Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #360: Rob Jarvis-Univ of Arkansas | From Setbacks to Championships: Development, Expectations, and Arkansas Track

Transcript

#360: Rob Jarvis-Univ of Arkansas | From Setbacks to Championships: Development, Expectations, and Arkansas Track · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

0:00
Hey, thanks for being here today, guys.
0:02
Real quick before we get into today's amazing guest, so happy
0:04
that you're here and going to hear their journey.
0:07
Just want to let you know something crazy happened in
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If you buy a pole vault pit in a weather cover or value pack,
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Or call your preferred Guild dealer.
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They've also got the deets for you there.
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Let's save you some money right now in 2026 and make it the best
0:42
year ever. Now let's hit that music and get
0:44
on with today's guest. You're listening to the Gil
0:47
Athletics Connections podcast with host Mike Cunningham.
0:53
Track and field world juvenile tuned in to our humble servant
0:58
Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message for Gil
1:01
Athletics Connections. Welcome back here to the Gil
1:05
Connections Podcast. So humble to be your host.
1:07
Mike Cunningham, National Business Development Manager for
1:10
Gil Athletics, but probably better known as the podcast guy
1:12
or you know, even the Twitter guy.
1:14
Although I heard something about Twitter the other day, I thought
1:16
this made a lot of sense. Someone said they were going to
1:18
start calling it X, and I have pushed back on that, but they
1:21
said it's not Twitter anymore. Ever since you know who took
1:24
over it and what it's become and all that kind of stuff.
1:27
It's not Twitter, it's X. And that kind of resonated with
1:29
me. But I continue to be on that
1:31
platform because while there might be more negativity than
1:33
normal since whatever happened there happened there, I'm going
1:37
to continue to be a positivity, a positive light for you, the
1:40
track and field coach, and that's what we're going to do
1:42
today. I want to hop into it because I
1:43
have known this guy, excuse me for a while.
1:46
I love him, actually know a little bit about a story.
1:49
It's amazing and I want to hop right into it.
1:51
How many? Welcome, assistant coach from
1:52
the University of Arkansas there in Fayetteville.
1:55
Almost said North Carolina. Wow, Arkansas I.
1:58
Know this being a. Former SCC.
2:00
Guy myself. Help me welcome the wise and
2:02
wonderful Mr. Rob Jarvis. Rob, welcome to the podcast.
2:05
Awesome. Thanks, Mark.
2:06
Thanks for having me. You are in Fayetteville, AR, not
2:11
North Carolina. At least that Fayetteville, NC
2:12
exists like there's. It's an actual real place, I
2:14
guess. But.
2:15
Correct. Yeah, but there's no calling of
2:16
the Hogs in North Carolina. I know that for a fact.
2:19
Right. Exactly how you been man.
2:21
I haven't caught up with you in a while.
2:23
No good, just riding the high still from indoors.
2:26
Just trying to pivot now to the outdoor season like we were
2:29
joking before we started recording.
2:31
Just dealing with a little bit of weather in here in
2:34
Fayetteville, but other than that just trying to get the guys
2:36
to recalibrate and set up for the outdoor season I.
2:39
Love it. I love it.
2:40
Yeah. Congratulations, man.
2:41
What a I mean, thank you. A lot of transition this season
2:44
as well, which we'll talk about for a lot of reasons, not just
2:47
on the head side, but you as well, my friend.
2:49
Right. And but boy, I'll tell you one
2:52
thing is consistent in Arkansas, and we don't want to need to
2:55
take it for we don't want to take it for granted.
2:56
But winning is consistent in Arkansas.
2:58
But I tell you what, it's easy to think, oh, anybody could be
3:01
in those seats and it's Arkansas.
3:03
You'll win, bro. It takes coaching first and
3:06
foremost. And that's what Arkansas has
3:08
been able to attract over the years is great coaches that have
3:11
done some great things. So congratulations.
3:13
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
3:14
Thank you all. Right, man, let's hop into this
3:16
man. What we do here is we started
3:18
this almost seven years ago, right before COVID started.
3:20
It's amazing to uplift and honor your journey.
3:23
And you have definitely had an amazing journey, one that we're
3:26
interested in exploring some more.
3:27
So my first question to you, my friend, is somewhere assuming
3:31
you were an athlete. And we never want to assume
3:33
because we've got plenty of great coaches here that have
3:35
had, you know, that become amazing coaches that weren't
3:37
athletes. But assuming maybe track was in
3:39
your life, where in the world does track and field start for
3:41
you? So for me, gosh, track actually
3:45
didn't start until I was in high school.
3:47
Excuse me. So for those I don't know, born
3:50
and raised Southern California, just outside Los Angeles.
3:52
For those that are familiar with Mount SAC, I grew up in Covina,
3:56
CA, so right over the hill. So track was always the thing.
4:00
I actually grew up playing baseball.
4:02
And then like most kids in the 90s, I grew up in California.
4:06
Football was king is king, arguably.
4:10
To get to your question, I started running track my
4:13
freshman year in high school at Covina.
4:15
I ran for Kevin Glaspie and Koley Kandel.
4:18
So Koley Kandel is now at this Murrieta known.
4:21
I joke with Michael Norman that I was his Guinea pig, so we can
4:24
get back to that some other play.
4:25
But between KG and Coach Kandel, they took care of me for those
4:29
four years. And so like I mentioned,
4:31
football coach Dick Sheen was our football coach at the time
4:34
out there scouting the freshman running and there was a little
4:38
bit of beef between baseball and track because I was A2 sporter.
4:41
So for those that don't know, in California, baseball games are
4:44
on Wednesday and Friday, track dual meets are on Thursday and
4:47
Invitational are on Saturday. Season comes through.
4:50
We we finish. I was on varsity for track.
4:53
Obviously Prosper baseball baseball coach comes down and
4:57
tells us like, look, you guys have to make a decision.
5:00
You either running track or you're playing baseball, Coach
5:04
Sheen was within earshot. He's like, I'll make this really
5:06
easy for you guys. You're running track.
5:08
We're going to win the CIF title and we're like, yes, coach.
5:11
And so literally the so I was the starting X as a sophomore.
5:17
I was right field starting center fielder was the Z
5:22
starting left fielder was gosh, running back.
5:26
And then when basically the four by one was potentially 4
5:30
starters for that team, right? So you need to say baseball
5:32
coach lost that game of chicken. So that's amazing to me.
5:37
First of all, I I always wonder when someone is a baseball in
5:39
track guy. I'm always like, I mean how I
5:42
mean they're the both same season and both take up a lot of
5:44
time. I never knew that about
5:46
Wednesday, Wednesday, Friday, Thursday, Saturday.
5:48
So that's interesting. But why?
5:51
I mean, here's what's interesting to me is we have
5:56
arguments today, 2026 that we think are new arguments.
6:00
Right. And one here is multi sport
6:03
athletes and yet here we are. When did you what year did you
6:05
graduate high school? So we.
6:06
Kind of 1997, yeah, Here we are back.
6:09
In the 90s, right where it was like you're still having the
6:12
same discussions. There are still people.
6:14
And by the way, I'm not, it's taking track coaches out of
6:19
this. I know some track coaches that
6:20
are like, you run track, you only run track.
6:22
And it's like guys, especially in high school, we're talking
6:26
about kids. What are we doing here?
6:28
That just. Ridiculous.
6:30
Yeah. In this case, he lost, Yeah.
6:32
No, he lost and, and, and to his, and to his credit, his
6:37
rationale was he didn't think it was fair to the rest of the
6:40
baseball team that we were off at a track meet while the rest
6:42
of the team was practicing. So I'll give him a little bit of
6:45
a yeah, but. OK, I'm not smart enough to to
6:48
remember or know, but there's a cartoon that talks about it's
6:52
like the three people that are behind the fence and one of us
6:54
an example of equity, one of the example of Fair, one of the
6:57
example of equality or something like that.
6:59
And it's like, yeah, OK, maybe I can get that.
7:03
But it's not like we're letting you have the days off.
7:05
You're still working and you're working for our school.
7:08
It's not even like, oh, well, he's doing a part time job, but
7:11
guys, we need him out in the outfield in the back.
7:13
Come on, you know, it's like, no, still representing the high
7:15
school. He's still we're we're we're an
7:17
athletic department, not a bunch of little different departments.
7:20
Yeah. Correct.
7:21
Like, yeah, it's not compartmentalist.
7:22
No, it was. So then, So that was the summer
7:25
going into my 10th grade year. So that summer back when old
7:29
school was, OK, so I don't know how much I should go into this,
7:31
but I was one of two sophomores on the varsity football team.
7:35
This was back when it was OK to where the the new guys carried
7:40
all the wall bags, carried all the water jugs and I started,
7:43
you know what I mean? But that was the old school ride
7:44
pass. So we debate that for another
7:46
time. So Long story short, the
7:49
football team went on to go, we lost in the semifinals by a
7:52
point to the eventual champion. The next year we came back, we
7:56
went 14 to no, won the championship.
7:59
And then my senior year we lost in the first round.
8:02
So all that being said, I think if my memory served me
8:04
correctly, we were 33, three and one in those three seasons.
8:09
Holy cow. And, and then from those teams
8:12
there was, it's been a long time now.
8:13
God, it's 30 years. But there was ±10 guys that
8:16
ended up playing Division One football, 2 guys that got
8:19
drafted in the MLB draft and then two actually went on to
8:23
play not, they didn't weren't big roles, but they ended up
8:26
playing in the NFL. So pretty good, pretty good
8:28
guys. Are good.
8:29
Holy cow that is amazing. And the fun fact for those who
8:34
both Michael laugh, you've met me for those that have not met
8:36
me, I'm all of 59 back then I I was still all of 59.
8:42
You might find a program or two that said I was five 10185,
8:45
which is not accurate. I might have been 160 lbs silken
8:48
wet back then right right. So I ended up signing a
8:50
scholarship ironically, to play football at San Diego State.
8:53
So all. Right.
8:54
Hold on there for me real quick, because what I'm always
8:56
interested in with our, you know, our guest, our track, it's
9:00
like it's a little bit of a spoiler.
9:01
We know what you become. You become a track.
9:03
Course. Yeah, right.
9:04
I'm curious as a 141516 ish 17 year old kid, whatever, as
9:09
you're doing track and it might have been other sports too,
9:11
football, etcetera. When you think back, when you
9:13
look back now, were you the kind of kid like were you in the
9:16
coach's office all the time? Hey, so why did we do that
9:19
workout and why did why did you have us do this after that?
9:21
Or because I have a lot of grace for high school.
9:24
Sure. Where you just, you know, coach
9:26
told me to run. So I shut up and ran and I
9:27
don't, I don't think. About it.
9:29
So I purposited this one. I know it's a little bit
9:31
douchey. I brought the trophy.
9:32
Obviously I had to do it. Love it.
9:34
Next to it, you can see my old vanity plate from California.
9:37
So it's an acronym, and this is perfect for the story.
9:39
And this is even set up so RFTL is an acronym for Run, Fast,
9:44
turn left, 400 meters. Got it.
9:46
I was Once Upon a time. I was 1/4 Miller.
9:48
Yep. Rewind back to 1995 ish.
9:52
OK, imagine an arrogant 14 year old thinking that he's fast back
9:58
then. Sure.
9:59
For those for the the track nerds on the same class as OB
10:02
Moore and McCullough brothers and the Kelly brother, all all
10:06
those guys. So that's that era.
10:07
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
10:09
Yeah, so I think we're at the old Pasadena games for those
10:14
that are will still attract me. That was like the big relay
10:16
meet. I think it's before Arcadia and
10:19
back there you got to realize people only knew people's names.
10:22
There was no social media, so you walk up and you just see a
10:26
uniform. Anyway, Long story short, I was
10:28
running the 100 and 200 and Coach Kendall and never forget.
10:31
I think I ran 10/7 as a sophomore in 21 mid, which was
10:35
good back then. Yeah, not as fast as those guys,
10:37
but it was good enough. And that's good, in fact.
10:39
And we'll get back to that. And he's like, Jarvis, That was
10:42
pretty good, man. You ever thought about running a
10:45
400? I was like, absolutely not.
10:48
There's there's no, no way. I.
10:49
Thought about it and not doing it.
10:51
Yeah, and I'm like, Coach I, I play football.
10:53
He's like, I know he's like. But then the reverse psychology
10:55
came. He's like, that's funny, but you
10:57
football players are tough, man. You're, you're telling me you
10:58
can't Sprint a whole lap? I'm like, I'm like, of course I
11:02
could Sprint a whole lap. What are you talking about?
11:04
He's like, well, I don't know, man, those guys look pretty
11:06
athletic. And I'm like.
11:07
And I got pissed. I was like, I'm like.
11:10
I'm like, I'm like, Kendall, are you serious?
11:12
He's like, yeah, I don't think you can Sprint the full lap.
11:14
And I'm like, bullshit. I'm like, sorry, I'm like,
11:17
you're good, what can I do? He goes, he's like, well, you
11:19
just ran the two. He's like the four by fours in
11:21
an hour and a half. Do you think that's enough time
11:23
for you to recover? I'm like for sure.
11:26
He's like, OK, cool. He's like, you're going to lead
11:27
off the four by four in the varsity section.
11:29
I'm like, OK, great. Didn't think any of you.
11:31
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right. Time gets closer and closer.
11:35
I'm like, how in the hell do I run a 400?
11:39
And so I'm I'm asking the guys and the older guys are laughing
11:42
because it's just they're like Jarvis, you're just arrogant
11:44
like you, you deserve all of this.
11:46
This is going to be the funniest thing ever.
11:48
And so Candel sees me like almost full panic before the
11:51
we're getting the blocks and he's like just set you blocks up
11:53
like the two he he was right by the fence.
11:56
I'm like, how do I run this thing?
11:58
He's like just run fast and turn left twice.
12:03
Tense. Yeah, the vanity plate.
12:05
So anyway, so for my. So you're very much as a kid,
12:09
you were very much a man. Coach says go turn left, I turn
12:14
left. He says run quarter repeats.
12:15
I do quarter repeats. I was going to run 530.
12:18
Yes, Sir. Coach.
12:19
Yeah, Yeah. I have a lot of respect for that
12:21
because you know, we might need that a little bit more on.
12:23
Our it's a little different now. A little different.
12:25
Now, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if that's true, but
12:28
certainly kids have more access to information.
12:31
You didn't have social media to see what Trobia and those these
12:33
guys were doing over there. He didn't necessarily like that.
12:36
But I think kids are either naturally curious from the get
12:40
go and they want to know what the heck, why are we doing this?
12:42
And then I think other kids are just like, man, you the coach
12:44
dog, I listen to you no matter what you say.
12:45
You say run through the brick wall.
12:47
We don't do it. Well, him and him and KG are
12:49
this thing. So coach class are the same
12:50
words like my I remember my freshman year.
12:52
So for those not from California, I know I'm told
12:55
biased. California's, I think the only
12:57
state or one of the only states in the country that it's a true
13:00
state champion once you get to the end.
13:02
I should know that because I actually interviewed 1 coach
13:04
from every state. Why am I miss?
13:07
I feel like, you know, New Jersey could be considered that
13:11
because they have a big champs. They have a big champions, but
13:13
it's not a true. It's not a team.
13:15
Yeah, that's true. So Michigan, Michigan does what
13:19
they call a true team state championship.
13:21
So they have a regular, what you would recommend as a regular
13:23
state championship with many different classes.
13:25
And then they have a were I think it's like maybe it's 32
13:28
roster, but like literally 32 roster and they had meats and it
13:31
like all 32 move on. Not just the people got first or
13:34
second or whatever. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting.
13:35
Yeah. So anyway, yeah, but California,
13:37
definitely unique, yeah. Yeah, different.
13:39
So like I'll brag. So some section people argue.
13:42
I'm not even trying to make this to Texas, Florida, California
13:45
debates. So for those of you punching the
13:47
screen or yelling at me, time out for one second.
13:50
So in southern section at the time, I think there's still 4
13:54
divisions. So, so maybe back up.
13:56
So there you go from your your league meet, which is just your
13:59
local schools. From there you qualify to your
14:02
division prelim meet, which is the following week from the
14:05
division prelim week. The next week is what's called
14:07
CIF finals. So throughout the state of
14:08
California each respective section has their CIF finals,
14:12
which all the divisions the top 9 for the race, running events,
14:16
top 12 for field, then move on to what's called the Masters
14:19
meet. So for the track nerds out
14:22
there, you can argue that the CIF Center Section Masters meets
14:24
probably one of the better track meets in the country we have for
14:27
a state championship. JT Ayres from Trabico Hills was
14:31
our California representative and I like that one.
14:33
I distinctly remember cuz I remember him explaining this all
14:36
to me. And I know I'm not the brightest
14:38
guy in the world, but I was like, I'm just not under like I
14:40
don't understand why you do that and why you do that and why do
14:42
you have the masters in there, blah blah.
14:44
Right. And he was of the section.
14:45
Maybe it's the same section you're talking about where they
14:46
actually have to have an extra round because of the size or
14:48
something. Correct that.
14:49
That's why it's crazy. So this so in southern section
14:52
because of the density of the population I think so it's
14:54
basically LA and Orange County. So anyone looks at that, can
14:57
just see what that is. So already at that track meet,
15:01
that's the fourth week in a row that you're racing and you're
15:03
not even to the state championship yet.
15:05
Yeah, that that stood out to me too.
15:06
I was like, dude, your whole season is a is a playoff.
15:08
Like you're you're correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I do my right.
15:11
Yeah. So now you so, OK, so back in my
15:13
day, I'm the uncle now. So back in the 90s, in order to
15:17
qualify for state at the masters meet, you had to be top five.
15:20
Now I mentioned those guys I was running against, right?
15:22
So Needless to say I never made the California.
15:25
So nowadays you can be top five or hit the standard at the meet
15:29
in advance. Back then it was top five only.
15:31
So for me, I ran 47921 fifteen and never saw the state
15:38
championship meet. Yeah, right.
15:40
Hence me taking a football scholarship.
15:42
I was never recruited for track did.
15:44
You like, you understand it now cuz you're an adult and you look
15:48
back when you were 1617 years old.
15:50
Did you understand? And what I mean by understand,
15:52
not like man, I ran 47 and didn't need to make it like did
15:54
you understand? Like, OK, so the next meet is
15:55
this and we gotta qualify here. You gotta do like, did you
15:57
understand that? Or was it just like all right,
15:59
so next meet I need to run as fast as possible and coach will
16:01
tell me if I get to. Yeah, great question.
16:04
I understood it because of football, because for us, for
16:06
football, we knew is it simple rounds?
16:09
Well, because you got to think round one is one week, Round 2
16:11
is the next week, semifinals. So I thought.
16:14
It was, yeah. It's like you got to qualify for
16:16
the next week type of thing. And I'm sure most track coaches
16:20
on here that'll know, like we coach Kendall and KG always say
16:23
get the big Q, don't mess with the little Q.
16:25
And that's a whole other topic. But so from a pretty early time,
16:30
even though my freshman year of high school was my first year of
16:32
track, I understood that immediately.
16:34
It's just like you need to do X to get here.
16:36
That that makes sense because most track is 1 meet and then
16:38
you go to state. Some are two, but California's
16:41
like 20 and then maybe, maybe a handful get to go to state.
16:44
Yeah. OK.
16:45
So senior year you're thinking about college and things like
16:49
that. So talk to us about in this next
16:51
section here kind of, you know, what were you looking at?
16:53
You already told us where you went and but why football over
16:56
track and all that kind of stuff.
16:57
But also what were you thinking as a 17 year old?
17:00
What were you thinking? Like, oh, I'm going to go study
17:02
X because I'm going to become Y. Great question.
17:06
OK. I'll start with the first part.
17:08
So as I just mentioned, I was not recruited at all for track
17:12
and at. At all what you.
17:14
Were at all you said. You were like 47.
17:16
Yeah. And there's a billion schools
17:18
just in California. Really.
17:19
Right. And so the thing was, I think so
17:21
I didn't run 47 until my senior year.
17:22
I think I ran 48 mid as an 11th grader.
17:25
But you got to remember recruiting was different back
17:27
then, couldn't talk to 11th graders.
17:28
It was mostly just based off of your senior year.
17:30
So I was a really late bloomer as far as that's concerned and
17:35
I'm trying to think what else. So to your point, with our
17:40
football team being so good, it wasn't that track was
17:43
overshadowed, it was just the mind was always football.
17:46
So back then we were still limited to five visits.
17:49
So other cool random stories. So the five schools that
17:53
recruited me for football, I mentioned San Diego State.
17:56
They were the only school that recruited me to play wide
17:58
receiver. As I mentioned, it wasn't that
18:00
big. Everyone recruited me to play
18:01
defensive back. So I was all CIF for both, but I
18:04
was recruited as a wide receiver, but I hated hitting.
18:07
So, so I get it. UCLA recruited me to play
18:10
defensive back. Rocky Long was the defensive
18:12
coordinator at the time. Then Wisconsin recruited to
18:17
return kicks and they hadn't decided on what side of the
18:19
ball. But the cool part there was
18:21
Heisman Trophy winner Ron Dane was my host on that trip.
18:23
And off the record kids, if you're watching, I got into
18:26
every single bar in Madison with my high school ASB card.
18:29
I didn't have a driver's license at the time.
18:31
So that trip was a was an absolute blast and then was also
18:36
treated by TCU and Cal, but Steve Mariucci took over at Cal
18:41
at the time they were retreating me as a wide receiver and I
18:45
remember the phone call. He's like Jarvis, I know you're
18:47
fast, I know you can catch. I've seen your stats.
18:50
He's like you too short to play in my offense, right?
18:53
Fair enough. And the same thing with USCUSC
18:56
invited me out for a camp and I love to tell him this one.
18:58
I show up, I forget the receivers coach's name, but they
19:02
mentioned all the guys I was on the team with.
19:04
They're like, hey, which one of you guys is Jarvis?
19:06
I was like, it's like, oh, you look a lot taller on tape.
19:09
And that was I knew it. Was just like.
19:11
I was like, oh, that sucked. Yeah.
19:13
So that was the last time I talked to and I side note, I
19:16
can't say it now, but I grew up a total SD die hard so we can
19:19
get into my coaching journey in the middle of a bit.
19:21
So the irony of me coaching at UCLA for as long as I did isn't
19:24
lost on me. You.
19:26
Know, Rob, I've known you for years now, Decades plus now.
19:31
I don't think I I knew you were this athletic.
19:34
I mean, I knew you were an athlete.
19:35
I mean, you know, the exterior doesn't match the the history.
19:37
But yeah, I mean, you know, you don't look like me where, you
19:39
know, I'm 100 lbs over everything.
19:40
But it's like, I mean, but you like, you got some legit stats
19:43
here, brother, and legit recruits like that.
19:45
I mean, that's right. That's a very, you know, finite
19:49
group of people who get to be recruited by those type of
19:50
schools who get to run those kind of times.
19:52
That's that's impressive. No, not and that was the thing
19:55
too going back then and this is again going away.
19:57
I mean, I'm at my best electric 40 was I got really legit 435
20:01
but again. Not being that tall.
20:03
So going back to everything, I love telling this part of the
20:06
story too. So San Diego State had Wisconsin
20:09
on their on their schedule the first two years.
20:11
So I will never forget. So without getting the family
20:15
drama, this whole other thing, I wanted to go to Wisconsin
20:18
because I want the whole other thing.
20:20
But looking back, I think it would have been two Big 10
20:23
titles, couple Rose Bowl rings. I was just mentioned Ron Dane.
20:27
Yeah. And no.
20:28
But all that was being said, it was that for some reason, you
20:33
know, just want to be in California, stay closer to home
20:35
and that whole sort of thing, and it kind of works itself out,
20:37
you know what I mean? No, no, a lot of Californians
20:39
and it is one of the few States and I don't even get this from
20:42
Texas and Florida people, but Californians that migrate away
20:46
from California, there is a there's a magnet, there's a pole
20:50
to get back to California. It's really, it's an original
20:53
for for me in that. Yeah, and like, like you were
20:55
saying too, it was just the weather thing.
20:57
I'll never forget I got off that airplane in Madison and jeans AT
21:02
shirt and I love them and jacket and it was snowing.
21:05
I'm like, what the heck? And so the coaches are just, you
21:08
know, they do the tour with the equipment room, all the stuff
21:11
and then gloves and sleeves. I'm like coach, like what's
21:13
this? So like you don't use sleeves or
21:15
gloves? I'm like, no man, I playing
21:17
Southern California like, well, I never forget.
21:19
It was coach, coach White was the offensive coordinator.
21:22
I don't know where he's at now, but he's like no gloves, no
21:24
love. I'm like, OK, that's kind of
21:25
cheesy, but whatever. And then so then the next year,
21:29
so Fast forward the next year, I signed San Diego State, go there
21:32
and you guys have seen Madison at that time.
21:34
Those things I will never forget.
21:36
I remember coming out of the tunnel with the team for warmups
21:39
and I stopped and it was like a imagine like a chain, not like a
21:43
chain link fence, but something metal covering like where the
21:45
team comes out, I'm assuming beers and just crap, just flying
21:48
through as coming in. And I remember stopping there.
21:50
I'm just ready to hand in my back just to go.
21:52
And it was just blown away. I'm like, Oh my God, this is
21:54
what rural football is like. No offense, still wrong.
21:56
Love San Diego State, but yeah, Qualcomm only had like 40,000.
21:59
This place had something like 80 and you couldn't hear a thing.
22:02
Dude, I grew up in Alabama and grew up in Auburn.
22:05
Fan but now at Troy University family obviously since I went to
22:08
school there, but I now live here in Champaign.
22:10
My wife is an Illinois grad, so we've gone to great things like
22:12
that. I was blessed to be invited up
22:15
to Wisconsin for a football game by the guy who did the cross
22:20
country facility there. And it was a night game versus
22:24
Army, I think was that first game.
22:26
And I remember like holy, like just looking or like they have
22:30
so many amazing traditions that they do the different songs, of
22:34
course, jump around things like that.
22:35
Jump around. Exactly.
22:36
I was like what is going on? Dude, it's, I remember telling
22:39
my wife, I was like, hey, I know you went to school at Illinois
22:41
and all that, but we got to get back up for a game and actually
22:45
a year or two later went to the Oregon at Wisconsin game and
22:49
Oregon was one in Wisconsin. Almost knocked them off, but
22:51
it's a little different. Culture thing.
22:54
It really is. And it was cool.
22:56
Like walking into their facility.
22:57
I mean, I don't mind giving love at the schools where you walk in
23:00
the football facility. They're big rivalries, the Paul
23:02
Bunyan Trophy, and you see this giant axe like when you walk in
23:06
the full building. Coach Alvarez was the coach,
23:08
head coach at the time, before he was the AD, right.
23:09
And I remember just sitting in his office, I think it's his
23:12
lake house, and talking to him. He's like, can we get you out of
23:15
California? I'm like, I think so, coach.
23:17
And then I took the San Diego State trip and it was anyway,
23:19
yeah, So what? Were you thinking about as a 17
23:22
year old? I'm not hearing necessarily that
23:24
you're thinking, Yep, I'm going to be a coach.
23:25
What were you thinking that you were going to be as a 17?
23:27
Year old so that was the second part of the question.
23:29
So my parents were divorced when I was pretty young.
23:31
My stepdad was a pretty successful businessman.
23:34
So other side tangent, side quest if you will.
23:38
So I grew up, I wouldn't say I grew up in military families,
23:41
both my dad and stepdad had served, but my stepdad was a
23:44
defense contractor. So mom and stepdad lived on Long
23:48
Island. For people familiar with the
23:49
military, Grumman was based out of Long Island.
23:53
So I grew up watching F fourteens F eighteens E3's fly
23:58
around. So my weird fascination was
24:02
actually I wanted to be a fighter pilot.
24:04
Yeah. So another quick Side Story.
24:06
So my 10th grade year, I believe it is actually explore looking
24:11
at the Naval Academy. Wow.
24:13
Had a congressperson ready to write the letter.
24:16
And then we started winning football games.
24:18
And so that that stopped. But if you think of it, the
24:21
timeline, I would graduate high school 97.
24:24
Yeah. I would have graduated the
24:26
Academy in summer of O1, right? And been in flight school right
24:30
before 9/11, so I would have been a busy person.
24:32
Yeah. So think about that.
24:33
It's all different of a Yeah anyway.
24:36
Don't don't take this the wrong way.
24:38
You know, I love your systems at 59.
24:40
Could you have been a fighter? Probably.
24:41
And what I mean by that is I know they're very strict.
24:43
You know, Mike has to be 2020. You all just got things.
24:45
I know they have requirements. Yeah, so height was fine,
24:48
eyesight was perfect. I used to have 2012 so and I
24:51
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I literally.
24:52
And the cool part about my stepdad being a contractor, I
24:55
had access to old C or old floppiness.
24:58
I could fly a F16 when I was like 12, start the whole thing
25:01
up, do the whole deal. Interesting.
25:03
Yeah, it's crazy. I literally probably had
25:05
thousands of flight hours in flight simulators.
25:07
I know they're just very straight.
25:08
When I was Air Force RTC scholarship pointer and when I
25:10
did my physical for that, my, I say it was like 2040 or
25:13
something terrible at that point.
25:15
And I just remember the guy saying, well, can't be a pilot.
25:17
And I was like, well, good thing, I guess I didn't want to
25:18
be that. But thanks.
25:19
Buddy, I appreciate that. I just knew there was trick.
25:21
That's what I was just. Asking.
25:22
No. OK, it's actually a height
25:23
limit. You can't be too tall.
25:24
I don't know what it is. That actually makes more sense
25:26
because yeah, there is a yeah, they redesigned the plane for
25:29
you, Mr. 64. Exactly.
25:31
Exactly. So, yeah.
25:32
So exactly So yes, that was my thing.
25:35
So just thinking back how different my life would have
25:37
been on the global War on Terror on that side, but.
25:40
So were you like a like, do you have like a nerd about these
25:43
things? Like did you have the Lego jets
25:45
and stuff like that? No, it was like.
25:47
Models and stuff or just. Yeah, did have model planes.
25:50
I was working my open. I did this came planes, we build
25:52
them like glue and paint and that sort of thing.
25:54
But no, the taking it way back, Top Gun came out when I was 8,
25:58
the original 1. I've watched that movie hundreds
26:02
of times. Absolutely.
26:03
So that was the whole thing. And then like I mentioned, spent
26:06
a lot of time in San Diego before even San Diego State.
26:08
So very familiar with Miramar. And just in the summers I would
26:11
spend in New York online. So their house is on the North
26:15
Shore, Long Island. So we'd be sailing around Long
26:18
Island Sound and just see at 14, I'm like, I want to do that.
26:22
So that's how I kind of that that whole thing.
26:23
Do you still get geeked up? Like Virginia Beach has hosted
26:27
D1D2 and D3 nationals and they're, you know, Norfolk's
26:29
right there. So The Jets are just constantly,
26:31
do you like when nationals is there?
26:32
Do you just like? That's a funny question.
26:35
So one of the good buddies of mine from San Diego State, from
26:38
our fraternity Cinema Kai out there, he actually, his dad was
26:42
flight commander at Miramar and he ended up going to flight
26:46
school. He flew F eighteens for years
26:48
and he's he lives in, he was stationed there before he was
26:51
flying for FedEx now. So when I saw those F eighteens
26:53
peeling off and peeling in, I'm like, OK, that's kind of cool.
26:55
But dude, yeah. Other fun facts, you know, are
26:58
for those that don't know, some people call Fayetteville Vietnam
27:00
because of Drake Airfield, because of the short airfield
27:02
thing. So for those that don't know,
27:05
this is the touch and go spot for the F-30 fives out of Fort
27:09
Smith. So they're peeling around here
27:11
all the time. It's funny to say that I.
27:12
Don't think I ever do that. Yeah.
27:14
Yeah. So it just, I don't know how new
27:16
IT is, but like last year for example, when we were chartering
27:19
to SEC's, there was a 2 ship F35 just literally buzzing our
27:22
charter as we're boarding and doing touch and go as I I'll
27:25
send you the video offline. It's actually, yeah.
27:28
So we've talked about that. Yeah.
27:29
Yeah, we were. Thinking about that.
27:30
So yeah, for sure. No, I loved airplanes.
27:31
And then the other thing is the kids are laughing at me because
27:34
as you can imagine, there's a lot of air traffic through this
27:36
way. If you look up, you see a lot of
27:37
contrails and that sort of thing for DFW, because we're about a
27:40
40 minute flight from DFW. Like I have FlightAware and
27:44
Flighty on my phone. I'm like, anyone wanna guess
27:46
where that flight's coming? Oh yeah, it's great.
27:48
And so you can see where they're coming from and all that stuff.
27:50
So anyways. You are a weird.
27:52
I love total, dude. I love total total.
27:54
I love that. I'm always trying to get past
27:57
the veneer of a coach. First of all.
27:59
First of all, to get to Rob, not coach, right?
28:01
That's Rob. And then I'm like, what are you
28:03
a dork about? What are you?
28:04
We all have something. I love that dude.
28:06
That's so no man. It's like, and those that I've
28:09
crossed paths with you guys though, I don't talk at track
28:12
needs unless it's my athletes or people.
28:14
It's just it's a totally different thing and I can't tell
28:16
you I can say it about myself. People are like, man, I thought
28:18
you were just a total D head, but you're like normal outside
28:21
track. I'm like, I'm working, you know
28:22
what I mean? So.
28:23
All good. Yeah.
28:24
It makes a lot of sense. Yeah.
28:25
That's a that's a good lesson about not judging people based
28:28
on what you see at any certain time.
28:30
OK, so you were thinking about going to business then?
28:32
Cuz a father. Yeah.
28:34
Yeah, their stepfather. So, yeah, that makes sense.
28:36
OK Go to San Diego State. Beautiful.
28:38
Beautiful. I mean, it's just beautiful.
28:40
San Diego State's amazing. San Diego, It was amazing,
28:42
right? You played football.
28:43
Any track come up during college?
28:45
So so good question. So as most know, tracks ended at
28:49
San Diego State mid 80s. That's right.
28:52
So after 2 concussions and a knee surgery in two years, I was
28:56
like, this is not for me. Yeah.
28:58
So I took two years and had an awful lot of fun at the Sigma
29:04
Chi house. Welcome to San Diego State.
29:06
Welcome to they live the San Diego State experience for a
29:08
little bit. So at that point, so this was
29:11
now hold. Hold on.
29:13
Sure, cuz we can do this as adult, as 40, almost 50 year old
29:19
people. We let things become our
29:21
identity. In fact that's one of the things
29:22
I push back a lot is coaches making coach their number one
29:26
identity. It's like dude, you are a son, a
29:28
brother, a maybe a husband and wife.
29:30
Those are way more important than coach as a 20 year old.
29:34
I mean, it's almost like, well, of course, that's your identity.
29:36
You're a football player, you're at San Diego State.
29:38
You have you have this is extremely interesting to me
29:42
about I'm curious you you lose the ability to play football
29:45
because of concussions and me and things like that.
29:47
How did that? I mean, that was your identity.
29:49
You were robbed the football player.
29:51
How did that? How did you process that?
29:54
I just got goosebumps talking about it.
29:56
Like, I'll be honest, it took me probably four or five years to
29:59
watch a football game just because it was like my peers, my
30:02
friends I saw playing. Not that I was upset with them,
30:05
but it's like, that's your life, you know what I mean?
30:07
And so, yeah, I guess I had fun at San Diego State and then took
30:11
full advantage of the NAIA rules.
30:14
I went and talked to Coach Sheffield.
30:15
I'm like, hey, I should probably graduate from college.
30:19
I'm thinking about getting back into my into running my little
30:23
brother's running at UC Irvine for Ben Caesar back when he was
30:26
there at the time. I'm like, you know what?
30:27
I. Mean.
30:28
Oh, that's amazing. I haven't thought about.
30:29
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:30
So yeah, I'll see him a couple weeks and my brother's memorial
30:33
and sort of thing, but. He won't Remember Me, but tell
30:36
him I said hi. I remember him from Drake and
30:38
Lolo and ASICS and and just haven't caught up with him
30:41
since. Nightly and beyond.
30:42
Yeah, yeah, just. Yeah, yeah, I'll see him out
30:44
there for Mount SAC. My brother's memorial is that
30:46
Tuesday for a SAC. But yeah, so the what's it
30:49
called? Yeah, So I talked to Coach
30:51
Sheffield. He's like, well, how good were
30:54
you? And I told him he's like, oh,
30:56
call Coach Alice, call Chris Hascher.
30:59
Fullerton. Chris Hascher was at Fullerton
31:00
at the time. And he's like, and he goes, I
31:03
don't know where you're where you're at on your clock, but
31:05
he's like, there's a place called Azusa Pacific.
31:07
And in my mind I'm like, hard. No, I'm from Covina.
31:10
I'm not going to Azusa Pacific. Is that right?
31:12
That was kind of the culture, like it was a like, no, you
31:15
don't, you don't want to get there.
31:16
Yeah, it was weird because it was just because I was, contrary
31:19
to what you said before, I always wanted to go back home or
31:22
I always thought I wanted to go back home.
31:23
And then when it got to that point, I'm like, I'm good enough
31:26
where I could have spread my wings and actually gone and done
31:28
something. So, so as part of in my mind, I
31:31
was dealing with I'm a failure. I didn't complete the football
31:35
journey. Not that track was a fall back.
31:37
I really wasn't known for track and field.
31:39
But then I'm like, OK, well, I kind of need to have a degree to
31:43
earn a living. So let me figure this out.
31:45
So I remember I called Coach Alice and he broke the news.
31:48
He's like, yeah, man. He's like, you have you might be
31:51
able to transfer 60 credits and you're now on your 5 or 4 1/2 or
31:56
five. He's like, I'd love to have you,
31:58
but thanks for. No thanks.
31:59
Right. Called Asher.
32:00
Asher told me the same thing. He's like, you need to go talk
32:03
to Kevin Reed. And I'm like, OK, cool.
32:06
So tracked Coach Reed down and I'll never forget it.
32:09
He hates myself. This story, he at the time their
32:14
track offices. For those that go to zoos,
32:15
there's an old basketball gym, like right in the middle of
32:18
campus, aside from where the track is at now that everyone
32:20
knows for Brian Klay Invite, I'd met Kevin once or twice for the
32:25
meet. But like, most track coaches
32:26
will be wearing hat glass is the whole deal, right?
32:29
So I'll set it up. So I walk into Kev's office and
32:32
doesn't have a hat on and his back's turning.
32:33
So his back's like this ball head dude.
32:37
I'm like, like, hey, I'm looking for Coach Reed.
32:39
Is he here? He's like, yeah, hold on a
32:41
second. And he goes like this.
32:42
He's like, hi, I'm Coach Reed. How's it going?
32:45
Who are you and and Mike Barnett sitting right next to him and
32:50
just laughing his ass off And I'm like, oh, I'm, I'm Jarvis.
32:54
He's like, Oh yeah, nice to meet you.
32:55
And then at the time I stole my GPA was terrible coming in from
33:00
San Diego State. So had to take some classes at
33:02
Mount SAC over the summer. And so this was now summer of O2
33:09
this off for Pat. So went to school at Mount SAC
33:14
in the summer. They're trying to get me
33:16
admitted at APU and that fall of O2.
33:19
And I don't know, I mean, I guess the what you call it the
33:22
they can't get in trouble. Now.
33:24
I trained with the whole team the whole fall while I was going
33:26
to school at Mount SAC, which I'm sure probably was yeah.
33:29
But anyway, got me admitted mid year, enrolled in spring of O3
33:35
and then I ran there. So I had five semesters left of
33:39
of eligibility, so time in the fall so I could stretch out the
33:43
5 / 3 seasons. So I ran three seasons at Azusa.
33:46
Really. Did did you say?
33:48
Were they? You say they were in AIA back
33:50
then? Back then it was in AIA, so I.
33:52
Remembered that, so Brian signed with them.
33:54
I remember I recruited Brian when I was at Troy.
33:57
I say recruited. It was much harder back in the
33:59
day, but I remember he went to Azusa Pacific.
34:01
They were in AIAI don't think I realized that.
34:03
I think I just always had them as D2 like in my.
34:04
Head all the. Time.
34:06
Wow, that's amazing. I mean Brian, I mean Brian's an
34:09
interesting story. Right, we're the same age.
34:12
He was a stud out of high school.
34:14
There was not like he went to specific because he wasn't as
34:17
good to go to wherever. It's like, no bro.
34:19
He was a stud man. Well, that's a whole other
34:21
conversation. I mean shoot, I'll text Huffins
34:23
right now cuz Huff was really big on getting in there and back
34:26
to Berkeley also but. Cuz Huff was training down
34:30
there. Well, he, I think at the time he
34:32
was still with Ed Miller, but I think he was, yeah.
34:34
Cal Berkeley at the time, Yeah, I don't think, well, Brian
34:37
Pagomatic, I don't think Brian would have gotten into Cal
34:40
Berkeley much like I wouldn't have, not I.
34:42
Was gonna say Cal Berkeley. That's the majority of us, yeah.
34:45
Right. So there's no slam, bro.
34:47
Yeah. So I I don't remember what the
34:49
whole evolution of it was, but but he was a.
34:53
Qualifier. I remember that like it's not
34:54
like he right, you know? No, no, he limited.
34:57
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no.
34:58
And the thing was, was that so obviously Ryan's last year was
35:02
my first, Sorry, Brian graduated or his last year eligibility was
35:06
the summer I showed up. And so that so this kind of
35:10
kicks off where my coaching journey sort of started.
35:13
So I mean, I had success to disease, I mean going couple
35:16
national championship relay teams and I think I'm not going
35:20
to go. I think I'm still in the top 10
35:21
for a couple things there. Did you get back down into the
35:23
47 range because you you had some time off, is that right?
35:26
That's cool. And then I let off and then I
35:28
let off both the relays, so 4 by 1, 4x4 and then back in the 400.
35:32
Yep. And you had a little bit more
35:33
understanding of what to do on that lead off in the 4 by 4
35:36
compared to back? In the day, yeah, correct.
35:38
Exactly. It wasn't just right faster and
35:39
left like. No, there's.
35:41
For sure. I hate to use the pacing word
35:42
but OK, there's some strength. How about this?
35:44
Not pacing. There's strategy to how you run.
35:46
Exactly. Yeah, the race modeling got a
35:48
little good. Yeah, that's good.
35:50
But so. What did you get your degree in?
35:53
Business Administration, You. Did get business.
35:55
Yeah. And so this is other funny
35:57
segue. So for those that don't know,
36:00
Brian's manager was Paul Doyle and so I would intern for Paul
36:05
in the summer time when he'd have a sofa, Powell and Frano
36:08
and their whole MVP group come to town.
36:10
I would drive them to Mount SAC Relays, I'd drive the van, the
36:13
whole thing. So I and then Roman Sebrile and
36:16
that whole group from Europe would come over and do warm
36:18
weather training. So and so at that time, that's
36:21
when Brian was coached by Kevin. Why?
36:23
Were why were you doing that? And what I mean by that is, you
36:26
know, you're well now you're at this point, you're 20.
36:28
I was like 23, I think 2224, yeah, right.
36:31
Yeah. You could have like, yeah, I
36:34
appreciate that, but I'm gonna go get a part time job, make
36:36
some money here or I'm gonna I'm trying to hang around the
36:39
football office because that's really my love.
36:40
Like there is going to be a reason why you're like doing,
36:42
I'm going to say grunt work, but you know, doing the hey, I need
36:45
somebody to do this. Can you do this, you know?
36:47
Fantastic question. So my step dad rest his peace.
36:50
His name's Bob. Bob Trampache.
36:52
He told me and he he said he'd call me Bob.
36:55
I hated it, but he called me Bob.
36:57
He's like Bob. The sport thing's going to end.
37:01
You're going to need to figure out something that you love to
37:03
do because one day you're going to have a wife and hopefully
37:06
some kids and go on. And you're going to need to
37:08
support yourself because I'm not going to be here forever to pay
37:10
for all your shit. That's how you say I'm like.
37:12
Smart. Dude, like, So what he made me
37:15
do so back up a little bit. And this is, I haven't really
37:18
talked openly about this. So San Diego State action was
37:20
funked out. So that's why.
37:22
So I took tears off the school. I think we got the you got to
37:24
assume. That right, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:25
So it was bad. So, so between when I stopped at
37:29
San Diego State and when I moved back to Los Angeles, I actually
37:33
moved in with my own, one of my grandparents and Bob and my mom,
37:37
they cut me off. They're like, you've been
37:39
spoiled, like you've been taken care of.
37:41
Like you need to figure this out.
37:43
So I paid for all my time at Azusa.
37:47
So I'm still paying off my student loans.
37:48
So that's all. That's all I know.
37:50
But then but to your question, what he said was that, yes, you
37:54
want to be a business person. Yes, you, you, you want to work
37:58
in that world. You need to figure out what you
38:01
don't like because if you invest your time into something you
38:04
don't like, you're going to be miserable the rest of your life.
38:07
And so each summer he made me. They didn't make me, he
38:11
suggested, but they made me. So when I go to New York, I did
38:14
a different internship back when temping was a thing.
38:16
So my first year I attempt for Newsweek, which is one of the
38:20
used to be one of the bigger newspapers in in New York in
38:22
their accounting department. And I'm an Excel aficionado, but
38:27
I knew I am not going to be an accountant.
38:29
The the following summer. It was this good friend of mine,
38:34
Nick Felter. He would intern every summer for
38:37
Heineken and Amstel. So we would go up and down.
38:40
We he, he was in the Hamptons from we were in Dewey Beach.
38:44
It was we had a good time, let's just put it that way.
38:47
But I was like, you know what, like I'm going to go out of this
38:49
at some point. Like I don't want to work in
38:50
food and beverage. Like who wants to go to a
38:52
different bar every night of the week?
38:54
Could be like that person, you know what I mean?
38:55
So that was that my fight. So then Fast forward to when, so
39:00
2005, Brian had already made his first team.
39:04
He was silver in Athens in 04. And I just saw it and they, they
39:09
would bring me to these meets and I would literally, I joke, I
39:11
was like, I would carry Brian's shoe bag.
39:13
Like I've been some of the coolest places in the world just
39:15
being the shoe guy and. So it was kind of like an an
39:18
intern, a tent, like. All right, I'll let me try to
39:20
see what this world looks like. Yeah.
39:22
Yeah, and so, and at the time, Paul was like, he's like Jarvis
39:24
ever thought about like the whole management world.
39:26
I'm like, not really. He's like, well, you seem like
39:28
you can talk to people like you've done sales, like what did
39:32
you think about doing like a being an agent.
39:33
I'm like, OK, let me think about this thing.
39:35
You know, didn't really think about it.
39:36
So then so. Not coaching.
39:38
I don't hear Paul's not saying and you know Paul, those more
39:41
coaches than I do, for crying out loud that you know, right.
39:43
So he sees that he's not. No one's coming to you.
39:45
Your stepfather's not saying, hey man, you really love track.
39:48
What about? It's more like agent business
39:51
side. Yeah, just relations side of it.
39:52
Yeah, interesting. So I don't recall what meet it
39:55
was. So my last year competed at
39:57
Azuzo was 05. I blew my hamstring to pieces at
40:00
that Claremont McKinnon week. We could not, right?
40:02
I'll never forget that was like my last race and my one.
40:05
If there is a regret, spring coaches will laugh when I say
40:07
this. I always wanted to break.
40:09
I always wanted to run 20 point. I didn't care if it was 20.99.
40:12
Yeah, sure. In that race, I remember coming
40:14
off the turn, add the lead hamstring went face down on the
40:18
home stretch. I look up at the at the clock,
40:20
the guy that won ran 2080 something and I was like.
40:23
That was it. So I got the I'd already
40:26
qualified for NAIASI, got the sympathy clap in Louisville my
40:30
last race. I think I ran like 53 something
40:32
around the track and that was that was it.
40:34
And so so to your question, that left a really bad taste in my
40:39
mouth. Sure, no offense to coach Reed
40:41
when we were doing or that sort of thing, but it was just like
40:45
the way my brain processes is like, and I know you said X as a
40:48
nose. It's like, how could I have done
40:50
this or not to anyone? Just more inward thing like what
40:53
could have done differently, right?
40:55
What, what could have been different?
40:56
We can get back to that whole sort of thing.
40:57
So then you know. What you know, what's
40:58
interesting about that though, is there, there's two way,
41:01
there's probably many ways, but two distinct ways you could have
41:04
responded. 1 is how you responded.
41:06
They're like, hey, what could I have done differently?
41:09
Maybe sometimes more of the majority is what did he do?
41:14
Why didn't he do the, you know, finger pointing?
41:16
You did actually the thumb point of like, what can I have done
41:19
differently, whether it's sleep, diet, workout, whatever.
41:22
Yeah, that's that's interesting because that that's what starts
41:25
setting you up for the rest of your like that would be
41:27
decisions you make for the rest of your life.
41:29
Right. And this is actually going
41:31
backwards. So back to my step dad, Bob one,
41:33
it's obviously the business acumen I learned from him and
41:36
just watching him in the sales world, he taught me how to play
41:40
chess when I was 8 or 9. So I've always been 123456.
41:46
So I was always thinking steps ahead.
41:48
Obviously it throws you that play chess and opening sequences
41:50
and moves. You know, OK, if I did this, if
41:54
I do XY, you know, anyway, for the test people out there.
41:57
Do you still play today? Not as much as I would like.
41:59
It's hard now with the little kid.
42:01
You have like an ELO, is that what they call it?
42:04
Used to it's been it's been years since I've played, but I
42:08
mean, online I was ranked pretty high, but.
42:10
Yeah, so that's a lot of people. I met this guy, I can't hear
42:13
what industry he was in, but it was in some sports construction
42:16
convention I was at and they played online a lot and, and
42:19
they have yellows and all that kind of stuff.
42:21
And then I'll see like in YouTube Shorts, I'll see what's
42:24
the big chess guy, Magnus? He's got this thing where he'll
42:28
play, no, not even play. He'll a guy will come up and
42:31
he'll ask certain questions of the guy and then Magnus has to
42:34
guess his ELO and he's like, you know, he's pretty good, you
42:37
know? Right.
42:38
Yeah, like how many hours you play it, how many times you do
42:39
this? Do you know what a bubble blah
42:41
sequence is? And he'd be like, you're about a
42:43
1400 and like, Yep, 1350 or whatever.
42:45
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
42:47
So no. So that was like one of the for
42:49
me in a weird way as a kid because like I mentioned, the
42:52
flight simulators and my brother and I were in the video games.
42:56
I would have to think being a pilot, having that chest of
42:59
like, I can't just be in the moment.
43:02
I got to think, OK, well if that guy moves here, I got to move
43:04
here. Like that's got to be pretty
43:05
integral to be in a successful. Violent.
43:06
Yeah, right. And like kind of gets into the
43:08
coaching too, and just like training theory and planet of
43:10
the year. So you get back to all that, you
43:12
know. So it's just.
43:13
So it's going that way. So so now back to the 2005 S by
43:17
last year competing, I was hurt and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I'm
43:20
about to graduate. What am I going to do with my
43:22
life? And Kev, to his credit, he goes,
43:27
you see. So we're so for context, we're
43:29
to attract me and a guy named Don Chad, as you guys all know,
43:33
Flash W now retired, Scott Chad as his dad.
43:37
He used to be the timer for Mount SAC Relays, right?
43:40
He's like, he's like, I know you're like making money.
43:42
I know you don't want what you're doing.
43:43
So anyway, Long story short, I learned how to time.
43:45
So I timed meets to make money for the next few years while I
43:48
figured out what I was going to do with my life.
43:50
And yeah, so Don Chaddis was the one that let me sit on the in
43:53
the captain's chair at Mount SAC Relays.
43:55
And that was I used to help Mount SAC with all their high
43:57
tech and all the other fun stuff.
43:58
How in the I mean, we're going to get there, but yeah, like,
44:01
how in the world do you become a coach?
44:02
You are flirting with everything around our sport agency Timing.
44:09
Yeah, literally. You could literally you could be
44:11
on this podcast right now going, hey, I've got Rob Jarvis.
44:13
He's, you know he owns Jarvis Timing Company, right?
44:17
Right. No, I had the RFT elephant going
44:19
for a bit, but but there's a long version.
44:21
Wait, so now we're getting into closer to 2008.
44:24
I was gonna mention at the time, so Brian's coaches were a Rainer
44:27
Rider, Kevin Reed and Mike Barnett.
44:30
And so Rayna would spend his summers from K State in Azusa in
44:35
the mods, as the people know, which are basically trailers in
44:38
the parking lot by the baseball field of Azusa.
44:40
And finally, Rayna goes, He's like, for those of you who know
44:43
Rayna and how he talks, like, what the heck do you want to do
44:45
with your life? Yeah, that sounds like.
44:47
He's like he's he's like clearly like making money.
44:51
But I can tell you have a good eye for coaching.
44:53
Like, what are you going to do? He's like you, 26.
44:55
What made him say that? Because I would ask him a lot of
44:58
questions because I, I was always at Brian's practices and
45:02
I was one of, I could kind of say I used to rabbit a lot of
45:04
his like workouts. And, and so during the summer
45:08
when everyone went home, I'd be at their practice.
45:10
I wouldn't run the whole thing. Like, so if Ryan had a 300
45:12
workout, I would pick him up at 200 and bring him around and
45:15
then travel with those guys. And so I would just ask him
45:19
questions. And finally one day he just
45:21
like, do you want to, what do you want to do with your life?
45:24
He's like he goes another name. He goes, all you guys do is you
45:28
play, you go to Pope's house, the Hebrew House or the Hebrew
45:31
House, shout out to Hebrew House.
45:33
All you guys do is play Halo. You guys just go out and then
45:38
you hang out the track all day. He's like, what are you going to
45:41
do with your life? And so that stuck.
45:43
So I kind of let that go. And I think we're at the Olympic
45:46
trials in Oregon. So it's now 08.
45:48
He's now at no backwards. Anyway, some point in this way,
45:53
I'm like, you know what I want to coach and rain is like, well,
45:56
what do you want to coach? And in my mind I'm like, OK,
45:58
well, I played football. I was, I thought I was a short
46:01
sprinter. Coach Kendall would tell you I
46:02
should have been 1/2 miler, but if there's no way I was running
46:04
2 laps and he's like, well, let me let me save you about 10
46:09
years of heartache. He goes, our sport doesn't need
46:12
another Sprint coach. And he's like, you're a pretty
46:15
good eye. Clearly you jumped.
46:18
He's like you. He's like you're a fake
46:19
decathlete. You can call yourself a
46:21
decathlete. And fun fact, I only finished
46:23
one deck my whole life. It was mount stack relays,
46:25
junior deck. Anyway, get back to that.
46:28
He's like, you have a good eye. You should really learn how to
46:31
coach and jumps in the combined events.
46:33
He's like, you've been around with Brian and you've seen all
46:34
the stuff. He's like you're watching
46:36
everything. You should go that route.
46:37
Don't waste your time with the sprints.
46:38
When you said, when he said what do you want to do?
46:41
Like when you said I'll be a track coach, were you saying
46:44
that? Because like trying to think how
46:47
to put this question, there are some sometimes it's not 100%
46:52
time in people's careers, whether it's coaching or sales,
46:55
whatever, where it's a click, where it's it's rarely that it's
46:59
a click that it's an off on switch.
47:00
It's usually a fader. But you know, like, Oh yeah,
47:03
kind of, yeah, kind of like, Oh yeah, OK, wow.
47:04
I'm a freaking track coach. You know, were you saying that
47:08
as in the context of like, well, I'm trying other things?
47:12
Yeah, sure. I'd like to here.
47:13
Here's probably a better way of saying it, Rob, Were you saying,
47:16
yeah, I want to be a track coach because you're like, yeah, I
47:18
want to try to be like, I would like to try that.
47:21
Or was it like, you know what? I've been flirting around with
47:24
all this other stuff, bro, it's staring me right in my face.
47:27
I'm supposed to be a track coach.
47:29
Does that make sense? Those. 2 compared to yeah no,
47:30
no, no, no, no. This is actually a really good
47:32
setup because it's a good segue, too.
47:35
I thought a track coach was all the cool crap I saw at the big
47:41
international meets and the travel like, oh, I get to go to
47:43
Europe. Yeah.
47:44
I get to go to these major championships.
47:46
I get to do this. I want to do that.
47:48
Yeah. And, and, and.
47:51
No, literally I'm like, oh, this is all it is.
47:54
I want to do this. So it was the path of least
47:57
resistance in my mind. Little did I know that led to
48:01
seven years of being a volunteer assistant coach.
48:03
And we can talk about all that stuff, too.
48:05
So, yeah. So to your question, I was like,
48:07
oh, this is easy. So.
48:08
So now Fast forward to 2008. You thought you were saying yes
48:11
to what? You thought the job, the role
48:13
was. Oh yeah, I'm just seeing these
48:15
guys traveling and. That's part of that, can be part
48:17
of the role, but that's not the majority of the role.
48:20
That's not the majority of our roles.
48:22
Yeah, no. And the credit for think about
48:24
it, I was had the opportunity to be around Paul and all the
48:27
amazing athletes he's had over the years.
48:29
Yeah, I mean with Ryan and he was at the top of his game pre
48:32
Ash and Eaton. And so I'm like around all these
48:34
rocks and I'm like, man, this is awesome.
48:36
I want to do this ironically, today's April Fools, like
48:40
literally April Fools, dude. That's not how it works.
48:42
That makes sense. So now.
48:43
Wonder about, you know, these awesome programs, Arkansas being
48:47
what in Florida's Texas is USC all all these great.
48:50
Programs. Destination Schools.
48:52
Well, what I'm thinking is like the ones where like, this
48:54
happens, you know, if you're at USCQ is your coach, for crying
48:57
out loud, you're at Arkansas, You've got a lot of elites that
49:00
are there still after graduating.
49:02
And you know, what's the sprinter you just had?
49:06
Anthony Johnson? Is that his last?
49:07
Name. Jordan Anthony, Jordan Anthony,
49:09
I knew I was going to get the wrong, you know, Jordan, you
49:10
know, graduates one year, the next year he's world indoor and
49:13
he's still there training and I know he's not there.
49:15
He's with Lance, but. Yeah.
49:16
But I wonder if that because you know, the majority of people on
49:19
those teams, majority of people in our sport are not, let's say
49:23
Jordan Anthony, they're not an elite.
49:24
That's not that's not the majority of there's a reason why
49:26
it's in Leeds. I wonder if they if there's a if
49:28
they get tainted of what they think track and coaching in.
49:31
And because the reality is like, no, it's like I'll use my own
49:34
monitor. It's like Troy, it's it's hot
49:37
and you're not traveling, you're not flying to places, you're
49:39
driving the majority play. Like 100.
49:41
Percent. I wonder if you get like tainted
49:43
and that and that's what you're kind of describing it's like.
49:45
Oh, I thought it was. Jet setting all over the world.
49:48
It's like. Well.
49:49
Not the reality. No, that's for sure.
49:51
And so The thing is, I think APU to this day, 95% of the time for
49:57
giving me the opportunity as a second chance to be able to
49:58
graduate from school #1 but funny story with them.
50:02
I remember my first week at Azusa we.
50:05
So for those I don't know, there's no I don't know how it
50:07
is now, but there wasn't a track lock room.
50:09
There was like kind of 1/2 assed football locker room.
50:12
I remember the first two questions I asked coach rude.
50:14
I'm like, where's my laundry loop and where do I put in?
50:17
Where do I get my wash back from?
50:19
And and he the look he gave me. What are you talking about?
50:23
He's like, what are you talking about?
50:24
Yeah, exactly. And then I remember the first
50:26
trip we went on, I'm like, hey, coach, I'm like, when are we
50:28
getting our per diem? He's like, you're what?
50:31
I'm like, well, how am I going to eat?
50:33
He's like, do you not see we're on our way to Costco?
50:35
We would literally go to Costco, buy bread, sandwiches, the whole
50:38
thing. So I tell these stories to my
50:40
athletes now. They're like, Travis, what are
50:42
you talking about? I'm like, we literally had a OK,
50:45
we'll set up with Little Dorito chip bags to grab.
50:48
We would make our own sandwiches, sandwiches and we
50:51
would travel in a 15 person van. And you guys were complaining
50:54
about like, Oh my gosh, we're flying commercial.
50:57
We're not chargering. It's like, you know what I'm
51:00
saying? It's just.
51:00
But it's it's crazy, all perspective.
51:03
Right. And so, yeah.
51:05
And so your point was going from Azusa and then you see the glam
51:08
and glitz of the now diamonding and stuff.
51:10
I'm like 100% I want that, you know what I mean?
51:12
It's like that in every part of life.
51:15
There are poorly funded elementary schools and there are
51:18
well funded elementary schools. And those two, you'd be like,
51:20
whoa, man, these are two different worlds.
51:22
There are well funded early stage businesses.
51:25
There are well established market leaders.
51:28
Things happen differently, revenues, expenses.
51:30
So it happens everywhere. Right.
51:34
But it is funny. It is no one's hilarious.
51:37
And so, yes, like, I was getting that.
51:38
So now I think we're inching closer to 2008.
51:41
Raina now is at University of Florida.
51:45
So Coach Holloway or Reyna got Coach Holloway didn't invite me
51:49
out back then. This is when now Power 4 schools
51:52
still used to do graduate assistantships.
51:55
So. You're you're volunteering at
51:57
this point. No.
51:58
So yeah, so I'm at Azusa kind of half coaching half rabbit.
52:01
I I say I was coaching. I was, I was on staff
52:03
technically to Azusa, but I mean, I was just helping Kevin
52:06
and Barnett with whatever they needed.
52:07
Wasn't. Even crazy Where?
52:08
Where are you making money? Are you bartending?
52:10
I mean, I got, I got no. So I got a stipend from Azusa.
52:12
I think it was like 1200 a month that covered my rent and I was
52:15
and I was timing doing so. So I was timing.
52:19
So that was that and then, yeah. And then did some sort of
52:23
private coaching at some point for when that started.
52:24
But that was like the the three things that got me through.
52:27
So that spring, Raina convinced Coach Holloway to bring me with
52:34
them to the East prelim round at Florida State.
52:37
So I basically took a visit out there.
52:40
He's like, and this is back when I was thinking maybe the agent
52:43
route. He's like, what do you want to
52:44
do for grad school? I'm like, well, Florida's got a
52:47
great MBA program and sport management program.
52:49
I was like, if I can get an MBA in business and a masters in
52:53
sport management agency here we come, right?
52:55
Yeah, right. Right.
52:57
Yeah. Without getting the details,
52:58
obviously. Brian goes on to win the gold
53:00
medal that summer, and then that's when Coach Holloway and
53:03
Raina split. I'll never forget I got that
53:05
message from Coach Holloway is like, hey, stay in California.
53:09
We don't need you anymore. And so I joke with him now, and
53:13
I hope you don't get mad for me saying it wasn't that blunt.
53:15
You know, Coach Hall, he's gonna be a straight shooter.
53:17
And even years after that, you know, saying it's just when you
53:19
said it's not that fun. It's like brother, I know mouse
53:21
and love. Him.
53:22
Yeah, no. And. #30 on the Guild
53:25
Connections podcast, right? I could absolutely seen that.
53:27
Because he doesn't put any malice behind it.
53:29
He's not saying no, I don't need you.
53:31
Go on, peasant. He's like, hey man, this ain't
53:33
happening here. Right.
53:35
And then yeah, he goes and then and it was we'll get just remind
53:42
me, we'll get back to it when I got the Arkansas job because I
53:44
was actually in Gainesville when I found out.
53:45
So anyways, we'll get back to that.
53:48
But anyway, so all that being said, so at that point, but I'm
53:50
like crap, thought I was going to go on to do this.
53:52
It's kind of your question before I'm like, all right,
53:55
well, what do I do? And so then at that point I was
53:59
like, OK, let me stay in Azusa another year or two, actually,
54:02
coach, see if this is what I want to do and then we'll figure
54:05
it out. So that got me through the O
54:07
nine season. I helped Azusa and then at that
54:10
point I'm like, OK, this isn't the glam and glitz.
54:12
I'd still go with Brian in the summer.
54:15
This and I and AI thing is kind of rough.
54:17
No offense. Is this really what you want to
54:20
do? Come back to your question
54:20
before. And so at that point, Coach
54:23
Barnett goes, there's a joke from Brian's old group, and I
54:27
know other people probably say it.
54:29
We joke about calling people big time.
54:31
It's like, hey, big time. So that's how Coach Martin's
54:32
like, hey, big time, come here. I'm like, I'm like, what?
54:35
Dude? He's like, you really want to do
54:37
this thing, don't you? He's I was like, yeah.
54:39
And he goes, all right, I tell you what, I have an old
54:42
teammate. He's also an Azusa alum.
54:44
He just got the head coaching job at UCLA.
54:46
His name's Mike Maynard. Let me connect you guys and so.
54:50
That's right. Yeah, so from Boise State, so he
54:53
just came over from there. And so after that next year,
54:57
starting in 2010, that's when I started volunteering at UCLA for
55:01
the first time. So I was at UCLA from 2010 and.
55:05
And when I got there, I'll never forget it.
55:06
And it was almost like the reign of comment for those of you that
55:10
know Maynard, how he talks, he's very direct and just.
55:14
Anyway, respect the crap out of the guy, but the same time it's
55:17
like he goes, you have a giant hole in your combined events
55:22
resume. I'm like, excuse me?
55:25
And he's like, clearly, you know the sprints, you know the jumps.
55:29
He's like Barnett tells me you don't know very much about the
55:32
throws. I'm like, well, I know enough.
55:34
He's like, well, knowing enough isn't going to.
55:35
And he goes, if there's anything he's like, this is the first
55:38
lesson. He's like at the Division One
55:40
level, you need to get someone to the meet, get him to score
55:46
and then do it again and do it again and do it again.
55:50
And that has resonated with me since then.
55:53
That's now 16 years ago. And so he goes, I'm not asking
55:58
you, I'm telling you if if you want to come to UCLAM and be a
56:02
volunteer assistant, that's basically what you need to do.
56:04
If you want to go to Vision 1, you will be my throws volunteer
56:07
for this next year and you will learn everything I can teach you
56:10
about the throws and at that point and at that point, we can
56:14
decide where you go from there. What made you say yes?
56:18
I want it in to me, UCLA was UCLA.
56:21
It's the bit the limelight, right?
56:22
And and I mean, we can argue that that whole sort of thing,
56:26
but at the time they seems pretty good when I was there.
56:28
UCLA, right? Yeah, UCLA.
56:30
Now, yeah, OK. Yeah, right.
56:32
And it's like, so it got through that first year.
56:35
He had several pretty good throwers and Julian Ruck ended
56:38
up coming through when I was there, Alec Faldemeier, hammer
56:41
thrower, Macasecki, a few other guys.
56:44
Sorry, guys, I'm naming you, but learned a lot that year.
56:47
And it wasn't just for shot disc jab.
56:49
I mean, I actually picked up hammer and weight throw type
56:52
stuff. Not that wanted to coach those
56:53
events, but it was one of those things where then at that point
56:57
there were hold on, let me put this up the laugh.
57:00
If you hope you guys will get motion sickness.
57:02
I got them up there. So these were my first 3 decks
57:05
from UCLA. So guy, the blonde haired dude,
57:08
that's Dom Giovinoni and then Marcus Nielsen on the left and
57:12
and Dave in the middle. So Marcus Nielsen was the bronze
57:17
medalist Moncton World Juniors. And so that was the ones I need
57:20
from that year. So lesson #2 for Maynard, he's
57:24
like, all right, you learn the throws clearly when a coach
57:28
combined events, you have full control of the men's combined
57:31
events. And I'm like, he goes, we just
57:35
signed Nielsen. He knows the background from
57:38
everything. He goes.
57:40
Lesson #2 Don't crash the Ferrari.
57:45
That's a good one. Not like that and I can see him
57:47
saying it. That and I'm like what the hell
57:50
are you talking about? Cuz I mean this kid.
57:51
So anyway, so over the next two years he was multi time all
57:56
American. I think he scored 81 low and
58:00
then Dom scored 77 something and he made NCS and so Dom.
58:04
All the events for the multi, yeah, that's interesting to me.
58:09
And then this guy right here, I'm on my wall, Coach Bush.
58:15
So he'd come out every Monday and he'd help me with hurdles.
58:17
He loved his hanging out and that whole sort of real thing,
58:19
so. We've had some amazing coaches
58:23
and one of them that sticks with me a lot is now.
58:28
Rest in peace, Brooks Johnson. And Brooks, really, you know, I
58:31
haven't coached in 20 years and there's no more coaching for me.
58:34
But I still, you know, enthralled with the the
58:36
profession. And he talked about how you
58:38
cannot be a sprint's coach, a jumps coach.
58:42
You have to get track and field coach that, you know, he said,
58:46
he said like every event is the same.
58:48
It's about moving the center of mass.
58:50
Some of us do it in circles and a ring.
58:51
Some of us do it over 26.2 miles.
58:53
I know some people do it over, you know, 140 feet and then jump
58:57
at the end of it, whatever. But it's, it's about being a
58:59
track and field coach. And I learned this lesson from
59:03
Cliff Revelto and some others about the multis that if you're
59:08
gonna be a program that farms it out and what I mean by that and
59:12
by the way there's been successfully, this has been
59:14
successfully done where? Your presentation on this
59:17
presentation at the convention. Exactly where you know, you can
59:21
be this somebody's good. And by the way, when I was with
59:24
Trey Hardy, this is what we did. I did the Sprint, turtles and
59:26
and jumps. Someone did the you know, you
59:29
know, distance. Someone did the another separate
59:32
person did pole vault, separate person did throws, etcetera,
59:34
etcetera. And it could be done, but it's
59:38
it's much harder to do it that way than it is to do it the way
59:41
you're talking about where someone overseas the poor
59:43
because of training, overtraining and safety.
59:46
It's like, oh, if you're going to have two 3-4 coaches, boy,
59:50
your communication better be. On point and so.
59:54
Plus, and how many of us really have a plus communication?
59:57
No, I know. And so not many to go backwards
59:59
a little bit, yeah. So go backwards a little bit so.
1:00:01
Not that I mis answered it. So yeah.
1:00:02
So I oversaw everything Maynard obviously was doing the throws,
1:00:05
I was there. I did all this, the sprints and
1:00:08
the jumps. But but you're because you have
1:00:11
knowledge and now all the events you're overseeing like he's.
1:00:14
And I'd be there for everything it wasn't.
1:00:16
Like, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying.
1:00:17
You're not like, hey, go, you were Coach Maynard for the day,
1:00:19
right? I'll see you tomorrow for a long
1:00:21
jump. And it's like none of I'm going
1:00:22
to be over there. And yeah, maybe.
1:00:23
I'm going to give a shout. Out coach, but I'm there to
1:00:25
watch the volumes, etcetera. Yeah, right.
1:00:28
And so like so I oversaw the whole combined thing.
1:00:30
I can shout out and obviously AC and he handled the vault.
1:00:32
So that's what that's where I learned a lot of my pole vault
1:00:35
stuff from from AC. And so that's a good.
1:00:36
So at the time that was that so that was from 2010 to 2013.
1:00:40
And then so after that got to there so 2013 that was my first
1:00:45
world. So Nielsen actually qualified
1:00:46
for worlds. So that was my first major.
1:00:49
Not with Brian yeah, yeah, yeah. And so and then and by no means
1:00:52
my claiming Brian. Like I said, I held this guy.
1:00:54
I wasn't one of his coaches, but it was the first major was like,
1:00:56
Oh, well, I, I was like, wow, this is like my first athlete.
1:00:59
I got to a big meet, you know what I mean?
1:01:01
And it was probably, it was in Moscow.
1:01:02
We think that's a whole other conversation.
1:01:04
But but then at that time, Maynard, he, I remember he
1:01:09
called me in his office because at the time that he had hired a
1:01:11
couple new assistant coaches and stuff.
1:01:13
And I was getting pissed. I'm like.
1:01:16
Man, you're still a volunteer. I'm still a volunteer and I'm
1:01:19
like, so. And to his credit card, Jack
1:01:21
Coyne time, he actually hired Asher, Darrell Smith, all these
1:01:24
guys. And so this was lesson #3 And so
1:01:28
I'll never forget. So he had a position that he
1:01:31
knew was only going to be available for one season.
1:01:34
And I never forget. He called me to his office.
1:01:36
He's like, he's like, Jarvis, you don't understand this now,
1:01:40
because you're still pretty young in this whole Division One
1:01:41
world. If I give you this job and I
1:01:43
don't renew you after the first year, you will never get hired
1:01:47
at, at a school like this. It'll, it'll, the perception's
1:01:50
just going to be bad. It's like, I'm just letting you
1:01:52
know. And well, I think Asher's heard
1:01:55
this story. So if you see, hears this and
1:01:56
watches this, he'll laugh at this.
1:01:58
He goes, he's like, I'm, I'm going to hire Asher because
1:02:00
Asher's he's already established and this whole sort of thing.
1:02:03
And he could tell I was pissed. He's like, let me put a seat
1:02:06
this way. Let me tell you a little story.
1:02:08
He's like, if say you go to grocery store and it's there's
1:02:12
an earthquake and there's an emergency and you're going down
1:02:15
the, the aisle and there's, you're looking for canned foods.
1:02:18
What, what brand are you going to look for?
1:02:20
And I couldn't remember what brand.
1:02:21
I said, I'm like, are you going to take the can of the brand
1:02:25
that you recognize where there might be a RIP or a dented can,
1:02:28
or you're going to take the no name brand on the bottom or the
1:02:30
the shelf's still full with them.
1:02:32
I'm like, I'm going to grab the can with the dent that I'm
1:02:34
familiar with. He's like, exactly.
1:02:38
I'm not sure I understand and or.
1:02:41
Agrees basic So basically he was saying I wasn't established
1:02:44
enough yet. I'm good, knew what I was doing
1:02:46
but. He's going to.
1:02:47
Be you I thought this is going to sound crazy.
1:02:50
I thought you were the can that was dinged because OK you do the
1:02:54
the paid job at UCLA for a year and he doesn't renew you because
1:02:57
that's the job was only for a year.
1:02:58
OK, you're the name brand, you have UCLA behind you and OK,
1:03:01
you're quotes here dented because you you didn't get.
1:03:05
I don't know if I agree with Mike and.
1:03:07
By the way, Mike, no, I was not. No, I was not full time.
1:03:10
That's what I'm saying. I was still that's.
1:03:11
What I'm saying, I think he was wrong, not I.
1:03:15
I'm here on one side. Sure, right.
1:03:17
The way it's described it feels like I have to disagree that he
1:03:20
did not hire you because it's like oh this will be better for
1:03:23
you. I don't think so bro.
1:03:24
No, it's obviously all worked out, but I.
1:03:26
Don't know it all worked out and also too at the same time too.
1:03:28
I'm also I'm also very biased Rob on volunteer coaches like I
1:03:32
I can't stand someone doing a job all the way.
1:03:35
I don't like interns like when we started doing interns here.
1:03:38
I was like. Before we talk about this, boys
1:03:40
and girls, we have to pay them. I was like, if we're gonna have
1:03:43
the unpaid volunteer or unpaid internships, not in my
1:03:46
department. Right.
1:03:47
No and. That's the you know, I'm not
1:03:51
gonna make that terrible. No, no, no.
1:03:53
I just don't like it so. No.
1:03:55
And it's hard cuz it's like and again, at Full disclosure, I
1:03:58
haven't spoken to Mike in years. Like he cut me out.
1:04:00
We can talk about that later. And again, I if he would talk to
1:04:04
me, he won't talk to me. It was just like I would thank
1:04:06
him to the state, like I wouldn't be here.
1:04:08
They can't give me that shot. Because I think a lot of coaches
1:04:10
at that time didn't realize I was a volunteer.
1:04:13
They thought I was full time just because of the
1:04:14
responsibilities that I had. Because because then it went
1:04:17
from combined events to men's horizontal.
1:04:19
That's. What I'm saying, that's why I
1:04:20
say yeah, you were the Del Monte or whatever.
1:04:22
Can't good the dole, right? Yeah, UCLA.
1:04:25
So that was well, that was what was so upsetting.
1:04:27
But I think to Mike's credit, the guys know Mike, he's a smart
1:04:31
guy. So at the time I I had my time
1:04:33
in business, I had scaled it to where I was good.
1:04:38
I was doing private coaching, which I hated.
1:04:40
No offense, I don't like coaching younger kids.
1:04:42
I just don't have the temperament for it.
1:04:43
It's not my thing. We can.
1:04:44
That's why I'm not a high school coach.
1:04:45
No offense, bless you guys, like it's just not my thing.
1:04:48
But it was back to your question before it was an end to justify
1:04:51
the means because in my mind I'm like, I want to get to the top.
1:04:56
I'm not going to step on anyone side get in there.
1:04:58
I'll put in the time. So all that means.
1:04:59
So that got so that got us to 2013.
1:05:02
So after that season was over, I wasn't jaded from what Maynard
1:05:09
did, but I understood. And then he then then as he
1:05:12
called him back, he's like, look, he goes, I know you really
1:05:15
wanted that job. Obviously the season's over.
1:05:17
He's like, I'm not kicking you out the door, but you need a
1:05:21
full time job and I'm going to help you find.
1:05:24
One and I'm like, yeah buddy, I thought that one.
1:05:25
Last year was exactly so so again.
1:05:28
Now how? How small?
1:05:29
That I can agree with. Them right so go to Moscow and a
1:05:34
guy by the name of Lauren Seagrave sitting in the lobby,
1:05:37
obviously from Raina and and he called me over.
1:05:40
He's like, hey, he's like, I hear you, the hot younger coach.
1:05:44
I'm like, all right, man, whatever you say and and to be
1:05:47
honest, and for those of you that know Lauren, it's like, you
1:05:49
know, you say sales guy, love him to death and he's been good
1:05:52
to me. He goes I'm starting a high
1:05:57
school Academy team and IMG Academy.
1:06:01
I he's like, I understand you want nothing to do with coaching
1:06:03
camps and high school kids, but my professional training group
1:06:07
is pretty good and I have three or two the best women long
1:06:10
jumpers in the world and Tiana Madison and Darya Krishna.
1:06:14
I'm like, all right, let me think about that.
1:06:16
And so that was during worlds and then I never got back to
1:06:20
him. Get a phone call from Rayna.
1:06:25
What the F are you doing? He's like you're you're
1:06:29
volunteering now that now we're in the full training at UCLA,
1:06:32
right? So he goes, do you want to make
1:06:35
money? Do you want to be fake big time?
1:06:39
Or do you just want to hang this thing up and just be done with
1:06:41
it? He because because my and Full
1:06:44
disclosure for coaches, I wanted my excuse was at the time I was
1:06:48
making more money doing what I was doing as a volunteer that I
1:06:52
would have been as a full time coach.
1:06:54
Absolutely. And that's making he goes, do
1:06:56
you want to make money or do you want to coach?
1:06:58
And I'm like, I want to coach. He's like effing call Lauren
1:07:02
back and accept whatever he offers you.
1:07:06
I'm like, but he's like, no, but he just hangs up on me.
1:07:09
So I call Lauren back. I'm like, hey, really good thing
1:07:13
about this thing. Like what, what's your timeline?
1:07:15
He's like, well, if you can get here by after New Year's, we
1:07:18
have the NFL combine trainings. Like I understand you have a
1:07:21
background in football. You can help us with the combine
1:07:23
training and I'll give you a little taste of that.
1:07:25
And then we'll pivot to the pro group, getting them ready for
1:07:28
the Diamond League season. And then we'll help some
1:07:32
federation teams that are going along.
1:07:33
And then we just got to get this high school team off the ground.
1:07:35
I'm like, all right, cool, I'll get.
1:07:37
This early on, the high school team there was.
1:07:40
It was it wasn't even existing yet.
1:07:42
And so, so this is back in 20, so 20 follow 13 then to 14.
1:07:47
So I let Maynard know and oh gosh, I almost forgot John
1:07:54
Frazier. He kept my head on straight.
1:07:55
So when no, that's later. Sorry.
1:07:59
So Maynard kicked me out the door.
1:08:00
He's like, take the job. It's good for you.
1:08:02
You need a full time job. And he's like, don't worry about
1:08:05
not being able to get back into college because my biggest fear
1:08:07
was I'm leaving college for high school and I'm not going to need
1:08:10
a call. He's like, no, he's he goes.
1:08:12
That'll be seen differently because you'll be working with
1:08:14
the pro group. I'm like, OK, cool.
1:08:16
So get to December. I fly out to IMGI, stay there
1:08:21
for like 6 weeks and then seekers like, well, when are you
1:08:24
going to move? I'm like, well, we got this
1:08:26
combine stuff going on. Probably once there's a lull,
1:08:29
he's like, well, there's a break between training and when they
1:08:32
have to show up to Indianapolis and this whole thing.
1:08:34
Have you have you ever driven cross country before?
1:08:38
Like, no, I haven't. He's like, well, IMG, you'll pay
1:08:41
for your mileage. Just load your truck up and you
1:08:43
literally get to drive the 10th freeway from California all the
1:08:47
way across, literally the whole way, right?
1:08:49
He's like bucket list. I'm like, oh, that's a great
1:08:51
idea. That's a bad bucket.
1:08:54
So, so I think I know you know where this is going.
1:08:57
So anyway for those that don't know.
1:08:58
So I fly back Valentine's Day weekend.
1:09:01
First night I drive from LA to Fort something West TX Spent the
1:09:07
night in some dumpy hotel. Next morning hop on the freeway
1:09:12
start driving and then goes from sunny to foggy and I was taken
1:09:18
out by an 18 Wheeler. I'm like almost died.
1:09:21
I've seen. Pictures.
1:09:22
Yeah, I could. I could send you some if you
1:09:24
want to put it in on the back end.
1:09:25
It's wild so. Unbelievable.
1:09:27
Some final destination stuff so my I was re ended in the fog
1:09:31
truck flipped rolled pulled myself out about 5 minutes or so
1:09:34
before it was TI wouldn't have survived the second one so
1:09:37
anyway Long story short back surgeries hospital lost use of
1:09:42
this arm I can't lift this arm so to see graves credit he's
1:09:46
like recover California I'll save the job for you don't don't
1:09:51
worry about it just take all the time you need so that was
1:09:54
February of 14th because. That was in Texas.
1:09:56
Were you right? Like how did did you recover and
1:09:59
like how did you get back? To California with it so this.
1:10:01
Was an This wasn't a car accident, a car wreck.
1:10:04
This was. Yeah, also just a.
1:10:05
Life changing and almost life ending, yeah.
1:10:12
Crash. Wreck.
1:10:13
Yeah. Right, yeah.
1:10:14
And like a little tangent, like the, I think the thing that
1:10:17
still sticks out to me this to this day that trips me out is so
1:10:21
as the first responders are showing up, each one kept asking
1:10:25
the other ones like, hey, do we need a tarp?
1:10:27
They're like, no, he's right there and like type of thing.
1:10:29
And they're like, and there were people, there were first
1:10:33
responders that went to the hospital that didn't believe I
1:10:37
walked away, at least how I did from the whole thing.
1:10:42
Yeah. And they're they're like, they
1:10:43
come in. You can just see the look on
1:10:45
their face like they're I need to shake your hand.
1:10:47
Like you don't understand how lucky you like I've seen.
1:10:49
And they each one of them asked. This goes back to the coach
1:10:51
Sheen and Kendall in class where they're like, why didn't you
1:10:54
wait for someone to pull you out?
1:10:55
I'm like, why would I wait? I could do it myself.
1:10:58
Like I'm I'm reacting to. And they go, you grew up playing
1:11:00
sports, right? I'm like, yeah, they're like,
1:11:01
you need to call each one of your old coaches because they
1:11:04
prepped you to react. Like you literally reacted.
1:11:07
Now we could do a whole show just on your.
1:11:10
On that. On that and rehab etcetera but a
1:11:14
question before we bridge past that though is at any time,
1:11:17
because I I know a billion emotions happened during this
1:11:20
time frame is at any time during after this accident.
1:11:26
Did you think cuz you were on your way to IMG, you're on your
1:11:28
next step of what you think is your career?
1:11:30
Yeah. Was there any of like oh, this
1:11:32
takes away coaching. I'm not going to be able.
1:11:34
To oh, and that's, that's where I was going with this.
1:11:36
And so I suffered a really severe concussion in this
1:11:40
accident. And so one of my ways I cope
1:11:44
with being either nervous or scared, that sort of thing.
1:11:46
So for example, it was a 30 minute ride to the hospital.
1:11:50
It was like remote West TX. They couldn't launch a
1:11:52
helicopter. OK, like I'm not the most
1:11:55
religious person, but basically one of the ER doctors from where
1:12:00
I ended up getting taken to happened to just be in the cars
1:12:03
that were on their way to work. That was 1.
1:12:06
So that was so they're doing first aid that anyway, I
1:12:09
remember, I'll never forget. He's like someone came over on
1:12:12
Earth was a police officer or, or state trooper.
1:12:16
He's like, oh, they're not going to launch a helicopter because
1:12:17
they, they thought they're going to have to send me up to gosh, I
1:12:20
know where it is. And I remember panicking and
1:12:23
he's like, they're not going to launch a chopper.
1:12:26
It's too foggy. You have to wait 30 minutes for
1:12:28
the ambulance to get here, take to the hospital.
1:12:30
And I he and he goes, you can't pass out.
1:12:32
He's like, I don't know what's wrong with you.
1:12:34
You can't pass out. And I remember going and he had,
1:12:36
I never forget. He was holding my wrist to fill
1:12:39
my pulse and my, my, he's like, what was done?
1:12:41
He's like, I see you got a backpack over that says track.
1:12:43
You know how to run, right? I'm like, yeah, He like, you
1:12:45
know how to breathe. He's like, calm down.
1:12:49
Wow. And it dropped from like 1.
1:12:50
I don't know what it was to what, but he thought it was
1:12:52
crashing. He's like, I'm like, I thought
1:12:54
you told me to relax. And so I'm like this and he's
1:12:57
like, look, it's going to be 30 minutes.
1:12:58
He's like you got 5 fingers every 5 minutes.
1:13:00
I'm going to tell you just take one finger away and the
1:13:02
ambulance is going to be here anyway.
1:13:03
So that was a whole other thing, but.
1:13:04
What a skill from this person I mean.
1:13:06
For sure completely calm. Trained has empathy.
1:13:09
Empathy for the victim. I mean, that's.
1:13:11
Right, yeah. And so get to the hospital and
1:13:14
this is the last part we can pivot, but I remember getting
1:13:17
put on the anyone that's been on the spine board.
1:13:19
It's not fun. Neck immobilized, looking up
1:13:21
just at lights and cutting clothes.
1:13:24
And I was all mad because I had a, a Canadian, a Pan Am sweater
1:13:29
getting cut off me and pants and the whole deal.
1:13:32
I'm just like, Oh my gosh, this is like super invasive.
1:13:34
And so the yard talk is like, Hey, son, like, do you know what
1:13:38
day it is? And I never started to cry.
1:13:40
I'm like, I don't. And I, I was full panic because
1:13:43
I was he's like, well, do you know who the president is?
1:13:46
I'm like, yes, He's like, well, do you know who you are?
1:13:49
And the medic told me in the way that The thing is like Westeck
1:13:53
is town called Ira Anne IRAAN, Texas town population.
1:13:59
I don't know what it is. And the the nurses, they still
1:14:00
follow me on Facebook. But it was named after an oil
1:14:03
baron's daughters, Ira and Anne. So I told Doctor Mike, I don't
1:14:08
know where I'm at, but I guess I got hit so hard I ended up in
1:14:10
Iran. I don't know if that's a good
1:14:11
joke now, because what's what's going on?
1:14:12
And that's just the whole ER room just starts busting up
1:14:15
laughing. And then we're off to the rest
1:14:18
of this. It's so hard.
1:14:19
It's me across the country of the world.
1:14:22
So now Fast forward back to when I got to IMG and this will
1:14:24
answer your question. I didn't think it was going to
1:14:26
affect my journey until I gave my first presentation back at
1:14:29
IMG. So Lauren asked me to to give a
1:14:31
talk on long jump and triple jump and, and check marks.
1:14:36
And like this is Exodus, we'll go.
1:14:37
I'm a proponent of a six step check.
1:14:39
And so I was presenting to the Chinese delegation that was
1:14:42
there because they wanted to send jumpers.
1:14:44
I will never forget the panic that set in.
1:14:47
I'm getting goosebles to get. It's just I didn't realize how
1:14:51
bad my concussion was until I gave that talk.
1:14:53
So I was trying to drive AI don't even remember what it was.
1:14:55
I was trying to drive a point home and I completely forgot
1:14:59
what I was talking about. And Lauren can see the look on
1:15:03
my face. And he kind of, he saved.
1:15:04
How close to removed from the accident was that?
1:15:07
Six months. Had you had anything leading up
1:15:10
to that? Of like, I kind of, yeah, like I
1:15:13
had family tell me like mood swings, temper, that sort of
1:15:16
thing. And so that couldn't go into
1:15:18
that too. I still deal with a lot of that,
1:15:20
but just. But the memory even now, like,
1:15:24
for example, I always tell plague people if if like, say
1:15:27
you and I were, you've seen me do it.
1:15:28
We were talking and you say something, I got to remember.
1:15:30
I literally text or e-mail myself.
1:15:32
So if I don't write it down, I will forget it.
1:15:35
And so people get mad at me. They're like, you're really
1:15:37
gonna pull your phone out? I'm like, sorry, it's a thing I
1:15:39
got to do to, you know what I mean?
1:15:40
And so those are one of those just strategies I have to use to
1:15:44
get through my day-to-day just because I still deal with it to
1:15:47
the state. But I truly thought at that
1:15:49
point, I'm like, you got to be effing kidding me.
1:15:51
I just volunteered. I finally got a job.
1:15:54
You're thinking not, oh, I'm screwing this presentation up.
1:15:56
You're thinking like, Oh my God, is this, is this it?
1:15:59
Can I, can I do the job? Because I can't remember 100%.
1:16:02
Exactly. And so so as time went on, I
1:16:06
felt less punch drunk, if you will.
1:16:08
But then I knew just from that environment there nothing bad,
1:16:12
nothing negative to say about there.
1:16:13
I just knew I loved coaching the pro group.
1:16:16
And I knew again, going kind of going back to the Brian thing,
1:16:19
the the big time, like I always felt like that's what I wanted.
1:16:22
And now I was like, crap, you got to be kidding me.
1:16:25
This, this, this is take it away.
1:16:26
And so got through the 15th season, Gianna and Dasha, they
1:16:32
meddled. It was cool.
1:16:34
And then I remember going back, I called mayor and I'm like,
1:16:37
Mike, you need to Get Me Out of here, dude.
1:16:39
Like I I can't deal with this high school thing.
1:16:42
And again, no offense, it was the nicest kids.
1:16:44
I still keep in touch with them this day.
1:16:45
But it was just like for my demeanor is not cut out for that
1:16:49
environment. Absolutely.
1:16:50
And it's not even like me being like a a hole or just like
1:16:53
tearing up. It's just like I'm the type
1:16:55
where it's like, if I tell you once cool, twice, third time we
1:17:00
probably got a problem because it's like either you don't care
1:17:02
enough or it's just this isn't for you, you know what I mean?
1:17:04
So I called Mike and he's like, yeah, he's like, let me, let me
1:17:09
call you. Give me a week, I'll call you
1:17:11
back. And rewinding back to when I was
1:17:13
at UC the first time, one of the clients I had family, Bornstein
1:17:17
family, best friends of the age of this day, Zach, the son, end
1:17:22
up, he was a Canadian Decathle. He ended up at UCLA, played
1:17:24
football there. And Mr. Bornstein Dean, he's a
1:17:27
big donor for UCLA athletics, for football and for track.
1:17:31
And so he called Dean and convinced him to put up enough
1:17:36
for a salary for me to come back and be the director of OPS.
1:17:39
So. So I moved back to California in
1:17:43
December of 14. Yeah.
1:17:45
I flew. I flew this time.
1:17:47
Yeah. So.
1:17:47
So December of 15, moved back to California, and Maynard told me
1:17:53
he's like, look, people know, you know.
1:17:56
Hold on. Any concern.
1:17:58
So you went back to be the director of OPS?
1:18:00
Yeah. Now you, you, you and people
1:18:02
around you, Maynard and other people have been very careful to
1:18:05
almost like, curate you in regards to this, this potential
1:18:08
future career. I'd be more concerned with
1:18:12
somebody who goes to become a director of OPS coming back into
1:18:14
coaching much less than someone who either gets out or goes to
1:18:17
high school or you know what I'm saying?
1:18:19
Yeah. It was more of a a financial
1:18:22
bridge to figure out what I was going to do, right.
1:18:25
And at the time too, I needed to get it back to LA because then I
1:18:28
was going through a whole lawsuit settlement with the
1:18:30
whole. So that was that's always like
1:18:32
to be a whole another show. But but to your question, I was
1:18:37
so upset that I thought I put in all this time and I'm not even
1:18:40
around the sport. I was like, so kind of the
1:18:43
planning again, right? I'm like, OK, go back and be the
1:18:46
director of OPS. You still have your timing
1:18:48
contacts. That's your that's your hedge.
1:18:51
And I made my mind up that I was going to give myself two years.
1:18:55
If I couldn't figure it out in two years, I was going to go
1:18:58
full time into the timing thing. And then I would just be Chris
1:19:01
Gescher, junior. Yeah, yeah, that's Chris and all
1:19:04
those guys. But yeah, but it's funny.
1:19:07
All that being said is that so you're one man is like, look, I
1:19:11
have strict policy in place. He's like you cannot be seen in
1:19:16
a coaching box. People know you now and I'm
1:19:19
like, OK, first I went to no one knows who the hell I am.
1:19:22
Now all the sudden he's like, you don't understand.
1:19:24
If you show up to any meets and you're talking to athletes, even
1:19:27
if you're asking them for the lunch order, someone's going to
1:19:30
take a picture and someone's going to turn you in.
1:19:31
And I this is the whole other world of coaching that I didn't
1:19:35
even know existed right? And so but.
1:19:37
But yeah, doctor OPS are allowed to take lunch orders.
1:19:40
Exactly right. And so it's.
1:19:42
A little paranoia on Mike's side, which I also understand,
1:19:45
but also right. Let's call it spade there.
1:19:47
Yeah, I mean, if people want to do a little deep dive, I think
1:19:49
it at the time he was dealing with the Boise State thing and
1:19:53
NCAA, you know, it's totally tangent.
1:19:56
I get what he's saying 100%. Well then why do you have a
1:19:58
director of OPS for current? Right.
1:20:00
So and so now insert John Frazier.
1:20:04
John Frazier saved my coaching career.
1:20:06
I told him that I he's doing a great job.
1:20:10
Yeah, I know love Frasier. And so at the time, Maynard had
1:20:13
brought Frasier to help him with the throws.
1:20:14
And so the whole so I get back to UCLA, Frasier was helping me
1:20:19
with the travel, all other stuff.
1:20:20
And then same question he asked that Rain asked me.
1:20:23
He's like, really, what do you want to do?
1:20:25
And I told him like, I put on this freaking time, I want to
1:20:28
coach. And so got through the 16th
1:20:30
season. Ironically, my first meet, first
1:20:34
national meet back with UCLA happened to be here in
1:20:37
Fayetteville. That's.
1:20:39
Funny, and so I didn't step foot in the Tyson indoor facility
1:20:42
once during that thing. But anyway, get back to that.
1:20:44
So so in the Fraser Ash at the end of seasons, like what do you
1:20:47
want to do? I'm like, I want to coach and
1:20:51
Mike's like, well, if you coach, that salary's gone.
1:20:55
Like I can't pay to be the director of OPS.
1:20:57
Like there's kind of this accountable coach can't do it.
1:21:00
And so at that time, settlement came through.
1:21:03
So I earmarked, I just say I earmarked $50,000.
1:21:07
I was like, this is what I'm budgeting for this year.
1:21:11
I'm going to give it a go. And Mike's like, Are you sure at
1:21:14
the time, bless his heart, like he and I bumped heads from time
1:21:17
to time, but he's he was always good to me.
1:21:18
Jack Hoyt was now the the associate head and jumps coach
1:21:21
at UCLA. And so Mike's like, I'll tell
1:21:24
you what, I'm not going to give you the deck back, but you can
1:21:28
have the men's and women's horizontal jumps.
1:21:30
And if this is what you want to do, go nuts and go from there.
1:21:34
And so had Isaiah Holmes, he ended up jumping 790 something.
1:21:39
Had Jesse Maduka, she jumped over 14 meters.
1:21:42
And so was able to, like I said before, was able to replicate it
1:21:45
now, not only getting people to meet and scoring, but doing it
1:21:49
again after the everything else. And so got to the 17th season.
1:21:54
And obviously things happened at UCLA when it went sideways with
1:21:58
the regime change. And that's where the falling out
1:22:01
happened with Mike. And like I said, I've tried
1:22:02
talking. We can get to that whole thing.
1:22:04
But yeah, ever since that went down, I haven't talked to him
1:22:06
since. But went to European under 20
1:22:11
threes with Jessie. She made the German team for
1:22:13
that. And then get a phone call from a
1:22:18
lady by the name of Amy Dean asking if I'd be interested to
1:22:21
move to or I'd be interested in the jump stop at Miami.
1:22:24
So life worked it out so. And now at the time I'm dating
1:22:28
my now wife, Kim. We were, I went to the interview
1:22:32
process. We were on vacation in Maui.
1:22:34
And Amy called like, hey, how about I'm gonna offer you the
1:22:37
job. You want to move to Miami?
1:22:38
I'm like, let me call you back. And so Kim and I, we were at
1:22:42
dinner and she's like, did she offer you the job?
1:22:45
I'm like, yeah, she's like, I could.
1:22:46
And we had only been dating not even a year at that point.
1:22:49
That's right. Yeah.
1:22:50
Yeah. Yeah.
1:22:50
And I could see she was excited for me, but then like kind of
1:22:53
confused. I'm like, would you want to go?
1:22:58
And she's like, yeah, I think I think so.
1:23:00
I'm like, OK, look, tell you what, you know my personality
1:23:03
now. And if people haven't picked up
1:23:04
on this, you'll get it. Now we literally left dinner,
1:23:07
We're supposed to go to some show.
1:23:09
And I had my iPad on the on the trip.
1:23:12
I downloaded the 3430 EU and I made her watch it.
1:23:17
And I'm like, This is why I want to go.
1:23:19
She's like, Oh my God, that's your personality.
1:23:21
She's like, we have to go. And so.
1:23:24
Yeah. And so I called Coach Dean back
1:23:27
and I'm like, yeah, I'm. I'm coming.
1:23:28
So. And that that was summer of 17.
1:23:31
I've met Kim. Either had dinner or me and you
1:23:34
and her. Not the ones that suited me.
1:23:36
Yeah. Yeah.
1:23:36
Dinner or drinks. I remember here.
1:23:38
We, you know we. We're in brought to.
1:23:40
You and I've just, you know what?
1:23:43
A smart, obviously beautiful young woman.
1:23:46
You know, Rob, I look at you and I'm like, you are a blessed
1:23:51
individual, my friends and I love that.
1:23:54
You know, this was years ago now.
1:23:56
You guys were dating. I don't think you were even
1:23:58
engaged at that time. I think it was just serious
1:23:59
dating. It was like, yeah, like I'm so
1:24:01
glad that it continues to blossom today and that you're
1:24:04
married. I love that.
1:24:06
OK, so you're at Miami and you're with one of my favorite.
1:24:10
You know, I know I say that a lot because I love tracking
1:24:11
right coaches, but Amy is just, I don't know, man.
1:24:15
I mean, when you look in the dictionary under the word
1:24:17
leader, Amy's pictures there and she's so humble.
1:24:22
You know, she'll be the first one she'd be telling me to shut
1:24:24
up right now. All these gushing over there.
1:24:27
Blessed to have her on the podcast.
1:24:28
She's been on the show before as.
1:24:29
Well. And what she has done that
1:24:32
impresses me the most in your part, in your part of this, Rob,
1:24:35
is for for many reasons, understandable reasons in
1:24:39
regards to I know where you're going.
1:24:40
With this cost of living. And things like that, right.
1:24:42
But she's been through some some assistant coaches there.
1:24:44
That's nothing new. Amy would.
1:24:47
No, that's right. And.
1:24:49
Again, there's a lot of reason there's, you know, again, cost
1:24:50
of living, etcetera, etcetera, things like that.
1:24:53
But she has continued to win and coach at a high level.
1:24:57
Even with you, Devin, gosh, I'm missing 20 other guys and gals.
1:25:02
All go through like if you just think like for me being selfish.
1:25:05
So it's like if you go through it, the coaches have big jobs.
1:25:09
Todd Lane. Yeah, Jim.
1:25:10
And on right. Yeah, Jim and on again.
1:25:13
Gerald Langley. That's right.
1:25:14
Jim. Yeah, Keith Hurston, I'm sure.
1:25:16
And Calvin, Keith and I. Knew I was missing like 100
1:25:19
other. People, no, but just thinking
1:25:20
just like just the jumps coaches only to come through there and
1:25:24
where we are at now, I mean speaks volumes to just the yeah,
1:25:27
that's not only just identifier of talent.
1:25:29
You could argue you know what I mean just from that way.
1:25:32
Right, all these people and you're right.
1:25:34
Well, I forgot more than half. Keith loving the dead good
1:25:36
friend have continued to go on in the in the career.
1:25:40
It's weird because not that Miami is or was a jumping.
1:25:45
You know you hear that term sometimes a jumping point off to
1:25:47
something bigger. Miami is big bro, It's huge.
1:25:50
It's unbelievable. It's an amazing school, but I'm
1:25:52
just always impressed that with a different personality that
1:25:55
comes in, she is still able to make it work with the staff.
1:25:58
The athletes don't respond and it's just impressive to me when
1:26:02
somebody can lead through change.
1:26:04
It's it's easier. Not easy, easier when things are
1:26:07
consistent. Consistency is unbelievably
1:26:09
important. You know that as a trash and as
1:26:11
an athlete leading through change, Bro, that's hard.
1:26:16
And she has done it amazingly. So love her.
1:26:21
Love her to death. So how long were you at Miami?
1:26:24
So I was there seven years. Yeah.
1:26:26
So how'd you enjoy that? It was fun and it was just one
1:26:29
of those things where I got to grow, you know what I mean?
1:26:32
Where it was just like it wasn't that there are any limiters and
1:26:36
then, you know, people have a lot of opinions about like you,
1:26:38
you brought up. But Dean was awesome to me.
1:26:40
And again, she was firm but fair, you know what I mean?
1:26:44
It was like, and, and I and people on our stabs that we were
1:26:49
on at the same time would say just like, Oh well, you're the
1:26:51
favorite. I'm like, no, it's just you, you
1:26:55
guys know me. I'm pretty unfiltered.
1:26:56
I'm trying being trying to be pretty good and PG on this whole
1:26:58
thing. But it's like, and like with
1:27:00
her, it was like she gave me a, a pretty long leash, if you
1:27:04
will, like after the first season.
1:27:06
So it's just obviously like Michelle Afflete was huge for
1:27:10
me, like just from the female side, just national champ
1:27:14
direct, all that other good stuff.
1:27:15
And then obviously Russ and all the other jumpers that I had
1:27:18
there. But like she gave me the
1:27:21
resources that we had to go and get me to where I am now.
1:27:25
And I'll be forever grateful because it's just one of those
1:27:27
things where up until a few years ago, I mean, let's be
1:27:31
honest, like Miami track wasn't really known for the the men's
1:27:34
team other than the football players that were on the team,
1:27:36
you know what I mean? And so.
1:27:37
No, that has been a 180 that probably should be studied
1:27:41
because it's one thing to start a program from zero.
1:27:44
That's amazing. You know, Texas A&M University
1:27:46
in San Antonio is about to start a program from scratch that the
1:27:49
the person that gets that job is going to have a a heck of a road
1:27:52
ahead of them. But you know, they get
1:27:53
resources. It's amazing.
1:27:55
The Miami one is interesting as a case study because you had a
1:27:57
successful, very successful women's program motoring right
1:28:00
along and you had a men's program, football coaches, the
1:28:05
odd kid here and there, and now Miami men's program it's.
1:28:09
Pretty good, right? No, and take a lot.
1:28:12
Of those athletes that that's an interesting dichotomy of two
1:28:15
teams but same coaching staff. Sure, and that's The thing is
1:28:18
like where that's where I give her a ton of credit, where I
1:28:21
mean I'll have myself in the back a little bit like between
1:28:23
myself and the associate head coach, Coach young, like it was
1:28:27
our guys, you know what I mean? And so we I mean we were ended
1:28:30
up being top ten my last year there.
1:28:32
That's what got me to Arkansas and it's just one of those
1:28:34
things where the kids, it's just the kids, the athletes showed up
1:28:38
when they did and like that was I don't forget to it.
1:28:41
That was probably one of the hardest things for me to do.
1:28:44
And that's one of the lessons that Coach Frazier taught me.
1:28:47
It was like, you know, always the place better than it was
1:28:50
when you got there. And I feel like that's what was
1:28:52
the case. But it's like you forget like we
1:28:55
build pretty close relationships like with the athletes and
1:28:57
stuff. And so some of them are pretty
1:29:00
upset. And it was like I, when you go
1:29:03
into someone's living room and I'm coached out there where
1:29:05
it's, you always tell them like you don't plan on leaving.
1:29:08
Like it is not, it's not your intent to leave.
1:29:10
But I've always been pretty honest where it's like I, you
1:29:13
can look at my resume. The only time I stayed somewhere
1:29:15
short was IMG just because I was like obvious speech.
1:29:18
It wasn't that. But it's like for me, I'm home.
1:29:21
I, I, I love it here. And like, I joked with Jeffy
1:29:23
when I saw him in Paris, where I was like, I never thought in a
1:29:26
million years he was leaving here again.
1:29:28
You know what I mean? So Arkansas was not even on my
1:29:31
yeah yeah radar as far as like destination jobs.
1:29:34
When you're at Miami, where are you at at that point in your
1:29:37
life in regards to coaching education and what I mean by
1:29:41
that I, you know, I've explained this 100 times and I will
1:29:43
continue. I really believe in this.
1:29:44
There's formal and informal. None are more important than
1:29:47
there formal be in our USATF level ones, level twos,
1:29:50
USTFCCCA, Altus, things like that.
1:29:53
Informal is yeah, I called up Calvin Robinson was like, hey
1:29:57
man, what have you done with jumpers here in the past?
1:29:59
Think about this. I'm struggling here.
1:30:00
Those kind of the peer-to-peer. Where are you at this point at
1:30:04
Miami in? Regards to Miami, so I mean I
1:30:07
literally would talk to Raina weekly if not every.
1:30:09
That's pretty good coach in education.
1:30:11
Right. And then my other ace, Jeremy
1:30:14
Fisher Fish, I mentioned him earlier.
1:30:16
So Fish took news like just same timing from when I was Brian.
1:30:20
So back when USA Track and Field still had the emerging elite
1:30:24
coaches program, I was in one of those first classes with him.
1:30:28
So it was just and ever since then, so is fish.
1:30:32
Fish and rain have been my 2:00 I've always talked to.
1:30:34
He's been on the podcast as well, by the way.
1:30:36
Yeah. And what?
1:30:37
And it was, you know, by product of a Wisconsin connection.
1:30:40
You know, you went to Wisconsin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:30:43
Right. Yeah.
1:30:43
So it's always running, Yeah. He, you know what's interesting
1:30:46
and you know, I'm not in day-to-day coach anymore.
1:30:48
Obviously I talk to coaches on a on a, you know, day-to-day,
1:30:51
every day, hundreds a day. You know, Jeremy, and maybe
1:30:55
because I was in it, because I was a big, you know, this, I
1:30:57
think you probably remember I was a big coaching education,
1:30:59
like I did all the Level 2 and all that kind.
1:31:01
Of stuff, right? Yeah, and and Jeremy, like I
1:31:04
remember the first was it the first?
1:31:06
Yeah, first one I did level 2 was Boise State.
1:31:08
And Jeremy was just finishing up his athletic career and oh wow,
1:31:12
Boo made him his test dummy. Meaning like every example he
1:31:15
got right now, Jeremy do the double leg hop now Jeremy do the
1:31:17
single leg. And I remember going like.
1:31:19
That's funny. I.
1:31:19
Was like, who is this kid who's this student athletic, you know,
1:31:21
and it's like, Oh yeah, he jumped 7 something and blah,
1:31:23
blah, blah. And it was really kind of the
1:31:25
hot thing. And I, I don't know, like I feel
1:31:29
like he's not getting his just dues today in 2026.
1:31:34
And that concerns me because he is one of our not only
1:31:37
knowledgeable coaches out there, but he teaches really well.
1:31:40
And that's a skill that we don't talk about a lot.
1:31:43
We talk about people knowing a lot of stuff, yeah, but like a
1:31:46
Bouche exonator who can teach it, Yeah.
1:31:49
And Jeremy's got that. And so I just, I concern myself
1:31:52
with our coaching education as it relates to.
1:31:55
So I can go to two things and and Boo is another one.
1:31:57
Boo, I was e-mail the crap out of him when jobs are open.
1:31:59
He's always been good to me too. And so I was, I don't want to
1:32:03
speak to Fish, but I would just say kind of going sideways to
1:32:06
the coach's education thing. I mean, I have my Level 3 and
1:32:09
friends, I did the Level 3 in the jumps, but I didn't do the
1:32:13
final project, so I didn't credit for it.
1:32:15
And then same thing from the coaches association side.
1:32:17
I have most of all of them you can get.
1:32:19
So I've done the more formal side and the informal side, like
1:32:22
you said. But but I think think for for
1:32:25
Fish, he just likes to coach. I mean, just from where you see,
1:32:29
just he follows his social and stuff.
1:32:30
And now he's got 2 beautiful daughters and Mary, do you know
1:32:33
what I mean? And and I think 2 again, you
1:32:35
know, speaking out of school, that's A and then.
1:32:37
Oh, sorry, no. No, no, I'm sorry I interrupt
1:32:40
you. That's a good point.
1:32:42
He may be a guy, and I can't remember he was on the show and
1:32:44
I can't remember if I asked this or not.
1:32:45
He may be a guy who loves to coach, but he's also very
1:32:48
talented teaching. And he's like, yeah, I know you
1:32:50
want me to teach more, but, man, I just love my toes in the sand,
1:32:53
brother. I love being out there with the
1:32:54
athlete. And that's because those are two
1:32:55
different things. You know, that that may be it.
1:32:57
Yeah. Yeah, and I think too, again,
1:32:59
not speaking for him, I think also now having two young girls
1:33:03
changes things. You don't want to be on the road
1:33:04
and all that sort of stuff. And.
1:33:06
Then they were riding him like a dog.
1:33:09
Ichi. Yeah, that's right.
1:33:10
I remember I was on a plane with him once and we talked about
1:33:12
that. I was like, Jeremy, you got to
1:33:14
be careful. Brother and then and then the
1:33:16
last thing too. Then with the the training
1:33:19
center not getting shut down, but getting sold to the Chula
1:33:21
Vista, obviously with him and Coach Mack that changed their
1:33:23
that's true things. You know what I mean?
1:33:25
So that's right. Yeah.
1:33:26
So not speaking for those guys, but that that would be, yeah, my
1:33:28
guess. Yeah, Yeah, yeah.
1:33:30
That's a that's a good point. All right, So seven years at
1:33:32
Miami, you're doing coaching education.
1:33:34
You got a lot of peer coaching education as well, right?
1:33:39
Why and how do we go to Arkansas?
1:33:43
So the so the third or fourth person I didn't mention, I
1:33:46
always moved super close with Petros and so he I can't.
1:33:52
So basically, so there's now we're in the middle of summer.
1:33:55
I passed on a couple other opportunities and Miami was
1:33:59
trying to get me more money. And then you know how the whole
1:34:01
song against the stuff. And again, at that point Dean
1:34:04
was fighting administration to do stuff and again, nothing bad
1:34:08
to say about Miami. So couple jobs came up.
1:34:11
I passed on them. One was because Kim didn't want
1:34:15
to move to picture her place and don't want to mention where it
1:34:17
was, but he he loves boasting my you know, what's about it every
1:34:20
single time. But then I get a call from from
1:34:24
Petros. And when you take that back, no,
1:34:28
excuse me, Mike Eskin at North Carolina.
1:34:30
I want to talk to you, Mike. So Mike and I were in the same
1:34:32
emerging class. So he calls me.
1:34:35
He's like, hey, and you know, track coaches love to gossip or
1:34:38
hear what they hear, right? Who would?
1:34:41
Who wouldn't do that? He's like, so So what are you
1:34:43
hearing? Because he always knew like I
1:34:44
was not that. And I was never actively
1:34:46
looking. Whenever Mike called, there was
1:34:48
always he's always trying to help me in a good way.
1:34:51
He's always been good to me. And he's like, hey, he's like,
1:34:54
So what we've been hearing about the job things, I'm like, oh, I
1:34:56
hear such and such is going to this place.
1:34:58
Such and such is going that way. And, and at the time that
1:35:02
everyone knew, like coach of Alto was retiring.
1:35:05
And he's like, what are you hearing about Kansas State?
1:35:07
Like, man, I I haven't heard much.
1:35:08
And he's like, OK, that's weird. He's like, well, he's like,
1:35:11
well, I had someone gave me a call to reach out to see if
1:35:14
you're interested in a job. And I'm like the head job.
1:35:17
What? What?
1:35:17
No, no, no, no, no, no, just in general, like he he goes, well,
1:35:21
someone's asking me to reach out to see if you're interested in
1:35:23
something. And that April Fool's is good.
1:35:25
He's like, yeah. He's like, he's like, what do
1:35:28
you think of Fayetteville? I'm like Fayetteville, like we
1:35:30
talked about, he's like, well, it's going to get announced
1:35:33
tomorrow that Travis is getting the K State job and Buck asked
1:35:38
me to reach out if you've interested in in Arkansas.
1:35:43
I'm like, you've got to be shitting me.
1:35:45
He's like, no, I'm, I'm dead serious.
1:35:46
I'm like, dude, you gotta be kidding.
1:35:48
So about 10-15 minutes later, Petros calls me.
1:35:54
He's like, hey, I'm like, what's up?
1:35:56
He's like, do you hear? I'm like, well, I just heard
1:35:58
something and well, did you hear?
1:36:01
Yeah, I'm like, well, I'm like, what did you hear?
1:36:03
He's like, he goes, do you need, do you need to even say
1:36:06
anything? Like do you need me to make a
1:36:07
call for you? I'm like, sure.
1:36:10
And then I can't remember if I called Reyna or if he called me.
1:36:13
He's like, hey, I'm like, what in the hell is going on?
1:36:15
Like it's like people that know me, I'm not a big person on the
1:36:18
phone. But it was just like, I'll think
1:36:20
he goes, do I need to make a call?
1:36:22
I'm like, please. And so this was Thursday.
1:36:28
Travis was announced. It's Friday.
1:36:31
Buck was on vacation in Massachusetts.
1:36:33
He sends me a text like, hey, I'm back in town Monday.
1:36:36
I need to speak to Amy 1st and then I'm going to give you a
1:36:39
call. Cool.
1:36:41
Saturday turns to Sunday. My phone's silent.
1:36:44
I'm like, this sucks. Like it's just like any other
1:36:47
job, like trying to get my hopes up, like this is bad.
1:36:50
And then Monday morning, I'm on my way to the office and Dean
1:36:54
calls. She's like, hey, turn your
1:36:56
ringer because we always have our ringers off.
1:36:57
She's like, she's like, I just talked to Buck and I'm like,
1:37:04
she's like, oh, like I'm like she's she's like he's and you
1:37:06
know, if anyone was Chris, she's like, he's going to call you.
1:37:08
I'm like, thanks. And so talked to Buck that
1:37:11
night. But then obviously it's the
1:37:12
middle of the Korean season. I think it was July getting
1:37:15
ready for her to go to Paris with Russ Robinson.
1:37:18
And so just a lot of stuff is going on and talk to Buck for
1:37:21
probably like 90 minutes. Anyone that knows Buck, just his
1:37:24
personality coming through the phone and we had that connection
1:37:28
going back to New England from Long Island.
1:37:30
His family grew up on the water. I think the first 30 minutes of
1:37:33
our conversation is what we talked about on the beginning of
1:37:35
this podcast and just the connection to the water and this
1:37:38
whole sort of thing. And he got into things like.
1:37:40
So anyone that was bug, he's like, so I got this.
1:37:43
I got an opening. You interested?
1:37:45
And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, well, I need to
1:37:48
make some more calls. I'll call you back.
1:37:50
And I'm like, OK, cool. And he'll go before I go.
1:37:52
He's like, Doug, Case is going to call you.
1:37:54
You got to talk to Case before you do anything.
1:37:56
So I'm like, OK, just want to let you know I'm flying to
1:37:58
Dallas for some home visits. I can.
1:38:02
We just, he's like, yeah. So Case calls me like 30 minutes
1:38:07
later. He and I talk for an hour and
1:38:09
I'm like, this just sounds awesome.
1:38:12
Did you know Doug before this? In passing, because one of the
1:38:15
things like, and even like even with Buck, because it's like
1:38:17
kind of what I've talked about before.
1:38:20
Even as a young coach, I hated bugging people at meets because
1:38:23
I knew they were working. And then and then I was always
1:38:26
the type to where I go to conventions and everyone thought
1:38:28
I was the introvert where they're like, Oh my God, you
1:38:30
don't shut up type of a thing just cuz how you are at at a
1:38:33
meet. And so for me, it was like I
1:38:35
knew of them, but the only connections were, yeah.
1:38:38
I need to reach out to Doug for the show as well cuz it was
1:38:41
interesting. I had Chris Johnson on when
1:38:43
Lance Harper retired, you know, cuz you know Arkansas.
1:38:46
There's many great programs out there and lots of them are great
1:38:50
for different reasons. There is just just something
1:38:53
about Arkansas. I mean when you have a Brazilian
1:38:55
national champions and you have a godfather like John McDonald
1:38:59
in. Your no for sure.
1:39:00
And you know, Lance Harder doesn't get enough credit in my
1:39:03
opinion. Lance is unbelievable and an
1:39:05
amazing human being, by the way, right.
1:39:08
So when I had Chris on about hey, so you're going to replace
1:39:11
Lance harder at the universe. It was a great conversation.
1:39:15
When I met Doug, I visited several years ago and and I
1:39:19
remember going by Doug's office and I was like Doug, no one
1:39:23
talks, no one knows who you are like no one's talking about you,
1:39:26
but man, you just secretly produced freaking champions dog.
1:39:29
He's just he's like the silent assassin in my opinion, and it
1:39:32
may be just I was wondered. I've never had to.
1:39:34
I had to ask a few people like I wonder if if he's, I'll say
1:39:37
quiet and unknown to me because you know, he's like, who the
1:39:39
Hell's Mike, you know, Or is that his?
1:39:41
Is that, is that him? And he's like, and I've been
1:39:43
told many times, no, no, that's him.
1:39:44
He's a quiet. Guy he a quiet guy.
1:39:46
It's awesome. I would love to pick his brain.
1:39:48
Like, OK, you know, Doug, you're taking over an amazing program
1:39:51
from Bucky, who took over from McDonald's.
1:39:53
I mean, right? That that's a it's humbling.
1:39:55
Used to feel, yeah. And that's.
1:39:56
Yeah. And the thing for me is like,
1:40:00
like you said, the history, like in the history of Arkansas, to
1:40:03
my knowledge, I'm only the the 4th jumps coach ever here.
1:40:07
So working back I got giant shoes filled.
1:40:08
So it's Dick Travis, Dick Lucas 1st and Mario Satania.
1:40:12
Oh yeah. It's that you?
1:40:14
Know what I'm saying? So it's like, so it's like 3-3
1:40:17
giants in the sport. Wait, yeah, some somebody on the
1:40:19
men's side. Remember, we're separate.
1:40:21
But who was before Dick? I know he's there for a long
1:40:23
time, but he can't be the first. I don't know who, if they even
1:40:26
had that before Dick Miles had. To although that is kind of
1:40:31
where you think of like, well, for guys like me and you, that
1:40:34
is where we think of like when Arkansas track starts, it's
1:40:36
like, oh, Eric Walder and those guys.
1:40:38
Right. But it's and it's wild and mean.
1:40:41
That is a thing of a lineage though.
1:40:42
I I'm with no. And that's what I'm saying.
1:40:43
It's just like, I don't even see myself as that.
1:40:45
And it's like I have to pinch myself every day when I'm here
1:40:47
cuz it's like I grew up reading crap about crap stuff about
1:40:51
Coach Booth and all that sort of stuff.
1:40:52
And it's just like it's humbling.
1:40:54
I remember when I walked into our O'meara, our high
1:40:57
performance center, you look at the top 10 and I'm just like,
1:41:01
it's unbelievable. And it's like, I'm happy.
1:41:03
Just keep people on the list. And it's just it's humbling to
1:41:05
be here. But the same time too, like you
1:41:07
said, the legacy and like, I mean, you can't see outside
1:41:09
right now, but they're doing our national championship flag
1:41:13
raising ceremony next week, next Friday.
1:41:15
So they get this whole like hoopla thing.
1:41:17
How do you, I mean, there's other programs that not many,
1:41:22
but there are other programs I'm imagining that have comparable
1:41:26
top 10s just stay in the long and triple and high and stuff
1:41:28
like that as Arkansas does. Arkansas has a great one.
1:41:31
I'm not putting it down, but I assume, I don't know.
1:41:36
I don't know. There's other programs that have
1:41:37
had amazing jumpers and things like that.
1:41:41
But what's it like coming into a program where you look at the
1:41:47
top ten and you're like, oh, so to get a kid on there, they
1:41:52
basically got to be a national champion, and that doesn't
1:41:54
actually guarantee you they got to be damn near an Olympian to
1:41:59
be on. The top 10 How?
1:42:00
Do you like internally? How do you like?
1:42:04
You've done an amazing job in a very oddball career, and I mean
1:42:08
that in a positive manner, not a very straight manner, right?
1:42:11
And you've coached some amazing athletes and been around amazing
1:42:13
athletes, Brian included in that conversation.
1:42:16
Now it's a different rung than the ladder, though.
1:42:19
How do you internalize it? Like, oh, I've got to step my
1:42:22
game. It would be hard for somebody to
1:42:24
look at you and say, hey, you need to step your game up.
1:42:25
Like, brother, he's not a lot. What are you talking about?
1:42:27
Step your game. He's at national champs.
1:42:28
But you do you have to step your game up.
1:42:29
How have you internalized that? Well, that's a good segue and,
1:42:32
and this is me being a little bit open.
1:42:33
I hope this isn't turn into like locker room art.
1:42:36
So I'll, I'll be honest, like going into this last indoors my
1:42:40
guy. I'm glad my guy showed up
1:42:41
because this this year I only have 6 athletes in my group.
1:42:44
Last year I inherited 15 and so I just wanted my two guys to do
1:42:49
something because I knew we were going to have a good meet.
1:42:50
And if you took those points out of it, it'd be kind of weird
1:42:53
being on a national championship team and you didn't contribute.
1:42:55
So I mean, that's the first part to that question.
1:42:58
The second part, going backwards to last year, it was, if I'm
1:43:02
being really honest, it was over.
1:43:04
Not overwhelming being here, number one is humbling #2 just
1:43:07
when we just talked about the, the chair that I'm sitting in
1:43:10
that was in here before me, some big ass shoes to fill, you know
1:43:13
what I mean? And it's just like, I've never
1:43:14
seen myself as like that, you know what I'm saying?
1:43:16
Like, I mean, I know whatever. But that being said, I was sick
1:43:20
to my stomach last year because indoors we lost getting run off
1:43:24
the track by our lovely rivals. So that was one.
1:43:29
We would have won that meet if we had got run off the track and
1:43:33
then Fast forward outdoors. We lose by a point and it made
1:43:37
me sick because both I hate to say we we talked about it.
1:43:41
So Marcus no hided in the vault he was in.
1:43:43
He would have been second behind Peyton and then Scotty no hided
1:43:47
in the high jump. I never had a meet in the world
1:43:50
where I had two athletes like no height, you know what I mean?
1:43:52
So for me, I'm like, Oh my God, this is I didn't.
1:43:56
We kind of sensed Buck wanted to retire.
1:43:57
I'm like, I totally just effed up this dude's swan song, you
1:44:01
know what I mean? And so and the bucks credit, he
1:44:04
knew I was going through it. He's like, this is not your
1:44:06
fault. Shit happens at meats.
1:44:08
We've had second, third, fourth place trophies.
1:44:10
Look all over here. It's like don't think of it that
1:44:12
way. But so like think of it last
1:44:14
year in the my group, I think indoors scored 1820 points and
1:44:19
then outdoors was like half that.
1:44:21
Now I was happy to score eight points at this indoor meet when
1:44:23
we scored 73 1/2, you know what I mean?
1:44:26
But it's one of those things where it's like it's success is
1:44:29
fleeting and that sort of thing. But to go back to your question,
1:44:31
it's just it's been really, really humbling here and just so
1:44:35
great for my family because like it's bizarre being in a town,
1:44:38
like we literally get stopped. Like, hey, coach, what do you
1:44:41
think of Fayetteville? Hey coach, nice to meet last
1:44:42
weekend. It's.
1:44:43
Crazy. It's the cool it's it's trust
1:44:45
me, man, I got an ego as big as anybody.
1:44:47
It's like it's a nice ego massage walking to the airport.
1:44:49
Hey coach and like, what does your family think of
1:44:51
Fayetteville? What what's how's your son?
1:44:53
And it's, it's the coolest freaking thing.
1:44:55
And it's just like one of those things where being a California
1:44:58
guy born and raised, I've only known big cities.
1:45:00
And so the small town vibe, it's cool and it's just saying it's
1:45:04
my my friends are coming out for the Georgia Arkansas football
1:45:07
game. They think I'm full of crap.
1:45:08
They're like, there's no way you love it there.
1:45:10
Like I truly aside from all the cool tracks, if I love it here.
1:45:14
And it's just one of those things where, but to your point,
1:45:17
it's just trophies are the expectation and and that's
1:45:20
that's what it is. So one more question then I want
1:45:23
to pivot to something for the last few minutes here.
1:45:26
Exactly what you just said there.
1:45:27
Trophies are expected there. I wonder how much of an effect,
1:45:32
and it could be 5%, but you know, out of all your training,
1:45:35
100 percent, 5% is big. How many athletes go to Arkansas
1:45:39
and improve only because it's Arkansas?
1:45:42
Now, you could say that's crazy, Mike.
1:45:43
No one just does that. But because when people go to
1:45:46
Arkansas, another program, I'm not putting down any other
1:45:49
program. Maybe if you're a hurdler and
1:45:50
you go to Florida, it's like when you go to Florida, you
1:45:52
expect to be an Olympian at Arkansas because trophies are
1:45:56
expected. I wonder how many kids step up
1:46:01
because that. OK, here's the reason I say.
1:46:03
That both ways. Maybe that's but I think about
1:46:07
like a classroom. If you teach up to the smartest
1:46:09
kid in the classroom, even the bottom kids will move up.
1:46:11
If you teach down to the lowest kid, even the smartest kid will
1:46:14
will be not as smart. So I think about like, oh, the
1:46:18
kids that come in there, you're obviously getting talented kids.
1:46:21
You know, to to for the get go because you have to.
1:46:24
But there's like, oh, you know what, it's unacceptable to get
1:46:28
second place here. It's unacceptable to get no
1:46:31
heights, etcetera. It's like, and those things
1:46:32
happen. You're right, but OK, well then
1:46:34
that's the last time that'll ever happen.
1:46:36
I just wonder how much that mentality, because mental side
1:46:38
is important, how much how much that mentality plays into some
1:46:41
percentage of improvement. It's not a, not a.
1:46:43
Man, not a man. No, no, no.
1:46:44
And like and and last year Coach Buck talked about it and that's
1:46:47
all Coach Case would talk about during our team meetings where
1:46:49
it's just like the only things we tend to talk about.
1:46:52
I hope this isn't like an insider knowledge.
1:46:54
You could probably guess all we talk about are the championship
1:46:57
needs. Everything else is a preamble.
1:46:59
Yeah. And it's just like, yes, see if
1:47:01
you go do this performance, go validate your performance type
1:47:03
of the thing because. That meeting I had with Buck was
1:47:06
actually pretty instrumental too, because Buck, Buck, he
1:47:09
slammed his hand down on his desk and he goes, Mike, I'm
1:47:12
trying to put on this is when I don't know if it's still going
1:47:14
on. When he was trying to do the
1:47:14
relay meet, He's like I'm trying to put on the world.
1:47:16
'S best while ago relay. Meet and I'm trying to win
1:47:19
championships and I'm trying to put kids to the Olympic.
1:47:21
I mean, it was like, oh, that's what you think it's about?
1:47:24
God, it's the whole thing. Yeah.
1:47:26
And that's what people. I mean, there's two things from
1:47:29
outside looking in, people don't realize we're still a split
1:47:32
program. No offense to the other women's
1:47:33
staff. They're awesome.
1:47:34
They're cool to us, but we're completely autonomous from one
1:47:38
another. And then two, it truly is a team
1:47:42
thing. Like we're not just a, I mean
1:47:45
this you'll say, yeah, we're principal now.
1:47:47
Like not just this principal, not just this distance school,
1:47:49
not just a jump school, not just a combined event school.
1:47:51
Like I said, we're, we are not a throw school.
1:47:53
We don't have throwing events. But, but, but I think the cool
1:47:56
statistic from indoors was I think we qualified 18 athletes
1:48:00
to meet 21 if you include the relays in the 11 events that we
1:48:05
had athletes entered, we had an athlete score in every single
1:48:09
event, which is wild when you think about that, especially at
1:48:12
a national at ANC AA indoor meet, you know what I mean?
1:48:14
It's. It's crazy.
1:48:15
World's toughest. I, I, I made this comment.
1:48:17
I don't pay attention much to the athletes anymore.
1:48:19
Like I don't look at the list or anything.
1:48:21
Like I right, when I look at like the qualifies for NCAA's,
1:48:24
you know, because I'm an old sprints hurdles guy, I go and
1:48:26
look at like, oh, what was the fastest time in the 60s?
1:48:28
Oh, who's got the hurdlers today?
1:48:29
You know, like, you know, like I was paying attention to that
1:48:31
Sanford hurdler and stuff like that, right.
1:48:33
But, but I still, you know, I'm on Twitter everyday.
1:48:35
So I still see what good athletes are doing when the meat
1:48:38
goes off and finalizes everything.
1:48:39
And I saw a tweet or something about the did you go 1 and 2 and
1:48:43
800? Is that right?
1:48:44
I know it's a champion. Yeah.
1:48:45
I was like, you know, what's the think about Arkansas?
1:48:47
I didn't hear anything about those guys all stinking year.
1:48:50
I didn't know, you know they had half milers and here they go one
1:48:52
and freaking 2 now, you know, paying attention to.
1:48:54
It no and. And stuff like that, man, that's
1:48:57
what it's crazy. Yeah, like.
1:48:59
Rivaldo Marshall, so he was second in that race.
1:49:01
He's the past NCAA indoor champion in the 8, his outdoor
1:49:05
PD's 145 something. And then Tyrese, the one that
1:49:08
won. He made the world championship
1:49:10
team for Jamaica last year. He ran. 143 a lot of.
1:49:13
It I'm sure people don't talk, but here's the other wild thing.
1:49:16
Case coaches, everything from the 800 down.
1:49:18
Those are cases guys, you know what I'm saying?
1:49:20
So it's like, and so it's just again, it's just it's been a lot
1:49:23
of fun and the vibe on the team is just not that.
1:49:26
You know, obviously each team has like its own personality.
1:49:29
And again, like, I know I'm putting a lot on myself last
1:49:31
year being like the new guy last year, but like the vibe of this
1:49:34
year's team is just so different because with some people moving
1:49:37
on for various reasons, just the vibe, like you made a comment
1:49:41
earlier, it may have kind of stuck out where like we don't
1:49:45
have any. I mean, you can argue there's
1:49:47
now with the roster changes and that can be in the segue like an
1:49:49
SEC on the men's side, we're capped at 35.
1:49:52
Like there really aren't any donkeys on our team per SE.
1:49:55
If you think about it like and like we're not arguing, but
1:50:00
we're having pretty strong debates trying to figure out
1:50:01
what 27 are we going to send to the SEC meet when we're going to
1:50:05
or outdoors, it's a 30. Like for example, last year we
1:50:07
only take 30 to the SEC meet and we qualified 30 something to the
1:50:11
West prelim. Well, let's talk about that.
1:50:13
We got like 5 minutes left here. Sure.
1:50:16
And I like to, you know, here near near the end of these
1:50:18
podcast interviews, I like to start doing kind of like a pick
1:50:20
your brain type of thing. You you brought up 35.
1:50:23
That's interesting to me. You know, I was an SEC guy.
1:50:24
I coached the Mississippi State for a couple years and you know,
1:50:27
I'm an SEC Homer. You know nothing.
1:50:29
I always say if there's a tiddlywinks national champion,
1:50:31
someone from the SEC is going to win it.
1:50:33
You know, it's just AI think they can do no wrong.
1:50:35
What, what is your thoughts that you can share and why is the SEC
1:50:41
handicapping themselves at 35 versus 45 for the rest of the
1:50:44
country? It's going to be hard, obviously
1:50:45
not impossible. It's going to be hard for us,
1:50:49
the SEC teams to beat a Big 12 and Big 10s that are going to go
1:50:52
45. Why in the world?
1:50:54
So let me sidestep that a little bit.
1:50:57
So I, I think how do I answer this?
1:51:00
So number one, just because there's 35 doesn't mean it's 35
1:51:04
scholarships. Just because it's 45 doesn't
1:51:05
mean it's 45 scholarships. Where where it hurts us, we
1:51:08
can't just we can't park people anymore.
1:51:10
It's the roster size. But that's your roster, Cap.
1:51:12
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm correct. Regardless, I know everybody's
1:51:14
going to make decisions if they're going to do 1
1:51:16
scholarship for 35 or 45, right? I've done with just your roster.
1:51:19
You go, it's hard 30. 5 right and so I.
1:51:22
Heard I think this is ridiculous.
1:51:25
I heard if you have a javelin thrower you can't like take your
1:51:29
third pole vault or off the indoor roster and put the
1:51:31
javelin guy on the outdoor. He has to carry.
1:51:33
That's not true, OK. OK, that's not true.
1:51:35
OK, OK. Yeah, each each roster is
1:51:37
independent to one another. Cross indoor.
1:51:39
Outdoor. Yeah.
1:51:40
So for example if like we have like 4 guys that have outdoor
1:51:42
only eligibility, they did not count against us for indoor.
1:51:45
OK that makes more sense. I can't remember who I was like
1:51:48
that's dumb like that. But but if you nail down your
1:51:51
roster of 35 and one of them it's hurt, you don't get to
1:51:55
replace them. That's what sucks crazy.
1:51:57
Yeah. And so for us, and but I think
1:51:59
in the kind of going back to the beginning of our conversation, I
1:52:03
think if I can speak about myself, one thing that makes me
1:52:05
know and like I've developed a lot of 16 meter triple jumpers
1:52:08
from nothing, you know what I mean?
1:52:10
So it's like we can't take the chance on the can we go
1:52:12
backwards if say there's a 48 footer at a high school, we
1:52:16
can't take a chance on letting that kid walk on because we
1:52:17
don't have a roster platform. Like going back to Russ, you OK?
1:52:21
So what did Russ jump? I think Russ was a 45 foot 24,
1:52:25
three or four jumper out of high school and he ended up jumping
1:52:28
8m or sorry, 799 never jumped 8 meters and he jumped 1730.
1:52:32
So 56 something, you know what I mean?
1:52:34
So it's like we couldn't take a chance because I saw something
1:52:36
recruiting out of me anymore. And and that's, I mean, we got a
1:52:40
couple minutes left. Like that's the other pivot is
1:52:42
now, I shouldn't say this is a gross generality, but a lot of
1:52:45
schools in the mix for things, there's a debate.
1:52:48
I'm not even going to get into it.
1:52:49
It's like, do we recruit the highly touted high school
1:52:52
athlete who's only one high school or do we recruit from the
1:52:56
portal? I don't someone that's where we
1:52:57
scored, you know what I mean? I don't try not to get into.
1:52:59
That's a big discussion point. What do you call it argument of
1:53:02
yeah, right. Here's the thing that I push
1:53:04
back on because ultimately this is what people are saying when
1:53:06
they say, oh, Arkansas doesn't recruit high school kids
1:53:09
anymore. And I don't know that they're
1:53:10
saying about Arkansas. I'm just using these people.
1:53:13
Or if they say, you know, they don't want to develop anymore.
1:53:16
And I'm like, whoa, first of all, you got roster.
1:53:18
You can argue that. I don't.
1:53:20
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Here's the thing, Robin, you
1:53:23
know this. So you hear that a lot.
1:53:25
They don't want to develop anymore.
1:53:26
They only want, they only want the made product and all that
1:53:29
kind of stuff. That's BS.
1:53:31
I'll use the I always use the 100 meters as my example.
1:53:34
If you take an 11 one male sprinter and you coach them down
1:53:38
to a 10/5, you have done an amazing job.
1:53:41
That's coaching, that's developing.
1:53:43
That's your 1% a year or whatever one, right?
1:53:45
If you take a kid, there's three kids that have run sub 10 in
1:53:48
high school. That's just nuts.
1:53:50
If you take a 10 flat 100 meter kid, whether he's out of high
1:53:53
school or transfer, it doesn't matter, and you make him a 995,
1:53:57
you have done an amazing job. That is development.
1:54:00
The problem is we get into that. We define development as, oh,
1:54:03
someone who was not very good and they become good or great.
1:54:06
We forget that. Who, who was I just Oh my God,
1:54:09
who was it? Who was I just talking to?
1:54:12
Oh my God, I just had a conversation with someone, an
1:54:15
elite Sprint cook. Hi, boy, this.
1:54:17
That's embarrassing because there can't be that many, right?
1:54:20
Who the heck was I just talking anyway?
1:54:22
And we were talking about, you know, taking nine, you know, 990
1:54:25
fives down to nine 90s and, you know, ten 70s to 10 sixties.
1:54:29
And it was like, oh, and Lance Brahman.
1:54:32
Yeah, yeah, yeah, He was just. That's like, they hate that.
1:54:35
Yeah. He was just at Wisconsin for the
1:54:37
Wisconsin show, and I got, you know, I haven't caught up in a
1:54:40
long time. And he was talking about his
1:54:42
stuff and he was like, and I was like, whoa, what he's doing,
1:54:44
like what he's doing with Noah, That's development.
1:54:46
But taking a kid, I don't know what Noah's P Rs are off the top
1:54:48
of my head, but taking Noah from 984 to 980, that's hard that.
1:54:55
Takes. Development so I push back when
1:54:59
I when I hear Arkansas doesn't want to develop they want ready
1:55:02
made kids no Rob's got to take kids that are maybe 7:50 today
1:55:06
and he's got to make them 8 and that's.
1:55:08
Development guys, he can't give them.
1:55:09
AT75750 Don't do it. Right.
1:55:11
Well then, then the argument like lets you cut it off.
1:55:13
And then, then it's the whole domestic versus international
1:55:16
debate, you know what I mean? And that's the whole other
1:55:18
thing. It's but it's the sport.
1:55:19
It's an Olympic sport. Until they make it illegal or
1:55:21
put a cap on it for instead of blight, you're not cheating.
1:55:23
So Nope. I'm like, sorry guys, That's
1:55:26
that's they're within the rules and I have doesn't matter if I
1:55:29
agree or disagree. It's it's the rule, right?
1:55:31
So until they say X amount of international athletes or 0 or
1:55:34
whatever, then sorry. I mean, here's the good news.
1:55:38
Rob's a very good coach at Arkansas.
1:55:39
Guess what? There's a really good jumps
1:55:41
coach at Arkansas State as well, and there's a really good one at
1:55:43
Central Arkansas. There are other options out
1:55:45
there. You may have grown up a big
1:55:47
Arkansas fan. Sorry, that don't mean you get
1:55:50
to go to school to run track. There.
1:55:51
You go to school there maybe? Become a manager or something, I
1:55:53
don't know. But we aren't.
1:55:55
Nothing is. Nothing is due us.
1:55:59
We have to earn it all and sometimes we don't earn what we
1:56:01
think. We grew up being big fans
1:56:03
because we watched Arkansas versus Georgia.
1:56:05
Rob, my friend. That was fun, man.
1:56:08
Yeah, thanks man. You're amazing, man.
1:56:11
I'm just so blessed about your journey.
1:56:13
I was really wondering, you know, here's what I really am
1:56:15
impressed with you and I knew this would be the case.
1:56:17
Your openness and authenticity. You know, I know your car
1:56:19
accident, we had a long conversation about that years
1:56:22
ago and you know, it's affected you physically and mentally and
1:56:26
still today you obviously are way better today.
1:56:29
Fusion on that. Yeah, fusion surgery this summer
1:56:31
coming up. So that's what I get to look
1:56:32
forward to. Well, sucks.
1:56:34
Certainly are 100 percent, 99% better today than you were then.
1:56:38
So I wasn't sure like how much you'd want to talk about.
1:56:40
But your, your openness and authenticity is just awesome.
1:56:43
I think there's going to be a lot of people I love.
1:56:45
I love that you struggled at San Diego State and went to zoos
1:56:48
because because there's people right now that go, you know
1:56:51
what? I'm not good enough to be the
1:56:52
coach at Arkansas one day. I, I didn't run D1 track.
1:56:55
And it's like, you know what, that's not the prereq.
1:56:58
The prereq is you got to be a really good coach and you do
1:57:00
have to know people. I'm not.
1:57:01
Sure. No, you guys know that.
1:57:02
But even if Rob knew all those people, if he didn't know how to
1:57:05
coach, he ain't in Arkansas. The the vice versa of that might
1:57:10
be true as well. He could be this great coach
1:57:12
that he is and not know people and he might not be there
1:57:14
either. It is a combination.
1:57:15
That's fair. No for sure.
1:57:16
But it takes both and I'm just grateful for you today and just
1:57:20
thanks, Mike, the journey you've gone through.
1:57:21
And what's exciting for me is I still think you're kind of in,
1:57:25
even though you're my age ish. You're a little bit younger.
1:57:27
Lucky dog, but. You 47. 40 I'll be 50 this
1:57:31
summer, brother. Yeah, is.
1:57:33
I still feel like you're barely at the halfway point of like a
1:57:36
400 meter dash. You got so much ahead of you and
1:57:38
I'm just so excited to kind of watch from the sidelines, my
1:57:41
friend. I appreciate that, Mike.
1:57:42
Thank you. Hi brother, usually I don't run
1:57:44
off this fast guys but I got a meeting I got.
1:57:46
To get to. The bosses make me do my job
1:57:48
besides this podcast and stuff. So Rob, thank you so much, man.
1:57:51
I appreciate you brother, guys and gals, thank you so much for
1:57:53
listening. Join us next week.
1:57:54
We'll do it all over again. Thanks.
1:57:58
If it goes to appreciate the coach the ones that point people
1:58:01
most every season needs a voice of reason to speak in the growth
1:58:04
you got to prep before you carry the load ice coffee to the soul
1:58:07
For those of us stay on the go proper hand off to stay in the
1:58:10
zone which you packing for the road.
1:58:12
There's more than one way to go taking those that's paying
1:58:15
you're told it ain't practice If your purpose ain't clear, it
1:58:18
can't happen until you listen with both is you can't mentor
1:58:21
without a mentor of years of experience.
1:58:23
You can reinvent those years Every plan's got to stand and
1:58:26
deliver to and the price sacrifice can you give up you.
1:58:30
It's a choice and the fight not a win or lose.
1:58:32
It's not a ploy boy device. Y'all can make more moves.
1:58:35
It's not about how to, it's all about why you don't know till
1:58:38
you know who you are inside 6,000,000.
1:58:41
Waste of time, choose none so y'all cross the finish line.
1:58:44
The work ain't done so we learn from the experts but y'all got
1:58:47
to put in the leg work. Guild athletics use the network.
1:58:50
It's all about connections put together for the profession to
1:58:53
where every track coach could be blessing.