
  I want you here. We're to continue with my story
• 36:48
  here. Who junior year starts doing a
• 36:51
  little bit of coaching senior year coaches a little bit more
• 36:53
  that I love that story of that kid who's less like the worst
• 36:56
  coach at. I love that you started coaching
• 36:58
  high school, though, and I think that's important.
• 36:59
  How was that experience? Yeah, it was a lot of fun.
• 37:03
  I actually really enjoyed the the high school side of
• 37:06
  coaching. I think there's something about
• 37:09
  like the team that you have isn't the team that you
• 37:11
  recruited to have, you know, those are the kids that that you
• 37:13
  have. And you know, especially going
• 37:16
  from being a vault coach, which is very, you know,
• 37:19
  individualistic within the track and field team to being a head
• 37:22
  cross country coach where you have to operate as a team, you
• 37:26
  know, if we're going to win. And you know, I was, I was
• 37:29
  fortunate in the year that I was there, you know, we won district
• 37:33
  as a team, qualified for the regional meet as a team.
• 37:37
  And then I had a freshman kid that was a state qualifier that
• 37:40
  year. We had a really good team.
• 37:43
  And what was that like? Because you're coming from the
• 37:45
  pole vault world, even though you were a pole vaulter slash
• 37:47
  miler back in middle school, you don't know what the heck are
• 37:50
  cross country kids doing. So you get handed these cross
• 37:53
  country kids. What do you do?
• 37:55
  What's the first? Do you call someone?
• 37:56
  Do you go watch a you know, you're young enough to go watch
• 37:58
  a YouTube video. What What the heck did you do to
• 38:00
  to learn how to coach? I I did call a couple people.
• 38:04
  I was fortunate enough that the the head cross country coach at
• 38:06
  McMurray and I at the time were, were good friends.
• 38:09
  And so she actually helped me, you know, come up with my
• 38:13
  training program for the cross country season.
• 38:15
  And then I had a good friend who was the cross country coach at
• 38:19
  Lake Travis and he had some really good teams.
• 38:22
  So we we went back and forth a lot on training and you know
• 38:25
  what I should be doing and you know, ultimately it ended up
• 38:29
  working. I think just about every kid
• 38:31
  that year got a new PR in the 5K and had some success as a team
• 38:36
  throughout the year. So and I had a blast and then at
• 38:40
  the same time I was the assistant track coach during the
• 38:42
  spring and so mainly just coaching vaulters during that
• 38:45
  time and had a regional qualifier that year in the pole
• 38:49
  in the men's pole vault. Not distance kids.
• 38:52
  No. No.
• 38:53
  Interesting. Why?
• 38:53
  How'd that work out? Yeah.
• 38:55
  So I was just the head boys cross country coach.
• 38:57
  We had to head girls cross country, coach, coach, coach the
• 39:00
  distance during the spring, so. She coached both boys and girls.
• 39:07
  Why didn't she coach boys cross country?
• 39:10
  I don't know, I don't know why she did, but it worked out well.
• 39:16
  You know, if she wasn't a little bit to do something, then you
• 39:18
  know, I could step in and and help out and obviously knew all
• 39:20
  the kids. So it wasn't a weird situation.
• 39:23
  Like why is the public coach coming over here to but some
• 39:29
  good vultures that year at the high school had a kid GO-136 and
• 39:33
  made the regional meet high school level.
• 39:36
  And I had a little freshman that went a little freshman boy that
• 39:39
  went 11/6. So had some good success there.
• 39:43
  And like I said, I really enjoyed it.
• 39:45
  I like the classroom. I like teaching.
• 39:47
  I liked. You taught history, Yeah.
• 39:49
  I did, yes, and but ultimately when the position opened up at
• 39:54
  McMurray for me to to come back, I think it was two years later,
• 39:58
  I, I jumped all over it and took a massive pay cut to go over to
• 40:03
  college coaching, which a lot of people don't realize.
• 40:06
  But. It's funny, I used to for a long
• 40:09
  time teach level ones for USATF taught, taught over 30 of them.
• 40:15
  And the number one question I got because I started high
• 40:18
  school before I went to college coaching as well, was from high
• 40:21
  school coaches saying, Hey, so you went from high school to
• 40:24
  college. How do I do that?
• 40:26
  And I'm like, maybe you don't like what do you why?
• 40:30
  Why do you think you want to coach college?
• 40:32
  And it's usually, you know, they think it's better pay, they
• 40:36
  think it's more freedom. And I think some of it honestly,
• 40:38
  now that I know a little bit more about teaching because my
• 40:40
  wife is a long term sub, so I get a little bit more eyes into
• 40:43
  that world of full time teaching.
• 40:46
  I think they're, it's going to be a little harsh when I say
• 40:48
  this. I think, I think they're running
• 40:50
  away from the teaching aspect. They, they enjoy the afternoons
• 40:53
  when they were there, the track team and they think, oh, if I
• 40:55
  could do that 24/7. And they don't realize like, Oh,
• 40:57
  some of the crap you deal with teaching, you're going to deal
• 41:00
  with in coaching, by the way. So you know, I'll say like, why,
• 41:03
  why, why in the world? Like I remember when I was
• 41:07
  coaching high school and I thought I wanted to coach
• 41:08
  college. I I remember thinking like, oh,
• 41:10
  in college I get to pick who's on my team, right?
• 41:14
  Well, that's ludicrous. Like you, you get, you get to
• 41:18
  try, but you don't get to just go like pluck, like I'll take
• 41:21
  Tommy and Lisa and Tammy. And you know, you don't get you
• 41:24
  got to work for those kids. And by the way, every other
• 41:26
  school around the country is trying to get those kids as
• 41:29
  well, right? And, and you're dealing with 18
• 41:31
  year olds. They don't know what the world
• 41:32
  they want and how in the world you get them to come to McMurray
• 41:34
  versus SFA. You know, look at you, you were
• 41:37
  an 18 year old that was like, yeah, I'm going to SFA.
• 41:39
  Bam, two days before hell, I'm going to McMurray.
• 41:41
  You know what I'm saying? I I so it's amazing to me for
• 41:47
  people that want to go to college and, and don't realize
• 41:49
  like, oh, by the way, you, you want to coach college because
• 41:51
  you think it's every day at the pit or on the sand or, you know,
• 41:55
  holding the stopwatch, watching the distance runners go and all
• 41:57
  this kind of stuff. Bro, that's this much of the
• 41:59
  job. Yeah.
• 42:00
  The the rest of the job is this. Picture boards, they're
• 42:05
  recruiting recruit years and all of that.
• 42:09
  But you jumped on the opportunity to go back over to
• 42:11
  McMurray and now you're full time.
• 42:14
  Yes, full time vaulters only, no vaulters in combined events.
• 42:19
  So OK, I I told Cody when I came back I wanted to be more
• 42:23
  versatile as a track coach. And so you know, I I tag along
• 42:27
  with him the long jump and triple jump practice and learned
• 42:31
  a lot about hurdles that year. And how did Decathlete go 1413
• 42:36
  in the 110 hurdles and qualified for the D3 national meet in the
• 42:40
  hurdles, not in the decathlon. So I really just wanted to
• 42:46
  challenge myself when I went back and so I I attacked the
• 42:49
  combined events and have so much fun doing it.
• 42:53
  Did did you do up to this point here your I'm going to call your
• 42:56
  second second trip at McMurray. Are you doing and had done and
• 43:01
  at this point any coaching education, whether it's
• 43:03
  USATFUSTFCA, Altis, any, any coaching education?
• 43:07
  Yeah, so I had my USATF level one.
• 43:10
  That was the first thing that Cody made me do when I back when
• 43:13
  I was, you know, just helping out as a student.
• 43:15
  He sent me to, I think it was Argyle somewhere up in Metroplex
• 43:22
  area, Allen. Maybe.
• 43:23
  And I kind of remember Allen having some, yeah.
• 43:26
  Yeah, it was probably Allen, but sent me up there to to get my
• 43:29
  USATF level 1 and then I did the USTFCCA level 1 and then I had
• 43:36
  my OR I attempted to get my USTFCCA strength and
• 43:40
  conditioning certification. So I took the class but.
• 43:44
  Did you fail the test? I did and and Boo ripped me
• 43:47
  apart. First of all, thank you for
• 43:50
  being open and honest with that. I do appreciate that.
• 43:54
  Second of all, you can't fail a class that Boo teaches.
• 43:57
  Come on bro. Boo is great, I learned.
• 44:00
  Something, yes. Conditioning in itself, it was
• 44:04
  just the I think it was like a month long programming in the
• 44:07
  weight room because I don't come from a like a, a sports science
• 44:11
  background. I was a very read a book and
• 44:14
  write a book report, you know, analytical that way.
• 44:17
  So a lot of those those scientific ideologies I couldn't
• 44:21
  grasp in the class. But yeah, yeah.
• 44:22
  But I actually kind of like this because it, it actually, I like
• 44:26
  that you failed Mike, because, because it actually legitimizes
• 44:30
  the class, right. And what I mean by that is,
• 44:31
  Mike, you're, you know, I've known you for a while now.
• 44:33
  You're very bright young man. And I, and I get what you're
• 44:36
  saying. Like, man, I'm a history dude,
• 44:37
  not a science guy saying I wasn't a science background.
• 44:40
  That's public relations major. Yeah.
• 44:42
  That's I got ABS and BS, that's what, that's what you know.
• 44:44
  So I don't have any of that either.
• 44:46
  And, you know, when you do level 2 and stuff, you got to take all
• 44:48
  the Physiology and bio mechanics.
• 44:49
  And I struggled, I, I didn't fail, but I, but I struggled
• 44:53
  with it. But, but I like that because
• 44:55
  you're a very intelligent young man and you and you didn't pass,
• 44:59
  which kind of legitimate because you know, sometimes you get into
• 45:01
  a class and it's like, bro, you can't fail.
• 45:02
  Like, I, you know, I know it says it's bio mechanics of long
• 45:05
  jumping, but dude, you'll be fine.
• 45:07
  You know, we, this ain't bio mechanics class bio mechanics
• 45:10
  for track. So I, I do like that.
• 45:11
  It was like, yeah, man, this is a real test.
• 45:14
  This one fluff. This is a real test.
• 45:16
  I I, and again, I appreciate the openness and authenticity there.
• 45:19
  Yeah. So I had those, those two
• 45:23
  certifications and then obviously going to the clinic
• 45:26
  every year with McMurray and sitting in on those classes.
• 45:30
  And I've actually, when we go to TTFCA every year I've gotten,
• 45:33
  I've been fortunate enough to get to speak twice.
• 45:35
  Yeah. TFCA on the wall and so.
• 45:39
  I'm glad you do that. Yeah, I, I think and, you know,
• 45:43
  this is a former teacher or, you know, education major.
• 45:46
  You know, it's one thing to be taught and people like people
• 45:50
  have different styles of being tie right Some people need to
• 45:52
  hear it, some people need to touch, some people need to read
• 45:55
  it right. There's different ways of how
• 45:57
  you can consume information and retain it.
• 46:01
  And I've learned an experience where if you teach it, like,
• 46:06
  yeah, you're teaching someone else, but you're actually
• 46:08
  learning it as well. So I could see you, you know,
• 46:11
  having those talks, you know, getting on stage, that's not an
• 46:13
  easy thing to do, but you know, it's one, it's one thing to talk
• 46:16
  to your boys and even even stranger coaches, like they come
• 46:18
  up and go, hey, man, tell me more about blah, blah.
• 46:20
  Let me tell you the swing blah, blah, blah, getting on stage,
• 46:23
  having to organize your thoughts, having or, you know,
• 46:25
  you're at TTFCA, you could have anywhere between 30 and 130.
• 46:30
  So you're staring out into a crowd of people that you don't
• 46:32
  know know who they are. And if you're humble enough, you
• 46:36
  know, like, oh, there's probably at least I don't know, 10 people
• 46:38
  in here probably know more than I am.
• 46:39
  They should be up here, right? And you're trying to figure out
• 46:42
  how do I convey this to them that they understand it?
• 46:45
  There's nervousness. There's always.
• 46:47
  Have you read the book The Twin Thieves?
• 46:50
  I don't think I have. I'd recommend it's a pretty easy
• 46:53
  read, fairly small book. It's actually a football story,
• 46:56
  but it but it's, I wish somebody would like rewrite it for track
• 47:00
  and field, but it's the twin thieves.
• 47:02
  It's the fear of judgement and the fear of failure.
• 47:05
  And, and that is the the two thing.
• 47:08
  I mean for everything. But I have seen in regards to
• 47:11
  public speaking, speaking about track, etcetera, that when I,
• 47:15
  when I'll go to somebody like, hey, man, you're, you're a smart
• 47:17
  individual. You should, you should talk
• 47:20
  about that. Like you should help me.
• 47:21
  I'm again, I'm always trying to raise the profession right.
• 47:23
  You should talk to other coaches so they learn about this and
• 47:26
  they'll be Oh yeah, I do when we're at track, like, no, no,
• 47:28
  no, no. Like organize your thoughts,
• 47:30
  give them a PowerPoint presentation and actually
• 47:33
  present your, your, your, your, your thoughts here.
• 47:37
  I could never get on stage my car.
• 47:39
  They know more than I do or I know nothing.
• 47:41
  And it's like, bro, you're, you're, you're, yeah.
• 47:44
  Two fears going. You're fear of failing.
• 47:45
  You're you're afraid of getting up on that stage and just losing
• 47:49
  track, stuttering, losing my spot, etcetera.
• 47:52
  And your fear of being your fear of those guys and gals in the in
• 47:55
  the in the audience going, what is Mike talk?
• 47:58
  This guy's an idiot, right? And by the way, both almost
• 48:02
  never happen. You rarely do get up there and
• 48:04
  stammer and lose your way. And if you do, the audience
• 48:07
  goes, yeah, I probably would have too, man.
• 48:08
  I get it, you know? Yeah.
• 48:10
  And the fear of judgement if someone is sitting in that, in
• 48:14
  that audience, not on stage, by the way, they're in the audience
• 48:17
  and they see you on stage and they go, man, this guy, I'm not
• 48:19
  sure he knows what he's talking about.
• 48:20
  That says more about that person than you.
• 48:23
  They ain't up there. It takes a little.
• 48:25
  It's about to get up on that state.
• 48:26
  They end up there. Come on, brother, you know what
• 48:29
  I'm saying? So I love that you did that.
• 48:30
  It's one of the reasons we started the Gill 1918 Project
• 48:33
  podcast series of these 10 to 30 minute episodes that we
• 48:35
  published Tuesdays through Sundays.
• 48:37
  It was a way to give coaches a voice.
• 48:38
  It's like, man, if, if someone like Mike is a little concerned
• 48:41
  about getting on stage in front of 30 or 130 people, it's like,
• 48:44
  all right, start here. Start recording your own
• 48:46
  session. Put it on audio.
• 48:47
  You can't see anybody that's listening to it so that you
• 48:49
  can't get judged. No one's gonna laugh at you.
• 48:51
  You can't fail cuz you can just stop and edit your own stuff.
• 48:54
  You know what I'm saying? So I love that you hopped up
• 48:57
  there. What were your two topics that
• 48:58
  you've spoken on before? So the very first year I did
• 49:02
  just training the beginning vaulter.
• 49:03
  So it was how you take a kid out of the hallway and teach him at
• 49:06
  a pole vault. Love that.
• 49:08
  Incorporated some drills and stuff that I would do if I was
• 49:12
  coaching a kid out of the hallway.
• 49:15
  And then the second year I kind of piggybacked more into, OK,
• 49:20
  kid can vault now, you know, maybe they're an 8 foot 9 foot
• 49:24
  boy or, you know, 7 foot 8 foot girl.
• 49:27
  What's the next steps to get them to 1314 feet or you know,
• 49:32
  10 foot plus for for females and.
• 49:34
  Which one of those did you get the most feedback on?
• 49:37
  Probably the second one. Is that right?
• 49:39
  Yeah. There's so much knowledge out
• 49:41
  there, you know, on on Google or whatever about, you know,
• 49:45
  beginning stages of the vault. But when I was going through
• 49:49
  looking for things, there's not really a whole lot of, OK, how
• 49:52
  do we develop and progress into the middle stages?
• 49:57
  I guess I would say of the like, how do we get a kid who has the
• 50:02
  tools but hasn't necessarily jumped 15 feet?
• 50:06
  Like what do we do in the in between stages of there?
• 50:08
  So I had a lot more questions the second presentation that I
• 50:12
  did. I think both are valuable.
• 50:15
  I'm 100% with you. I would challenge your notion
• 50:18
  that there's so much knowledge out there.
• 50:20
  You're right, by the way. But people either don't go look
• 50:23
  for it or they don't understand it, right?
• 50:25
  Because here's what I like to do.
• 50:27
  I actually got to start doing this on Twitter.
• 50:29
  I'm also on Reddit, right? And I follow the track and
• 50:32
  field. I should follow all the rest,
• 50:33
  but I just follow kind of track and field.
• 50:34
  I should follow sprints and pull and all that kind of stuff.
• 50:37
  But track and field kind of captures everybody, right?
• 50:39
  You would be surprised. Do you know Reddit?
• 50:42
  Yeah. Are you on Reddit?
• 50:43
  I'm not but. Sometimes it comes up on.
• 50:46
  Google Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a big yeah.
• 50:49
  It's a it's actually, Reddit is one of the largest teachers of
• 50:52
  AI models because you have a whole website dedicated to
• 50:55
  people asking questions or making statements for years and
• 50:59
  then response is off of that. It's it's it's like an old
• 51:01
  school message board is what Reddit really is.
• 51:05
  But you would be surprised if you go to track and field or the
• 51:07
  pole vault subreddit. So the whole category is nothing
• 51:09
  but pole vault or track and field.
• 51:11
  The questions that come up, bro. And I'm not talking about from
• 51:14
  freshmen athletes. I'm talking about from coaches,
• 51:18
  college and high school. There are people that ask and
• 51:22
  I'm glad they're asking questions, but sometimes I read
• 51:25
  these questions and I'm like, oh, wait a minute, you're
• 51:28
  coaching and you don't know this?
• 51:30
  Like this is a safety issue, boss.
• 51:33
  Like why are you coming to Reddit?
• 51:34
  How do you not know this? Like not, not common sense types
• 51:39
  of, you know, maybe a bad example because I'm not a pole
• 51:43
  vaulter, but you know, should my, should my hands be here for
• 51:47
  the pole vault? You know, and it's like, woah, I
• 51:50
  mean, have you not seen a vaulter?
• 51:51
  Like you should know why here and how to get to here, by the
• 51:53
  way, you know, whatever what you know, why that that kind of
• 51:56
  stuff. So I'm always encouraging for
• 52:00
  people, whether they're speaking at TTFCAS or USTFCA or doing a
• 52:05
  Guild 1918 project is do the basics to the basics.
• 52:09
  Not that there is not a need for the Dan Pavs and Booshknaters,
• 52:13
  absolutely, but even them when they talk about the basics, that
• 52:17
  helps. I think the overall coaching
• 52:18
  world get better because if because if we can take, you
• 52:21
  know, high school and college coaches that are starting near 0
• 52:23
  or one at a one to 100 scale and move them to A10.
• 52:27
  Well, that raises track way more than taking someone that's a 90
• 52:30
  and making them a 95, right? You know what I'm saying?
• 52:33
  I don't know that really actually, you know, percentage
• 52:35
  wise that isn't I don't know if you're really doing anything,
• 52:37
  but if you go zero to 10, bro, you, you change a lot of kids
• 52:40
  lives right doing that. So so it's interesting.
• 52:44
  I love that. And you did level 1.
• 52:45
  Do you remember who your teachers were?
• 52:51
  I'm blanking on his name. Hurdles coach at Liberty, Sean
• 52:55
  Vonabel. Yeah, Yeah, he was.
• 52:57
  He did the majority of it. And I don't think I remember any
• 53:01
  of the other ones. Yeah, that's OK.
• 53:03
  But he was one of the ones that actually, you know, sat down and
• 53:05
  talked with me about he's good and all that good stuff.
• 53:07
  Yeah, he's good too. Do you remember much about like,
• 53:10
  the distance or the throws? Did you fall asleep during the
• 53:16
  distance? I didn't fall asleep, no.
• 53:18
  OK, that's fair. I didn't fall asleep during any
• 53:21
  of it, but. It can be tough.
• 53:24
  It can be tough if you're not in that world.
• 53:26
  Well, you were coaching cross or about to coach cross because
• 53:28
  this is when you're first time with McMurray.
• 53:31
  So I guess I proved you didn't fall asleep during distance.
• 53:34
  It's hard sometimes when a Sprint coach goes in there.
• 53:35
  It's like, man, I got to pay attention to distance, right?
• 53:38
  Give me a break. But it is it is important again
• 53:40
  that the basics because to your point, no one would have said at
• 53:44
  any point during your life up until when you did it that you
• 53:47
  were going to coach cross country, right?
• 53:49
  And here it is like, Oh, well, at least I know something.
• 53:51
  I have something that and and that helps me to understand I
• 53:54
  need to go talk to Mcmurray's distance coach and the other the
• 53:58
  high school coach on the the high school coach there and
• 54:01
  understood there you weren't starting from zero, you're
• 54:03
  starting from 10:00 and they helped you get to 20 and that
• 54:05
  affected a lot of people, regional qualifiers, etcetera.
• 54:07
  Yeah, that's cool. That's cool.
• 54:10
  So you go back and you decide to McMurray and you decide you're
• 54:12
  going to be one of the hardest coaches and that means multi
• 54:15
  coach, you're going to be a combined events coach.
• 54:18
  Yeah, I wanted to. I mean, I'm a track and field
• 54:20
  nut, so I wanted to know everything I could, you know,
• 54:22
  about track and field. So we, I, I didn't train
• 54:27
  everybody and everything like we were, we were fortunate to have
• 54:29
  5 coaches on staff. So obviously I utilize the
• 54:32
  throws coach because you don't want me going in trying to teach
• 54:36
  these kids how to throw. But I would go to practice with
• 54:39
  them with the throws coach and, you know, watch what they were
• 54:43
  saying because a lot of times he couldn't be there in a decathlon
• 54:45
  or reptathlon. So I wanted to pick up on the
• 54:48
  cues that he was telling the kids.
• 54:50
  And same with with long and triple and got pretty good at,
• 54:56
  you know, training 400 and I didn't really focus a lot on the
• 55:00
  1500 and 800. That was just kind of going to
• 55:02
  be what it was. But really, really enjoyed
• 55:07
  learning about the hurdles. That was probably one of my
• 55:09
  favorite things that I picked up from doing combined event
• 55:12
  training. And then obviously the pole
• 55:15
  vault. I took a lot of pride in the
• 55:17
  fact that our pole vaulters would win multi event
• 55:19
  competitions. Do you?
• 55:21
  Have to coach a multi in the pole vault differently than a
• 55:27
  pole vaulter. And what I'm thinking is maybe
• 55:32
  slash. Obviously there's skill level
• 55:34
  difference, right? I've I've seen decathlon pole
• 55:36
  vault. That's the scariest event in our
• 55:39
  entire sport, honestly. But I'm talking about more of
• 55:43
  like because they they're also practicing hurdles and shot put
• 55:48
  and javelin and whatnot. Do you do they take less reps?
• 55:52
  Do they do you not get to unless they start showing some like, oh
• 55:57
  wow, you're going to be a 16 foot vaulter or 17 foot vaulter.
• 56:00
  Do they not? Do you not, do you work more on
• 56:02
  basic like is or do you just coach them the same way you
• 56:05
  would have only a vault, you know, vaulter only?
• 56:09
  Yeah, it's definitely different. Like terminology of what you're
• 56:11
  talking has to be, you know, vastly different because you're
• 56:14
  talking to a kid who has never touched a pole before rather
• 56:18
  than my other pole vaulters, you know, had been doing it for some
• 56:20
  years now. It's a terminology is always a
• 56:23
  little different with them. Obviously we don't vault near as
• 56:27
  much as vaulters vault. So usually it's one session for
• 56:31
  45 minutes a week. Oh wow.
• 56:35
  And now some of my multi eventers were primarily vultures
• 56:40
  before they became multi eventers, combined eventers.
• 56:43
  So with those kids, obviously we vaulted more often than we did
• 56:48
  some other things. But like, I've got a kid this
• 56:51
  year, he's 64, you know, 205 big old boy and has picked up really
• 56:57
  well on the vault through through the fall.
• 56:59
  So we'll probably score at our conference meet in the open
• 57:02
  vault. So we'll we'll keep pushing the
• 57:06
  needle on that. But obviously with him it's
• 57:09
  different because he's a hurdler, He's a high jumper.
• 57:12
  You know, he throws the jab 50 meters.
• 57:14
  Yeah, right. So he's he there's so many
• 57:16
  different avenues that he could go where vaults is so low on the
• 57:19
  priority scale of of his training.
• 57:22
  So. But yeah, it is different.
• 57:28
  So you're you're, you're obviously not at McMurray now do
• 57:32
  we go from McMurray to game one? Correct.
• 57:35
  Yes. Why is that?
• 57:37
  I actually stumbled into it by accident.
• 57:40
  I was. Most good things we do.
• 57:42
  Yeah. So our sales Rep had had been
• 57:45
  with Athletic Supply, which became game one for 40 years.
• 57:50
  And so he, I went into his office and we were, I was trying
• 57:55
  to order some uniforms for the McMurray track team and we were
• 57:59
  Adidas at McMurray. And so Adidas had just switched
• 58:02
  to a new Configurator on doing custom uniforms.
• 58:05
  And he didn't quite know how to use it yet cuz there hadn't been
• 58:08
  a training or anything. And so I just told him, hey,
• 58:11
  fire up your laptop, let me see it.
• 58:13
  And so he pulled the Configurator up.
• 58:15
  I made a uniform in like 10 minutes and.
• 58:17
  What's this guy's name? His name was Wes.
• 58:20
  His name is Wes Davis. OK, I thought I remember a guy
• 58:24
  named Fud Flowers from Yeah. Yeah, older athletic supply guy.
• 58:28
  Yeah, you don't. You don't forget the name Fudd
• 58:30
  Forever. He was one of my first guys I
• 58:32
  met long time ago here. It was always a cool dude, man.
• 58:35
  I liked him, yeah. A lot of really good athletic
• 58:36
  supply guys that are now all game one guys.
• 58:39
  But yeah, yeah, so you fired it up and was like, wait a minute,
• 58:42
  I can figure this out. Yeah, so I made it in like 10
• 58:45
  minutes and was like, here's what we want, here's my sizes
• 58:47
  that I need and let's get them ordered.
• 58:49
  And he's like, oh wow, let me walk you out to your car.
• 58:53
  And I was like. OK, beat you.
• 58:56
  I've been. Over here a bunch of times, he's
• 58:58
  never offered to walk. Me out.
• 59:01
  So are we? Are we dating now?
• 59:02
  What's going on here? So he walks me out and, you
• 59:06
  know, he's like, hey, have you ever considered, you know,
• 59:08
  switching jobs? And I'm like, well, I've spent a
• 59:11
  lot of time in college track and field to be in the position that
• 59:14
  I am that I'm in. And so, no, I haven't really, I
• 59:18
  hadn't really thought about it. And me and my wife were fixing
• 59:20
  to leave to go to Florida for a week on vacation.
• 59:22
  This was over the summer. And so he's like, when you get
• 59:25
  back, why don't you why don't you come back over and let me,
• 59:28
  you know, tell you about what we do and you know how this line of
• 59:31
  how this industry works. And I was like, OK, you know,
• 59:34
  I'll listen to anybody that you know, to to tell me about
• 59:37
  things. And so I went back over there
• 59:39
  when I got back and, you know, they showed me, you know, what
• 59:43
  they do and the advancement and in that field and, and all that.
• 59:48
  And what he was wanting was he was wanting to hire me to be his
• 59:51
  associate sales Rep, which sounded really cool.
• 59:55
  I was a data entry person. So I would, you know, if
• 59:58
  somebody needed a quote, you know, I, I quoted up, send it to
• 1:00:01
  him and basically just helped him manage his book of business,
• 1:00:06
  which at the time I was like, man, it'd be really cool to, you
• 1:00:09
  know, be a sales Rep, but. Which I'll pause there for a
• 1:00:13
  second though, because what is funny is that is what your
• 1:00:16
  student your work study was in college like may it be cool
• 1:00:21
  about their coaching, but OK, I got to do the expense report as
• 1:00:23
  well. Well, I'd really like to be out
• 1:00:25
  there selling all right, I got to do the data entry.
• 1:00:26
  So like that's just interesting that that parallel there, you
• 1:00:29
  know, it's, it's funny one of the and it I don't know I don't
• 1:00:35
  I try to be very careful with the words like a lot and most
• 1:00:38
  and things like that. So I don't want to say it's
• 1:00:41
  happening more lately within the last four 5-6 years.
• 1:00:45
  If maybe feels like it has, but but but I'm not sure.
• 1:00:50
  I have a lot of college coaches specifically that reach out to
• 1:00:54
  me on the DL. You know, Hey, Mike is off the
• 1:00:56
  record. You know, I'm not sure I want to
• 1:01:00
  keep coaching And you know, they list all the things in IL
• 1:01:03
  transfer portal, but, you know, reduced budgets, all these kind
• 1:01:07
  of things. Although the real things that
• 1:01:09
  are happening. What's it I can say you did it,
• 1:01:11
  Mike. You went from SEC to to Gil with
• 1:01:14
  a small pit stuff in between that.
• 1:01:16
  But what what's it like? You know, just asking a lot of
• 1:01:19
  questions and most people realize that first of all, there
• 1:01:22
  are positions available, you know, sales positions in our
• 1:01:24
  sport. Not a lot though.
• 1:01:26
  It's not like, you know, there's a 1500 college programs, track
• 1:01:30
  and field programs. There's not 1500 companies that
• 1:01:33
  sell track. So but there are opportunities
• 1:01:37
  out there. What about what it what was it
• 1:01:39
  about the, the the thought of the role?
• 1:01:42
  Because again, you don't know the role until you get into it.
• 1:01:44
  But what it what was it about? Like did you talk to your wife
• 1:01:47
  when you're on vacation of like, hey, man, he brought this up and
• 1:01:50
  I what do you think? Or was it like it's not
• 1:01:53
  happening and then spoiler it happened?
• 1:01:56
  Yeah, so I was, I was very against it just because, you
• 1:02:00
  know, once you you're out of college coaching, it's not
• 1:02:04
  necessarily the easiest to, you know, jump back in unless you
• 1:02:07
  find a, you know, a good situation that works out for
• 1:02:09
  you. But I I was against it at first
• 1:02:13
  because I didn't want to leave my kids, you know, me and me and
• 1:02:16
  Cody and McMurray were best friends.
• 1:02:19
  You know, it never felt like I was going into the office and
• 1:02:21
  going to work. You know, I was going to go hang
• 1:02:23
  out and, and coach track and field and try and help him run a
• 1:02:26
  program. So I didn't, I didn't
• 1:02:29
  necessarily want to step out of all of that, but my wife and I
• 1:02:35
  saw the the opportunity that it, that it presented, you know,
• 1:02:38
  for, for us and you know, not bashing on, on colleges, but the
• 1:02:44
  pay is obviously not there, which.
• 1:02:47
  You, you should bash on that though, because that is a, it's
• 1:02:49
  a travesty. We do not a, a, a good base of
• 1:02:52
  our college track and field coaches are making not even
• 1:02:57
  minimum wage. I mean, I, I, I cringe every
• 1:03:00
  time I see a job posting. It's like, you know, 15,025
• 1:03:04
  thousand, heck, 30,000 in today's world ain't cutting it
• 1:03:06
  guys and gals. And we have 100 applicants for
• 1:03:09
  each one of those that that's the, the supply is way over the
• 1:03:12
  demand. And that's that's what keeps
• 1:03:15
  wages down. And we keep except as checkers,
• 1:03:17
  we keep accepting these. Exactly.
• 1:03:19
  Wages as well you. Know saying it for years with
• 1:03:21
  the moment people stop taking those jobs is the moment that
• 1:03:24
  our salaries raise. That's where they need to be.
• 1:03:28
  Exactly right. So that was kind of the boat we
• 1:03:31
  were in. My wife wanted to start a
• 1:03:33
  family. And obviously, you know, she's a
• 1:03:35
  teacher, makes good money in Texas.
• 1:03:37
  And you know, we we were. Able to not a history teacher, I
• 1:03:40
  hope. Not a history teacher.
• 1:03:41
  I will say I can only imagine what the dinner table cameras I
• 1:03:44
  I would not want to come to dinner like you 2 history nerds
• 1:03:46
  are going to be at it and I'll be like I'm lost.
• 1:03:48
  OK, what does she teach? What?
• 1:03:49
  What would? She teaches first grade.
• 1:03:52
  Oh, so she, yeah, she's teaching it all, brother.
• 1:03:54
  Oh, she does. Bless her man.
• 1:03:55
  She's. She's an amazing teacher and
• 1:03:57
  she's. A first grade teacher and she's
• 1:03:58
  married to you. That means she has the patience
• 1:04:00
  level of a St. He does.
• 1:04:04
  So, you know, we wanted to move into the next phase of, of
• 1:04:06
  starting a family and, and, you know, doing all that good stuff.
• 1:04:10
  So ultimately it led to I took the job with him and was, you
• 1:04:16
  know, being his associate Rep and coaching track and field at
• 1:04:19
  the same time. And then that he ended up
• 1:04:24
  leaving the company. And so then they promoted me
• 1:04:26
  into his role, which is the sales Rep in the Abilene area.
• 1:04:31
  So I do basically all the schools here in Abilene.
• 1:04:34
  And man, just again, you know, being in the right place at the
• 1:04:39
  right time, being where I was supposed to be, you know,
• 1:04:42
  thought I was going to SFA, went to McMurray, met my wife,
• 1:04:45
  started coaching, you know, ended up in his office, took the
• 1:04:49
  job, and now here we are. So my wife and I actually, it's
• 1:04:54
  funny that you mention that because we talk about it all the
• 1:04:56
  time of like, where would our lives be had both of us not come
• 1:04:59
  to Abilene or, or even if just one of us hadn't come to
• 1:05:02
  Abilene? And so it's crazy and it's been,
• 1:05:07
  gosh, I've had so much fun in this.
• 1:05:09
  World so we so let's let's help out people because there's
• 1:05:14
  people right now listening going yeah Mike I'm the guy who's
• 1:05:16
  called you and said so what's that like man?
• 1:05:18
  I'm not sure this college thing right so here's someone who's
• 1:05:20
  did it. We have some of the friends, so
• 1:05:21
  I like to leverage that experience.
• 1:05:23
  And and you've been with game one now for how long?
• 1:05:27
  2 1/2. So two 2 1/2 years, you've got
• 1:05:31
  enough experience to kind of talk on it.
• 1:05:32
  But you know, let's talk back when you get 10 years when you
• 1:05:35
  really start knowing the job, right.
• 1:05:36
  But you you have experience enough to like, OK, it wasn't
• 1:05:39
  but yesterday when I was you coach.
• 1:05:41
  So XYZII kind of know what you're thinking and you know, I
• 1:05:44
  can kind of give you some real world.
• 1:05:45
  So talk to us about like, what is an average?
• 1:05:48
  You know, you know this question, man, everybody asks
• 1:05:50
  this question of everything. What's an average day like as a
• 1:05:53
  Game One sales Rep? Well, days usually start about
• 1:05:59
  6:00 or 7:00 AM with coach is sending you some emails.
• 1:06:02
  And so first thing I do is take my daughter to daycare, drop her
• 1:06:07
  off at 7, and I go right into the office to try to answer some
• 1:06:11
  emails before coaches get out of football practice or, you know,
• 1:06:15
  or in their conference. Periods, yeah, 22 quick things.
• 1:06:17
  That's great. I'm going to interrupt you a lot
• 1:06:19
  because I'm going to help expand this a little bit.
• 1:06:20
  One is you said go into an office.
• 1:06:22
  Are you physically going into a physical office or you have an
• 1:06:25
  office at the house? I I have a physical office, so
• 1:06:28
  athletic supply used to have a building in Abilene.
• 1:06:31
  And so it's an office job as as far as that.
• 1:06:34
  OK, that that's 1/2 is something to think about for for you know,
• 1:06:38
  the majority of people that are listening right now are track
• 1:06:40
  coaches or cross country coach. You know, they're in this world,
• 1:06:43
  right? But a game one because you
• 1:06:45
  mentioned football coaches, like wait a minute, this ain't a
• 1:06:47
  football podcast. What are you talking about you?
• 1:06:50
  This comes with a question mark because I already know the
• 1:06:52
  answer. You have to service the entire
• 1:06:55
  athletic. Department, yes, Yep.
• 1:06:57
  So we, we service everything from football to swimming to
• 1:07:03
  underwater basket weaving if we have to.
• 1:07:06
  You know, we, we visit with all coaches, all sports, men and
• 1:07:09
  women, executive athletic directors, campus coordinators,
• 1:07:13
  everybody. And then at the same time, we're
• 1:07:17
  not selling just track and field product, we're selling equipment
• 1:07:20
  for every single sport and uniforms and shoes and coach's
• 1:07:24
  gear and everything that under the sun for athletics.
• 1:07:28
  So how many schools? If you don't know the exact
• 1:07:31
  number, it's fine. And I know there's some
• 1:07:33
  proprietary information, so obviously don't say anything.
• 1:07:36
  That's why I don't want to get, I don't want to get in trouble
• 1:07:38
  from your boss. I know them all and they're
• 1:07:39
  great people. I don't want to get those guys
• 1:07:40
  and gals mad at me. But like roughly then how many
• 1:07:43
  schools do you call on or in your portfolio?
• 1:07:47
  Yeah, I have about 7 high schools and three universities.
• 1:07:51
  So with 10 schools, it'd be cute if you only had to know the 10
• 1:07:57
  track coaches, or, you know, they got staff.
• 1:07:59
  So let's call it 30. The 30 track coaches.
• 1:08:02
  You have to know the football coaches, the baseball coaches,
• 1:08:05
  softball coaches, basketball coaches, swimming coaches,
• 1:08:08
  tennis coaches, golf coaches, cheer coaches.
• 1:08:13
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm probably missing some big
• 1:08:18
  sport of soccer, lacrosse, etcetera.
• 1:08:22
  So you have to So how do you very much this is this is
• 1:08:26
  interesting. So this is a little bit like
• 1:08:27
  decathlon become becoming a combined events coach, right.
• 1:08:30
  So I know pole vaulting. So in this world, I know track,
• 1:08:34
  but I'm a combined eventer. I've got to do the shot put.
• 1:08:38
  And so maybe in this convert, it's like, oh, I've got to talk
• 1:08:39
  to the swim coach. I don't I don't know anything
• 1:08:42
  about swimming. So how do you learn, you know,
• 1:08:46
  the little, you know, all the intricacies in track and field,
• 1:08:49
  It's crazy. We have so many, like the
• 1:08:51
  average person goes, what do you mean that's crazy?
• 1:08:53
  Like what do you mean 300 hurdles in high school and 400
• 1:08:56
  in college? You know, that's like seems so
• 1:08:57
  stupid, but we just know it's what we do.
• 1:08:59
  They have to have that in swimming, tennis, like they have
• 1:09:02
  to have all their little. How do you learn what each coach
• 1:09:05
  needs that you can potentially provide for?
• 1:09:12
  I lost your voice there. Start over there.
• 1:09:14
  I'm sorry. You hear me?
• 1:09:15
  Yeah, Yeah, you're good. OK.
• 1:09:16
  So like our company does a really good job of equipping us
• 1:09:20
  with the resources that we're going to need, especially
• 1:09:22
  equipment wise. Because I feel like a lot of
• 1:09:25
  times like we're going into schools and people see us as the
• 1:09:28
  uniform or the, you know, the clothing provider.
• 1:09:32
  And it's like, no, we can, you know, we provide anything and
• 1:09:35
  everything that you need. So like they do a really good
• 1:09:38
  job of, of equipping us with resources and, you know, people
• 1:09:43
  that we can reach out to. If, if I need to call, you know,
• 1:09:46
  quick goal and ask for a soccer goal or I need to call Gil and,
• 1:09:49
  and ask for or Porter, I mean, and ask for, you know,
• 1:09:51
  basketball goals. You know, we have those contacts
• 1:09:55
  readily available to reach out to.
• 1:09:58
  Now, sometimes it gets awkward when you're in front of a coach
• 1:10:00
  and you know they bring something.
• 1:10:02
  You don't know what the heck they're talking about.
• 1:10:05
  But Can you imagine? Because the majority of people
• 1:10:08
  at game one of sales reps are not track people.
• 1:10:12
  Some track, but you know, they're not.
• 1:10:14
  Think about the awkwardness they have sometimes of like, hey, I
• 1:10:16
  need a shot. But you're like, what?
• 1:10:19
  I think, I think I watched the Olympics last time it was 16
• 1:10:21
  lbs. I guess he needs a six.
• 1:10:23
  No, it's I need a 12 pounder. OK, well, they're through 4K in
• 1:10:26
  the Olympics, so you don't need a 4K.
• 1:10:28
  No, I do need a 4K. Again, think about sitting in
• 1:10:30
  front of the swim coach and they need, I can't even give you an
• 1:10:35
  example because I know nothing about swimming, but you know,
• 1:10:37
  they need, they have starting blocks, you know, that's what
• 1:10:39
  they call those things, right? And uniforms and they need a
• 1:10:42
  coat. I know they have weird coats for
• 1:10:43
  some reason in swimming, it's like, oh, I need a coat.
• 1:10:46
  And you're like, what the is he talking about a coat?
• 1:10:48
  Like, what do you call him a swim person?
• 1:10:49
  Like, hey, man, what's this guy talking about?
• 1:10:51
  Yeah, you got to kind of navigate that and and now
• 1:10:54
  multiply that by, I don't know, 15-16 different sports.
• 1:10:58
  Yeah, so it's it's definitely, you know, you have to know your
• 1:11:02
  product and product is constantly evolving.
• 1:11:05
  And so you're constantly trying to keep up with trends and, you
• 1:11:08
  know, figure out what kids like, what kids don't like, you know,
• 1:11:12
  when you go in to speak with coaches.
• 1:11:14
  And then we have a group message with all the West TX sales reps
• 1:11:18
  in it where I can be like, hey, coach wants a home plate for
• 1:11:21
  baseball. What are you guys selling?
• 1:11:23
  And they'll respond with with what they're selling their
• 1:11:26
  school. Your baseball guy comes in,
• 1:11:28
  right? The guy who, you know, is like,
• 1:11:29
  oh, this is my jam. I'm a baseball guy.
• 1:11:32
  Yeah. So when someone says hey, what
• 1:11:33
  about a pole, pole. And you're like, bam, I'm your
• 1:11:35
  guy. Yeah, I got you right.
• 1:11:37
  All right. Yeah, that's.
• 1:11:38
  Hey, that's a great a lesson in teamwork.
• 1:11:41
  I mean, that's no different than your coaching Staffs.
• 1:11:43
  There's no difference in your teams of athletes.
• 1:11:46
  That's you guys, man. You're huddled together to
• 1:11:48
  literally help each other out. Someone's got a tennis
• 1:11:50
  background, someone's got a track background, football
• 1:11:52
  background, etc. That's really cool, actually,
• 1:11:54
  Yeah. That's awesome.
• 1:11:56
  The support group in this company is amazing.
• 1:11:58
  I mean, I could call, I could probably call Pat Weber, right?
• 1:12:01
  Now and he'd such a good dude. Just to, to have those guys in
• 1:12:05
  in your back pocket to know that if something really needed to
• 1:12:09
  happen or, you know, something was really fixing to hit the
• 1:12:11
  fan, that there's this whole line of support people that will
• 1:12:14
  help you, you know, figure it out has been awesome for me.
• 1:12:18
  You know, as someone who the only thing I've ever done is
• 1:12:21
  pole vault or coach track and field.
• 1:12:23
  And now I'm responsible for knowing all these different
• 1:12:26
  sports and the equipment that they need.
• 1:12:28
  And, you know, soccer coaches like certain brands and baseball
• 1:12:32
  coaches like certain baseball brands.
• 1:12:34
  And so to just have all those different support lines is, is
• 1:12:38
  tremendous for us as sales reps. What has been, you know, you've
• 1:12:40
  done it for 2 1/2 years now and you know, your first 2 1/2 years
• 1:12:44
  of coaching, after 2 1/2 years, you still weren't very good.
• 1:12:47
  You know, there's still a lot you had to learn and you
• 1:12:48
  definitely were better in the Year 5 than you were in year 2.
• 1:12:50
  And that'll happen here in this profession as well.
• 1:12:54
  But what what what has surprised you the most?
• 1:12:56
  Like what did you think Here? I'll ask you this way.
• 1:12:59
  I asked this typically of our coaches the first time they
• 1:13:01
  become a head coach. As you started getting into this
• 1:13:05
  role as a sales Rep sales professional here, what did you
• 1:13:08
  think was like, oh man, this is going to be easy, dude.
• 1:13:12
  Like I used to coach vaulter selling socks and jocks.
• 1:13:16
  That's the colloquial way of, of the old guys with old heads
• 1:13:19
  would say about selling track, selling athletic equipment with
• 1:13:22
  socks and jocks. This is going to be easy.
• 1:13:25
  So what did you think was going to be easy?
• 1:13:26
  And it actually ended up being like, oh, that's a little bit
• 1:13:28
  more challenging. I had to learn.
• 1:13:29
  I did. I did step take a step back and
• 1:13:31
  learn about what would you think was going to be easy and
• 1:13:32
  actually was a little bit challenging for you.
• 1:13:34
  Yeah, So obviously starting off as as an associate Rep, you
• 1:13:39
  know, I, I knew data entry and and all that stuff.
• 1:13:43
  So obviously going into being a sales Rep, I'm like, Oh yeah,
• 1:13:48
  I'll push out quotes all day long and and place orders all
• 1:13:51
  day long like it's nothing. Well, this actually happened to
• 1:13:54
  me just a a couple weeks ago. I did about 80 sets of
• 1:13:58
  volleyball uniforms for a volleyball coach, not paying
• 1:14:02
  attention to the fact that I had a six inch number on the front
• 1:14:05
  and a six inch number on the back when she wanted A4 inch
• 1:14:08
  number and a six inch number. So now see.
• 1:14:10
  There's a great example when I talk about the, I'm going to
• 1:14:12
  call it the dumb things of track and field that, you know, non
• 1:14:15
  track people right there because you're saying like 6 inch in the
• 1:14:17
  front. I was like, yeah, what's the big
• 1:14:20
  deal? Yeah, I guess that's what you
• 1:14:21
  have to do. So there's because there's
• 1:14:23
  different rules right For. Yeah, yeah, there's many
• 1:14:26
  missions on how big or small numbers can be on and mains and
• 1:14:30
  all that stuff. Obviously I wasn't paying enough
• 1:14:33
  attention. Place the uniforms, they show up
• 1:14:35
  and you know, they're, they're not uniforms that they can wear.
• 1:14:40
  When I was an associate Rep and I would make a mistake on
• 1:14:44
  something like that, you know, it would be my sales Rep that
• 1:14:46
  would be eating the cost to replace it.
• 1:14:49
  Then I, I had a sudden realization like, oh, no, this
• 1:14:53
  one's on me to get it fixed. And so, yeah, I had to eat that.
• 1:14:58
  Oh. No, you're the.
• 1:15:00
  Correct. Uniforms, yeah.
• 1:15:03
  That's OK. When I first got here, we had a
• 1:15:05
  sales Rep. He's no longer with us, but not
• 1:15:08
  because of this. He made a decade past this.
• 1:15:10
  Who sent a pole vault pit that was, I mean, you can't, you
• 1:15:12
  can't get anywhere. Well, I don't know.
• 1:15:13
  That uniform is pretty bad, but this is pretty bad too.
• 1:15:15
  He sent a pole vault pit that was supposed to go to Florida.
• 1:15:18
  He sent it to California. You can't get, I mean, it's not
• 1:15:21
  like he sent it to the wrong city in Florida.
• 1:15:23
  He sent it to the other side of the country, man.
• 1:15:27
  And you know, we had to get, he had to get it fixed and all that
• 1:15:29
  kind of stuff. And you know, you learn from
• 1:15:30
  mistakes and move on. But dude, we all make, I mean,
• 1:15:33
  that's a pretty, I mean, 80 sets is, you know, you didn't do this
• 1:15:35
  on one U80. I know that kind of that's a,
• 1:15:37
  that's a number, buddy. Oh, man.
• 1:15:40
  So so you had to learn to kind of take a step back and like,
• 1:15:43
  how do you even double check that?
• 1:15:44
  Because here's what's interesting to me, it my first
• 1:15:47
  instinct was to go, well, wait a minute, the volleyball coach is
• 1:15:49
  the expert here. Why didn't they catch that?
• 1:15:51
  But then I started thinking about, wait a minute, I deal
• 1:15:53
  with track coaches all day. I don't know that I've, I've
• 1:15:57
  gotten a coach that knows 100% of the rules.
• 1:15:59
  Yeah, you know, I'm saying. So I was like, oh, OK, I can see
• 1:16:01
  this volleyball coach not knowing, not paying attention or
• 1:16:03
  going you're the, you're the uniform guy.
• 1:16:05
  Mike, you, you know what I'm supposed to have or not having.
• 1:16:08
  It's like, bro, I got a volleyball uniform.
• 1:16:10
  Basketball. Yeah.
• 1:16:13
  And I think a lot of times and as sales reps like we're just so
• 1:16:17
  quick to get something done and get moved on to the next thing.
• 1:16:19
  Whereas now, you know, after eating that cost of those
• 1:16:23
  uniforms and I'll be, I'll do my due diligence and, you know,
• 1:16:26
  slow down a little bit to make sure that something's done
• 1:16:28
  right. Yeah, I'm not very good at that.
• 1:16:30
  So, yeah, I can't feel that. So the reverse question then,
• 1:16:33
  Mike, what as you were getting into the profession of selling
• 1:16:36
  athletic equipment, what did you think was going to be hard?
• 1:16:39
  Like, you know, maybe just because you don't know the jobs,
• 1:16:41
  you you assume some of the job you're like, oh man, that's
• 1:16:44
  going that might be a little tough.
• 1:16:45
  Whether that's tough in regards to like, oh, I'm going to have
• 1:16:48
  to learn how to do that, or tough like, oh, I'm not sure I'm
• 1:16:50
  going to enjoy. I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy
• 1:16:52
  talking to swim coaches. That might be a little tough,
• 1:16:54
  but then you got actually got into it and you, in my example,
• 1:16:57
  you went and talked to this one coach.
• 1:16:58
  You're like, oh, wait a minute, it's just another coach.
• 1:17:00
  There's there's doing a different sport.
• 1:17:02
  You know, they're going down the water lane instead of the track
• 1:17:04
  lane or something. What did you think might be a
• 1:17:06
  little tough? And then you actually found out
• 1:17:07
  like, oh, wait a minute, it's not as tough as I thought it was
• 1:17:09
  going to be. Yeah, the the toughest thing
• 1:17:12
  that I, that that scared me the most about taking the role was
• 1:17:16
  had nothing to do with selling sporting equipment.
• 1:17:19
  It has more to do with, you know, everybody around this area
• 1:17:22
  knows me as as a pole vault coach, right.
• 1:17:24
  So now I've got to go into these athletic director head football
• 1:17:27
  coaches offices and pitch them on on why they should buy
• 1:17:31
  product from me without a football or a basketball or a
• 1:17:35
  soccer, whatever background. So just having to to pitch
• 1:17:40
  myself that, you know, obviously I'm not the expert in my field,
• 1:17:44
  but you know, I have a lot of knowledge, you know, across the
• 1:17:46
  board because of the opportunities that the company
• 1:17:48
  gives us. So I definitely thought that
• 1:17:51
  that going into that would be challenging, especially for the
• 1:17:55
  ones that already knew me as as a pole vault coach.
• 1:17:59
  But everybody's just been so, you know, willing to continue to
• 1:18:05
  do business with us because of our the background of our
• 1:18:07
  company and who we are as people.
• 1:18:09
  You know, it's, it's not necessarily so much about, you
• 1:18:12
  know, what, you know, on the product, but it's, it's being
• 1:18:15
  there in front of the coach and holding up to your mistakes.
• 1:18:18
  If there was a mistake like the volleyball uniforms, you know, I
• 1:18:21
  made a mistake on that, Hey, I'm going to pay to replace these
• 1:18:24
  and send them to you, you know, obviously no charge to you.
• 1:18:28
  So the the more times you do that, the more trust you gain
• 1:18:31
  with these people and then they're more inclined to
• 1:18:34
  continue to do business with you.
• 1:18:35
  So I definitely thought that that would be a challenge for
• 1:18:39
  me. But it's it's as simple as just
• 1:18:42
  going in and having a conversation, you know, not even
• 1:18:45
  trying to sell a coach anything. But hey, how's the season going?
• 1:18:48
  You know the kids up to stuff like that.
• 1:18:52
  So do you find, and we all have to have priorities and of course
• 1:18:57
  for me, you visiting the track and field coach is going to be
• 1:19:00
  my top priority. However, there are other sports
• 1:19:04
  that maybe are on a year over year basis more lucrative.
• 1:19:09
  You know, I know the big three are football, basketball,
• 1:19:12
  baseball is big and baseball's the same time as track and
• 1:19:15
  field. So that's why I just like
• 1:19:16
  baseball even more because it competes directly with my sport
• 1:19:20
  for athletes, for sales reps, attention, etcetera.
• 1:19:25
  Do you find it hard to get to? So if you take the BIG4,
• 1:19:31
  football, baseball, basketball and track, do you find it hard
• 1:19:35
  to go visit the tennis coach or the soccer coach because those
• 1:19:40
  guys and gals, the the Big Four take up more of your time?
• 1:19:43
  Or how do you made me ask a different way?
• 1:19:46
  How do you work towards making sure every coach at those 10
• 1:19:49
  schools knows you're you're the guy?
• 1:19:52
  Yeah, so I try to make it a point any time that I'm on a
• 1:19:56
  campus to to visit with everybody.
• 1:19:58
  It doesn't matter if you know you're in season or you're out
• 1:20:00
  of season or you've rebought in all your equipment and spent all
• 1:20:03
  your budget or not. You know, I'm I'm at least going
• 1:20:06
  to say hello, shake their hand, you know, get fist bump,
• 1:20:08
  whatever. So.
• 1:20:12
  And then we sell in seasons, obviously.
• 1:20:14
  So like right now, you know, we're we're kind of towards the
• 1:20:17
  tail end of selling spring sports their items.
• 1:20:20
  So we're moving into the fall with football and volleyball
• 1:20:25
  coming up in the in the fall. So it, it just goes by season,
• 1:20:30
  you know, and I always keep checklist of, you know, making
• 1:20:33
  sure that I'm, I'm contacting everybody, that Ian, I always
• 1:20:38
  make sure I've, you know, obviously got everybody's phone
• 1:20:40
  number and everybody has my phone number and e-mail address.
• 1:20:43
  So, and a lot of times I just send an e-mail.
• 1:20:46
  Hey, just, you know, checking in everything good, anything, you
• 1:20:49
  know, just want to make sure that that they that in their
• 1:20:54
  mind, Oh, I need to buy something.
• 1:20:55
  I need to contact Michael. That's always my goal when I'm
• 1:20:59
  when I have an account and I'm trying to service them really
• 1:21:01
  well. What have you as 2 1/2 years
• 1:21:04
  into it, what's been your biggest joy and whether, and it
• 1:21:08
  could be a sale, could be, you know, you did all the push sleds
• 1:21:11
  for the football team or something like that.
• 1:21:14
  But what's, what's been like? Oh, man, this, this is pretty
• 1:21:17
  satisfying. Like, like prove to me, I guess,
• 1:21:19
  Mike, that you know, you've done 2 1/2 years, that 12 1/2 years
• 1:21:22
  goes from now, you're still going to be doing this.
• 1:21:24
  What? What's giving you joy in this
• 1:21:25
  profession? Oh I still get joy anytime I get
• 1:21:28
  a purchase order from a school district and I get to go close
• 1:21:30
  that order. I'm like yes, we finally have
• 1:21:33
  made it to getting the order placed.
• 1:21:34
  Winning. Winning is is joyful.
• 1:21:36
  It's just like from a track coach is exactly right.
• 1:21:38
  That's a good answer. Winning is is important.
• 1:21:41
  You know, I've been fortunate enough to, to sell a couple Gill
• 1:21:43
  pits to schools, which are obviously, you know, big ticket
• 1:21:46
  items for school districts. And so to be able to see, you
• 1:21:50
  know, anytime I have a big project and I get to see it to
• 1:21:53
  completion and you know, I can go drive by that school and see
• 1:21:56
  the pole boat pit sitting out or, you know, branding across
• 1:22:00
  the campus or, or new football uniforms on a Friday night.
• 1:22:03
  You know, anytime you see stuff like that, I I still think it's
• 1:22:06
  really cool. To.
• 1:22:08
  To know that, hey, that was something that I helped put in
• 1:22:11
  motion and now you're wearing it on a field or just.
• 1:22:14
  See it on some pride. Yeah.
• 1:22:16
  Yeah, I agree. You know, I coached for 10 years
• 1:22:18
  and that was a Gill guy, you know, pretty much all 10 years.
• 1:22:21
  And, you know, like I first got here in 2006.
• 1:22:24
  You were in second grade in 2006, right?
• 1:22:27
  Yeah, probably. So, yeah, yeah, Yeah.
• 1:22:29
  So when you're in second grade, the guy that you didn't know was
• 1:22:31
  going to you're going to be on a podcast with in the future got
• 1:22:34
  here and was like, I have no clue when I went to Seabury
• 1:22:38
  Relays. I don't know what I know what
• 1:22:39
  equipment we had, but I didn't know.
• 1:22:41
  And now if you're seeing like those, we have Big 10.
• 1:22:46
  So maybe that Big 12, Big 12 commercials where it's the
• 1:22:48
  commercial about the Big 12. And so they do quick cutaways to
• 1:22:50
  Texas and UCF and they do all different sport, swimming and
• 1:22:54
  football. And they'll do like a track
• 1:22:55
  quick one. And boy, I'll be watching like
• 1:22:58
  who's blocks for those. Yeah.
• 1:23:00
  Oh, that's my boss. OK.
• 1:23:01
  All right. And I got like a quarter second
• 1:23:02
  of that commercial, but I'm like, Oh yeah, there's a.
• 1:23:04
  Fusion. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:23:05
  Yeah, now, now I know everywhere like I can't, not when when I
• 1:23:08
  see anything track, it's automatically all right, we went
• 1:23:10
  all right, good. We winning, all right, good,
• 1:23:11
  good. Yeah, yeah, there's pride, pride
• 1:23:12
  in that. You know, that's so cool.
• 1:23:15
  That's cool. What's you know, I think the,
• 1:23:20
  and this probably goes towards coaching as well.
• 1:23:23
  I, I don't think that you need to be the smartest individual in
• 1:23:26
  the room or on the track, etcetera.
• 1:23:29
  I thank God or I, I wouldn't have a career if you do that.
• 1:23:33
  But I think, you know, the smartest people around have the
• 1:23:35
  smartest network around a team, right.
• 1:23:38
  So I love this, you know, this group text message where you
• 1:23:42
  know, hey, what, what are you baseball guys selling?
• 1:23:44
  And you know, the two guys who are baseball Mike Mccarroll's
• 1:23:47
  are, you know, speak up or hey, this guy asked me for a tennis
• 1:23:50
  racket. What do you guys suggest?
• 1:23:51
  And the tennis guy flights up. Finally, someone asked about
• 1:23:53
  tennis. And you know he.
• 1:23:55
  He or she gets to talk about, you know, their their passion,
• 1:23:57
  their love. And so you know, when you're
• 1:24:00
  selling Gill and I appreciate that very much.
• 1:24:02
  You know, game one and you've done a great job.
• 1:24:04
  Really, really grateful for you in what you do and representing
• 1:24:07
  our band brands. Even you, Mike is is thorough
• 1:24:11
  and track and field are you don't know the equipment as well
• 1:24:14
  as as our team. You know, we got a whole team
• 1:24:15
  here. How's our you know, this you can
• 1:24:17
  be you can be honest here, bro, and you'll know if you're
• 1:24:20
  listening if I edited this part or not, because it's not a very
• 1:24:23
  good editor. So, you know, how's our team
• 1:24:24
  doing supporting you and game one as far as you can tell.
• 1:24:28
  Yeah, it's been really good. You know, I think it was you and
• 1:24:31
  I that that discovered a couple of months ago that we had the
• 1:24:36
  incorrect price list for some of the products.
• 1:24:39
  So, you know, just that call out and I'm blanking on her name,
• 1:24:45
  but the ladies that I usually send my my Gil POS to super
• 1:24:49
  quick, always responsive. Like I'll, I'll send her an
• 1:24:53
  e-mail and probably 1520 minutes later, you know, I have a return
• 1:24:56
  e-mail. From if, if, if I said her name,
• 1:24:58
  would you would you recognize it like Shannon or Sarah or
• 1:25:01
  Danielle? Yeah, Shannon.
• 1:25:03
  She's awesome man, I love. You know, I brag a lot on our
• 1:25:06
  Gill sales team, you know, from Tim, you know, our guy who was
• 1:25:09
  two time national champion of javelin and Adam was a college
• 1:25:12
  decathlete and Max of alter and Rob a my I don't know how we
• 1:25:16
  hired A miler, but you know, he was a miler back in the and
• 1:25:19
  stuff. And and I love those guys
• 1:25:21
  tremendously. You know, we're we're the in the
• 1:25:23
  thick of it when we're doing the NCAA championships and stuff
• 1:25:25
  like that. They're they're great.
• 1:25:27
  But our customer service team, yes boy, Danielle, Demari,
• 1:25:32
  Shannon, Sarah, Chelsea, fantastic human beings,
• 1:25:36
  fantastic moms. Everyone's a mom as well.
• 1:25:38
  Say, I hope I didn't miss Sarah's name.
• 1:25:40
  She'll beat me up if I didn't mention her name too.
• 1:25:41
  But, but that's the one of the top compliments I get back is
• 1:25:48
  hey, yeah, Mike, you're great. Whatever your customer service
• 1:25:51
  team, that's the tops buddy. And I'm, I'm very happy that
• 1:25:55
  you're experiencing that as well.
• 1:25:56
  That that's really good. That's that's our front line to
• 1:25:58
  you guys. You know, you talk to them more
• 1:25:59
  than you talk to us. So to know that that's going
• 1:26:02
  well, I'll, I'll make sure I talk to their boss and let them
• 1:26:05
  know that they got an adequate. I'm telling you, anytime I send
• 1:26:08
  her an e-mail, it's responses are quick and that's so cool in
• 1:26:12
  the industry. So yeah, that's cool.
• 1:26:14
  She's she's cool and and that team's cool.
• 1:26:16
  So I appreciate, appreciate hearing that.
• 1:26:18
  Well, Mike, as we go to wrap up here, you know, you're, you're
• 1:26:22
  in a unique position, you know, a guy who coached and coached
• 1:26:25
  for a long time, coached at high level, you know, national
• 1:26:27
  qualifiers and coached at different levels from high
• 1:26:30
  school to college. You know, you got a lot, you
• 1:26:32
  know, for a, you said you graduated high school in 16, so
• 1:26:35
  roughly 2022. What do you like 2728?
• 1:26:40
  Oh my God, you know, 27. I wasn't even at Gil at 27.
• 1:26:45
  It took me to 30 years old to finally find what God put me on
• 1:26:48
  this earth to do right here at Gil Athletic.
• 1:26:50
  So, so who knows, by the way, that means you might, your feet
• 1:26:53
  are where they are now, but that'll mean they are in 3/10/20
• 1:26:57
  years from now. But you're in a very unique
• 1:27:00
  position. You're a unique position to
• 1:27:02
  serve the not only the track coaches, but you have a very,
• 1:27:06
  very open, humble way of, you know, going to that football
• 1:27:08
  coach and like, look, man, I wasn't a football coach in
• 1:27:11
  college, so I don't know it as well as you do, but but here's
• 1:27:14
  the cool thing. I got this team behind me.
• 1:27:16
  So whatever. I don't know from experience and
• 1:27:18
  I'm learning experience every day.
• 1:27:20
  I got a team that does and I just think that's that's really
• 1:27:22
  cool. So you have a lot of experience
• 1:27:24
  making transitions and things like this.
• 1:27:26
  So there's people listening right now that are thinking
• 1:27:28
  about it. And it may not be in sales.
• 1:27:30
  It may be like, you know, man, I have always wanted to be a, a
• 1:27:36
  teacher. I want to, I want to be a high
• 1:27:37
  school teacher. And you know, I've been coaching
• 1:27:39
  college for 20 years. You know, I'm scared of
• 1:27:42
  transition. I'm scared of doing something.
• 1:27:44
  I'm scared of getting out of coaching.
• 1:27:45
  And I can't get back yet. I hear that it's not true.
• 1:27:48
  I've got many, many examples of people who got out and came back
• 1:27:50
  in. What would be your best advice
• 1:27:54
  as someone who's thinking about getting out of whether it's
• 1:27:57
  college or high school, coaching, getting out of
• 1:27:58
  coaching, maybe one of stays in sports, Maybe you want to go do
• 1:28:01
  something completely different. They want to go become a air
• 1:28:03
  traffic controller. We don't do that right now
• 1:28:05
  because they're not getting paid.
• 1:28:06
  So not a great, not a great example.
• 1:28:09
  Hopefully by the time you're listening to this, they're
• 1:28:10
  getting paid because we got to pay our people.
• 1:28:12
  Guys, let's let's be real here. What's your best advice for
• 1:28:16
  someone who's just who who's you know that they love try, you
• 1:28:18
  love try. There's no one's questioning
• 1:28:21
  that, but for you and your current and and going to be
• 1:28:25
  future family, the opportunity to change was the right one for
• 1:28:29
  you. What's your best advice for
• 1:28:30
  someone who's thinking of that? Yeah, well, I'm a firm believer
• 1:28:34
  in, you know, if you enjoy what you do, you never work a day in
• 1:28:36
  your life. So not that that wasn't the case
• 1:28:40
  at McMurray because I never felt like I was working.
• 1:28:43
  But even in this job, you know, it just doesn't feel like when
• 1:28:47
  I'm going to go visit a school or visit some coaches, I'm not
• 1:28:49
  going to work. I'm going to go, you know, hang
• 1:28:51
  out. I might spend 10 minutes taking
• 1:28:53
  an order really quick, but I'm there to just hang out and, and
• 1:28:56
  talk to them. So you got to do what you enjoy
• 1:28:59
  doing. And if, if the role that you're
• 1:29:01
  in, you're not enjoying, then you got to change.
• 1:29:05
  And so, yeah, if I'm, if, if you're passionate about
• 1:29:08
  something, then, you know, I, I tell people all the time, go for
• 1:29:11
  it. Yeah.
• 1:29:12
  Because what if you fail? You know, you can go do
• 1:29:14
  something else. So it's.
• 1:29:15
  Yeah, that's right. And if you're gonna fail, fail
• 1:29:18
  young. Don't wait till you're 50 and
• 1:29:20
  try to do something that is harder as you get older because
• 1:29:23
  you have different responsibilities and things like
• 1:29:25
  that where it can be tougher. I'm you know, when I was when I
• 1:29:28
  was a a couple years older, when I was 29, I was coaching at, you
• 1:29:31
  know, Mississippi State and the SEC and I've done what I in my
• 1:29:34
  whole thing was to get to the SEC and and there were some
• 1:29:37
  unenjoyable parts at that level. Not the coaching staff that that
• 1:29:41
  coaching staff is still like family, like brothers and
• 1:29:43
  sisters and and coach Al Schmidt is still like a dad to me.
• 1:29:46
  So not the coaching staff, just that level of the things that go
• 1:29:50
  on on that level. I can't imagine what it is
• 1:29:53
  today, but four O 5. And it was like, all right, man,
• 1:29:57
  I'm not sure this is the right thing.
• 1:29:59
  So I'm going to get it completely as far away from
• 1:30:01
  track as possible and see if it brings me back in.
• 1:30:03
  And so and I was 29. So, you know, I wasn't married,
• 1:30:05
  no kids. If I fail, I was like, man, I
• 1:30:08
  know enough people. I can get some job.
• 1:30:09
  Yeah, I can figure this out. Right.
• 1:30:11
  And so I went to Vegas and played poker for a living.
• 1:30:13
  Thank God I did that at 29. I can't imagine one of my wife
• 1:30:16
  now going. You know, honey, I've been at
• 1:30:18
  Gill for 20 years. You know, I'm not sure this is
• 1:30:21
  it. I'm going to get completely far
• 1:30:22
  away from Gill and see if it brings me back in.
• 1:30:24
  And going to she would, it wouldn't happen.
• 1:30:27
  She wouldn't let me happen, right?
• 1:30:28
  You know, two kids out whatever, all that stuff.
• 1:30:31
  So I'm glad you're you're taking these.
• 1:30:32
  That's what they call them chances.
• 1:30:34
  You work for a great company. That's a that's a pretty safe.
• 1:30:36
  You made a safer bet going to game one than going to Vegas.
• 1:30:38
  That's that's right. But I think you're right, you
• 1:30:41
  know, taking chances and and not thinking because you're 25 or 28
• 1:30:45
  or 32, like, Oh, it's too late. I'm supposed to have all my crap
• 1:30:48
  together. Dude, I I didn't have it
• 1:30:49
  together. You know, I came here when I was
• 1:30:51
  30. I still didn't have it together.
• 1:30:52
  Maybe I'm just barely now and you're 20 starting to get it
• 1:30:55
  together. So I like that advice of, you
• 1:30:57
  know, falling your passions and that could be coaching and I and
• 1:31:00
  I hope it is. So I really, really like that,
• 1:31:03
  you know, really at the end of the day, something that you're
• 1:31:06
  going to get comfortable with and it may be a little hard.
• 1:31:09
  Even today, you're still kind of early in this stage for, for me,
• 1:31:13
  in my experience, I struggled with, you know, after coaching
• 1:31:16
  for 10 years and all this kind of stuff like, Oh, I'm not
• 1:31:19
  helping kids anymore. You know, I'm not on the track
• 1:31:21
  helping them to, to PR 15 feet in the pole vault.
• 1:31:24
  That's such a joke because I couldn't coach pole vault at
• 1:31:26
  all, but long jump and hurdles and all that kind of stuff.
• 1:31:30
  And then probably about five to seven years in, it was, it was a
• 1:31:35
  good little grip. Something hit me.
• 1:31:37
  I think it was I probably was at a track clinic, honestly, that's
• 1:31:39
  probably away from the actual sport itself.
• 1:31:42
  And I was at a track clinic around coaches and I started
• 1:31:45
  realizing I was like, oh, wait a minute.
• 1:31:48
  If I serve that track coach, if I serve Coach Mccarroll, Coach
• 1:31:52
  Mccarroll is in charge of a team of 506070.
• 1:31:55
  Heck, I got some coaches that have 200 kids on their team.
• 1:31:58
  It's like, I'm actually, I'm, I'm allowing him to not worry
• 1:32:01
  about equipment because he's going to get good quality
• 1:32:03
  equipment served right. You know, it's costed right for
• 1:32:05
  his budget, things like that. And and he or she is going to be
• 1:32:07
  able to just focus on coaching the kids.
• 1:32:10
  And now you multiply that by ten, you got 10 schools, 10
• 1:32:13
  track, you know, plus staff, 30 track coaches.
• 1:32:16
  You multiply that that like a guy like me who's got national.
• 1:32:18
  So you know, there's thousands of coaches that I serve and it's
• 1:32:21
  like, Oh, you know what? I'm actually affecting the kids
• 1:32:25
  more affecting more kids today than I did when I was a coach.
• 1:32:29
  And that really flipped the script.
• 1:32:32
  That's when I love track and field coaches became alive.
• 1:32:35
  That's when servitude of like, Oh my, I'm pouring everything
• 1:32:37
  into track coaches now, buddy. And that has led to some, you
• 1:32:41
  know, just amazing things from from huge facilities like in
• 1:32:44
  Oregon to I got a letter. I wish I had it here.
• 1:32:47
  Actually, I got a letter the other day from AI think he's 11
• 1:32:51
  years old kid that I helped him with some equipment.
• 1:32:54
  His dad obviously, and he sent me they, you know, here's all
• 1:32:58
  the successes I had this summer and summer track sent me a
• 1:33:01
  picture of it and it was like, there's an 11 year old kid now
• 1:33:05
  this old guy is helping to have a great experience.
• 1:33:08
  A small part. He's got to have coaches and,
• 1:33:10
  and support from his parents. But I'm a, I'm a, I'm a part of
• 1:33:13
  that kids enjoyment in this sport.
• 1:33:16
  I wouldn't have got that as the coach at Mississippi State or
• 1:33:18
  Florida, Florida State, you know, so it's the, the
• 1:33:22
  enjoyment, the satisfaction of it when you take, take a step
• 1:33:25
  back and look at the big picture and that's what you're doing.
• 1:33:27
  You're affecting more kids now. No, it's not just track kids,
• 1:33:30
  but you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're helping,
• 1:33:32
  you're allowing kids to have good experiences in football,
• 1:33:35
  baseball, tennis, golf, swimming, etcetera.
• 1:33:39
  And that's an important part, man.
• 1:33:41
  We, we, we, we sometimes like, sometimes try to dumb it down,
• 1:33:44
  say we're socks and jocks, bro. Well, they don't get it done
• 1:33:46
  without socks and jocks. They don't get it done without
• 1:33:48
  football pits and turtles and all that good stuff.
• 1:33:50
  So I'm, I'm proud of, of what you're doing, proud of what
• 1:33:53
  you're becoming proud of, proud of you going to McMurray and
• 1:33:56
  meeting your wife at Emily. These are just fantastic things.
• 1:34:00
  And it's exciting to see you at such a young age at 27, because
• 1:34:04
  I get to see it sit on the sidelines and watch you grow.
• 1:34:07
  Whether it says a sales Rep or coaching, whatever you continue
• 1:34:09
  to do, it's really cool to kind of sit aside.
• 1:34:11
  I can't wait to check you in in 10 year.
• 1:34:13
  We'll talk before 10 years, but I can't wait to check in in 10
• 1:34:15
  years. But dude, remember when we
• 1:34:17
  talked in 2025, bro, you didn't know anything.
• 1:34:20
  You were deer in the headlights compared to now.
• 1:34:22
  You're grizzled that you know, and it's going to be really cool
• 1:34:25
  to see your family. And then just, you know, the
• 1:34:26
  growth. I love seeing healthy things
• 1:34:28
  grow. So I just love seeing our young
• 1:34:31
  people and what they're doing. They're serving others and
• 1:34:33
  seeing your continued growth, man, it's going to be a lot of
• 1:34:35
  fun. Yeah, appreciate that.
• 1:34:36
  Yeah. Man, Well, man, Mike, thank you
• 1:34:39
  so much, man. You know, the most valuable
• 1:34:40
  thing, I always say this to coaches because they're so busy.
• 1:34:42
  They're in track season and cross country season, but you're
• 1:34:45
  always in season. There is no offseason.
• 1:34:48
  You are three. You're literally 365, brother.
• 1:34:51
  So you know, one of those valuable things, These are two
• 1:34:53
  hours you could have been going to talk to the lacrosse and
• 1:34:55
  field hockey coaches day, right? So thank you for taking the
• 1:34:59
  time. Yeah.
• 1:35:00
  I'm so grateful for what you do as a game One sales Rep.
• 1:35:03
  I'm super grateful for the, you know, you talk about Pat Weber
• 1:35:06
  and Chris Wildy and all those guys are, you know, become
• 1:35:09
  friends in this industry with me.
• 1:35:11
  And so I'm grateful for they do representing our products on the
• 1:35:13
  Gill side and you mentioned Porter earlier, obviously the
• 1:35:16
  Porter side as well. You know, we just enjoy what
• 1:35:19
  we're doing and serving empowering coaches around the
• 1:35:21
  around the world with innovative equipment and you're a big part
• 1:35:24
  of that. So I'm really, really grateful
• 1:35:25
  for you in what you do. Yeah, appreciate you having me.
• 1:35:28
  Absolutely man. Thanks again for being here.
• 1:35:29
  Guys, gals, thank you for being here.
• 1:35:31
  Depending on when you're if you're listening to this during
• 1:35:34
  when it drops. So like it's Christmas weekend
• 1:35:37
  here. So spend some time with your
• 1:35:38
  friends and loved ones. Get some days off.
• 1:35:40
  It's very, very important because of your track coach boy.
• 1:35:44
  January's right around the corner and it don't stop it
• 1:35:46
  don't stop till June for some of us out there, right state meets,
• 1:35:49
  national championships, summer track field leagues, things like
• 1:35:52
  that. So just grateful for what you do
• 1:35:55
  out there. You're going to see here coming
• 1:35:57
  up soon starting out season 7, if you're not watching on
• 1:36:00
  YouTube, you're going to see a new studio.
• 1:36:02
  I got new things going on. We've got some surprises.
• 1:36:05
  We've got Twitch TV is going on. So if you are over on Twitch,
• 1:36:08
  you can search Kill Athletics and find all of our interviews
• 1:36:11
  over there and of course on the podcast course open YouTube.
• 1:36:14
  And of course we'll be at track clinics around the country.
• 1:36:17
  I'll be at Texas Track and Field coaches coming up soon.
• 1:36:20
  If they'll have me back, I'm sure they will.
• 1:36:22
  Hopefully they've done a good job over the past two years.
• 1:36:25
  Wisconsin Track Coach Association just love MCN and
• 1:36:27
  hosting track clinics around the country and serving our great
• 1:36:31
  track and field coaches around. So join us next week.
• 1:36:33
  We'll do it all over again. Thanks guys.
• 1:36:40
  The goals to appreciate the coach the ones that pour people
• 1:36:43
  most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth
• 1:36:47
  you got to prep before you carry the load ice coffee to the soul.
• 1:36:50
  For those of us stay on the go proper handoff to stay in the
• 1:36:53
  zone which you packing for the road.
• 1:36:55
  There's more than one way to go taking notes that's paying
• 1:36:58
  you're told it ain't practice if your purpose Saint Clair it
• 1:37:01
  can't happen until you listen with both is can't mentor
• 1:37:04
  without a mentor of experience. You can reinvent those years
• 1:37:08
  every plan's got to stand and deliver to and the price
• 1:37:11
  sacrifice can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight, not a
• 1:37:14
  win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 1:37:16
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to, it's all
• 1:37:19
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside
• 1:37:23
  6,000,000 Waste of time, choose none.
• 1:37:25
  So y'all cross finish line, the work ain't done so we learn from
• 1:37:28
  the experts but y'all got to put in the leg work guilt.
• 1:37:31
  Athletics is the network. It's all about connections put
• 1:37:34
  together for the profession to where every track coach could be
• 1:37:37
  blessing.