Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #264: Emily Webb-Niceville (FL) High School

Transcript

#264: Emily Webb-Niceville (FL) High School · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

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  Track and field world Juvenal tuned in to our humble servant
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  Mike Cunningham for another extraordinary message on Gil
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  Athletics connections. All right, here we go back at it
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  here on the Gale Athletics Track and Field Connections podcast.
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  So grateful that you would join us here once again, you know,
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  bringing you coaches from around the country, around the world.
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  A lot of times we're going to we're going to stay here in the
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  US for this week. I'm super excited to talk about
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  this talk with this week's guest.
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  I'm your host, Mike Cunningham, national Business development
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  manager for Gale Athletics and today's guest.
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  She's actually been on my list for a while.
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  And then I got to meet her in person and I knew that I had the
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  right person on the right list. And so we're able to finally get
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  this coordinated here after track season.
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  So help me welcome from Niceville, FL Niceville High
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  School, the assistant head coach and probably what we're going to
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  talk about more than anything today, throws coach there in
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  Niceville, FL Help me welcome the wives, the wonderful Miss
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  Emily Webb. Emily, how are you?
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  I'm good. How are you?
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  You know, as we were talking a little bit before we hit record,
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  I'm, you know, I'm still a little tired.
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  Actually, I'm when we're recording this, I'm just coming
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  off of two trips to Oregon and, and love it.
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  Have you been out to Eugene at all yet?
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  I have not that is on my bucket list.
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  You've, you've got to, I mean, you know, I'm sure you've heard
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  of all the stuff about how hard it is to get out there and the
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  expense. And all of that is true, by the
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  way, I and I'm a huge Eugene OR Hayward Field fan, even I still
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  say, yeah, all that is true. It it absolutely is true, but
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  it's worth it. It is.
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  I wanna do that so bad. That's on my list hopefully for
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  next year with my crew so. Yeah.
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  What? What's held you back?
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  I mean, it was at Nike high schools and things like that.
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  What's What's held you back? Honestly, from when our season
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  ends, because we're earlier, you know, we're one of the earlier
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  track seasons too. And I just feel like it's so
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  hard to either keep them training at a high level because
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  I really try to get my kids to peak towards the regionals and
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  state time. And so then it kind of gets a
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  little frustrating. It's really hot here.
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  And then trying to keep them motivated for another, you know,
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  four to six weeks to get out there and still compete at a
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  high level. I think a lot of kids, you know,
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  they get frustrated so, or a lot of them are graduated and now
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  they're focused on going to college.
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  Yeah, that, that makes sense, especially, you know, as I get
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  the vibe from you on social and we'll learn more here today.
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  You, you don't want to take those kids out there just to
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  participate. You want to OK, if we're going
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  to go out and by the way, we're going out and we're going to
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  compete against some of the best in the country, we're going to
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  be at the top that we can't. Yeah, that makes that makes a
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  lot of sense. It's interesting.
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  And you know, we're this is the the part of the podcast.
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  It's all unscripted guys for all you guys.
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  I think like I have this like curated thing and these
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  questions. I literally hit record and have
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  no idea what we're going to talk about or even the order that
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  we're going to talk about. But because you brought that up.
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  So we recently, I don't know if you got a chance to, to listen
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  to this back in April and May, I went on a mission and
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  interviewed 1 coach from every state to talk about their
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  outdoor state meet and things like that.
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  I'm real close. Probably by the time you guys
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  are actually listening to this, having a LinkedIn article and a
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  Twitter article kind of some, some my, my view of summation of
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  all 51. And, and that's impossible, by
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  the way, not even I can't even get all 51 in one article or
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  it'd be a book. But, but one of the aspects that
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  I started thinking about as I was interviewing coaches goes a
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  little bit to what you're saying there in regards to the time
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  frame between your state meet and say like a Nike high school
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  nationals and things like that. I, I wonder how much these
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  national championships. So, you know, you got Nike, you
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  have New Balance and Adidas all having a, a national
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  championship on one weekend, which I'm all cool with.
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  I you know, I know there's a lot of arguments about, you know,
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  everybody gets to call themselves all American.
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  I'm cool with a kid having a championship experience, though.
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  So whether they can afford to get to North Carolina,
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  Pennsylvania or Eugene. Awesome.
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  So, so, you know, I was watching the meet when I was there this
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  past weekend, past week, and I was like, you know, 90% of these
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  kids, this is it, this is their last meet.
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  You know, they're not going to college.
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  Boy, what a way to go out. Like good for them.
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  You know, who, who, who, why do people complain about this?
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  Let them have that. Anyway, the question I kind of
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  had, because one of my questions for each state meet for each
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  state was do you have a meet of champions?
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  Because in Florida, what do we have?
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  Five classes, six classes, 4, four.
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  I almost said four, two and I was like, no, it's more four
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  classes. So I always like to know, you
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  know, does the, you know, the number one, the 4A javelin
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  champ, 3A2A1A, do we get them all together and have one more
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  meet? And a lot of people, because
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  their statements a little bit later than yours was talking
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  about, well, it's hard because, you know, sometimes they're
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  going to, you know, to Nike Nationals or whatever.
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  Or we can't forget there's still AAU and USATFJOS going on.
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  Or to your point, what you brought up a second ago was
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  graduation, summer jobs, football, preparations for the
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  fall, whether it's high school or college, college visits,
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  admission, you know, you know, what do they, what do you do
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  before you go actually college? You go like orientation.
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  Yeah, yeah. Visit.
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  Yeah. Things like that.
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  And I just wonder, it's like, man, I wonder like what effect
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  these meats are having for that side of things and how they're
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  affected by those. So it just just was interesting
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  when you talk about your meat being so early and four, four to
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  six weeks after, that's tough for for an 18 year.
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  We're talking about sub 18 year old kids here too.
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  Yeah. And to try to keep them training
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  at that high level because, you know, you're asking.
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  Well, for us, it's like, you know, the end of January,
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  beginning of February is when our season begins, and then it
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  ends middle of May. And so, you know, trying to keep
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  them just training at a high level and then asking them four
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  more weeks or six more weeks, it just, yeah, I've seen them get a
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  little bit burnout. And so yeah, it's just kind of
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  like, let's end on a good note instead of trying to push it,
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  and then they get frustrated. Yeah, I, I don't think we talk
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  about the emotional status, maybe the emotional state of
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  athletes. So you as their high school
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  coach, I'm assuming, you know, everything is pointing towards
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  states. Like how do we prepare for
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  state? How do we qualify for state?
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  Then how do we do well so that, so when they do get to state,
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  well, you've been, you know, what are, you know, crescendoing
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  everything, training, talk, motivation, you know, the whole
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  thing for this state meet they go and hopefully they do really
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  well. And you know, I know from social
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  media, your kids do do really well.
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  Well, that's the top of their mountain.
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  And then you say, hey, so four weeks from now there's another
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  amazing meet. And the thing that I'm, I'm
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  always interested in for that meet and then for like our
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  collegiates, that GoPro, they're no longer wearing their singlet
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  for their high school and there's no team score.
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  So now it's much more even though, you know, you'd probably
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  bring a squad of 10 to 20 kids, which is, that's a squad, but
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  there's still no, you know that I know I'm, I'm with my
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  teammates, but really it's how well do I do in the javelin?
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  How well do I do in the discus? And I think just like we see in
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  the running events, we see kids split way faster in a relay than
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  they do in the open. I think that's because they know
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  they have teammates really counting on them throwers very
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  hard, right? But I think there's, it's tough
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  to, to, I'm, I'm only doing it for myself now.
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  I think motivationally, the emotional state of kids, I, I
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  think that's super tough. It is.
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  No, it is because it's because the whole year, the whole
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  season, you know, we're based off of, yes, throwing's
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  individual, but we're doing this for our team.
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  And I think that's one of the coolest like atmospheres and one
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  of the coolest things that we have at Niceville as all those
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  kids are bought in on that level.
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  And so, yeah, when they want to go to a Nike or a New Balance,
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  they're just like, OK, like, I mean, it's whatever.
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  Like it, the whole mentality changes.
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  Yeah, I I agree. And I think that's why you, you
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  know, when they talk about when kids graduate college and GoPro,
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  you know, go to the post collegiate and they say, oh,
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  they never do as well or they don't do as well.
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  And I'm like, well, man, once you go post collegiate, you are
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  literally on your own. Even if you're in a training
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  group, you're there is no team scores, there is no uniform.
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  You know, we're, we're not all wearing the same team uniform.
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  You are. You know, like, and I almost
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  feel like a lot of my kids, like I've noticed it, like their
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  leadership has made them better athletes, you know, like them
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  teaching or them helping and coaching, you know, them showing
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  them, hey, like, this is a team sport, not just about yourself,
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  an individual. It all comes together.
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  And so, yeah, when you're left on your own, sometimes they're
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  like, Oh my gosh, like, what do I do?
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  I I, I, I agree. I it's, I haven't seen anybody
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  study that I think of like a guy like, do you know Steve Magnus?
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  Do you know that by name or social media?
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  Yeah. I'm sorry.
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  Sounds familiar? Yeah, he he was a a coach for a
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  long time. He was a really good runner and
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  then coach like Houston and even I think for the like Oregon
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  track club or Bowerman Track club or something.
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  And now he's like, you know, he's wrote, written a book,
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  which I need to read it. Supposedly it's awesome.
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  But his, his social media is tweet.
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  You know, I live on Twitter, so that's where I read everything.
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  Is is much more about like philosophy of athletics and
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  specifically track and field, but obviously pulls into other
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  things. He seems like the kind of guy
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  like I was, I got him actually message him and be like and ask
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  him if he either either has done studies or knows of studies of
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  like the emotional state of team versus individual.
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  And not just not just team sports versus individual sports,
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  but like the person that goes through a team sport and then
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  goes to strictly. Yeah, individual, because of the
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  way track is set up in this country, in the world.
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  Really. So OK, that's enough philosophy
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  for now. Emily, let's learn more about
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  you. Everyone's tired.
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  They came here to listen to you, not me, and I've been yapping
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  the whole time. So you're in Niceville, which I
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  love because I used to live I was born in Florida but lived a
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  lot in the Panhandle. I lived in Fort Walton, Destin,
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  Niceville, Crestview, all those beautiful, beautiful areas.
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  So we're going to learn how you got to Niceville.
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  Let's take a step back though. Where does track and field?
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  Assuming that you were an athlete maybe.
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  Maybe you weren't for track and field.
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  Where does track and field start for you?
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  I am from a small town in Ohio, Fremont, OH.
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  So where you know Toledo, Cleveland, all North and
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  graduated from high school with about 68 kids.
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  And. Yes.
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  And so in middle school I thought I was a runner, was very
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  much not a runner. Picked up a discus and in 8th
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  grade it just kind of, that's literally when it started and
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  I've never stopped and I feel like I was obsessed then and I'm
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  still extremely obsessed now. So do you.
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  Do you remember? Let's stay on that for a second
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  because, you know, it's interesting.
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  We see it now 'cause it's easier, you know, Hindsight's
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  2020. But when you were an eighth
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  grader and you know, you're on the team, you, you know, you
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  think you're a runner, so you're doing some running stuff.
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  But then you, you know, it's, it's interesting to your face
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  when you, you, you, you had that memory come back of when you
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  first picked up the discus. Do you remember that feeling?
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  Like, was it an automatic like, oh, this is supposed to be in my
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  hand? Or was it just like oh this is
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  cool And I don't really enjoy running so let me try this.
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  No, I actually, so I feel like I was supposed to be on like a
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  relay, a new high jump and they didn't have anybody for shot and
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  disk. So they're like, hey, we need
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  someone to just go down there and fill in for our conference
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  meet. And so I went down there and I
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  won. So yeah, I won the discus
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  through from the front of the ring like and immediately I was
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  like, one, I like to win and two, I was like, Oh my gosh,
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  like this is pretty cool. So I dropped everything else and
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  I strictly focus on the discus. So that was it.
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  And then, yeah, so when I went to high school, I actually
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  didn't even have a throw specific coach for my freshman
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  and sophomore year and ended up making it to districts and I
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  made it to regionals. It broke the state or the school
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  record, did all the things. And then I did get a coach.
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  Brenda Wasserman came in so graciously and she had the
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  former record, and so she helped me a lot.
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  And our neighboring coach from Fremont Ross, like, noticed my
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  potential. And so he took me under his wing
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  and literally kind of was one of my biggest mentors 'cause it's a
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  day I was just actually texting him.
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  He was at the New Balance Nationals and he found my kids
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  with Niceville on 'cause I didn't go to the meet and he
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  like stopped and found him. And, you know, just some, it's
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  just that kind of thrower family, you know?
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  What did you, you talked about your first two years, So you
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  know, you're very, very rookie throwing, you know, nothing, you
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  know, but you didn't really have a coach.
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  So what time frame is this 'cause that helps me with like
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  you know, with YouTube around or not?
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  That would have been 2000 and four 2005.
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  OK, so no, because I don't think YouTube really came out until
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  2006, and it certainly wasn't, but it's like it is today.
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  So what were you doing to try to improve?
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  You didn't really have a throws coach.
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  There was no YouTube. Yeah.
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  I would try to go to camps, anything available.
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  The Pendleton's lived down the road.
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  They were big throwers. And so I became friends with
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  Emily and Aaron and so like we kind of all became obsessed
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  obviously together. And then I kind of still trained
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  on my own with Coach Bates a little bit after my sophomore
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  year. And then I actually went to the
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  John Powell camp my junior year of high school.
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  And I feel like he gave me a completely different perspective
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  on camp. It was like Brian Oldfield or
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  Brian Oldfield, Yuri Siddique and John and I became so
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  enamoured with the whole sport and I just loved it.
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  And John actually became one of my coaches through my collegiate
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  years, like a mentor that continued to help me because he
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  knew that I didn't have a throwing specific coach for such
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  a long time. And so it's pretty cool that
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  yeah, John became one of my brother mentors, family member
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  until he passed away just two years ago, year and a half ago.
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  I'm interested, you know, I think one of the unique aspects,
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  there's lots of unique aspects, but one of the unique aspects in
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  regards to coaching for track and field.
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  You mentioned during your senior year, you do get a throw
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  specific coach. The person you broke the record
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  by, by the way, which that's, you know, there's some kind of
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  irony or something going on there.
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  I love that. Maybe she was, well, you already
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  broke the record, but I was going to say maybe she came in
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  there, you know, as a plot to like sabotage you and it all
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  back. Well, she didn't have a throws
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  coach either when she was there, so it's pretty cool.
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  She like came in and she knew and she was a very good support
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  system and all of that. So that was really cool.
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  And you know, obviously records are meant to be broken.
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  So like I'm a firm believer in that with my program as well.
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  Like my those records shouldn't be sitting there very long.
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  The bar needs to continue to be set higher, so.
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  So so she had a lot of empathy, like, oh, yeah, I know what
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  you're going through because I went through that.
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  Yeah. But one of the aspects where I
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  was going with that is you talked about AII don't want to
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  use the word. You didn't say rival, but
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  another school's coach said, oh, wow, like you've got potential,
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  I'll help you out. That seems like I've never heard
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  of a baseball coach from another high school going.
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  You know what, it's got a good swing.
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  I'm gonna go work with them. It's always like, Nope, man,
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  you, you over there, 'cause I gotta beat you.
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  You're in our county or, you know, conference or whatever.
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  Did you? Did you?
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  Were you able to sense a uniqueness of that as a, you
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  know, call it 1617 year old kid? Or was it just like, Oh yeah,
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  their throws coach? Thank God they can come help me.
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  No, I, I appreciate every moment of that because knowing that he
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  had his own team and he's taking time, you know, to help, yes,
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  arrival school, a neighboring school.
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  And I'll be honest, like he was one of the biggest influences as
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  to why I coach the way I coach now.
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  And so, you know, if there's anyone like I can never say no
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  to a kid that wants help throwing.
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  I don't care if they are our rival school.
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  Heck, I have a crazy story from the state meet.
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  But like, they were in for a the Tate kid came over.
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  I've been helping him all season because he didn't have a throws
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  coach. And so of course, I'm like, Oh
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  my goodness. And he's in for a district.
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  He was in our district, he was in our region and he was in our
• 16:18
  state. And so a lot of people were
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  like, why are you helping? But I'm just like, you know, the
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  kid doesn't have a coach. Like he wants to get better and,
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  you know, because of the way I was, you know, my story and I
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  came up, I felt like I was just compelled to help him.
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  And I'm so glad I did because at state he actually ended up
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  locking in and he went top three with my boys and it was a pretty
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  cool story. So.
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  I love that. Again, I just don't hear of swim
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  coaches. I just don't ever.
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  And maybe it's just because I'm not in that world.
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  Maybe it happens all the time, but it just to me shows the real
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  selflessness of coaches. You know, you hear about a lot
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  in pole vault where pole vaulters help each other out.
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  You don't necessarily hear about other events, but I do know
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  there is that culture in throws specifically as well.
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  So I I love that. Awesome.
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  So what? Talk to us about your you know,
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  you get ready to go through senior year and graduation.
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  You're hopefully thinking of college.
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  What were you thinking first of all?
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  So where did you end up going and what were you thinking
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  career wise at that point? Where you did you go in thinking
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  you're gonna be a coach and go education?
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  Do you think you're gonna go become a doctor?
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  Talk to us about the you know, what you're thinking,
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  academically, professionally. So I was one of the first family
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  members who actually go ahead and go off to College in my
• 17:33
  family. So I was very uneducated about
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  the process of going not only to college but also as an athlete,
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  right? So I had an amazing support
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  system. My mom was like my #1 fan.
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  She was gonna get behind whatever I wanted to do.
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  We were just both very clueless in the process of becoming a
• 17:52
  collegiate athlete. So, you know, I took a couple
• 17:55
  visits, took one to Ole Miss, took one of the University of
• 17:57
  Dayton Bowling Green, All of these, you know, some close to
• 18:00
  home, some not close to home, really looked at the, you know,
• 18:05
  scholarship side, non scholarship side, you know, walk
• 18:08
  on positions. And we were clueless.
• 18:10
  And so in the end, I ultimately chose the University of Dayton.
• 18:15
  I loved that it was a little like it was still in state.
• 18:19
  It had a great education, great academics.
• 18:21
  And I knew that ultimately the reason that I would be able to
• 18:25
  be provided such a high academic school is because of track and
• 18:28
  field. And so I looked at it that way
• 18:30
  and I was like, OK, this is an opportunity I probably wouldn't
• 18:33
  get if it wasn't for track. So I did look at that.
• 18:37
  And so that's actually where I ended up my first two years of
• 18:40
  my college throwing. And then I ended up transferring
• 18:45
  and I had no idea what I wanted to go into.
• 18:48
  So I was one of those athletes that went in undecided and I'm,
• 18:51
  I changed my major several times.
• 18:54
  And then I ended up really realizing that I wanted to
• 18:57
  actually go into hospitality management and Kent State had
• 19:00
  that. So I ended up actually
• 19:03
  transferring between my sophomore and junior year up to
• 19:07
  Kent and I actually was going to just focus on my career like
• 19:12
  that path because I didn't really think that I was going to
• 19:14
  be able to make it like throwing wise at Kent State because they
• 19:17
  have a phenomenal throws program.
• 19:18
  Coach Fanger is great, one of the best out there.
• 19:22
  And so I actually ended up getting a call from coach Fanger
• 19:27
  and he was like, hey, like I heard that you're up here, like
• 19:30
  would you let you know? And so after I think miss coach
• 19:33
  Pendleton actually reached out and said, hey, there's a kid on
• 19:36
  campus that's a thrower so and she's not throwing right now.
• 19:41
  So that was pretty cool. So lots.
• 19:43
  Unpacked there. I love that this is you know, I
• 19:45
  was talking a lot of people came up to me to talk about the
• 19:47
  podcast at Nike Nationals last week and yeah, I kept saying the
• 19:52
  same statement over and over and and it's because it's so true.
• 19:55
  I get I, I, I hear from a lot of people how much value they get
• 19:59
  out of the podcast from hearing people's stories.
• 20:02
  And I will tell you right back to you, I get more out of this
• 20:06
  than anybody does. It does.
• 20:07
  It's so, so amazing to be in the seat that I am.
• 20:09
  So to explore some of the things you said there.
• 20:12
  So the first thing is, and and so we're going to jump around
• 20:14
  here a little bit just because it's timely of your story.
• 20:17
  I love your first of all, appreciate your authenticity and
• 20:20
  humbleness to say, hey, you know what, we were just clueless on
• 20:23
  how do you pick a school? Why do you pick a school
• 20:26
  etcetera? Do you find because we're going
• 20:28
  to learn as we continue through your journey.
• 20:29
  You have a lot of kids that go on to college specifically for
• 20:32
  throwing. And I assume not all your kids
• 20:34
  go on to throwing, but they hopefully all maybe go on to
• 20:36
  college if it's appropriate for them.
• 20:39
  Do you find, you know, this was back in O seven O 8 when you
• 20:44
  graduated high school? Yeah.
• 20:47
  So 15 years later, are you finding kids and parents still
• 20:53
  clueless in general? Or is it, you know, it's
• 20:56
  information is much easier to find today?
• 20:59
  Or are are kids and parents more educated on the path of of of
• 21:03
  how to explore colleges? I think a little bit of both,
• 21:07
  you know, just depends are are these kids that were expecting
• 21:09
  him to go to college as an athlete or not?
• 21:12
  You know, because I've had a lot, I've had a little bit of
• 21:13
  both in my coaching career. But I did know that as soon as I
• 21:17
  was becoming coach and I started realizing, OK, like these
• 21:20
  athletes can actually go ahead and go on to the next level, I
• 21:23
  really wanted to be the person that they could turn to.
• 21:25
  So I've done the most I can to educate myself so I can educate
• 21:29
  their families so they're not in a position that I was in when I
• 21:32
  was a senior. And so like a lot of the
• 21:36
  recruiting for my kids, I like to do for them.
• 21:39
  I like to talk to the coaches and I personally I'm I feel like
• 21:43
  I'm their best advocate because I get to see their work ethic
• 21:45
  day in and day out. I know parents are great, but
• 21:48
  like they don't get to see them the way I feel like I see them
• 21:51
  in an athletic, you know, in their athletic crime and the
• 21:55
  day-to-day their work and all of that.
• 21:58
  And I think the coaches I'm hoping appreciate that, like
• 22:02
  when I reach out. So I think that's pretty cool.
• 22:06
  That's one of the things that I've based it around, is just my
• 22:08
  experience myself. Yeah, I, I just, you know, I, I
• 22:13
  sit in a different world now with track and field.
• 22:15
  You know, I coached for 10 years on the collegiate side and now
• 22:18
  being on not only being on this side in regards to, you know, a
• 22:21
  manufacturer of track and field equipment, but this side of my
• 22:25
  track coach advocacy, if you will.
• 22:28
  And so I think about things differently.
• 22:29
  So, you know, curious, like I, I hear a lot of the rumblings of,
• 22:35
  you know, today's kids, right? dot, dot, dot, you know, they're
• 22:37
  lazy, they, they're entitled, all these kind of things.
• 22:40
  Yeah. And then I go, you know,
• 22:42
  especially when I hear like the lazy and they, you know, don't
• 22:44
  show up for practices and they, they, they want to skip practice
• 22:48
  all the time for all these, you know, mundane things.
• 22:51
  And then I look at all the records that are getting broken.
• 22:54
  I'm like, well, but those don't match.
• 22:56
  You can't be lazy and all that stuff.
• 22:58
  And then, you know, we're having, you know, every event,
• 22:59
  every level is amazing compared to even 10 years ago.
• 23:06
  And so I was just, I'm just curious about when you're
• 23:08
  looking on the recruiting side. And we're going to talk more
• 23:10
  about recruiting for sure here in a little bit.
• 23:12
  But on the recruiting side, do you see them?
• 23:16
  And we're being general for all your kids, you know, and what
• 23:21
  you see with the rest of the team with the kids, you know,
• 23:23
  1718 year old kids. Do you see them having like
• 23:27
  these what you know, you'll see on the Internet these outreach
• 23:30
  expectations, meaning they think they all should get full rides.
• 23:35
  Do they think that, oh, I can make, I can make my decisions in
• 23:38
  June? You know, you hear all the
• 23:39
  opposite side on the college coaching side of like, hey, man,
• 23:41
  full rides are rare to not at all.
• 23:44
  Oh, by the way, you better make a decision if someone calls you
• 23:46
  in in the fall, Hey, those scholarships are going to be
• 23:48
  gone come February. You better make a decision now.
• 23:52
  What do you see the your at least your kids?
• 23:56
  I feel like earlier in my career, I feel like a lot of
• 23:59
  kids had a little bit of like just unrealistic expectations.
• 24:04
  But then I'm very, very, very transparent with my kids.
• 24:08
  I all of them know the standards, expectations, what
• 24:11
  numbers they're hitting, where they can go, what's a realistic
• 24:14
  possibility for them. They all know that it's very
• 24:17
  hard to get a full ride and track.
• 24:19
  If you want a full ride, It's not like it's not like football,
• 24:21
  right? Like every offer, every D1 offer
• 24:23
  from football is a full ride. It's not like that.
• 24:26
  They all know that because I like I said, I stay very, very
• 24:30
  transparent with them about all of it.
• 24:32
  I don't want them to be blindsided by any of that.
• 24:36
  I think, I think a lot of, I think a lot now because the
• 24:41
  recruiting has changed so much where you know, there's walk on
• 24:44
  and whatnot and now they're going with the transfer portal
• 24:47
  and all that that's changed. I try to keep them all in the
• 24:50
  loop, like, hey, what was realistic six years ago is not
• 24:54
  anymore, you know, transfer portal, getting kids from
• 24:58
  overseas and whatnot. And so like, I have to be, you
• 25:02
  know, hey, I know that your goal is to only go D1, but This is
• 25:06
  why I think maybe D2 would be better for you or, you know,
• 25:09
  don't be opposed to going D3 or JUCO because, you know,
• 25:13
  sometimes, you know, even just me getting to know the kids,
• 25:16
  like, Hey, I think you're going to be better off being a big
• 25:18
  fish in a little pond rather than just getting, you know,
• 25:23
  absolutely overshadowed by all these other athletes, you know,
• 25:26
  and I just noticed how some of my kids kind of react in certain
• 25:31
  situations. And so it's it's one of my
• 25:34
  exciting parts all fall is getting to help them get to
• 25:37
  where they want to be, because I also feel like getting to know
• 25:41
  these coaches I know who would be like a really good fit with
• 25:43
  my kids personalities and stuff. And so, yeah, that's one of
• 25:47
  those things. And also like if I tell, if I do
• 25:50
  explain to them, hey, if you can have an opportunity to commit
• 25:54
  before season, that is huge. Because like you said, like a
• 25:58
  lot of these roster spots get taken up.
• 26:00
  And if they don't PR, you know, until middle of May, who knows
• 26:05
  what's left over. Like, you know, a lot of coaches
• 26:08
  have already filled their rosters.
• 26:10
  So I try to do all of that in the summer and the fall for them
• 26:14
  and hopefully, like, try to get some visits and options lined up
• 26:18
  for the fall. So I pray that they can, you
• 26:21
  know, have a decision by February, March.
• 26:24
  Yeah, got it. But sometimes it doesn't happen
• 26:26
  like that, and that's OK. That's right.
• 26:29
  I think that's important to hear that it doesn't happen all that
• 26:33
  time, which we all know that part, but then the second part,
• 26:36
  that's really important. You just sit there and that's
• 26:38
  okay. Making a decision in December or
• 26:41
  February is not for everybody. Sometimes it takes June, July.
• 26:46
  I've heard plenty of stories of people that didn't have their
• 26:48
  college decision until August and it was the best thing that
• 26:50
  ever happened. And God bless if you don't know
• 26:52
  by August, holy cow. So the other part, you know, you
• 26:56
  mentioned you went to the University of Dayton, great
• 26:58
  school, great program there and then transferred.
• 27:01
  And it sounded like if I want to make sure I heard it right, you
• 27:03
  didn't transfer because I'm necessarily unhappy with my
• 27:07
  throwing or throwing coach. And so I want to go to Kent
• 27:09
  State and be with Coach Fenger. By the way, Gil podcast alum
• 27:12
  love him very, very much you it sounded more of like a a
• 27:16
  culmination of a lot of other things, maybe academics, maybe
• 27:19
  location, etcetera. To transfer.
• 27:21
  You didn't even didn't even know you were on on campus.
• 27:24
  No. No, 'cause I was like, no, I
• 27:27
  probably don't need to go up there.
• 27:29
  I was like, I don't think, I mean, I think I left Dayton
• 27:31
  throwing 150 a 152 feet in disc. And that's not a whole, It's not
• 27:36
  super far. So going into the Mack, I was
• 27:38
  like, it's really not going to do anything.
• 27:40
  So that was just my confidence being down about where I was in
• 27:43
  my throwing career, but. I was super because that's
• 27:47
  crazy. Emily, when you said I left
• 27:49
  throwing, I thought she's gonna say like 120 or one 3150 and
• 27:53
  you're like, yeah, probably not good enough.
• 27:55
  Seriously. Yeah, I know you look back now
• 27:58
  and you're like, what was I thinking?
• 27:59
  But come on. Yeah, that just.
• 28:01
  Goes with the whole, because I kind of up until then kind of it
• 28:06
  was me like, you know, we didn't, I didn't have a huge
• 28:09
  team of like throwers. It was, there was 2 girls on my
• 28:12
  whole like, you know, in high school and everything like that.
• 28:15
  So I think that was just kind of leftover from there.
• 28:17
  But no, I ended up going in my junior year.
• 28:19
  I trained all offseason, did all the things I needed to and then
• 28:22
  got mono in January and my spleen was so enlarged that I,
• 28:28
  they, they wouldn't clear me. And so it ended my career
• 28:32
  anyway. So you you didn't actually get
• 28:34
  to throw for her finger and. No, I was on the team.
• 28:37
  I did all of the things. I was ready for spring.
• 28:39
  I did, yeah. I went through the indoor
• 28:41
  process. I did everything that I needed
• 28:43
  to do. I was throwing the best I'd ever
• 28:45
  thrown. I looked, felt I was strong.
• 28:48
  All of the things, because his program's phenomenal.
• 28:51
  And then, yeah, my career I did anyway.
• 28:54
  Dude. Yeah, so I actually had to go
• 28:57
  home. I actually wasn't even in
• 28:59
  college for that whole semester because my spleen was so
• 29:02
  enlarged and it was such a severe case.
• 29:05
  So, yeah, yeah. So what you know you so this is
• 29:11
  interesting. You know you've got and this is
• 29:13
  common my experience, especially coaching female.
• 29:18
  I always just say when I coached males, and these are big
• 29:21
  generalizations here, but when I coached males, they all thought
• 29:25
  they were the gold medal winners.
• 29:26
  And I and I had to like knock them down off the pedestal a
• 29:28
  little bit and like you got to put in some work before you get
• 29:30
  that. For women, it they all, again,
• 29:34
  generalizations here mostly felt like, oh, I'm not good enough, I
• 29:38
  can't win. She's better.
• 29:40
  And so it was always a constant uplifting, which I much more
• 29:43
  preferred, by the way, coaching women and always uplifting.
• 29:46
  So with you hearing the story of like, yeah, I was throwing 150.
• 29:50
  I, I can't make it in the match. By the way, I used to coach in
• 29:52
  the match. So I know what 150 could and
• 29:54
  cannot do in the, in the Mack. I was there in O1 and O2 at at
• 29:59
  Ball State. So I had to throw against Kent
• 30:00
  State a lot, by the way. But now you, you go there, coach
• 30:07
  reaches out. I love coach Pendleton.
• 30:09
  I don't know him personally. I think I've met him once or
• 30:11
  twice. But what a great advocate for
• 30:14
  specifically our events of throwing.
• 30:16
  I was a great family of throwers as well.
• 30:18
  But I love that he reached out kind of.
• 30:20
  I don't, I don't want to say on your behalf.
• 30:22
  Like you asked him. He just did it like, hey, he did
• 30:24
  it. There's a there's someone on
• 30:25
  campus. Yeah, Right, right, right.
• 30:27
  I love that. That's just that's that's
• 30:28
  awesome advocacy for young people.
• 30:30
  Love that Coach Finger reaches out you.
• 30:34
  I assume you're probably a little like, really you think I
• 30:36
  could be OK? All right, I'll try it.
• 30:39
  You go. You're having a great year
• 30:40
  training and then get sick and now you, your career is I, I
• 30:46
  can't imagine. I mean, we're still talking
• 30:47
  about that. You know, this is probably 20,
• 30:49
  maybe not even 21 years old. You're very, very young person.
• 30:53
  I can't imagine the emotional roller coaster that you're going
• 30:57
  through. What, what?
• 30:58
  Talk to me about your, I'm going to call it your mental state of
• 31:01
  when you finally got word of like, Hey, it's, you're done.
• 31:04
  We, we just, you know, because of the health and your safety,
• 31:08
  we're, we're just going to be done throwing for you.
• 31:09
  I'm sorry. I mean, what are the thoughts
• 31:12
  going through your head? In my mind, I think if I well,
• 31:15
  you know, I was raised by a single mom, so she was like,
• 31:18
  hey, like if you're not out there for track, if you're not
• 31:22
  putting in that work, you need to go get a job.
• 31:24
  You know, So it's like one of those things you need to go to
• 31:27
  get a job and go to school. All of the things which fully
• 31:30
  respect. I understand why all the things,
• 31:32
  right, Like how I was raised. And so I was like, OK, like I'm
• 31:35
  going to ultimately have to take a semester off of school to get
• 31:39
  my health back to normal. And then by the time like,
• 31:42
  'cause it took me almost eight months, like my, I guess, I
• 31:45
  mean, I'm just very lucky that nothing more severe happened
• 31:47
  because I guess it was a very severe case with my spleen.
• 31:51
  So I had doctors in and out, whatever.
• 31:53
  And so they were just like, yeah, they're like, it's better
• 31:56
  off to take off. So I was like, I accepted that
• 31:58
  after however many doctors I had to talk to.
• 32:01
  And I was just like, OK, I'm just going to get ready and go
• 32:03
  for my career now. And just, you know, and
• 32:06
  obviously that hurt because track throwing had been a part
• 32:09
  of my life since 8th grade. It was an outlet for me.
• 32:13
  It was everything essentially for me.
• 32:15
  It was my motivation for academics.
• 32:17
  It was everything, you know, And I think that's a lot.
• 32:19
  That's sports for a lot of kids, whether we, you know, realize it
• 32:23
  or not. A lot of kids.
• 32:24
  Whether that's healthy or not, it becomes our identity.
• 32:26
  By the way, the same thing is happening, has happened and
• 32:30
  continues to happen with coaches.
• 32:31
  By the way, literally had this conversation last night at
• 32:33
  dinner with a coach of we make coaching our number one role.
• 32:38
  And again, there's no bigger fan of track coaches than this guy.
• 32:40
  I'll tell you that. Maybe it's your 4th best, most
• 32:44
  important role because there's there's for you specifically.
• 32:47
  You're a daughter, you're a mom, you're a wife.
• 32:51
  Those are, I'm sorry, those are way more important roles than
• 32:54
  coaching. And again, no one's a bigger fan
• 32:56
  of the coaching side of you than this guy right here.
• 32:58
  So yeah, we we make it our identity.
• 33:00
  So, yeah, so sorry, I didn't mean to cut you out, but I think
• 33:01
  I think you're exactly right. We make it our identity and
• 33:03
  that's not healthy. Go ahead.
• 33:05
  Yeah. So that kind of led me to how I
• 33:07
  ended up down here at my internship on my like in the
• 33:11
  hospitality management world. OK.
• 33:12
  So, so wait, so wait. There of course is in Destin.
• 33:15
  Yeah. As soon as you said that, it's
• 33:16
  like it has to be in Destin. So you did you end up getting a
• 33:20
  degree from Kent? Yeah.
• 33:22
  OK. So you got hospitality
• 33:23
  management. So.
• 33:24
  So you didn't. I was, I was fully expecting you
• 33:27
  to say since I couldn't throw, I asked Coach Finger, can I help?
• 33:31
  Can I? You know, I became a volunteer,
• 33:33
  says you just track. I just.
• 33:37
  I think for my mental state, yeah.
• 33:39
  Because I think the more I was around it, it just hurt that I
• 33:41
  couldn't go, like, no. So it's just like, OK, I just
• 33:43
  need to focus now on my career, why I'm in school, all the
• 33:47
  things, and just kind of bust my butt that way.
• 33:50
  And that's what I did. I put everything into my career
• 33:52
  that way then. And I just went that direct.
• 33:55
  Ended up coming down here. Yeah.
• 33:58
  On my internship. Met my husband during my
• 34:01
  internship and we had been together ever since.
• 34:04
  Got married and now we have 3 beautiful boys and just so and
• 34:09
  yeah so. Isn't that crazy?
• 34:13
  You're telling it and maybe you're being 100% transparent.
• 34:19
  Sometimes they're just more, you know, call it a layer behind
• 34:23
  because you, you said it right. From the way you're telling the
• 34:26
  story, you know, 8th grade, you pick up the discus.
• 34:29
  It definitely seems like you went all in on throwing and, and
• 34:32
  specifically the discus at that point.
• 34:34
  It it, it helps take you to college.
• 34:38
  You know, it, it looks like it's over at the end of Dayton, but
• 34:41
  then there's this call it the lighted in a tunnel.
• 34:43
  There's another chance and that's taken from you because of
• 34:45
  health. And then you and then you, you
• 34:49
  tilt the story too. So I finished out my academics
• 34:51
  and, you know, interned and, you know, got found my husband and
• 34:53
  blah, blah. Any I'm not sure regret is the
• 34:57
  right word. Sadness of like, man, it's my
• 35:00
  senior year. I should have been throwing go
• 35:04
  down to my internship, down to Destin, you know, maybe I could
• 35:07
  have made the trials or whatever, you know, anything of
• 35:10
  that. Are were you able to completely
• 35:12
  divorce yourself of that role of a thrower?
• 35:16
  No, I don't think anybody. Ever does OK, all right, that's
• 35:18
  where I'm trying to get. To where I'm right now, but I
• 35:24
  think I became a young mom then. You know, I was a young wife, a
• 35:26
  young mom. I had just had my son and
• 35:29
  there's only 13 months apart. So I had a one and a two-month
• 35:33
  old at that time and I was like, Oh my goodness.
• 35:38
  I just feel like obviously I love being a mother.
• 35:41
  I love being a wife, but I just feel like some is missing.
• 35:45
  And so I reached out to Niceville because I noticed that
• 35:47
  they didn't have a throw as coach.
• 35:48
  And I was like, you feel like this will be good.
• 35:51
  Like this could be my own thing I can get back into like the
• 35:54
  throwing and I reached out and I was just like hey notice you
• 35:58
  don't have a throws coach. Like I'd love on help but guys
• 36:02
  have anybody I think I noticed they had like 2 doors or
• 36:06
  something like that. Kind of where my whole career
• 36:10
  started. Wow.
• 36:11
  So just why did why did you reach out to Niceville as as
• 36:18
  opposed to a middle school or a club during the summer or I
• 36:24
  don't know why why I'll be specifically I'll.
• 36:27
  Be honest, I had no idea where I live.
• 36:30
  I had no idea. I knew that the water was blue.
• 36:33
  It was beautiful. I I knew that I was in a
• 36:36
  destination area. I'm from Ohio.
• 36:37
  OK. So.
• 36:39
  Down here, then it's beautiful, but I have no idea what the heck
• 36:44
  was like. It sounded like a town across
• 36:46
  the bridge. I didn't know about Fort Walton.
• 36:51
  My husband graduated from Walton County, so he was like, he like
• 36:57
  I knew that just because I knew that's where he graduated from.
• 36:59
  And in my mind, I probably should have been like, oh, I
• 37:01
  should go where my husband graduated from.
• 37:03
  But I was like, no, I'm going to go to the one high school that I
• 37:06
  guess in my mind, just not knowing anything about the area
• 37:11
  kind of stood out as what was closest Fremont, OH, I could
• 37:16
  get. And I like just the quaint town
• 37:19
  feel of it, not feeling like a beach town.
• 37:24
  I loved because it had football. It has a quieter town.
• 37:29
  And I liked that. And I think that took me back to
• 37:31
  my roots. And so that's ultimately why I
• 37:34
  chose myself. I had no idea that in this area,
• 37:38
  Niceville was like the sports school that it was, to be
• 37:41
  honest, because that's not what I was looking for.
• 37:43
  I was just looking to go help out some throwers.
• 37:46
  And you must have done some research because you talked
• 37:48
  about Niceville didn't have a throws coach.
• 37:50
  And you know, one of the things that irks me is, you know, I can
• 37:55
  go to any college. I mean, literally 99.9% of any
• 37:59
  college I can go and I can find a website that lists their
• 38:01
  college, the the coaches and their positions, things like
• 38:04
  that. 99% of high school websites, I can't find it at all
• 38:09
  at all. So you had to have done some
• 38:11
  asking around or calling. How did you figure out that
• 38:13
  Niceville was the place that might need some help?
• 38:16
  I honestly, I was sitting at home just on the computer in
• 38:20
  between two children at all on the clock, mom clock, and I just
• 38:25
  noticed that they just had like the distance coach coach at the
• 38:30
  time, which was James listed. And so I just emailed him and
• 38:34
  that's all that was on there. And so I just emailed him and
• 38:37
  then I remember I didn't hear back from him for a while.
• 38:42
  And then I got a random call probably like two or three
• 38:45
  months later from Todd Brigman, who had he was just in his first
• 38:49
  year coaching. He had moved over from
• 38:51
  Tallahassee and he took on Co head coach role with Jamie
• 38:56
  Lafollette. And he was like, Hey, he's like,
• 39:00
  I heard you reached out like I need to meet you.
• 39:04
  And so I went over there with two kids in tow.
• 39:08
  I met my first few throwers, which I did not know at that
• 39:12
  time that those were going to be the start of what has become
• 39:16
  what they call Throwsville, you know, like all of that.
• 39:20
  And it was just a really cool. It's cool looking back on it
• 39:22
  because Ed Shellacott ended up going to the University of
• 39:26
  Florida and I met him as a going into his junior year.
• 39:29
  He ended up throwing 200. The next year I met him throwing
• 39:32
  130 feet. So it just kind of was it all
• 39:38
  just happened so perfectly. And I've that that that is where
• 39:43
  I started my coaching career and that is where I'm still
• 39:45
  currently. Like I am not going into year
• 39:47
  10. What you know there pros and
• 39:52
  cons to that coaching and specifically coaching track and
• 39:57
  field has an extremely low barrier of entry.
• 40:01
  You know, there's the the con side of it is people will say,
• 40:04
  you know, anybody can hang the shingle outside and call
• 40:06
  themselves coach. The pro side of it is, well,
• 40:09
  that allows what has become a lot of amazing coaches to have
• 40:13
  positive impacts on young people because there isn't.
• 40:15
  This huge barrier, you know, I'm sure many, many people probably
• 40:18
  would have been great doctors in their world, but the barrier
• 40:22
  entry to being a doctor's extremely high coaching doesn't
• 40:24
  have that. What gave you hopefully you can
• 40:28
  get the sense that I don't. This is not this podcast is not
• 40:31
  gotcha journalism. So this question is going to
• 40:32
  sound a little aggressive, but it it's not meant to be what
• 40:37
  gave you the I'm going to use the audacity word.
• 40:39
  What gave you the audacity to think that you could coach
• 40:42
  meaning and not that being a great athlete and being a four
• 40:46
  to five year college athlete means you can coach or not
• 40:49
  coach, but you had a fairly, you know, I don't want to call it
• 40:54
  lackluster, a tumultuous college career.
• 40:56
  You know, two years of Dayton, you thought you were going to
• 40:58
  come back into Kent and health. What made you think you know
• 41:00
  what I know I don't, because you really don't have that much
• 41:03
  throw in experience and you certainly don't have you had
• 41:05
  some good people pour into you. I know that, but you didn't have
• 41:07
  like a consistent high school. You didn't have you as a high
• 41:10
  school coach for all four years, right.
• 41:11
  So you you know, you you kind of cobbled together this what you
• 41:14
  know about discus and coaching throws is extremely different
• 41:20
  than throwing the throws. I know you learned some things,
• 41:23
  but that's different. What made you think you know
• 41:25
  what I think I am a a track coach, a throws coach.
• 41:29
  So I'm going to call nice Vola. Well, I think one, I wanted to
• 41:33
  be a coach that I didn't have for someone else.
• 41:37
  I think that was like, I wanted to be able to not right the
• 41:41
  wrongs. I guess that sounds like not
• 41:44
  necessarily that, but I wanted to.
• 41:46
  I always think back, what if I did have a coach that pushed me
• 41:52
  or made me uncomfortable to make me better?
• 41:55
  You know that that expected more out of me that set the bar high.
• 42:00
  You know what I mean? Like in a, in a different way,
• 42:02
  right? Like 'cause I had coaches that
• 42:03
  were like that, but like in a different way.
• 42:07
  And I wanted to do that for somebody else.
• 42:09
  I also to me, I feel like I always I love being able to give
• 42:14
  back. You know, I love being maybe
• 42:16
  like a source of safe place for like these kids, high schoolers,
• 42:21
  you know, like, I love that a family aspect.
• 42:24
  But I think ultimately John Powell had the biggest influence
• 42:27
  on that because I loved the way he coached.
• 42:32
  I love that he was so transparent and very real about
• 42:35
  how he coached and the movements.
• 42:37
  And he really just was able to relate.
• 42:39
  Like if someone wasn't getting something one way he could put
• 42:44
  it in, I'd say it in a different way so everybody could
• 42:49
  understand. And I think what I learned too
• 42:52
  from him and just over coaching is like throwing is not a
• 42:55
  one-size-fits-all. It's literally so different for
• 43:00
  every person. And I just felt like, I, I don't
• 43:02
  know, I just felt like even because I only thought I was
• 43:04
  going to coach three people. Also, like when it first
• 43:08
  started, there was three people and I went out and before I
• 43:11
  actually got the job, I just helped them a little bit before
• 43:14
  they went to their state meet. And I remember Ed telling me
• 43:19
  like, Oh my gosh, coach, like I literally just gained like 20
• 43:23
  feet off of what you helped me with.
• 43:25
  Like, you know, and I was like, Oh my gosh, like I did that, you
• 43:28
  know, like, and I was like, that's really cool that I'm so
• 43:31
  glad like I was able to help him like that.
• 43:33
  And then I remember him and Coach Bregman just being like,
• 43:36
  you have to come back, you know, like you have.
• 43:38
  And so that was the start of like my coaching career.
• 43:41
  And I just felt like, I don't know it, it's hard to answer
• 43:46
  that. But yeah, I just, I felt like I
• 43:49
  could do that for more than just Ed.
• 43:50
  Yeah, I love. Yeah, I wrote down the quote of
• 43:53
  what you just said there. I wanted to be a coach that I
• 43:56
  didn't have. Gil podcasted on Marissa Chu.
• 44:00
  TCU has made that statement on social media.
• 44:03
  I I think the way she phrases it is be the coach that you always
• 44:06
  wished you had. And you know, personally, same
• 44:11
  thing. You know, I didn't have great
• 44:12
  high school coaches. I loved them to death.
• 44:13
  They were amazing human beings. They just didn't know how to
• 44:16
  coach. You know, I had a this is going
• 44:18
  to sound terrible. Actually, I had a throws coach
• 44:20
  as a head coach and he had no idea.
• 44:23
  I, I look back at what I know they didn't throw them to by the
• 44:26
  way, and you know, I was doing either either.
• 44:27
  But but I love him. Dennis Anderson, I know you're
• 44:30
  not listening, but I love you to death was a he's a Troy State
• 44:33
  alum and I'm a big Troy. You know this.
• 44:35
  So, you know, always shout out to my Troy alums there.
• 44:38
  But I remember when I first started to get into coaching,
• 44:41
  when I had the audacity of thinking I wasn't a college
• 44:43
  athlete for crying outlets. I didn't even have that.
• 44:45
  I just had four years of being a very poor high school runner
• 44:50
  that when I had the audacity to get into coaching, I was like, I
• 44:53
  don't want it to be. I don't want, I don't want, I
• 44:56
  don't want to be the reason why a kid doesn't maximize whatever
• 45:00
  God-given talent that they have. You know, it's going to have to
• 45:03
  be because they decided to stay up till 1:00 AM or they decided
• 45:06
  to skip practice. It's going to be their reason,
• 45:09
  their fault that they don't maximize their ability, not me
• 45:13
  and therefore my lack of knowledge.
• 45:14
  So I've, I went hardcore into coaching education type stuff,
• 45:19
  but it was kind of that same vein of just like, man, I, my
• 45:21
  coaches didn't know what they were doing.
• 45:23
  And we were in a time frame even before you in regards to how
• 45:26
  hard it was to find coaching education.
• 45:29
  And we certainly didn't have clinics And we were in you know,
• 45:32
  you were in very small town Ohio.
• 45:34
  I was the southern version of that.
• 45:36
  I was in a very small town Alabama.
• 45:37
  There was just there's the track was an important football was
• 45:41
  and everything else was to the wayside.
• 45:43
  So I just love that I wanted to be a coach that I didn't have
• 45:46
  that that's I think a lot of coaches resonate with that.
• 45:49
  I really do. I love that.
• 45:51
  OK, so you start helping out at Knoxville the first year and
• 45:55
  then the other like, hey, you got to come back.
• 45:57
  You think you know, this is 10 years ago.
• 46:00
  It's impossible to ever see. Yeah.
• 46:02
  I hate that question of where do you see yourself in five years?
• 46:05
  Who? I don't know.
• 46:05
  Maybe I'll win the lottery. I have no idea.
• 46:08
  You certainly can't see. You got 3 athletes in front of
• 46:11
  you. You can't see what we're going
• 46:12
  to learn here as we move along 10 years.
• 46:14
  So how did it start? Talk to us about that beginning.
• 46:17
  You talked to us about the like, I'm going to call it the pre
• 46:19
  beginning, the coming in and helping out before the state
• 46:21
  meet. Now you come back, I'm gonna
• 46:23
  call this your real year one, your full year one.
• 46:26
  How did you prepare for year one?
• 46:29
  And what were some of the, you know, you look back now, these
• 46:32
  are the things I had to lay the groundwork for in year one.
• 46:36
  There was no sort of lifting regimen for the throwers, so I
• 46:42
  wrote a whole lifting program for this small group that I had.
• 46:45
  Like I said, I had three kids. My first like encounter with the
• 46:49
  throws here. On those three, and the only
• 46:52
  reason I asked this question 'cause I I'm asking it for like
• 46:55
  the influence of football. Three boys, two girl.
• 46:58
  What? What was?
• 46:59
  22 boys, one girl, no football players.
• 47:01
  OK, there was. My next question is where
• 47:03
  there's two football players. OK, go ahead.
• 47:05
  Yeah, so it was kind of cool 'cause I was like, OK, this is,
• 47:08
  you know, Ed was one of my main and I had a girl named Skyler
• 47:12
  and she was a weightlifter and but she never had any direction
• 47:16
  in the throws. And so my biggest thing was
• 47:20
  like, hey, it's not just about being in the ring throwing.
• 47:23
  Like you have to build a base outside of the ring as well, and
• 47:26
  that's in the weight room. So started with that were.
• 47:30
  You were you a big weight. I'm sorry I always cut off
• 47:32
  people. I'm so sorry, were you AI must
• 47:35
  say big lifter like? I never, we had I whatever
• 47:41
  lifting I did in high school. And I say that very quickly.
• 47:44
  It's like I was, I never lifted. Yeah, in high school.
• 47:47
  And so that was one of the biggest things where I was like,
• 47:50
  Oh my goodness. Like if I would have looked at
• 47:52
  in high school, like holy smokes, like what would I have
• 47:55
  done? So where did you learn, because
• 47:57
  that you're talking about this is one of the first things you
• 47:58
  did is like, Hey, we got we got to get a weight room program in
• 48:01
  here college. You didn't lift And you know, we
• 48:04
  still it's crazy that it's 2024 and certainly I I assume it's
• 48:08
  better today in 2024 than it was in 2004 and 1984.
• 48:12
  But we still crazily have a little bit of a women don't
• 48:17
  lift, just go and throw or go do your basketball or volleyball,
• 48:19
  whatever sport you're in, where in boys athletics it doesn't
• 48:24
  matter what sport you're playing.
• 48:25
  Oh yeah, of course you're going to be in the weight room, which
• 48:26
  that should be the attitude towards our female athletes as
• 48:29
  well. Where did that come from that
• 48:31
  you were like, oh gosh, I missed out on this.
• 48:32
  I I should have been lifting all through high school, etcetera.
• 48:35
  Yeah, OK. I would say college 'cause I
• 48:37
  just saw how much one, my body changed to like the strength
• 48:41
  behind my throws, the technique, the more body awareness I had
• 48:44
  from lifting and all of that. And I mean, granted, like we
• 48:48
  lifted, I would say a very, I don't know, yes, we lifted in
• 48:53
  high school, but it was not to where you're gaining much like
• 48:56
  it just wasn't at the same level, right?
• 48:58
  Was it like, was it like programmatic?
• 49:00
  It was just like, yeah, go lift or something like.
• 49:02
  Oh, hey, if you have a couple of minutes, go do a couple of power
• 49:04
  cleans or oh, you don't like squat, don't worry about it.
• 49:08
  You know, And I think that also came with the fact that, like, I
• 49:12
  was on my own training schedule with being a thrower.
• 49:15
  And then it's like, you know, I wasn't with the rest of the team
• 49:17
  like how throwers typically are. And so all of that.
• 49:21
  And so that was just one of the foundations that I wanted to
• 49:23
  build in my program for the throwers for Knightsville.
• 49:27
  And that's kind of where we started is just the weight room
• 49:31
  and then a lot of technical stuff.
• 49:32
  So a lot of, you know, drills, I introduced them to John.
• 49:35
  John came to my to Niceville for I think it was his last two ever
• 49:41
  camps that he ever did before he retired camps, but he flew out
• 49:45
  and he got to meet all of my kids.
• 49:47
  So at this time my program started to grow.
• 49:49
  I think my second year I had about 10 kids because I started
• 49:53
  to get these freshmen. You're not teaching.
• 49:56
  No, just stay at home, mom. So how are you?
• 49:59
  First of all, and other people have heard me say this, you have
• 50:02
  to remove 2 words from your lexicon.
• 50:06
  The words just and only because it belittles what you say after
• 50:11
  it, meaning you just said, Nope, just a stay at home mom that
• 50:18
  belittles what stay at home moms do, by the way.
• 50:20
  It's just mom, by the way, you got to take that out.
• 50:23
  I, I, I battle this every time for NCAA championships.
• 50:26
  We do the, we have gifts that we give out to coaches and stuff.
• 50:29
  And I'll say something like, Oh, how many kids did you get
• 50:31
  qualified coach? And invariably a coach will say,
• 50:33
  oh, only one or just one. And I'm like, what do you know
• 50:37
  how many people don't have any? Like one is huge.
• 50:41
  What what's happening here is it's that comparison kills joy.
• 50:45
  It's for the coaching side of it.
• 50:46
  It's like, oh, only one because they see this school has 30 or
• 50:49
  this school has 15, etcetera. That doesn't matter.
• 50:52
  That's that's school. That's that has nothing to do
• 50:54
  with you. Take away Justin only same thing
• 50:56
  for you. What you just did.
• 50:57
  There was comparison. Of.
• 50:59
  Someone who's a director of marketing at a hotel or
• 51:02
  something. It's like, ah, just a stay at
• 51:03
  home bull crap. Those kids, they wouldn't say
• 51:07
  just that's just my mom. That's mom husband, same thing.
• 51:10
  Come on now. So take away just and only out
• 51:13
  of your dictionary. Please continue your story now.
• 51:15
  I'm very passionate about that. Very good.
• 51:17
  Thanks. Oh, so I didn't ask my question.
• 51:19
  Sorry I I interrupted my own question.
• 51:21
  I know I forget where I was. You're, you're not teach, you're
• 51:23
  not teaching. So how so how did you you know?
• 51:26
  Because we've had other high school coaches on here and they
• 51:29
  talk about how hugely important it is to recruit the hallways.
• 51:33
  So how are you going from three to 10?
• 51:35
  How you're you're not in the hallways?
• 51:37
  So our head coach had a lot to do with that.
• 51:39
  Todd Brighman. He he was a teacher, all of the
• 51:44
  things. So he's in the hallway and he's
• 51:46
  just like, Oh my goodness, like you should just try to go
• 51:48
  through. I also, it also was awesome
• 51:50
  because by word of mouth, with Ed's success his first two
• 51:54
  seasons with me, he pulled out friends right like, and then we
• 51:58
  were starting to get younger kids that had interests like the
• 52:01
  freshman and the sophomore. So I started with my it was
• 52:03
  probably Ed's senior year, my second year.
• 52:06
  I had a full group of like freshmen.
• 52:09
  I had a couple sophomore and a couple juniors that were
• 52:11
  interested and they kind of just kind of paved that way for what
• 52:17
  it's become. I've, you know, I took.
• 52:20
  Are you starting to get other sport athletes now?
• 52:22
  Football, volleyball, basketball?
• 52:24
  Yeah. More so, more so on the girls
• 52:27
  side, I started to get like some volleyball players and whatnot.
• 52:32
  But I think one of the coolest stories and I think it brought
• 52:35
  awareness to a lot of kids that just felt like maybe they
• 52:37
  weren't excelling in like another sport or they were burnt
• 52:41
  out or whatnot. Was I had a junior, he was a
• 52:44
  junior with Ed as well and he came out to throw just because
• 52:47
  he was Ed's friend. His name was Heath and he was
• 52:51
  horrible and he knew it. He like and I love him.
• 52:54
  He's like one of my favorite. Humans.
• 52:56
  He's listening right now going dude.
• 52:58
  No, Well, we joked because he was like, this is rough.
• 53:01
  And well, I called out a joke. I was like, you're going to be
• 53:03
  the water boy and like, you know, and he's like coach and
• 53:06
  he's like, no, I'm going to get better at this.
• 53:08
  And I was like, no, I was like, if you want to get better, it's
• 53:11
  all about how much you want to put into it.
• 53:13
  And that's what I love about throwing is if you want to, if
• 53:16
  you want to be the best or if you want to accomplish
• 53:19
  something, it's about what you want to put into.
• 53:20
  I'm here for it, right? Like I, I, but I can't do it for
• 53:23
  you. So this kid worked his butt off
• 53:26
  for the next year and in the weight room, I mean he drilled
• 53:30
  whatnot and he ended up going and he ended up qualifying for
• 53:34
  state his senior year, scored with Ed Ed got second, He got
• 53:38
  8th on the podium and he ended up going to Troy and he threw
• 53:42
  for Troy all four years. And so I think.
• 53:45
  Former Water boy is the one who goes to Troy.
• 53:47
  I love you Heath. By the way, if you are
• 53:49
  listening, I don't care what she just said.
• 53:51
  You went to the greatest university in the world.
• 53:54
  That was such a between him and Ed, Ed's story his senior year.
• 53:58
  And like how all of that unfolded.
• 54:01
  I think those were just two huge moments in my coaching career
• 54:04
  that really showed me like, Oh my goodness.
• 54:06
  Like I really want to do this because I saw Heath's whole
• 54:10
  process right over the year. I saw the tears of like,
• 54:14
  happiness that he had accomplished what he wanted to
• 54:16
  accomplish. And I was just like, I want to
• 54:18
  do this for like every kid that comes out.
• 54:21
  And so I feel like I wanted to be their support system.
• 54:25
  And so that's kind of where I feel like the whole story
• 54:27
  started was with those two kids. And I feel like that's been the
• 54:31
  standard since since then. Yeah, I want to ask what was
• 54:35
  what, what was if there was a defining moment for him from
• 54:38
  coaching to becoming a program. And this sounds like it was
• 54:41
  these two very different athletes.
• 54:45
  Yep, One had like the more natural, you know, development
• 54:50
  and then the other one had to really work for it.
• 54:52
  But they were both equally to me, equally successful because
• 54:55
  they got to exactly where they wanted to be.
• 54:58
  So yeah. What are you doing this early
• 55:01
  part? What kind of let's take the 10
• 55:03
  years and kind of split them in half.
• 55:04
  And so for the first five years, as you're building the program,
• 55:08
  what are you doing coaching education wise now?
• 55:11
  You got you, obviously you got John Powell on speed dial,
• 55:14
  things like that. Are you going to any camps or
• 55:17
  clinics or any USATFUSTFCA coaching, education, anything
• 55:21
  like that? I so every year we go to the
• 55:25
  Florida Coaching Conference. So like, I always, you know, I,
• 55:28
  to me, I'm like, OK, like I need to fill my toolbox up with as
• 55:31
  much as I can. Like, I am humble enough to know
• 55:35
  that like, the only things I know are not the only things
• 55:38
  that are correct. And so I always tell my kids
• 55:41
  like, hey, like, take it all in and use what works for you,
• 55:44
  right? And so obviously I have a big
• 55:46
  base of what I believe, you know, they need to build their
• 55:49
  foundation. And so a lot of my stuff was
• 55:53
  drills, you know, like I added in drills.
• 55:56
  A lot of kids don't like to do drills, but drills are so
• 55:58
  pivotal. Running, like a lot of throwers
• 56:02
  don't think running is like a real thing that exists for them.
• 56:05
  But like, I'm a firm believer in short sprints and explosiveness.
• 56:09
  So like to me, like that was all added in and then it's like
• 56:12
  obviously during season we start to throw.
• 56:15
  So, and then we put it all together.
• 56:17
  And so that's kind of where I was.
• 56:19
  And every summer I do like to introduce my kids to like some
• 56:22
  sort of different perspective. So we traveled up to Ohio for
• 56:26
  John's last Dennison camp my first year.
• 56:29
  And then the next two years, John came down.
• 56:32
  I've taken my kids to Ironwood out in Idaho.
• 56:36
  We have gone, I mean, heck, we had Joe Kovacs and Ashley Kovacs
• 56:42
  to the facility in December. So I've been very, very honored
• 56:47
  and blessed to have a lot of great mentors.
• 56:50
  Dana Pound's Lion out of Air Force.
• 56:52
  I went and we became really good friends, coaching mentor as well
• 56:56
  in the javelin. I've taken my kids to the Air
• 56:59
  Force camp. So I try because I think I know
• 57:02
  how much John's camp changed my life and my perspective.
• 57:06
  And I guess just my throwers need to see that there's other
• 57:11
  throwers out there, right? And there's other kids that have
• 57:14
  the same goals just like them because we're just such a small
• 57:16
  group sometimes. And I think, you know, in the
• 57:19
  Track World, we get forgotten about sometimes as well.
• 57:23
  And, you know, that's just, you know, the reality of it.
• 57:26
  And so I think they learn, OK, like we're going to buy in and
• 57:29
  love this from like a different perspective.
• 57:31
  And camps help with that and just getting to meet different
• 57:35
  coaches and different athletes with the same level of a sport.
• 57:38
  How do you find that? How do you find some of these
• 57:42
  things that you're doing and have discernment that they're
• 57:46
  good ideas? And what I mean by that, there's
• 57:48
  a lot of different ways to run and grow a program.
• 57:51
  So I know of some coaches that, you know, find the Navy SEAL
• 57:57
  type training and that's how they build a program and they've
• 57:59
  had success with it. Other coaches, you're describing
• 58:03
  a way of like, hey, I'm going to show them that there's a world
• 58:05
  outside of Niceville throws that there is, you know, there's
• 58:08
  other kids and other coaches and other opportunities.
• 58:11
  We're going to go to the Ironwood, we're going to go to
• 58:14
  here. How do you find those and how do
• 58:17
  you discern what's right for your because you're doing 100
• 58:22
  things, but there's a thousand options out there for you.
• 58:24
  So how do you discern for your program?
• 58:27
  Honestly, communication per each kid because what, like I said
• 58:31
  earlier, what works for, you know, some doesn't work for
• 58:35
  others. So I like to see like, hey, how
• 58:37
  like my kids make fun of me all the time, 'cause I'm like, how
• 58:40
  did that feel? How did that feel 'cause I don't
• 58:42
  know. I'm not throwing it, right.
• 58:44
  So I think a lot of stuff like we use so many, I use so many
• 58:49
  different things, but I mainly use like certain things for each
• 58:52
  kid. So just like same with like the
• 58:54
  weightlifting, you know, it started a little bit more
• 58:57
  watered down, I would say compared to what it is now 10
• 59:00
  years ago. But I noticed that their
• 59:03
  progression and their feedback is what I would kind of revisit
• 59:08
  every year. So like if it worked, then let's
• 59:11
  go ahead, add a little bit more and see if we can improve off of
• 59:15
  what the team did last year, right?
• 59:17
  And so like every year I like to add or mix it up or modify it or
• 59:22
  make something a little bit different, but in a positive
• 59:25
  way. So I feel like that's kind of
• 59:28
  where it's become and or it's gotten to.
• 59:31
  And so every year I try to raise the bar for the program in
• 59:33
  general and for myself, you know, like as a coach, like I
• 59:37
  like to have goals myself. Like, OK, like, let's go.
• 59:41
  Like, you know, we had this many kids get to state like, no,
• 59:44
  we're going to do. We're going to like just, you
• 59:46
  know, as a coach, like you have coaching goals, you know, so.
• 59:51
  So let's move maybe to the last five years.
• 59:54
  Talk to us about, you know, we we started with three athletes,
• 59:57
  grew to 10. Give us kind of the status of
• 1:00:00
  today's, you know, it changes it on year to year, obviously.
• 1:00:03
  And we're you know, we don't even know what 2025 season's
• 1:00:05
  going to look like for you right now.
• 1:00:07
  How many throwers do you have? You brought in an assistant
• 1:00:11
  coach to help you because you got 100 throwers certainly
• 1:00:14
  during your 10 years. We've got a javelin.
• 1:00:16
  So that's a whole new wrinkle that you didn't even do as an
• 1:00:18
  athlete. Talk to us about what is the.
• 1:00:21
  Status of the the program You, you have a cool name, so that's
• 1:00:23
  always cool. Throesville.
• 1:00:25
  So how did that come about? Talk to us about today's status
• 1:00:28
  of the program. I feel like the throw started
• 1:00:31
  becoming pretty dominant in our program probably six years ago
• 1:00:35
  where we started getting a lot of, you know, points of state
• 1:00:39
  and whatnot. So like the announcer kind of
• 1:00:41
  like came up with that and started calling us Throesville.
• 1:00:44
  And so it's one of those things that every time we go to the big
• 1:00:47
  meets, they announce it and I'm like, oh, please don't do it.
• 1:00:50
  Like, but it's fine, 'cause it like makes all my kids just like
• 1:00:53
  they're in the ring and they're like throws those here.
• 1:00:54
  They're like, I'm like, it's fine, ignore it.
• 1:00:57
  But it's, it's pretty cool. And it's, I don't know, it's,
• 1:01:02
  it's cool that it's become that I'm about up to an average of 50
• 1:01:06
  throwers a year, but. Hold on, we must have gotten a
• 1:01:09
  little disconnected or something.
• 1:01:11
  It sounded like you said 5050 but you must have meant 15 cause
• 1:01:15
  15's a lot as well. 50 Yeah, and I am I, and I do coach the
• 1:01:21
  throws solely by myself. In high school, so if you were
• 1:01:27
  to do this in college, you would do and, and this is very
• 1:01:30
  typical, you would have a 9:00 AM practice, a 10 AM practice,
• 1:01:33
  11:00 AM practice. Maybe you treat yourself and you
• 1:01:34
  have lunch at noon, then A1A2 and A3.
• 1:01:37
  These kids have mandatory classes during the day.
• 1:01:40
  How are you? How?
• 1:01:43
  How are you running fifty kids through shot, discus and javelin
• 1:01:47
  on the high school level? Well, I was at one disc page and
• 1:01:51
  one shot ring for a while. I would say in 2020, I was
• 1:01:56
  gracious like my parents, the our coach, like we raised money.
• 1:02:00
  I now have 11 discus rings and four shot put rings.
• 1:02:05
  And then for javelin, we just use grass.
• 1:02:07
  So we don't have a runway or anything for that.
• 1:02:09
  So I'm, I use our football field, practice football field.
• 1:02:13
  But so with that being said, my facility has allowed more
• 1:02:17
  athletes to come in and for training, I like to set up my
• 1:02:21
  practice times, typically right after school.
• 1:02:24
  I like to have more of my developmental kids or kids that
• 1:02:26
  are newer that need to like focus more on the little things.
• 1:02:29
  They're out there for about an hour and a half and then they
• 1:02:31
  lift. Then I have my more advanced
• 1:02:34
  kids that come out, they typically train for about two, 2
• 1:02:38
  1/2, three hours in the rings working on a lot of
• 1:02:41
  fundamentals, but also getting the reps in, you know, the the
• 1:02:44
  volume of the throws. And because I'm a firm believer
• 1:02:47
  and lots of reps practice makes perfect kind of thing.
• 1:02:53
  Also they then they hit the weight room and then I usually
• 1:02:55
  typically two days a week, have an intense, more intense javelin
• 1:02:59
  practice. So I would say that I don't get
• 1:03:02
  home until really late. But yeah, so my coffee maker and
• 1:03:08
  my refrigerator full of water out in my fields has helped a
• 1:03:11
  lot. How's the relationship?
• 1:03:15
  You know, when I was down there, I didn't, I left before I went
• 1:03:17
  to high school, But for Walton High, I lived right across the
• 1:03:21
  street from essentially from Choctaw, Choctahatchee High
• 1:03:23
  School, Niceville, Those were all football is very, very
• 1:03:27
  important in that state and very much in that Panhandle.
• 1:03:31
  How is the relationship with football, football coaches in
• 1:03:33
  regards to, I'm going to call it Sharon athletes, but I really
• 1:03:36
  hate that term to be honest with you because that means
• 1:03:37
  ownership, but of athletes that want to do both sports.
• 1:03:43
  In the in the years past, it's actually so we had a head
• 1:03:46
  coaching change at our high school and the first head coach
• 1:03:51
  was very like against any kids doing track.
• 1:03:54
  The second coach came in and he's been a much better advocate
• 1:03:57
  for track and sees like the positivity behind, OK, like our
• 1:04:01
  big boys need to go do some throws and whatnot.
• 1:04:03
  And I think that kind of just happens has happened on its own
• 1:04:06
  anyway with the growth of the program.
• 1:04:09
  So a lot of like my kids, like I found that if I've had them
• 1:04:12
  since 7th or 8th grade, you know, they come over and they
• 1:04:16
  already want to throw and then now, you know, they're football
• 1:04:19
  guys want to come throw. They've seen the success of it.
• 1:04:22
  And so it's kind of one of those things where it's just, it's
• 1:04:25
  more of a natural progression where it's like we don't really
• 1:04:28
  have to fight over it. You know, I've been lucky enough
• 1:04:33
  that our program has succeeded the way it has.
• 1:04:35
  And so like a lot of our like the last four years, we've won
• 1:04:39
  four state titles on the boys side and in 2122 and 23 and even
• 1:04:46
  this past year, the the throws points have been so dominant
• 1:04:49
  that these boys are seeing like, Oh my goodness, Like I could go
• 1:04:52
  have success as well, not just on the football field, but I can
• 1:04:55
  go have major success at at the trackside as well.
• 1:04:59
  And a lot of these kids that you know, don't necessarily have an
• 1:05:02
  opportunity to continue in football, A lot of them who
• 1:05:05
  thought they were going to be football guys in college have
• 1:05:07
  gone on now and continue to advance to the collegiate level
• 1:05:11
  in the throws. And so I think a lot of the kids
• 1:05:14
  are seeing like, Oh well, when one door of opportunity closes,
• 1:05:18
  I still do have another opportunity.
• 1:05:20
  And I think that's one of the coolest parts.
• 1:05:23
  And that's why I do love to advocate so much for my kids
• 1:05:26
  because I know that if they're coming over to work with me,
• 1:05:29
  then they know because now this the bars have been set so high.
• 1:05:32
  Even the football guys, like they just know like it.
• 1:05:34
  They're not going to come over just to have fun.
• 1:05:36
  Like they're coming over to work hard.
• 1:05:38
  You mentioned 6th and 7th and 8th grade middle school kids.
• 1:05:41
  Are you coaching down into the middle school or is that a
• 1:05:44
  completely other coach and you I'm.
• 1:05:47
  Actually the yeah, I'm the head coach of the middle school.
• 1:05:50
  Yeah, that's interesting because I've heard this from a couple of
• 1:05:53
  coaches and it's never a high school coach that's struggling.
• 1:05:56
  It's always a high school coach that's thriving, that has some
• 1:06:00
  sphere of influence on the middle school side.
• 1:06:03
  I'm reminded of here in Illinois, coach Marcus Lowe from
• 1:06:08
  Kankakee. Also Gil podcast of Mom.
• 1:06:10
  He is, he has the title and and there's only, I think a handful,
• 1:06:14
  I, I certainly haven't heard of very many of director of track
• 1:06:16
  and field for Kankakee High School.
• 1:06:18
  And that reaches down into the middle school.
• 1:06:20
  So the middle school kids when they join track are running his
• 1:06:24
  program from the get go from 6th grade.
• 1:06:26
  So when they get to high school, it's not they have to learn.
• 1:06:29
  Yeah, he's a sprint's coach. They have to now learn a new
• 1:06:31
  system. You know, they're doing some
• 1:06:32
  other system in middle school and then.
• 1:06:34
  And Kankakee has won many state titles now.
• 1:06:36
  And since a lot of kids to college, it'd be very similar to
• 1:06:39
  to your throws program. So you're you're actually if a
• 1:06:42
  kid joins track in say 6th grade, they're getting the coach
• 1:06:45
  Emily Webb philosophy of how to throw from there.
• 1:06:49
  So they're getting. I will say I keep it very
• 1:06:51
  watered down and sure of course about having fun, no?
• 1:06:54
  Of course, of course. But but your terminology is the
• 1:06:57
  same. You may, you know what you call
• 1:06:58
  a circle or a turn is the same? Yeah, That that's what I'm
• 1:07:01
  saying. Yeah, of course.
• 1:07:01
  I I would hope if you were like, Oh yeah, day one we're we're
• 1:07:06
  drilling 100 throw. I'm like, oh man, those kids are
• 1:07:08
  like, screw this, I'm going football.
• 1:07:09
  It's easier, for crying out loud.
• 1:07:11
  Yeah, yeah, no, no, I hope that would be the case.
• 1:07:13
  I'm talking about just terminology, expectations.
• 1:07:17
  They're seeing the high schoolers having success so that
• 1:07:20
  it's like, oh wait, man, I can't wait till I get to do this drill
• 1:07:23
  or or whatnot. They're they're seeing maybe the
• 1:07:25
  older kids do a little bit higher level drills, etcetera.
• 1:07:28
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's cool.
• 1:07:29
  That's interesting, that sphere of influence over the middle
• 1:07:31
  school side and how it really ramps up the success, the
• 1:07:35
  potential for success, at least on the high school side, it
• 1:07:38
  really does. Because you think about if
• 1:07:39
  you're only doing high school, you're at best you're getting
• 1:07:43
  four years of of training with them.
• 1:07:45
  A lot of times you're getting three or less because they're
• 1:07:47
  not coming out freshman year or you know, maybe not till junior.
• 1:07:50
  Heck, even I've seen plenty of kids not coming out till senior
• 1:07:53
  year to do things like that. So that's interesting.
• 1:07:56
  I love that. I love that.
• 1:07:58
  So what, you know, if you look back in these last 10 years and
• 1:08:01
  it's really amazing to me only I did not know 10 years only
• 1:08:05
  because you know, that's a real that's still rookie territory as
• 1:08:09
  far as like, you know, length of, of coaching.
• 1:08:12
  I, I would have thought because I've, you know, I've seen the
• 1:08:14
  success through social media and stuff with you.
• 1:08:16
  I would have thought like this year, 15 or 20.
• 1:08:18
  She's been doing this since she was 10, for crying out loud,
• 1:08:22
  what have you. When you look back at year one
• 1:08:25
  to, you know, you're ramping into year 11 here, what are you
• 1:08:29
  most proud of that you've changed?
• 1:08:31
  And we ask our athletes to change a lot of things, whether
• 1:08:33
  it's their diet habits or their practice habits, sleep habits,
• 1:08:36
  etcetera. You have changed for the
• 1:08:40
  positive. What when you look back, what's
• 1:08:42
  something that you're you, I'm gonna ask you this way, what's
• 1:08:45
  something you look back in year one and you're like, oh man,
• 1:08:47
  that's so cringe. I can't believe I used to do X
• 1:08:50
  or I didn't know Y back then, etcetera.
• 1:08:52
  What's something your progression for your coaching
• 1:08:54
  that you're most proud of and glad you either do now or don't
• 1:08:58
  do any more? In regards to my program, I
• 1:09:03
  think more of, I think more of just like really implementing
• 1:09:10
  like how the kids, like how the kids feel 'cause like I've
• 1:09:13
  noticed that like, you know, I feel like growing up as
• 1:09:16
  coaching, it's like you have to do XY and Z, right?
• 1:09:19
  And the kids just listen. And I think one of the coolest
• 1:09:22
  things as a coach, growing as a coach is hey, like the feedback,
• 1:09:27
  the the relationships building. It's not just about the coaching
• 1:09:31
  part of it. It's about how you build the
• 1:09:33
  relationship, the throwing family, all of that.
• 1:09:36
  And I don't, and as much as I, we still had a family at the
• 1:09:39
  beginning of my coaching career, I feel like it's become so tight
• 1:09:44
  knit to where my throwers, it doesn't matter.
• 1:09:48
  They come from all walks of life, right?
• 1:09:49
  Like all different interests, all different friend groups.
• 1:09:52
  They are such a unit. And I think that's one of my, I
• 1:09:55
  think that's one of my proudest moments as like a coach is like
• 1:09:59
  I can sit back and I'm like, Oh my gosh, they make me so proud
• 1:10:02
  as like being there for one another and like they're thick
• 1:10:06
  as thieves. Like when they go to a meet,
• 1:10:08
  their presence is somewhat intimidating sometimes because
• 1:10:12
  you know, just for instance, like I had three of my or four
• 1:10:15
  of my discus boys at the state meet competing and I had 15
• 1:10:20
  other throwers standing on the fence cheering them on.
• 1:10:23
  And that had made it. And I like took a step back in
• 1:10:28
  that moment and I was like, what a cool freaking view this is
• 1:10:32
  because, you know, they're all there.
• 1:10:34
  And, you know, I feel for some of those kids that like are just
• 1:10:36
  there by themselves and they don't have anybody cheering them
• 1:10:39
  on. But I think that's one of my, I
• 1:10:40
  think that's one of my coolest and my most proud things about
• 1:10:44
  the program, along with I feel like after my first two seasons,
• 1:10:50
  seeing like how the FHSA functioned and all the stuff
• 1:10:53
  because I'm an Ohio girl. So things that are ran a lot
• 1:10:56
  differently. It was a really big goal of mine
• 1:10:59
  to just bring more awareness to the throws in general in the
• 1:11:01
  state of Florida. And I feel like I've
• 1:11:03
  successfully been able to do that over the last couple years.
• 1:11:07
  And so I just can like, I just hope it continues in a positive,
• 1:11:10
  you know, in a positive way. You know what you just described
• 1:11:14
  there, by the way. I don't.
• 1:11:17
  I could boil all that down to one word.
• 1:11:19
  You just defined culture. The culture you have that you've
• 1:11:24
  built there. You know, first of all, four
• 1:11:26
  discus throwers. Many, many teams don't have 4
• 1:11:30
  athletes at the state meet. And then to have, you know, 1520
• 1:11:36
  other athletes that didn't qualify for state 'cause, you
• 1:11:38
  know, as good as you are, Emily, not everybody's going to qualify
• 1:11:40
  for state, right? Other kids have to play too.
• 1:11:43
  Emily, don't take away all the spots at, at state, OK, But
• 1:11:46
  they, it was such a team. So this is where we talk about
• 1:11:49
  the individual versus the team aspect, the track.
• 1:11:51
  Even though they didn't individually qualify, their
• 1:11:54
  brothers, their sisters did. So we're going to go and
• 1:11:58
  celebrate. We're going to go cheer them on
• 1:12:00
  and they go to state to do That's culture.
• 1:12:02
  That is the true track team aspect of it all.
• 1:12:06
  I love that. That's, that's really cool.
• 1:12:08
  How much, you know, I can't help.
• 1:12:10
  I thought about this question earlier as you were describing,
• 1:12:12
  you know, what you do and how you do it and how you've done
• 1:12:14
  it. How much do you think you're,
• 1:12:17
  you're clearly a very intelligent technical side of
• 1:12:21
  things and I think that's important.
• 1:12:24
  But I get the sense, you know, cultures I don't think is built
• 1:12:26
  around technical efficiencies. I don't think that it's a it's a
• 1:12:31
  maybe a small sliver of culture, but I don't think you can build
• 1:12:33
  a Throwsville high school on technique and technical
• 1:12:39
  proficiencies. So how much and I kind of just
• 1:12:43
  led the question there. I apologize, but how much do you
• 1:12:45
  think the success that you've had and it's not just, you know,
• 1:12:48
  a state champion or four kids in the discus.
• 1:12:50
  I'm talking about having fifty kids.
• 1:12:51
  To me, the 50 kids is the most impressive part, but 50 throwers
• 1:12:54
  is is the most impressive part. How much of that is that that
• 1:12:58
  success is born on because you've become a great coach,
• 1:13:01
  you've listened to mentors like John Powell gone to clinics.
• 1:13:04
  Now you're speaking at clinics for credit lab, which I think
• 1:13:06
  that's a form of education as well.
• 1:13:08
  When you get to have to teach others, that helps you become
• 1:13:10
  better. How much of it is that versus
• 1:13:14
  you also seem to be a very I believe in you type of person?
• 1:13:18
  Like I can kind of get the sense of like I don't want to because
• 1:13:21
  this this is a this is kind of AI believe this is a little bit
• 1:13:25
  of a sexist kind of remark here. So forgive me, but it feels very
• 1:13:29
  Mama bearish. I don't like that because no one
• 1:13:30
  ever says Papa bearish by the way, with a male coach.
• 1:13:33
  That's why I kind of don't like saying that.
• 1:13:34
  But you seem like a very I believe in you type of coach.
• 1:13:37
  How much of your success would is is predicated on I've become
• 1:13:41
  a pretty technical coach. I'm always getting better, but I
• 1:13:44
  know how to coach discus and shot and now javelin and how
• 1:13:46
  much of it is you know what? I my kids know that I IA 100%
• 1:13:52
  have their back and believe in them.
• 1:13:54
  How how much what? What percentage would you equate
• 1:13:57
  to either to those two? And is there a third thing that
• 1:14:00
  I just missed? No, I think that's true.
• 1:14:03
  Like my kids 100% know I do have their back.
• 1:14:06
  Like I will be the first person to like speak up for them, stand
• 1:14:09
  up for them. If something's wrong, I'll make
• 1:14:12
  it right. Like anything like that, as much
• 1:14:14
  as I can possibly do to the track meets.
• 1:14:17
  Like, you know, I'm their advocate.
• 1:14:19
  Like I always tell them, you know, when you're away from
• 1:14:21
  home, I want this to be your second home, you know, like I
• 1:14:25
  want to be your biggest advocate and do it.
• 1:14:27
  And The thing is, is like I've noticed just being like that
• 1:14:30
  naturally. And I guess that's also filling
• 1:14:32
  in where the that coach that, you know, all of that, they do
• 1:14:36
  the same for me, right? So like they go in blood sweat
• 1:14:41
  tears Coach Webb. Like, no, I don't want to let
• 1:14:43
  Coach Webb down. I I want to do this for our
• 1:14:45
  team. Like, you know, the throwers in
• 1:14:48
  general have had a lot of pressure the last few years
• 1:14:50
  because the first year the boys point score was like 50.
• 1:14:57
  I think it was like 53 of the total throws points at the state
• 1:15:00
  title, right? So of course, that's a lot of
• 1:15:04
  pressure to put on the next team.
• 1:15:06
  And they, they followed up with 68 points of the state total,
• 1:15:09
  right, just in the throws. And so after those two years,
• 1:15:13
  those kids graduated. Well, now I have a whole new,
• 1:15:15
  new group of kids. Well, I have to show them like,
• 1:15:19
  hey, just because they did it doesn't mean you can't do it,
• 1:15:22
  right? Like you guys are continuing the
• 1:15:25
  foundation that they've set down and they've started with this
• 1:15:28
  program. Let's go like you guys step up.
• 1:15:31
  And so I feel like that's now like the belief system like in
• 1:15:35
  our in our program is it's like, OK, they've started this now we
• 1:15:39
  can continue. And you know, last year the, IT
• 1:15:42
  was a whole new group of thrower boys and thrower girls and they
• 1:15:45
  came and they did exactly what the 2021 and 2022 team and they
• 1:15:50
  did it in 2023 and they continued this year in 2024 and
• 1:15:55
  just with doing making history, I guess, and at a state meet
• 1:15:59
  with the throws points. And I, I couldn't be more proud
• 1:16:02
  of them because it is very stressful after a couple years
• 1:16:05
  knowing that they have a lot of that to carry on their
• 1:16:07
  shoulders. And but I know that as a family
• 1:16:10
  aspect that we have and them knowing that, hey, like you've
• 1:16:14
  got this and I'm there for them, like that's what they need to
• 1:16:17
  hear. They don't need to say like, hey
• 1:16:18
  man, like if you mess up like you're trash, like like that's
• 1:16:22
  not really like how you know you can get a thrower to respond.
• 1:16:25
  Like there's so many technical mental aspects of throwing.
• 1:16:28
  I feel like a lot of people don't know about that.
• 1:16:30
  If you crush their mental, you're crushing their throw.
• 1:16:33
  So you. Could probably take the word
• 1:16:35
  throw and throwers out of that any athlete in any human to be
• 1:16:39
  real friend. You know, with our, you know, my
• 1:16:40
  sales team here, same thing If I crush them, well, they're
• 1:16:43
  correct. What are they doing?
• 1:16:45
  Right, Right. Exactly.
• 1:16:46
  Hey, so how you know when we started this podcast five years
• 1:16:51
  ago, by the way, right before COVID started to me, I, I never
• 1:16:53
  would have thought five years from then I'd be sitting here
• 1:16:56
  with Emily Webb from Niceville High School.
• 1:16:58
  That just boggles me. It's amazing.
• 1:17:00
  You were halfway through when we first started the halfway not
• 1:17:03
  through 'cause you're still going halfway into your career.
• 1:17:05
  When we first started this quite amazing.
• 1:17:09
  So when we first started, it was all about uplifting and honoring
• 1:17:12
  coaches. And that's hopefully that's what
• 1:17:13
  we're doing here with you, Emily.
• 1:17:15
  But then it also became like, how much value can we give those
• 1:17:18
  people who press play with thousands, thousands people
• 1:17:20
  listen. And I've heard so much feedback
• 1:17:22
  of like, oh man, when coach talked about this or coach gave
• 1:17:25
  their experience about this, it really helped me.
• 1:17:27
  So for you, Emily, I'm interested.
• 1:17:29
  You know, you have 50 throwers and you mentioned that they kind
• 1:17:34
  of run the gamut. There's all different and you
• 1:17:37
  know, you can't take 50 high schoolers and not, you know,
• 1:17:39
  have these are labels here, but you know, jocks, nerds, you
• 1:17:44
  know, a single family, kids, full family.
• 1:17:48
  You know, you probably have some kid that has eight sisters and
• 1:17:50
  brother. You know, it's it's all the, you
• 1:17:51
  know, high academic kids, low academic kids.
• 1:17:54
  I motivated, low motivated, etcetera.
• 1:17:56
  How do you because when a coach what what we've seen over and
• 1:18:00
  over again, when a coach can relate in some form or fashion,
• 1:18:04
  that doesn't mean being their buddies and all this kind of
• 1:18:06
  stuff for everybody. How do you relate when you said
• 1:18:11
  that they all know that you've got their back and vice versa?
• 1:18:14
  How do you there's a coach right now listening that says, man,
• 1:18:17
  it's my first year or second year or it's my 10th year and
• 1:18:20
  I'm struggling. I can't get through to this
• 1:18:22
  person or this person. How do you at as the best you
• 1:18:26
  can, assuming you're not perfect that you you make mistakes and
• 1:18:30
  you're not batting 100% here. How do you relate to 50 wildly?
• 1:18:36
  You know, high school kids have a lot of pressures, a lot of
• 1:18:38
  things going on. How do you relate to 50 really
• 1:18:41
  individual people that are I almost said that are all going
• 1:18:46
  towards the common goal, but I have to assume that not
• 1:18:49
  everybody is pulling the same rope all the way.
• 1:18:53
  How do you relate as best as you can to all the 50 completely
• 1:18:58
  wildly different personality and people types?
• 1:19:03
  The biggest thing is listening. Listen to them, right?
• 1:19:08
  Listen and then communicate the best way.
• 1:19:11
  Like it's not about me, it's not about my past experiences, it's
• 1:19:14
  not about what I think is right and wrong.
• 1:19:16
  It's about, hey, like, take that away and just listen, right?
• 1:19:21
  And just really listen to what they're saying to you and give
• 1:19:24
  them, I guess a safe, a safe place, right?
• 1:19:27
  Like a lot of kids bottle a lot of things up and you know, just
• 1:19:31
  like just hey, I had a bad day. I had a horrible test or
• 1:19:34
  something, you know, and that carries over to the rings.
• 1:19:37
  But I feel like getting to know your kids and like, you know,
• 1:19:40
  oh, hey, so and so is off. Something's wrong.
• 1:19:43
  Like, hey, you know, you good? Yeah, I just had like a bad test
• 1:19:47
  day and it's going to roll over into their practice or, you
• 1:19:49
  know, like, I had like, my parents got in a fight or
• 1:19:52
  something, you know, OK like just knowing and giving them a
• 1:19:55
  little bit of grace that like, things aren't perfect and like,
• 1:19:58
  OK, hey, you know, today's not going to be 100% day because
• 1:20:02
  they just let me know that they were up all night because
• 1:20:05
  parents were fighting or something, you know, something
• 1:20:07
  that I wouldn't know because it didn't happen at practice.
• 1:20:11
  And I feel like that level of communication and empathy for
• 1:20:14
  your athletes is. Something that maybe it's not
• 1:20:16
  really taught growing up, like to be a coach, like, you know,
• 1:20:19
  you just like, I just feel like I've giving a little bit more to
• 1:20:24
  your athletes in that regard. Like you get one so much more
• 1:20:28
  loyalty from them as an athlete. Yeah, that's that's what I've
• 1:20:34
  seen the biggest thing. And I also like to individually,
• 1:20:38
  like I said, individually get to know them, right?
• 1:20:40
  Like, you know, like, hey, so and so come over here, like,
• 1:20:42
  what are we working on today? Like in the ring and like have
• 1:20:45
  some small talk where it's like, hey, you know, that way they
• 1:20:48
  know that they can be like, hey, coach, like I'm just not feeling
• 1:20:51
  it today, you know, OK, well, how can we make this better?
• 1:20:53
  You know, like you tell me like I'm not just going to
• 1:20:56
  immediately rip you because like you're not doing what I want you
• 1:20:59
  to do. Let's really communicate on
• 1:21:00
  this. And I feel like that has been
• 1:21:03
  one of the biggest barriers that's been broken, I guess, in
• 1:21:06
  the program where it's like, I just feel like the kids know,
• 1:21:08
  like, hey, I can go to coach web and like we can, we can work on
• 1:21:13
  what my best is today. I, I think you're right about,
• 1:21:17
  you know, we don't teach or clinic towards empathy and
• 1:21:23
  relating to kids. You know, we go to, you know, I
• 1:21:25
  go to a lot of tract clinics and you're, you know, you're
• 1:21:27
  starting to speak at a lot of tract clinics and you know, 99%
• 1:21:31
  of all the topics are, you know, rotational versus, you know,
• 1:21:37
  shop put, you know, how to release the disk is how to grow
• 1:21:41
  javelin throwers, etcetera. Very little of it is well, how
• 1:21:44
  how to function as a head coach, the things that you have to do
• 1:21:47
  as a head coach, which is different than assistant coach.
• 1:21:49
  How do you relate to the to today's kids?
• 1:21:52
  Today's kids? I don't know that they're
• 1:21:54
  necessarily different than yesterday's kids, by the way.
• 1:21:56
  I think they just have different technologies in front of them,
• 1:21:58
  but I'm not sure that a kid that.
• 1:22:01
  High school is hard for us, but with all the stuff added, high
• 1:22:04
  school's way harder now. Like it's just like the stuff
• 1:22:07
  that they're like, exposed to and whatnot.
• 1:22:10
  I just like, yeah, like, I mean, it's both.
• 1:22:13
  I don't know. I don't know.
• 1:22:15
  Here's what I do know. I know social.
• 1:22:17
  Media is rough. That in general, I don't
• 1:22:20
  disagree. I don't disagree with that.
• 1:22:23
  But here's what I do know. I, I know that in general, we
• 1:22:27
  people, not necessarily track coaches here or track people, we
• 1:22:30
  love to put the past on a pedestal and the present and the
• 1:22:35
  future is terrible. Like, I love this one thing you
• 1:22:39
  see on social media every once in a while where they're like,
• 1:22:41
  oh, you know, today we're all in our own devices and you know,
• 1:22:45
  they got a picture of everybody on their cell phones.
• 1:22:48
  You know, back in the day, we used to talk to each other and
• 1:22:50
  then there's a picture of a train car.
• 1:22:52
  It's, you know, it's because that's how we trans.
• 1:22:53
  You know, we transported back then and everybody's got a
• 1:22:56
  newspaper. No one's talking to each other.
• 1:22:57
  It's got a newspaper. That's what we used to do.
• 1:22:59
  I think it's just different now. I don't necessarily agree or
• 1:23:02
  disagree regarding social media. That is different.
• 1:23:05
  However, I do know we used to prank call people all the time
• 1:23:11
  and anonymously, by the way, that was before *69 and all that
• 1:23:13
  kind of stuff came in there. Bully, bully is on that.
• 1:23:18
  That happened back. You know, I, I, I just think
• 1:23:21
  there's, it's just different ways of bullying now with, with
• 1:23:24
  social media and things like that.
• 1:23:25
  So I don't know. I, I just, I caution always when
• 1:23:27
  I hear like, oh, it's so much harder today.
• 1:23:29
  It's like, I don't really know, man.
• 1:23:31
  I think we, I think, and you, you brought up, no, you brought
• 1:23:34
  up social media. I'm gonna bring up media.
• 1:23:36
  I think because of social media media, it's easier to know when
• 1:23:40
  when something terrible happens in Fremont, OH, today I can find
• 1:23:44
  out in an instant because of my phone.
• 1:23:46
  Back when I was in high school in Alabama, I probably never
• 1:23:49
  heard of it. Right, that's true.
• 1:23:51
  I. Don't know Anyway, OK, hey, so I
• 1:23:54
  got you here. I got a captive audience and I
• 1:23:56
  have someone who I admire a lot about a lot of different things.
• 1:24:00
  As we were talking, I kind of just wrote down these are kind
• 1:24:03
  of random. I don't really have an order
• 1:24:04
  here. So I have a bunch of questions
• 1:24:05
  and I'm just going to, if it's OK with you, just fire away and
• 1:24:08
  you just give us your thoughts and action.
• 1:24:10
  OK, the first one, I actually didn't write this down, but it
• 1:24:12
  was it's a good timing for this one.
• 1:24:15
  You, you know, I know you because of social media.
• 1:24:18
  That's another thing, you know, a lot of people say, say social
• 1:24:20
  media is bad. I think social media is the
• 1:24:22
  greatest thing in the whole world because it allows me to
• 1:24:25
  meet and know and learn about people that I would never have
• 1:24:28
  known about the pre pre Twitter and Instagram.
• 1:24:31
  I would not know. Emily Webb had these kids
• 1:24:33
  signing to colleges and you know, did this many kids to the
• 1:24:36
  state and, and where you did, but now you're, and you're
• 1:24:39
  pretty prolific at it. What is the role of social media
• 1:24:42
  for you? Why do you know, other coaches
• 1:24:43
  shy away from social media for whatever reason?
• 1:24:46
  It doesn't matter. I don't think it's good or bad
• 1:24:47
  that you use social media, but why do you, you, you, you're
• 1:24:51
  pretty prolific on, on social media and specifically
• 1:24:53
  Instagram. What, why, why, what, what,
• 1:24:56
  where did that start and why, why you do it and why is it, I'm
• 1:24:59
  going to say important to you? I, I think it's important to you
• 1:25:01
  because you do it a lot. So that's why I say, why is it
• 1:25:03
  important to you? I think for me, I get to see so
• 1:25:06
  many positive aspects of each of my athletes and a lot of coaches
• 1:25:11
  just in 2 minutes of saying hello or just seeing them at a
• 1:25:14
  track meet, they don't get to see all the layers of what our
• 1:25:18
  kids, I guess, are capable of. And so I feel like social media
• 1:25:22
  kind of highlights that for them where it's like, Oh my goodness,
• 1:25:25
  like, hey, like I just put this girl up her PRS and her
• 1:25:28
  academics, not just her trackside, right?
• 1:25:31
  Like, you know, they, they're so good academically.
• 1:25:34
  And I feel like those things need to be highlighted.
• 1:25:36
  Like maybe they're technical, they're hard work.
• 1:25:38
  Like, oh, I think I saw this girl in a video like, you know,
• 1:25:42
  a year ago and wow, has she really made a change?
• 1:25:45
  You know, like, I just feel like different stuff like that or
• 1:25:48
  just like the culture in general.
• 1:25:50
  And just, I think the culture too is big.
• 1:25:53
  Like when college coaches are looking because it's like they
• 1:25:55
  know that the kids are going to go there and work hard for them.
• 1:25:58
  And I, I like doing that. And I like giving them their
• 1:26:01
  moment as well. Because a lot of times, you
• 1:26:04
  know, kids kind of get overlooked or like maybe the
• 1:26:06
  newspaper didn't mention so and so or this or that.
• 1:26:10
  And then they start to really like, you know, get in their
• 1:26:12
  feels about it. And this way, I feel like every
• 1:26:15
  kid is highlighted for all their strengths and, you know, even
• 1:26:18
  like their weaknesses, but the way that they've, you know,
• 1:26:21
  grown. Yeah, I love that.
• 1:26:23
  You know, I kind of rolled my eyes when you talked about, you
• 1:26:25
  know, got overlooked in the newspaper because of the lack of
• 1:26:28
  traditional media for our sport. So then I say, OK, well, you,
• 1:26:32
  you're your own newspaper. You're your own newscast today
• 1:26:35
  with Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, Facebook, etcetera.
• 1:26:39
  Go do it then go do it, you know, you know, take it in your
• 1:26:41
  own hands to do it. And that's what I, I love about
• 1:26:44
  your the post that you do use. You know, I think when people
• 1:26:47
  talk about the negativity of social media, and certainly
• 1:26:49
  there there are negativities of social media, although they're
• 1:26:52
  again talking about that prank calling and stuff.
• 1:26:53
  There was negativity of phones back in the day too, by the way,
• 1:26:56
  and TV and things like that, you know, so some people shirk away
• 1:27:00
  from social media because of that.
• 1:27:02
  You know, I, I'm a believer that the only way you get rid of
• 1:27:05
  darkness is through light. So I love when I see people
• 1:27:07
  using a social media platform for positivity and consistent
• 1:27:12
  positivity is it's easy to post once and you know, say, Hey,
• 1:27:15
  look at my kid, I got APR, Hey, congratulations to you.
• 1:27:17
  But you know, it takes work and effort and conscientiousness to
• 1:27:21
  do it on a daily basis and multiple times on a daily basis,
• 1:27:23
  etcetera. So was just interest there.
• 1:27:25
  OK, you ready for, I'm going to call it rapid fire, but don't
• 1:27:28
  don't you know, we, we still got a we got a good amount of time
• 1:27:31
  here. So you you answer.
• 1:27:32
  Don't don't, don't don't think just because I have 20
• 1:27:34
  questions, I don't really have 20, but questions I want you to
• 1:27:37
  you, you answer them the way you you answer them.
• 1:27:39
  OK, OK, All right. So I always I struggle right off
• 1:27:43
  the bat. I struggle with this.
• 1:27:44
  So, you know, I work really hard for not a balance, but to make
• 1:27:52
  sure that I'm overcoming my biases in regards to women and
• 1:27:57
  men coaches. So I never ever want to ask the
• 1:28:00
  question, would you like being a woman coaching boy?
• 1:28:02
  You know, those kind of things. I, I, I, I think I'm batting
• 1:28:04
  1000 that I've never asked a single women's coach that we've
• 1:28:09
  had here that question. But what I wonder is more of
• 1:28:13
  what is the role as you see as being a, a, a, a female coach,
• 1:28:19
  because you're dealing in specifically as a throws coach,
• 1:28:22
  meaning you are dealing with football and football coaches,
• 1:28:25
  which are 99.9% men. You are dealing in the weight
• 1:28:29
  room where in the street in the conditioning world, 98% I think
• 1:28:32
  are men. These are made-up stats, by the
• 1:28:33
  way. What?
• 1:28:36
  How is it? Do you see a benefit being a
• 1:28:39
  woman coaching in this world, throws and weight room?
• 1:28:45
  I'll leave it as that. Talk to me about the role of
• 1:28:47
  being a woman, coaching in the throws and weight room type
• 1:28:50
  world as it relates to football, throws, things like that.
• 1:28:54
  I've been super grateful at the fact that like I've never seen,
• 1:28:58
  you know, a difference, I guess, in the way I've been treated by
• 1:29:01
  a female or a male. You know, obviously, like you
• 1:29:05
  can have, you know, a couple, you can have a turd athlete as a
• 1:29:08
  female and as a guy, you know, or, but I've been very fortunate
• 1:29:11
  to have the most respect from probably 98% of all of the kids
• 1:29:16
  that I've ever coached. My intensity changes with a guy
• 1:29:21
  a little bit like now some of my guys don't respond to that.
• 1:29:24
  And so like, you know, it has to be more of like a laid back
• 1:29:26
  approach. A lot of like just per SE, like
• 1:29:30
  football guys like they like the intensity.
• 1:29:32
  They like me being very real with them.
• 1:29:34
  Like if that throw was bad, like I'm going to let them know and
• 1:29:38
  they're going to want to know why, right.
• 1:29:39
  But that also comes down to like the communication and how I
• 1:29:43
  communicate with them, right? Like everybody's so different.
• 1:29:45
  Like I can't, I can. A couple of my girls, they
• 1:29:48
  expect me to get into them when they are in the ring and
• 1:29:52
  absolutely put them on blast because that's how they respond,
• 1:29:55
  right? But some of the other girls,
• 1:29:57
  absolutely, I would never do that, you know, so.
• 1:29:59
  How do you how do you figure that out?
• 1:30:00
  Because some people so first of all, how do you figure that out?
• 1:30:03
  Which ones need the McCall it the more militaristic style of
• 1:30:06
  coaching and more need more the motherly or fatherly, you know,
• 1:30:11
  empathetic tile. Not only how do you figure that
• 1:30:14
  out? You know which and again, you
• 1:30:16
  got fifty of the of these kids. It's amazing, but also how do
• 1:30:19
  you still stay true to your coaching and coaching style and
• 1:30:23
  coaching philosophy? So if you're not the type of
• 1:30:26
  person who's naturally going to be, you know, 100% of time, I'm
• 1:30:29
  not barking in someone's face, but I know Johnny needs that at
• 1:30:33
  the right time. So how do you stay authentic but
• 1:30:36
  also give each individual the style that they you know need or
• 1:30:41
  crave? I think I just, I always keep,
• 1:30:44
  I'm very, like I said, I'm very transparent, whether I'm softer
• 1:30:48
  and more empathetic about it or if I'm just very blunt and like
• 1:30:51
  intense about it, right? So like it just basically my
• 1:30:54
  delivery just changes. But other than that, like
• 1:30:57
  everything else stays the same. Like my coaching points, all the
• 1:31:01
  things like I can go tell one athlete that is a very like,
• 1:31:05
  hey, like I think you need to approach it like this, like
• 1:31:07
  chest up, you know, hip drive, all of that.
• 1:31:10
  I can approach it that way. I can be like, what are you
• 1:31:12
  thinking? Like get your chest up, hip
• 1:31:14
  drive. That's not what we worked on.
• 1:31:16
  You know, like they know exactly that's the exact same thing they
• 1:31:19
  both need to fix, but I just know the one's going to respond
• 1:31:23
  differently. If I say, hey, you just need to
• 1:31:25
  change your hip, He's not responding to that.
• 1:31:27
  He's like, oh, OK, it's not that big of a deal.
• 1:31:29
  But if Coach gets intense with me, oh, I really need to fix it
• 1:31:34
  right now, you know, So some just like that.
• 1:31:37
  So the, I mean, I heard the intent stays the same, the
• 1:31:41
  delivery changes based. OK, cool.
• 1:31:43
  I love that, love that. OK, I told you these are out of
• 1:31:46
  order 'cause I was just as we were talking, coming with these
• 1:31:48
  questions. So talk to me about college
• 1:31:52
  recruiting. You mentioned about being an
• 1:31:53
  advocate for these kids, you know, talking to the college
• 1:31:57
  coach. There is this debate of should a
• 1:32:01
  college coach even talk to the high school coach?
• 1:32:04
  It's weird. I'm actually, you know, as much
• 1:32:06
  as I love communication and coaches should be talking, I
• 1:32:09
  think it's because when I coached in recruiting and I was
• 1:32:11
  known as recruiting, I was kind of my main duties was
• 1:32:13
  recruiting. I didn't call the high school
• 1:32:16
  coach, not because I didn't value their input.
• 1:32:19
  I just knew you're biased, meaning you're not.
• 1:32:23
  And I know, Emily, you may push back and say, Oh no, if a kids a
• 1:32:27
  bad kid, a bad apple, I'll tell that cop.
• 1:32:29
  I just don't believe it. I don't.
• 1:32:32
  I think you should because you lose credibility if you talk
• 1:32:35
  about how great this kid is and they go there and they're a turd
• 1:32:37
  or whatever. But.
• 1:32:38
  I'll be honest, I'm pretty honest about like all of.
• 1:32:41
  That but you are biased are biased just like when someone
• 1:32:46
  asked me about Gill equipment. Bro I'm biased 100%.
• 1:32:49
  I'm going to be 100% truthful with you, but absolutely I am
• 1:32:53
  still coming with a bias 100%. So my question is, what do you
• 1:32:59
  you told us what you how you do, but what do you think about
• 1:33:03
  college coaching recruiting of contacting the high school coach
• 1:33:06
  or not? What kind of what are they
• 1:33:09
  missing out if they don't talk to the to the high school coach?
• 1:33:12
  Talk to me just about that realm of the recruiting because you
• 1:33:14
  get a lot of kids recruited. I mean, you've talked to a lot
• 1:33:16
  of college coaches. Yeah, I feel like I that's
• 1:33:19
  really the only path that it's ever been for me.
• 1:33:23
  I don't really yeah, there's not really been like a time where
• 1:33:28
  like I think because I had built so many great relationship with
• 1:33:32
  a lot of these college coaches. Once that's developed, then it's
• 1:33:35
  like they know like, you know what I mean?
• 1:33:37
  Like a lot of these college coaches, I feel like I can hey,
• 1:33:40
  I need your opinion on something or hey, what would you do in
• 1:33:43
  this? You know, they it's become more
• 1:33:45
  than just like a like just about recruiting or, you know, pick
• 1:33:48
  their brain about stuff. So I think that's pretty cool.
• 1:33:51
  But yeah, I mean, I think it's a good thing.
• 1:33:54
  I think if you have a coach that you feel like, I don't know for
• 1:33:57
  me, like I I'm going to continue coaching, right?
• 1:33:59
  Like, and my goal and I, you know, my goal is to stay at
• 1:34:03
  Niceville and continue to build this program.
• 1:34:07
  I guess they know that they can trust, you know, my opinion I
• 1:34:11
  get in that regard. Or if I'm like, hey, like, I
• 1:34:13
  just don't think that the intensity like they're going to
• 1:34:16
  cut. I don't know.
• 1:34:17
  I guess I think it's a good thing.
• 1:34:19
  I it's a good thing as long as you know you're speaking to, you
• 1:34:22
  know, a coach that's going to be honest with you, right?
• 1:34:25
  And certainly you've had coaches who have recruited your kids who
• 1:34:29
  have not reached out because not 100% of coaches unless you tell
• 1:34:32
  me, it's just different. The throws world, I just don't
• 1:34:34
  believe that. But there certainly have been
• 1:34:36
  coaches that have recruited some of your athletes without
• 1:34:39
  reaching out to you. And again, I I'm not here to
• 1:34:41
  judge whether that's right or wrong.
• 1:34:44
  And maybe this is more is if any of those kids have ever signed
• 1:34:48
  with one of those coaches and we're not here to name names,
• 1:34:51
  but did you feel like that coach, that coach and athlete
• 1:34:55
  missed out on something because they didn't reach out to you
• 1:34:59
  their judgement if. They're getting the opportunity
• 1:35:01
  no matter what way it is. I feel like that's a win, right,
• 1:35:04
  Like I, it's not about like me, you know, it's about the
• 1:35:08
  athlete. So like a lot of times and a lot
• 1:35:10
  of coaches do send like mail to the school, you know, that'll
• 1:35:13
  come for the athlete. So typically, you know, I can
• 1:35:16
  always reach out with the athlete or however that is.
• 1:35:18
  And if they need film, because that is one thing I do like to
• 1:35:21
  provide for my athletes is like, hey, just let them know.
• 1:35:24
  Do they need any film? Because I have all the film from
• 1:35:27
  practices like, you know, comparison and stuff like that.
• 1:35:30
  I think I like it's bad. Like I just, that's what I do.
• 1:35:33
  Like we just break down film all the time.
• 1:35:35
  So I have that to provide if they need it or you know, hey,
• 1:35:39
  do they need their transcripts or anything like that?
• 1:35:42
  So. Just you said, you said an
• 1:35:44
  important thing there. You said, you know, it's not
• 1:35:46
  about me. You know, ego is not bad.
• 1:35:48
  Bad ego is bad. And I do wonder sometimes if bad
• 1:35:53
  ego jumps up in a high school coach and they feel disrespected
• 1:35:57
  and it's like, but it's not about you if the.
• 1:35:59
  End goal is the same, right? Like, you know, my goal is to
• 1:36:03
  get them recruited or if they're recruiting them.
• 1:36:06
  Either way, the end goal is the same.
• 1:36:08
  Yeah, and by the way, the other side of that true is is the
• 1:36:11
  other side of that is is true as well for the college coach of
• 1:36:14
  bad ego of you know, I call the high school coach because I I'd
• 1:36:18
  like to know more their insight into the kid or does bad ego go
• 1:36:23
  I want that high school coach to know.
• 1:36:25
  Yeah, coach so and so from big time university's calling like
• 1:36:28
  you, I'm going to get some help because, you know I'm at big
• 1:36:31
  time, you know, they're getting ego's not bad, bad, bad ego's
• 1:36:34
  bad. All right, cool.
• 1:36:35
  This next question actually kind of is related to that one.
• 1:36:39
  So talk to me about the role of the high school coach in the
• 1:36:43
  expectations of scholarship. We touched on this earlier and
• 1:36:49
  appropriate level. And what I mean by appropriate
• 1:36:53
  level is if you have a, I'm going to kind of make up numbers
• 1:36:57
  here a little bit because I'm not terribly super as
• 1:36:59
  knowledgeable as you are. If you have a 30 foot girl shot
• 1:37:04
  putter athletically, the SEC, I'm a big SEC Homer, by the way.
• 1:37:10
  I know you're probably a Big Ten person because you're in Ohio,
• 1:37:12
  but I grew up in Florida and Alabama.
• 1:37:14
  So the SEC can do no wrong. A 30 foot woman's girl shot
• 1:37:19
  putter athletically, the level the SEC is not the right level
• 1:37:24
  maybe for that person, but that might be the right level for
• 1:37:28
  that person in regards to just their college experience.
• 1:37:31
  You know, not every kid is going to be an all American, not every
• 1:37:34
  program. In fact, I would think even in
• 1:37:37
  some of the great, you know, you have a great program right there
• 1:37:39
  in state. Coach Holloway, another Guild
• 1:37:41
  podcast alum, by the way, you know, every one of his athletes
• 1:37:45
  don't all go to nationals in school or you know, there's
• 1:37:48
  plenty of kids that just you know, they have a good
• 1:37:49
  experience and that's awesome. They're going to, you know,
• 1:37:52
  they're going to be much better people for it because they were
• 1:37:53
  on the team, things like that. So what what is your role as a
• 1:37:57
  high school coach? What do you believe your role as
• 1:37:59
  a high school coach is to help the kids understand a
• 1:38:02
  scholarship expectation. So full ride, walk on everything
• 1:38:06
  in between. And also what level, whether
• 1:38:08
  that's, you know, power for junior college, everything in
• 1:38:13
  between. I think mostly it's like, OK,
• 1:38:16
  where are your numbers and what are the, I guess what are the
• 1:38:20
  standards for the colleges? Like typically I'll be like,
• 1:38:23
  hey, like can you give me a list of like 5 schools, 5 dreams
• 1:38:26
  schools or whatever that you would like to throw at?
• 1:38:29
  And we'll start there. And typically it's like, OK,
• 1:38:32
  we'll just let you know 1-2 and three, these are their
• 1:38:36
  standards. So until we hit their standards
• 1:38:39
  or if it's like a coach that I've spoken to and like, you
• 1:38:41
  know, they've given me their standards, I'll just say, hey,
• 1:38:43
  like, but once we come within striking distance of those, I
• 1:38:46
  can reach out, right? So then it's like.
• 1:38:49
  What, how do you handle it then? You've got the greatest kid in
• 1:38:53
  the world, good grades, the whole 9.
• 1:38:54
  She's that 30 foot shot putter. And she says, hey, Coach Webb,
• 1:38:59
  it's been my dream. I'm, I'm from Niceville, FL and
• 1:39:02
  I grew up, I grew up a Florida State fan.
• 1:39:04
  Somebody used Florida as Florida State as an example.
• 1:39:06
  I want to go to Florida State and you're like, yeah, well,
• 1:39:09
  hey, let's look at the ACC. You know, let's look what's on
• 1:39:12
  Florida State's roster. And of course, you know, we're
• 1:39:14
  going to see that 30 feet isn't going to be any close.
• 1:39:17
  And she just tells you, yeah, yeah, I'm not looking for a
• 1:39:20
  scholarship. I would just love to wear the
• 1:39:22
  uniform. Like, I just want to try out.
• 1:39:23
  I just want to walk on. And you're like, yeah, man, 30
• 1:39:25
  feet, though, Hon. Like, man, you could go to such
• 1:39:28
  and such university and score and conference and, you know,
• 1:39:32
  get a scholarship. How do you handle that
• 1:39:34
  conversation and and does that conversation happen a lot or am
• 1:39:37
  I making up like a scenario that just never happens?
• 1:39:39
  Yeah, I will say like, I think because I've been so transparent
• 1:39:42
  with them and like I will tell them like, hey, like this is
• 1:39:45
  their walk on standard. They pretty much know what it
• 1:39:47
  is. They they haven't really done
• 1:39:50
  that. Or if it's like, hey, like don't
• 1:39:52
  like if you want to go to Florida State, like you don't
• 1:39:53
  have to throw, you know what I mean?
• 1:39:55
  Like or one of those where it's like, I I've just been very
• 1:39:58
  transparent. So I haven't had any kids with
• 1:40:00
  super unrealistic expectations or anything like that.
• 1:40:03
  Because, you know, these schools still even as a walk on, they
• 1:40:05
  still have standards, you know, and so it's like we have like
• 1:40:08
  and I tell them, you know what, to respect that and so.
• 1:40:12
  That's kind of where I look at it.
• 1:40:13
  And then I do, I always offer like, and I will say my kids are
• 1:40:16
  great about having very open minds about hey, an opportunity
• 1:40:19
  is an opportunity. And I think I've instilled that
• 1:40:22
  in like just like what I have tried to tell my kids like hey,
• 1:40:25
  like JUCO, D1D2D3, it doesn't matter.
• 1:40:28
  Like an opportunity is an opportunity.
• 1:40:30
  And now with the transfer portal and all of that, it's like, OK,
• 1:40:33
  if you're not there yet, you're not there yet, go build and
• 1:40:35
  then, you know, do your thing. So when you say I haven't had
• 1:40:40
  much many any unex, unexpected, UN unrealistic expectations, the
• 1:40:48
  Internet tells me you are an extremely lucky person because
• 1:40:50
  that's all I hear about is D1 or bus and how how do I get a kid
• 1:40:53
  to understand that D3 is the right Ave. or D2 etcetera.
• 1:40:57
  I think a lot of kids like maybe maybe even at home, like maybe
• 1:41:02
  they feel like D1 is like what the expectation is.
• 1:41:05
  But I think once they start to see, because I do like we do a
• 1:41:08
  lot of following of programs with the program, like I'm like,
• 1:41:11
  hey, did you see so and so through this?
• 1:41:13
  They're like, you know, they're watching the college, they're
• 1:41:15
  watching the professional level. They're very versed on it.
• 1:41:18
  I feel like because like I've made them kind of nerd out in
• 1:41:20
  the thrill world. I feel like they, you know, and
• 1:41:24
  then Teefers is a real thing. I say, hey, go on Teefers and go
• 1:41:27
  look at their top ten and tell me if you fit in there.
• 1:41:30
  If you do, then we'll talk about it because like I do, I, I'm a,
• 1:41:34
  I'm a realist in regards to that.
• 1:41:36
  I'm like, hey, like if they, if you know their meter marks are
• 1:41:40
  in the 50s and your meter marks in the 30, I'm not sure we're
• 1:41:43
  there yet. Yeah, I I love that Teefers is a
• 1:41:45
  real thing. Teefers might have been the
• 1:41:48
  greatest thing for recruiting and expectations in any
• 1:41:51
  education coaches philosophy. Etc.
• 1:41:54
  Yeah, I think when they can see it on paper, they understand.
• 1:41:57
  Yeah, I love that. And how much is any type of
• 1:42:03
  unrealistic expectations have really start coming from parents
• 1:42:06
  and their parents and their bad egos?
• 1:42:08
  And what I mean by that is, you know, when parents are around
• 1:42:11
  their little social circle in their neighborhood and, you
• 1:42:13
  know, they're bragging about, you know, my kid got a academic
• 1:42:16
  scholarship to Harvard and, you know, you were there.
• 1:42:18
  Yeah. Well, my little Susie, yeah,
• 1:42:21
  she, she's going to Warner and Warner, where's Warner?
• 1:42:24
  And it's like, no, that's she's that person's still going on to
• 1:42:26
  college. That's great.
• 1:42:27
  But even the parent is like, man, all these kids are, people
• 1:42:30
  are bragging about their kids going to Florida, Florida State,
• 1:42:32
  etcetera, etcetera. And my kids going to have to
• 1:42:33
  explain where Warner is in Florida.
• 1:42:36
  How much is this? I've been fortunate if they do
• 1:42:38
  it, it's not in front of me. So I just like I, there's a that
• 1:42:43
  line between the parents that like, I like to stay, I like to
• 1:42:46
  stay away from that. So that is one thing.
• 1:42:49
  That that may be the smartest thing, you know, I just.
• 1:42:51
  Like I'm in my own bubble over here.
• 1:42:54
  I love it. I love it.
• 1:42:54
  All right. So this next question is kind of
• 1:42:57
  adjacent to as well. You know, you talked about you
• 1:42:59
  transferred and you did not transfer for athletic reasons,
• 1:43:04
  but now you know, hot topic is the transfer portal.
• 1:43:07
  And again, I, you know, I, I realize it's been 19, oh boy, 19
• 1:43:13
  years since I've coached. I have not coached double the
• 1:43:16
  amount of the years you have coached Emily.
• 1:43:18
  So you're, you're such a, a, a pup on this.
• 1:43:20
  I love it. You've got twenty, 30-40 more
• 1:43:22
  years, 50 more years to coach. It's awesome.
• 1:43:24
  I don't tell my husband that. Hey bro, with with medical
• 1:43:29
  advances that we're making, but you're going to live to a
• 1:43:32
  hundreds. I mean, you're going to coach to
• 1:43:33
  9095. I love it.
• 1:43:36
  So here's what I don't understand about the transfer
• 1:43:39
  portal. And what I'm, what I'm getting
• 1:43:40
  at is I want to know what your take is on the effect the
• 1:43:43
  transfer portal has had on high school recruiting.
• 1:43:45
  So AI know people transfer before the transfer portal.
• 1:43:49
  I dealt with it. I had, you know, a guy who ended
• 1:43:52
  up going to become a, a medalist at the world champs and Olympics
• 1:43:55
  transfer from my school. So I, you know, I, I got bit by
• 1:43:57
  the, the transfer bug. Everybody's been able to
• 1:44:01
  transfer forever. That's not a true statement, but
• 1:44:05
  for a long time now, there's this whole name about a transfer
• 1:44:07
  portal, so it's easier to make yourself available to transfer.
• 1:44:11
  I hear from coaches of how it's killing high school recruiting.
• 1:44:17
  I hear that all the time that that's literally the number one
• 1:44:19
  thing. It's killing high school recruit
• 1:44:20
  recruiting. I don't understand how it's
• 1:44:22
  killing high school recruiting and some of the explanations
• 1:44:24
  I've gotten from some of my quote UN quote mid major coaches
• 1:44:29
  is, you know, I get a kid, I'll use javelin as an example.
• 1:44:32
  I get them 180 from Niceville high school.
• 1:44:35
  They come to my mid major school.
• 1:44:37
  I'm a really good javelin coach. Things line up and now they
• 1:44:40
  throw 24250 whatever it is, and you know, quote UN quote, big
• 1:44:44
  school scoops them up so that see that big school didn't go
• 1:44:48
  recruited high school kid. They they recruited mine.
• 1:44:50
  High school kid get screwed. And and my response is always
• 1:44:53
  like, OK, but that kid transferred from your program.
• 1:44:56
  That means your scholarships opened up.
• 1:44:58
  So maybe so I can I can wrap my little mind around that maybe
• 1:45:02
  the transfer portal has made power for recruiting harder for
• 1:45:06
  high school kids. Not impossible because I still
• 1:45:08
  see plenty of kids signing power fours out of high school, but I
• 1:45:12
  don't my mind can't wrap around that it's killed or extremely
• 1:45:16
  hurt high school recruiting. What's been your experience?
• 1:45:18
  You've been 10 years and I can't remember how long transfer
• 1:45:20
  portal has been around, but certainly it is hyper focused
• 1:45:23
  today than it was in 2014. What's been your experience of
• 1:45:28
  the negative positive neutral effect of transfer portal on
• 1:45:32
  recruiting? You've had kids sign big school
• 1:45:34
  down to yeah, I'll call mid major my school Troy.
• 1:45:36
  You've had you've run the gamut. What's been your take on the
• 1:45:40
  effect of the transfer portal? I think, I think it's about the
• 1:45:43
  I think it's yes, I think it's going to be harder as a high
• 1:45:45
  school athlete to get into those, you know, powerful
• 1:45:48
  schools and you know, the big like, you know, of Florida and
• 1:45:51
  Auburn, all of that because I think their standards are
• 1:45:54
  changing as well with that portal and whatnot.
• 1:45:57
  But I mean, it's not to discourage a high school athlete
• 1:46:00
  to try to go somewhere, you know, maybe in their minds
• 1:46:02
  smaller, even though it's still like division one's division,
• 1:46:05
  you know, like one. And, and if that's what we're
• 1:46:08
  looking for, there's opportunities, right?
• 1:46:10
  Division two. And I like to tell my kids too,
• 1:46:13
  like, hey, like you could go be a national champion indeed too.
• 1:46:17
  Like what? Like, you know, like, so I just
• 1:46:19
  until I feel like we crossed that bridge when it's like, OK,
• 1:46:22
  what opportunities do we have? But yeah, I did, I have noticed
• 1:46:25
  that in the past couple years where it's more of the powerful
• 1:46:28
  schools. OK, hey, if that's where you
• 1:46:30
  eventually want to be, then we you may need to start smaller
• 1:46:33
  and just build just like some of these other kids have done.
• 1:46:37
  Yeah. And and and my question back to
• 1:46:40
  that and it's it's a little bit rhetorical, but not fully.
• 1:46:43
  So I want you to respond to it is and what's wrong with that?
• 1:46:46
  Nothing right, nothing at all. No opportunity for an
• 1:46:49
  opportunity. And I tell myself all the time.
• 1:46:52
  I mean, plenty of you graduated from Kent State University,
• 1:46:55
  that's a mid major school and you've had a successful career
• 1:46:58
  and you're being successful in this other side of coaching.
• 1:47:01
  There are people that graduate from Warner Jacksonville
• 1:47:03
  College, Jacksonville State, Troy, Florida, Miami, all not
• 1:47:10
  all every one of these kids has the opportunity to be successful
• 1:47:14
  and also not be successful. And I'm not talking about
• 1:47:15
  athletics, by the way, I'm talking about just in life, like
• 1:47:17
  getting a job and, you know, raising families or whatever
• 1:47:19
  your goal set is. So so yes, I was like, so what's
• 1:47:22
  wrong with that? What's wrong going to AI was
• 1:47:27
  going to be careful on how I use some examples.
• 1:47:29
  A a a non power for school and then transferring because you
• 1:47:32
  got better. By the way, blessings to that
• 1:47:34
  coach that got you better at the quote UN quote, mid major or D2
• 1:47:37
  or whatever the role. And I go to D3 nationals, D2
• 1:47:41
  nationals, D1. I've been to NAIA JUCO
• 1:47:43
  nationals, one of my favorite meats in the whole world,
• 1:47:44
  actually. And I tell you what, I don't see
• 1:47:48
  less joy on a kid when they win a meet, an event at those meets,
• 1:47:51
  and I do at Division One, I there's a lot.
• 1:47:54
  And I don't see when they give out the team trophy.
• 1:47:56
  I don't see the the, the, the team winning the team that won
• 1:48:00
  the the national championship. And these other levels go, yeah,
• 1:48:02
  but it's not D1. So it's not really that good.
• 1:48:04
  No, they're happy. They're having an amazing
• 1:48:06
  experience. And just to keep adding to that,
• 1:48:11
  almost all a lot of our college coaches all started at AD 3-D2NE
• 1:48:17
  IA JUCO mid-May. They didn't start, you know,
• 1:48:20
  some start straight up as A at a Florida, Miami, whatever, but
• 1:48:23
  they've all gone through their own transfer portal, if you
• 1:48:26
  will, of their career. So I just always kind of just
• 1:48:28
  responds back like, so what's wrong with that?
• 1:48:30
  Now I also realize I'm not in that situation of that being at
• 1:48:32
  mid major school that's having all their quote UN quote studs
• 1:48:35
  transfer and you're starting all over again.
• 1:48:37
  I so I have a lot of empathy for that as well.
• 1:48:38
  So all right, cool, thank you. Appreciate that.
• 1:48:41
  Again, these are kind of random. So what my my question is about
• 1:48:45
  body image as a throws coach. And what I mean by that is I am
• 1:48:50
  amazed like I I still remember one of the first times I started
• 1:48:54
  learning hammer when I went from high school to coaching to
• 1:48:56
  college coaching. And I remember being at a must
• 1:48:59
  have been nationals. But I saw these hammer throwers
• 1:49:03
  from USC and they look like high jumpers.
• 1:49:06
  And that was the first time my little pea brain, you know, had
• 1:49:10
  this an image of what a thrower is supposed to be regardless of
• 1:49:12
  whatever they threw it. Just here's what I thought a
• 1:49:14
  thrower was supposed to be. And then I see this like, oh,
• 1:49:16
  man, you I thought you were a high jumper.
• 1:49:18
  Oh, by the way, I don't know if that the one I have in my head
• 1:49:21
  won the national title. I know she was all American.
• 1:49:23
  So I mean, you know, so high level throwing.
• 1:49:25
  How do you deal with you see a kid struggling being a runner?
• 1:49:31
  This goes back to your origin story struggle being a runner.
• 1:49:36
  Does it air quotes here? It look like a thrower, but
• 1:49:38
  you're like, Oh, no, no, no, give me me him or her.
• 1:49:41
  Give me, give me give me a couple seasons and I'll have
• 1:49:43
  them throw in the jab under the discus or the shot and they're
• 1:49:46
  just like, coach, you want me throw the the shot or the that's
• 1:49:50
  not me. Look at me.
• 1:49:51
  How do you deal So I can I'm putting in the body image type
• 1:49:55
  of world. How do you deal with with that
• 1:49:57
  as a high school cook? I think at the beginning it was
• 1:50:00
  a lot harder to convince all different shapes and sizes to
• 1:50:04
  come out and give it a chance. But now that I've, you know,
• 1:50:07
  been in it for going on now 10 years, I feel like my girls have
• 1:50:11
  seen all different shapes and sizes.
• 1:50:14
  My boys have seen all different shapes and sizes and success at
• 1:50:16
  all levels. So it's a lot easier to kind of
• 1:50:20
  convince like, hey, come out and try it.
• 1:50:23
  Or oh, if coach says maybe like, I should do it, I should do it.
• 1:50:26
  But I think what it is is just like I explained, like, hey, you
• 1:50:29
  know, look at Kovacs and Krauser, like they're completely
• 1:50:33
  different, right? Like they're completely
• 1:50:35
  different and very successful. Just like I have like that on my
• 1:50:39
  team right now. Like I have one that's like tall
• 1:50:42
  and lean, and then I have one that's short and stocky.
• 1:50:44
  And they're both equally successful, right?
• 1:50:46
  Like their approach just may be different.
• 1:50:48
  One may be a glider, one may be rotational.
• 1:50:50
  And so that's where I kind of just say, hey, well, I actually
• 1:50:54
  see a lot of potential there, whether you think you're a high
• 1:50:56
  jumper or not. But our approach will just be
• 1:50:59
  different in the throes where it's like we'll, we'll base your
• 1:51:02
  technique off your strengths rather than, you know, And so
• 1:51:05
  they usually give me a chance like they're usually pretty open
• 1:51:07
  to it. Yeah, I love that, Dale.
• 1:51:09
  Emily, we're near the end of our time.
• 1:51:12
  I still have a ton of questions, but you tell me, are we hard
• 1:51:15
  fast to stop or do we have a few extra minutes?
• 1:51:17
  OK. All right.
• 1:51:18
  Just want to make sure we want to be respectful of your time.
• 1:51:20
  Appreciate that. Again, I told you this kind of
• 1:51:22
  jump back and forth because I wrote them all out of order.
• 1:51:25
  Recruiting back to recruiting, How do you explain or, or do you
• 1:51:32
  how do you talk to a kid? Again, this is kind of AD one or
• 1:51:34
  bust mentality about the opportunities in D2D3 NAIA JUCO.
• 1:51:39
  How do you approach that with a kid?
• 1:51:42
  You know, a kid that you know, going back to this mythical 30
• 1:51:45
  foot girl shop putter and you're like, oh man, you know what?
• 1:51:49
  I know you want to go to Florida.
• 1:51:51
  I keep using all these Florida examples for obvious reasons.
• 1:51:53
  I know you want to go to Florida with Eric, but man, if you went
• 1:51:58
  to this JUCO, there's a JUCO Coffeyville coach, Wood, great
• 1:52:01
  throws coach. If you went there for two years,
• 1:52:03
  you might, you know, you just maybe you just need a couple
• 1:52:05
  more years of, of training. How do you, or again, do you
• 1:52:09
  talk about the other opportunities, not just the,
• 1:52:12
  the, the opportunities of the schools that we see on Saturday
• 1:52:14
  playing football? How do you talk about these
• 1:52:16
  other opportunities? Sometimes I'll reach out to
• 1:52:20
  these other schools without maybe even telling them and then
• 1:52:24
  just say, hey, like, so and so is actually interested.
• 1:52:26
  I reached out. Would you be interested in like,
• 1:52:29
  you know, looking into it? And I think that kind of
• 1:52:33
  approach intrigues them rather than them just being like, oh,
• 1:52:36
  well, so I can't go there, I need to go here.
• 1:52:38
  And I think once they know that a coach is interested in them,
• 1:52:42
  like, I don't know, kids have different like, I think that
• 1:52:45
  approach is a little different where they're like, oh, they are
• 1:52:48
  like, OK, like, yeah, I'll look into it.
• 1:52:50
  And so then I kind of let them do their research from there.
• 1:52:53
  And a lot of times it's it's done really well for my kids.
• 1:52:56
  Like I just had a kid, he was signed to AD one program and he
• 1:53:02
  actually is going to go to JUCO and he knows that it's because
• 1:53:04
  he's going to go and try to build a little bit better.
• 1:53:06
  So you know the whole bigger fish in a smaller pond type
• 1:53:09
  situation. Yeah, I, you know, I don't know
• 1:53:12
  that we're talking about junior college enough in the high
• 1:53:15
  school world. I think it's a, I hope it's an
• 1:53:18
  obvious conversation have when academics are an issue, but I,
• 1:53:22
  I, I think there's a whole another aspect of the athletic
• 1:53:26
  side like you're just not ready yet.
• 1:53:27
  But boy, give me one or two years and you know, then
• 1:53:31
  transfer a nice, I tell that. Well, and I have like, I feel
• 1:53:35
  like for the boys it's a lot different too, because a lot of
• 1:53:37
  times I've noticed like boys go and come into their prime more
• 1:53:40
  like their junior senior year. And a lot of these boys that
• 1:53:43
  can't keep weight on or they're starting to gain finally their
• 1:53:46
  senior year, it's like, you know, they're going to be
• 1:53:48
  special. It's just they're later in the
• 1:53:51
  game. So it's like just take an
• 1:53:53
  opportunity to develop somewhere and then you're really going
• 1:53:56
  like you're feeling so high. Yeah, and I and I get, you know,
• 1:53:58
  we talk about egos and bad egos with adults.
• 1:54:02
  You know, we're talking about 1718 year old kids here.
• 1:54:05
  So, you know, the ego hit of like, oh man, I can get a, a
• 1:54:08
  book scholarship to I'm going to go to your neighbors to the
• 1:54:12
  north. I mean, I can get a book
• 1:54:13
  scholarship to go to Georgia or I can get everything paid for,
• 1:54:16
  but I got to go to Neosho County Community College.
• 1:54:19
  I don't even know where that is in the middle of Kent.
• 1:54:21
  That was my where I used to coach.
• 1:54:23
  You know, I get the, you know, an 18 year old kid going, dude,
• 1:54:25
  what what are you talking about, coach?
• 1:54:27
  Why are you saying I need to go there?
• 1:54:29
  I can go to Georgia. I was like, yeah, but man, you
• 1:54:30
  can save not only save yourself a ton of money, you can earn a
• 1:54:32
  lot more money once that's over as well.
• 1:54:34
  So I get, you know, it's a tough.
• 1:54:36
  I think people that have these diehard attitudes and opinions
• 1:54:41
  about these different things are forgetting that at the end of
• 1:54:44
  the day, we're talking about humans.
• 1:54:46
  Whether it's a 1718 year old kid human or a 40 year old college,
• 1:54:50
  high school, whatever human, there's, there's ego is always
• 1:54:53
  at play. Again, that's why I say ego is
• 1:54:55
  not bad, bad ego is bad. So it's it's pretty tough out
• 1:54:58
  there. Hey, switching up topics here.
• 1:55:01
  So I told you and you know, for you guys that listen regularly,
• 1:55:05
  maybe you were able to listen to all of them.
• 1:55:06
  I was able to interview 1 high school coach from every state,
• 1:55:10
  including Washington DC about their state meets.
• 1:55:13
  And one of the questions that we talked about where the question
• 1:55:17
  I wanted to ask was what unique events do you do?
• 1:55:19
  But you know, I was asking the person who does them, so they're
• 1:55:22
  not unique to them, right? So I went through and talked
• 1:55:24
  about, you know, you do the 124 and the 81632.
• 1:55:27
  Do you do 300 hurdles, 400 of those kind of things in the
• 1:55:30
  throws. You know, one of the questions
• 1:55:32
  we asked of everybody does shot put and discus.
• 1:55:35
  Yay everybody. Because that's not the same for
• 1:55:37
  triple jump and long jump, by the way, not every state does
• 1:55:39
  those. Everybody does long jumping, not
• 1:55:40
  triple jump, which kind of was crazy, but javelin.
• 1:55:45
  And so we found out that 23 states have javelin and one of
• 1:55:49
  the newest states is Florida. I just saw, I just retweeted
• 1:55:54
  this this past weekend. I saw that the number one high
• 1:55:58
  school kid in the javelin is from I I didn't even check what
• 1:56:02
  school it's not from Niceville, is it?
• 1:56:04
  I, I probably should have done my homework on that.
• 1:56:05
  By the way, you said his name so quick.
• 1:56:07
  I'm like, oh God, it's, it's her idea.
• 1:56:08
  We. Competed against him.
• 1:56:10
  Yeah, I was him hit. That was my my guy's top rival
• 1:56:13
  this whole year. So it's funny, but I'm glad he
• 1:56:15
  did amazing so. I love that Florida within its
• 1:56:18
  first year has the number one kid cause Alabama when they
• 1:56:21
  added, you know, that's my home state.
• 1:56:23
  So I have some pride there. Very soon after they added like
• 1:56:27
  within the year three or four, they had the number one.
• 1:56:30
  And so it makes me like, I just look at that and I go, wow,
• 1:56:34
  Texas, one of the school, one of the states there, California or
• 1:56:37
  even Illinois, there are kids walking those hallways right now
• 1:56:43
  that they're missing out on the opportunity through the javelin
• 1:56:47
  and and earn a scholarship and, and have experience going to
• 1:56:49
  college. So my question to you is kind of
• 1:56:51
  two, two parter one is you had the javelin introduced to you
• 1:56:55
  throughout this past 10 years. So and you weren't a javelin
• 1:56:57
  tour. So how did you Start learning or
• 1:56:59
  maybe even before it even came on the scene, you already, you
• 1:57:02
  know, just foresight, you started doing it.
• 1:57:04
  So how did you pick up started coaching the javelin as a new
• 1:57:07
  event for you in the high school?
• 1:57:09
  And two, I don't know what two is.
• 1:57:13
  Maybe two is like, should other states have it?
• 1:57:16
  That's a dumb question, though. Talk to me about you.
• 1:57:17
  That was a dumb question. The the important question is
• 1:57:20
  how did you pick it up? Because that's a fear of a lot
• 1:57:23
  of coaches of like, Oh my God, if Illinois adds it, I've got to
• 1:57:26
  learn that I know nothing about javelin.
• 1:57:27
  That's going to be unsafe, not good, I'm not going to be good,
• 1:57:29
  blah, blah, blah. You, you went through this.
• 1:57:31
  Experience. I was actually super excited
• 1:57:33
  that they added it because we only had the shot and disk,
• 1:57:36
  right. And we were doing so well in the
• 1:57:39
  shot and disk. I was like, Oh, this is like one
• 1:57:41
  more event. Like we could add some points
• 1:57:43
  like so I was like, I just got to get to like learning all the
• 1:57:47
  insurance and outs of it. And I've been fortunate enough
• 1:57:50
  to learn from some of the best Tom Puskas and Dana pounds Lion.
• 1:57:54
  So I, I mean, I dove right in and to my like, I like wanted to
• 1:57:59
  learn every part of it and then figure out how I could like, not
• 1:58:03
  easily, but like teach these kids as well, right.
• 1:58:06
  So like when we got the heads up that it was going to become like
• 1:58:09
  an official event, I got right to work and learning and
• 1:58:12
  educating myself as much as I possibly can.
• 1:58:15
  And I'm still educating myself. But yeah, I mean, and it's cool
• 1:58:19
  because now it's become a very regular event for us at
• 1:58:23
  Niceville. We're in year 4 of it.
• 1:58:25
  Yeah. I think we're in year four.
• 1:58:27
  And so now it's one of those things where it's like, I mean,
• 1:58:30
  it intrigues a lot of people, you know, if you can throw
• 1:58:34
  football, if you can throw baseball, like, oh, maybe I
• 1:58:36
  should try the javelin. You know, just something that
• 1:58:38
  these kids would have never thought about before.
• 1:58:41
  Yeah, I love, you know, Florida is an interesting high school
• 1:58:45
  state for track and field. You know, no doubts about the
• 1:58:48
  talent. You know, many, many sprinters,
• 1:58:50
  distance runners, a lot of different throwers events have
• 1:58:52
  come out of Florida High School. When you go and visit Florida,
• 1:58:56
  it's interesting. It it it'll shock a lot of
• 1:58:58
  people how many non, I think the old term is all weather tracks,
• 1:59:04
  non rubber track, like how many asphalt cement tracks there are.
• 1:59:07
  There are a lot. And you think for like a, for
• 1:59:10
  such a great state of for track and field, you're like, Oh no,
• 1:59:12
  they're all Mondos and Bynons and you know, etcetera.
• 1:59:16
  And it's like, no man, they're hurry.
• 1:59:19
  Ton of just concrete, asphalt tracks.
• 1:59:22
  It's crazy. And then you look at some of the
• 1:59:25
  progressiveness that Florida High School track and field has
• 1:59:28
  made adding the javelin move into the 400 hurdles.
• 1:59:31
  So, you know, if you think there's not a lot of javelin
• 1:59:33
  states, again, there's 23400 hurdles.
• 1:59:36
  We learned at the top of my head is like 4/4 four states, South
• 1:59:40
  Carolina, Florida Jersey and Iowa, and I'm sure someone's
• 1:59:43
  yelling at me right now because I'm missing the other state.
• 1:59:46
  Go listen to all the podcasts and you'll know which ones have
• 1:59:48
  the foreign hurdles, but very, very few have the foreign
• 1:59:50
  hurdles. Florida added that in this past
• 1:59:52
  year or so, it's quite amazing. Florida feels like in the past
• 1:59:57
  10 years has gone from like we rely on our population base.
• 2:00:00
  That's why we're so good at track and field.
• 2:00:03
  Beyond the coaches as well, obviously to like, Oh no, we're
• 2:00:05
  going to. Like we're going to use this
• 2:00:07
  population base, really educate our coaches, add some things
• 2:00:10
  that are going to help our kids for the next level and you're
• 2:00:12
  going to see what we, you know, you think you're top over there.
• 2:00:15
  California and Texas, we're coming, we're coming.
• 2:00:18
  And it's really been cool to see that rise in Florida.
• 2:00:21
  High School track and field continue.
• 2:00:24
  No real question there, Emily. I know that's terrible.
• 2:00:27
  That's much more of my, like, stand on my soapbox and just say
• 2:00:29
  how great Florida's doing. And I'm proud that they're, you
• 2:00:32
  know, they've added the javelin. And again, I love that.
• 2:00:36
  What did you say his name was? Jackson.
• 2:00:39
  Preston. Preston But what year is he?
• 2:00:41
  Is he a senior or? He just graduated, yes, Yeah.
• 2:00:43
  Where, Where's he going? I.
• 2:00:45
  Think he's going to see you? Oh, yeah, he is.
• 2:00:47
  I did see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:00:48
  That's great. I love it.
• 2:00:49
  OK, All right, last question. I don't know why I'm asking you
• 2:00:52
  this. It just popped up as we were
• 2:00:54
  talking over the past hour. And so the World Athletics has
• 2:01:00
  talked about some things that they're looking at to change for
• 2:01:03
  the sport. I'm not gonna ask the long jump
• 2:01:05
  one for you. Don't worry.
• 2:01:06
  I know I saw you. Like God, what's he gonna ask
• 2:01:08
  me? They got many, many ideas that
• 2:01:10
  they're bantering around and I love it.
• 2:01:12
  I, I don't necessarily agree with any or all of them, but I
• 2:01:16
  love that we're thinking because we've, we've got to change some
• 2:01:18
  things in our sport. I, I hope everybody would agree
• 2:01:20
  with that. We just can't continue down the
• 2:01:22
  path that we're going today to be a viable sport.
• 2:01:25
  Now you got to define viable. It does it really matter that we
• 2:01:28
  get on TV, there's a debate about that.
• 2:01:30
  Does it matter if 10,000 people go to Eugene or 1000?
• 2:01:34
  Again, that's debatable. You know that there's debates
• 2:01:37
  for that. There really is.
• 2:01:39
  But one of the things that they said they're going to look into
• 2:01:42
  is the weight of the women's implements.
• 2:01:44
  And it is kind of, you know, when you talk about equal rights
• 2:01:47
  and fairness and balance, it is odd that a boy goes from, I
• 2:01:52
  don't even know, the middle school, but lower than 4K for
• 2:01:55
  the shot put, right? Yeah, you know, totally bad.
• 2:01:59
  My kid throws in middle school. I should have known that around
• 2:02:02
  the top of my head. I should know.
• 2:02:03
  It's a 4K for the shop put goes to high school, moves to the 12
• 2:02:06
  lbs. Makes sense.
• 2:02:07
  OK, They're bigger. They, you know, they're in high
• 2:02:09
  school now. They graduate from high school
• 2:02:11
  and they now throw 16 lbs college and elite.
• 2:02:15
  A female, a girl in middle school throws the 4K, right?
• 2:02:20
  Am I right about that? My daughter, My daughter's not
• 2:02:22
  middle school it. Depends.
• 2:02:24
  I feel like they've gone, yeah. Something's different.
• 2:02:26
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. In. 4K, yeah.
• 2:02:27
  In plenty of states, they throw the 4K.
• 2:02:29
  Maybe some states do because it's middle school.
• 2:02:30
  Yeah, right. But plenty of states throw the
• 2:02:32
  4K. The real point is here they go
• 2:02:34
  to high school, the the girls throw 4K.
• 2:02:37
  Even though they're bigger, they're in high school, they're
• 2:02:39
  older, they're stronger, they're doing your weight program, they
• 2:02:41
  still throw the same. And then they go to college and
• 2:02:44
  they still throw 4K. And the exact same thing happens
• 2:02:47
  in the discus, the 1K all the way through versus 1.6 to the
• 2:02:50
  2K, it seems like. And certainly we're looking at
• 2:02:54
  when you look at college and post collegiate throws, man, it
• 2:02:58
  ain't like, I mean, people are throwing these things out the
• 2:03:02
  stadium, it feels like. So what are your thoughts?
• 2:03:06
  This is kind of my final question for you.
• 2:03:07
  I'm just curious, what are your thoughts about should implements
• 2:03:11
  go up in college? We, we, we, we won't get into
• 2:03:15
  the like nitty gritty of like, Oh yeah, it should go up with a
• 2:03:18
  certain percent, you know, whatever.
• 2:03:19
  Same percentage we won't get in all that crap.
• 2:03:21
  Smarter people than you or I can figure out what it should or if
• 2:03:23
  it should just I'm just curious what your thoughts are because
• 2:03:25
  you've got plenty of girls go on to college should they have gone
• 2:03:28
  to 5K or and 1.6 Ki Don't know. What are your thoughts I.
• 2:03:32
  Mean, I personally think a girl's development, I mean, they
• 2:03:35
  developed so early and the guys developed so late and so where
• 2:03:39
  they're growing into their bodies, they still have all the
• 2:03:41
  girls to go through into their mid 20s and whatnot.
• 2:03:44
  And girls don't. So I feel like a lot of the
• 2:03:47
  girls are done growing by the time, you know, in their
• 2:03:50
  development, other than maybe like their strength training.
• 2:03:52
  But guys can always get stronger too.
• 2:03:55
  So to me that I mean, I don't, I think it's kind of silly.
• 2:03:58
  I mean, I think what if it's not broke, don't fix it kind of
• 2:04:01
  thing. But no, I think I think it
• 2:04:03
  should stay the same. I don't think it should
• 2:04:05
  increase, but that's just. Yeah, You know that that
• 2:04:09
  statement you just made, that's sometimes that's important.
• 2:04:14
  Sometimes it's not. When you say if it's not broke,
• 2:04:16
  don't, if it's not broke, don't fix it.
• 2:04:19
  I think that is important a lot of times.
• 2:04:20
  And then other times, especially as a manufacturer, I'm like,
• 2:04:22
  yeah, yeah. But that's how we make amazing
• 2:04:24
  innovation, by the way. Sometimes breaking it before
• 2:04:25
  someone else breaks it or puts you out of you gotta break it.
• 2:04:28
  But I do wonder. That's a good point When I think
• 2:04:30
  about whether it's the popularity of, of the events and
• 2:04:34
  time, it's specifically shot in discus here or the records,
• 2:04:38
  whether they are or not being broken and how far.
• 2:04:41
  Because because you do have to think about the presentation.
• 2:04:43
  You know, if, if guys are throwing, you know, 7074 plus
• 2:04:47
  feet and then, you know, in the same Prefontaine Classic or
• 2:04:51
  Olympics, what what's a women's shot putter, whether they're
• 2:04:54
  throwing 6265. And yeah, if you made it way
• 2:04:58
  more and they start throwing 55, even though I know the
• 2:05:01
  competitions aren't going at the same time, but there is a little
• 2:05:03
  bit of like, Oh yeah, see, women are inferior.
• 2:05:06
  And it's like, no, no, no. It's, it's well, that and all of
• 2:05:09
  what they've worked for and all of these records and standards,
• 2:05:12
  now they just stop rather than to see how the sports evolved
• 2:05:17
  and how the women have evolved with that, with that weight and
• 2:05:20
  all of that. I think it's pretty cool to see
• 2:05:22
  how I think all of it. I think I get what you're saying
• 2:05:25
  on that, but I don't know that I agree with that because like
• 2:05:27
  when the javelin changed, right? Like you can't compare those.
• 2:05:31
  They're two different events, much like this.
• 2:05:32
  You heard about the long jump change that they're proposing,
• 2:05:35
  right? I don't know, I've listened to a
• 2:05:38
  lot of just the throw stuff. Yeah, I, I was just about to
• 2:05:40
  say, I was like, no, it's like, no, is there, is there a
• 2:05:42
  thrower's long jump then? No, of course not.
• 2:05:44
  So they're talking about. So Randy, you know the lines, so
• 2:05:48
  you know the long jump, right? You know, there, there's a foul
• 2:05:50
  line, right? So they're talking about because
• 2:05:53
  a lot of fouls occur and that's not really good for
• 2:05:55
  presentation. So what if we had a zone and I'm
• 2:05:57
  just gonna make up the the, the worst thing World Athletics did
• 2:06:00
  is they set all this stuff, but they gave no specifics.
• 2:06:02
  So now we get to just, you know, we guess they're going to do a
• 2:06:06
  zone. So I'm just going to say AA1
• 2:06:08
  meter zone. They did not give any
• 2:06:10
  consultation of what they're thinking, but let's just say A1
• 2:06:12
  meter zone that a, a jumper can take off at any place inside
• 2:06:15
  that one meters and you measure from that point, OK.
• 2:06:20
  And so again, because the World Athletics gave just no specifics
• 2:06:23
  about, they just threw that out there and said, y'all talk
• 2:06:25
  amongst yourself. So there's a lot of talk about,
• 2:06:26
  well, you know, you'd have to start a whole new world record.
• 2:06:29
  That's not the same event, blah, blah, blah.
• 2:06:31
  And that's true. That's exactly right that that
• 2:06:33
  long jump event is different than what Mike Powell, Carl
• 2:06:36
  Lewis and these guys have jumped.
• 2:06:38
  It'd be a totally different event.
• 2:06:39
  And I think that's OK. I really do.
• 2:06:43
  Just like if we went to 5K for the shot put for women.
• 2:06:45
  Y'all do? Yeah.
• 2:06:47
  And we can see progression because we know, oh, Susie
• 2:06:49
  threw, you know, 60 feet in the 4K.
• 2:06:52
  And then when she got to college, well, that'd be a heck
• 2:06:54
  of a high school throw, huh? 50 feet, 50 feet, which is
• 2:06:56
  amazing in the 4K. And now in college, because she
• 2:06:59
  throws the 5K, she also, she got up to 50 by her junior year or
• 2:07:03
  whatever. Like it's amazing because think
• 2:07:04
  about if we don't allow ourselves to do those kind of
• 2:07:08
  progressions, I don't know that we'd, and this is also crazy
• 2:07:11
  stuff. I don't know that we ever would
• 2:07:12
  have allowed women to steeplechase because like, hey,
• 2:07:14
  no, they do the 3K. How are we going to know their
• 2:07:16
  progression if we now add hurdles in it?
• 2:07:19
  Women hammer finally got to do hammer.
• 2:07:20
  What 2000 and 2004 things like that is like, I think it's OK to
• 2:07:24
  have a new event because it is a new event.
• 2:07:26
  There's it's a it's a little astrik new event because it's
• 2:07:29
  still a shot put, But I think that's that's OK, But I get
• 2:07:31
  where you're coming from. I'm not not bashed.
• 2:07:33
  I just and there was no reason. You didn't even say that
• 2:07:36
  earlier. I just literally as I was right
• 2:07:37
  now questioned. I was like, Oh, I wonder what
• 2:07:39
  she thinks about this. So I appreciate your your
• 2:07:41
  opinions there, Emily. The reason I asked all those
• 2:07:44
  questions is because I find your experience and your background
• 2:07:48
  fascinating. You know, the reason, one of the
• 2:07:51
  many, many reasons of this podcast and the feedback I get
• 2:07:55
  on the value of it is showing how different routes are to
• 2:07:59
  where you are today. You know, if I were to say, hey,
• 2:08:02
  I'm going to have a Florida High School throws coach on to the
• 2:08:07
  podcast who's had many, many kids sign for college
• 2:08:12
  scholarships, what do you guess her background would be?
• 2:08:15
  You know, many, many people have said, oh, she probably threw in
• 2:08:17
  college all four years. And she maybe not necessarily
• 2:08:19
  was an all American. I don't even know what level.
• 2:08:21
  But, you know, she certainly had some pretty good success about
• 2:08:24
  it. Probably majored in education or
• 2:08:27
  exercise fit, You know, like that's the, you know, air
• 2:08:30
  quotes. Typical.
• 2:08:31
  I'd get to find anybody who has the typical route, though.
• 2:08:33
  And then it's like, Oh no, no, here's this kid who fell in love
• 2:08:37
  with it because she thought she was a runner.
• 2:08:39
  And then they needed someone to step in for the discus at
• 2:08:42
  conference in 8th grade. And it was like, oh, wait a
• 2:08:44
  minute, where has this been my whole life?
• 2:08:46
  And it set you off on this journey?
• 2:08:49
  I'm going to call it AI. Don't use the word tumultuous,
• 2:08:52
  but certainly not maybe what you would have mapped out college
• 2:08:55
  career for throwing you major in hospitality management.
• 2:08:59
  I love that. I love that because, you know,
• 2:09:01
  to be in hospitality management, that is a servant leadership
• 2:09:04
  position 100%, which is exactly what coaching is.
• 2:09:07
  I mean, that's those those majors are not far that major in
• 2:09:11
  that career coaching track and being a hospitality manager,
• 2:09:15
  that is not as far off as maybe someone would initially seems
• 2:09:18
  like, Oh, no, that's a very clear path actually because of
• 2:09:20
  the the servant leadership part of it.
• 2:09:22
  So you go on and do that and then you just brazenly go, you
• 2:09:26
  know what, I think I should coach this.
• 2:09:28
  I'm going to call up this high school that that dirty alone
• 2:09:32
  would have been amazing. Like, you know, Oh yeah, we've
• 2:09:33
  got five to 10 kids and we do. Well, you know, we had one kid
• 2:09:36
  signed a couple of years ago to a college scholarship.
• 2:09:38
  Butter. But it was awesome.
• 2:09:39
  And no, instead you've now taken that and built this really
• 2:09:44
  positive culture throws program, which I have to believe has
• 2:09:48
  positively affected the other parts of the track program.
• 2:09:52
  I think the sprinters and hurtlers have to be a little bit
• 2:09:53
  better there. The the distance runners have to
• 2:09:56
  be like, man, hey, guys, you see what they're doing?
• 2:09:58
  We better step up over here on the distant side, guys and gals
• 2:10:01
  like they're, they're, they're doing pretty good.
• 2:10:02
  Even the coach, you know, 50 throwers.
• 2:10:04
  Well, I can't let that happen. I got to have 100 distance
• 2:10:06
  runners. I mean, it just it all feeds and
• 2:10:08
  makes the program better. And so I just love, love, love
• 2:10:11
  that journey that you've had up to this point.
• 2:10:14
  I'm super excited. It's so grateful that you do
• 2:10:17
  post on social because I get to watch from the sidelines.
• 2:10:20
  What next year brings five years brings 10 years bring.
• 2:10:23
  I'm going to have you back on the podcast in like 10 years and
• 2:10:26
  be like, all right, so now what do you know?
• 2:10:28
  And you're going to be like, you know, Mike, I thought I was
• 2:10:30
  doing pretty good after year 10. I knew nothing because here's
• 2:10:32
  what I've learned in the next 10 you because you build just like
• 2:10:35
  you build on your throwers about, you know, building their
• 2:10:37
  weight room. They can, you know, they work
• 2:10:39
  out everyday. Consistency is so important.
• 2:10:41
  They build, build, build and and the end product comes.
• 2:10:43
  That's what you're doing as a coach.
• 2:10:45
  You're going to learn more this next year, more in 26, more in
• 2:10:48
  27. That's just going to make you
• 2:10:49
  continually be a better coach and better person, which is
• 2:10:52
  going to pour into those young people that you know are really
• 2:10:55
  blessed to have you as a coach. So I'm just so, so grateful for
• 2:10:58
  you, man. I'm just so fascinated by your
• 2:11:00
  background, your experience. I just, I'm enamored by it.
• 2:11:04
  I really am so grateful for you sharing your journey.
• 2:11:07
  I appreciate you having me. Thank you.
• 2:11:09
  Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.
• 2:11:11
  I'm so glad that we finally got to.
• 2:11:13
  Like I said, you've been on the list every.
• 2:11:14
  Everybody hits me up about being on the podcast.
• 2:11:16
  That's egotistical. A lot of people hit me up, not
• 2:11:18
  everybody. And I always tell people you're
• 2:11:20
  on the list and people don't. Sometimes you forget.
• 2:11:23
  I only do one a week of these. So that means out of all the
• 2:11:26
  coaches, and remember, we don't just focus on college or high
• 2:11:28
  school or throws every track and field coach.
• 2:11:32
  So I don't know, thousands and thousands of them and I get to
• 2:11:36
  do 52 a year. That's hard.
• 2:11:40
  That's hard to get on here. So you've been on the list and
• 2:11:42
  it's just taking some time to get you up there and I'm just so
• 2:11:44
  grateful we got that time. Thank you.
• 2:11:47
  Absolutely, Emily, thank you so much again.
• 2:11:49
  You know, one of the most valuable things you can give me
• 2:11:51
  is your time, especially as a air quotes here.
• 2:11:53
  Just stay at home, Mom. Yeah.
• 2:11:55
  You knew I was going to work that back in there.
• 2:11:57
  I know how busy you are. I am worried to a mom as well
• 2:12:00
  and she is amazing with two kids.
• 2:12:02
  I don't know how you do it with three by the way.
• 2:12:04
  That's just crazy talk. But so grateful for your time.
• 2:12:07
  Grateful for your really your openness, transparency and
• 2:12:09
  authenticity of sharing your journey.
• 2:12:11
  You've helped a lot of people today and I'm just so glad that
• 2:12:13
  we we had this opportunity to to learn.
• 2:12:16
  Awesome. Well, thank you so much.
• 2:12:17
  I appreciate it. Absolutely thank you guys for
• 2:12:19
  being here again man. I hope you guys, you know,
• 2:12:22
  there's every episode that I've done, you know, 200 and 62170
• 2:12:26
  something now at this point, everyone has been amazing again
• 2:12:29
  because of that unique journey. There's a few that I think we
• 2:12:33
  just get to really pour into the value side of it, like we get to
• 2:12:36
  hear their opinions and their thoughts from their experiences.
• 2:12:39
  And I think this one after, you know, after sitting here for you
• 2:12:42
  know, getting on 2 hours now, I think I think there's just a ton
• 2:12:45
  of value in here. So there's probably other
• 2:12:49
  coaches, maybe high school specific, but I think college
• 2:12:51
  coaches as well, you know, some of her experiences and opinions
• 2:12:55
  and thoughts on, you know, college recruiting and how do
• 2:12:58
  you talk to your kids about expectations and things like
• 2:13:00
  that. I think it's really valuable.
• 2:13:01
  So maybe it would be some value to share to your network out
• 2:13:04
  there as well. Otherwise, we'll see you next
• 2:13:06
  week. We'll do it all over again.
• 2:13:07
  Have another awesome person here on the Guild Connection podcast.
• 2:13:10
  Thanks for being here, everybody.
• 2:13:11
  Have an awesome. If it goes to appreciate the
• 2:13:14
  coach the ones appoint people most every season needs a voice
• 2:13:18
  of reasons speaking the growth you got to prep for you carry
• 2:13:21
  the load. It's caught to the soul for
• 2:13:23
  those of us staying to go proper handoff to stay in the zone
• 2:13:26
  which you packing for the road. There's more than one way to go
• 2:13:29
  take notes that's damn you're told it ain't practice.
• 2:13:32
  If your purpose ain't clear, it can't happen to you Listen what
• 2:13:35
  both is can't mentor without a mentor years of experience.
• 2:13:39
  You can reinvent those years. Every plan's got a standard to
• 2:13:42
  live up to enterprise sacrifice. Can you give up you.
• 2:13:45
  It's a choice and a fight, not a win or lose.
• 2:13:47
  It's not a ploy but so y'all can make more moves.
• 2:13:50
  It's not about how to, it's all about why you don't know till
• 2:13:53
  you know who you are. Beside 6,000,000.
• 2:13:56
  Waste of time. Choose none so we all cross the
• 2:13:58
  finish line. The work ain't done so we learn
• 2:14:00
  from the experts. We all got to put in the legwork
• 2:14:03
  Kill athletics network. It's all about connections put
• 2:14:06
  together for the profession. To every track coach could be
• 2:14:09
  blessing.