Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #167: Gregg Schmidt-University of Bridgeport

Transcript

#167: Gregg Schmidt-University of Bridgeport · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to season 3 of gila politics connection podcast.
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  If this is your first time here, we're so excited.
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  Okay, that's enough of an inch. All right, let's get to it.
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  See what today's guest has in store for us.
• 0:40
  All right, we're back here on the gulf, etics connections,
• 0:42
  track and field podcast. I am so humbled to be your host
• 0:45
  here. Mike Cunningham I'm a pumped man
• 0:48
  because we're going to talk about some topics that we don't
• 0:51
  normally get into. Unfortunately, we don't get into
• 0:54
  this topic because we're going to talk about a brand new track
• 0:58
  and field program on the Collegiate side and that's
• 1:00
  exciting, healthy things grow. So anytime a school announces
• 1:04
  adding track and field and we should all celebrate.
• 1:08
  That is awesome for our sport. So let's get Today and learn
• 1:10
  more about that. And this interesting person's
• 1:13
  entire Journey. It's amazing here, help me
• 1:15
  welcome from the University of Bridgeport.
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  The wise the wonderful mr. Greg Schmidt Greg, how are you
• 1:19
  sir? You're pretty good.
• 1:20
  Mike thanks for having me, real excited about this one.
• 1:23
  Yeah I agree. I really am excited about this
• 1:25
  because, you know, one of the awesome things that I get to do
• 1:29
  being the host here as I could to have these conversations, not
• 1:31
  only with amazing people that have amazing jobs but we get to
• 1:35
  talk about some really cool interesting things in regards to
• 1:39
  our Session here and so, I don't know.
• 1:42
  I'm trying to think back, you know, you're the 167th coach on
• 1:45
  this podcast, by the way. That's, that's a big deal, man.
• 1:48
  That's a, so, so happy you're here, but I'm trying to think,
• 1:51
  if we've had anybody who has are in the situation where you are
• 1:55
  today of adding track and field, I think we've had some that
• 1:59
  have, you know, they're four, five, six, maybe ten years in
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  that they started a program or added a cross-country or indoor
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  track, your starting almost from a blank canvas here, man.
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  And I'm just so excited, too. In that before we get there.
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  That's that's that's given away chapter 10 and we're in the
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  preface here we're still on the the beginning here.
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  Greg talked about coaching for you as a profession.
• 2:22
  I know you were an athlete but at some point and it could have
• 2:25
  been as early as way me. Way back as Middle School, it
• 2:29
  could have been five years after you.
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  Graduated undergrad, somewhere in your head.
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  Coaching switched from an idea that happens to you.
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  I get Watched to oh wait a minute I can be a coach like
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  like some people go off to work at the bank.
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  I actually could go and get paid to be the track.
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  When do you remember? What's your earliest remembering
• 2:51
  of like oh I want to be a coach. This, this could be me.
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  Well, for me, originally, I was going to be a high school,
• 2:58
  history teacher, and high school coach.
• 3:01
  That's my high school history. Teacher was, my coach Kevin put
• 3:05
  her down at Palmyra high school and got along real well.
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  He was probably my first mentor and the sport and that was my
• 3:12
  initial thing. I majored in history, got my
• 3:14
  Masters in Education as a graduate assistant.
• 3:17
  But when I really saw it okay this is what I'm doing, you
• 3:21
  know, all chips in was probably Towards the end of, when I was
• 3:25
  coaching at Valpo, going in, Iowa Central, because started
• 3:28
  having success. And I'm like, well, why would I
• 3:30
  stop this to go do something else?
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  I Was preparing to take the Praxis to be a high school,
• 3:35
  history teacher, and all those things.
• 3:37
  I was a substitute teacher for about six years of that point
• 3:39
  all over the place. So, I always wanted to be a
• 3:43
  coach in terms of Collegiate coaching.
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  It was probably about two programs in before I really
• 3:48
  said, you know, I enjoy this, why would I do this?
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  Not as a side job, how you've High School, Coaches coach as
• 3:55
  much as it's not more than anybody else.
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  Just this is my full-time thing, I would say was rather than I
• 4:01
  love that you said that we're going to start back at that
• 4:03
  first program. I believe it was Valpo.
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  It was the first oh my first program so graduated from
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  Lynchburg College took a year off where I was going to just be
• 4:13
  a teacher and then I remember I was watching one of the d-des
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  meats and I saw advertisements for NCAA and all this stuff.
• 4:22
  So I look up the website. I didn't know there was such a A
• 4:24
  thing as a graduate assistant coach, then I applied for a
• 4:28
  position because I had been coaching my high school just
• 4:30
  during Summers and things like that because coach poder was a
• 4:34
  great hurdler. He went to Rider University back
• 4:36
  in the day did a great job as a hurdles coach and he admitted to
• 4:40
  me he's many I'm going to do everything I can for you as a
• 4:42
  thrower, but that's not like, saying, let's go.
• 4:44
  Anytime. I had opportunity, I went back
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  and Coach my high school. So I said, I'm already have
• 4:49
  experience and I found out what a graduate assistant was seeing.
• 4:51
  Lawrence University. All the way in Upstate New York
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  was looking. GA throws.
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  So I applied got that position and that kind of started the
• 4:59
  ballroom. So what I like about the first
• 5:02
  position that you have and typically it's not the ga
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  position although you know, it could be here in this situation
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  even though you know? Are you think?
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  You know, you want to be a coach?
• 5:12
  You don't know until you're in it.
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  All right. I always like, I always think of
• 5:16
  that first position that first taste of coaching is still like
• 5:20
  the tryout, like you could still like oh yeah, okay, this was not
• 5:23
  what I thought. So I'm going to go teach High
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  School history or you know I'm going to go become a banker or
• 5:28
  something you know so what was it like in that GA that first
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  you know now your coach whether you're GA or not don't matter
• 5:34
  you still you typically are responsible for kids and helping
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  with the writing of the program and all the other things that
• 5:39
  come along with college coaching.
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  What was it? Like when you finally got their
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  your now you're doing? It was an immediate like oh I
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  made the right decision or was there still like, I don't know,
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  I'm still trying it out, so it wasn't an immediate love.
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  I mean, I was still pretty immature myself.
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  Then I didn't know what college coaching was, you know, I
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  assumed you coach athletes show up forgetting my whole
• 6:01
  recruitment as it has like myself and, you know, back then,
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  you know, this was 2005. It wasn't quite as much email.
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  We didn't have all the services to send mass emails and stuff
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  like that. It was, here's a binder.
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  You get one phone. Call a week into perspective
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  student athlete. Go down the list, weird, E3
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  program. We're going to bring in a lot of
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  athletes and I like the fact that I started 23 for that
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  reason. It kind of built that work ethic
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  and there were some Growing Pains to it, but it was, no,
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  this is, you know, not even 10% of coaching.
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  This is a huge part of your job is to recruit quality student
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  athletes in the University. So, for me that was, you know,
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  something I really had to learn and adapt to do and the coaching
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  side of things I was successful and that's where I started
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  becoming, you know, strength conditioning and look at
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  weightlifting coach also is where I start to get those
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  certifications. But even then, I look back at
• 6:55
  those workouts and just kind of shake my head, like, what was I
• 6:57
  thinking back then? But yeah, I mean I enjoyed it,
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  but it was, it was some Growing Pains of no, this is what
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  college coaching is. It's not just show up to
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  practice at 2:00 and then leave at five, there's a lot of behind
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  the scenes stuff. That's a great reminder, because
• 7:13
  you put a lot of like imagery to what I have been thinking there.
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  With the first job is still like this.
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  Try out of like do I actually really like coaching or not?
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  You put the words to it. The imagery there.
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  Would have when you're an athlete, when you see your coach
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  99% of the time, typically, it's on the track whether it's
• 7:30
  practice or out of mead. I know you go into office and
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  see something there's meetings and stuff, but you don't
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  typically hang out with the coach when they're writing up
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  their logs when they're calling recruits the review in the
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  recruit list. They're looking at the hotel
• 7:43
  choices the pick for the season. That's right.
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  So for coaching in most athletes - like, oh yeah, it's coaching.
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  It's being in the ring. It's, you know, it's working on
• 7:52
  the jab, things like that. And then you get the first job
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  and like you said, especially back, then not a lot of emails.
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  So it was like, okay, here's the list, here's your phone.
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  Knock yourself out. By the way, you only get one a
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  week, so don't screw it up. And if you talk to a parent that
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  counts, I mean, the recruiting has changed a lot in every
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  Garden. So especially coming up at that
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  time. I'm glad I did because it, it
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  shaped me a little bit doing that.
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  Yeah. Well, so what was you still
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  weren't? You know, it wasn't like an
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  immediate and I love that. It wasn't an immediate like, oh
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  yeah, this is it. I boy, I struck gold.
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  I like that. You actually You had to put some
• 8:25
  thought to his like I'm still I'm still evaluating here.
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  What was it? That least kept you going to the
• 8:31
  next position and where was that the next position was at Valpo,
• 8:36
  Valparaiso University. Indiana and my former coach
• 8:41
  Finley Lawson Lynchburg, he's got a very Washington.
• 8:44
  Now people who hear currently is named if they don't they open
• 8:47
  like the largest hands and track and field but he get out got a
• 8:52
  hold of me and said, hey I know that Head coach at Valparaiso
• 8:55
  Ryan Moore. He's looking for somebody to
• 8:57
  coach at the time, it was just jumps.
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  I kind of turn it into jumps and Maltese.
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  And he said, I recommended you and told him about your strength
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  conditioning background. Also, and part of me is
• 9:08
  thinking, okay. I was a college thrower towards
• 9:11
  the end of college. I trimmed down about 80 pounds.
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  After I graduate and start doing decathlon training.
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  And then, I was a D3 throws coach and now I got the
• 9:20
  opportunity to be a deep one jumps coach.
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  So, it was, it was Arresting. And there, it has some good
• 9:25
  jumpers there. So, I kind of jumped at the
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  opportunity, you know, not a lot of money, limited part-time
• 9:31
  drove from, I'm from South Jersey, Philly area originally
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  Joe from their out to Indiana. And, you know, one point I was
• 9:37
  living in a former athlete from there's basement a, and twenty
• 9:40
  dollars a week for rent and stuff like that.
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  And that's where like I said, that's where I kind of realize.
• 9:45
  Okay, I'm pot committed, you know?
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  I'm making some sacrifices to do this thing.
• 9:50
  Okay, great. We don't know each other very
• 9:51
  well but that is now the second poker reference that you have
• 9:54
  made. Now again, we don't know each
• 9:58
  other, so I doubt, you know this as a former professional poker
• 10:01
  player, I'm all in for the second team held by say is but
• 10:04
  saying things you can keep using all the polka references you
• 10:07
  want. We may have to at the end talk
• 10:08
  about our poker experiences if you're a poker fan here so
• 10:12
  update that my man, coonley Lawson, who is one of the nicest
• 10:15
  people in the world. And of course, he has the
• 10:17
  biggest hands and coaching world.
• 10:19
  Is now the head coach at Maryville University down?
• 10:23
  Its right Maryville? Yeah, because I made the dumb
• 10:26
  mistake, I saw that he got the Maryville job.
• 10:28
  Well there's also a Merrillville in st.
• 10:29
  Louis. So I messaged him saying how
• 10:31
  excited was that he was going to be living so close to it.
• 10:34
  You were about three hours and I was like, you got to come up to
• 10:36
  the factory yada and he's like, what are you talking about,
• 10:39
  Mike, I'm in Tennessee. And I was like, oh, that
• 10:41
  Maryville got it. Yes.
• 10:43
  Are you probably don't want to drive to Champaign Illinois, but
• 10:46
  love him but interesting and I have A theory.
• 10:50
  But I want to hear a little more from you.
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  You said that coonley recommended you for this multis
• 10:55
  jumps job. But you're a hate, the
• 10:58
  pigeonhole people. But you, you put yourself there
• 11:01
  you're a strengthened and throws position.
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  What do you think coonley saw in you this early?
• 11:06
  It's not like you had done this for 10 years.
• 11:08
  I was like, oh yeah. No, no.
• 11:09
  He knows he may not have had the shot to coach jumps yet, but he
• 11:12
  definitely could do it. You're still a rookie here.
• 11:15
  What do you think he saw in you? That was like, oh yeah, jumps
• 11:17
  multis. Yeah, my man can do that.
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  Wayne. I had a, I would say,
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  interesting relationship, when I was in college, you know, like
• 11:24
  was mostly recruited for football coming out of high
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  school. I had some Russians broken
• 11:29
  elbow. And I just, that's what I was
• 11:32
  mostly recruited for us. And I don't want to be in pain,
• 11:35
  I just really didn't see it as the sacrifice I had.
• 11:39
  I'm not going to name these programs.
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  But, you know, coming out of high school, I was a hundred and
• 11:42
  thirty eight feet in The discus, you know, 39, the shots and
• 11:45
  nothing special and especially being from a track state, like
• 11:48
  New Jersey really wasn't much. New Jersey and I knew I was a D3
• 11:53
  guy if I was doing track and even the d3s, a couple of them
• 11:55
  said to me, I was 190 pounds of gone.
• 11:58
  Through like your little too small to really be a shot or
• 12:00
  discus thrower for me. So maybe you try to teach a
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  hammer but currently was really the one that showed an interest
• 12:06
  in really spent the time recruiting me.
• 12:08
  I credit him a lot with my improvement over the years
• 12:11
  because the first year at Lynchburg, I think there's about
• 12:14
  eight of us that were recruited as throwers because of transfers
• 12:18
  or greed or things, God. I was the only one that survived
• 12:21
  that freshman year, and I still remember at a meet at VMI,
• 12:25
  couldn't I use the nicest guy in the world.
• 12:26
  I will say before this story, but I don't know if, you know,
• 12:29
  Seth MacGuffin, who is another thrower from Lynchburg, really
• 12:32
  good friends with feeling like they were literally having a
• 12:34
  catch with me. So, we need back in floors, just
• 12:37
  joking around with me and it could like stops because whoa,
• 12:40
  whoa, whoa. He's my only throughout right
• 12:42
  now but break them. Yeah, but no couldn't lie and I,
• 12:46
  you know, we had our ups and downs.
• 12:47
  I think every athlete when they're in college, gets a
• 12:49
  little pop. Aki.
• 12:49
  And like I said, I was coaching at the time so there was times
• 12:52
  where I was a little pain in the neck but we talked about track a
• 12:56
  lot and especially that first year because I was really the
• 12:58
  only throw on the program for the men.
• 13:01
  We got to know each other pretty well and he can hear that.
• 13:05
  I love this word as a whole. So I like learning about it.
• 13:08
  And then after I graduated, like I said, I started training for
• 13:10
  decathlon's. I started doing all these other
• 13:13
  things. So I started learning more about
• 13:15
  the events and he, and I kept in close contact during that time
• 13:18
  and at the He was the I think multis coach at Richmond at the
• 13:24
  time here there, Ohio. I can't quite remember.
• 13:27
  So he had made these connections and we'd spoken about the
• 13:29
  training at all. So he he knew that I had a
• 13:33
  passion for the sport and I would just, even if I didn't
• 13:36
  know everything, I would learn, I love that you went to
• 13:39
  Lynchburg because next week on the podcast, we have Lynchburg
• 13:43
  current head coach. Jim Sprecher on the podcast guy,
• 13:46
  I've met a few times. He's amazing.
• 13:47
  I've known him so long. Ah, but way before Gil, but
• 13:50
  we're used to work together. Ball State, you'll hear all that
• 13:53
  next week. But but I just love the
• 13:54
  Lynchburg connection because it's a went there for the first
• 13:57
  time to visit him. It's such a beautiful campus,
• 14:00
  man. I mean, oh my goodness, I love
• 14:01
  the track, where it sits with the housing over there on the
• 14:04
  straightaway. It's just amazing.
• 14:06
  Really, you can wake up five minutes before practice and
• 14:09
  we're nothing track. It was he just just hop off that
• 14:11
  second balcony and Bam. You're right.
• 14:12
  You're at it. Well I love that who only said
• 14:16
  that because you know one of the many, many positives like Going
• 14:19
  to be a good coach. And that barrier that definition
• 14:24
  good does not mean you produced a ton of Champions or anything
• 14:26
  like that, but one of the things that good coaches do is they see
• 14:30
  things and others that their athletes, they see things and
• 14:34
  others before they can see it themselves.
• 14:36
  And typically we are talking about Coach to athletes, you
• 14:39
  know. Someone might have looked at you
• 14:40
  and be like yeah you know what? I know you don't think so.
• 14:42
  But I mean I think you can be a hammer throw any be like Hammer,
• 14:45
  I know that camera, you know during the we don't do that
• 14:47
  stuff, you know. But someone sees it In you
• 14:50
  before, you could believe it here a coach, a former coach of
• 14:54
  yours looked at you in a coaching capacitors.
• 14:57
  Like, hey, yeah, yeah. You can coach jumps in multis
• 15:00
  and before you maybe even could have grasped like, oh, yeah, of
• 15:03
  course, I can you like crazy man.
• 15:04
  But, but he see, he saw something in you before.
• 15:07
  You could fully see it in him. So shout out to coonley because
• 15:10
  that's a, that's a real gift of coaches and coaching.
• 15:13
  And I love that, especially not sure if you know this, he was a
• 15:17
  triple jumper when he came. Into college.
• 15:20
  No, he had, yeah, he had the Kid n Play.
• 15:24
  High top seed here, cut there's pictures of him and he was a
• 15:27
  triple jumper and discus thrower and then obviously he couldn't
• 15:32
  lie. I mean for anybody who doesn't
• 15:33
  openly if picture, Pedro cerrano from Major League, they are
• 15:36
  twins. So I mean there's there's some
• 15:41
  pictures of him at the time because, you know, coach Tom's
• 15:43
  was the head coach as he was his head coach and I think that's
• 15:47
  one good thing not to talk up, Lynchburg, Too much, I'll do
• 15:50
  this more with Coach D, speak of him, but, you know, all of the
• 15:53
  coaches that came out of the Lynchburg program, especially
• 15:57
  under coach tops. I mean, not just to lay myself,
• 16:00
  there's no dozens of former Lynchburg track athletes.
• 16:02
  You've gone to coaching. And I, I think that's, you know,
• 16:07
  credit to the Lynchburg coaches at the time that they were good
• 16:10
  mentors, and they kind of build that culture and cultivated.
• 16:13
  So, you go to Valpo, which we know very well.
• 16:15
  I could almost positive. I wasn't kind of a thrower,
• 16:18
  like, you. I can throw a Known across the
• 16:20
  state border and there's Valpo. In fact, are here at gil our VP
• 16:24
  of R&D, Greg. Luber and his daughter is a
• 16:26
  thrower for Ryan. They're going on the team.
• 16:29
  Yeah, so we know it very real. How was, you know, you mentioned
• 16:34
  being a guy from Jersey and Jersey was always my recruited
• 16:38
  state for when I coached back in the day and loved it.
• 16:41
  I loved it because well I hated the winters but but love to
• 16:44
  because of the athletes. I mean you're pretty small.
• 16:46
  Populous state compared to you know, Texas, California,
• 16:48
  Florida. But, oh my goodness.
• 16:50
  I mean, the athletes that come out of Jersey, give me a break
• 16:54
  all the coaches in Jersey. I just assumed are all, like,
• 16:57
  big brain Geniuses because they take, you know, almost no people
• 17:01
  in that state again compared to the Texas and stuff and not good
• 17:06
  athletes. Great.
• 17:09
  Please come out of there. So, you're from Jersey.
• 17:12
  You know, you did go to Lynchburg, that's not some
• 17:14
  country living down there, but you go to Valpo, you gotta
• 17:17
  Northwest Indiana, man. You drove through a lot of Born
• 17:20
  to get to your first day at Valpo.
• 17:22
  What did you think when you got on campus you're doing a you
• 17:25
  know kind of a non-specialty event to coach our is this where
• 17:29
  your you back to little bit like what am I doing here?
• 17:33
  Oh definitely at first because I don't have a place to live.
• 17:35
  They had to put me up in a hotel for two weeks and then I would
• 17:38
  just couch hopping for a little while until I found some more
• 17:41
  permanent stuff. But I actually love the area out
• 17:45
  there. I mean, I was always, you know
• 17:48
  what, when I was younger, I took Shooting courses and with the 22
• 17:52
  rifle and M1 Garand and stuff. And I just like to kind of
• 17:56
  Outdoors like things. So I enjoyed kind of the quiet
• 18:00
  and Valco is a good place because if you want to go to
• 18:02
  Chicago, it's, you know, 45 minutes away an hour away or so.
• 18:06
  So it was, it was interesting. I remember walking on and you
• 18:11
  put it exactly correct. I mean, the first few jobs I
• 18:14
  took there was always that getting there and just thinking
• 18:18
  okay my making the This is 12 hours away from my family making
• 18:24
  zero money. Is this really the right
• 18:28
  decision? And then for me it's once I
• 18:30
  start working with the athletes, I enjoyed so much, I just don't
• 18:34
  even think about it. So how did it go transitioning
• 18:37
  to this jumps and multis position?
• 18:41
  I just remembered, you know, being in the educational realm,
• 18:46
  you know, that's what my master is.
• 18:47
  Was I always use the term And loco, parentis, and move the
• 18:50
  parents, you know? So I tried to really just mentor
• 18:54
  and do no wrong at first. So, I love the coaches and we'll
• 18:59
  get there. I'm sure during a conversation,
• 19:00
  a lot of the coaches that I met through this time, we're good
• 19:04
  mentors to me. So I would always pick their
• 19:06
  brains, you know, instead of doing the coaching clinics, it's
• 19:09
  okay. Here's a really good throw.
• 19:11
  Hey, here's John Logan enemy. Let me ask him a question, you
• 19:14
  know, people like that and in my experience not sure how it is
• 19:18
  with you. It was really Level well-known,
• 19:20
  coaches. They always are generous with
• 19:23
  their time, I've not met a coach who's very successful.
• 19:25
  That is so, it was an interesting transition.
• 19:29
  I knew a little bit about the jumps, I had some really good
• 19:32
  Pole vaulters to and that's when I really had no background in
• 19:36
  one really, really try to learn as much as I could.
• 19:39
  But a lot of it was just okay. Let me let me do what I can, you
• 19:44
  know, I know how to be a good strength coach.
• 19:45
  I know how to build speed I hadn't quite learned how to To
• 19:49
  teach the approach yet, but I was getting there.
• 19:53
  So at that point, it was just getting them more athletic than
• 19:55
  anything else. Were you also the throws coach
• 19:58
  or do they have a throws? No Ryan, Ryan styrsky, right?
• 20:00
  Okay, so yeah, we had Steve Bartholomew was there.
• 20:05
  He was a heck of a hammer thrower we throw at this time.
• 20:07
  So Ryan's done a great job with that.
• 20:10
  The only time I taught the throws was for the multis, so
• 20:13
  for decathlete or head path lead, even back then, I never
• 20:17
  really believed in coaching by committee, I believe if you're
• 20:19
  Multis coach. You push those events.
• 20:21
  True for that athletes. Oh no, I didn't touch The
• 20:24
  Thirst. Did you ever saw I was wondering
• 20:27
  that capacity did you ever? Because, you know, you obviously
• 20:30
  love the throws. It's what you did and that was
• 20:32
  kind of your life is specifically in track and field
• 20:34
  for quite a while. Was there ever that, you know,
• 20:36
  as your work you're on the runway and you're working with
• 20:38
  the jumpers and you know working it out and working together and
• 20:41
  just, you know, you're kind of looking over and like throwing
• 20:43
  the hammer today, I wish I could kind of be over.
• 20:46
  There was a river, just kind of like that that yearning of like
• 20:49
  magic I really like just to be in the circle.
• 20:51
  Well, not not really from me. There's always going to be the
• 20:56
  throwers who realize, hey, this guy was a thrower to, and they
• 21:00
  would once in a while, try to go over and pick your brain.
• 21:02
  I was usually pretty good. I was always pretty good about
• 21:05
  I'm not. These are not my athletes.
• 21:07
  Yeah, I've never kind of had that in me of going to the other
• 21:10
  event area and killing somebody, who even as a head coach telling
• 21:12
  what somebody what to do closest we got probably is me and more
• 21:16
  had a throwing competition against each other.
• 21:18
  I can't remember where It's Ro he actually appeared in the shot
• 21:23
  I think. Yeah the Institute.
• 21:27
  Yeah he actually he was an outstanding discus thrower
• 21:31
  Calvin College. So he beat me and discus I
• 21:33
  actually threw my shoulder out of the socket but then I beat
• 21:36
  him in the javelin. So that's probably the closest
• 21:38
  we got to doing throws at the same time.
• 21:41
  I don't like the injury but I love the competitiveness that
• 21:44
  you throw your shoulder out. He gets so geeked up.
• 21:47
  He throws a PR in this you know not of Meet in this, you know.
• 21:50
  That's, yeah. So that's good.
• 21:52
  That's, you know, it's good as coaches, we are competitors,
• 21:54
  right? We just picked in lieu of this
• 21:56
  example. We're just competing with our
• 21:58
  athletes and through our athletes.
• 21:59
  So, so how did it go? How did, how did Valpo?
• 22:03
  Give us kind of the 30,000 foot level?
• 22:04
  How many years were you there? And I was there one year, they
• 22:09
  had a pretty successful year, has some good jumpers had, you
• 22:12
  know, a few of the multis at the time are still on the top five
• 22:16
  list and all those things. But No, they were changing the
• 22:20
  way that they had their coaches. In terms of part-time, terms of
• 22:23
  volunteers talk with more in just, it wasn't going to be
• 22:27
  there even though the little that I was getting, they were
• 22:29
  dividing things up differently. So, I, that's when I applied for
• 22:34
  the position at Iowa Central and then move even further out in
• 22:40
  the midwest. You just couldn't get enough
• 22:44
  corn driving through corn, and maybe a little wheat as you get
• 22:47
  that way. Yeah.
• 22:48
  So You did your GA st. Lawrence you do this one year at
• 22:54
  Valpo, as the things are going down at Valpo, through no, fault
• 22:58
  of your own, and maybe sounds like, no fault of their.
• 23:00
  There was no, there's no bad. Will ya bad or D business
• 23:03
  writer? I just, you know, sometimes
• 23:05
  things change. And we got to know, we'll use
• 23:08
  another poker term. You gotta play the cards that
• 23:10
  are dealt to you, don't get to change them back in, right?
• 23:12
  So but at are you as that years concluding and your kind of
• 23:17
  figuring out, okay? It's not going to be valponet.
• 23:19
  Jagged figure out the next thing.
• 23:21
  Are you now hooked that? Oh yeah, the next thing is going
• 23:24
  to be track coaching position. Or is there still a little bit
• 23:26
  like I let me go. Look at this sector, maybe I
• 23:29
  need to go work over here. Go back, use my history degree.
• 23:32
  What were you at as far as like the Hook - of coaching for a
• 23:35
  career? I'm trying to remember
• 23:38
  definitely after Iowa Central. I was I'm trying to think if I
• 23:44
  applied for any other jobs that weren't coaching at the time.
• 23:47
  I don't think I did. I think I I was still only
• 23:50
  applying for coaching jobs at the time and and you mentioned
• 23:54
  peer-to-peer which I consider I'm a huge coaching education
• 23:57
  advocate. So I consider peer-to-peer a
• 24:01
  form of coaching education, the informal part but it maybe I
• 24:05
  don't want to put it on par or above or below but it is an
• 24:08
  important part of coaching education as well as the usatf
• 24:11
  certifications. I do you stfc a Altis Etc.
• 24:16
  Are you at this point? Have you done any formal
• 24:19
  coaching? Kitchen at all, or is it more
• 24:21
  still just a peer-to-peer and what you, actually develop who I
• 24:24
  did, my usatf level one, that was in Lima, Ohio, I remember
• 24:28
  that one, actually, one of our peers their who emailed back and
• 24:32
  forth with quite a while at a time was Zeb, Zion, who Valerie,
• 24:36
  almonds current coach. He was at University Chicago,
• 24:38
  when it's written coaching job at the time.
• 24:40
  So we would see each other and meats, and get he was
• 24:44
  outstanding at the time. I mean, he even then he wanted
• 24:47
  to learn every single thing or the coaching.
• 24:49
  Glass. Oh yeah that one was led by Matt
• 24:52
  Litem who was at Defiance college at the time.
• 24:54
  So I the only other certification I did at that
• 24:57
  point was my USA weightlifting level 1 because I knew track
• 25:04
  coaching, it is strength in an athletic coaching so the more I
• 25:08
  can learn about that side of things the better and then
• 25:11
  through that, I actually kind of fell in love with that Olympic
• 25:14
  weightlifting Community also and help heard about all the overlap
• 25:18
  between you. Somebody like Alfred robot who
• 25:21
  both in the old and all these other athletes who didn't want
• 25:23
  big lifting and track and field. So I kind of combined those
• 25:26
  things, the thinking back to that level one example that you
• 25:30
  had there and Matt Light them, you know, I talk about being a
• 25:33
  coach, an education Advocate and I taught level ones for for
• 25:36
  quite a while. But Matt Litem is one of the
• 25:39
  guys, you know, that's an OG coaching education person like I
• 25:42
  mean but poor so much time and attention and care and thought
• 25:46
  into coaching education helped was a big part.
• 25:49
  I believe. Leave of the usatf, a youth
• 25:51
  certification. I mean, just he's written
• 25:53
  several books. I mean, Matt, Matt is just an
• 25:56
  amazing advocate for us here for coaching education, but we
• 26:01
  recently had Kyle Allison head. Coach of University of Saint
• 26:03
  Francis in Fort Wayne Indiana. Who's a thrower, I'm on, I like
• 26:06
  this. Throwing the kick for here for a
• 26:08
  while for a couple of guests here, you know, I asked him when
• 26:11
  he did his level one as like, you know, as a thrower you know,
• 26:14
  level one is endurance, jumps, Sprint's throws.
• 26:19
  You know, the to stereotype, it's like Manny throwers when
• 26:22
  you get to like distance. It's got to be like, can I just
• 26:24
  take a nap here? I mean this, let's get onto this
• 26:26
  Prince and power events but he expressed like, hey, I kind of
• 26:29
  knew I wanted to be a head coach that point.
• 26:31
  So I knew I wanted to learn about all the other events
• 26:33
  you're going into this level one.
• 26:35
  Not only having been a throw and throws coach, but now having
• 26:39
  done jumps in multis, it had to be.
• 26:41
  I'm assuming you tell me, maybe even a little bit more
• 26:44
  interesting, for a guy, like you because you had, you've been
• 26:46
  dabbling in some other events now.
• 26:49
  Yeah, Yeah, I definitely took a lot of notes.
• 26:52
  It's funny at the end of it is always the race walk.
• 26:56
  And I remember some coaches is leaving and I'm standing there
• 26:58
  like now, it's still part of track and field.
• 26:59
  I'm still going to learn as much as I can.
• 27:01
  And I actually think one of my bosses after that Mike roll up
• 27:05
  and Mansfield. He's, you know, I think you
• 27:07
  wrote the curriculum that point for the race walk.
• 27:10
  So yeah, I mean for me it was just learning as much as I could
• 27:13
  about everything and part of that might have been because I
• 27:18
  was still in that Realm. Of am I going to be a high
• 27:20
  school teacher and Coach where I have to know a little bit of
• 27:23
  everything so that kind of driven me, drove me a little bit
• 27:26
  more also because I don't know if you pal, modern New Jersey.
• 27:29
  My graduating class was 70. We have a cinder track still
• 27:33
  with the 200-meter straight away.
• 27:34
  Actually, from back when they used to run a 220 hurdles.
• 27:37
  Wow. So I mean we're a very small
• 27:39
  program. Always have great athletes
• 27:41
  coming out of there, but I saw my coaches in high school and I
• 27:46
  knew I might need a coach a lot of different things.
• 27:49
  Things if I become a high school coach.
• 27:50
  So initially that's a little bit.
• 27:52
  What you have drove me into. That's awesome.
• 27:55
  So Yoda Iowa Central, I was get Iowa, Western and Iowa.
• 27:58
  Central Iowa Wesleyan. I get them all mixed up.
• 28:02
  You go to Iowa Central, you're continually moving West that
• 28:04
  we're going to learn. You can you did a u-turn and
• 28:07
  headed back east in present-day here, but Iowa Central.
• 28:11
  So tell me about that. What kind of program was it?
• 28:13
  What were you a coaching? I can't even say.
• 28:14
  You were the throat, I don't know.
• 28:15
  What were you even responsible for?
• 28:17
  I coached multis. Hurdles jumps.
• 28:22
  And I helped out with javelin because my one of my best
• 28:26
  friend's right now. Fully Turner was the throws
• 28:29
  coach there in his first coaching job, and fully was an
• 28:33
  outstanding thrower, four-time National Champion discus.
• 28:35
  But early on, he went out and told me he's like Hiroshima and
• 28:38
  he said, I don't know much about the job.
• 28:41
  So a lot of the times I would talk with him behind the scenes
• 28:44
  about, you know what, I see what the athletes can kind of do, and
• 28:48
  he would just go Implement, so he was the throws coach.
• 28:52
  He would just ask me the whole things on behind the scenes, but
• 28:56
  that's where I really had to learn about the events.
• 28:59
  I mean, I had a long jumper name me, IE you did outstanding from
• 29:03
  France. He ended up going to the
• 29:04
  University of Arkansas and he jump, seven meters.
• 29:08
  I think CM 72 sure me that you're ahead a big PR in indoors
• 29:13
  and I realized, okay, if I'm going to coach this caliber of
• 29:16
  athletes, I have to learn as much as I can.
• 29:19
  So I totally forgot. You're from Jersey.
• 29:21
  Did you throw the jab in high school?
• 29:22
  And everybody kind of did. That's all we had the rubber
• 29:26
  tips on it. I was never very good, the best.
• 29:28
  I threw I think, was 140, 150 feet.
• 29:31
  It's just you run. You take a big Crow Hop.
• 29:34
  And you throw your entire arm images and so it's still get
• 29:38
  interesting. That's why I assumed in Jersey
• 29:40
  as I think everybody at least throws in.
• 29:42
  You figure it out and some continue to throw another.
• 29:45
  Like I could go back to them to the mile, you're good.
• 29:47
  We're when I got there that you have anymore.
• 29:49
  Exactly. So Iowa Central.
• 29:52
  Division. Where they D1 jukka.
• 29:56
  Yeah. So how you know junior college
• 29:59
  is different? You know you're kind of getting
• 30:01
  your taste in a lot of these different things, right?
• 30:02
  You might be a D3 athlete. You go to st.
• 30:06
  Lawrence. You know, small school /.
• 30:07
  New York. Go to Valpo D1 mid-major.
• 30:11
  Now you go to the Junior College route, I love, you know, I was a
• 30:14
  former junior college coach myself.
• 30:16
  That is literally my favorite. It's my favorite National meets
• 30:19
  my favorite level, because you're doing all of it together.
• 30:22
  Meaning, you're always recruiting and you're always
• 30:25
  trying to get your athletes to be recruited.
• 30:26
  So you get that high. School coaching side of trying
• 30:29
  to get your kids recruited your in the college, you're always
• 30:31
  recruiting. How did you it's different than
• 30:34
  the other institutions you've been at this point and you're
• 30:37
  still, I still consider you a rookie at this point going to
• 30:40
  there. How did you handle that
• 30:42
  transformation into Junior College World?
• 30:45
  It took a little adjustment. You know, it's it's different
• 30:50
  personalities. You have at a junior college.
• 30:51
  That's why I hold a lot of junior college coaches.
• 30:54
  I know in such high regard because you'll have some
• 30:56
  athletes who You know, there are 4.0 student at a high school but
• 31:00
  they're local and they can get through their gen Ed's and they
• 31:03
  can then go to a 4-year and save money for their family.
• 31:06
  You have some International athletes, who, this is, their
• 31:08
  chance to come to track the United States.
• 31:11
  We have some athletes who wanted to go to a large D1 program, but
• 31:15
  didn't have the eligibility requirements coming out of high
• 31:18
  school. So it was a struggle for me at
• 31:21
  first because you had some athletes who bought in because
• 31:25
  they were here and this is what they needed to do.
• 31:27
  And you Some athletes that were there because of grades, or
• 31:30
  because of other issues and it took a little while for me to
• 31:34
  kind of understand that with the personalities.
• 31:36
  So, we're and one of the football coaches there.
• 31:39
  Put it really well and is being of your speech.
• 31:41
  He said, all of you are here for a reason.
• 31:43
  Some of your reason is saving money, some of your reason is,
• 31:47
  if you're going to a four-year school, you have to be here
• 31:49
  first. So you have to kind of make the
• 31:51
  best of it. So it took a little bit of time
• 31:54
  and like I said, especially with the athletes I had.
• 31:57
  I mean, That's where I coached AG Bradford who is national
• 32:00
  champion heptathlon and she was the highest recruited athlete in
• 32:04
  the midwest at the time. So I heard all these names of
• 32:06
  these athletes that I was gonna be coaching.
• 32:08
  And that's when I was like, hey, I really need to get my stuff
• 32:10
  together. It's funny.
• 32:13
  I really kind of I don't do a lot of preparation for these
• 32:16
  interviews. You probably can tell sometimes,
• 32:18
  unfortunately, but here I was thinking, I'm interviewing a
• 32:21
  throws coach. Okay, I got my throws mojo on
• 32:24
  and you're not a throws coach. Here's the best.
• 32:29
  Thing I can call you. You're a coach.
• 32:31
  You're a track coach. That's awesome.
• 32:33
  I love that. You know, some of the highest
• 32:35
  level coaches that I have interviewed here and have known
• 32:37
  through my coaching career and now here Gil aren't they're not
• 32:41
  pigeon-holed, they're not throws coaches, Sprint's coaches
• 32:43
  distance coaches. There are coaches, I mean, they,
• 32:47
  you know, it's kind of the same principle.
• 32:48
  You're trying to move that Center of mass, fastly some way
• 32:51
  either you're turning are going straight or you're putting it
• 32:53
  into an Implement. So, I love that.
• 32:54
  That's, that's being a coach, man.
• 32:56
  You know, you to coach me to coach.
• 32:57
  I love that. Yeah, I mean and that's, that's
• 33:00
  the funny thing is, I was a thrower and my most successful
• 33:03
  athletes were all jumpers multis and write it different things.
• 33:07
  So it's, it's the way I see it, you know, I compared to other
• 33:12
  sports, you know, if a Scotty Bowman wanted to coach
• 33:15
  basketball and said ice hockey, he would have been successful.
• 33:17
  It's more about your style and the atmosphere, your create and
• 33:22
  how you get the information across the athlete more than
• 33:25
  anything else, you know, Phil Jackson what has been agreed?
• 33:27
  Football coach. Probably if you move through the
• 33:29
  football world. So high.
• 33:31
  I wonder about that. I've thought about that.
• 33:33
  I think about some of the the greats, right?
• 33:35
  The John McDonald's, ethics law. Real Mouse Holloway.
• 33:39
  I mean, just some of the Jerry baltus at Grand Valley, you
• 33:42
  know, just these guys and gals that are just routinely have
• 33:45
  Conference Championship teams and National top, threes and
• 33:50
  titles, I always wondered like what would they do if they ran
• 33:54
  the basketball team, or they ran the football team?
• 33:57
  So do you really think that that's just kind of an intro?
• 34:00
  We're not even talking about Greg's life here anymore.
• 34:02
  I just kind of intro thought experiment like Jerry baltus you
• 34:05
  know, amazing distance, coach crushes, it at Grand Valley, all
• 34:09
  the events. He doesn't amazing job.
• 34:11
  He's in charge of Michigan's ice hockey team, right?
• 34:15
  That's a good. I think that's a typically a
• 34:16
  good hockey team from Alabama. So I barely can still hockey,
• 34:19
  but he's in charge of the hockey team.
• 34:23
  Would his leadership and motivation style allows Him, he
• 34:28
  would still be successful. I think after you get you ice
• 34:32
  hockey players a little bit different for you so it's, you
• 34:35
  know, you from Jersey, you know, am I don't?
• 34:37
  Well I I've coached, you know, st.
• 34:39
  Lawrence was very big ice hockey program and then actually, next
• 34:42
  to Jerry, I coach at Lake Superior State further down the
• 34:45
  road and they had ice hockey program as well.
• 34:49
  It was a visually want, so it's, they are a different breed, it's
• 34:53
  managing. Like I said, it's more about
• 34:54
  managing individuals, that is a female.
• 34:56
  So I do think after time, if you create the right culture, Even
• 35:01
  Oscar more from Rowan College, back in the day for track and
• 35:04
  field. I believe he started out
• 35:06
  coaching other sports also so it's more just about creating
• 35:11
  that environment where athletes are going to succeed and they
• 35:13
  feel safe in their to be able to improve research potential.
• 35:16
  I think more than anything else. Yeah it's at the end of the day
• 35:19
  no matter what sport you're in and really do matter what
• 35:21
  profession you're in. It's a people job, right?
• 35:24
  You got it whether its young people or you know, older
• 35:27
  people, whatever your career and your passion leads you to be.
• 35:30
  It's a, it's a person's effort and that's where I think the
• 35:33
  most successful coaches that not only had the skill to actually
• 35:37
  know the X's and O's, but they have the, the people, the
• 35:39
  motivation style to reach people and then our cases, the young
• 35:43
  people 18 to 22 year old right in college to bring out stuff
• 35:46
  that they had no idea was locked inside of them.
• 35:48
  So I was wondered I was like I think they really could maybe
• 35:51
  coach any sport and it's because it's people first, you can learn
• 35:55
  the X's and O's, you know, well that's what I get frustrated
• 35:58
  with some coaches sometimes that don't Stand that it's a person,
• 36:02
  you know, football and track and field almost specifically where
• 36:05
  you know, they'll say something on athlete, who runs a slow leg
• 36:09
  of a 4x4? I said, well they did three
• 36:10
  other events earlier in the day it's not every event is its own
• 36:14
  world and then you don't get any fatigue, same thing with
• 36:16
  football, you know, quarterback gets hit in the head 20 times.
• 36:20
  He's going to be a little bit gun shy after a few years of
• 36:23
  getting that done. So you're exactly right.
• 36:26
  It's about understanding that these are individuals and these
• 36:28
  are people that you're coaching and Being a little bit, you
• 36:32
  know, having some leeway with that and being a little bit
• 36:34
  transparent about what you're trying to do with them.
• 36:35
  Hmm, yeah. Okay, let's let's get off the
• 36:38
  hypothetical. Jerry boxes JB's.
• 36:41
  Listen, this right now. Go on how in the world would I
• 36:42
  come? I'm not coaching hockey, Mike.
• 36:44
  I'm very happy as a Laker, their Grand Valley.
• 36:46
  So, how long were you at Iowa Central?
• 36:48
  And I was essential one year and I learned a lot there.
• 36:53
  You know, University of Northern Iowa at the time.
• 36:56
  Travis guess effort, was the head coach there?
• 36:58
  Who one of the best? Guys I know in track and field,
• 37:02
  he probably gets tired of me giving him credit for a lot of
• 37:04
  this stuff but he deserves it all.
• 37:06
  Honestly he's a great guy and you know, I'll be at meats and I
• 37:10
  would be talking to him and say, you know what?
• 37:13
  Why are you doing this? Why are you putting that take
• 37:15
  mark down there? Why are you?
• 37:16
  And he would tell me, okay, I'm doing this with the check
• 37:19
  system. Mark, Napier was there at the
• 37:21
  time as well. I mean, they had a very good
• 37:22
  staff at you and I before he went down to Arkansas and I
• 37:26
  credit him a lot with that because like I said, I had this
• 37:29
  really good long jumper had. Other athletes and part of it
• 37:32
  was, they were athletes Year's recruiting but also, you know,
• 37:35
  he could have been like, all right.
• 37:36
  Whatever work with my athletes. Now, when he put took the time
• 37:39
  to work with me was a lot of those kids as well.
• 37:41
  And, you know, even like Kip Jammer would be in some of the
• 37:44
  meats. I would talk his ear off.
• 37:46
  Go to Convention, I would talk down Babbitt's here off, so that
• 37:49
  was the year. I think that I've really tried
• 37:51
  to just, you know, I recognize that was around all these
• 37:54
  really, really solid coaches. This is an opportunity for me to
• 37:58
  speak with him at the meats and kind of see what they're doing.
• 38:00
  You can you think of you, obviously, you're okay with
• 38:04
  talking to strangers, meaning targeted on Babin, keep jamming
• 38:07
  great people, by the way. But at some point they were
• 38:09
  strangers. Do you, can you remember, Sarah
• 38:15
  piece of advice? Someone gave you at this point
• 38:18
  in your career? That really like it hits you
• 38:20
  like, oh, but whether it was something that I thought, man, I
• 38:23
  got to stop doing that. Or oh, man, that really
• 38:26
  reaffirmed something. I was thinking it was probably
• 38:30
  further down the I, you know, I got and I'll skip through a few
• 38:36
  of this stops. I was at coaching, but I mean,
• 38:38
  there was a time where I had success at Iowa Central.
• 38:41
  And then from there, I went to Lake Superior State coach, the
• 38:46
  jumps in the multis. Again, not the throws or no, I
• 38:48
  did Coach. The throat area was the first
• 38:49
  time since I was a TA and coached, you know, the national
• 38:54
  champ in triple jump for division 2 and then he ended up
• 38:57
  being top 10 the United States and I started to have A little
• 39:01
  bit of a chip on my shoulder of, oh, I'm I had success after
• 39:04
  success. You know, two years in a row of
• 39:06
  coaching. These national champions that I
• 39:08
  got a little full of myself and my temper really got my own way,
• 39:12
  you know, I'm Sicilian from South Jersey.
• 39:14
  So you know, that temper comes out and, you know, I was, you
• 39:17
  know, let go of Lake Superior State.
• 39:20
  I've told people about it before and that was my undoing of, just
• 39:23
  my temper get in the way. And from there, that was the
• 39:27
  rough period of major coaching, because I jumped from program to
• 39:30
  program. Over a period of about three,
• 39:32
  four, five, six years without really finding a home.
• 39:36
  And that's where, like I said, I was getting in my own way and it
• 39:40
  was coaches, that I knew that, you know, we have a really good
• 39:44
  coaching Community. Where if somebody sees you kind
• 39:47
  of getting in your own way, doing things that are harmful to
• 39:50
  yourself, though, they won't call you out and say, hey,
• 39:53
  you're being a jerk, they won't yell at you, it'll be more like,
• 39:56
  hey, how's how's everything going?
• 39:58
  You know, like and they're like, there's too many coaches to name
• 40:02
  it that point, but, you know, couldn't lay was one of them
• 40:06
  micro lie. When I work with him Advanced
• 40:08
  field, that would just, hey, you're a good guy and you're a
• 40:11
  good coach, you just need to, you know, step back a little
• 40:14
  bit, and it was around that time, that I realized it was my
• 40:17
  insecurities kind of getting in the way of I need to show
• 40:20
  everybody that I'm this good of a coach, instead of know you're
• 40:23
  here for the athletes, buddy. So settle yourself down a little
• 40:26
  bit. You seem to be open to it, so if
• 40:28
  you are open to, I'd love to explore this.
• 40:31
  Okay good without you know you're talking about some
• 40:34
  Timmerman things so we don't need to get into like an EU
• 40:37
  specific fights. You got into with a coach or
• 40:39
  said some things about you should have said but you know
• 40:41
  one of the things we got two things going on here.
• 40:44
  Greg one is something that we don't have in the moment.
• 40:46
  We only have now. 10 years later, right is perspective.
• 40:49
  I can look back and be like a ho man.
• 40:51
  I can't believe I did this or thought this way or acted this
• 40:55
  way. Right.
• 40:56
  The other is and this is extremely hard, it's easy to say
• 41:00
  but it's Really hard to do is self-awareness, right?
• 41:04
  There called blind spots. For a reason that they're blind.
• 41:06
  You know, what, and to your point about the, these coaches,
• 41:09
  that spoke to you and kind of smoked root T.
• 41:11
  If I can, hey, what, what's going on?
• 41:13
  Like this the oh, you're better than this isn't you?
• 41:16
  Or this is how you should or have been acting the past.
• 41:19
  Thank God for those people. By the way, you're not a real
• 41:23
  friend, by the way, if you just if you see someone, your friend
• 41:25
  doing bad and you're like, I know you're good.
• 41:27
  No, no. It's the other person's fault.
• 41:28
  Yeah. Like speak truth to people,
• 41:30
  that's that's All real friendship, real relationship
• 41:32
  here but as you do have this perspective now and I don't know
• 41:37
  if in the moment you started having that self-awareness but
• 41:40
  maybe there was a point where it's like, oh hold on, I got it,
• 41:42
  hold on, stop the phone, what am I feeling this way?
• 41:46
  Because Jenna, because I have some similarities with this.
• 41:49
  Like there will be times where I'm just a lot when I had my two
• 41:53
  kids and my two kids. I'm cycling the you doing, man?
• 41:55
  And I gotta be all right. There ain't no 11.
• 41:57
  Mike back off, you know but there has what What was it that
• 42:01
  you were feeling you mentioned and now and I want to dive in
• 42:04
  that part 2 about some insecurities of like having to
• 42:06
  prove what was it? Was it anger.
• 42:08
  Yeah. You mentioned Sicilian from
• 42:09
  South Jersey. So I think anger and all that
• 42:12
  kind of stuff. What was it?
• 42:13
  That was just that this this roadblock that came up for you
• 42:17
  at this point. I think it was just a little bit
• 42:20
  of everything where you know, I wasn't the best athlete coming
• 42:23
  out of school. Going to college, you know, I
• 42:26
  was 280 pounds. I was out of shape that I
• 42:29
  trimmed down. I was the cat Eat everything was
• 42:31
  good and then I started coaching and I started having this
• 42:35
  success and I just, it was almost like an entitlement that
• 42:39
  I mowed better than this. So if I would be in the office
• 42:43
  and a sport coach from another team, didn't show me what I
• 42:48
  always thought was enough respect for me.
• 42:50
  I would I would take that perk like sound like Michael Jordan.
• 42:53
  I would take that person and I had to realize.
• 42:57
  Hey, hey idiot, they don't know why you're angry.
• 43:00
  Like they just see somebody who's angry for no reason.
• 43:04
  So it took me a little while to kind of realize that and the
• 43:07
  best thing that happened during those period of 45 years was, I
• 43:11
  didn't get any jobs that I really saw as dream jobs because
• 43:14
  there was a lot of jobs coming up at universities that I've
• 43:17
  always loved that are around the family and all that I didn't get
• 43:21
  and the coaches knew me and they gave me good interviews.
• 43:25
  The worst thing I probably could have happened that time as I got
• 43:27
  one of those jobs because I wouldn't have Prepared for now.
• 43:32
  And it's one of those things where, you know, I do have
• 43:35
  anxiety. I, you can talk to my athletes
• 43:36
  about it because I think it's good to be open about that
• 43:39
  because they might be feeling that.
• 43:41
  Hey, I'm only one who feels this way.
• 43:44
  So it was kind of just all those things just bottling up and like
• 43:48
  I said, it was the insecurity and it was that weird feeling of
• 43:51
  entitlement of, I mood much better than this.
• 43:54
  You know, I'm a good coach you almost being not Petty.
• 43:58
  I can't think of the word right now but Probably you're
• 44:01
  describing here. If you allow me to put words,
• 44:04
  they not put words in your mouth.
• 44:05
  You tell me. Because we talk a lot.
• 44:07
  A lot of times after, you know, 160 plus interviews here.
• 44:10
  A lot of times the word ego comes into the conversation and
• 44:14
  almost immediately because ego, the word is seen as this bad
• 44:17
  thing. It's like, I don't have ego,
• 44:19
  it's like, well, actually you're my but, you know, I'm not your
• 44:21
  counselor, so I, yeah, I have no professional training here.
• 44:25
  However, my experience with interviewing people not only for
• 44:28
  the podcast, but, you know, my job and being a coach And the
• 44:31
  past things like that, you know, ego is not bad that he goes,
• 44:34
  good ego is what helps us be competitive.
• 44:37
  It helps us have self-worth that helps us to do better, try to do
• 44:41
  better, and look better. And all these kind of things,
• 44:43
  right? Bad ego is bad, right?
• 44:47
  So it sounds like what you're describing that I'm kind of put
• 44:52
  myself in some past experiences as well.
• 44:54
  It's like, oh and you feel entitled because then it because
• 44:56
  then I'm wondering like well what entitled to what not that
• 44:59
  that's bad. Again, you are boy anybody who
• 45:03
  follows me and social knows. I think you're in as track
• 45:05
  coaches. In general, we're entitled to a
• 45:07
  heck of a lot more pay and that's not a bad thing.
• 45:09
  It's not a bad thing to get, paid for what you have a passion
• 45:11
  for you can still love the kids and love the sport and all that
• 45:14
  stuff and get paid to take care of you and your family and
• 45:17
  friends and your future to retire and things like that,
• 45:19
  right? So entitled to more pay, you
• 45:23
  mentioned entitled for respect from other coaches?
• 45:25
  Which that's a weird thing and I don't I'm not belittling just
• 45:28
  saying like that's like you think that you think now you
• 45:30
  like I do. I think it was interesting cause
• 45:32
  you said entitled and I'm like, wait a minute.
• 45:34
  You're coaching national champ. Like, you're getting what you,
• 45:37
  you know, what you're doing coaching?
• 45:39
  Did you just kind of sum this up a little bit here?
• 45:42
  Did you kind of think? Like, I don't know how to put
• 45:46
  this in words, Greg, I had it here for a second.
• 45:49
  Did you kind of think? Like, I should be, like, I'm
• 45:51
  coaching these all Americans. I'm coaching great jumpers.
• 45:54
  I'm not even a jump. I was a throw or, you know, I
• 45:56
  was kinda stuff. Was it more of like, man?
• 45:58
  I should be, I'm going to insert, I'm not even name of
• 46:00
  universities that because it's not part of it.
• 46:03
  Just use an example. I should be on the staff of X, Y
• 46:06
  Z, power 5. Like, what am I doing?
• 46:09
  Was it, like, the level? You are at Juco and lakes
• 46:12
  Superior was a dad. Would know.
• 46:14
  It was, it wasn't even Level it was because that that's 100%
• 46:20
  accurate though, that was kind of the mindset a little bit.
• 46:23
  After I coached, at least a and I had this success there with,
• 46:26
  you know, triple jump and all of that.
• 46:28
  I interviewed I counted, I think it was at 15 different
• 46:32
  universities over the course of two months.
• 46:34
  Flying all over the place because my jumper came in ranked
• 46:37
  12th and he won national championships against a strong
• 46:40
  field. So a lot of people thought, wow,
• 46:42
  this guy might know what he's doing and when I didn't get all
• 46:45
  of Them. I got a little bitter.
• 46:47
  Was the word I was trying to think of.
• 46:48
  Yeah, there's a good friend of mine.
• 46:52
  She's doing great things. Now, I'll see you Thomas.
• 46:54
  She always would tell me things. How do you know?
• 46:56
  Well, how do you know about the autonomous?
• 46:58
  I know, I know, I'll see you from my camera.
• 47:00
  What convention? I met her at.
• 47:02
  She was coaching at UAB at the time.
• 47:04
  Yeah. And I mean, her father's a
• 47:06
  legendary High School coach like in, she's just, she's always
• 47:10
  blunt with me. She tells me how it is and she's
• 47:12
  one who said you sound bitter right now for no reason why I
• 47:15
  was calling If she sounds like someone that you, if you're
• 47:19
  listening, you hear about the atomic shell like bash, you
• 47:20
  know, more about her, Gill Athletics, connections, podcast,
• 47:24
  Alum. Of course I had healthy it now,
• 47:26
  the head coach at Vanderbilt University, I've known her since
• 47:29
  she was an athlete because you like coach down in Alabama, so
• 47:31
  I've known her since she was a little high schooler and of
• 47:34
  course, her dad as the legend, he is healthy a building her own
• 47:37
  Legend right now, by the way. But yeah, you got to go check
• 47:39
  out her podcast episode just you know in the whatever app you are
• 47:43
  using right now. Just type in like Gil and
• 47:45
  healthy am Under built, and it should pop right up the one of
• 47:48
  our most popular episodes by the way.
• 47:50
  And I love it because she deserves it all.
• 47:52
  Not only an amazing coach and fierce competitor, but amazing
• 47:56
  human being. So, you know, all props to her
• 48:00
  so that she had another thing they're gone sighs.
• 48:03
  So do I love that? I love that.
• 48:05
  I love that. We have a common person but
• 48:06
  you're more than one, kind of person but healthy, you'll be in
• 48:08
  the comment. I just absolutely love that.
• 48:10
  So, yeah, you used the word bitter.
• 48:11
  I like that. I mean, meaning I like the your
• 48:14
  it one of the Ways to solve problems is to start putting
• 48:17
  words to him, right? Not just the feelings that are
• 48:19
  in, like, actually putting some thought process to do you, are
• 48:23
  you at a place now where you're able to look at this time,
• 48:27
  period and in and see yourself like oh, maybe the problem was I
• 48:33
  was coaching for myself. So when when when so one athlete
• 48:38
  a or athlete be got All-American to Ching that was another
• 48:41
  All-American certificate for me, instead of oh hey great.
• 48:46
  Johnny or Sally jumped far. They got a PR and they got first
• 48:49
  and now they're maybe going to build a going to another
• 48:51
  University or be able to jump Pro.
• 48:52
  Or you know, there's difference, been coaching for yourself and
• 48:55
  coaching for others. Are you out of space now that
• 48:57
  you can see that? Maybe that was one of the issues
• 49:00
  or my just way off base. Here, I got my cat that had
• 49:02
  nothing to do with it. It didn't have too much to do
• 49:04
  with it because I always put the athletes first in that regard,
• 49:11
  where I almost took it. As you know, when when I would
• 49:16
  lose my temper or something. I always took it as somebody was
• 49:18
  doing something against my athletes.
• 49:20
  It was almost like a little protector ship over.
• 49:22
  So you had the now that sounds like you had the bad chip on
• 49:26
  your shoulder. Like you had to create an enemy
• 49:28
  like all there. They're all against me.
• 49:30
  Yeah. Okay.
• 49:32
  Yeah. We're now just like college is
• 49:34
  Mike is getting hurt. Okay, all right.
• 49:36
  Yeah because you mention Your chip on your shoulder.
• 49:38
  And again, that's not, you know, that's like saying he goes, I
• 49:40
  got it's not bad, like that's cool.
• 49:42
  Whether it's an imagined chip on your shoulder or like a real
• 49:45
  slight, that's okay. It's when it becomes a problem
• 49:50
  in the some of the things that you're describing that you are
• 49:51
  feeling and what working through it's like oh now it's a bad
• 49:54
  shipping, you're like, hey man, not everybody hates you brother,
• 49:56
  it's all good. You know, they almost like I'm
• 49:59
  in charge of a pack of dogs or wolves and I'm the alpha.
• 50:04
  So I got to do what I can to protect the pack.
• 50:06
  Which sounds like oh that's a nice thing to have.
• 50:08
  But no not when its aggressive just for the sake of being
• 50:11
  aggressive. And like I said, I like the cool
• 50:14
  thing now is, I can see it in other coaches and especially
• 50:17
  when I've had coaches work under me, I try to pull him aside and
• 50:20
  be like, hey, I kind of see her do and I'm not angry.
• 50:23
  I'm not shouting at you. It's just I've been down that
• 50:25
  road and it doesn't lead to anything good.
• 50:27
  So I understand why you're feeling this way but it's not a
• 50:30
  good way to go about things. What other outlets did you have?
• 50:34
  You know, we like to put coaches are One in our life, you know,
• 50:37
  than not our coach with our title coach, why we have all
• 50:40
  these different roles in our lives, brother.
• 50:42
  Mother, Father, teacher best friend spouse etcetera.
• 50:48
  In all of those roles. We sometimes like to put coach
• 50:51
  first and in, in some do, and that's not correct in my
• 50:55
  opinion, you know, your faith, your family, your own self
• 50:59
  actually kind of sounds selfish, but your own health financially,
• 51:02
  and physically etcetera. At that time, when you're I'm
• 51:06
  through this and I love that, you know, again, it's let me
• 51:08
  just take a step back. Thank you for being so open and
• 51:11
  authentic here. I mean, honestly, there are
• 51:12
  people listening right now that are, this is going to be the
• 51:14
  most valuable part that they get out of the next 10 episodes that
• 51:18
  they listen to here on the podcast and it's going to help
• 51:20
  them. So, you're the things that you
• 51:21
  went through, please? No, it's helping others.
• 51:24
  Not just the ones that have helped through your rest of your
• 51:26
  career, like someone right now that you'll never meet is
• 51:28
  listening going. Oh man.
• 51:30
  Greg, thank you. Like, I think that's me and like
• 51:33
  now, I can seek help with air is actually through counseling or
• 51:36
  Self-awareness or peer, evaluation, or family, or just a
• 51:39
  reorganization of your priorities.
• 51:41
  So, that's where I was getting to at that time, did you have
• 51:44
  any other outlets was there are you big time Dart player?
• 51:48
  So yeah, as in the dark leagues in the Pub's anything it was an
• 51:51
  outlet. I was it like man is 24/7. 365
• 51:54
  coaching getting better and coaching my athletes.
• 51:55
  Recruiting etc, etc. That's that's what it was.
• 51:58
  And that's a and I've known too many.
• 52:01
  I'm as I'm sure you do too many coaches who've lost, you know,
• 52:04
  their relationships or they flaws.
• 52:06
  Certain things because they're sleeping in their office.
• 52:09
  They're doing, you know, they're not doing the things that
• 52:11
  they're supposed to be doing for themselves.
• 52:13
  I think who schexnayder told a story about how coaches, are one
• 52:18
  of those professions that neglect their own health to put
• 52:20
  the other health of others, as his primary focus.
• 52:24
  And I still struggle with that, you know where I'll be at the
• 52:27
  office for 14 hours instead of saying, hey, you're 60 pounds
• 52:32
  heavier and you should be go for a run, you know, or you know I
• 52:35
  froze. Will was lifting, and I got
• 52:37
  bored with that. Now, it's, I'm a big-time comedy
• 52:41
  nerd. So I love feeling, you know, if
• 52:43
  I have Marriott points to go to The Comedy Cellar, New York
• 52:46
  City, where I'm at now in Bridgeport, there's a Stress
• 52:48
  Factory. One of many grams places right
• 52:50
  up the road. Any comedy special that's out.
• 52:53
  I watch or I'll buy tickets to go to Mohegan Sun or another
• 52:56
  place and watch The Cosby Show. So I mean, for me, that's a and
• 53:00
  I think that's where I lost it was I wasn't even back then I
• 53:03
  was a big comedy fan, but I I wasn't smart enough to see a,
• 53:07
  hey laugh, at yourself, and how you're acting right now.
• 53:10
  So I think that's helped me as I've even almost.
• 53:13
  Got more involved in comedy. Now it's hey, the whole point of
• 53:16
  Comedy is laughed at things that bother us, not to take yourself
• 53:20
  too seriously. Hey, if you're listening at that
• 53:23
  resonated even one and a half percent rewind and listen.
• 53:26
  Again, I mean Greg that's it. You nailed it right there.
• 53:30
  I remember my first interview for a high school job in Chicago
• 53:34
  and the coach, Russ Martin. Most men, so glad that he gave
• 53:37
  me my shot. And that's, you know, me, I am
• 53:39
  here today because of him giving me a shot that he should have
• 53:42
  given to me to be real Frank. And I remember him asking, you
• 53:45
  know, he'd been coaching for quite a while in Chicago and
• 53:48
  very successful and he asked me, he's like, so what do you think
• 53:50
  about track? Like, you just love track and I
• 53:52
  said, oh my God, like I like, I love track.
• 53:55
  Like I will watch if it's on TV, but it rarely is, you know, I'm
• 53:59
  always watching. I would watch a middle school
• 54:02
  meet or know, I think I even said an element Drive.
• 54:03
  Watch a bunch of elementary school kids racing the Hunter.
• 54:06
  Heard. It's just a why I love race and
• 54:08
  he was like, oh man, because that's amazing because, you
• 54:10
  know, I'm not there anymore, he's like I care about my kids
• 54:13
  and and what they do and I may catch a pro race.
• 54:15
  He's like but you know, I'm busy with my family and I came here
• 54:18
  with his big hobby was because, you know, unrelated and I
• 54:20
  remember, you know, so young and arrogant and dumb.
• 54:24
  Sorry that's my description for myself.
• 54:28
  I was so like, oh, track track track, like track over my health
• 54:32
  track over my finances, track over my faith track over
• 54:36
  everything. And it took me some time to
• 54:38
  realize like, oh, hey, this is a profession.
• 54:40
  And it's a, it's a unique profession.
• 54:42
  I'm not going to Poopoo that, but it's a job that hopefully
• 54:47
  ends with a paycheck, that helps you become a better person
• 54:50
  retire. One day, help your friends,
• 54:51
  family, charity. I mean, we can't lose sight of
• 54:54
  that. And I think the that, maybe the
• 54:57
  overarching At that point of your time, in your career you
• 54:59
  lost sight of what life is supposed to be about and went
• 55:03
  110% in the coaching and that it's not healthy and you found
• 55:07
  that out. I'm glad you found out early and
• 55:09
  not today. You might, you might not be here
• 55:11
  today and I mean that actual and also a coaching wise like, you
• 55:15
  know, that's right. That's where bad things come
• 55:17
  from man's. I'm so happy, it's kind of
• 55:20
  weird. I'm so happy you went through
• 55:21
  that. That sounds so weird.
• 55:23
  It's 100% correct, but you're better today, and your athletes
• 55:27
  in the your friends. And family are better today with
• 55:29
  you and their relationships because of that.
• 55:32
  Yeah, definitely and you know, it got to the point where even
• 55:34
  with my family I was always short and I had a temper and it
• 55:37
  was just, you know, because especially in between coaching
• 55:40
  jobs, I leave one place to go to another and you know, I visit
• 55:44
  the family, I do this and that and part of what got me to come
• 55:47
  back East was hey my parents are still here, my brother as well.
• 55:52
  You have a, you know, I have a nice piece of nephew now, like I
• 55:54
  don't want to be, you know, when I coached out 20 hours away from
• 55:58
  Philadelphia, I'll drive, you know, I I want to make sure hey
• 56:01
  if I want to go down in South Jersey, see the family.
• 56:03
  I can go down to South Jersey because that and, you know, it
• 56:07
  puts things in perspective, I still struggle with it.
• 56:09
  There's times where I'll, you know, I'm obsessive in some
• 56:13
  things so from beginning, the pandemic in March 2020, started
• 56:19
  running and I got up to the point where I was doing, you
• 56:21
  know, 70 miles a week on some pots and that's just where I am.
• 56:26
  I there's no dimmer switch. It's you.
• 56:27
  Your honor. It's all right.
• 56:29
  So for me that's how it is with coaching some time.
• 56:31
  Okay, I'm all into coaching. I'll eat once a day and then
• 56:35
  I'll pass out 20 minutes afterwards and I'll just get to
• 56:37
  the office. So it's something, I think not
• 56:41
  just me, a lot of coaches have to deal with is you can still be
• 56:44
  a good coach, you're not doing 18 hours a day, you know, it's
• 56:47
  if anything it's going to hurt you sometimes and to that point,
• 56:50
  it does look another Creed analogy.
• 56:52
  Greg about the light switch versus the dimmer what we're
• 56:56
  saying here in from my Prior experience and experience
• 56:59
  talking to a lot of coaches to the podcast when I say hey it
• 57:04
  can't be 110% as a track coach every day.
• 57:07
  You're you're you're being so selfish that way because you're
• 57:11
  taking away from your family and friends and your own health and
• 57:14
  things like that. But that doesn't mean at some
• 57:16
  points. It's not the 14 hour days
• 57:19
  specifically maybe around track me days, right?
• 57:21
  Unfortunately, but you know, maybe if you're in the Northeast
• 57:24
  which is a heavy indoor season, maybe a January through March.
• 57:27
  One man. Don't talk to Greg because it's
• 57:30
  track season, but God bless can't wait till after Nationals
• 57:33
  in June because June and July, man.
• 57:35
  Greg goes on vacations, we get to hang out, we go to museums
• 57:37
  together, we do data, we go out to eat.
• 57:39
  We spend time together so it's not, it's not a wonder of the
• 57:43
  others, not binary, it's like oh yeah.
• 57:44
  You may have these 70 80, hour weeks coaching, but it can't be
• 57:49
  52 weeks a year. And I think it's not even just
• 57:53
  the coaches that are to blame for that, you know?
• 57:56
  It's the idea of Leisure track and field where everybody
• 58:00
  expects, a college track team to be 120, athletes and you're the
• 58:04
  coach of six Sports when you think about it.
• 58:06
  So, you're recruiting all the time.
• 58:08
  The university says, we want you to have this type of recruiting
• 58:11
  class at all of its in its well, no, but you're still getting
• 58:14
  paid, is this other code, seems the other coaches for a lot of
• 58:17
  the other sports and it's well, yeah, but I need some
• 58:21
  assistance. I can't just do this all the
• 58:22
  time, you know, and it's I think it's the, unfortunately, the
• 58:26
  culture of college. Track and field, you know and
• 58:29
  I'm not to jump too far ahead to Bridgeport but that's what I'm
• 58:32
  thankful for with Bridgeport. Where some practice programs are
• 58:34
  falling by the wayside and getting cancelled.
• 58:36
  They saw the value and actually adding a new program.
• 58:39
  So don't be, don't be spoiling the the payoff.
• 58:42
  Yeah. You don't want to but no, you're
• 58:44
  exactly right. It's so funny.
• 58:46
  I must have had like a premonition about this topic for
• 58:49
  us today. Not knowing we were going to get
• 58:51
  into this topic here, but because I hear that a lot.
• 58:55
  And I'm in agreeance with you of the Sure of Collegiate track and
• 58:59
  field in general. Again, big swaths.
• 59:01
  Here course you may be listening going to let's not my
• 59:03
  University. Thank God.
• 59:04
  I'm girl, I'm very super happy for you but in a lot of
• 59:07
  universities it's have 100 120 kids.
• 59:10
  Oh, by the way, I'm only going to give you one assistant coach.
• 59:12
  By the way, I'm going to pay the distance, a coach 20 grand.
• 59:15
  I'm not gonna give you any money to travel those kids.
• 59:17
  You're only going to travel 20 of them.
• 59:19
  That has its own things and stuff like that, you're right.
• 59:22
  But I, but I always wonder because I think one of the
• 59:26
  problems with pay Our coaches is there are so many jobs out there
• 59:31
  that are advertised for 12,500. 22,000, heck 30,000.
• 59:36
  Today is not on the other stuff. I don't know where you live in
• 59:38
  that stuff, but these super super low pay scales and there
• 59:43
  will be 50 60, 70 applicants. We have got to collectively put
• 59:50
  our foot down and stop accepting these pays.
• 59:54
  We have to that. It's going to be hard.
• 59:57
  Some people are going The out of the profession because they
• 59:59
  don't take the job, some people are going to, you know, there
• 1:00:03
  will be bad things that happen but collectively will raise
• 1:00:07
  because it's a supply and demand issue.
• 1:00:08
  Right now the supply is huge. Everybody and their brother and
• 1:00:11
  sisters are applying for every College job out there and
• 1:00:16
  they're paying peanuts because it's like a, you'll take it.
• 1:00:17
  What do I need to pay you more for the next to sing.
• 1:00:20
  Like I'm happy. I paid my dues.
• 1:00:22
  No, not gonna say which place is someplace else.
• 1:00:24
  Making of 5,000 a year and stuff like that, but, But it did you
• 1:00:29
  pay those dues? Yeah, and I'm not, I'm gonna
• 1:00:32
  stop. I'm not a pay your dues guy, you
• 1:00:33
  know why? Because you were 24 25 year old
• 1:00:35
  person. A man or if you're listening
• 1:00:38
  you're 25 year old woman, pay your dues.
• 1:00:40
  That's what I don't know. That's what you were in college
• 1:00:42
  for to be real fair, but you are a professional pay, your dues as
• 1:00:46
  an internship time. Yeah.
• 1:00:48
  You are a full-time paying member of society.
• 1:00:52
  You need to be paid respectfully and I to go to your back to your
• 1:00:56
  point on it. I think it's on coming on, you
• 1:00:59
  know, you know, those of us that are full-time head coaches, now,
• 1:01:03
  or even full-time part, coaches, part-time or full-time,
• 1:01:07
  assistant coaches, sorry to stick up for those other
• 1:01:11
  coaches. Yes, throw it.
• 1:01:12
  Yeah, I think that's too many coaches who've become complacent
• 1:01:15
  as they've gotten a good position and they forgot what
• 1:01:17
  they had to do. Yes.
• 1:01:18
  And they treat it. Like you're saying, well I had
• 1:01:20
  to pay my dues. They got to pay their oars.
• 1:01:22
  Yeah. Stop going on us.
• 1:01:24
  Someone has to break the cycle. You are spot on my friend.
• 1:01:27
  Someone has to Break the cycle. This is a little bit, we're not
• 1:01:29
  going to get in this conversation, but this is a
• 1:01:31
  little bit like the the paying off student loans, things and
• 1:01:33
  people who paid off their student loans.
• 1:01:34
  Go, we'll wait a minute, I had to pay mine off sigh.
• 1:01:36
  Hey, you know what, we're talk about the greater good here,
• 1:01:38
  man. So you probably know what side
• 1:01:39
  of the that decision I'm on personally, but but sometimes we
• 1:01:44
  have to do stuff that you're gonna get no benefit from but
• 1:01:47
  others are. And what you just said, they're
• 1:01:49
  breaking that cycle. Bingo.
• 1:01:52
  Okay. We're off our so box on a week
• 1:01:54
  because we because we know we're in agreeance with.
• 1:01:56
  Yeah, we need to pay more. Okay, so you had mentioned,
• 1:01:59
  we're at Lake Superior State, you Dimension, there have been a
• 1:02:01
  couple of stops along the way during this period of time go
• 1:02:05
  through them. And but as you are comfortable,
• 1:02:08
  meaning after Lake Superior State, the school, the school
• 1:02:10
  and you stop, where you want to pick up the store, I just always
• 1:02:13
  always, no, I just like to keep a line because I like people to
• 1:02:17
  see, you know, someone's like man.
• 1:02:19
  How did he get the head coaching job of XYZ University?
• 1:02:22
  Well, here's the stops. He had to take along the way.
• 1:02:24
  So you just name them out until you're ready to stop and
• 1:02:27
  explore. More.
• 1:02:28
  Yeah. So Lake Superior State after
• 1:02:32
  there is, when I went to Bethany College in Kansas and coach
• 1:02:37
  little bit of everything in a good time there, then there was,
• 1:02:40
  you know, the head coach left, there's a shift there.
• 1:02:42
  That wasn't one where I was let go or anything like that from
• 1:02:45
  there to American International only there for one semester from
• 1:02:51
  American or national Mansfield, like I said me and my girl got
• 1:02:54
  along real real real. Well it was after man.
• 1:02:57
  Field where everything was just really muddled up.
• 1:03:01
  So that would have been 2013. And I just started taking almost
• 1:03:06
  voluntary position so they helped out Bryn Mawr College has
• 1:03:09
  throws and then there was a period of a couple years where I
• 1:03:12
  didn't do any coaching at all. I was just unemployment or doing
• 1:03:15
  other types of things and that's what I was really thinking
• 1:03:18
  about, is this really worth it and going back to the thing
• 1:03:21
  about being obsessive like that's why I started to really
• 1:03:24
  come to realizations of a my coaching.
• 1:03:27
  Because I love doing it and for the right reasons or is it just
• 1:03:31
  another obsessive thing where I've done this for so long.
• 1:03:34
  I need to speak with and kind of what helped me with.
• 1:03:36
  That was a lot of the athletes that would message me on
• 1:03:41
  occasion, you know, being Olympic lifting coach.
• 1:03:44
  And they were my track athletes. They would say, things like,
• 1:03:47
  coach, I'm start doing CrossFit and my cross fit trainer.
• 1:03:50
  Said, I have the best technique just on my first day and I told
• 1:03:53
  him it was because of my track coach or I would have told him
• 1:03:56
  because CrossFit has terrible taste You are just average.
• 1:03:59
  You have looked you look like a genius across fed, but he can't
• 1:04:03
  do worms for them. Every CrossFit track coach right
• 1:04:06
  now is tweeting me. It might can't even go, I gay a
• 1:04:08
  don't don't talk about crocodile, I know so taboo, Toto
• 1:04:12
  children. But yeah, I mean, all those
• 1:04:14
  getting those messages from some of the athletes or some of the
• 1:04:16
  athletes that were all Americans and all saying, hey topics have
• 1:04:19
  Facebook memory or so. Hey, I remember this.
• 1:04:21
  I'm so glad you were there with me for this and I'm like, all
• 1:04:24
  right, this is this is why I'm coaching.
• 1:04:27
  This is why I'm Still doing it because I, you know, that's
• 1:04:29
  that's almost an endorphin rush when you hear from old athletes
• 1:04:33
  and you know you reminisce and you talk about, you know,
• 1:04:36
  they're going to be talking to their grandkids about some of
• 1:04:38
  the things that attracts, right? So you're going to have an
• 1:04:41
  impact on your athletes. Are you going to make it a
• 1:04:44
  positive 1 or right? And that's when I really started
• 1:04:47
  to pull things together, Rick Hammer got the job at Post
• 1:04:53
  University as head coach. This would have been 2016
• 1:04:58
  Between those period. Like I said it was just muddled
• 1:05:01
  I wasn't really coaching. I would do private coaching.
• 1:05:04
  I would do some like an Olympic lifts just writing workouts and
• 1:05:09
  you know, Rick Hammer to only push universities had track six
• 1:05:12
  years. He was going from, I think
• 1:05:14
  Edinboro to there at the time and he said, I want you to coach
• 1:05:18
  everything other in distance. I'm going to be the distance
• 1:05:20
  coach. It's part-time.
• 1:05:21
  He said, but I think we're going to build something good.
• 1:05:24
  So I was there for two years, then he Left in the fall of 2018
• 1:05:30
  and it was the middle of the Season.
• 1:05:31
  I'm like, okay, I guess I'm the interim head coach.
• 1:05:34
  I was the head strength coach of the University at the time.
• 1:05:37
  So you know, it was the festival year also and I had an athlete
• 1:05:41
  when regionals in cross country that year.
• 1:05:43
  So I had to be December interviewed for the position,
• 1:05:47
  they gave it to me. Was my first-ever head coaching
• 1:05:49
  position went through the year without an assistant at that
• 1:05:54
  time of year. I didn't find anybody, I really
• 1:05:56
  felt comfortable with so I was Distance.
• 1:05:58
  I was everything. Wow and I was the head coach
• 1:06:00
  there for three years and you want me to get into moving into
• 1:06:04
  Bridgeport or do you have any I don't want to just Ramble On
• 1:06:07
  don't tell me more about post them because that's interesting
• 1:06:09
  you become a head, coach them through a lot of turmoil.
• 1:06:12
  I think you described that correctly, you know as you were
• 1:06:15
  describing that like I felt like kind of this picture of you like
• 1:06:20
  in a forest and like good. Go down this path a little bit
• 1:06:23
  ODed. And okay, let me go over here
• 1:06:24
  this path and it feels like you were.
• 1:06:27
  These are my I words I'm not putting words in my mouth.
• 1:06:29
  It felt like you were lost and you know you were searching for
• 1:06:32
  something. And a lot of us when we are lost
• 1:06:34
  work, we're searching for stability week.
• 1:06:36
  It's hard for us to say that we like to say, yeah, I was looking
• 1:06:38
  for that coaching job or I was looking for that partner.
• 1:06:41
  I was looking for, you know, a stable wage sometimes, it's
• 1:06:45
  stability and so those are all stability type of describers
• 1:06:47
  there. So I love that post seems to be
• 1:06:50
  like, okay, I found something that was looking for still a ton
• 1:06:54
  of work. The head strength coach for the
• 1:06:55
  facility for the school and then also You become the head coach,
• 1:06:59
  holy cow. That would have been, maybe a
• 1:07:01
  moment where I was like, okay, maybe this coaching, you know,
• 1:07:04
  you can always pivot, you ain't gotta have it all figured out by
• 1:07:06
  30 years old. I can always pivot to another
• 1:07:08
  career. Lord knows I did.
• 1:07:11
  So what was it? Like it post.
• 1:07:12
  I mean, were you starting to get settled in and doing was good?
• 1:07:17
  What was the right place for me? Both in the pros and cons of So
• 1:07:23
  things I would butt heads with just various things through
• 1:07:27
  University. It kind of honed me in about
• 1:07:32
  where I'm right and where I'm wrong so I can see.
• 1:07:35
  Okay, they might be fighting me but I know I'm right on this.
• 1:07:39
  And then there was things where I, that's what really kind of
• 1:07:43
  beat out of me. A lot of the things like a lot
• 1:07:45
  of the Demons, a lot of the, you know, insecurities because they,
• 1:07:49
  you know, I'm still friends with a lot of the people there and
• 1:07:52
  They were good support system to me.
• 1:07:54
  So I printed a lot and obviously, getting my first head
• 1:07:57
  coaching jobs. So it was interesting.
• 1:08:00
  It was the right place at the right time for me.
• 1:08:02
  Obviously, it's the longest tenure I've ever had anywhere.
• 1:08:05
  And I was actually doing the longest tenured track coach at
• 1:08:08
  the time because it only been a program for six years.
• 1:08:10
  So, it was the right stop. However, I did tell myself when
• 1:08:15
  I accept it jobs, I accepted on a part-time basis when I got
• 1:08:18
  there and it was if this doesn't work out.
• 1:08:22
  Time finding something else, I can't be getting into my 40s and
• 1:08:26
  this just not work. So you kind of ultimate
• 1:08:29
  ultimatum down for yourself like all right man this ain't it.
• 1:08:31
  And you know what? This ain't it and there's I
• 1:08:35
  think you need to have those moments of no no matter what
• 1:08:39
  this is the end this is where I'm playing things dad.
• 1:08:42
  So you know I have a battle with myself and towards others about
• 1:08:48
  judgment you know it's not my position.
• 1:08:52
  Judge anybody. And, you know, through all the
• 1:08:54
  things you're describing, literally no judgment for me
• 1:08:56
  because first of all, I'd like, I didn't have those things.
• 1:08:58
  So I don't like my did point to point fingers, but you know,
• 1:09:03
  life is hard. And so as you were talking about
• 1:09:06
  with post and you were like, you know, there were things that I,
• 1:09:10
  you know, I believed in that, I thought I was right.
• 1:09:11
  So I pushed back and so to me, that's the word conviction,
• 1:09:14
  like, no. I know this is the right thing
• 1:09:17
  for whether it's my athletes or me or the program, the school
• 1:09:20
  Etc. And then at the The same time,
• 1:09:22
  you have to have a, I'm gonna say awareness, but like the
• 1:09:26
  sixth sense of went. Oh, you know what?
• 1:09:28
  Maybe I need to listen here. Maybe, maybe there's another
• 1:09:30
  angle, I'm not saying that's hard.
• 1:09:32
  How do you know? Because if you are completely
• 1:09:34
  one side or the other you're wrong, if you are always the
• 1:09:37
  conviction of like I'm always right, you're always wrong.
• 1:09:39
  You're wrong. If you're on the other side
• 1:09:41
  we're like you know what? Maybe that every time I say
• 1:09:43
  something and someone pushes back well maybe they are right
• 1:09:47
  well that's wrong as well. Like you have to have this
• 1:09:49
  balance and by balance I don't mean 50/50 but It's hard, life
• 1:09:53
  is hard, so to have that knowledge and experience in the
• 1:09:57
  ability to be, like, I know I'm gonna dig my heels in here,
• 1:10:00
  because I'm right, that's hard. And I think sometimes we lose
• 1:10:05
  that sense because I think everybody right now, listen, as
• 1:10:08
  go ahead. Yeah.
• 1:10:08
  Of course, my course life is hard.
• 1:10:09
  Like, of course, you got to have conviction but also be open to
• 1:10:12
  listening learning and changing, okay?
• 1:10:15
  When you see whether it's another coach apparent, you
• 1:10:20
  watch the latest? Viral video.
• 1:10:22
  And someone does something that you're like, oh, how could they,
• 1:10:26
  how could they talk back to the coach, or how could they have
• 1:10:30
  done stolen the car? And I'm not advocating for
• 1:10:33
  stealing cars. Don't do that, we automatically
• 1:10:37
  lose that, man, something's going through that person,
• 1:10:40
  they're dealing with something and this is unfortunately how
• 1:10:43
  they're expressing it, whether it's yelling at a coach or the
• 1:10:46
  coach yelling at it at whatever. We lose that we automatically go
• 1:10:50
  to judgment. So when like, when you said that
• 1:10:52
  about, you know, I there's some things I knew I had to, you
• 1:10:53
  know, have to stick with him. Like, oh conviction, it's so
• 1:10:55
  hard, man. So that's why I really work
• 1:10:58
  hard. When someone even when someone
• 1:10:59
  judges me, I've had, you know, I live my life on social media
• 1:11:02
  right on Twitter. So I everything's out there.
• 1:11:04
  I'll have someone that, you know, bark at me about
• 1:11:06
  something. And I'm like, hey man, it's
• 1:11:07
  cool. You don't agree with me.
• 1:11:08
  I got no judgment back. By the way, I'm like a school,
• 1:11:11
  man. But life is hard and I think we
• 1:11:13
  need to have more grace in his life for others.
• 1:11:15
  When they see someone going on, doesn't mean you Condone it.
• 1:11:19
  But you have to I think we have to have more grace for people
• 1:11:22
  when they make mistakes, we're human.
• 1:11:25
  Well, not knowing that we're at a point.
• 1:11:27
  Now my athletes have asked me, especially where everybody talks
• 1:11:31
  politics Val, just Wherever not one here, not on here.
• 1:11:37
  Exactly. And that's a good thing.
• 1:11:39
  You know, I when my athletes ask me, what do you think about
• 1:11:41
  this? I always tell them.
• 1:11:43
  My job isn't to convince you of my viewpoint on anything, it's
• 1:11:47
  too. Create environment and encourage
• 1:11:50
  you to have your own views one way or another.
• 1:11:53
  I don't care what you believe and I always compared to going
• 1:11:55
  back to the comedy stuff. Jay Leno, Johnny Carson, nobody
• 1:11:59
  knew their politics because their job was there.
• 1:12:02
  The host, they're doing this and we're at a point now where you
• 1:12:07
  and I could agree on 99 out of 100 things, but to some people
• 1:12:11
  that one thing is a reason why we can't communicate and talk to
• 1:12:14
  its it. You automatically are against me
• 1:12:16
  just for that one thing, right? We Agree on the other 99 things
• 1:12:19
  there's gonna be very serious things but now it's oh no.
• 1:12:22
  You are this because of this one thing and that's where I'm like
• 1:12:25
  I don't want to be in that type of place and college should be.
• 1:12:30
  Hey you're comfortable here, whatever you believe, as long as
• 1:12:33
  it's not obviously violent towards somebody else or
• 1:12:35
  something like that, right? But whatever you believe you
• 1:12:39
  should be able to explore and you should be able to voice your
• 1:12:41
  opinion and we should be able to have an intelligent discussion
• 1:12:44
  office. Sorry, that's what I always tell
• 1:12:45
  my athletes is. My job isn't to convince you of
• 1:12:49
  how I feel, it's or what my opinion is, it's to exalt you
• 1:12:53
  and build you up. So you're comfortable to explore
• 1:12:56
  your own ideas yourself and your own opinions yourself.
• 1:12:59
  So that's just kind of going back to what you're saying,
• 1:13:01
  heavy not. Knowing you personally through
• 1:13:04
  this, this, this timeframe of turmoil, but hearing you talk
• 1:13:09
  today, like your maturity level, your understanding of others, I
• 1:13:18
  guarantee you, you are 100x today.
• 1:13:21
  Then during that time, I mean to say that you I don't know.
• 1:13:24
  I don't believe you could have said that and believe that back
• 1:13:29
  during that not that the same topics were in the transition
• 1:13:32
  but that that, you know, hey others.
• 1:13:34
  It's okay. If you have an opinion against
• 1:13:35
  my, I think you would have been more of like, oh no, you know
• 1:13:38
  what, I don't care if they're wrong, they're just wrong.
• 1:13:39
  You know, that the angst that you talked about that bitterness
• 1:13:42
  that you have, you've come a long way in.
• 1:13:44
  And honestly, that was yesterday, by the way, it's a
• 1:13:46
  short amount of time. I'm your friend Bravo.
• 1:13:49
  I appreciate that. Yeah.
• 1:13:50
  It's like I said it's that's why I don't regret that all those
• 1:13:54
  things happening. So like I said, imagine if I had
• 1:13:56
  been feeling that way and I got a high-profile job or I got a
• 1:13:59
  really solid job someplace now it's not.
• 1:14:02
  Okay. You did you go to the next
• 1:14:04
  place? Now it's know your career is
• 1:14:05
  done buddy. You got to go find something
• 1:14:06
  else to do. So for me, that's why I said
• 1:14:09
  like post was the right place at the right time because even the
• 1:14:12
  head-butting I had the people that I got to know they're like
• 1:14:16
  there is a good System. And there was things where I
• 1:14:18
  could explore it and I could get instant feedback a lot about a
• 1:14:22
  lot of those things. So like I said it was it was it
• 1:14:25
  was the right opportunity post was obviously a big part because
• 1:14:29
  you just mentioned. So then why are we at
• 1:14:33
  Bridgeport? What was the impetus to transfer
• 1:14:36
  their so yeah I remember it pretty vividly I was at a
• 1:14:39
  restaurant here was actually one of the athletic directors at
• 1:14:42
  post and another one of the coaches was there and I Get a
• 1:14:47
  text message from buddy of mine. John Wallin at Southern
• 1:14:52
  Connecticut, State University, who I've known for a little
• 1:14:54
  while now, and he said, hey the former athletic director at
• 1:14:59
  Southern Connecticut. Jane Moran, is now going to be
• 1:15:02
  the vice president of Athletics and director of Athletics at
• 1:15:06
  University of Bridgeport and he's starting up track and field
• 1:15:10
  and he asked me who would be a good person to start the
• 1:15:12
  program. And I told him that you'd be a
• 1:15:14
  good guy to doing and he said, so expected.
• 1:15:18
  He's like if you want to talk on the phone when you talk on the
• 1:15:19
  phone and I call them up and I say, hey like I appreciate that.
• 1:15:23
  I said sounds great brand new program.
• 1:15:25
  I know Bridgeport a little bit. It's pretty good location.
• 1:15:27
  It's nice. I said but I don't want to burn
• 1:15:31
  Bridges with post is what I said.
• 1:15:33
  I said so I don't want this to be.
• 1:15:35
  Yeah, I told him your name but he has other people in mind then
• 1:15:37
  I apply and it looks like I'm trying to jump ship.
• 1:15:41
  I said if he gives me a call and we talked and it sounds like
• 1:15:44
  he's interested in me. Then yeah, I'll look into it.
• 1:15:46
  So A couple weeks later, he had Jammer and the athletic director
• 1:15:50
  gave me a call and told me a little bit about the program and
• 1:15:53
  what he's trying to do there and, you know, him being he was
• 1:15:57
  actually a former Middle School cross country coach middle
• 1:16:01
  school or high school camera, which one?
• 1:16:02
  So he understood it being at Southern Connecticut State which
• 1:16:05
  is, you know, arguably the best team, the region division to.
• 1:16:08
  He saw those things at an indoor and outdoor facility, so he said
• 1:16:12
  know, if we're gonna do this we're gonna do it, right?
• 1:16:14
  So I just felt comfortable that it wasn't okay?
• 1:16:17
  For adding track as an admissions 2.0 to get 150 more
• 1:16:22
  athletes in. We're going to try to do this
• 1:16:24
  the proper way. So, I went through the
• 1:16:26
  interviews and observe, no, no. I was gonna say it's you weren't
• 1:16:29
  actually looking to leave this because an opportunity that
• 1:16:34
  became attractive to you. Yeah, it was I at first I wasn't
• 1:16:38
  sure. It wasn't like, okay, I got to
• 1:16:41
  get out of here. It was.
• 1:16:43
  All right, this is a little interesting.
• 1:16:45
  Let me look into it and found out a little bit.
• 1:16:47
  It more and you know then as the time went on, I was like okay
• 1:16:51
  it's I'm pretty good at you know detecting if somebody's pulling
• 1:16:57
  wool over my eyes and try to fake me out on something.
• 1:16:59
  You know I have a pretty good judge of character that way and
• 1:17:01
  I can sense. Now I think they're serious that
• 1:17:03
  they're going to they're going to build this program, the right
• 1:17:05
  way. So went through the interviews
• 1:17:09
  actually had to do a zoom while I had covid in the end of
• 1:17:12
  October, they never knew about. I told him about actually a
• 1:17:15
  couple weeks ago. I said yeah I actually had That
• 1:17:17
  point I was stuck home anyway, so it's a good thing.
• 1:17:19
  We had a zoom interview as well. So Zoom baby.
• 1:17:21
  Yeah. So then we went on campus at the
• 1:17:25
  interview, they offered me the position and they said, remember
• 1:17:29
  and he said start date. Could you start?
• 1:17:31
  I think it was December 14th. I said we could call it the
• 1:17:34
  skirt they but I'm actually gonna be down in convention in
• 1:17:36
  Orlando. It's so even though I'm starting
• 1:17:39
  I'm actually not going to be around until about January.
• 1:17:41
  So really just been storing up the program and recruiting since
• 1:17:45
  January or anything else. So, give us the lay of the land,
• 1:17:48
  you go to Bridgeport. I think before we hit record,
• 1:17:51
  you said they had cross country men and women but no indoor or
• 1:17:56
  outdoor men and women's track and they've added all four or
• 1:17:58
  kind of set the table Force. Oh no, they've added all four.
• 1:18:01
  And that was another lady mentioned that because that was
• 1:18:03
  another selling point for me, is some of your verses say, we're
• 1:18:07
  going to add track. Well you know what let's just
• 1:18:08
  start with outdoor and then as you get more people, let's move
• 1:18:11
  in an indoor or they'll say, okay, we're going to start with
• 1:18:14
  outdoor. But the first couple years to
• 1:18:16
  save budget, we're just going to Have you recruit distance
• 1:18:18
  Runners and sprinters? Yeah, well, you guys, we want to
• 1:18:20
  pay for pool holds and all that stuff, but it was now if we're
• 1:18:23
  doing and I've talked with our athletic director at this.
• 1:18:25
  Now, for doing this, we're doing this, you can I have pole
• 1:18:28
  vaulters coming in through hours and all those things.
• 1:18:31
  So they had cross-country meets, it's never been a huge program
• 1:18:35
  for them. I don't think I'm, you know,
• 1:18:37
  telling Tales out of school and that one, but it's, you know, it
• 1:18:40
  never was a huge thing. So it's really, it's a, it's a
• 1:18:43
  rebuilt. They didn't have any returning,
• 1:18:45
  cross-country athletes, there's a couple Athletes that have done
• 1:18:48
  other sports that run the cross meets that might come out and
• 1:18:51
  run for me, but it's it's a total new build.
• 1:18:54
  So you've been there since January.
• 1:18:55
  It's July August, when you're listening to this on the
• 1:18:57
  podcast. What are you doing, man?
• 1:19:00
  You got nobody to coach. What it seems like it's on Easy
• 1:19:02
  Street. Just click that paycheck, right
• 1:19:04
  recruiting? Oh, yeah.
• 1:19:06
  That's right, we recruit recruit.
• 1:19:08
  That's, that's pretty much it. Getting to build relationships
• 1:19:12
  with University. This July I did for visit days
• 1:19:16
  for 2020, He grabs which were very successful each one of them
• 1:19:19
  had about 14 athletes and fifty when you include family members
• 1:19:24
  and so the University's very supportive, they like that.
• 1:19:28
  They said we've never seen that in any other sports games
• 1:19:31
  before, so they're very supportive and say, hey let's
• 1:19:34
  keep it going. So I added four more in August.
• 1:19:36
  Just more than anything. This semester has been trying to
• 1:19:39
  get the word out there of hey we're adding track and field to
• 1:19:42
  Bridgeport and you know, they understand to hey if This thing
• 1:19:47
  keeps growing and there's obviously no track.
• 1:19:49
  They've never had a track team before.
• 1:19:51
  If that's something in the future, they understand.
• 1:19:54
  Hey, that would be a big draw for you.
• 1:19:56
  Speak about Pittsburgh state. Look what it's done to the city
• 1:19:58
  of Pittsburgh Kansas adding that beautiful indoor facility.
• 1:20:01
  That's amazing, right? Yeah, that's a great example.
• 1:20:04
  So this 22:23 school year, this will be the first year for cross
• 1:20:08
  indoor and outdoor track and field.
• 1:20:11
  Yeah, definitely. So I mean, this seems like an
• 1:20:16
  unwanted And you get this Clean Slate essentially, you had, you
• 1:20:22
  had some cross country, but you going to endure now to track
• 1:20:25
  team so it's clean slate there. They never been a high jumper
• 1:20:27
  there, Javelin thrower. Etcetera on one hand that seems
• 1:20:30
  like like some people would look at a blank canvas and you give
• 1:20:34
  them paint and they would freeze, they would have no idea
• 1:20:37
  what to do. Other people see a blank canvas
• 1:20:39
  and like, oh, get out of the way and they just start whipping it
• 1:20:42
  out. What?
• 1:20:46
  You obviously are more towards the person who says, get out of
• 1:20:48
  my way. Let me start paying because it
• 1:20:49
  took, you took the job. There was a wool over your eyes
• 1:20:52
  and you're like, wait a minute, we don't have team.
• 1:20:54
  I know that what has got you excited because you this, this
• 1:20:58
  had to be a tough semester. You only recruited and
• 1:21:01
  recruiting is awesome. I was, that was on my high
• 1:21:03
  points with coaching, but you didn't go to any dd-didn't
• 1:21:06
  coaching any Meats? How has it been, you know,
• 1:21:09
  really strictly recruiting, and how excited are you for the kids
• 1:21:12
  to come back? So you actually start coaching
• 1:21:14
  them. Now Today really is what made me
• 1:21:17
  excited. So, we have our orientations, we
• 1:21:20
  have fewer orientation dates for incoming freshmen.
• 1:21:22
  And today, I had seven of the incoming.
• 1:21:25
  Athletes five, men and two women and they have the coaches.
• 1:21:29
  Do a breakfast at 8:00 a.m. so sitting down and talking to them
• 1:21:33
  and talking about you know the World Championships that are
• 1:21:36
  going on right now. In all do we say I know that,
• 1:21:39
  you know you pre-taped on those. I don't want to be like oh yeah
• 1:21:41
  no no no okay they'll listen to you and go of course we have
• 1:21:45
  that's too. Weeks ago, bro.
• 1:21:46
  It's like, yeah, we recorded this two weeks.
• 1:21:47
  Yeah. That came like a my and predict
• 1:21:49
  what's going to happen, the 4x4. You know how I should have made
• 1:21:52
  that as part of the podcast because we're World Champs, I
• 1:21:54
  should have done like, hey so, you know, we'll find out.
• 1:21:56
  Let's see, how good your predictions are.
• 1:21:58
  I am terrible at the predictions and I'ma, and I'm a homer.
• 1:22:01
  So, I would always pick the an American to win with, like, what
• 1:22:05
  event who's going to steal? My who's the American Jagger
• 1:22:07
  Jagger ill? Okay, he's gonna work.
• 1:22:09
  I don't know. I'd be terrible at those things.
• 1:22:11
  I always get dead last and all those fantasy league type
• 1:22:13
  things, I would never. That's that's why with me.
• 1:22:15
  Like, one of my coaching buddies called me, the kind of the
• 1:22:19
  Forrest Gump of track and field, because just from talking to
• 1:22:22
  coaches ears off at these meats. It's like, when one of the
• 1:22:24
  athletes is doing well, I'm texting their coaching right
• 1:22:28
  right after and saying, hey, that was awesome.
• 1:22:30
  How this happened, and this, and that.
• 1:22:31
  And, you know, for somebody like, hey, South Jersey Josh, I
• 1:22:34
  would Sunday getting the bronze medal DLC high school.
• 1:22:37
  So, I like I said, I that's why I, like, you what you're doing
• 1:22:41
  with your podcast, because it's it's celebrating coaches, and
• 1:22:45
  That Community is something like I said, that's that's pulled me
• 1:22:48
  along and that's kept me going with it.
• 1:22:50
  But yeah, like going back to what I was saying with the
• 1:22:53
  breakfast. Just talking to them about.
• 1:22:55
  Hey do you think Noah Lyles is going to be there?
• 1:22:57
  And, you know, do you think this thing is going to happen and
• 1:23:00
  they're so excited, you know? And that's kind of getting me.
• 1:23:02
  Going of like you said, it was rough because we had the covid
• 1:23:05
  year and the year after that, we had nothing in the fall.
• 1:23:08
  And I had a limited season with only a few athletes.
• 1:23:10
  And I went in the fall. I interviewed for this position.
• 1:23:13
  So it's really been years. Surprise.
• 1:23:16
  I've had a full actual coaching season the point, so I'm
• 1:23:19
  chomping at the bit shorter know, just that's gonna put us
• 1:23:21
  thinking me, like I'll just let me lose what has.
• 1:23:25
  So I feel like I've never been in this situation, so we'll
• 1:23:29
  never know that just recruiting would have been like right up my
• 1:23:33
  alley. But what what has been, you
• 1:23:36
  know, and you still, you're not even in seed school isn't even
• 1:23:38
  started. So, this is are purely unfair
• 1:23:40
  question, but so far up to this point where eight months roughly
• 1:23:45
  And months roughly in, what has been the hardest part has there
• 1:23:49
  been any part that you're like man I did not see this coming
• 1:23:52
  and I've been struggling a little bit here.
• 1:23:55
  It's really just getting the word out, you know, it's there's
• 1:23:59
  there's no way for the University to proper.
• 1:24:01
  Like they did their releases and also but if people don't see
• 1:24:04
  that they're not going to know. So I don't know how many doesn't
• 1:24:08
  meet that went to between here, obviously Jersey being from
• 1:24:11
  their Juco Nationals and Pittsburg Kansas.
• 1:24:15
  All these other meats, all this state meets and then they'll be
• 1:24:18
  coaches that are 20 minutes down the road, like ouv track.
• 1:24:21
  I threw at the Nutmeg State games, which is kind of ages six
• 1:24:26
  to ninety. And I was wearing a University
• 1:24:29
  of Bridgeport T, I think you actually commented on the one,
• 1:24:31
  tweet I had on it. Where guys thought I was a
• 1:24:34
  college thrower which is Place laughs.
• 1:24:35
  That was awesome. Yeah, I love it.
• 1:24:36
  Yeah. But I was wearing University of
• 1:24:39
  Bridgeport T just to show hey, get some people looking and they
• 1:24:42
  said oh and they're like, did you?
• 1:24:45
  You know take online classes here, Judy.
• 1:24:47
  I said no, we're starting up track and field.
• 1:24:49
  Oh I don't even know and they're 20 minutes down the road.
• 1:24:51
  So for me that's been the hardest part of getting the word
• 1:24:55
  out there and what I told our admissions Department everybody
• 1:24:59
  is everybody thinks track and field recruiting is easy because
• 1:25:02
  you're so many high school track athletes.
• 1:25:04
  I said yes but it's the most participate as form to Country
• 1:25:07
  at college so they can go anywhere and you'll get some
• 1:25:11
  kids that you know, what? If they have to pay a little bit
• 1:25:13
  more intuition because they know you're there, Coach for that,
• 1:25:16
  will do it. But if an athlete, just once, if
• 1:25:18
  you track, they're going to choose the cheapest option or
• 1:25:21
  choose the closest option, whatever the case might be.
• 1:25:24
  So yeah, there's thousands and thousands of athletes and
• 1:25:28
  baseball track, but there's also hundreds and hundreds of college
• 1:25:31
  track programs. So, all the coaches are emailing
• 1:25:35
  because they all want to have larger rosters.
• 1:25:37
  So that's why I've been trying to explain to people is it's not
• 1:25:40
  as easy as, okay? Kids are just going to show up
• 1:25:42
  and start running around a track for you.
• 1:25:44
  It's no, it's got to decide while you're better or you're
• 1:25:47
  the better fit for them than everybody else.
• 1:25:49
  Yeah, I can see that being tough because they, it's out of your
• 1:25:52
  control there. You know, you can't make the
• 1:25:55
  University of do more, just so, you know, they're doing all
• 1:25:57
  their other stuff for releasing stuff.
• 1:25:59
  And, you know, your history guy, you have no history, your
• 1:26:01
  writing, history, which is exciting, but that's great for
• 1:26:05
  next year and two years and 20 years down the line.
• 1:26:07
  But today, yeah, I could see that being that being pretty
• 1:26:11
  tough. Has there been anything that you
• 1:26:15
  didn't expect that was positive like you're like man, I had no
• 1:26:19
  idea I'd be able to do I would I would say just the how quickly
• 1:26:28
  the university warmed up to me in terms of the vice president
• 1:26:33
  had complimented me about doing the visit days.
• 1:26:35
  The the admissions department and it's it's built a culture in
• 1:26:40
  a relationship where they want to help me with these things.
• 1:26:44
  Is they see this and they say this is a good idea.
• 1:26:47
  This is a we have, you know, I'm going to have probably close to
• 1:26:51
  100 athletes that are graduating next year.
• 1:26:53
  Visit. By the time we start school and
• 1:26:54
  you're like, oh my goodness, this is, we're not used to this
• 1:26:57
  type of thing. So then recognizing it and
• 1:27:00
  support it instead of saying well we don't do it that way.
• 1:27:03
  We've never done business that way so we're not going to do it.
• 1:27:06
  So I think building those relationships is in the most
• 1:27:10
  positive experience and not that I didn't have those like, strong
• 1:27:13
  relationships any other place. It's just how quickly they kind
• 1:27:16
  of warm up to the idea. And what I tell young coaches is
• 1:27:20
  one of your main jobs, get the athletes to buy in.
• 1:27:23
  And that's how they improve sometimes just to buy in.
• 1:27:25
  Get, but you have to have the university, buying also and
• 1:27:28
  University actually be supportive.
• 1:27:30
  Also how quickly they've warmed up to what I'm doing is kind of
• 1:27:35
  the biggest surprise, like, most pleasant surprise, I was It
• 1:27:39
  sounds like you're actually learning other skills that we
• 1:27:42
  don't necessarily always practice as a track coach
• 1:27:45
  because we have the coaching component which we don't have
• 1:27:47
  right now with you. Luckily we're coming will be
• 1:27:50
  there you'll be right in the thick of it you know it but you
• 1:27:52
  know doing these creating your own visit days, things like
• 1:27:56
  You're you know, you're working on some skill, learning some
• 1:27:58
  skills that you may not have vest actually had or even
• 1:28:01
  thought of having to build. Yeah.
• 1:28:05
  And you're part of that comes from like I guess Morgan.
• 1:28:07
  He's in the family, my mother's been director of marketing for a
• 1:28:10
  couple things like when I was younger and that's a lot of what
• 1:28:13
  recruiting is is marketing. You know what makes you stand
• 1:28:16
  out and you know as young as they are high school athletes
• 1:28:20
  are pretty good at determining when you know somebody's fooling
• 1:28:23
  them you know. And they can tell when
• 1:28:24
  somebody's genuine or not so I'm very honest with them.
• 1:28:29
  Like this is what I want to have four program.
• 1:28:31
  This is what I want to build and going back to your point one.
• 1:28:34
  Things. I tell him is some athletes are
• 1:28:36
  going to go to a program that's been around for 120 years, you
• 1:28:39
  know, they're already built with 150 athletes.
• 1:28:42
  I said, some athletes might want to do.
• 1:28:44
  What got me? Here is, start my own thing from
• 1:28:47
  the ground up, and then maybe look 20 years down the road and
• 1:28:50
  say, well, University of Bridgeport is one of the top
• 1:28:52
  five programs of the country annually.
• 1:28:54
  I'm one of the first people to buy into that, right?
• 1:28:56
  So I say not one is better than the other, you know, it depends
• 1:29:00
  on what your preference is. But for me, that's, that's kind
• 1:29:04
  of What's got me here? Maybe it's the same for you.
• 1:29:06
  So some athletes are excited about it.
• 1:29:08
  Some athletes know, it's a, I'm going to go to another school
• 1:29:12
  and this and that so my experience tells me that because
• 1:29:16
  you painted two great pictures there and it's hard for truck.
• 1:29:20
  Good, some of it is because we're competitive and so we just
• 1:29:22
  think we can change people's minds hate to break it to.
• 1:29:24
  You ain't changing people's minds.
• 1:29:27
  But when that athlete, you're recruiting, they say, yeah, you
• 1:29:29
  know, I really want a school with a hundred year history or,
• 1:29:33
  you know, School records that I can attain to get not build them
• 1:29:37
  on my own. You know I want that the hard
• 1:29:40
  part is for the coach to realize that's not your recruit any more
• 1:29:43
  like. Oh yeah.
• 1:29:43
  Okay. You know, you could spend and we
• 1:29:46
  have all done it hands up. I've done it spent many, many
• 1:29:50
  time hours. Headspace creative trying to
• 1:29:52
  think of how do I change this kid's mind?
• 1:29:55
  This kid when I was at Mississippi State, the kids like
• 1:29:57
  I do not want to come to the SEC, I'm gonna go Big Ten Or
• 1:30:00
  Pac-12, whatever, blah blah. And I spent so much time.
• 1:30:02
  Convincing Thinking I was convincing them, you know how
• 1:30:07
  great the SEC was and therefore, Mississippi State and yada yada
• 1:30:10
  hands. Like what a bunch of time.
• 1:30:12
  I wasted that kid. That's not my customer that's
• 1:30:14
  not my recruit. I should have been spending time
• 1:30:17
  on the ones that did want to come to the SEC and did want to
• 1:30:19
  come to Mississippi State and and badman more fruitful
• 1:30:23
  spending time on them. So that's a tough spot.
• 1:30:25
  You're in there to get all these kids because you're so wide open
• 1:30:28
  right now that you don't you're not like, oh, I need High
• 1:30:30
  jumpers do not. You need every High jumpers
• 1:30:32
  stopped everything, right? All right.
• 1:30:34
  That's why it's funny when you know the those recruiting
• 1:30:37
  websites that the athletes used for the profiles up there.
• 1:30:41
  And whenever it says Needs, I'm like, all right, let me just
• 1:30:44
  click all because I need I need a little bit of everything and
• 1:30:48
  you know talking the athletes today.
• 1:30:51
  The smallest growing group because I started in January,
• 1:30:53
  he's in the distance because a lot of the distance Runners know
• 1:30:56
  where they're going back in November December.
• 1:30:58
  And I said, hey guys, I said If someone 400 guys, you gotta run
• 1:31:02
  EK to get some Meats roommate, are you willing to do it?
• 1:31:05
  Like can we come on campus early?
• 1:31:07
  I said yeah, we would do like a cross-country Camp.
• 1:31:09
  I'm not going to train, you like an AK Runner, but we're going to
• 1:31:11
  do it and you're going to be a cross country runner for when we
• 1:31:13
  get into it and they're all about it.
• 1:31:15
  They're like now that we know there's a new program, we're
• 1:31:17
  gonna do what we got to do. So so far, I like I'm excited by
• 1:31:22
  the athletes I have coming in like they are excited to be
• 1:31:24
  here. They've bought and they have a
• 1:31:26
  great attitude about it. So it's important because like I
• 1:31:30
  said, yeah, Or it might be because I haven't coached in a
• 1:31:32
  little while and I'm really gearing up to do it but a lot of
• 1:31:35
  it is I'm just really excited about some of the athletes that
• 1:31:39
  you know already coming in it's not just like we're filling the
• 1:31:41
  roster we got some that are going to be making some good
• 1:31:44
  Marxist here. I'm excited for you man.
• 1:31:46
  You know it's all obviously enjoyable to watch the NCAA
• 1:31:51
  championships and see programs you know the traditional
• 1:31:54
  programs win and do well and then you know the the the the
• 1:31:59
  small guys, you know Coastal Carolina Linna, you know, having
• 1:32:02
  an amazing Sprint year, Carl Goodman and Sandy, Fowler the
• 1:32:05
  head coach there, that's always great.
• 1:32:07
  But I equally get geeked up when it's a brand new program whether
• 1:32:11
  than the first year, second, year, zero year for you.
• 1:32:15
  Like I get so excited about that because you get to build
• 1:32:18
  something from from nothing. There's just like this lump of
• 1:32:21
  clay right now and you get to mold it into the statue, man,
• 1:32:24
  and I'm just so excited for you to do that.
• 1:32:26
  Like, that's so cool, I appreciate that.
• 1:32:29
  And that's the funny thing. That was the cool.
• 1:32:31
  About. Basically, starting my job at
• 1:32:34
  the convention Buzz, I go into the athletic department.
• 1:32:39
  I'm like do you have any polos? I said please I know you know we
• 1:32:42
  don't have a team yet until actually January 1st is when
• 1:32:45
  we're officially a team and I'll be like, I got nothing.
• 1:32:48
  I'm like, I'm gonna be in Orlando.
• 1:32:49
  I want to start representing u-visa going to be like
• 1:32:52
  official, give you some hope so they got me a few polos.
• 1:32:56
  I remember going through like you talked about Jerry, Jerry
• 1:32:58
  congratulated me like in all these people and I don't
• 1:33:01
  remember who I said it to us. I haven't announced anything
• 1:33:04
  yet. They don't you have the press
• 1:33:05
  release? I said, he'll like well, you're
• 1:33:08
  like right? Everybody knows this it.
• 1:33:09
  Well, I guess it's a small community but I know I
• 1:33:13
  appreciate all the support but it's good to see like, in our
• 1:33:16
  profession to of not having that bitterness of why is that guy
• 1:33:21
  getting the job. And that's, that's happened.
• 1:33:23
  A few times. But it's always younger coaches.
• 1:33:25
  I think that's just a trend for younger coaches of coming up to
• 1:33:30
  me and telling me, you know what I think.
• 1:33:32
  I would have gotten the job instead of you.
• 1:33:34
  But, you know, this happened. I was like, you could just say
• 1:33:36
  congratulations, but it's good, that, like the veterans that we
• 1:33:42
  know are just very helpful. Oh yeah.
• 1:33:44
  I got a few of those, a Convention of all, you know, I
• 1:33:47
  think I would have gotten the job but this, this, this and
• 1:33:49
  this, I like, all right, man, cool.
• 1:33:50
  And I've never met you before. Nice to meet you.
• 1:33:52
  And I have a convention, it's sometimes hard to hear ourselves
• 1:33:57
  because you would cringe the other way around.
• 1:33:58
  If someone did that to you. Yes.
• 1:34:00
  And you're not being, you know, you know judgment.
• 1:34:02
  You're not being mean, you're not putting down the, you the
• 1:34:06
  person, but it was real, but they're saying that.
• 1:34:08
  It's like, you realize what you're saying to me, like I
• 1:34:10
  know, there's only one way for me to take that buy them.
• 1:34:13
  Yeah, you're saying that you were the better applicant, it
• 1:34:15
  was just because of something else.
• 1:34:17
  But I guess, you know, the younger me like I said, going
• 1:34:20
  back the younger be probably would have gotten frustrated
• 1:34:22
  myself like that. Yeah, it was like, but me, it's
• 1:34:25
  almost like I said, I see my younger self in it and I'm like,
• 1:34:28
  I don't hold it against them there.
• 1:34:30
  Yeah, we'll get there. Like okay.
• 1:34:32
  So what you're saying is if you would applied like I'm no good.
• 1:34:36
  So you would have got the job. Thank ya.
• 1:34:37
  Appreciate cool. Thank you for not applying.
• 1:34:39
  I guess. I will man.
• 1:34:44
  Greg, this has been awesome. You know, I really do live a
• 1:34:49
  Charmed Life specifically with this part here around the
• 1:34:53
  podcast because I get to talk to coaches and the people who
• 1:34:57
  choose to be coaches and everyone that I don't know if
• 1:35:02
  you're listening I'm not sure if you know or not but no questions
• 1:35:06
  are sent beforehand. So when we you one guy, reach
• 1:35:10
  out to Gregor Beth, Alfred, Sullivan, or Kyle Allison some
• 1:35:15
  of these recent amazing coaches. We've had, it's literally like,
• 1:35:20
  hey, I do a podcast where we uplift and honor your journey,
• 1:35:24
  would you like to be on it? There are no preset questions.
• 1:35:28
  There's no like, hey, would you grab a guy want to talk about?
• 1:35:32
  Leadership, it's like, hey man, I think this is interesting
• 1:35:36
  cause I don't do any, I don't go and read your bio.
• 1:35:39
  I literally know, almost nothing, unless I happen to
• 1:35:42
  know, like, with Beth Albert Sullivan because I coached as
• 1:35:45
  well. Okay, I knew she'd Penn State
• 1:35:47
  and things like that but I didn't know Stanford and all
• 1:35:49
  this other kind of things. So what's where I'm getting
• 1:35:53
  that? We're just so blessed is you
• 1:35:54
  know Greg you direct this episode, you know, the guest is
• 1:35:58
  completely in charge, they can talk about what they want, what
• 1:36:01
  they don't want. We Push anything.
• 1:36:04
  And I'm always amazed and you were a really, really good
• 1:36:07
  example today at your openness and authenticity and humbleness
• 1:36:14
  like you are. Now I want to say you're the
• 1:36:17
  only the second person Karen. Dennis was the first person just
• 1:36:21
  recently retired at Ohio State where she kind of, you know,
• 1:36:26
  like, hit me with when I asked her, why she left, you know, be
• 1:36:29
  to go to, Ohio State and she's like, Mom, I was tired and I was
• 1:36:32
  like, What? Because I like you you don't
• 1:36:33
  have to say that. And, you know, again, you and
• 1:36:35
  you talked about at Lake Superior State.
• 1:36:36
  You're like yeah, I got logo like to me that is one of the
• 1:36:39
  most, like I get a little emotional because I'm like,
• 1:36:44
  Greg, you obviously have to trust me, you have to trust the
• 1:36:47
  people that are listening. You have to be okay with someone
• 1:36:49
  going on. I didn't know that to, you know,
• 1:36:52
  the whispered, the judgments right.
• 1:36:53
  The, oh my God, you corrected this that you are confident in
• 1:36:58
  your own skin today that you're comfortable with the mistakes
• 1:37:01
  that you've made in the Past because, you know, they're not
• 1:37:04
  the mistakes being made in the present and therefore the future
• 1:37:07
  like man, I'm just so humbled, that you would just be that
• 1:37:12
  authentic self because not only some of it so maybe and maybe
• 1:37:15
  you would share this experience and you don't have to maybe can
• 1:37:19
  do it after we could stop it. Some of it's a little bit
• 1:37:21
  therapeutic for yourself. Sometimes it's good for us to
• 1:37:23
  just talk it out and we don't always get that chance.
• 1:37:26
  But honestly, this has been so helpful.
• 1:37:28
  I can't I can't wait to read the emails and DMs And tweets that
• 1:37:33
  listen to this story and say, wow man, I used to be that way
• 1:37:38
  or hey, I think I might be the I don't think I ever was able to
• 1:37:41
  put a words to it and hearing your story.
• 1:37:44
  Like I'm going to go seek help. Now we will see counseling or
• 1:37:46
  I'm going to you know again reflect on myself.
• 1:37:48
  You can sometimes do it in your own yourself and sometimes you
• 1:37:50
  need help. But man Greg your story today
• 1:37:54
  your journey which is so early. Like if this was a 10 chapter
• 1:37:59
  book brother you might have passed chapter 2.
• 1:38:01
  I'll give you maybe A half. You got such a long career ahead
• 1:38:05
  of you so many more Adventures starting right now.
• 1:38:08
  This amazing adventure. This literally blank chapter
• 1:38:11
  bridge for that. You're going to write your feet,
• 1:38:14
  your history. Major.
• 1:38:15
  You're going to write your history on this program.
• 1:38:17
  There's never going to be another first coach at
• 1:38:19
  Bridgeport, okay? There's never going to be
• 1:38:21
  another first school records, that you're going to help these
• 1:38:24
  athletes set. I'm just so enamored with you
• 1:38:27
  right now that you would come and help other people.
• 1:38:29
  You helped so many people today. I just, I just Need you to know
• 1:38:32
  that I want you to know that man.
• 1:38:33
  It's it's really important as important as you coaching kids,
• 1:38:37
  man? Really.
• 1:38:37
  Is I appreciate that. And that's, I mean, like I said,
• 1:38:41
  some of that is like I said, more recent what I have been as
• 1:38:44
  open back then. No, but it right at this point,
• 1:38:48
  it's, you know, why run from it? Because then all that's going to
• 1:38:51
  happen is, is people find more about you and they find out more
• 1:38:54
  the truth about you. It just makes you look worse.
• 1:38:57
  If and then you have that, wait on you.
• 1:38:59
  It's like if you you break the lamp in your His house and
• 1:39:04
  constantly lie about it, you say the dog did it missing that
• 1:39:07
  you're going to have that weight on you just just for a long time
• 1:39:09
  as a kid and it's good. And like I said, I would
• 1:39:13
  encourage people as they come on here.
• 1:39:14
  They speak with you just, just be open with it.
• 1:39:17
  You know, there's there's nothing that you're going to say
• 1:39:19
  to any track coach in the country that's going to shock
• 1:39:22
  them. We've all either ourselves or we
• 1:39:26
  know somebody or we have a co-worker or a former boss,
• 1:39:30
  that's acting in a certain way. And part of maturing is just
• 1:39:34
  owning up to what you've done in the past and if you were a real
• 1:39:39
  pain in the neck, just say hey I was a pain in the neck because
• 1:39:43
  like what I want to see keeps me up and I go what stresses me out
• 1:39:46
  sometimes is that people who only met me once or twice back
• 1:39:49
  then and they had - running right?
• 1:39:52
  So they're going to think that's that's your personality at that,
• 1:39:55
  right? So by engaging and talking more
• 1:39:58
  and being open, they can say oh no you had some things going on.
• 1:40:02
  Here's something going on with that and then it kind of
• 1:40:05
  humanizes things a bit. Okay, they weren't that action.
• 1:40:08
  It's just at the time that they were at.
• 1:40:10
  Yeah, it was that great. It's so empowering as well.
• 1:40:13
  You know, when you talk things out like this and you know,
• 1:40:15
  you're putting on wax here, man is record.
• 1:40:17
  Is Evergreen this Gonna Last Forever?
• 1:40:19
  What can, what can anybody use against you?
• 1:40:21
  If you know, for people who are judgment, people are haters and
• 1:40:24
  all that kind of stuff. What can they use against you?
• 1:40:25
  Like, hey, Greg, I heard you're a real jerk back when the Lake
• 1:40:28
  Superior State is like yeah, provided a whole podcast.
• 1:40:31
  Like okay, Like, yeah, well, maybe you're still that way.
• 1:40:34
  I don't know what, because it takes the power away from him,
• 1:40:36
  you know, and until you made a great point there as well about,
• 1:40:40
  you know, you have this stress, it doesn't keep you up at night,
• 1:40:43
  you know, that the it stress about, you know, someone met me
• 1:40:45
  back then gosh, sadly. I'm not that person anymore.
• 1:40:49
  Do they still think that? That is where Grace comes in.
• 1:40:52
  You know, if someone wronged you are you, you thought they were a
• 1:40:54
  jerk. You'll last year you met him at
• 1:40:56
  convention and you're like, a person's a jerk or eyes.
• 1:40:58
  I heard this, they may be in a totally different space.
• 1:41:02
  They may be Greatest person in the world today in.
• 1:41:04
  If you allow this past thing, if you can't give them Grace and
• 1:41:07
  forgiveness, you're the one missing out because now you
• 1:41:10
  don't get to meet a Greg, who's an amazing dude.
• 1:41:12
  And because you still think he's the guy from back in the day and
• 1:41:15
  you just won't let yourself go, man.
• 1:41:16
  Grace, we got to have more grace, man.
• 1:41:18
  Yeah, and it's that's why I hate the term.
• 1:41:20
  When people say well we're a product of our experiences were
• 1:41:23
  product of this to some extent. Yeah, it'll, it'll put that
• 1:41:28
  perspective in there. But what I tell a lot of people
• 1:41:31
  is like Every day you wake up, you determine what person you're
• 1:41:35
  going to be. There's nothing that happened in
• 1:41:37
  any of the other 40 and a half years before that, or about four
• 1:41:42
  and a half years, 40 years and 1/2 of here, not quite 45-year
• 1:41:47
  that is going to determine how you act on that day.
• 1:41:51
  So when I'm getting frustrated or I'm thinking too much about
• 1:41:54
  things have been bothering me nowadays.
• 1:41:56
  I try to just remind myself. Like why, why does that have to
• 1:42:00
  affect what's happened to you today?
• 1:42:02
  So, like I said, that's why I don't mind.
• 1:42:04
  Like, even like I said earlier, you know, you've been going for
• 1:42:07
  a while, but even, like I said earlier, when I talked to my
• 1:42:10
  athletes about, yeah, you know, I have some anxiety issues and
• 1:42:13
  things like that 10, 20 years ago, not, just me.
• 1:42:16
  Anybody wouldn't say that he's able to think.
• 1:42:18
  No, I got to be Rock. I got to do this, right.
• 1:42:20
  Instead of just saying, No, this might help them realize, hey,
• 1:42:24
  I'm not unique in me being stressed out.
• 1:42:26
  This way, I'm not different feeling this way.
• 1:42:29
  Maybe I can find a way to cope with it on my own.
• 1:42:32
  Well, I think hearing conversations like this helps
• 1:42:36
  people. I really do man.
• 1:42:37
  So again you know, one of the most valuable things you could
• 1:42:40
  ever give me Greg is your time. And so, you know, as you loo to
• 1:42:43
  been around, you know, the we've been an hour and forty boss, we
• 1:42:46
  get at it man. And honestly feels like we just
• 1:42:49
  started like we could keep on going.
• 1:42:50
  We were here, we could disappear.
• 1:42:52
  Yeah. Yeah, but you know again just so
• 1:42:54
  thankful for your time reiterate man.
• 1:42:57
  Just so thankful for your great, your openness, your humbleness
• 1:43:02
  and Authenticity man. You nailed it today, man.
• 1:43:05
  I hope it was. It was good for you.
• 1:43:07
  Oh no, I really enjoyed it. That's awesome, man.
• 1:43:10
  Well, Greg, thank you and again, I am super excited me.
• 1:43:11
  I can't wait, you know, you gotta keep and we will because
• 1:43:15
  we're on social media all the time both of us.
• 1:43:17
  But, you know, I can't wait to see, you know, not only results
• 1:43:19
  but, you know, just how it's going and building a staff and
• 1:43:23
  eventually building facilities and just growing the program.
• 1:43:26
  And like I said, there ain't never going to be another first
• 1:43:28
  coat. You are the first fingerprint
• 1:43:30
  there? No.
• 1:43:32
  Uh, sure. But at that's exciting.
• 1:43:34
  I think you are definitely up for the up for the challenge.
• 1:43:36
  My friend. Thank you.
• 1:43:38
  I really appreciate it. Awesome, I have a great day.
• 1:43:48
  Thanks Mike what an incredible journey coach has been on so
• 1:43:51
  awesome to hear their story in their own words, tremendous
• 1:43:54
  proof of the positive effects coaches make on a daily basis.
• 1:43:57
  Help us spread the word of this. Great journey by sharing on your
• 1:44:00
  favorite social, media channel. And don't forget to take a
• 1:44:03
  minute to rate and review the podcast.
• 1:44:05
  You just might get a shout out on a future episode.
• 1:44:07
  That's it for today. Join us next week, when we'll
• 1:44:10
  connect you with another amazing.
• 1:44:12
  Coach.