Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #359: Tamario Lattin-Grambling State | From Late Start to State Champ to Coaching Impact

Transcript

#359: Tamario Lattin-Grambling State | From Late Start to State Champ to Coaching Impact · 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
• 0:08
  April, this convergence of sales for you and your track and field
• 0:11
  program. So in the month of April, we got
• 0:13
  two things going on, 10 free vaulting poles.
• 0:16
  If you buy a pole vault pit in a weather cover or value pack,
• 0:18
  etcetera, and then also buy one and get one free on discus,
• 0:22
  shots and hammer. So let's get some specifics.
• 0:25
  Go over to gilathletics.com. They've got everything you need
• 0:28
  there as far as what poles, what pole vault pits are eligible,
• 0:31
  what discuses, shots and hammers, etcetera.
• 0:34
  Or call your preferred Guild dealer.
• 0:36
  They've also got the deets for you there.
• 0:38
  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 Guild
• 0:48
  Athletics Connections podcast with host Mike Cunningham.
• 0:54
  Track and field world juvenile tuned in to a humble servant,
• 0:58
  Mike Cunningham, for another extraordinary message for Guild
• 1:02
  Athletics connections. Welcome back here to the Gill
• 1:09
  Connections Podcast, man. Again, you've heard me say it.
• 1:11
  If you've listened to more than one episode, you've heard me say
• 1:13
  how humbled I am that you pressed play today and that
• 1:16
  rings true today, seven years ago.
• 1:19
  I'm just always grateful that people want to listen to the
• 1:22
  guests that we have here on the Gill Connections Podcast.
• 1:24
  And so thank you. This is your first time being
• 1:26
  here, man. Let me introduce myself.
• 1:28
  My name is Mike Cunningham, national business development
• 1:30
  manager for Gill Athletics, probably better known as the
• 1:33
  podcast guy, the podcast host and also maybe that guy over on
• 1:35
  Twitter. A lot of people hang out over
• 1:37
  there with me. I still have fun and try to keep
• 1:39
  things in a positive light over on, you know, whatever your
• 1:42
  opinions you might have on Twitter, which are probably
• 1:44
  correct opinions by the way. So thanks again for being here
• 1:47
  today. We've got a long library.
• 1:49
  This is episode 359 360 somewhere around there, 350 plus
• 1:53
  other amazing coaches. Go check them out.
• 1:55
  It'll be worth your time today. This is a lot of fun.
• 1:59
  So generally there are kind of three different people that we
• 2:04
  have on the podcast. Some are like like brothers to
• 2:08
  me. In fact, today's guest, head
• 2:09
  coach Lamont Vaughn, also a Gill podcast slum.
• 2:12
  It's like a brother to be, you know, we call, we talk about
• 2:14
  life, not just what's the next pole vault pit or hurdle or
• 2:17
  something like that. Right in the middle.
• 2:19
  There's coaches that we have here I've done some business
• 2:22
  with. I know them, I know their
• 2:23
  families, great people. We're we're friends and then
• 2:26
  there's people that you know, I've seen, you know, I got my
• 2:28
  eye on everybody out there. I'm watching all the coaches out
• 2:31
  there, but I've never had like a deep conversation with.
• 2:33
  So I really don't know a lot about them and those really
• 2:37
  excite me because I love to learn about new people.
• 2:40
  And so that's what today's guest is.
• 2:41
  So help me. Welcome to the show here.
• 2:44
  He's from the great state of Louisiana, Grambling State
• 2:47
  University, an amazing program down there.
• 2:49
  Help me welcome the assistant coach there, the wise, the
• 2:51
  wonderful Mr. Tamario Latin Tamario, how are you, my friend?
• 2:55
  I'm. Doing good, man, Doing good.
• 2:56
  How about yourself? I'm doing awesome.
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  And you got to be careful. There's like a tiger over your
• 2:59
  left shoulder. That seems dangerous, man.
• 3:01
  You know, it seems fitting in Louisiana, You know, lots of
• 3:05
  tigers. I don't know.
• 3:05
  I don't get I've seen only one tiger in my whole life in
• 3:08
  Louisiana. How you doing, man?
• 3:09
  How's how's life? It's cool.
• 3:12
  It's cool to start an outdoor season coming off a great
• 3:14
  opener. So you got to stay, stay cool,
• 3:17
  come collect. Where'd you guys open up at?
• 3:20
  TCU. Oh yeah?
• 3:21
  Well, what a that's when I was coaching Mississippi State.
• 3:23
  TCU was always our first outdoor opener as well.
• 3:26
  Do they still have like the screaming 456 meter winds or
• 3:30
  have they? Yeah, it was about 2.930, Yeah.
• 3:34
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's, I think that's why we
• 3:39
  went to our opener. Absolutely great friends of
• 3:42
  ours, Katie Chu, Huff, all those guys.
• 3:46
  In fact, Chew and Huff have been on the podcast, their podcast
• 3:49
  alums and grateful for their choices.
• 3:51
  Man, you got to see some new Gil high jump pits and pull ball
• 3:54
  pits and hurdles. We we love TCU.
• 3:56
  They do an amazing job. Definitely no bias air quotes
• 4:00
  for me on TCU. Yeah, yeah.
• 4:02
  She was she was somebody that allowing a lot for a lot of
• 4:05
  coaching tips. So yeah, it was.
• 4:07
  It was nice to go out there. She is it's funny.
• 4:10
  She here's a little trivia Gill podcast trivia for you is the
• 4:14
  first person to be on the podcast twice.
• 4:18
  We generally don't allow anybody to come on the podcast twice
• 4:21
  because you only do 52 of these a year.
• 4:24
  Every Monday we do this deep dive, right?
• 4:27
  They tomorrow they want me to do this other thing, sell stuff.
• 4:29
  So I can't just do this full time.
• 4:30
  I know always gets in the way. Job gets in the way of this fun
• 4:33
  part of the job. And so I'm always trying to, I
• 4:36
  want new people, you know, because again, there's thousands
• 4:38
  of coaches and I only get to do 52 a year, but too early.
• 4:41
  So season 1/20/20 when COVID and all that kind of stuff, she I
• 4:47
  had her on because she had created coaches collab, which
• 4:50
  did you, did you mess around with coaches collab back in the
• 4:53
  day? Oh my gosh.
• 4:56
  Well, we'll learn where you were in your journey in 2020.
• 4:58
  But in 2020 this little thing called COVID happened, right?
• 5:00
  So it shut down all, you know, no sees and all that kind of
• 5:02
  stuff. And so we didn't have clinics,
• 5:04
  we didn't have meats, etcetera. So chew on her own.
• 5:08
  She was at IUPUI in Indiana, started this Facebook group
• 5:12
  called coaches Collab and you know, people, you know, you're a
• 5:15
  coach. We were hungry to talk to each
• 5:17
  other. We were hungry to talk track,
• 5:18
  etcetera. This thing blew up thousands of
• 5:22
  coaches, super active conversations.
• 5:25
  I mean, it was it was really special.
• 5:29
  And so I had her on the show to talk about coaches like because
• 5:32
  I was just amazed like this coach did that.
• 5:33
  Like you guys could easily just on the phone or text.
• 5:36
  I know there's always group text message.
• 5:37
  She created this community. And so we had her on to talk
• 5:40
  about coaches cloud to help advertise for, you know, so
• 5:42
  people, more people would find it.
• 5:44
  And then I was like, Oh, wait a minute, I didn't get to actually
• 5:46
  learn her journey. So we invited her back a month
• 5:48
  or so later. And and so she's the only one,
• 5:51
  no one else. If if you've been on the Gill
• 5:53
  podcast more than once, it's because you're doing our Gill
• 5:55
  1918 project podcast, the the self recorded one.
• 5:58
  But on the Monday 1:00 choose the only one man that's a yeah.
• 6:03
  She is a Hall of Famer, dude, Hall of Famer coach and a Hall
• 6:05
  of Famer person and mom, she is amazing.
• 6:08
  Love her. And while I love I could talk
• 6:10
  about chew forever. You're the star today, brother.
• 6:13
  I want to learn more about you. So Tamario, let's get in our
• 6:17
  Wayback machine here. We're assuming you were an
• 6:21
  athlete. And you know, we certainly don't
• 6:23
  want to assume because we've got plenty of coaches who were not
• 6:25
  athletes that were fantastic, become fantastic coaches.
• 6:27
  Where in the world does track and field start for you, my
• 6:30
  friend? So track and field for me, I
• 6:33
  actually got into the sport very late.
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  I started in 10th grade, so I was football, basketball already
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  up to that point. My older brother was actually a
• 6:42
  very great high school hurdler, so everybody assumed that I was
• 6:45
  going to do track too. But I was like this.
• 6:47
  I tried 6th grade to make it. I was like, man, I'm done with
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  track. I'm not trying no more.
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  So I was done. And then, you know, just one
• 6:54
  year, high school football, you know how you did.
• 6:56
  The DB coach is the track coach. So I'm playing defensive back.
• 7:01
  I jump up to the final ball of the sideline.
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  If I was like, man, do you know how you just jump to knock it
• 7:07
  down? I'm like, no, I didn't feel it.
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  And so like the next day the coach is like, Hey, come on
• 7:12
  track. I'm like, no, I'm going to do
• 7:14
  running, I'm not running and I need you to jump.
• 7:16
  I, I don't know. He basically like Debo was like,
• 7:19
  you going to do it? And I was like, so I came out
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  there, I did like 5-10 my first year.
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  Didn't do nothing, but it was fun.
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  It's like track was fun. I come out there, everybody out
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  there and was having fun. And I so that next summer going
• 7:33
  into my junior year, I'm still doing football, basketball all
• 7:36
  summer. I didn't know summer track
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  existed. So I just come back out the
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  blue. I jumped 6668 my junior year,
• 7:44
  Golden State. I win it.
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  I come back and then I repeat as stage champ my senior year.
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  I repeat. So I'm like, oh, I don't know
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  how to jump. End up becoming my thing out the
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  blue. And I did some long and triple
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  but how jump was my thing? Where are you growing up at?
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  Where's this happening? This is Dawn Wall, Louisiana.
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  OK, so you were, I thought, you know, I wasn't sure if your
• 8:04
  accent was like it had been earned since you've been at
• 8:06
  Grambling or if this was natural.
• 8:08
  This is natural. You've been with this accent for
• 8:10
  a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  So you were a state. Champion high jumper and
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  Louisiana is a state for high school.
• 8:19
  It doesn't get a lot of credit. You know, it's not a Texas,
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  Florida, California, these big populous states that obviously
• 8:25
  have a lot of great athletes just because the population
• 8:27
  alone ain't great coaches. Louisiana though, dude, some
• 8:32
  really, really good track kids have come in football.
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  But you're right, all athletes have come from Louisiana.
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  And so you went from a 510 kid to a state champion in one year?
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  In one year, no training. But as I tell kids, man, go
• 8:46
  outside, just play, run around. Yeah, it's going.
• 8:49
  It's going to translate, you know, But that's how I was
• 8:50
  doing, just staying active. What this helps with the like so
• 8:54
  where life in society is. What year did you graduate high
• 8:57
  school? 2013.
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  OK, so in 2013, so 2010 to you know, so your high school career
• 9:05
  you had YouTube things like you know, the Internet, etcetera.
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  What kind of track athlete and maybe even maybe I'll just say
• 9:13
  athlete. And what I mean by that is are
• 9:16
  you, were you the kind of kid that was Googling?
• 9:18
  How do I become a better high jumper?
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  You tubing high jump drills. And by the way, you're 1617
• 9:22
  years old. You have all grace in the world
• 9:24
  to say no man I was. I was just trying to jump and
• 9:27
  figure out math class. No, not really, man.
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  I think my high school coach, man, Robert Madison, you know,
• 9:35
  was great man, getting creative with me.
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  I think I stole out from him. He'll just be a practice, just
• 9:40
  trying different techniques. He'll make up drills with a box
• 9:43
  and a pole and touch it. I'm just doing all type of
• 9:46
  stuff, you know, I practice jump, go home.
• 9:49
  He didn't, you know, so it's not a just trial and error, you
• 9:52
  know, so and he'll show me videos, but mostly man, just,
• 9:56
  you know, work together and got got together and it worked out.
• 9:59
  Yeah, yeah, I have a lot of grace for that.
• 10:01
  You know, we like to, you know, you're still young tomorrow.
• 10:04
  But you know, old guys like me, we like to shake our fists at,
• 10:06
  you know, these young guys, they don't know who the, the, the
• 10:09
  athletes are. They don't, you know, those kind
• 10:11
  of stuff. And it's like, bro, they're 17.
• 10:14
  Like they're trying to, you know, this is my old age show
• 10:16
  and they're trying to play Nintendo, you know, get AB or
• 10:19
  better in math. What am I going to do for
• 10:22
  school? What am I going to do for a job?
• 10:24
  You know, I have all the grace in the world that they don't
• 10:27
  love. So they don't love track like we
• 10:29
  do, because that's not true that they aren't as nerd them as
• 10:31
  maybe we are at this age and stage.
• 10:34
  Like, man, they're 1617 year old bro.
• 10:36
  They're kids. Let them let them get kids.
• 10:37
  Did you know any of the like, how did you how much did you
• 10:40
  keep up with her? It's the Olympic medalist.
• 10:42
  Did you know what the world record was?
• 10:44
  Did you even know like regionally, like, Oh yeah, Cat
• 10:47
  and Destrahan. He's a six, eight guy.
• 10:49
  I got a. Yeah, I probably knew about
• 10:50
  other kids in the area that was good at track, but
• 10:54
  professionally, man, we just, we just knew Usain Bolt.
• 10:57
  That's how that time and then even.
• 11:01
  The high jumpers, that's. Correct.
• 11:02
  Yeah, we just, and he just, you know, learn more.
• 11:05
  But I said my high school coach did football and track in
• 11:08
  college and he was young at the time, so it kind of he was able
• 11:12
  to translate so. But professionally now we didn't
• 11:15
  really know a lot. And you didn't try to like, hey,
• 11:18
  this high jumps cool, but you say bolt sprints.
• 11:20
  Let me, let me be the 100m guy. I was, I was scared.
• 11:23
  I ran one time man. I did a four by two.
• 11:25
  We didn't spoke about two in high school.
• 11:28
  Smile, got hurt coach and come get on it, man.
• 11:31
  I I got out real good. I got out real good.
• 11:35
  I got that. I got that curve and I never ran
• 11:39
  again. Not many great 200m story
• 11:42
  started with I got I got out good.
• 11:44
  I got out good. The the the rest of the 180
• 11:46
  meters was a little tough. Yeah, so in slow motion, man.
• 11:52
  You're like, let me just go back to that apron.
• 11:53
  Yeah, I'm done. What was the the high jump is
• 11:58
  one of my I coached for 10 years before I came over here.
• 12:01
  And high jump was my favorite event to coach, partly because
• 12:04
  it was a very specific meaning. You know, you don't have to, you
• 12:07
  don't have to run 400 meters to jump high.
• 12:10
  In fact, you should not run 400 meters if you're going to jump
• 12:12
  high, right? And also because of how
• 12:14
  frustrating the event could be. You know, you've done some long
• 12:17
  jump and triple jump. You said, you know, you can PR
• 12:20
  by a foot. Like, like that could happen.
• 12:22
  You could PR by 6 inches. That could happen in the high
• 12:25
  jump because that bar goes up two inches at a time.
• 12:28
  PR is a little harder. Like you could jump a lot better
• 12:31
  at a meet and not PR because of how the bar moves on the
• 12:35
  progression. It's a Did you find it
• 12:36
  frustrating or challenging? At high school it was more so
• 12:45
  sometimes I would not take it as serious because in that area,
• 12:49
  the Shreveport area, I was like the best.
• 12:52
  So it's on meats I will win like the Six 2.
• 12:55
  So it's a few meets I'll go play around and a kid a beat me who
• 12:59
  shouldn't beat me because it's like, see, you're not you
• 13:02
  playing around today and I needed that to give me back
• 13:05
  going. So I was a competitor, but
• 13:07
  sometimes I go in like too lackadaisical and and stuff like
• 13:11
  that. So.
• 13:12
  See, that's another reason why I like the high jump, because
• 13:14
  you're right, it would be hard for you to do that in the long
• 13:17
  jump. Like it's hard to scale back in
• 13:20
  the long for each long jump attempt.
• 13:21
  It's hard to do that in the 100. If it's like, man, I'm a 10/5
• 13:24
  guy. These guys are 11 flat.
• 13:25
  I can just run 10-9. It's hard to gauge back 10-9.
• 13:28
  But in high jump because there's a bar and it's like, man, it's
• 13:31
  58. If I jump this bar, I win for
• 13:33
  crying out loud. How do you get yourself
• 13:35
  motivated to try to PR at 6-8 when it's like, dude, they've
• 13:38
  been gone for a foot for crying out loud.
• 13:40
  I had to sit around for an hour while, you know, these guys are
• 13:43
  doing 54 for crying out loud. Yeah, that's it's like I said,
• 13:46
  it's a frustrating event. What a beautiful one.
• 13:49
  Because every time I jump big high school in the high jump,
• 13:52
  another guy was jumping like 6668 and I had to go back and
• 13:55
  forth. Those meets were I was only one
• 13:57
  jumping at six, four. It was kind of tough so.
• 14:01
  Yeah, I think about that with our pole vaulters too, because,
• 14:03
  you know, it's similar, because, you know, it easily can be an
• 14:07
  hour before, you know, if someone's way better.
• 14:09
  And for them to come in and try to warm back, I mean, just it's
• 14:12
  fresh. These bar sports, the bar events
• 14:14
  are tough, man. They really are.
• 14:17
  So as you were in your senior year, you're coming off of a
• 14:19
  state championship year, your junior year, you end up
• 14:22
  repeating your senior year, you start looking maybe towards
• 14:25
  college. How what it was that process
• 14:27
  like? So at that point, I'm still, I'm
• 14:30
  still kind of on the football dream that I was like AD 3
• 14:34
  school, but I was like, and then then had a few options of track.
• 14:41
  And so one option actually was Northwestern and Natchitoches
• 14:45
  and it was like Tech. So as you between those two and
• 14:50
  when I get this, you know, I had a lot of family that went there.
• 14:52
  So I was down a lot on campus already.
• 14:54
  So I was like, I kind of know this area a lot.
• 14:56
  So and then when I take a lot of my buddies from high school went
• 15:00
  there. So they kind of influenced me
• 15:02
  too to go. And it's kind of that was kind
• 15:04
  of my decision, like OK, my friends going here.
• 15:07
  So I'm going with my friends to buy a tick and that's kind of
• 15:10
  what made my decision. And for track, not for football.
• 15:14
  Nah, just for just for, just for track.
• 15:16
  Now it's funny and it might play.
• 15:19
  Later on into our conversation, you said that you had maybe some
• 15:22
  D3 interest in football, but you said Nah.
• 15:24
  What did you mean by that? And again.
• 15:26
  Not knowing what I knew now. Yeah, yeah.
• 15:27
  OK. So you're 1718 years old.
• 15:30
  I got a lot of grades 100. Percent I don't know, I don't
• 15:32
  know. Visit is in the middle of
• 15:33
  nowhere. I was like, no, but I know now I
• 15:37
  found this something differently.
• 15:39
  But, you know, you chasing logos and chasing your friends, you
• 15:43
  know, so it's just like, that's, that's wow.
• 15:46
  Does having that person, this is skipping ahead a little bit, but
• 15:48
  does having that perspective now?
• 15:50
  Because you're right, we think we, we look at things different
• 15:52
  as 2530 year olds, 50 year olds, then we did a 17 year olds when
• 15:57
  you're recruiting and a kid tells, because I know I, I
• 16:00
  recruited the same level. I was at Ball State, Troy State,
• 16:03
  I, you know, I was in the same level and also at Mississippi
• 16:05
  State. So I, you know, I, I know JUCO.
• 16:07
  So I know all the gamuts here, buddy.
• 16:08
  I know the game and it ain't changed that much in 20 years,
• 16:11
  brother. Trust me, I know how these
• 16:12
  recruits are. Does it give you perspective
• 16:15
  when you, you know, spot a recruit and you're interviewing,
• 16:18
  you know, recruiting them and you're like, man, this would be
• 16:20
  a great level for them where they could really, they could do
• 16:22
  something and all they want to do is like, Nah, coach, I'm
• 16:25
  going to, you know, in in state, probably you hear a lot of LSU,
• 16:29
  LSU or whatever and you're like, dude, you're not going to I
• 16:32
  mean, come on, you're good. You're not that good.
• 16:34
  You know, you get a little perspective now, like, OK, I see
• 16:38
  the mistake here. You can't see it yet, but I see
• 16:41
  it. Yeah, for sure.
• 16:43
  I I've had kids on visits tell me like, hey coach, like you.
• 16:48
  I like you coach. If you was at a Power 4, I'll
• 16:50
  sign a date. I was like, hey, well, I'm not
• 16:53
  there right now. I'm not there.
• 16:54
  So you know, but hey, so and, and those kids, we still, you
• 16:58
  know, instead reach out and check on them.
• 17:00
  We still checking each other. So, but you know, it just bells
• 17:03
  and whistles, you know? It's only a little different
• 17:06
  that in the sense of like the transfer portal like that.
• 17:09
  That's a smart strategy because you're like, well, you may be
• 17:11
  back in a year or two. You know, I, I remember when I
• 17:14
  coached at Ball State, I had this young lady, I believe her
• 17:17
  name was Siobhan Macklin. I think she's 1/4 miler from
• 17:19
  Michigan and stud. She ended up signing with
• 17:22
  Michigan. So, you know, she was really
• 17:23
  good, right? And you had her for a visit.
• 17:25
  Everything was great. And she calls me to tell me her
• 17:27
  decision, you know, and she's just like, oh, coach, I love
• 17:29
  you. I love the way because, you
• 17:31
  know, I used to go over how we trained and everything.
• 17:33
  She's like, I love how you you trained, blah, blah.
• 17:36
  But I'm going to Michigan. And I was like, I wish you would
• 17:39
  just tell me you hate me. I wish you would tell me that,
• 17:43
  you know, you hate the way I trained, you know, this, this,
• 17:47
  there's no, you know, now I look back and go, that was very sweet
• 17:49
  of her to say those things. But it's like you still not
• 17:52
  coming to my school, you know, but she did amazing.
• 17:57
  She was all big 10, all American.
• 17:58
  She did an amazing job. So I'm proud of her.
• 18:00
  OK, as you're, you're looking at law tech, you're thinking, OK,
• 18:05
  that's where I'm going. You're a senior, you know, you
• 18:07
  going into college, you got to pick a it's amazing that we make
• 18:09
  1718 year old kids pick a major that's going to affect the rest
• 18:12
  of their life. What were you thinking at that
• 18:14
  time as a 17 ish year old kid? What were you thinking about
• 18:17
  majoring in and becoming professionally?
• 18:21
  I started in Canese because I was like my goal in high school.
• 18:25
  I was like, you know, I'm going to be a PE teacher and just come
• 18:28
  coach PE and it's my life. That's what I thought in high
• 18:31
  school. So I'm thinking, OK, I'm going
• 18:33
  to be a PE teacher. So I started in Canese.
• 18:37
  It was cool. But you know how, you know, got
• 18:39
  behind that first year, got behind, got the whole and had to
• 18:43
  have to switch majors a little bit.
• 18:45
  So, but definitely started in Canese did.
• 18:48
  Did you think PE like where did that come from?
• 18:51
  And what I mean by that, is there family that are teachers
• 18:54
  or physical education teachers or did you have a like was your
• 18:56
  DB coach also the PE teacher? Where?
• 18:58
  Where did that kind of? Come so my grandma was the 1st
• 19:02
  grade teacher for like ever my aunt's a librarian and my
• 19:08
  brother right now currently teaches 6th grade science and
• 19:11
  takes so I come from teaching but just I I think just PE
• 19:18
  because it's sports and I said my some of my coaches PE
• 19:20
  teachers so they rubbed off in my head I was like I just do PE
• 19:24
  and go home but feels easy yeah yeah yeah I get it I'm not
• 19:27
  knowing PE still got to get the certifications and degrees and
• 19:30
  stuff have. You heard that joke where the
• 19:33
  the kids are in PE class and the PE teacher looks at the kids and
• 19:36
  we're like, hey, who do you think the smartest teacher in
• 19:39
  school is? Have you heard this joke?
• 19:41
  So PE teachers like, hey, so kids, who do you think the
• 19:43
  smartest teacher in school is? And you know, the kids are like
• 19:46
  Mr. Smith. He's the math teacher.
• 19:47
  He teaches calc. And another kid raises her hand,
• 19:50
  says, no, Miss Johnson, man, she teaches physics and blah, blah.
• 19:54
  And the PE teacher looks at him, says Nope, I make the same
• 19:58
  amount they do. And I play basketball all day.
• 20:01
  I'm the smartest. And I was like, I'm pretty good.
• 20:05
  That was pretty. Smart.
• 20:06
  That was my thought process. So what did you end up changing
• 20:10
  to? Eligibility, man, you know,
• 20:13
  trying to stay eligible it's. The greatest answer I've ever
• 20:17
  heard of. What did you change majors to?
• 20:19
  Stay ineligible. That's what I changed to.
• 20:22
  Had to had to get in good old General and get out the mood.
• 20:26
  Yeah, that's awesome. When you're at law tech going
• 20:32
  through this process, it's a process, man.
• 20:35
  Again, it's amazing to me. 1819 you're, you're a stinking kid.
• 20:38
  You know nothing. And we put all this stuff on you
• 20:41
  and make you pay a lot for it too, by the way.
• 20:43
  So I'm with you. I'm I'm tracking with you.
• 20:46
  Did the idea of becoming a track coach occur at any time here or?
• 20:51
  I still want thinking about that.
• 20:52
  I was sometimes I go home during the school breaks and help my
• 20:55
  high school kids out some, but I still want thinking about it.
• 20:58
  I was just I was just going to flow in school.
• 21:00
  Shawna go to flow still so and I'm still maturing as an
• 21:03
  athlete, you know, and you know, Vaughn was there for that
• 21:06
  maturation process as well. So I was trying to figure it
• 21:09
  out, trying to be a better athlete, you know?
• 21:11
  Who was was Shawn Jackson, your jumps guy?
• 21:14
  He left, man, before I got there.
• 21:17
  So coach, Coach Wick actually talked to me at state, state
• 21:20
  meet. So he recruited me at state.
• 21:24
  He he left when I got there. OK.
• 21:26
  I had Coach Rob at the Tech now. Oh yeah, that's right.
• 21:31
  He coached my freshman year. Yeah.
• 21:33
  So yeah. That's the thing LA Tech has
• 21:35
  had, I mean, really good coaches come through and continue to do
• 21:39
  so. They it's a little bit of like a
• 21:42
  like a cradle of coaches like not that I don't necessarily
• 21:46
  think that Texas Tech is a better place to work than law
• 21:48
  Tech. I have to imagine that Texas
• 21:50
  Tech maybe pays more using Calvin as the example here.
• 21:53
  So I want that from our coaches. But it's a great place that you
• 21:56
  can whatever you think better is, whether it's pay, location,
• 22:00
  position you had versus assistant.
• 22:02
  It's a it's a great place and a great place to be out.
• 22:05
  I mean, who what was the guy that was he, he just retired and
• 22:07
  he was there for like 30 years. Yes, I mean, he was there
• 22:11
  forever did. A great job.
• 22:13
  Yeah, that's awesome. How did high jumping go for you
• 22:16
  through college? It was cool that first year I
• 22:21
  was good by myself. So I just high jumped that first
• 22:24
  year and it was a, it was a shocker because you know, in
• 22:28
  high school I'm German. Season 8 winning state, I go to
• 22:31
  the conference 68. I got 8th place so I'm like.
• 22:34
  Yeah. Oh my goodness.
• 22:37
  So and now you know, you jumping against older guys now so that
• 22:40
  that that transition hits. So I'm like, OK, so now I'm
• 22:43
  feeling good. I score that conference so I
• 22:44
  feel good but same time like I'm not used to getting 8th place
• 22:48
  now so. How did you handle that
• 22:50
  mentally? Because now you're on the other
• 22:52
  side of it. Now you've got to help athletes
• 22:54
  go through that process. But when you were that 1819 year
• 22:56
  old kid, you know, you're state champion.
• 22:58
  That's a big deal. I don't care what state you come
• 23:00
  from. I don't care what class, big
• 23:01
  school, small school, being a state champion is a big deal.
• 23:04
  You're better than any other kid that was trying for that.
• 23:06
  So that's a big deal. You know, you're fairly, you're
• 23:08
  68, you're not 58, you're not 72 either.
• 23:10
  I get that. But you know, nothing shabby.
• 23:14
  So you go in and you know, you probably went to your first meet
• 23:17
  and maybe it's like, oh wait, I got fourth.
• 23:19
  Like wow, I can't jump 7 feet. OK, I know that's possible, but
• 23:22
  I won't see that all the time. And the next week you go to
• 23:24
  maybe there's two or three and you're like wait a minute.
• 23:26
  Then you go to conference, a great conference.
• 23:27
  A lot of tech is is in and was in and you're like, wow, wait a
• 23:31
  minute. I was state champ last year and
• 23:33
  now I just. Got a point?
• 23:35
  I'm just 8. How did you deal with that
• 23:37
  mentally? I don't think it killed me too
• 23:41
  much, but I just was like, OK, this is different.
• 23:44
  And then I think outdoor, you know, I probably, I think I
• 23:47
  scored as well, but it's still kind of same kind of thing.
• 23:49
  But I was like, you know, this college, OK, so I just got to
• 23:51
  put the work in now I know what this is.
• 23:54
  So I'm still happy to be there still I'm still fresh, so I'm
• 23:57
  happy to be here. I'm travelling so.
• 24:00
  So you took it as one. I like that you didn't put so
• 24:03
  much pressure on yourself. You know, sometimes freshman is
• 24:05
  like, dude, you're not a senior relaxed man.
• 24:06
  It's I mean, I'm glad you're kind of like we talked about
• 24:08
  being nervous, Like I'm glad you're a little bit nervous
• 24:10
  here, but chill, bro. It's all good.
• 24:12
  But I like how you kind of took it more as a challenge of like,
• 24:15
  OK, well, if they're doing it, yeah, and not like, holy crap,
• 24:20
  maybe this ain't the right because some people, you've seen
• 24:22
  this now and athletes think, well, then I'm not cut out for
• 24:25
  that. I'm only getting 8 at
• 24:26
  conference. And it's like, bro, first of
• 24:28
  all, that's a big deal. Second of all, you're a
• 24:30
  freshman. We can go on here.
• 24:32
  You took it as a challenge. Yeah, I was just like, and like
• 24:34
  I said, I was just was having to be there.
• 24:36
  So I was like, I'm here, they let me travel, I'm coming to
• 24:39
  meets cool, you know, so. How did you handle you had a
• 24:44
  couple of different coaches throughout your career?
• 24:47
  I, you know, typically I think an athlete if they had to choose
• 24:51
  one or the other, one coach throughout their four year, five
• 24:54
  years, one a different coach every year would pick the
• 24:56
  stability that's important. How did you like?
• 24:59
  Were there any positives for you of having different coaches?
• 25:01
  Any struggles? I think the apologist, I think I
• 25:07
  took some something from all of them and my coaching style too
• 25:09
  now and I think they all help me in different ways of the athlete
• 25:15
  as well. Other than negatives like you
• 25:16
  say, just that stability, just being on yourself.
• 25:19
  Like once summer I was by myself, just having to work out
• 25:21
  by myself, like not knowing what's going to happen.
• 25:23
  Yeah. The transition between the
• 25:24
  coaches, yeah. How do you think about that?
• 25:26
  Yeah, and just and now the portal, you know, you just leave
• 25:31
  back in back in the day on if I would have left, you know how I
• 25:36
  would have did it. But it had pros and cons, but it
• 25:39
  wasn't nothing too bad. I'm usually guy timid to plan on
• 25:42
  the work so I wanted it to worry.
• 25:44
  I I typically would have thought it was a negative all the way
• 25:49
  because, you know, I think there's a reason why it's
• 25:51
  important. Like if a kids really good, like
• 25:54
  they can GoPro after their senior year, that if it's
• 25:57
  possible, I think they should stay at that that coach if it's
• 26:00
  possible. There's a lot of variables.
• 26:02
  That's not always the the right case, but if it can't, because a
• 26:05
  consistency like building peaks on peaks is important and you go
• 26:08
  to different coach, there's going to be some even if they're
• 26:10
  very similar, there's still differences and you got to
• 26:12
  relearn even there's differences, just personality,
• 26:14
  how we talk to each other, etcetera.
• 26:16
  But then I had have you have you met?
• 26:18
  David Self is the head coach at Sam Houston State University.
• 26:22
  I'm not sure. Next time you're going to meet
• 26:24
  that Sam Houston's there, find the head coach.
• 26:26
  Great guy. We got to know each other when
• 26:28
  we coached JUCO together and similar to you, he had a
• 26:32
  different coach all four years. And I was like, oh man, that
• 26:35
  that had to be kind of and he goes, he goes, you know, because
• 26:39
  you would think that he goes, but because maybe because I
• 26:42
  became a track coach, he said exactly what you said that
• 26:44
  that's what was that kind of made the link for me.
• 26:46
  He goes, I, I now I've got a little bit from this coach and I
• 26:49
  picked up a little bit from this coach.
• 26:50
  He's like, my style now is kind of like an amalgamation.
• 26:52
  He goes, I got to see four different ways of doing it
• 26:55
  instead of just one. And I was like, oh, I never
• 26:57
  thought so Maybe it's for guys and gals who eventually become
• 27:00
  track coaches. Maybe that's the, you know,
• 27:02
  sadly, maybe that's the ideal way.
• 27:03
  I wouldn't wish that on anybody. Yeah, I wouldn't wish that on
• 27:06
  anybody. But yeah, I get that.
• 27:08
  I get that. OK, so you're going through
• 27:11
  college, you're jumping. I assume you're getting a little
• 27:13
  bit better. You're.
• 27:14
  Yeah. Yeah, good.
• 27:14
  Well, I I went to a yeah and getting got up.
• 27:19
  So I said the freshman year was kind of just steady, like I
• 27:22
  didn't do nothing crazy, but I was just there because the
• 27:24
  freshman year I'm just happy to be there.
• 27:26
  I'm I'm doing my workout, but I'm like, I don't know how to
• 27:29
  work hard. I'm just doing what they're
• 27:31
  telling me to do. So I'm not really asking
• 27:32
  questions. I'm just like workouts this I'm
• 27:34
  doing it and go home. So I wasn't really just digging
• 27:38
  in. I do I have to do and just and I
• 27:41
  was just good in the white room coming from the football
• 27:43
  background a little. So that wasn't an issue.
• 27:44
  But as far as the track workouts, I'm just going to like
• 27:47
  you got this. OK, cool, I'm out the sophomore
• 27:50
  years. What kind of maturity had
• 27:52
  become. That's when I kind of got the,
• 27:55
  you know, the party scenes, the running around, different friend
• 28:00
  groups and just kind of showing on the track, you know, and kind
• 28:04
  of just like not being productive.
• 28:06
  Yeah. Great slipping, Yeah.
• 28:09
  It's a real thing that off the track effects on the track,
• 28:11
  right? Yeah.
• 28:12
  You're living proof, Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah.
• 28:14
  So just chasing the wrong stuff. What had to happen for you to
• 28:18
  understand? Like, oh, maybe I need to cut
• 28:20
  out some of those things. Didn't put on academic
• 28:25
  probation. Oh, yeah, That was probably one
• 28:28
  of the biggest things. Like it's like, hey, I can do a
• 28:32
  probation. I have to write a letter to go
• 28:35
  back in school about a funk that semester.
• 28:38
  I was done. So I came back, got my grades
• 28:42
  back. They need to be.
• 28:44
  I never look back. You come from a family of
• 28:46
  educators. They couldn't have been, I'm
• 28:50
  going to say, too happy with you.
• 28:52
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 28:54
  Wanted you to do better. That's why they were not happy.
• 28:56
  But they had to be like Mario. Do not throw.
• 28:59
  I'm sure you heard this. Do not throw away this
• 29:01
  opportunity, right? Yeah.
• 29:02
  Yeah, I heard that. Yeah.
• 29:03
  They weren't happy about it so. So that's great.
• 29:07
  I love that you had support from family.
• 29:09
  But you know, we can look back at it now because you have
• 29:12
  hindsight. Hindsight's 2020.
• 29:14
  You could have we we spoiler alert you, you get your act in a
• 29:18
  in a row and you eventually go on, right?
• 29:20
  But you could have gone the other way.
• 29:21
  You could have been like, hey, you know what?
• 29:23
  It's college day for everybody. Maybe it's just not for me.
• 29:25
  Maybe I just you're, you're a smart kid.
• 29:27
  You can go get a job and do really well that way and things
• 29:29
  like that. What made you say, yeah, I do
• 29:32
  need to buckle down. I do need to make this work.
• 29:35
  I was having a good friend group too.
• 29:37
  I see one of my best buds. I was playing football at a lot
• 29:40
  it. I had other friends there, like
• 29:44
  I said, and this and it's come from a family educators.
• 29:48
  You know, you like, man, I'm not going to be that guy.
• 29:51
  My brother, my brother finished school.
• 29:53
  My grandma obviously went to college.
• 29:54
  So I'm like I'm not going to be the guy.
• 29:57
  So I like, let me let me get back right And do I have to do?
• 30:01
  What a what a great example of the people that you surround
• 30:04
  yourself with is pretty important.
• 30:06
  So you're like, oh, wait a minute, I got my butt over here.
• 30:08
  He's doing it my and there had to be.
• 30:11
  I'm the only child, so I can't speak from experience.
• 30:13
  So I had to be a little bit like, dude, if he did it, God
• 30:16
  dog it. I can't like I'm going to show
• 30:19
  him. Because I was always like my
• 30:22
  older brother's like the 4.0 God and how I got the good grades.
• 30:26
  Also with my GPA, I need to have a 2/5 to play sports.
• 30:30
  OK, I got 2/5. That was me.
• 30:32
  That was me. So you know, I want I don't want
• 30:35
  to be that guy. So I.
• 30:36
  Love that. Hey, first of all, let me just
• 30:39
  say appreciate your openness and authenticity like that.
• 30:42
  That means a lot A to me, but also B, it helps people see you
• 30:46
  for you, not just you know, well, yeah, I had troubles, but
• 30:49
  I went on and graduate. Like, you know, you can tell the
• 30:51
  story that way if you wanted. But you being so open is is is
• 30:55
  great. I I just want to say thank you
• 30:57
  for that. I appreciate that a lot.
• 30:59
  OK. At any time during college did
• 31:01
  coaching enter the brain or is that post college?
• 31:03
  That was, that was. That was post that was.
• 31:05
  Post So what did you end up getting your degree in?
• 31:09
  I know in general with a Mon and hilt.
• 31:12
  OK, Yeah, because you probably had some stuff from freshman
• 31:13
  year to get to add on. So you're getting close to
• 31:16
  graduating college. That means time to go get a job.
• 31:19
  What were you thinking? What are you going to do?
• 31:22
  So I was in the middle because I by the end of college I got, I
• 31:26
  got myself to jump 25 feet. So I was like, OK.
• 31:29
  Hold on a minute, we've been talking high jump only, you long
• 31:32
  jump 25 feet. Yeah.
• 31:34
  So my freshman year, you know, my so my kind of like that sick
• 31:38
  and the heavier I was like, man, let me let me long jump.
• 31:41
  I could do one in one jump and it was like, I will see we'll
• 31:44
  see So let me long jump. And at the time we had 226
• 31:49
  footers on the team already. Yeah, right, sure and another 24
• 31:52
  foot. So I was the baby of the group.
• 31:53
  So we. Don't just stay high jump bro
• 31:55
  we're good. Out there, practice, long jump,
• 31:57
  I'm watching them, but I'm not going to get that one-on-one
• 31:59
  coaching the coach. Obviously you know them the
• 32:02
  breadwinner, So I'm just building my reps, seeing them
• 32:05
  and I know just like 23 low that year.
• 32:09
  And I was like, OK, cool, I can I can do something.
• 32:11
  So the next year, I think that last question change I had all
• 32:15
  those guys graduated. I was the one left, so I had to
• 32:19
  be the guy now. So I'm like I said, I'm back in
• 32:21
  high school. I'm good one-on-one training.
• 32:24
  So when I got the one-on-one training again, I'm a junior
• 32:27
  senior year, I just it took off, you know what I'm saying,
• 32:29
  because I was the guy. So me and coach one-on-one.
• 32:32
  How you feel about this, how this look, how you want to do
• 32:33
  this, you want to do this. So we, we, we, we picking to the
• 32:36
  brains. And I was in high school when I
• 32:38
  was jumping. So I think getting that
• 32:40
  one-on-one coaching bank helped me a lot.
• 32:42
  So I transformed into a 25 foot long jumper and I feel in a
• 32:45
  little 49 hot triple. I was going to say, did you
• 32:47
  triple at? All too I'm I like the line say
• 32:50
  50. No go around at all and say 50.
• 32:52
  100%, bro. But by the time as you continue
• 32:54
  to get older, you'll be a 51 foot jumper.
• 32:56
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the way it works.
• 32:58
  Which one of those three? And maybe it's really down to 2,
• 33:01
  long and high. Which one's your favorite?
• 33:05
  Hold on, let me ask you differently, which one is it?
• 33:07
  Or say, I'll say was assuming you're not doing that anymore,
• 33:10
  which one was your favorite to do as an athlete to actually?
• 33:13
  Do yeah, I would say as an athlete, I would say high jump.
• 33:17
  High jump is like my first born, long jump like my wife.
• 33:22
  You know, yeah, what's? Up.
• 33:23
  It's like triple jump is like, it's like, it's like my work
• 33:30
  wife, Yeah. Now, which one as a coach is
• 33:36
  your favorite to coach? It's so crazy because every year
• 33:42
  each group of deuce by my first year high jump, I'm with the
• 33:45
  regionals and then a second year long jump with the nationals and
• 33:50
  now this year my triple jump girls going crazy.
• 33:52
  So every year like it's like up and down this group does this
• 33:56
  group. But I have fun coaching.
• 33:57
  I think high jump is more so easier for me to coach.
• 34:00
  I would say it's easier. A long jump is probably like I
• 34:10
  want to say fun, but like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:13
  Yeah, I gotta do. I gotta do way more coaching
• 34:16
  than triple jump. It's more.
• 34:17
  I gotta do way more coaching than triple jump.
• 34:19
  Yeah, that long jump feels more like just like aggression plays
• 34:22
  a bigger factor. Yeah, it's more.
• 34:25
  Technical in that triple on that high, yeah, yeah.
• 34:28
  OK, so you become a 25 foot long jumper.
• 34:30
  That's amazing. You were just an athlete.
• 34:32
  You may have been like maybe a little bit of a late bloomer.
• 34:34
  I love late bloom for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:36
  So I tell myself, like, if I took my freshman year sophomore
• 34:39
  serious, I probably could have been a little more, but, you
• 34:42
  know, yeah. That's a good point with these
• 34:46
  young kids, it's like, man, you may think you're going to live
• 34:49
  forever, you're not you're going to get old, but you know, more
• 34:51
  importantly, the opportunity for athletics stops quickly.
• 34:55
  It's like take advantage of what you have right in front of you
• 34:57
  because it's gone. Ain't no long jumping after
• 34:59
  college for the vast majority of.
• 35:01
  US. So what did you do after
• 35:03
  graduation? So after I graduated, you know,
• 35:06
  I was like, you know what, I'm going to try to keep going.
• 35:08
  So I did like want to be unattached.
• 35:11
  She jumped pretty well. And then my lease was up.
• 35:14
  So I was like, OK now. So I went back home and then I
• 35:21
  started, I think I started working at an elementary school
• 35:25
  that fall of 2018 as like a para apparel and I did a flight to
• 35:32
  Christmas break and I was like, no, that's not for me.
• 35:35
  But I quit, and I was coaching in my high school too, so I went
• 35:40
  to the state meet. Did did you go to coach or high
• 35:44
  school? Because like, Oh well, I know
• 35:45
  track. I know my high school or and I
• 35:48
  didn't hear this. This probably is not true.
• 35:51
  Or was it more of like, oh, I want to be a coach.
• 35:53
  Let me go figure out what it looks like.
• 35:54
  Feels like more. I was just going into.
• 35:56
  The whole thing of convenience, Yeah, yeah.
• 35:57
  Yeah. And and when I did help out the
• 36:00
  kids I helped, I still get kids progress and I got like one or
• 36:04
  two kids of state. So I was like, OK, that's cool.
• 36:07
  But I still want to thinking like coaching college, right?
• 36:09
  Right. So I was still like trying to,
• 36:12
  you know, And then I went to the state meet.
• 36:14
  I saw my old college coach at the meet.
• 36:16
  I was like, hey coach, I'm thinking about getting back in
• 36:18
  it, man, let's get back in the lab.
• 36:19
  Was like, come on, let's do it. You meant as an athlete?
• 36:22
  As a coach now, I'm back home now.
• 36:24
  OK, OK. Folks, you know, so I'm gone
• 36:25
  when you said like this is like state meet 2019 when you said.
• 36:29
  Get back into the lab. You meant as.
• 36:31
  A as athlete. Yeah, exactly.
• 36:32
  That's what I mean, yeah. You're like, let's go back and
• 36:34
  jump, Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to get back,
• 36:36
  get it. So he's like, oh, come on, move
• 36:37
  back out. So I'll come back to resting.
• 36:39
  I'm looking for houses. I'm like, let me see if I can
• 36:42
  get a crib. And I did next.
• 36:44
  They hit me like, hey man, I got another coaching job.
• 36:46
  I'm going to leave. I was like, what?
• 36:50
  Well, you cannot escape that. I was like, all right, so now
• 36:54
  I'm like, man, I want to. I still wanted to try again
• 36:56
  while I was young. So I'm like, I didn't find a
• 36:58
  college cycle coach me man. So I just started working out at
• 37:02
  this gym called D1. I was working out Santa stay in
• 37:05
  shape. And then I hit up the coach
• 37:09
  shots Tyrone Stewart. It's my guy.
• 37:11
  He's at the town and he he trained me like this summer of
• 37:15
  2019. He trained me or going out
• 37:19
  feeling good. We tried our way through the
• 37:23
  beginning of 2020. I got to indoor meet in
• 37:25
  Arkansas, foul a lot of jumps, pulled my hamstrings.
• 37:28
  So I'm like, OK, cool. So I set out.
• 37:30
  I set out the whole indoor 2020. I come back the outdoor, I open
• 37:36
  up trash song like you know what, I'm like myself one more
• 37:40
  meet. If I jump good, I keep going.
• 37:42
  If I trash again, I'm stopping. And then I sign up for that meet
• 37:46
  And literally that's like the week Kobe hit shut everything
• 37:49
  down. Bro God was trying to talk to
• 37:51
  you the whole time. He.
• 37:51
  Was talking to me, he was talking to me.
• 37:53
  You weren't listening, but holy crap, he's like, he's like,
• 37:56
  fine, tomorrow I'll just shut down the whole world.
• 37:58
  How about that? Shut it down.
• 37:59
  So I'm like, that's my, that's my sign.
• 38:01
  I gotta find something to do man.
• 38:03
  This is interesting to me and hopefully you are at an age and
• 38:06
  stage where you can have some self-awareness and we can have a
• 38:09
  real conversation around this. Do you know it's being an elite
• 38:15
  track and field athlete? You have much more experience
• 38:16
  with that now today because of, you know, kids you've coached
• 38:19
  and been around and things like that.
• 38:22
  You can't be halfway pregnant, right?
• 38:24
  Like you got to be all in. It amazes me when I see
• 38:30
  professional athletes who are also working at Home Depot for
• 38:34
  20. Like it's just like, wow, that's
• 38:35
  amazing. Like that's rare.
• 38:37
  That's the exception. The ones who are doing it to be
• 38:40
  better at that level, they're full time, right?
• 38:42
  And you were a 25 foot long jumper.
• 38:45
  That's still a ways away from yeah, were you do you think when
• 38:51
  you look back at it now, do you think you were trying to steal
• 38:56
  long jump because you were trying to I'm going to say
• 38:59
  escape or run from air quotes real life like you know a job
• 39:04
  and all those those aren't always fun.
• 39:05
  I get that or did you do it because you thought like no, I
• 39:08
  got AI got a shot here if I. It was 5050 like you say, I was
• 39:13
  a late bloomer. So I was like, man, I've got
• 39:14
  this good art. I think if I lock in I can
• 39:17
  really do it because like I wasn't I wasn't a fast guy,
• 39:20
  wasn't a good sprinter. I learned how to start running
• 39:23
  faster. So I'm like, OK, I'm a late
• 39:25
  bloomer. If I get a year of like really
• 39:27
  learning it, I can probably pop something and it's 50 like now I
• 39:31
  want to go to real world yet I want to be a pro athlete.
• 39:33
  Come y'all grow and be a pro athlete.
• 39:35
  So I'm like I'll be pro. I want to be a pro athlete, so
• 39:38
  it is kind of 5050. But when it hit, like I said,
• 39:41
  when COVID shit me down, I didn't fight it.
• 39:43
  I was like, OK, it's time to go. Yeah, you get no judgement for
• 39:47
  me on that because I kind of sit on both sides of the fence.
• 39:52
  Meaning on one hand, I'm like, dude, you're not, what are you
• 39:55
  doing? Like get to the real world.
• 39:57
  It's not as bad as people say. It ain't playing in the sand all
• 40:00
  day either, so you know. But I'm also on the other side
• 40:03
  where it's like, bro. If you're going to make it, it's
• 40:05
  going to be as a 22 year old. You ain't.
• 40:07
  Going to. You ain't going to do as a 32
• 40:09
  year old. Yeah, you know, so try it now.
• 40:12
  If it fails, God bless you. You're 23 now go get a job.
• 40:16
  So I I'd see both both sides. I just know that there's just in
• 40:21
  your story is a good example of it.
• 40:23
  There's not a great support systems to help kids like that
• 40:27
  to like, oh, maybe they will be a 2829 footer if they are able
• 40:30
  to get a coach, get a location, not have to worry about working
• 40:33
  a full time job, etcetera, etcetera.
• 40:35
  That just support system just doesn't occur in in America at
• 40:39
  this point. You got to be a heck a 27 footer
• 40:42
  is will struggle to find the right place in commitment to to
• 40:47
  really lock in and and give it a good shot to go there.
• 40:50
  So yeah, well, I appreciate that honestly.
• 40:52
  OK, well the world shuts down in March of 2020.
• 40:57
  So what do you do? There's not really anything you
• 40:59
  can do. No, I'm sitting.
• 41:01
  I'm sitting at the house. My mom is in the house chilling.
• 41:04
  You know, I'm a wine guy drinking a little wine, so I'm
• 41:07
  chilling. What are you, you, White.
• 41:08
  Red. I don't say more so white.
• 41:13
  Is that right? So more dry, sweet.
• 41:15
  More sweet. More.
• 41:16
  Sweet. Oh, you're like a Moscato.
• 41:18
  That's real sweet. Yeah, I know wine too, but OK.
• 41:21
  I'm a West Coast Cabernet red guy.
• 41:23
  Go go. Oregon, Washington, California
• 41:25
  Cabernets. Can't go wrong.
• 41:27
  They all taste the same. Many people are yelling right
• 41:29
  now saying that you definitely there's different tastes.
• 41:31
  I think they all taste the same, but they're awesome.
• 41:33
  So I'm with you, OK? You're contemplating over the
• 41:35
  grapes. OK, yeah, all the grapes
• 41:37
  contemplating like what's the next move?
• 41:39
  And so now my buddy who played football, he's already started
• 41:45
  his coaching journey in college. So via GA is some some school.
• 41:48
  I'm like, hey man, how get into it?
• 41:50
  You know, like, like see a track, do a football, do with
• 41:53
  GA. So like, oh, I don't know what
• 41:55
  Jay was I was going to. Ask you, did you even know?
• 41:58
  Yeah, yeah. I didn't know.
• 41:59
  So I was like looking around and then somebody else had told me
• 42:04
  to give them job marketing look so.
• 42:08
  The NCAA job marketing, Yeah. So I'm just looking around and I
• 42:16
  saw I saw opening at this division two school in West
• 42:20
  Virginia. It was out.
• 42:21
  It was out of them and a JUCO in Kansas.
• 42:26
  And I was just looking, trying to balance my options.
• 42:31
  And after interviewing in both for them saying how the setup
• 42:32
  was, I decided to go to West Virginia.
• 42:36
  And I just went on blind faith, really.
• 42:40
  Yeah, I took a visit, but I kind of committed before the visit,
• 42:42
  which is I won't do it no more, but.
• 42:45
  Do you mind sharing this both those schools or?
• 42:48
  In West Virginia, it was Wheeling, yeah.
• 42:51
  Wheeling, Jesuit or Wheeling? Yeah, yeah.
• 42:53
  Then they dropped the Jesuit now.
• 42:54
  But yeah, Wheeling. They had, if I remember
• 42:57
  correctly, your school record there in the high jump would
• 42:59
  have been like 7273. Yeah, it's some, yeah.
• 43:02
  They got, I remember back in the day, they had a a tremendous
• 43:05
  high jumper and, and only because I coached JUCO in Kansas
• 43:09
  as well back in the day. Do you remember the JUCO?
• 43:12
  Which which ones are? Are they out there?
• 43:14
  It's it's first. Of all, there's like 20 of them
• 43:16
  so. I'm not.
• 43:17
  It might have been. It might have been coffee.
• 43:20
  Oh yeah, okay, Red the Ravens, the.
• 43:22
  Might have been though. Yeah, Robert, the.
• 43:24
  Reason I didn't go because it was like, yeah, you got to be
• 43:26
  like the RA. I'm like, man, not doing all
• 43:32
  that like. We're going to give you a little
• 43:33
  bit each month in cash, but really you're making your money
• 43:36
  because it's free rent, because you're going to be an RA.
• 43:37
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm like, now I'm cool,
• 43:39
  Yeah. Yeah, that is the.
• 43:40
  G William, bro. Yeah.
• 43:41
  And then they didn't offer the school part, so William was
• 43:43
  like, yeah, we'll pay for school too.
• 43:45
  So yeah, I'm like, all right, cool.
• 43:46
  They don't. They can't pay for school
• 43:47
  because they're a JUCO. Bro, you already done freshman,
• 43:49
  sophomore year. Even though you might not have
• 43:50
  done that, great. You can't do it.
• 43:51
  Repeat it so. Yeah, yeah.
• 43:52
  So I didn't know that. So I was like, all right.
• 43:55
  So I went out. I went out there, definitely
• 43:59
  culture shock. Though Yeah, it had been both
• 44:00
  places would have been a culture shock.
• 44:01
  But yeah, Coffeyville, Robert Wood head coach there.
• 44:04
  Amazing guy. Has also been in the Guild
• 44:06
  podcast. I'm so blessed that I did coach.
• 44:09
  I only coached a year. I coached just down the road
• 44:11
  from Coffeyville in the OSHA County, a year of the head coach
• 44:14
  there. So blessed.
• 44:16
  Like JUCO changes you in a real positive way.
• 44:20
  So it would have been a culture shock either way.
• 44:22
  You would have had a good time. But you go to West Virginia,
• 44:24
  which, yeah, I don't know if I can't count them, I can count
• 44:26
  the number of times on one hand and still have fingers leftover.
• 44:29
  How many times I've been in West Virginia.
• 44:30
  What was that like? It was, it was, it was
• 44:35
  different. So when I when I got there.
• 44:37
  Small town, Big town, Wheeling. It was small.
• 44:39
  It's like, you know, the on the map, the top of it, it's like in
• 44:42
  between, it's in between Ohio and like Pittsburgh Conda.
• 44:48
  Oh, you're up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 44:49
  OK. You're like 30 minutes from
• 44:50
  Columbus. I know 20 minutes from Columbus.
• 44:52
  I just crossed a little bridge. Oh, so you're in a It's not like
• 44:55
  you're there's nothing for mile for hours.
• 44:57
  There's yeah, yeah, Pittsburgh hurt the most.
• 45:02
  Canes is like 80 miles away. Oh, yeah, right.
• 45:06
  Of course. Yeah, yeah.
• 45:08
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's no Waffle House.
• 45:09
  I'm like. I'm definitely with you.
• 45:12
  I'm like, goodness, so it hurt, but so I got there.
• 45:17
  I'm looking for somewhere to stay.
• 45:18
  And I don't know how this happened.
• 45:20
  I think the head coach called around for me and this man that
• 45:23
  stayed like part of school had like this little house outside
• 45:26
  of his garage. Like this be.
• 45:28
  And like I stayed up there for that year and I was a couple of
• 45:32
  the first couple of nights, it's like a lot of awake couldn't
• 45:35
  sleep and I got to know them and it was cool people, the
• 45:39
  neighbors was cool. We had sipped some wine together
• 45:40
  and talk So and the school was right back.
• 45:43
  I walked to the school. So it was a cool experience, but
• 45:47
  I it took me some getting used to.
• 45:51
  Was your friend still there on the GA side for football?
• 45:54
  No, he was. He was coaching someone.
• 45:56
  Arkansas. No, that's right, because you
• 45:58
  went to the incident, my job market and found this.
• 46:00
  Yeah. Yeah, he told me to see him a
• 46:02
  track. Got it, got it, got it.
• 46:04
  Well, very similar when I first got the Mississippi State I
• 46:06
  lived in a little. I mean, I can't even call it a
• 46:09
  one bedroom apartment the outside of an old lady's house.
• 46:12
  So it's very similar. Bro, I, I was power 5 and I was
• 46:16
  barely could afford rent to this little place.
• 46:18
  So I'm I'm with you, that's even. 300 a month.
• 46:20
  Were you so? Were you Aga or were you?
• 46:23
  Yeah, I just like GA Give me 300 a month while I plan for school.
• 46:26
  Yeah, OK. What?
• 46:26
  What were you doing for your master's program?
• 46:29
  I think it was a business administration up there, but you
• 46:34
  know, I didn't finish up there because I left and came the
• 46:36
  ground that finished up. So I, I don't know, it was
• 46:38
  sports administration here, so. You did one year in Wheeling.
• 46:44
  What was that like though? Like.
• 46:45
  It was cool. It was cool.
• 46:46
  I'm. Coaching Coaching now.
• 46:48
  Yeah, I really got to see that. That's true.
• 46:52
  I can coach, really coach, because like before I left, I
• 46:54
  was the coach. I said high school and I have
• 46:58
  some kids in the neighborhood that I work out right.
• 47:02
  The Wheeling, we didn't really they didn't have the they didn't
• 47:05
  have jump pits. So I had to jump in the
• 47:08
  auxiliary basketball gym. I rolled A Mundo track out.
• 47:12
  We jump on the mats. I had to get real creative and
• 47:16
  we did really well. Like we did good at conference.
• 47:19
  I had a young man like miss D1 by like 1-2 spouse.
• 47:22
  A long jump on the was the Provost list, so it's called.
• 47:25
  Right. Yeah, provisional.
• 47:27
  That that was different too, from how I didn't get that.
• 47:29
  Yeah, we used to have like an automatic mark and then a
• 47:32
  provisional. Yeah, he missed it by like 2
• 47:34
  spots. I'm like OK, so I'm like man, I
• 47:36
  can coach, man I can coach. So it is, you know, and the
• 47:40
  creative background I came from helped me in this situation.
• 47:43
  So it it was cool, it was cool and.
• 47:46
  Did you do any at at this point? So still at Wheeling here.
• 47:51
  Were you doing any kind of coaching education?
• 47:53
  And what I mean by coaching education, there's two things.
• 47:56
  There's formal and informal. Formal is like USATF level 1,
• 47:59
  level 2US, TFCCCA, Altus, things like that.
• 48:02
  Informal is you're calling Calvin Robinson going, hey, can
• 48:06
  you help me out here? I got no pits, things like that.
• 48:08
  What? What are you doing?
• 48:09
  A lot, a lot of informal, a lot of phone calls.
• 48:12
  Just as a point, yeah. Hey, Coach, this look good what
• 48:15
  I'm doing. I get the feedback, I'll fix it.
• 48:18
  And who are? Who are some of your go to?
• 48:21
  Like man, if it weren't for so and so picking up the phone, I I
• 48:24
  don't know what be where I am. I got a few at at that point.
• 48:29
  I was like, at that point, I would say definitely Coach Rob
• 48:34
  was 1. Coach Adam Pennington.
• 48:40
  That's one, yeah. Adam's great.
• 48:41
  He's been on the podcast. Yeah, he's to help me to this
• 48:43
  day. Of course, you know, of course
• 48:47
  Von was there and I would I would say Wesley Miller, he's my
• 48:55
  coach also. He got me 25 feet and Jacob
• 48:59
  Cohen, he, he, he, he's somebody.
• 49:02
  So at that point there's I just called people that I knew from
• 49:04
  college and before that I. Forgot Cohen was at Yeah, he.
• 49:09
  He got me, you know. He's up here in Champaign now,
• 49:11
  yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 49:12
  And he said, I said text him now his videos.
• 49:14
  Hey, coaches look good. How this look?
• 49:16
  You know so? He's a Boo disciple, so, you
• 49:18
  know, I'm going to obviously be on his side because I'm that was
• 49:21
  that was my mentor coach and it was Boo.
• 49:22
  So yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that.
• 49:24
  So what made you go from Wheeling to Grambling?
• 49:27
  You know, you're halfway through a grad program.
• 49:29
  I know it's not home. So that could be a big this.
• 49:34
  Is a lot different factors like so I like I like Wheeling like I
• 49:37
  said it was cool I met some good friends that coach on sports.
• 49:40
  We'll go to Pittsburgh and stuff and do stuff like that.
• 49:42
  But thing a big thing to want one thing.
• 49:46
  It's going to sound petty, but like it was like March.
• 49:49
  It was like March. We have practice.
• 49:51
  It's sunny, it's nice, it's warm and the blink of an eye got
• 49:57
  pissed back and start snowing. I was like, yeah, because like
• 50:05
  the snow is different from me. Like it snows so much and life
• 50:10
  go, you know, like I'm used to snowing and me shitting down,
• 50:12
  right. Yeah, like I'm not getting out
• 50:14
  the bed. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 50:15
  So like when it snowed I'm. Not getting up, Yeah.
• 50:18
  They still going to work yeah I'm walking walking to work in
• 50:20
  the snow, but it's cool the snow was cool for like a day like 2
• 50:23
  days three days a week, but like 3 weeks of the snow I'm like I
• 50:28
  don't know I. Don't think that's petty to
• 50:30
  Mario because, you know, first of all, first of all, you need
• 50:35
  to know that you're blessed and privileged that you could move
• 50:39
  back to a place of warmth. So it was a home in this.
• 50:42
  And so I'm reminded, it's interesting.
• 50:44
  I learned a couple years, I mean, I don't know, probably 7
• 50:47
  years. I think it was before COVID.
• 50:49
  There was a lot of talk about like you've seen like on the
• 50:51
  news where they'll say, you know, unemployment rate is, you
• 50:54
  know, 3% or whatever it is, right?
• 50:55
  And then they'll typically follow that and say, you know,
• 50:59
  400,000 or whatever the number is.
• 51:00
  I don't know the number. Some unbelievable amount of
• 51:02
  number of people are out of work.
• 51:04
  And it's like, well, wait a minute, why don't those people
• 51:05
  who are out of work just get to the, you know, the unemployment
• 51:08
  rate? Why don't we just, you know, and
• 51:11
  I read this article about that, the jobs that are open are not
• 51:16
  evenly distributed across America.
• 51:18
  This one was particularly talking about some factory jobs
• 51:21
  down in Mississippi. And it was like, so there's X
• 51:24
  number of factory jobs in Mississippi for like chicken
• 51:26
  farms and stuff like that. Well, the people who would
• 51:29
  gladly take that job, they're out of work or whatever are
• 51:33
  living in Austin or Seattle or Wheeling.
• 51:37
  And they don't have the means to just pick up whether it's
• 51:41
  because of family, they have a sick mom, they just don't have a
• 51:45
  car. They don't have the ability.
• 51:48
  So guys and gals like us, we need to make sure that like
• 51:54
  we're realizing like, Oh yeah, I didn't like the snow.
• 51:58
  And hey, by the way, same brother.
• 51:59
  I live in freaking Champaign, IL.
• 52:00
  I try to travel as much as possible during the winter.
• 52:02
  I hate the sun. I grew up in Alabama, dude.
• 52:04
  I. Can't.
• 52:04
  Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
• 52:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I married a Chicago girl, so
• 52:07
  I ain't leaving and I'm. I'm here.
• 52:10
  Yeah, we are in Happy job, happy frog.
• 52:12
  I don't know, whatever. That was dumb.
• 52:17
  But, but we had the if I had to right now, if it was like, oh,
• 52:21
  if, if Gil was like, hey man, we're going to open up a
• 52:23
  Jacksonville, FL office or Atlanta, whatever.
• 52:26
  You know, it would suck. I got great friends here.
• 52:28
  My wife has great friends, but I could afford it.
• 52:31
  I could do that. So it's not petty.
• 52:33
  You are very blessed. And I love that you have this
• 52:36
  ability that if you don't like snow, you don't have to live
• 52:39
  where it's snow. You don't have to, You know, I,
• 52:41
  I love that. So don't, it's not petty, it's
• 52:43
  preference. And you're privileged enough
• 52:45
  that you do have that ability. So don't, don't, don't, don't
• 52:48
  put it down because there's plenty of people that would love
• 52:51
  to move and they, they, they can't for, for so you come back
• 52:55
  closer to home. So how did that opportunity come
• 52:57
  about? I I was kind of shooting my shot
• 53:01
  before I left. So before I left, I actually
• 53:05
  called a lot of tech for I left like, hey, I got some open can.
• 53:08
  I was like, now I don't really have no spots right now for
• 53:11
  that. I go ahead Cool.
• 53:13
  So I was asking around, but then so I just made that move, but I
• 53:17
  just called down to coach Von and I was like, hey, I got some
• 53:20
  open at that time. He went ahead coach, yet he was
• 53:22
  a Sprint coach still, right? They're like, I see you know
• 53:25
  what the gap was going on and how the universe works.
• 53:29
  So my friend at coach football, he called me like, hey bro, I
• 53:34
  feel like the Grambling. The coach, they just called me.
• 53:36
  I'm feeling like Grambling. No way I.
• 53:38
  Was like I was like OK, cool, I'm like OK, bet like you get a
• 53:40
  crib because so we was at take together.
• 53:43
  We never got the chance to be roommates so let's do it let's
• 53:46
  do it now. Get out the way.
• 53:48
  OK, OK, let me call us so I can do so I just I just I came home
• 53:55
  and I had a job yet I just pulled up on on coach Vaughn and
• 54:00
  coach Lavelle and I just bugged him like hey, I can I can coach
• 54:04
  the jumps. Y'all got a jumps coach.
• 54:05
  Let me come I'll be Ji. But I did say I did tell him,
• 54:08
  hey, it's not going to be free now.
• 54:10
  Not doing nothing for free. Amen, Amen.
• 54:12
  Pay for. School or something?
• 54:13
  We have to pay for school. I need his masters.
• 54:16
  So they they did that for me and the rest is history.
• 54:19
  But I just bugged everything and just like, hey, I can do it, you
• 54:22
  know? What?
• 54:23
  First of all, I can't tell you how proud I am that you said not
• 54:26
  for free. And I don't mean that because of
• 54:28
  Grambling. I don't mean that because of
• 54:29
  anything else. You know, our coaches are just
• 54:32
  not paid enough. First of all, I'm a huge not a
• 54:39
  fan anti fan of volunteer coaches.
• 54:42
  Yeah, you should get you should be getting paid our sport.
• 54:45
  We should be paying people in our profession of coaching.
• 54:48
  So I love that you had some sense of worth of like it don't
• 54:52
  work if it's just me showing up because I I'm friends with
• 54:56
  Yvonne. You know, something needs to get
• 54:59
  paid school at the least. In fact, I'll take school.
• 55:01
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm proud of you for that.
• 55:03
  That's not that people, other people who are volunteer coaches
• 55:07
  are, you know, devaluing themselves.
• 55:09
  Understand those situations are, are there and some people just,
• 55:11
  you know, I have a full time job, so I just want to volunteer
• 55:14
  that. That's a different aspect.
• 55:15
  But I just, I really want our coaches to be paid.
• 55:18
  It's a, it's a profession that should be professionalized.
• 55:20
  So I, I, I like that. Not necessarily a fan of, I
• 55:24
  guess I'm a fan of GAS because at least you are getting paid
• 55:26
  with your schooling. So I, I get that.
• 55:28
  OK, so you start at Grambling to finish out your grad work there.
• 55:35
  Did you get hired on as an assistant right after your grad?
• 55:39
  Yeah, I I was part time and then I got moved up to full time
• 55:43
  after that, but. Are you, when you move from
• 55:47
  Wheeling down to Gramble to back to home and then Grambling, are
• 55:51
  you now like, are you a track coach, meaning like, OK, this is
• 55:54
  my career or is there still a potential out?
• 55:59
  I think, I think I'm at that point, I don't think I'm kind of
• 56:01
  fully in on it now. Just trying to figure out what
• 56:04
  level I'm going to go at that time willing.
• 56:07
  After I had that great year, I started chasing that D1 book
• 56:10
  also was like, let me talk to the D1.
• 56:14
  So I was like, let me let me call and see if I can get down
• 56:16
  there and show I can do something so.
• 56:19
  I I coached for 10 years. I started high school, excuse
• 56:23
  me, and my whole goal was to get to Division One.
• 56:26
  My whole goal was to get to the Power 5.
• 56:28
  And so I, you know, I coached for 10 years and I was at 5
• 56:31
  different institutions. So I get it brother, I get it
• 56:34
  now again, you know, hindsight's 2020 app perspective, you know,
• 56:39
  I've, I've done 360 or whatever episodes here, all levels,
• 56:44
  D1D2D3, high school, JUCO professional, etcetera.
• 56:48
  And I'll always tell people like, you know, who smiles, who
• 56:51
  always seems to be a little happier than others.
• 56:53
  My D3 coaches, like I think they've just they they figured
• 56:57
  it out that I wonder is like, because this would be like my
• 56:59
  30th year of coaching, which that's crazy to say all about.
• 57:02
  I was like, I wonder if I'd have figured it out by now, like if
• 57:05
  I'd have been like, yeah, you know what?
• 57:06
  This D one thing's great now is that Mississippi State and love
• 57:09
  man, the the Al Schmidt, Steve Dudley, heck, one of my former
• 57:13
  athletes at Mississippi State, Chris Woods is the head coach of
• 57:15
  Mississippi State now, which this makes me old.
• 57:19
  I'm so glad I was at Mississippi State.
• 57:21
  But boy, it was a it was a war. Every everything was a war.
• 57:25
  Not just some things. Everything was a war.
• 57:27
  Recruiting. I remember the first recruit I
• 57:29
  went after because I was thinking I was at Ball State
• 57:31
  coaching women. Then I came to Mississippi State
• 57:33
  and I was like, oh, I don't have to tell people like a Grambling.
• 57:37
  You still have to tell some people where Grambling's at,
• 57:39
  right? You know, let's be real.
• 57:41
  Yeah. So yeah.
• 57:42
  Yeah. Depends on who, you know, maybe
• 57:43
  more people in Louisiana know. But if you happen to recruit a
• 57:45
  kid from California, they're like, Grant, where's Grambling?
• 57:48
  You're in the state of Louisiana, right.
• 57:49
  Same thing at Ball State. We had to do same thing.
• 57:51
  I was like, when I get to Mississippi State though,
• 57:54
  everybody because of football, I get it.
• 57:55
  But everybody get is going to know Mississippi State
• 57:58
  recruiting is going to get so much easier.
• 58:01
  First kid I recruited, Elsie Coleman, love Elsie.
• 58:03
  He ended up setting the national high school record in the 400
• 58:06
  now beat by Quincy Wilson. Jolie, his coach has been on the
• 58:10
  podcast before. And so I call Elsie up and we
• 58:14
  got a great rapport going back and forth.
• 58:16
  It's going really well. And then I finally asked him.
• 58:18
  I was like, hey, so Elsie, who are your back then?
• 58:20
  We can only do 5 visits. So that was always important.
• 58:22
  Like who's your top five? You know, I need, I need to be
• 58:24
  one of them, right? So he's like, well, I'm
• 58:26
  definitely going to visit you coach.
• 58:27
  My God, it's amazing. I appreciate that he goes then
• 58:29
  I'm going to visit Florida, Texas, USC and Baylor.
• 58:33
  And I was like, oh, wait a minute, Florida, that's Mouse.
• 58:39
  That's my mentor. Like I like I that that's my
• 58:43
  guy. And I got to beat.
• 58:44
  Wait a minute, I got to beat him in recruiting too.
• 58:46
  Wait, Baylor 4x4 UUSCLA, I'm in Starkville.
• 58:52
  I got to compete against Lai. Mean, it didn't get easier.
• 58:58
  It got harder, right? What do you see now that you,
• 59:04
  you know, graduate work, part time coach now full time coach
• 59:08
  and you're doing an amazing job. What's the hardest part?
• 59:12
  You found recruiting because you went through recruiting, you got
• 59:15
  recruited yourself. What's been the hard part for
• 59:18
  you that you're like, man, everybody still wants to go the
• 59:21
  power for or grades. You know, again, we're talking
• 59:24
  about 18178 year old kids here. What's been a struggle for you?
• 59:28
  That's probably the biggest thing, just chunk of peak with
• 59:32
  schools that got more resources for the most part.
• 59:36
  That's kind of biggest thing for real.
• 59:38
  Just recruiting self is pretty easy.
• 59:40
  Find kids you can connect with and and kind of got the the the
• 59:45
  the build and the composure and the the morals that you like for
• 59:49
  in your group, the standards you're trying to set.
• 59:52
  It's pretty easy. But they tell me I'm looking at
• 59:55
  this P4. Two of them I'm going to shoot
• 59:57
  my shot still, but. How how do you this was
• 1:00:01
  something I was always curious about.
• 1:00:04
  So when I was at Mississippi State, because I'm in the SECI
• 1:00:07
  recruited the top 20 of each event.
• 1:00:09
  Like that was pretty much, I mean, if you were, I mean, you
• 1:00:14
  were 6-8 out of high school, right in the high jump, man, you
• 1:00:18
  know, that's 12th in the SEC, right?
• 1:00:20
  I needed some 7 foot and I couldn't and I couldn't get.
• 1:00:23
  We didn't have a a big team. So I had to have a 7 two guy,
• 1:00:28
  not, you know, I needed them beat first, second or third, you
• 1:00:30
  know, so hard in that sense. But at Ball State and we were we
• 1:00:35
  were good. You know, I had a 22 foot long
• 1:00:37
  jumper, 45 foot triple to girl woman, I guess in college.
• 1:00:41
  So we, you know, we had a good squad ran, you know, I can't
• 1:00:44
  remember what we were in 44 high or something.
• 1:00:46
  I don't know. But we were good.
• 1:00:49
  But I had to temper like, you know, like in the 100 meter dash
• 1:00:53
  for girls. 1130 might have led the nation back then.
• 1:00:57
  I'm sure maybe there's a fashion, but 11/30 was super
• 1:00:58
  fast. I had the temper of like, do I
• 1:01:00
  really go after her, try to go after her 'cause obviously LSU,
• 1:01:04
  whatever you know, etcetera is going after or do I start at
• 1:01:08
  11/8 or wherever you know I? Yeah, that's the battle.
• 1:01:12
  Yeah, because you're like, oh man, I I could make that 11
• 1:01:15
  three person fast. Like I could help that 11/3 or
• 1:01:17
  for you if you're doing jumps. So maybe you're looking like
• 1:01:19
  you're like, man, there's a 20 foot three girls like, man, I
• 1:01:23
  could, I could make her 21 to 22.
• 1:01:26
  But it's like, God bless I she's going to do a visit on LSU and
• 1:01:29
  the TC, whatever. And it's like, because you have
• 1:01:32
  to, you only have so much time on your hands.
• 1:01:35
  By the way, you got to coach the kids in the front of you as
• 1:01:36
  well. You're not a full timer.
• 1:01:38
  It's not all you do. You have to do other things plus
• 1:01:40
  a life, right. How do you gauge like how much
• 1:01:44
  time and attention do you put in those?
• 1:01:46
  Maybe we call those the reachers like, oh, because, because you
• 1:01:48
  can you, you'll sign somebody in the top ten.
• 1:01:51
  You know, there there's going to be somebody who's like, Oh yeah,
• 1:01:53
  my family's Grambling. I, I vibe with you.
• 1:01:55
  I'm going to Grambling over these other schools.
• 1:01:57
  How do you, how do you adjust your time?
• 1:02:00
  How do you figure out your time of how much I'm going to spend
• 1:02:02
  on those reachers? How much am I going to spend in
• 1:02:04
  my sweet spot? How, how much do I take a risk?
• 1:02:06
  An 18 footer. It's.
• 1:02:08
  Like, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:02:09
  How do you, how do you figure that out at this age?
• 1:02:11
  You're you're still at a pretty young age on this.
• 1:02:15
  For the Reachers, I'm I'm not, I'm not going to blow the phone
• 1:02:18
  up, so I'm going to reach out. If you show me you're
• 1:02:21
  interested, I'll talk back. But if I got a hey, I'm still
• 1:02:23
  here to send me a transcript. Hey, I'm blowing you up.
• 1:02:27
  All right, I'm cool. So if they're not, if this is a
• 1:02:31
  Reacher, like, yeah, you know, I might need a couple years before
• 1:02:34
  we can do anything if they're not reciprocating.
• 1:02:37
  Well, I'll say that the the five, I guess, quote the five
• 1:02:40
  star kids. The reachers.
• 1:02:42
  Reachers. No, no, no, that's right.
• 1:02:43
  You know what? I think I named both of those
• 1:02:45
  reachers. Yeah, OK, gotcha.
• 1:02:47
  The the, the let's call them the 21 footers.
• 1:02:49
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK, 21 footers, I'm like, I'm
• 1:02:52
  not, I gotta blow your phone up, you know, and it's, you know,
• 1:02:55
  and it's basically anybody, but especially those.
• 1:02:58
  Do you think like, well, if I send an e-mail or at least a
• 1:03:01
  voicemail, if they don't pick up, there may be something.
• 1:03:04
  So I kind of want to. Yeah, I'm going to.
• 1:03:06
  I'm going to be there enough time.
• 1:03:07
  I'm going to reach out a few times, you know, I'm just, it's
• 1:03:10
  nothing else. Then I'm not going to bug.
• 1:03:13
  I'm still here. Are you able, are you able to
• 1:03:16
  cut bait? And what I mean by that is
• 1:03:17
  because, you know, if you spend 100 phone calls, 100 texts, 100
• 1:03:20
  messages on that 21 footer, you know, yeah, one out of 1000 of
• 1:03:25
  them are going to sign with you, someone going to sign.
• 1:03:27
  But it's one out of 1000. Dude, you don't have too much
• 1:03:29
  time, are you? Are you easy to quick baiting
• 1:03:31
  like I find. Yeah, Yeah, I'm not.
• 1:03:33
  Interested based on where the Congress, the Marks and actually
• 1:03:38
  I'm I'm I'm open to development. So I'm not going shot away the
• 1:03:42
  18 seven girl for the 20 footer just because you know, so I I
• 1:03:47
  get 318 meds if I had to. I'm cool development, but see if
• 1:03:52
  the tricky spot now is like shooting at the 40 foot triple
• 1:03:58
  jump girl out of high school was like I got grudges jump 4210
• 1:04:02
  this weekend, but same time was like it's like they might still
• 1:04:07
  somebody. They might sit there and still
• 1:04:09
  like him and go there. So it's like, you see, we can
• 1:04:13
  get it down here too. Yeah.
• 1:04:15
  Give it a chance so. And the women's triple jump is
• 1:04:18
  an interesting event because, you know, back when I was doing
• 1:04:20
  a 40 footer out of high school, it's like, oh, bro, I don't
• 1:04:24
  know, I only have to make them a little bit better and they'll
• 1:04:26
  score. You know 40 footer 41 will score
• 1:04:28
  not. 40 don't, yeah. Dude.
• 1:04:31
  Now, like I remember good buddy of mine, Scott Richardson, he
• 1:04:34
  was at Auburn University. I'm coming home from ACCS over
• 1:04:38
  at Notre Dame Indoor and he calls me up because they just
• 1:04:41
  had SCCS Indoor and he's like dude, 438I can't remember the
• 1:04:44
  exact numbers, but it was like it was a stupid number, like 43
• 1:04:47
  something didn't score. And I was like, what the Frick
• 1:04:51
  dude? Yeah, 43 eight should score at
• 1:04:54
  nationals. You're telling me this didn't
• 1:04:56
  score at conference? I'm so glad I got out of
• 1:05:00
  country. I was that good.
• 1:05:01
  Crazy man. It's crazy, like crazy 40 foot
• 1:05:04
  girls now and all the other 50 foot guys, you know, it's like
• 1:05:10
  on this level there, that's full scholarship on that.
• 1:05:12
  That's probably 10% over there. But you know, I get it on both
• 1:05:15
  sides. You a kid chase the logo.
• 1:05:17
  I get both sides as a coach too. I love to be able to sit back
• 1:05:20
  and let the logo do the work. I love to do that too.
• 1:05:23
  But so I get both. Sides, I want to hold on.
• 1:05:26
  I got to correct, make sure I heard you right.
• 1:05:28
  And if I did, I want to push back a little bit.
• 1:05:31
  Did you say there's some coaches out there that will just recruit
• 1:05:33
  the logo? The kids I, you know, certain.
• 1:05:36
  Kids. OK, OK.
• 1:05:37
  Yeah, you know, there's some kids like, oh, that's their
• 1:05:39
  school. I'm going.
• 1:05:39
  You got to be like, sometimes school can sell itself, you
• 1:05:42
  know, so. I disagree with that and the
• 1:05:47
  reason I disagree with that is because a little bit like that
• 1:05:49
  Mississippi State story. If AI remember Kara Smith
• 1:05:53
  Gilbert now at Georgia love her. We're just so blessed.
• 1:05:56
  We just got done doing her new facility.
• 1:05:58
  She just won the women's indoor national title when she was at
• 1:06:02
  USCI. Go and visit and I'm walking the
• 1:06:05
  track with her and Quincy, her and Q and I asked her.
• 1:06:08
  I was like, so Carol, I was like, if you're recruiting a kid
• 1:06:12
  here at USC, they're being recruited by whatever else you
• 1:06:17
  think are the best schools, Florida, Texas, whatever,
• 1:06:19
  whatever schools you want to put in there.
• 1:06:21
  This ain't their only choice if USC, right?
• 1:06:24
  And so I asked her. I was like, why do as a kid
• 1:06:26
  choose USC? But but what I'm getting at is
• 1:06:29
  even if I'm like, again, whatever you're thinking, the
• 1:06:32
  logo, you know, again, think about national brands like LSU,
• 1:06:35
  Florida, those kind of schools, they've still got to compete
• 1:06:39
  against each other. Edric, I do.
• 1:06:40
  I do. Edric L'Oreal has to bust his
• 1:06:42
  butt recruiting to beat Dennis Shaver in Mouse.
• 1:06:45
  Mouse has to butt bust his butt to beat Carol and Q.
• 1:06:49
  And I'm missing a billion other amazing coaches in there.
• 1:06:52
  So I don't think anyone school has a stand out even.
• 1:06:57
  I mean, Arkansas, who's one more national towns than anybody,
• 1:06:59
  they still got a bust. There especially now, still
• 1:07:04
  going on I. Think so, I think.
• 1:07:06
  That's exactly. Right, the reason I push back on
• 1:07:09
  the on that one a little bit to Mario is I also push back in a
• 1:07:13
  very similar argument. It's in the same arc.
• 1:07:15
  I don't hear you saying this. I'm not accusing you of saying
• 1:07:17
  this, but I'll hear people saying, oh, powerful coaches
• 1:07:22
  don't develop athletes, They only want the exactly.
• 1:07:25
  And I'm like, it got to be kidding me.
• 1:07:27
  One of my favorite things. I love not picking on mouse, but
• 1:07:30
  using mouse, for example. He's a good friend of mine and
• 1:07:33
  OG, you know, episode #33 I think here on the Guild podcast,
• 1:07:37
  they, they do a good job of their press release of the kids
• 1:07:40
  that they sign. And certainly and you know, they
• 1:07:42
  usually sign a lot of the kids and usually, you know, you'll
• 1:07:44
  see the, you know, a sub 4 Miller on the boys side and A10
• 1:07:48
  flat, you know, 100 meter kid. You'll see those for sure,
• 1:07:50
  'cause of Florida and he deserves it and all that kind of
• 1:07:53
  stuff. But you'll see like a a 1036
• 1:07:56
  100M guy and you're like, bro, that does nothing in the SEC
• 1:08:00
  that kids going to have to be developed.
• 1:08:02
  That's why Val signed him. He's like, oh, that kid maybe
• 1:08:05
  1036. Now I can so and even a kid who
• 1:08:08
  is a like there's a couple. This is crazy.
• 1:08:11
  There is what 3? Are there 3 kids in America
• 1:08:13
  right now? High schools running sub ten?
• 1:08:15
  I think there's two in Texas, one in Georgia or something like
• 1:08:17
  that. That's ludicrous by the way.
• 1:08:19
  But anyway, even those kids they're running 998997, whatever
• 1:08:24
  they're running are going to have to be the it's and it's and
• 1:08:26
  it's hard to get a kid from 997 to 995 to 99, yeah, etcetera.
• 1:08:31
  Just like it's hard taking 11 flat kids to 1060.
• 1:08:33
  That is also hard. It looks different like so
• 1:08:36
  people like say it's like you got a kid 10-8 yeah, you can it
• 1:08:39
  look better going from 10/8 to 10/5, but it's hard to go from
• 1:08:43
  10 O to 99. So that development, development
• 1:08:46
  you know both of. Those, I think are hard.
• 1:08:48
  I don't think 1 is necessarily harder than the other.
• 1:08:50
  Just when people, they get caught up on the point O2.
• 1:08:53
  It's only point O2. Yeah, but it's 10.
• 1:08:57
  They're already 99% of their Max of their life.
• 1:09:00
  I've got to get to 99.1. You've got a kid who's at 80% to
• 1:09:03
  get them to 90% of their life. That's hard too.
• 1:09:06
  But there's more room there that that equals more time.
• 1:09:08
  People, people got to win. You know, you never know what a
• 1:09:10
  DS are asking of people, you know.
• 1:09:12
  So some of these might be like, hey, you just do good at
• 1:09:15
  conference and we hey, that's really somebody's like, hey, you
• 1:09:19
  gotta go to the nationals. I just, I just think I don't
• 1:09:22
  care what level I I love. One of my favorite things to do
• 1:09:24
  is go look at D3 nationals. Right.
• 1:09:27
  Most of those kids were not he would not recruit most of those
• 1:09:30
  kids that signed with D3. That's that's not a a slam on
• 1:09:36
  them. However, if you go look at D3
• 1:09:38
  nationals now, you would sign probably almost every kid that
• 1:09:42
  made a final, no matter what event.
• 1:09:44
  Those guys and gals are coaching their tails.
• 1:09:46
  Everybody has, but everybody's developing.
• 1:09:50
  This. Farce like, hey, you know what,
• 1:09:51
  you're a good example of your first couple of years in
• 1:09:53
  college. How about this one where there's
• 1:09:57
  this fight between high school and college coaches and I'm just
• 1:10:00
  I'm I'm I'm the guy who gets in the middle of it and says chill
• 1:10:02
  out, both of them. Where high school coaches say,
• 1:10:05
  oh, most kids I've heard this, I've heard this.
• 1:10:07
  That's great. Most they'll say most.
• 1:10:08
  That's a big word. Most kids don't improve in
• 1:10:12
  college and it's like and and they blame the college coach.
• 1:10:16
  The reason I said you're an example of this is if I were to
• 1:10:18
  have looked at what your mark was out of high school and your
• 1:10:21
  marks the first two years, I'd go look at that.
• 1:10:24
  That's Mario kid. When he left me, he jumped 6-8.
• 1:10:27
  Then he went to law tech, this great jump school because it is.
• 1:10:31
  And look, he's still 6-8 and it's like bro to Mario went
• 1:10:35
  there and found out there's parties.
• 1:10:36
  And by the way, no one's going to wake me up to go to class so
• 1:10:39
  I can sleep in. You know, things like that big
• 1:10:41
  part. There is so much more to a kid
• 1:10:44
  hitting APR than just what happens on that apron or that
• 1:10:47
  runway. Etcetera.
• 1:10:48
  So yeah, so sure. That was a big long tangent
• 1:10:52
  Tomorrow. Sorry.
• 1:10:53
  I just first of all, love a young coach who has like you're
• 1:10:56
  a little bit more wise in your your your coaching age is a
• 1:11:00
  little bit more than what you Yeah, I really appreciate having
• 1:11:03
  those kind of conversations. So what if you So now what?
• 1:11:06
  What about now coaching education?
• 1:11:08
  Are you have you done any of the formal ones?
• 1:11:10
  Are you still on the? I need to for like the the
• 1:11:16
  convention, I go to convention last 3-4 years, I'll be doing
• 1:11:19
  that good some more that I'm going to get into learn, get
• 1:11:23
  better at learning more events as well.
• 1:11:27
  So I've been getting better at coaching sprints as well,
• 1:11:30
  getting to the pole bottle a little bit.
• 1:11:32
  Yeah. Is that right?
• 1:11:33
  So. So that's kind of my best thing.
• 1:11:35
  Right now, is your coaching duties focused on long, triple
• 1:11:38
  and high That works. Pretty much it.
• 1:11:40
  Not any sprints or hurdles or anything like that.
• 1:11:43
  Not not really I would I like to say I do a lot of Sprint work
• 1:11:46
  and and with the jumpers. That's why I get my trial and
• 1:11:51
  error stuff from learning Sprint stuff.
• 1:11:53
  And sometimes, you know, if one asks me to help out a workout,
• 1:11:55
  if you can't make it a he asked me to keep some eyes on some
• 1:11:57
  kids, I'll help him out and and do some stuff.
• 1:11:59
  And you got some high quality jumpers.
• 1:12:01
  I have to imagine some of them are at least at the very worst
• 1:12:04
  an alternate on like the forward.
• 1:12:05
  Yeah. We've got some offices on the
• 1:12:07
  relays and some some of the forward ones and stuff like
• 1:12:09
  that. So yeah.
• 1:12:10
  Do you think you know you have a whole long coaching career in
• 1:12:14
  front of you here at tomorrow? Do you think you are going to be
• 1:12:17
  the kind of coach that and, and let's just use those three, that
• 1:12:20
  long triple high. You're going to be, you're going
• 1:12:23
  to go super deep into those three events.
• 1:12:25
  Or do you think you're going to end up becoming the kind of
• 1:12:27
  coach that Oh yeah, I'm also a good sprints and hurdles coach.
• 1:12:30
  I'm also, boy, you put me on the pole vault runway, I can coach a
• 1:12:33
  pole vaulter. So what do you?
• 1:12:35
  What do you, what do you want to be?
• 1:12:38
  If I was like of a head coach or something like that.
• 1:12:40
  You know you, you are the head coach of your career.
• 1:12:43
  You get to decide a lot of these options.
• 1:12:46
  Do you want, do you want to be the kind of guy that goes super
• 1:12:48
  deep in one or two events, or do you want to be more of a
• 1:12:51
  generalist for for more events? I I wanted to learn a lot of
• 1:12:55
  different events, but I want to make my hanging the jumps that's
• 1:13:00
  why I don't have trouble. That's This is why I met with
• 1:13:02
  it. But I need the make a pivot.
• 1:13:05
  I won't be able to do that. So, but yeah, so I'll kind of be
• 1:13:09
  a fist army knife. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:13:11
  If you look at Lamont is a good example of this.
• 1:13:14
  Lamont is maybe known as a Sprint turtles guy, but mean 800
• 1:13:18
  meter coach. Yeah, really good 400 hurdle
• 1:13:22
  coach. I would have no problem sending
• 1:13:24
  my kid to him to be coached in the long jump.
• 1:13:28
  What's been interesting in this podcast, you know, 350 different
• 1:13:32
  coaches so far. Some of the best coaches,
• 1:13:34
  Clifford Velto, Brooks Johnson, Boo Scheck Snyder, they I think
• 1:13:40
  they would call themselves generalist versus like Brooks
• 1:13:44
  Johnson. Rest in peace, who I would
• 1:13:46
  recommend, especially a young coach like you, I'd recommend
• 1:13:49
  every coach. Go listen to Brooks Johnsons
• 1:13:51
  story here in the Guild podcast was amazing.
• 1:13:54
  His admonition, if you will, on a coach is you are not a sprints
• 1:13:58
  coach, you are not a jumps coach, you're not a throws
• 1:14:01
  coach. You're a track and field coach.
• 1:14:03
  That all events he said from the 100, he said from the I think he
• 1:14:06
  might even said 60 from the 60 to the marathon and everything
• 1:14:10
  in between. Long jump, high jump, pole vault
• 1:14:13
  Pamer is the same event. You're just moving the center of
• 1:14:15
  mass one place to the other. Now they're different, right?
• 1:14:18
  100 meter dash. I'm going to do that center of
• 1:14:20
  mass for 100 meters, triple jump.
• 1:14:22
  I'm running that, doing that center mass to the board and
• 1:14:24
  then I'm moving that center mass on three jumps, the hammer, I'm
• 1:14:28
  moving that center mass, but I'm doing in a circle.
• 1:14:30
  And he said, if you are a true track and field coach, you will
• 1:14:33
  know how to coach every single one of those.
• 1:14:36
  And I was like, it's hard to argue.
• 1:14:38
  I think this dude had an all American Olympian in the 5K as
• 1:14:41
  well as the 110 hurdle. So it's hard to, it's going to
• 1:14:44
  be hard to argue with the Brooks Johnson.
• 1:14:46
  Definitely, definitely want to learn more events man.
• 1:14:48
  But of course I got a question. Yeah, Oh.
• 1:14:51
  I feel like in track 1 of other sports, it's a knock or
• 1:14:58
  requirement for a coach to no more events.
• 1:15:00
  Like we don't, we don't ask, we don't ask the quarterback coach
• 1:15:03
  to coach the line, but we want, we want the jumps coach to coach
• 1:15:08
  the Mao and the hurdles and. I might disagree with you on
• 1:15:13
  this. I because I can remember.
• 1:15:17
  I can't remember specifics, forgive me, but I can remember
• 1:15:21
  in football, you know, seeing like NFL in college, like like
• 1:15:27
  byline, like, you know, so and so hired at so and so place and
• 1:15:30
  it was like the, you know, it'll be like a famous quarterback
• 1:15:35
  back in the day hired as the defensive line.
• 1:15:37
  I might be a little bit stretcher.
• 1:15:39
  I I think it like I think the same thing happens in other
• 1:15:43
  sports. I think, I think you're saying
• 1:15:50
  are you, are you asking that? It seems like it's a knock in
• 1:15:53
  track in. Field like a knocking track like
• 1:15:55
  OK, you're you're great. I said you're a great 400 meter
• 1:15:58
  coach and it's like, OK, what else?
• 1:16:03
  You can't coach this, so we're gonna haunt you.
• 1:16:04
  Oh, you're saying it's a knock because you can't?
• 1:16:07
  Yeah, OK. You're not.
• 1:16:08
  Gonna do it as much. Yeah, OK.
• 1:16:10
  I was thinking I'm I'm done to Mario.
• 1:16:13
  I thought you were saying if a guy can coach the quarter and
• 1:16:15
  the shot put, it's like he must not be very good in the quarter.
• 1:16:17
  Then you're saying you're saying like, oh, you only coach the
• 1:16:20
  quarter. Yeah, yeah, I would say maybe
• 1:16:24
  less of a knock, but that other person, so let's call them
• 1:16:29
  combined events coaches, those guys and gals who can coach the
• 1:16:31
  the the multis. Because if you coach, you coach
• 1:16:34
  shop. But like here in town in
• 1:16:35
  Champaign, Petros Kipriana can coach and has coached national
• 1:16:41
  chain All Americans in the pole vault, many, many multis at the
• 1:16:44
  long jump, the sprints. I mean, the dude is just they
• 1:16:47
  can coach all, doesn't matter what event they can coach.
• 1:16:49
  All right, That kind of person is more valuable because when
• 1:16:55
  you're at a place and your sprints coach leaves to go to
• 1:16:58
  another place, it's like, well, hey, jumps coach, can I need you
• 1:17:00
  to fill in the Sprint coach until we get a new one?
• 1:17:03
  And thank God you're a good sprints coach.
• 1:17:07
  If it's that jumps coach who goes, like when I interviewed at
• 1:17:10
  Ball State, I was a guy who really I wanted to be.
• 1:17:14
  When I asked that question about deep versus wide, I wanted to be
• 1:17:17
  the guy who was the best hurdles coach in the world.
• 1:17:20
  That was my thing. Every clinic I went to, I only
• 1:17:23
  went to the hurdles. Maybe I'd go to a Sprint one
• 1:17:26
  because I didn't know, you know, hurdles and sprints, you know,
• 1:17:29
  every level 2 Sprint, you know, all this kind of stuff, right?
• 1:17:32
  All these classes, everything is all about hurdles.
• 1:17:35
  And then I go to Ball State and interview and Sue Parks guilt
• 1:17:40
  podcast says, Hey, but I need you to coach the long jump and
• 1:17:45
  triple jump too. And I was like, you're going to
• 1:17:48
  laugh at this tomorrow. I was like, all right, well, how
• 1:17:49
  hard can that be? It's it's a Sprint where they
• 1:17:53
  jump at the end. I think I can do that.
• 1:17:57
  And she's like, and I I want you to coach high jump.
• 1:17:59
  And I was like, oh, now that's not a Sprint with a jump at the
• 1:18:02
  end. I know they don't run as fast,
• 1:18:03
  you know, So I was like, yeah, they got to go over our butt.
• 1:18:06
  So I was like, Sue, you did high jump back in the day.
• 1:18:09
  This is the head coach and I'm, I'm interviewing for the job.
• 1:18:11
  I'm like, you should coach the high jump.
• 1:18:13
  And she's like, no, I'm busy with the distance kids.
• 1:18:18
  I want you to coach the high jump.
• 1:18:19
  And I was like, Nah, I mean, it was a back and forth.
• 1:18:22
  I was less valuable to her. Like if she would have said,
• 1:18:25
  Hey, I'm not hiring you because I got this other candidate who
• 1:18:27
  maybe is not as good a Sprint turtles coach as you might, but
• 1:18:31
  they can do the high, the high jump, the long jump jump.
• 1:18:35
  I'd, I'd probably be mad. I'd been like, I want to meet
• 1:18:38
  you, but I would understood. I would understood you're going
• 1:18:44
  to be more valuable as you looked at other jobs and maybe
• 1:18:47
  future head coaching jobs at Grambling and things like that.
• 1:18:50
  As you go along in your career. If that's what's right for you,
• 1:18:53
  you're going to be more valuable that you can coach more events
• 1:18:56
  at a good level versus one event at a great level.
• 1:19:01
  The the difference between a good coach and a great coach
• 1:19:03
  actually is fairly small. I think It's not like it's not
• 1:19:07
  like you go to a clinic or a level 2 and they go today.
• 1:19:12
  We can only you're good. You're you're a good coach, not
• 1:19:14
  a great coach. So I can only teach you this
• 1:19:16
  level. You you know all the stuff the
• 1:19:17
  the great coach. You know what, how about this?
• 1:19:20
  Do you know what do you think is the difference between a good
• 1:19:24
  coach and a great coach in anyone event?
• 1:19:32
  What's the difference between you?
• 1:19:34
  You're good jumps coach. I would say hi.
• 1:19:36
  And Boo Schexnader, who I would say is a great jumps coach.
• 1:19:40
  Easy, you can translate it. Say that again.
• 1:19:44
  You you cut out, but I think you're on the right track.
• 1:19:45
  Say it again. Oh, I think how easy you can
• 1:19:49
  translate it to the athlete, break it down, make it simple
• 1:19:52
  for him. I think that's a big part.
• 1:19:56
  I would add on there that a great coach knows the basics
• 1:20:01
  really stinking good and doesn't think like, oh, I need to get to
• 1:20:07
  more intermediate training with this athlete or oh, I need to do
• 1:20:10
  these high level skills or what. They know the basics really
• 1:20:13
  well, which makes the intermediate and elite talent
• 1:20:16
  elite, elite skill sets better. That's what I was going with.
• 1:20:21
  I think you are. I think that's it.
• 1:20:24
  I'm going to add that to my repertoire.
• 1:20:26
  How do you how what skill set do I have So communication to
• 1:20:30
  explain these things that I think I think you're exactly
• 1:20:33
  right because I think of a boost X later.
• 1:20:35
  When have you ever been to a talk or anything?
• 1:20:39
  Yeah, right. I mean, come on.
• 1:20:39
  First of all, yeah, Yeah. That was my level 2.
• 1:20:42
  My first level 2 was jumps. And I thank God that changed my
• 1:20:46
  life. Boo.
• 1:20:48
  I never wanted to coach pole vault.
• 1:20:50
  I never will never have. It's just, you know, I get you
• 1:20:52
  down the runway soon as you put that pole in the box.
• 1:20:54
  Man, I have no clue what the Hell's going on.
• 1:20:57
  They when when Boo Boo did jump. So it's long jump, jump high
• 1:21:01
  jump in pole ball. He the way he taught pole vault
• 1:21:04
  and his stick figure drawing is amazing.
• 1:21:06
  I walked out of that class going.
• 1:21:08
  I think I can coach pole vault now.
• 1:21:11
  Luckily for pole vaulters, I did not go and do that.
• 1:21:13
  But he he, he broke it down so simple that a guy who had never
• 1:21:20
  even seen pole vault in high school thought he could figure
• 1:21:23
  it out and probably could have to be honest with you.
• 1:21:25
  I think you're spot on. That is the difference between
• 1:21:27
  good and great. And it seems like when you say
• 1:21:30
  it out loud, it seems like, and I don't think you're doing this,
• 1:21:32
  but maybe someone's listening right now going well, that's not
• 1:21:34
  that hard. Right.
• 1:21:38
  If it was that easy, we'd have more great coaches so.
• 1:21:41
  Many so many are the kids different?
• 1:21:43
  I don't take take info different that's.
• 1:21:45
  Right. You would think you saying
• 1:21:47
  something simple and the kid like huh what and you like.
• 1:21:51
  And these kids come from different backgrounds.
• 1:21:53
  They have different motivation. Even on your team, you have some
• 1:21:55
  kids that, you know, they want to be Olympians.
• 1:21:57
  And so they're their, their intent is full on.
• 1:22:00
  And there's other kids that are like, hey, man, I, I want to
• 1:22:02
  score, I want to help the team, But I'm, I'm a college kid.
• 1:22:05
  I'm going to get a job. I'm going to become a, a
• 1:22:08
  retirement planner or something. You know, you've got to speak to
• 1:22:11
  them maybe a little differently. You got to explain that you're
• 1:22:13
  exactly right. I'm glad that you've learned
• 1:22:15
  that today at this age and not at 40.
• 1:22:17
  And you're like, God, I've wasted 15 years.
• 1:22:19
  Like I could have been so much better.
• 1:22:21
  Like that's going to help you attain to that great greatness
• 1:22:24
  of coaching. I think that's awesome.
• 1:22:26
  I love that. All right, Tamario, I'm trying
• 1:22:29
  something a little new. I love your journey, man.
• 1:22:33
  I think that's just fantastic. And what's really cool is you
• 1:22:35
  are such a pup. You're a little baby.
• 1:22:38
  And I mean that in all the positive manners, it's easy,
• 1:22:41
  especially at your age to think like, oh man, I've done a lot,
• 1:22:44
  you have done a lot. So you know, I've done a lot.
• 1:22:46
  I'm maybe, you know, halfway through, it's like, bro, you
• 1:22:48
  barely at the starting line. And I think that's cool because
• 1:22:51
  a guy like me gets to watch from the sideline and see you
• 1:22:53
  continue to develop. And it's going to be, you're
• 1:22:56
  going to have a long career, an amazing career, and you're going
• 1:22:58
  to positively affect young people.
• 1:23:00
  You've done so much already. You're going to continue that.
• 1:23:02
  And I'm, I'm so pumped to watch that.
• 1:23:03
  So I love that part. So I love your journey.
• 1:23:05
  I think it's very important that we share it with our audience.
• 1:23:08
  Now I'd like to pick your brain. I kind of want to know what's
• 1:23:11
  what's going on with you to Mario.
• 1:23:12
  Like what are you thinking about when it comes to track and
• 1:23:16
  field, whether it's something you're curious about, upset
• 1:23:19
  about, scared about what? I just want to kind of have a
• 1:23:23
  conversation about that. What are you thinking?
• 1:23:26
  About and and a whole. Are we talking just
• 1:23:28
  collegiately? You get the pick, brother.
• 1:23:31
  Man, I think, I think needs to be reshaped on collegiately and
• 1:23:34
  professionally, but. How so?
• 1:23:36
  You know, at least you leave me. I just don't need to find a way
• 1:23:41
  to make it more team. Are you in it a little bit like
• 1:23:45
  I think, I think I think it's a way you can make it team and
• 1:23:48
  still praise individuals in it. I, I don't, I've made so many
• 1:23:54
  slideshows, ideas on it. Yeah, I got so many ideas.
• 1:23:58
  I can just I can send you like. I've seen some ideas.
• 1:24:01
  Like, well, tell me, So what, what would you kind of went on
• 1:24:04
  the idea of more team scores? We don't, we only do team scores
• 1:24:07
  really twice a year at the conference in nationals, right?
• 1:24:11
  There's other meets that do it, but not not very many.
• 1:24:13
  Because the thing The thing is I kind of attract.
• 1:24:15
  I just with it's not enough. I would say on its own
• 1:24:23
  conference, any other sports you see, like, OK, you do bad at
• 1:24:28
  conference. You can't go to post season,
• 1:24:29
  like you can't be a champion if you lose conference and try you
• 1:24:32
  got guys who are teams who will be like last at conference but
• 1:24:35
  still win national. Yeah, but because it's how the
• 1:24:37
  Sports Center, you can do that. But I feel like in the in the
• 1:24:41
  essence of sports, I thought you shouldn't be able to, you know,
• 1:24:44
  so you try. The conference you like the
• 1:24:46
  basketball model where if you win your conference turn, you
• 1:24:48
  could literally be oh and 20, but if you go on A5 game run in
• 1:24:53
  your conference, you're 5 and 20 Yeah, you.
• 1:24:56
  Yeah, real conference you wouldn't.
• 1:24:57
  You win. I, I think that, I mean, what do
• 1:25:00
  we talk about during this time when we're recording this right
• 1:25:02
  now? What do we talk about time?
• 1:25:03
  The the, the what? What do we that gummy?
• 1:25:06
  What do we call the 12 C that goes to the Sweet 16?
• 1:25:09
  What do we call the celebrate? Thank you.
• 1:25:12
  Yeah. Gosh, we.
• 1:25:13
  Need that. We don't have that in track and
• 1:25:16
  field. That's right.
• 1:25:17
  That's right. I feel like, I think, I think it
• 1:25:19
  helped participation too in the stands like you, you, you.
• 1:25:23
  I think a lot of these smaller schools, they was like, oh, I
• 1:25:26
  track team, like good. They might travel more, they
• 1:25:28
  might have more fans. So, so how would you do it?
• 1:25:32
  Would you do like the conference championship team goes to
• 1:25:35
  nationals, Would you do every conference?
• 1:25:37
  What I would do? Winner goes to nationals.
• 1:25:39
  What would you do? So I would do this like so I
• 1:25:42
  would stage the power record system too like combined with
• 1:25:45
  commerce champions. So how how many conferences are
• 1:25:48
  there? Like 32A?
• 1:25:50
  Lot. Yeah, ID one, yeah.
• 1:25:52
  A lot, yeah. I don't know the number, but
• 1:25:53
  it's. OK.
• 1:25:54
  It's more than it's more than Power 4.
• 1:25:57
  Yeah. So what's a, what's a, what's a
• 1:26:01
  guesstimate? Well.
• 1:26:02
  Let's say 30. That's that's probably not so.
• 1:26:05
  Let's let's say 30 conferences. Take the Congress winners just
• 1:26:10
  30, and do the rest of the power rankings.
• 1:26:13
  Team or individuals? Team, that's how, that's how we
• 1:26:18
  do. It's how we do.
• 1:26:18
  It's how we do it. So Grambling wins.
• 1:26:22
  What are you? You're not swag anymore.
• 1:26:23
  What are you? You're swag so, but it's how I
• 1:26:25
  would do it. Only, only the individuals or
• 1:26:29
  relays that scored a conference are going to go.
• 1:26:32
  OK, I was going to ask you, how do you define what that team is?
• 1:26:35
  Because it's not like football where I have 11th offense.
• 1:26:38
  Yeah, I'll take. Everybody.
• 1:26:39
  So, so Grambling wins the SWAC and everybody who made finals
• 1:26:45
  essentially. What a point.
• 1:26:46
  Yeah, that is your squad to they both.
• 1:26:49
  Have no. So we're going to have a we'll
• 1:26:52
  have a a middle round too. So, so all the all the
• 1:26:55
  conference winners. So that's the how are the
• 1:26:58
  powering is going to go. What are you doing power
• 1:27:01
  rankings for? So we just add feel the rest of
• 1:27:03
  those things that make the the, the final, I guess 60 little
• 1:27:07
  5040 teams, what are we going to do?
• 1:27:09
  So, so I went to high school and College in Alabama.
• 1:27:12
  So we're going to use easy math. Let's say there are 3030
• 1:27:14
  conference and let's just say they're evenly split around the
• 1:27:18
  country, meaning east and West because we have a 2 regional
• 1:27:20
  system now. So let's just so you would have
• 1:27:23
  15 teams. Yeah.
• 1:27:26
  So let's go East Coast Conference, East Coast Regional.
• 1:27:29
  You'd have 15 teams go to a first round.
• 1:27:32
  So that means that means 15 kids in each events, right?
• 1:27:36
  No, no, no, no, not necessarily. Not necessarily because Grandma
• 1:27:39
  could have four in the 100. Meter, it depends on what score
• 1:27:41
  at the conference. So let's say you got your 30
• 1:27:44
  teams for conference. So let's say you want to go 50
• 1:27:47
  total teams in the in the whole thing.
• 1:27:49
  So the 20 next best in the power rank can make you 50.
• 1:27:53
  I'm with you. On all those fifty teams, all
• 1:27:55
  the kids that scored a conference, those are kids that
• 1:27:57
  going to the regional round or whatever.
• 1:28:00
  Who who's who else is in the SWAC?
• 1:28:01
  Who's another good just name? A school doesn't matter.
• 1:28:06
  Southern. OK, Southern, Brian.
• 1:28:09
  No. Brian Johnson's at Law Tech now,
• 1:28:10
  right? Yes, Sir.
• 1:28:11
  Yeah. I love Brian Johnson.
• 1:28:12
  He was at Southern for a long time.
• 1:28:13
  He's another guy. Yeah, great dude, man Love him.
• 1:28:17
  He actually, it's interesting. I meant to call him and tell him
• 1:28:20
  this. I can't remember where I was at.
• 1:28:23
  I was somewhere where there's some high level people coach
• 1:28:27
  jumps wise and they said Brian Johnson was probably the guy.
• 1:28:30
  I don't know if there's a compliment.
• 1:28:31
  It's not a diss, but it's like, I don't know how Brian as the
• 1:28:34
  athlete would take this. That Brian Johnson was the last
• 1:28:38
  was one of the last like great. Like he could have been maybe
• 1:28:42
  pushing world record, you know, a lot of things that play into
• 1:28:44
  that injuries, etcetera. But he was a force man.
• 1:28:47
  Oh my God, what a great dude. Anyway, so Southern gets second
• 1:28:52
  in the SWAC. You take those, all the people
• 1:28:55
  from Southern that scored and you make that a power ranking
• 1:28:58
  and they no, no, no. So only Congress winners for
• 1:29:02
  sure. Like, like, like, like, like
• 1:29:04
  basketball. So like in this conference, like
• 1:29:06
  basketball, you got to win and get in.
• 1:29:08
  They're not taking two from the SWAC.
• 1:29:09
  Right, right, right, right. So it's going to be Commerce
• 1:29:12
  winners, automatic bid and the best ranked teams filling out
• 1:29:16
  the rest. That's what I'm saying.
• 1:29:17
  So Southern being second, they go into this pool of power
• 1:29:20
  rankings and the. Top.
• 1:29:21
  If they're good, yeah, they make the power again.
• 1:29:23
  Yeah, yeah, they, they may be 30.
• 1:29:24
  That's right. Right.
• 1:29:25
  Yeah, they in the top, yeah. And I'm saying second because as
• 1:29:28
  we get to 3rd and swag, probably not.
• 1:29:30
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:29:31
  OK. So they are they able to make
• 1:29:33
  the national power? What happens, And we're going to
• 1:29:36
  use a generic school for this example XYZ University that just
• 1:29:41
  doesn't have a very good team, but they've got a javelin
• 1:29:47
  thrower that throws farther than any other javelin thrower in the
• 1:29:51
  country. Do they not get to go because
• 1:29:54
  they're not going to make a power ranking team?
• 1:29:55
  They didn't score anybody else in conference.
• 1:29:57
  What I would say to that is as a coach now, I got to build my
• 1:30:02
  team, I got to recruit. So that's like, that's like the
• 1:30:06
  we keep using this basketball analogy.
• 1:30:07
  That's like a basketball team that has a stud center, center.
• 1:30:11
  They're amazing, but you know, their guards aren't very good.
• 1:30:13
  Forwards aren't going to go. So you don't win.
• 1:30:15
  You don't that that center doesn't get to go to nationals.
• 1:30:18
  But I think this will help recruit too.
• 1:30:20
  That's the help, the transfer report, because now kids like I
• 1:30:22
  didn't go to a good team. OK, that's cute.
• 1:30:27
  The reason I say that I I'm not sure that would work is I heard
• 1:30:31
  the same thing. So before what year did you
• 1:30:35
  graduate high school 20? 13.
• 1:30:38
  Before you, young man, you're so young.
• 1:30:41
  We had for a time A4 regional system.
• 1:30:45
  There was an East Mideast, Midwest West and the the, the,
• 1:30:50
  the, the what people would say is 0.
• 1:30:55
  Well, a high school kid is a pretty smart kid.
• 1:30:57
  If he's a 6-8 high jumper, he's going to look at the East and
• 1:31:00
  go, wait a minute. It took 72 to to score and go,
• 1:31:04
  but the West Coast, it only took 69.
• 1:31:07
  I'm going to go to a school in the way that never happened.
• 1:31:10
  It doesn't happen today. Look at the East and West.
• 1:31:13
  There are events that it's like, holy crap, you don't want that's
• 1:31:16
  hard. The West is a little easier.
• 1:31:18
  This event, it don't happen, bro.
• 1:31:20
  I don't. I think kids, you know, there's
• 1:31:23
  ego in kids and that's a good thing.
• 1:31:25
  And they go, I don't care that it took 7 two and I'm a 6-8.
• 1:31:28
  I'm going to go to the East Coast.
• 1:31:29
  I don't care. I'm not.
• 1:31:30
  I'm going to go to the school. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:31:32
  Yeah, yeah, You know, I feel like.
• 1:31:35
  But I but I I like that. No, I like your keep going
• 1:31:38
  though. This is good I.
• 1:31:39
  Think, I think, I think and like so.
• 1:31:40
  Conference teams go and then you then you rank all the rest and
• 1:31:44
  you take the next 20 OK, and they go to a.
• 1:31:48
  Yeah, so did. Round A first round.
• 1:31:50
  Round so now you you you break it up and I guess you can go
• 1:31:53
  three groups of however many teams what are you going to do
• 1:31:56
  and I I would. Personally, what do we have?
• 1:31:58
  What do we have? 50, Is that what we're saying?
• 1:32:00
  50, roughly. Let's use easy numbers.
• 1:32:02
  Let's say 60 teams. So now you do 3 of 20.
• 1:32:04
  Yeah. You give just three of 20, OK.
• 1:32:06
  So they have a meet. So same idea.
• 1:32:09
  I'm going to take the top four teams that finished.
• 1:32:13
  So 12 total. And all the people who scored on
• 1:32:17
  those top 4 go to the championships.
• 1:32:20
  No, no at no at larges. So if you're 5th in the region 1
• 1:32:28
  and you're a good squad, you could beat the crap out of
• 1:32:30
  Region 2's number one. Sorry as your luck you were.
• 1:32:34
  You were, if it might, it's might and of course going to be
• 1:32:36
  a downside to everything, but you know, you get it.
• 1:32:40
  But I think you can make now like a 12 team meet. 12 teams.
• 1:32:45
  A6 something like that we're. We're yeah, but we're just
• 1:32:49
  giving the example. We're just yeah, yeah.
• 1:32:51
  We're no, no one's going to, no one's writing this down.
• 1:32:53
  Yeah, yeah. And going to make this.
• 1:32:54
  Real. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:32:55
  Yeah, yeah, get you 10%. Yeah, I know how that works. 12
• 1:33:00
  teams goes to nationals and and this is where you know the
• 1:33:05
  reason why I say who cares about the numbers right now?
• 1:33:07
  Because really you'd want something like eight teams or 16
• 1:33:11
  teams, you know, for, for wait, you want even heats and all that
• 1:33:14
  kind of stuff. But, but I, but I'm with you.
• 1:33:16
  I get it. And those are the only 12
• 1:33:18
  though. But today also to how to set up
• 1:33:22
  is some events may have more people than others because
• 1:33:25
  they're taking the scores for every round.
• 1:33:28
  No, it would still be the same. You still only have 8 scores.
• 1:33:32
  I'm saying like some events like may have like more kids in it
• 1:33:35
  than other events. I'm not smart enough to to agree
• 1:33:39
  with that. You still only have the people
• 1:33:42
  who scored. Oh, because you're saying the
• 1:33:45
  5th place team who's not going to go on as a team.
• 1:33:47
  They could have had a, they could have had a winner and but
• 1:33:51
  only those 7. So like.
• 1:33:52
  Yeah. OK.
• 1:33:53
  OK, OK, OK. So it could have been.
• 1:33:55
  It could have. Been I'm with you, I'm with you,
• 1:33:56
  I'm with. You the thing the really main
• 1:33:58
  purpose of it, like I said, is like, you know, making more team
• 1:34:01
  but also. So you could have the East Coast
• 1:34:05
  first round in the 100 meter dash, could be made-up of all
• 1:34:10
  teams that end up finishing 5th through 8th and no 100m guys.
• 1:34:13
  But don't think, don't think East West though.
• 1:34:19
  You're you're. Now we're going to try to keep
• 1:34:22
  it regional. We can for travel.
• 1:34:24
  Purposes, you're 60. People are not necessarily where
• 1:34:26
  they're located because the conferences are all over
• 1:34:28
  nowadays. Yeah, they're more regional.
• 1:34:31
  We have like a you can split like time zone or you can go
• 1:34:34
  like. OK.
• 1:34:35
  So when I when I say East region, I don't mean
• 1:34:38
  necessarily, I'm just saying that's where one of the meets
• 1:34:40
  would be, somewhere in the East. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:34:43
  So in the 100 meter dash, those eight people who score could
• 1:34:45
  technically all come from teams that are fifth through 10 or
• 1:34:48
  whatever, and no 100m guy goes to the national from that
• 1:34:52
  region. Yeah, the team has finished top
• 1:34:55
  four, Yeah. That's OK.
• 1:34:58
  There's where, OK, you need to go back to the drawing board a
• 1:35:00
  little bit, OK, Because you have to have some kind of consistency
• 1:35:04
  going to nationals because what you don't want this would be I
• 1:35:08
  think this would be terrible for track and field.
• 1:35:10
  If I go to the national meet, the top 12 teams are there and
• 1:35:12
  the 100 meter dash is 1 heat of 6 people and the mile is 25.
• 1:35:20
  I guess there is a Max, right? So 8 times what we say 3, so 24.
• 1:35:24
  So 24 is the Max number. No one night is going.
• 1:35:28
  So the Mile has 24 people and the the hammer has four people.
• 1:35:34
  I'm not. Okay, well, so if you want.
• 1:35:36
  To it'd be very hard for that to happen.
• 1:35:38
  I'm just saying that that would be bad for our sport.
• 1:35:41
  Okay, you want to do the Ed Lawrence around it off.
• 1:35:43
  I guess you could get the next best.
• 1:35:45
  You know that didn't make it. I guess you want to round.
• 1:35:47
  Off but you but you lose your team I'm with you on this team
• 1:35:49
  thing brother. I just think that there's.
• 1:35:51
  I just, and I just want to, I just think it's a way to make
• 1:35:54
  National quicker. Yeah, National's too long.
• 1:35:57
  Like you don't want to sit, you know, it's too long.
• 1:35:59
  It's. Too long because it's four days.
• 1:36:01
  Yeah, it's long. But bro it's like 3 hours, it's
• 1:36:03
  amazing. I was like, it's to us.
• 1:36:06
  You would rather have two day, you're talking about expense.
• 1:36:10
  They're too, but to us, like we'll sit there and watch it all
• 1:36:12
  day trying to get somebody. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. 3
• 1:36:17
  hours. Oh, you're saying?
• 1:36:18
  Yeah, three hours. They'll do 3 hours, but they're
• 1:36:21
  not doing 4 days of three hours, is what you're saying?
• 1:36:23
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. OK.
• 1:36:24
  OK. I thought you were arguing for
• 1:36:26
  like one day of 12. And I'm like, don't we got to
• 1:36:28
  stop that crap? Yeah, OK.
• 1:36:29
  Yeah, I'm with you. It's hard for someone, mom and
• 1:36:32
  dad's not coming out on Wednesday to be there for
• 1:36:34
  Thursday and Friday and Saturday and I guess Tuesday and coming
• 1:36:38
  out Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. So yeah, I'm with you.
• 1:36:39
  I'm with you. I get that, I get that.
• 1:36:41
  Maybe. So how do we solve today's
• 1:36:44
  Division One? What if we did women Friday
• 1:36:49
  morning, men Friday night, prelims Saturday We do women
• 1:36:54
  finals, men. So it's two days.
• 1:36:56
  The meat is still 3 hour. Now it's 2-3 hour blocks.
• 1:37:00
  We kind of did that with indoor for a little while.
• 1:37:03
  I think you can. Actually I thought you can
• 1:37:05
  split. How about this?
• 1:37:10
  What if you just do let's go Texas style, Texas high school
• 1:37:13
  style? What if nationals qualifying was
• 1:37:15
  there's only a final in the 100 meter dash.
• 1:37:17
  Now you can do it in one or two days and you just have all women
• 1:37:21
  finals on Friday, all because there's only one heat of the
• 1:37:23
  hundred 202. 100 hours, hours in it I mean.
• 1:37:28
  That's that's we we have people yelling.
• 1:37:29
  People are listening to this podcast right now yelling at you
• 1:37:32
  and I. I don't.
• 1:37:33
  Know, but hey, right, we got, we got we got to update this thing,
• 1:37:36
  man, we got updated. I think the core argument, if
• 1:37:41
  you will, that you're that you're advocating this.
• 1:37:44
  We need to make this more team oriented.
• 1:37:46
  I am. I believe I'm 100% on board with
• 1:37:49
  you. Yeah, you gotta find a way to
• 1:37:50
  make it work. I thought you can do team and
• 1:37:52
  still get the individuals, just the main guys and girls.
• 1:37:57
  How? Exciting.
• 1:37:58
  How exciting is conference? Man?
• 1:38:00
  That is my favorite. I go to every national meet and
• 1:38:02
  they're great. It's amazing that the conference
• 1:38:04
  is still my favorite. Meet yeah.
• 1:38:05
  So it's not about conference is where you get the the robberies,
• 1:38:08
  the the that's where the fans come for real.
• 1:38:11
  So I think we got to make conference mean something, I
• 1:38:14
  think. I think you're right.
• 1:38:15
  I I thought about I was, I had a similar idea to you because I
• 1:38:20
  think I again, I also like the basketball model.
• 1:38:22
  If you win the conference tournament tournament, you go to
• 1:38:25
  the national tournament. Oh, does that No, because
• 1:38:28
  there's that large. I was gonna say, does that tell
• 1:38:30
  us how many conferences are? There's 64 teams that but
• 1:38:32
  there's that largest. So yeah, in this early
• 1:38:36
  basketball conference isn't necessarily a track conference
• 1:38:38
  and etcetera, but I thought about every conference champion
• 1:38:43
  automatically goes to nationals. The team individual.
• 1:38:47
  The individual so I. Thought about that too the.
• 1:38:49
  Swag and that means, you know, the swag probably traditionally
• 1:38:53
  doesn't have great pole vaulting there.
• 1:38:56
  So yes, a pole vaulter from the swag if if the school chooses to
• 1:39:01
  take the school may say, yeah, bro, we we're not going in
• 1:39:04
  there. I know we qualified.
• 1:39:05
  That's nice and thank you. We're not going there to get
• 1:39:07
  last if or whatever. You know a big generalizations
• 1:39:10
  here, but I understand that if you know if Grandlin has the
• 1:39:15
  what's it take to win the men's pole vault in in the SWAC, do
• 1:39:17
  you know yeah. Is this like is it like 13 or
• 1:39:22
  yeah it's not yeah, it's not 17 or 18 traditionally.
• 1:39:25
  Right, right, right, right. Let's just say it's let's go 15.
• 1:39:28
  Let's just maybe lower I don't know, but 15 feet for a guy I
• 1:39:31
  mean the women jump 15 to win isn't going to do anything in
• 1:39:33
  nationals. So I understand at nationals
• 1:39:36
  there may be like, oh, this guy made nationals because we also
• 1:39:40
  know there's 18 footers. I get that.
• 1:39:41
  But in general, all the best people are still going to be
• 1:39:44
  there. Well, I shouldn't say that all
• 1:39:47
  the people that get there are going to be really stinking
• 1:39:48
  good. The 100 meter dash SWAC champion
• 1:39:51
  is pretty good, right? The only thing I haven't figured
• 1:39:54
  out and haven't really put a lot of brain power to is, well, the
• 1:39:56
  SEC number 2 is also a big time stud.
• 1:40:00
  How do I get him the nationals? Like how far do I do at larges
• 1:40:03
  after? My 30, you know, we're guessing
• 1:40:07
  30 conferences after my 30, but then you start thinking, well,
• 1:40:09
  holy crap, that's a lot of people.
• 1:40:10
  The nationals as well. You got 30 automatically.
• 1:40:13
  And then how far do I go? What do you do?
• 1:40:15
  You do the the 30, let's say the 30 conferences.
• 1:40:20
  Say you got the hundred, 100m die.
• 1:40:23
  The winners go. Do you fill the rest up with
• 1:40:26
  just the best times? Yeah, I think that's, I think
• 1:40:29
  that's what you have to do. But you, you have so many
• 1:40:31
  because right now was it 24 make it to nationals, right.
• 1:40:34
  We take yeah, 12 out of each region.
• 1:40:35
  So 24. Now you're already saying 30 or
• 1:40:37
  because I'm going past regionals, I know it's first
• 1:40:39
  round. And so my, my instantly contacts
• 1:40:41
  gonna yell at me because I called it regionals first round.
• 1:40:43
  I get it. It's not as a purist.
• 1:40:46
  It's not. We go to nationals, 2024 people
• 1:40:50
  in each event make it so now I'm saying 30 off the bat, but I
• 1:40:54
  know I need more because I need #2 from the SEC and the probably
• 1:40:57
  #3 and #2 from the Big 12. You know those somebody's going
• 1:41:01
  to run sub 10 at SEC and be like because a guy ran 98, I ran 99.
• 1:41:05
  I don't get to go to nationals but this guy from from the SWAC
• 1:41:08
  ran 1030. So we got to make it bigger to
• 1:41:12
  get that guy to the first round, I guess.
• 1:41:15
  Yeah, I think it's somebody get the bigwigs or the, you know,
• 1:41:20
  they are. They can sit down and make it
• 1:41:21
  work. Yeah, you know, I'm like.
• 1:41:23
  Maybe you do, I don't know. You know what you really you do.
• 1:41:27
  Do you know what? What do you think is the
• 1:41:32
  greatest meet in the in the world even?
• 1:41:35
  The world currently let me see you're.
• 1:41:38
  Going to say something like the Olympics or something, right?
• 1:41:40
  That's. Yeah, I don't know what you
• 1:41:42
  what. You DD1 indoors, OK?
• 1:41:45
  It's unbelievable. I mean there's never a bad race.
• 1:41:48
  It's it's unbelievable and it's so hard 16 per event go.
• 1:41:53
  It's hard for me not to say hey, for outdoor, if you want 24 or
• 1:41:57
  whatever the number you want to get to to Oregon, if you're
• 1:41:59
  going to the four day meet descending order top 24 needs to
• 1:42:03
  be it bro. I know I coached at the Ball
• 1:42:07
  State, you know, which is very similar to a gramble and it's I
• 1:42:09
  understand the the kid who goes in the regionals ranked 48th and
• 1:42:14
  makes top 12 and goes. I know that's not a real story.
• 1:42:17
  I get it. I just think it happens so few
• 1:42:21
  times that I for simplicity sake, for fans sake, for travel
• 1:42:28
  sake, for cost sake, that indoor is the hardest meet in the world
• 1:42:33
  to make and it's unbelievable. That seems to work.
• 1:42:36
  Why don't we do this for outdoor?
• 1:42:38
  Yeah. I mean, I think something
• 1:42:41
  something I can shake. I just, I just want to spice it
• 1:42:45
  up, man. It's just too, it's too.
• 1:42:46
  We got, we got to update it, man.
• 1:42:47
  Let me ask you this. So in the last podcast we had
• 1:42:50
  and when you and I are recording this, you haven't even had a
• 1:42:53
  chance to listen to it because literally I recorded this
• 1:42:54
  morning. We did something similar.
• 1:42:57
  I had Mason Rebar check from Winona State head coach there at
• 1:43:01
  Winona State of Minnesota. Great guy.
• 1:43:04
  And he made me see something that I never thought about.
• 1:43:06
  I thought we were talking about very similar what's great,
• 1:43:08
  what's best for the sport and and you know, the incident of a
• 1:43:12
  is very much also what's best for the student athlete, right,
• 1:43:14
  The student athlete experience. And I would have said before my
• 1:43:17
  conversation with Mason that those two, those two things kind
• 1:43:19
  of go hand in hand. What's best for the sport is
• 1:43:21
  best for the student athlete. And he made me realize that's
• 1:43:24
  not always true. If it's better for the sport to
• 1:43:27
  have a one day meet, let's say we think that's true for the
• 1:43:30
  sport. Some more fans will come to a
• 1:43:31
  Saturday in Oregon versus 4 days.
• 1:43:35
  That means an athlete has less of an opportunity to run the 100
• 1:43:38
  and the 200 and the four by one. That's not good for the student
• 1:43:41
  athlete experience. It's.
• 1:43:43
  Better for the sport was not better for student athlete.
• 1:43:46
  The reverse could be true, right?
• 1:43:47
  Like what's better for the student athlete might be a four
• 1:43:50
  day meet where they only run one race a day or something like
• 1:43:53
  that. But that's not going to be
• 1:43:54
  better for the sport. No one wants to see the 100
• 1:43:56
  meter prelims on a Wednesday, the 200 meter prelims on a
• 1:43:58
  Thursday, the four by one prelims on the Friar.
• 1:44:01
  So, you know, but it's better for the student athlete
• 1:44:02
  experience. So he really taught me like, oh,
• 1:44:06
  I thought they were copacetic. And it's like they might
• 1:44:08
  actually be mismatched. I get that, I get that.
• 1:44:11
  But also we got, I heard this argument to the, the Olympic how
• 1:44:21
  you change the, the, the meat and had to the 100.
• 1:44:23
  They had to run 3 hundreds in one day or something like that
• 1:44:25
  for the qualify. I heard that a lot.
• 1:44:28
  It's like, well, that's a workout, that's a regular
• 1:44:30
  workout practice throughout 100. That's a workout.
• 1:44:32
  So I think sometimes it's track. We get 2 like science you
• 1:44:36
  sometimes out think the think the stuff like oh this kid has
• 1:44:39
  to do this and then man go out there and run bro.
• 1:44:43
  I'm 100% with you. And what what we talked about
• 1:44:46
  with Mason was whose responsibility is it to make our
• 1:44:50
  sport better? And you, you know, by the way,
• 1:44:52
  you could define that in a lot of different ways.
• 1:44:54
  Is, is fans in the stands necessarily better?
• 1:44:56
  I don't I, I think so. Sure.
• 1:44:59
  Some people are like, no, who cares?
• 1:45:01
  We're not paying our athletes. So what's it matter how many
• 1:45:02
  fans are gonna say, you know, that kind of thing, right?
• 1:45:05
  But like, I started thinking about the kind of the opposite
• 1:45:07
  is the NFLNFL is trying to get another game on the schedule
• 1:45:10
  that's not better for their players.
• 1:45:12
  That's more chance for risk. You're getting paid less, right,
• 1:45:15
  Because it's same amount of pay but for one more game.
• 1:45:18
  And it's like, oh, but the NFL, you know, they talk about the
• 1:45:21
  shield of the NFL that, you know, it's all about protecting
• 1:45:23
  the shield. NFL, they care about the NFL.
• 1:45:27
  And we'll get players and some of you guys are going to make
• 1:45:29
  lots and lots of money, but we're going to turn a lot of
• 1:45:30
  people ever average. You know what the average career
• 1:45:33
  in the NFL is years wise, don't you?
• 1:45:35
  Like what, 3? Yeah, makes you really
• 1:45:38
  appreciate a guy like Tom Brady who's been there for, you know,
• 1:45:40
  Tony or whatever. It's like, dude, the average is
• 1:45:42
  3, meaning a lot of people are in there for a month or a fall
• 1:45:45
  and they are, they're injured, cut, they're out.
• 1:45:48
  Right. But the NFL says we, if we
• 1:45:49
  protect the NFL, we'll protect the sport.
• 1:45:52
  Players will be better for the general.
• 1:45:54
  I don't know that it's the NCAA's responsibility to make
• 1:45:58
  track better. And I don't know whose it is.
• 1:46:02
  Yeah, because then I start thinking about USTFCA, which
• 1:46:04
  means it's the coach's responsibility.
• 1:46:05
  I don't know that it's your responsibility.
• 1:46:06
  Yeah, it's not. I don't know.
• 1:46:07
  But I think I think a lot of stuff from college, I mean it
• 1:46:12
  stems down. So I think the NFL do trigger
• 1:46:16
  down to college football sometimes and sometimes.
• 1:46:19
  So I think a lot, I think a lot of stuff on the pro level will
• 1:46:22
  impact the college level or they get it right and they fork in
• 1:46:25
  the right. So.
• 1:46:27
  And maybe and we have no there's no NFL for pro track, there's no
• 1:46:33
  MLB for pro track, nothing. There's no one looking out for
• 1:46:38
  athletes. There's no one looking out for
• 1:46:39
  coaches on the pro side. It is a bunch of individual
• 1:46:43
  contractors going to battle for their flag.
• 1:46:48
  I'm sorry, going to battle for their flag during the Olympics
• 1:46:51
  or the world champs on a normal day, going to Prefontaine.
• 1:46:54
  It don't matter if you're American, Jamaican, Congo don't
• 1:46:57
  matter. It's about how much am I getting
• 1:46:59
  paid if I win and how much disparity wise do I get paid if
• 1:47:03
  I'm 8th place there's. No, I think America needs to
• 1:47:08
  find a way to track. I think we, I think we can make
• 1:47:13
  it happen. I think USA can make it attract
• 1:47:15
  if they wanted to. Well, we're near the end of our
• 1:47:19
  time and we're definitely not going to step into the Grand
• 1:47:24
  Slam track and league and all that stuff.
• 1:47:28
  Yeah, yeah, tomorrow, yes. Sir.
• 1:47:32
  Thank you. First of all, thank you for your
• 1:47:34
  trust. You know, we're trying this new
• 1:47:36
  thing at the end, talking about current events and stuff like
• 1:47:38
  that. I appreciate that and it's
• 1:47:41
  you're helping me see that I think this is going to be a good
• 1:47:46
  addition, change, twist, whatever you want to say about
• 1:47:49
  the podcast. So I'm grateful for you for
• 1:47:51
  that, and I am grateful for your time, my friend.
• 1:47:54
  You're busy. I don't care if you're a young
• 1:47:55
  coach or not, you're busy. You got people, you got 100
• 1:47:58
  phone calls you missed and emails and all that kind of
• 1:48:00
  stuff. So just really grateful for your
• 1:48:02
  time today, your openness, your authenticity.
• 1:48:04
  Man, I had an absolute blast today.
• 1:48:06
  I'm really, really appreciative of you.
• 1:48:08
  So I appreciate it. Absolutely.
• 1:48:10
  Guys. Gals, thank you for being here.
• 1:48:12
  Let me know when you listen to this, what do you think about
• 1:48:15
  this last segment here? We're just kind of, I'm just, I
• 1:48:17
  kind of want to. I love the journey that's always
• 1:48:19
  going to be core to what we do here at the Gil Connections
• 1:48:21
  podcast. I love the journey of these men
• 1:48:23
  and women who choose to be track and field coaches because we
• 1:48:26
  learned so much. It's it's amazing who and how
• 1:48:28
  people become track and field coaches and why they become
• 1:48:31
  track and field coaches. But I also so tremendously think
• 1:48:36
  of their brain power and their thought processes.
• 1:48:38
  I wanna start picking their brain like we did here with
• 1:48:40
  Tamario about just track and jump, whatever they got going
• 1:48:43
  on. So somebody gonna wanna talk
• 1:48:44
  about the state of woman's high hurdles right now in the world.
• 1:48:48
  That's crazy and on fire. Someone gonna wanna talk about
• 1:48:51
  man, I can't believe women implement stay 4K from middle
• 1:48:55
  school all the way through the Olympics.
• 1:48:57
  We're going to have a lot of topics I think to explore and
• 1:48:59
  kind of just get creative and stay curious about what's on
• 1:49:02
  their minds and what they're thinking about and how they're
• 1:49:04
  thinking about things. So I'm grateful for their trust
• 1:49:07
  and appreciate hearing from you. If you think this is good.
• 1:49:09
  What other topics might we want to bring up and and how we'll
• 1:49:12
  move forward. But right now we're done.
• 1:49:14
  Thank you so much for being here, guys.
• 1:49:16
  Join us next week. We'll do it all over.
• 1:49:18
  See you guys. If it goes to appreciate the
• 1:49:23
  coach, the ones that pour people most every season needs a voice
• 1:49:26
  of reason speaking the growth you got to prep before you carry
• 1:49:29
  the load ice coffee to the soul. For those of us who stay on the
• 1:49:32
  go proper handoff to stay in the zone which you packing for the
• 1:49:36
  road. There's more than one way to go
• 1:49:38
  taking those SP and you're told it ain't practicing your
• 1:49:41
  purpose. Saint Clair.
• 1:49:41
  It can't happen until you listen with both is you can't mentor
• 1:49:45
  without a mentor of experience. You can reinvent those years.
• 1:49:49
  Every plan's got a standard live up to in the price sacrifice.
• 1:49:52
  Can you give up you. It's a choice and a fight, not a
• 1:49:55
  win or lose. It's not a ploy boy device.
• 1:49:57
  Y'all can make more moves. It's not about how to, it's all
• 1:50:00
  about why you don't know till you know who you are inside
• 1:50:04
  6,000,000. Waste of time, choose none.
• 1:50:06
  So y'all cross finish line. The work ain't done so we learn
• 1:50:09
  from the experts but y'all got to put in the network.
• 1:50:12
  Your athletics is the network. It's all about connections put
• 1:50:15
  together for the profession to where every track coach could be
• 1:50:18
  blessing.