Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #259: Mike Turgeon-Minnesota State University

Transcript

#259: Mike Turgeon-Minnesota State University · 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. Here we go.
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  Back on the orthodox Trek Review of Connections podcast.
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  So grateful that you are joining us once again.
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  I hope you are enjoying Season 5, which still, even though
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  we're in May now, that kind of still boggles me that season
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  five. I don't know how long it might
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  last. I didn't know that it would
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  necessarily last this long, but we're having an absolute blast
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  bringing you coaches from around the country from all levels.
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  And I'm super excited about today's.
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  You've already seen the titles or you already know who it is.
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  So let's jump into it. Help me welcome the head coach
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  of Minnesota State the The Mavericks.
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  I might, I might have to get corrected on that.
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  The wise, the wonderful Mr. Mike Turgeon.
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  Mike, how are you Sir? Good.
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  Thanks for having me, Mike. Did did I nail it The Mavericks?
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  Yep, Mavericks, that's correct. Good I I really like.
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  I'm a a sub nerd on schools and their mascots.
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  Like, I really enjoy knowing all of them.
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  So I I kinda always kinda pay attention.
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  I thought, thought the maverick. You throw me off with the bull
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  though. It's a bull, right?
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  Yeah, it's technically, it's called our Stomper is the actual
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  mascot logo, but Yep. So, so how does Maverick meet
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  Stomper? What?
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  What is? How's that connected?
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  Couldn't really tell you. OK, good.
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  At least I'm not missing like some obvious like oh dude, all
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  stompers are called Maverick or something.
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  I have no idea I. Had a coach tell me one time
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  just work at a school with the cool, cool logo.
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  Kids will remember that. Nailed it, by the way.
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  Yes, very much so. That is a cool stomper.
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  I love it. I love it.
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  Well, Mike, let's. I'm super excited.
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  Thanks again for being here. You're our second Minnesota
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  State coach, right? So we had your assistant coach,
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  Chris Parno on. He's he's a, he's an OGI.
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  Think he was like episode 30 or 40.
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  He he he, he jumped on the bandwagon quick back in the day
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  when, you know, we were just a fledgling podcast back then.
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  So super excited for him and the success he's had with you guys
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  under your leadership and excited to learn about your
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  leadership and and what's going on there at The Mavericks.
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  So let's hop into it, Mike. Let's get in our way back
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  machine here. You know, somewhere track had to
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  start for you somehow, whether it was in the coaching realm or
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  whether it was as an athlete. Where does track begin for you?
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  Track really comes in 6th grade. I was very, very unathletic.
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  Big kid. You know, I was taller than my
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  kindergarten teacher when I started kindergarten.
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  And no. Are are you serious?
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  Yep, I'm serious. Were you seriously taller?
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  Was she serious? She was slurred Or or both.
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  There 'cause holy cow, OK? Wow.
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  So I mean, I was, you know, size 15 shoes in fifth grade.
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  So kind of bozo the clown right there Mike.
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  But two. Yeah, so I had my physical
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  education teacher Mike Peterson was also the head track and
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  field coach at Perm High School where I grew up, grew up in
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  Minnesota. And he had told me, hey, you
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  should come out and throw a shot put someday.
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  And I remember, so I went out in 6th grade and the first day I
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  was tried, shot, put, really wasn't kind of my cup of tea.
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  And I picked up a discus and we were in the elementary gym and I
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  tried throwing a discus and never even hit the net that was
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  like 30 feet away and kind of fell in love with throwing that,
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  which kind of led me into my career here, so.
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  Hey let me. So I'm by the way Mike, I am
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  famous for just interrupting but I'm curious so cuz so I've got a
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  he's in 7th grade now so he started track last year.
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  Now he's not super tall. He's not short by any means but
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  he's not super tall and thank God.
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  Well I was gonna say thank God he's not wearing size fifteens
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  yet but you know I feel like I'm buying new shoes every month.
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  So I'm I'm yeah. How that's gonna go.
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  But he went out for track and I'm trying very hard not to
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  push, you know, being the former track coach and track company
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  and all this stuff. I'm like, yeah, you do whatever
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  you want. He's in band and scholastic bowl
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  and all this kind of stuff. And so he went out and, you
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  know, God bless the middle school coaches, you know, I have
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  a lot of empathy. There's a lot of kids out there.
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  We have a pretty good track culture in our community, so
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  there's a lot of kids. I think he's not just coaching
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  the throwers, he's also coaching, you know, maybe the
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  sprinters and stuff too. So they don't get a lot of
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  coaching, right. So they're kind of just throwing
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  a lot right now. They do have a really good kid.
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  He's an eighth grader now. He was like middle school state
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  champ or something like that. But he's so I'm trying to
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  balance this like, you know, I know enough for, you know, basic
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  shot putting like, well, you know, don't fall back when you
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  throw it and all those kind of stuff.
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  But you. But he hasn't grasped into the
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  love of like you mentioned. This is where I'm curious for
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  you. You mentioned I didn't throw
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  very well, but I fell in love. What?
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  What was it, 'cause you weren't very good.
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  It's, you know, you know, typically we hear like, oh, I
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  threw it really far and I was hooked.
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  You're like, hey, I wasn't actually that good, but I was
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  hooked. Yeah, I mean, and I tell kids
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  all the time in middle school, I got crushed by everybody.
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  I mean, just because I I really, in reality, had to learn how to
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  walk and chew gum at the same time.
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  I was so uncoordinated being a six, four, 275 LB seventh
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  grader, you know, And so it was just something about, you know,
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  watching a discus fly, you know, but early on it really wasn't
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  flying, you know, dropping right in front of me.
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  But I, you know, I lucked out with some great middle school
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  coaches that really kind of encouraged me to just practice.
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  And I always think throwing is one of those things that it's
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  just blue collar work. The more you throw, the better
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  you get. And you just throw a bunch and
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  you get you can get up pretty good in a short amount of time.
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  And you know that kind of so that was kind of kind of my
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  sport. And then I really, really liked
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  football at the time and then kind of my as I got a little
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  better in track. And then football had a spinal
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  cord injury when I was a junior in high school.
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  And then my neurologist and neurosurgeon told me that I
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  could pick between three different sports and I could
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  either go out for swimming and play golf or since you're a big
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  guy, maybe take throwing really seriously.
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  And, you know, I couldn't hit a golf ball and save my life.
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  There's no way I was getting this big body into a Speedo in
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  front of people. And so I decided really, you
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  know, kind of at that point, I'm going to get as strong as I can
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  and take the throwing, you know, as much as I can do.
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  And so I kind of went all in with that and.
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  So you were doing up to that point, you were doing throw.
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  You were doing throwing. Yeah.
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  Then you got hurt. And then it became, OK, I'm
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  going to become a thrower. Yeah, yeah.
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  And you know, I had, even when I was a junior, I had no
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  aspirations of going to college. I mean mine, I was kind of, you
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  know, more on the, let's hopefully let's graduate high
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  school. And, you know, I was working for
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  a telephone company in town and they were going to pay me to go
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  to college or at a tech school to become a telephone cable
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  repair person. And that was kind of, I had a
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  apprenticeship my senior year with them that I was going to do
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  that. I was going to go to school in
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  the morning and then work for them in the afternoon.
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  And then kind of went through the summer going into my senior
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  year and told my father I I really don't want to give up
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  throwing discus. And you know that was kind of
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  the first time I think him and I didn't really see eye to eye and
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  you know now looking back as the best decision I ever made, you
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  know the and then so we, so then I ended up going to college
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  starting out at UW Stout. Do we they there was only two
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  program colleges in the country that had kind of this
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  telecommunication system. This was back, you know, in the
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  early early 2000s and what I wanted to do was become a
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  computer programmer to program telephone systems.
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  It was very unique that would had kind of that unique major on
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  part of it and that's kind of what brought me there.
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  And Dewey Nats, who's now the athletic director there was my
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  long time was my throws coach for a couple of years there.
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  And kind of once I went to college and realized, you know,
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  I'm, you know, practicing, you know, September through May
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  really fell even that more in love with throwing and realized
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  kind of after my second year, you know, I think I want to do
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  this as a job. You know, I was kind of.
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  So so hold there because I am curious I love the uniquenesses
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  of that's that's why I love people so much because there are
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  so much uniquenesses. How did you so you had this
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  apprenticeship set up go your senior year in in telephone and
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  then you pick your school based off of this very.
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  I mean, you know computer programmer, that's that's
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  specific Computer programmer for telephone industry, that's
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  really specific. What What was your Why'd you
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  like phones so much? Did mom or dad work in the
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  industry? I had a a networking class in
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  high school and really kind of liked the computer stuff part of
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  it. You know, my my mom was a
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  guidance counselor at our school and kind of always talked about,
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  you know, going after. She always really believed and
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  still believes heavily in education and and expanding but
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  you know, doing something you like and kind of different.
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  Basically tests I took and kind of like that.
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  Kind of rough, you know, a realm.
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  Like the aptitude test and those kind of things.
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  Yeah, different. Things and.
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  I wish I could remember we took something.
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  I went to high school in Alabama.
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  We took some tests. I think sophomore year that was
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  supposed to tell us what you know job you know career path.
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  We would say I wish I could I would be able to I wish I would
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  have kept that I wish. I don't know if it came out true
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  or not. I have no clue what it was
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  that'd be. That'd be interesting and and
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  when you junior year when the the injury happens and you
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  decide I'm going to become a thrower.
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  How did that change the coaching side of it for you?
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  Did coaches, I don't want to say they took it more seriously
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  because I, you know, that's saying that they didn't take it
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  seriously with you before, but did Did they also double down
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  with you and and what did that look like?
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  Yeah, I guess. Really for me it was.
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  I took more of the strength conditioning more seriously.
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  I was told basically I didn't get cleared to actually do any
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  physical activity until, you know, my injury happened in
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  middle early September. And I think I I wasn't clear to
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  actually start throwing discus until it was right before the
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  track season, like the end of March.
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  And I was just told, OK, you need to go get as strong as
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  physically possible. You can and so start lifting
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  weights 5 days a week for 2 1/2 hours and you know you're young,
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  16 year old, and you get strong pretty quickly.
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  When you we just break down at our age if we try to.
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  Yeah, yeah, that wouldn't work from.
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  Now. Yeah, no, I mean, I remember,
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  you know Mike Peterson and then I had another she was a thrower,
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  Chris Keel was a Olympian for the for the US team.
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  But her college roommate was A and teammate at Concordia, was
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  a, was a teacher in our area. And so Aaron Mosier helped me
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  quite a bit too on just learning a little bit more of the
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  technique. And her her husband was a
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  teacher in Perm. So that's kind of How I Met her
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  and learned a little bit more that way.
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  But they just kind of encouraged me to keep throwing and keep
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  going with things. And you know, as my wife, wife
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  would attest, I'm very stubborn. So it was, you know, I wasn't
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  going to let this get in my way at all.
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  I love it. I love it.
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  All right. So we go to UW Stout, partially
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  because I want to keep throwing the discus.
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  Dad maybe didn't understand your pathway versus what he thought
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  your pathway might be. I love that.
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  That's pretty common. And then you pick you up, Stout,
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  because of the telecommunications major as
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  well. And then you mentioned, I think
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  you said sophomore year, it kind of switched like, oh, wait a
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  minute, like I I kind of want to be a coach.
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  What, what, what happened? What?
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  What? Why the switch?
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  You know I spent my time more in my coach's office reviewing
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  video than I did wanting to learn about routers and the and
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  the different the different processes on that.
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  And just kind of I always then I find my spare time too talking
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  you know like with our women's track and field coach or our
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  head track coach in his office or our athletic director and
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  learning more about athletics had a there was a sports
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  psychology professor that her daughter was a discus thrower
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  180 a 180 foot discus thrower Tennessee and talking with her
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  about kind of their different travel schedule and training and
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  just really just really love throwing.
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  And so then when I kind of had a discussion kind of with my with
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  my parents and talked a little bit more on it.
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  You know I really think I want to be a college track and field
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  coach and the issue stout at that time had 18 majors and the
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  closest they had to education was they had elementary Ed that
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  so I so I looked at transferring for some schools that were had
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  physical education I thought would help me you know get into
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  the coaching and be able to teach that.
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  And so I lacrosse. We compete against lacrosse
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  quite a bit. The funny story I had shared
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  this with UW Eau, Claire's throws coach.
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  But Paul Connell who's been a long time successful throws
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  coach there and a lot of respect to learn quite a bit from over
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  the years and he always had his throwers Back in the early 2000s
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  they were head to toe in spandex and I go back to my swimming
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  thing. I was like that this big body's
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  not getting in spandex in front of people.
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  So I I had crossed them off right away.
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  And then the The funny thing about that Mike he when I was
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  started coaching, I had told him the story about that you could
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  go, you could have worn whatever you wanted if you would have
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  contacted me. But so I went on to UW lacrosse.
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  And you know what was so great though?
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  Chris Hall and Dewey Nats are track and field coaches at
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  Stout. I love Stout.
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  If they had physical education, I would have graduated from
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  there. Love the school, love my team
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  mates. And then, but you know when I
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  sat down with them and talked with them what I wanted to get
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  into and both of them, you know, straight up told me, you know,
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  yeah, we don't have that. You need to look at it a
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  different place. And Coach Hall graduated from
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  lacrosse and so he reached out to Mark Guthrie and wanted to
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  know if I had some interest. They had some interest and then
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  ended up going there and learned.
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  Learned from Coach Guthrie. Just so much stuff over the
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  years on just kind of how to be a head coach and how to be a
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  college coach. And then my event coach Dennis
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  Klein is also a strength conditioning coach there and
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  learned you know so much about technique and training people
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  and so it was a great fit for me there and we had a lot of lot of
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  success there. I I I have to imagine, is Dad on
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  board now or was Dad? Did he double down?
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  He was on board a lot. I I think he just, he was on
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  board back when I was in high school.
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  I think it just took him as a big shock.
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  Sure. I, as you know, 'cause it's the.
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  Wait, I get it as a dad now, you know, I think about my kid, you
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  know, 7th grade, he's a senior and he's, you know, he's doing
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  OK in track. And then he says, but he's doing
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  awesome over here And he says yeah, but I'm going to go do
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  track and it's like, yeah, trust me, no one loves track more than
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  me, son. But you are really like you got
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  a path over here. This is going to be hard.
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  I I get the dad side of it 100%, Absolutely.
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  And the the telephone companies are real.
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  It's one of the largest communication companies in
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  Minnesota. It's based out of my hometown
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  and perm and oh gosh, yeah, you know we we've talked about too
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  like if I we just last summer we were up at our lake and him and
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  I were talking about have been interesting.
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  The position I would have there if I spent you know the last
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  five years working in that company, where would I, where
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  would I have you know grown in that in that company too.
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  Yeah. You you know, we we do that a
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  lot. I always like to point this out
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  because I knew that's where you're going to go.
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  You're like, yeah we sat back and it's like what could have
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  been and and when we do that, when when we do that in these
• 16:16
  forks in the road, a lot of times we only think about the
• 16:20
  good sides like oh man, you know could have been there and I
• 16:22
  could have been the the VP of something something and you know
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  making a lot more money than I do as a track coach.
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  And we think about those kind of things we we OFT forget that the
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  other side could also be very bad.
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  You could have gone there and been like I am miserable.
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  I I thought this is what I wanted to do.
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  And you always, you know you'd be going through this career
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  with always with this eye over like what's going on the discus
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  field what's going on what could what could have been over there
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  and you could have been a miserable failed.
• 16:47
  A lot of you know we forget about that You're on the right
• 16:49
  path. The path you are on is the right
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  path that you are on. So I'm glad you chose this path.
• 16:55
  Oh, I completely agree. I used to, you know, personally,
• 16:59
  I enjoyed the high school graduation season, 'cause my mom
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  would, you know, as a high school guidance counselor, she
• 17:05
  would go to so many, so many of them.
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  And so I'd end up going along with her.
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  And I was a very, very quiet kid.
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  And I remember she used to pay me a dollar if I would sit next
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  to people and talk to them because so I can make some
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  little money on the side, you know?
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  And so, So I completely understand if if I didn't go to
• 17:24
  college and learn the keys of being able to talk to people and
• 17:28
  create those relationships, that more than likely I just would
• 17:32
  have been, I'd probably be a bachelor working in my hometown.
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  And, you know, so my life has changed quite a bit, just 'cause
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  I threw a, you know, a darn discus platter and didn't want
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  to give it. I didn't want to give that up.
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  That's awesome. I love it.
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  I love it. All right, So midway through
• 17:50
  college, you realize, hey, I think I want to go down this
• 17:53
  coaching route. I kind of like the coaches I'm
• 17:55
  with. I'm digging how, you know,
• 17:56
  seeing improvement and things like that and putting a few
• 17:58
  words in your mouth here just a little bit.
• 18:00
  But you know, OK, there's. I can't believe there's only 18
• 18:03
  majors at Stout. I assume that's grown since
• 18:06
  then. So you go you think you need to
• 18:08
  be in something like physical physical education or something
• 18:10
  like that. So you transfer to lacrosse.
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  I love that Mark Guthrie was the head coach there by the way.
• 18:16
  You know what a legend. What what an amazing guy and
• 18:18
  coach he he is just awesome. Love him and what he's done in
• 18:23
  his career. So you really got to learn is
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  now, you know, Fast forward. You're a head coach now.
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  You really got to learn what a head coach looks like, acts
• 18:30
  like, talks like, etcetera. So I love that you had that, as
• 18:33
  I assume that'll be a mentor that we'll talk about here.
• 18:36
  OK, So you're at UW lacrosse. You, you transfer majors into
• 18:40
  elementary physical education. How does that play out for the
• 18:44
  rest of your college career as far as athletics and academics?
• 18:47
  Did you graduate in four years? Yes, I started out in physical
• 18:50
  education there physical and health education.
• 18:53
  And you know I the first time I met with our academic advisor.
• 18:57
  You know, he is looking at my transcript and he goes, I've
• 18:59
  never had a P/E major with this amount of chemistry, physics,
• 19:03
  you know, because I had two years of basically on the
• 19:05
  computer science, you know that realm.
• 19:09
  And then so I had. So it took me ended up taking me
• 19:13
  four years to get my teach with student teaching.
• 19:16
  And so I finished up my undergrad there on year six.
• 19:20
  I had three-year. I red shirted my first year at
• 19:23
  Stouts and competed my freshman year there.
• 19:25
  And so I was lucky enough that, you know I had three years on
• 19:28
  the team there and just we had such a coach.
• 19:31
  Guthrie had put such a successful group of guys
• 19:35
  together, you know, and we had lucky enough that in my 3 years
• 19:40
  there, we won six national team titles and just.
• 19:44
  Hold on, hold on. You were there for three years
• 19:48
  and you guys won every indoor and outdoor title during those
• 19:53
  three years. Yep.
• 19:54
  And the year before, that group won an indoor national title 2
• 19:57
  and outdoor So. We're going to learn you're very
• 20:00
  successful here at Minnesota State.
• 20:03
  You'll never be a success. I mean, that is, I shouldn't say
• 20:05
  you never, but Oh my goodness. Yeah, they were.
• 20:08
  Let's think about that. It's hard to win one, It's
• 20:12
  unbelievable to win two, and it's impossible to win three.
• 20:15
  They won seven. You're saying they won the year
• 20:17
  before 7 in a row? And they won eight, 'cause they
• 20:21
  won indoor and outdoor the year before with that senior class I
• 20:24
  graduated with. And, you know, I mean that.
• 20:28
  You know that my, you look at my, we're talking Division
• 20:31
  Three. You know, my senior, my senior
• 20:33
  group that I graduated with, we had you know, Andrew Rock who
• 20:39
  who went on and was you know, you know he was a silver
• 20:43
  medalist at the World Championships in 2005.
• 20:48
  You know and you know, so he ran 44 something in the 400.
• 20:51
  We Derek Toshner ran 50 high 50s in the 400 hurdles.
• 20:55
  Hans Schmidt was an 18, four pole vaulter, a Jim Nelson a 59
• 21:01
  foot shot putter. You know I won some national
• 21:04
  titles in the discus and then Kevin Becker and Phil Whites it
• 21:08
  were both 200 foot hammer throwers.
• 21:12
  Kevin went on to be a 70 foot weight thrower at the time was
• 21:14
  the national record holder. So I'm quite a group of kids all
• 21:20
  the same age. How do you, how do you know
• 21:23
  looking back now, how did Mark and the coaches, how did you as
• 21:27
  athlete? I mean you're 18 to 22 year
• 21:29
  olds, you win one especially, you know they'd won the year
• 21:33
  before. But you come in, it's your first
• 21:35
  one that when you win that indoor, it's kind of, I mean
• 21:36
  it's exciting like Oh my God, I never would have thought, you
• 21:38
  know, you can't think of a as a 16 year old kid in Prim.
• 21:42
  Is that where you grew up? Per per perm?
• 21:45
  Grew up in perm? You never would have thought
• 21:47
  this would have happened, you know?
• 21:48
  And now you win. It's amazing.
• 21:49
  You go to outdoor, you win. Holy cow, The next year you win.
• 21:52
  How? How in the world do you keep a
• 21:55
  group of 18 and 22 year olds hungry to work hard to win the
• 21:59
  next one when it seems I I just just put myself in in the if I'm
• 22:04
  a 20 year old and I've won three to four titles you know as a
• 22:07
  team titles. I just think it's a given like
• 22:09
  we're going to win. Like you know I I ain't got to
• 22:11
  put in that extra practice things like that.
• 22:13
  How did they You know you're looking back now you got
• 22:17
  experience How did you guys do that?
• 22:20
  That seems that seems to be the hardest part, not the
• 22:22
  athleticism keeping you guys locked in that you will do the
• 22:25
  things that need to be done to win the next one.
• 22:29
  Yeah, I think a lot of it. It was just a lot of the key
• 22:32
  group of older kids that were very successful.
• 22:35
  It was we just always talked about we weren't winning by
• 22:38
  enough. Like you know our goal was in
• 22:41
  Division Three. You started out on the men's
• 22:44
  side. Our junior year we started out
• 22:45
  with pole vault, weight throw and long jump.
• 22:50
  We wanted to win it. Our goal was to win a national
• 22:52
  championship after 10:00 first session and we did that.
• 22:57
  You know we had three all Americans in the weight that
• 22:59
  year three all Americans in pole vault and national champ and I
• 23:03
  think another all American in the long jump.
• 23:05
  And you know you know he scored 40 points at national meet.
• 23:09
  We wanted 40 points before 11:30 you know and that and that was
• 23:14
  kind of always our goal on what what can we do and then the
• 23:17
  depth, you know that conference can we go one through 8 you know
• 23:22
  and just trying to look at that. But I mean it was, it was
• 23:26
  interesting, you know how kind of my senior group transitioned
• 23:30
  through college on all of us were very perfectionist type A
• 23:35
  people to a large extent and just kind of we were that way
• 23:41
  and it was straight laced, you know and you know once you just
• 23:45
  see all the younger kids kind of fell in line.
• 23:48
  So, so I'm hearing two things. One is leadership.
• 23:51
  You talked about as the guys got older, they stepped into
• 23:54
  leadership roles of like, hey, you you want to do this, you got
• 23:57
  to do what we did. XY and ZI don't care how many
• 23:59
  titles we've won. And then I I heard you say the
• 24:02
  way I'm going to put it is not changing the goal posts, but
• 24:06
  reconfiguring the goal posts. So now instead of just we want
• 24:09
  to at the end of the four by four, we want to have more
• 24:11
  points than other people challenging yourself to win it
• 24:14
  on day one or can we get three people to score in the weight
• 24:19
  throw instead of two? You kind of, like I said,
• 24:22
  reconfigure that goal post. Make different goals is what I'm
• 24:24
  hearing. Yeah, yeah, wow.
• 24:26
  It's just, you know, and we're lucky enough to to have the
• 24:29
  Triple Crown and 2002 and 2004 with their cross country winning
• 24:34
  national championships. And you know, it was the real
• 24:38
  key to how can we be successful across all four event groups?
• 24:41
  How can we have national champions in all four event
• 24:43
  groups? And can we score points in every
• 24:45
  event? You know and.
• 24:47
  That's amazing. Did you?
• 24:49
  So you're now when you transfer to Lacrosse, you're committing
• 24:53
  yourself professionally, at least at that age.
• 24:55
  You know you're 20 ish 20 at that point, roughly.
• 24:59
  Yep. It's because I'm always amazed
• 25:00
  that we make kids pick a major and therefore their career path
• 25:03
  at 18. So even at 20, it's like, you
• 25:05
  know, you don't know what you want to really do.
• 25:08
  You kind of meted that out as an 18 to 20 or you kind of prove,
• 25:10
  prove that out there a little bit.
• 25:11
  So at 20 though, you you know you're you're committing enough
• 25:14
  to to be a future coach, a future college track coach, that
• 25:17
  you transfer and change majors. Those are, those are big things.
• 25:21
  Did you looking back again now, do you Did you see a difference
• 25:26
  in how you interacted with coaches and interacted with your
• 25:29
  teammates at that point? Because before, almost like your
• 25:32
  throwing career, you were you were throwing as a middle
• 25:34
  schooler and then that junior year you became a thrower.
• 25:38
  It feels like you were on the track team, you were, you know,
• 25:42
  a thrower and now you're becoming a coach because your
• 25:45
  mindset is this is what I want to be.
• 25:47
  Did you notice changes in how you interacted with your fellow
• 25:51
  teammates and the coaches or were you still like, OK, I still
• 25:53
  got to be the best thrower, so I'm going to stay athlete
• 25:55
  focused here. A lot of it is I just, I spent
• 25:58
  more of my free time trying to learn as much as possible.
• 26:02
  I mean, I remember going to the library and taking every book
• 26:07
  that was track and field and related and reading it and then
• 26:09
  asking my coaches questions about the VHS tapes, watching
• 26:12
  those that they had at the library.
• 26:15
  You know we had a bio mechanics professor that later on in his
• 26:20
  life he went on to be the strength coach for Valerie Billy
• 26:24
  or Valerie Adams over in New Zealand.
• 26:27
  Just learning about more on things from him.
• 26:32
  You know, we had but it was also I I remember having
• 26:36
  conversations with our swimming coach who was very successful
• 26:38
  Rich Pine. I I always have this big belief
• 26:43
  that I don't waste my time talking with unsuccessful
• 26:45
  people. I always want to surround myself
• 26:47
  with very successful people and learn as much as I can from
• 26:49
  them. Well, well, well, thank you for
• 26:51
  being on the show by the way. I appreciate that.
• 26:53
  I, I caught that compliment there.
• 26:54
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 26:55
  Thank you. And so, like our swimming coach
• 26:59
  was very successful and I remember just spending time with
• 27:03
  him talking just sports psychology stuff on how he did
• 27:06
  that with his divers and swimmers and learning, learning
• 27:09
  from him our women's, our Pat Healey was a long time women's
• 27:15
  head coach at lacrosse. It's been so many hours with him
• 27:18
  and especially as I transitioned cause the men's women's team was
• 27:21
  completely separate at lacrosse as I transitioned into my first
• 27:25
  position and was women's only program at Winona State learning
• 27:31
  he helped me so much throughout my career on just kind of the
• 27:33
  differences. You know, that's a pretty mature
• 27:37
  stance as a 2021 year old that you were able to understand.
• 27:41
  It's pretty obvious that you jumped in and it's not always
• 27:46
  done, but it's obvious that you would jump in and read a bunch
• 27:48
  of books about track and field. That you would talk to your
• 27:51
  coaches more and a little bit more in depth of like, OK, give
• 27:54
  me the next level coach, you know, because I'm going to be a
• 27:56
  coach one day. But it's a pretty unique and
• 27:59
  mature aspect as a 20/21/22 year old to understand that.
• 28:02
  I can learn from other sport coaches.
• 28:05
  Where? Where does that come from?
• 28:08
  I just, you know, I think a lot of it just kind of goes back to
• 28:11
  my mom on teaching us to be curious with education you know
• 28:15
  and and kind of learning from that.
• 28:17
  And it goes back to my father was a a maintenance repair
• 28:22
  person at or at a health club in town or and he.
• 28:27
  So our family trips always revolved around going to
• 28:31
  different athletic facilities, these community centers and
• 28:34
  touring them and learning how they operate.
• 28:36
  And you know, and so I think, you know, I I just and it seemed
• 28:41
  like any family trip we drove somewhere.
• 28:43
  There was also a Community Center that we were going to go
• 28:46
  look at the pool mechanical room.
• 28:49
  And so it was just always the ability to keep being curious
• 28:52
  and keep learning. You know, I always look at when
• 28:55
  you think you know everything, then that's usually kind of one
• 28:58
  we need to let coach go. Or yeah, you're in trouble,
• 29:00
  right? So yeah, Do do you?
• 29:03
  I don't want to Fast forward to today because I still want to
• 29:05
  climb through this journey, but I'm gonna kind of put you on the
• 29:08
  spot here. Do you see yourself still
• 29:12
  curious today? The same level?
• 29:14
  Because if you were if you weren't you'd you know, I I kind
• 29:16
  of feel like you'd weed yourself out like all right, man, I'm
• 29:19
  this isn't my passion anymore. I don't want to learn anymore.
• 29:21
  But you you kind of seem like it's a 2021 year old.
• 29:24
  You've got that dial turned up to 10 on curiosity specifically
• 29:27
  around track and and coaching. Are you still driving forward
• 29:31
  today on that level of curiosity?
• 29:34
  Yeah, but it's kind of it's like still curious with throwing,
• 29:37
  still love throwing. So I was excited yesterday when
• 29:39
  we saw the world record. Bro, it's crazy, right?
• 29:41
  You know you know with that and but it's it's also it kind of as
• 29:46
  I've involved in my career it's curious and like like now in my
• 29:49
  head coaching role it's it's more curious on facility design
• 29:52
  and building or learning about fundraising and you know
• 29:57
  creating endowments and you know raising funds that way running
• 30:01
  track and field meets more efficiently and just different
• 30:05
  And then it's more of an administrative stuff because I
• 30:07
  know that's kind of more what I need to do here in my current
• 30:10
  role. Yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll make
• 30:12
  sure we come back to that because that is extremely
• 30:14
  important. You know, when when I say my
• 30:16
  kids, when people initially think about getting into
• 30:20
  coaching, typically they think about I'm going to do air quotes
• 30:22
  here, the fun part of coaching, meaning in the circle, working
• 30:25
  with a discus throw or a shot, putter, etcetera, maybe writing
• 30:29
  workouts. They kind of think about oh, OK,
• 30:31
  that they never see the kind of behind the curtain stuff that is
• 30:35
  as important and is definitely part of coaching, the
• 30:38
  scheduling, budgeting, design of facility, things like that.
• 30:41
  So I want to talk about that curiosity when we get to the
• 30:43
  present, that's to to to dive into, OK, you kind of started,
• 30:47
  first of all, you said, did you win a couple of titles in the
• 30:49
  discus yourself? Yeah, I was. 3rd my freshman
• 30:54
  year. Won my sophomore year, second my
• 30:57
  junior year, which I thought I was in first ever, would pay
• 31:02
  attention to other people competing.
• 31:05
  And I thought the guy after me was just the first thrower in
• 31:09
  the first flight and then walk and then best discus wind ever,
• 31:15
  just best discus wind ever. And I had in my mind I was going
• 31:18
  to throw. This was the day I was going to
• 31:20
  break 60 meters. I was so worried about hitting
• 31:22
  that and didn't even think about just competing that day.
• 31:26
  So I think I lost by 7 centimeters.
• 31:31
  Everybody else in that flight. Had great lifetime PRS and you
• 31:34
  know, I threw, you know, about a meter and a half under mine.
• 31:37
  But still burns me to this day. Yeah, I could tell.
• 31:41
  Chris Jensen was a better thrower.
• 31:42
  Than me that day. So And then I Yeah, then I was
• 31:47
  able to win again my senior year.
• 31:49
  Wow. I I.
• 31:50
  Mean that's. Amazing.
• 31:51
  I'm hearing this. This young kid, 6th grade goes
• 31:55
  out and the discus, you know, falls out of your hand to
• 31:58
  winning a national title as an individual, obviously as a team,
• 32:01
  too. That's a man.
• 32:02
  I mean, you couldn't have scripted that.
• 32:05
  You didn't tell me as a 6th grader.
• 32:06
  You threw it and you're like, oh man, I'm going to win something.
• 32:08
  I'm going to be a champion one day.
• 32:10
  That's probably the farthest thing from your mind.
• 32:12
  And you just consistently, brick by brick, put it together and
• 32:15
  win. No, and I don't.
• 32:16
  Think if it wasn't for Mike Peterson telling me, hey let's
• 32:20
  move you up to varsity. So what I hated about middle
• 32:23
  school track just hated it is they made us do.
• 32:26
  We had to do 3 events, you know, like I'm the size I am, Yeah.
• 32:31
  What did you do? OK, shot.
• 32:32
  And. Discus.
• 32:32
  So I had shot and discus, so. Then I did high jump.
• 32:35
  I had never cleared a bar in my life because you were six.
• 32:38
  Four, Yeah, they made you do. High.
• 32:40
  Jump, You know, like let. Let's do the physics on this,
• 32:43
  The amount, of course, you're gonna have to create to get that
• 32:45
  big a body afterground. So I got sick of landing on the
• 32:49
  bar every once. So then I thought, what?
• 32:51
  I'm gonna sign up for long jump. That's not gonna hurt.
• 32:54
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I. Go do a long jump.
• 32:56
  In a good old cafeteria style. And I remember the guy not
• 32:59
  making the pit off a long jump board and the guy going, hey, is
• 33:03
  that your run through? And I was like, OK.
• 33:10
  That is never a good. Thing to hear.
• 33:12
  Yeah. Never a good thing to hear, you
• 33:14
  know. So I'm sorry like that's.
• 33:19
  Oh, no, no, Holly. Minnesota, Where that one
• 33:21
  happened, I I remember that vividly that's I'll say that's.
• 33:25
  Yeah. Yep.
• 33:28
  So I I'm so glad things got. Better for you.
• 33:31
  So then, coach Peterson. 'S like, you know what, Why
• 33:33
  don't you just focus on throwing and got that worked out.
• 33:35
  And I always look at 8th grade year when I got moved up to
• 33:39
  varsity, that was my best year ever because in track and field,
• 33:43
  because when the middle school had to run, I I would tell our
• 33:48
  middle school coaches, hey, I need to go throw with the
• 33:50
  varsity. And when the varsity would have
• 33:52
  to do the running, I would tell, hey, I'm in middle school, I
• 33:54
  need to go, I need to go throw with the middle schoolers.
• 33:57
  So I didn't have to do any running that year.
• 33:59
  And that was by far. It's not called gaming system.
• 34:05
  That's called just being smart. They all could have said no, you
• 34:09
  got to do it any point and you just kept going.
• 34:11
  That's good. I love it.
• 34:12
  Love. All right.
• 34:13
  You're at UW lacrosse. You're winning team titles like
• 34:16
  it's easy, which we know it's not.
• 34:20
  You're all American winning titles in the discus as well.
• 34:24
  You're going to be a coach. What's what do we do after
• 34:26
  graduation? What's our first?
• 34:28
  OK, I said I'm. I did all this work to change
• 34:31
  majors and change schools. I'm going to be a coach.
• 34:32
  What's the first action you did professionally?
• 34:36
  Yeah. So I actually still.
• 34:37
  Have a year left at undergrad at UW Lacrosse.
• 34:39
  I finished up my Since I had transferred, I had finished up
• 34:42
  my eligibility and Winona State, which is 30 miles up the road in
• 34:48
  Minnesota. My roommate at the My roommate
• 34:54
  from early on was he. Was the throws coach there?
• 34:59
  And was moving on just adjunct $4000 job.
• 35:03
  You know I year and so he goes, yeah, I'm getting out of it.
• 35:06
  I'm going to graduate and go be a high school teacher at
• 35:09
  northern Wisconsin. And so I had so the coach had
• 35:12
  asked him any buddy that would want to take a spot.
• 35:15
  So I went up and met with Kim Bloom who's now the athletic
• 35:18
  director at UW lacrosse. And so she interviewed me and
• 35:22
  said yeah you're hired. And she was by the way I'm
• 35:25
  leaving tomorrow to be the associate AD at UW lacrosse and
• 35:29
  it's like OK so so got so got hired.
• 35:32
  I I spent more on gas that year. I had a you know than I think I
• 35:37
  made, but it just really. Was perfect.
• 35:43
  I got great. Experience you know, it was I
• 35:45
  always look at. I think it's kind of it's.
• 35:48
  Weird when? When?
• 35:49
  People on a team, when you have students go from their teammates
• 35:53
  to now they're coaching, Yeah, you know, and that that allowed
• 35:56
  me to go from, you know, yes, I was similar age to the athletes
• 36:00
  I was coaching, but I wasn't their teammate.
• 36:03
  And so it kind of gave me a fresh start, 100%.
• 36:07
  Being able to. Start coaching them and and kind
• 36:09
  of learning from that process. And, you know, the coach that I
• 36:13
  was in 2005, I just kind of laugh at on some of the things I
• 36:16
  was trying to teach him, what I've kind of learned, you know,
• 36:19
  now, but so a couple things to. To touch on there, we're we are
• 36:23
  so In Sync, Mike, this is really scary actually.
• 36:26
  So first real quick question, then I'll touch on those two
• 36:28
  points. You said you still had a year
• 36:29
  left. Did you throw when you went up
• 36:31
  there too? Or did you just?
• 36:32
  No, I have a year left of undergrad.
• 36:34
  Still. Oh, you're OK.
• 36:35
  Got it. Of undergrad I got it.
• 36:36
  OK, so first of all I 1000% agree with you in regards to the
• 36:42
  like the GA type. You know an athlete who on you
• 36:46
  know Friday is buddies and boys are playing Xbox on the in the
• 36:50
  dorm rooms and then on Monday they're the grad assistant or
• 36:52
  undergrad assistant coach. Things change and that's that
• 36:55
  seems it. It is impossible to do it
• 36:58
  correctly. I I believe so.
• 37:00
  I I right with you. I mean we have talked about this
• 37:03
  several times. It's like man, how do you do
• 37:05
  that? So I love that separation for
• 37:07
  you even even with the ages because that makes it tough
• 37:10
  alone a 22 year old talking to a 20 year old etcetera that alone
• 37:14
  makes it tough. So I love that.
• 37:17
  And then two, I totally forgot the second point, you you just
• 37:19
  talked about something else. Dang it.
• 37:20
  Oh my gosh. I'm getting old, Mike.
• 37:24
  All right, so you're there and now you're coaching, not peers,
• 37:30
  'cause you are coaching. How did?
• 37:31
  So again, another shift has to change, 'cause now you don't
• 37:34
  have, you're not the athlete anymore, you're the your coach,
• 37:37
  Coach Turgeon. How did you handle that?
• 37:40
  You know it. Was and I.
• 37:42
  Well, it was funny, 'cause I thought everybody in college was
• 37:45
  just the intensity that I wanted, you know?
• 37:49
  Oops. OK, good lesson.
• 37:50
  Good lesson the the ladies. I started coaching with, you
• 37:54
  know, I mean, this was when I started at Winona State.
• 37:57
  They they had it finally the their first person ever make it
• 38:02
  to a national meet and since they turned Division 2 and so
• 38:05
  they went, I think it was 12 years to get one athlete who was
• 38:09
  a triple jumper at that time to the division two championships.
• 38:13
  And so when I started my first meeting, I started talking about
• 38:16
  how everybody people are going to be all Americans and go to
• 38:18
  nationals and they're they're like buddy at the wrong.
• 38:21
  School. Like, what are you talking?
• 38:24
  About you know and you know and just kind of laid out my vision
• 38:28
  how we were going to get there and the commitment level was
• 38:31
  going to take and and then kind of started in you know and did
• 38:37
  did you get any pushback? From that you, you know not not
• 38:40
  that they weren't necessarily striving for nationals, but they
• 38:42
  weren't hitting national mark. So a a, a certain culture kind
• 38:46
  of comes in at that point. You kind of come in with a
• 38:48
  little bit of a like, not a little bit.
• 38:50
  You come in with a different culture of like well the
• 38:52
  expectation is you go to nationals.
• 38:54
  There can be pushback with that, and by the way, not.
• 38:57
  Neither are wrong. Even the one that says I don't.
• 39:00
  Maybe if you say I don't want to go to Nationals, that could be
• 39:02
  wrong, but you know a cult. You can still have a great
• 39:04
  culture, a great student athlete experience, even if no one ever
• 39:08
  goes to nationals. But those are two different
• 39:11
  cultures, two different expectations.
• 39:13
  Do you receive any pushback? Know some I remember.
• 39:16
  Early on, butting heads with an athlete that you know she.
• 39:21
  And she had told me that I hey. I threw 40 feet as a sophomore
• 39:24
  in high school, and I'm throwing 40 feet as a junior in high
• 39:27
  school or college. You know, like, I don't like her
• 39:31
  identity was being able to squat 400 lbs in the weight room.
• 39:35
  And I talked with her, well, you squat 400 lbs in the weight
• 39:39
  room, only throw 40 feet. That's not.
• 39:41
  There's something there that's not right.
• 39:43
  So probably squat 200 lbs. But we squat really fast and
• 39:46
  then we start throwing a. Shot a little farther.
• 39:48
  And you know, her senior year, she at the conference meet
• 39:53
  throws 43 feet and like immediately starts crying And
• 39:57
  I'm like, hold on, he just like the yard 3 feet.
• 40:00
  And that was like the highlight of her career right there.
• 40:04
  And in my mind, I was like, well, you just threw 43.
• 40:07
  Why can't you throw 45 when we get you to the Division Two
• 40:09
  National meet? You know you.
• 40:12
  Know and I swear. That she just won a national
• 40:14
  title in Moorhead MN. You know when she when she threw
• 40:17
  that, but so it. Was what?
• 40:20
  I had was. I had some very talented Kim had
• 40:25
  recruited some really good kids with a lot of potential that
• 40:27
  were all sophomores. So I got three years with them
• 40:30
  and you know I'm not really that group kind of spearheaded and
• 40:34
  did well. One one of those athletes turned
• 40:37
  into a four time All American National champion in the weight,
• 40:41
  national runner up in the weight the year before for junior year.
• 40:45
  Couple others went to nationals and you know, really really kind
• 40:51
  of in where I figured out OK, the stuff is working that we're
• 40:57
  kind of doing, you know and my throws coach in college to
• 41:03
  college, Dennis Klein. Judd Logan was his training
• 41:05
  partner. And so I kind of had my in with
• 41:09
  Judd and at the division two meet Judd Spence.
• 41:12
  I would just ask him questions after questions and if I saw him
• 41:15
  sitting in the stands, I would. He'll be the annoying young
• 41:18
  coach and he would never, you know, he would always give me
• 41:21
  all the time. I remember one time in Boston
• 41:24
  sitting there for an hour in the Sands and he was just talking
• 41:26
  about training with me and you'd answer any e-mail I would send
• 41:30
  and you know, and such a great, such a great guy and amazing
• 41:33
  dude. Amazing dude.
• 41:35
  You know and. So that's so yeah.
• 41:40
  So it just kind of lucked out that I started with some kids
• 41:42
  that had open minds that were hard working kids and you know
• 41:45
  I've I always looked at what what where I was successful at
• 41:49
  Winona State was recruiting kids from towns 5000 smaller that had
• 41:54
  parents in blue collar jobs and they started a job before they
• 41:57
  were 16 years old and but hit those.
• 41:59
  Qualtrics. With kids, those kids turned in
• 42:02
  all Americans about 95% of the time.
• 42:04
  Now that's interesting. Too and we've we've broached
• 42:07
  this topic a little bit here and there on different episodes some
• 42:11
  people. So I when I coached, I was known
• 42:13
  as a a big recruiter. That was kind of my, you know, I
• 42:16
  wasn't very good coach, but I could bring a lot of good people
• 42:18
  in. Right.
• 42:19
  But you, you know I've heard some people.
• 42:21
  I probably was like this when I was coaching too, to be honest
• 42:23
  with you. Now that I'm older and have more
• 42:26
  experience I can maybe verbalize a little differently.
• 42:29
  I would have told you, and I think there are coaches out
• 42:31
  there that have told you that no matter what school I'm at, I can
• 42:35
  recruit good kids without changing themselves or their
• 42:38
  tactic. It's just the way I do it that
• 42:40
  they'll come. If I'm at LSU or Minnesota State
• 42:43
  or Loras College, it doesn't matter, but it does matter your
• 42:47
  school make up the the majors, the the size, rural versus
• 42:52
  urban. What you specialize as as a
• 42:54
  program. You know, a couple weeks ago we
• 42:57
  had Bruce Jackson from the Academy of Arts.
• 43:01
  Art you and you know they're in San Francisco that's a different
• 43:06
  when you start. So you you honed in kind of
• 43:09
  early that you said 5000 blue collar Jaw appearance and had a
• 43:16
  job at 16. You kind of started seeing like
• 43:18
  this ideal recruit pretty early in career it sounds like.
• 43:23
  Yeah, I mean it's. Always looking at.
• 43:26
  I think every place is. Different on what makes them
• 43:29
  successful. And looking at you know early
• 43:32
  on, I mean one of the one of the things I did at Winona and Elsa
• 43:35
  did here was I went worked with their programmers on OK, let's
• 43:39
  look at admit, let's look at kids and let's come up with the
• 43:43
  top 10 high schools of each state.
• 43:46
  And then because right to me Winona was a smaller place that
• 43:49
  didn't have brand recognition, we were recruiting a lot of
• 43:52
  right we were. We were spending.
• 43:54
  Our. Time trying to recruit like, OK,
• 43:56
  the Twin Cities is 2 hours away, let's let's try to get a lot of
• 44:00
  kids out of the Twin Cities. Realize very quickly.
• 44:03
  That inside the four 94694 corridor not many students were
• 44:07
  coming to to WSU at the time, especially for athletics in
• 44:11
  there, So that was just a complete waste of time and
• 44:14
  trying to target those. So when I started here at
• 44:17
  Mankato, like we knew that, for example, West Salem, WI, small
• 44:23
  little town was one of the top 10 high schools graduating kids
• 44:28
  to MSU. Well, let's see what track
• 44:31
  athletes are from there and let's go after those kids
• 44:34
  because that they already have brand recognition at that
• 44:37
  school. They already know, and so we.
• 44:40
  Kind of looked at that and how we expanded in the Illinois in
• 44:43
  certain programs into the Milwaukee area with certain
• 44:47
  programs and it really is just looking at who's it currently
• 44:52
  enrolled over the last five years at your school, you're
• 44:54
  very. Analytical.
• 44:55
  You would have been a good programmer.
• 44:57
  Maybe not the telecommunications, I don't
• 44:58
  know. But man, computer, you're
• 45:00
  analytical with this stuff, so. I enjoy.
• 45:04
  I enjoy. We always talk you.
• 45:06
  You mentioned Coach Parno and I and I always talk.
• 45:09
  We coach. Parno and I always talk about
• 45:11
  he's Microsoft Word on Microsoft Excel and we work very well
• 45:15
  together. It's all part of the package.
• 45:17
  That's. Right.
• 45:17
  Yeah. The, what do they call the
• 45:18
  Microsoft suite or whatever? Yeah, that's, we'll have to
• 45:21
  figure out who's PowerPoint and who's what's the other one?
• 45:25
  There's another one in there. Yeah.
• 45:27
  That's funny. I love that.
• 45:28
  I love that. OK, you're at Wine O state.
• 45:31
  You're changing the culture. You're bringing in culture.
• 45:34
  You also did did my. I'm going to ask this a a very
• 45:37
  specific way for you. You mentioned you know sitting
• 45:40
  in the stands finding Jed Logan. God love him.
• 45:43
  He he was an early part of our podcast as well.
• 45:46
  I'm so glad that I was able to capture his story, his journey
• 45:51
  before he ultimately passed away because he was special.
• 45:54
  He he really was. And and the people that he
• 45:57
  coached, the people that he influenced like like yourself,
• 46:00
  Mike are better for it are are are much, much, much better for
• 46:05
  it. So, so the specific way I'm
• 46:08
  going to ask you is did Mom pay you a dollar to go talk to Coach
• 46:10
  Logan? No, that that Carl.
• 46:14
  I remember my freshman year, they came and they had asked
• 46:17
  what happened to me after they had they had visit me two months
• 46:20
  after the school, 'cause I was actually talking with people
• 46:23
  like, wait a minute, yeah. We've been trying forever.
• 46:28
  Love it, Love it, Love it. All right, So what happens at
• 46:32
  Winona? How long you were, you were
• 46:34
  there as an undergrad to finish at your undergrad.
• 46:36
  How long were we there? And where'd we go next?
• 46:38
  Still finish that? I was.
• 46:39
  Finishing my education at UW Lacrosse, I just oh got.
• 46:42
  It 30 miles each day to get my. Foot in the door coaching, OK, I
• 46:45
  thought you were doing. Like an undergraduate coaching
• 46:47
  at Oh yeah, got. It so you're finishing.
• 46:50
  Up your degree. You're out of eligibility there
• 46:53
  and you go. That's why you're talking about
• 46:54
  driving back and forth. I'm with you now.
• 46:56
  OK. OK.
• 46:56
  OK. All right.
• 46:58
  Yup. And so.
• 46:58
  My wife Abby had gotten, I knew I needed my master's degree to
• 47:04
  get into coaching. So I was like, you know, let me
• 47:06
  work one more year at UW or at Wenona.
• 47:09
  I can get through, Got permission because I thought,
• 47:13
  OK, I'm not throwing anymore. All I'm doing is I'm just
• 47:16
  coaching and going to school. Why in the world do I need to do
• 47:20
  a two year master's program? Why can't I just get it down to
• 47:23
  a a year? And so I got permission to turn
• 47:27
  that, basically take 18 credits in the fall grad school classes
• 47:31
  and do a bunch in the summer. And then did my internship in
• 47:35
  the spring and graduated. And so I did that at Winona and
• 47:40
  you know, the head coach at the time, masonry bar, check, who
• 47:43
  was he was a student, a student coach at AT lacrosse when I was
• 47:48
  there. And he kept telling the AD, Hey,
• 47:50
  we should try to get this guy a position.
• 47:54
  So the athletic director? One day I remember I was just
• 47:57
  walking down the hallway and he walks up to me and he goes, hey
• 47:59
  Mike, you want a job? And normally he knew that since
• 48:04
  I was a bigger guy and people would always contact the
• 48:06
  athletic department in Wenona for help moving.
• 48:09
  When they moved to town, I just saw it was that I'm unloading
• 48:12
  somebody's new hall. It's like Oh yeah, when you know
• 48:16
  he's he goes, no, I just came from my president's office and
• 48:20
  she said we're having too many ineligible athletes and we want
• 48:23
  to start an academic thing. So could you like like start
• 48:27
  some academic stuff. I mean it's very general and I
• 48:30
  was like so is this like full time he goes yeah yeah like full
• 48:32
  time job. I was like sure.
• 48:35
  And then so started that and then I kind of had to go you
• 48:40
  know then I went way into researching how to how to create
• 48:44
  that, how to fund it. So I went down the University of
• 48:47
  Wisconsin and kind of met with their staff and learned how to
• 48:50
  build an act you know their academic support system that
• 48:52
  they were using. And you know and that turned
• 48:55
  into getting some grants to where at the time I left we had
• 49:00
  a you know a 5000 square foot facility that with a staff of
• 49:04
  four people that was grant funded and we had looked at
• 49:08
  there. We had increased, you know, the
• 49:10
  retention rate of soon athletes by almost 20%, you know, and so
• 49:15
  that really took off and and that was kind of really like
• 49:19
  that because it kind of goes back to my upbringing, Mike,
• 49:23
  that when I was a freshman in high school, I asked my parents
• 49:27
  to drop out of school because Barrel of Fun Potato Chips was
• 49:30
  offering. They're paying pretty well.
• 49:33
  And I thought, you know what, I could just go work there, you
• 49:37
  know? And that was that, that my
• 49:40
  parents got pretty upset about that one.
• 49:42
  You know, I'm literally as a. Parent of a 13 year old going oh
• 49:44
  man, just so when's when's my son gonna do that?
• 49:46
  He's gonna do this. I just know it's, yeah.
• 49:49
  So, you know, I was never, never enjoyed school, never enjoyed
• 49:52
  school until I got kind of into my lacrosse years with looking
• 49:57
  at what I knew I really wanted to do.
• 49:59
  And so I always thought it was great to, you know, just kind of
• 50:02
  help kids get through, you know, and kind of create that academic
• 50:06
  support program there, dude, that that is, that is so.
• 50:10
  Cool. You know, that goes hand in
• 50:11
  hand. What I'll always say about a
• 50:13
  track coach, you know, even my you know you're as successful as
• 50:16
  any of them out there. You know 99% of the kids you
• 50:20
  coach specifically, and this is 99% of ever.
• 50:22
  You know all the coaches that are listening right now, 99.9%
• 50:24
  of all your kids. If you're in high school, 99%
• 50:27
  are not going to go running in college.
• 50:29
  And if you're in college, 99.9% are never going to go pro.
• 50:33
  But every single one of them will go on to become moms, dads,
• 50:38
  business owners, accountants, doctors, coaches, teachers.
• 50:42
  That is your real influence. And so you got to, like, double
• 50:46
  your influence not only as a track coach, but creating and
• 50:51
  growing this academic Center for all of the athletics at Winona
• 50:55
  that is like, that's that's legacy stuff right there.
• 50:58
  Yeah, I always look. At and my shared this with my
• 51:02
  wife Abby and Justin Lair was my longtime assistant director at
• 51:06
  Winona State. And the academic support I
• 51:09
  always looked at what we did creating our academic thing was
• 51:13
  way more beneficial and I'm way more proud of that than what I
• 51:17
  did as a throws coach there. And you know and I had a
• 51:20
  wonderful you know time there with lucky enough to coach 5
• 51:25
  national champions, 40 all Americans and national record
• 51:28
  holder in in you know 13 years as women's throws coach there
• 51:32
  like we're successful on the track and field side but how
• 51:36
  many kids if they didn't have that probably would have never
• 51:38
  graduated college and their lives are so different now.
• 51:42
  That's right, you. Know now that.
• 51:44
  Academics, you know, And that has stayed, you know, after I've
• 51:47
  left. And so, I mean that's always
• 51:49
  really like kind of my hanging my hat moment there is actually
• 51:54
  creating that academic center and absolutely not to go,
• 51:57
  absolutely, That's what I'm saying.
• 51:58
  That's legacy stuff. That's not just, oh, he's a good
• 52:00
  coach. He can take someone from 40 foot
• 52:02
  to 50 foot in the shop, but that's amazing, by the way,
• 52:04
  that's not nothing, not poo poo in that at all, but to build,
• 52:08
  design, grow, fight, you know that.
• 52:13
  I'm sure there were no hurdles in your way to do this, right?
• 52:16
  To do something that's going to touch every athlete that goes
• 52:19
  through that school and by the way perpetuals.
• 52:22
  So even after you're gone it continues to do good.
• 52:25
  That's that's amazing. That's amazing.
• 52:27
  Interesting you said so when you got to Winona there was not a
• 52:31
  culture of nationals and and things like that.
• 52:34
  You said when you left Winona, you know several all Americans
• 52:37
  national champs. So you obviously change the
• 52:39
  culture. They're pretty good athletic you
• 52:42
  know for the track and field team.
• 52:43
  There's a lot of people listening right now who either
• 52:47
  are in that situation or will be very much like you join in a
• 52:52
  situation, join a program that just doesn't have the culture of
• 52:57
  whatever they want to bring in. Because I don't want to diminish
• 52:59
  cultures here. But how did you, what was, let
• 53:02
  me ask you two different ways, what was the hardest part of
• 53:05
  doing that? So you you took a 180.
• 53:07
  So we don't have a culture of nationals.
• 53:09
  We've got all Americans and national champions.
• 53:11
  That's a 180. What was the hardest part over
• 53:14
  that? You you said 12 years, 13 years.
• 53:17
  I was at 1:00. Over that 13 years, what?
• 53:20
  Was the hardest part to change that culture and vice versa?
• 53:24
  I I was like asking the inverse of it.
• 53:26
  What was the easiest part? Maybe something you thought was
• 53:28
  going to be hard but actually ended up not being as hard.
• 53:31
  What what were the hardest and easiest parts of changing a
• 53:33
  culture from not being focused on the Nationals or not having
• 53:37
  that as a goal set to. Sounds like that was a goal set
• 53:39
  for a lot of the athletes that by the time you in the year 13
• 53:43
  years. Yeah, you know the.
• 53:44
  Easiest thing that. Which was odd was the facility
• 53:49
  piece I had. We didn't.
• 53:53
  We had a high school that I remember the first time I had to
• 53:56
  work with the high school coach or the high school athletic
• 53:58
  director about, hey, could we could I use the discus ring to
• 54:02
  throw in the fall, you know, And they agreed as long as, yeah,
• 54:05
  you were done before football and indoors.
• 54:09
  We had one basketball court and right next to the basketball
• 54:12
  court. I mean, it was open.
• 54:14
  It was a gym with basically 2 basketball courts and the men's
• 54:18
  basketball team who was winning a national final.
• 54:20
  At that time. We were throwing the weight
• 54:23
  right next to him with no net and I that was a little scary
• 54:28
  part for me. But, you know, and you would
• 54:33
  think about, you know, how are you going to get people when you
• 54:36
  don't have an indoor and outdoor track on your university, you
• 54:40
  know, and all that and that really kind of what I thought
• 54:44
  about was, well, why in the world would I recruit kids from
• 54:46
  beautiful high school athletic facilities?
• 54:48
  I need to find the kids that have the don't have a track or
• 54:51
  have the dirt tracks and then they're coming to school.
• 54:54
  And you know, I I had Harold, I was lucky enough to meet Harold
• 54:59
  Connolly. So he's, you know, the 1956
• 55:01
  Olympic champion and the hammer. And I had spent a weekend with
• 55:07
  them learning how to teach the hammer throw early in my
• 55:11
  coaching career. And I was, and it was my, I
• 55:13
  think my second year at Winona State then.
• 55:15
  And I had told him, you know, athletic facilities and he's
• 55:19
  like, oh, you just need some. He goes, you need a piece of
• 55:23
  cement, you need people to train with and you need an implement
• 55:27
  and that's all. And a coach, he's like those
• 55:29
  four things, you'll be fine. And I received a little post it
• 55:35
  a little little package and it was a little DVD or CD.
• 55:40
  It was like a month later with a just a little sticky post it
• 55:44
  note on it that says can you pick out or said coach can you
• 55:49
  pick out who's in this video. And it was the worst weight room
• 55:53
  I've ever seen in my life. And it was all this just old
• 55:55
  metal things. And I counted 7 Olympic
• 55:59
  medalists in. There lifting.
• 56:02
  Weights and then throwing in a field with no cage and they're
• 56:06
  throwing 80 meters in the hammer and it's like you know what you
• 56:10
  don't need that you know and so so that.
• 56:14
  So that was always the thing I thought how can I be successful
• 56:16
  without, you know I was at lacrosse they had we had indoor
• 56:20
  and outdoor and all these different facilities and and so
• 56:25
  I was lucky enough that the coaches I coached with all came
• 56:28
  from lacrosse. And we kind of all had the same
• 56:30
  concept that I had learned as an athlete there and kind of built,
• 56:35
  built a program that we won some conference championships and
• 56:37
  we're top ten of the nation and just kind of kept going And it
• 56:43
  was just not giving up. You know, when you get every
• 56:47
  time we go to our conference meet and you know, you might
• 56:49
  take fourth or third and then it'd be like, OK, what do we got
• 56:52
  to do better, you know, and it was just these teams.
• 56:56
  Are beating us. How can we beat them to the
• 56:59
  point where, you know we were going.
• 57:02
  I remember we had a a conference meet at and we scored 79 points
• 57:09
  in the women throwing events between shot, discus and hammer.
• 57:12
  And I remember going back and we took second, you know at that
• 57:16
  meet as a team. I remember going back and
• 57:19
  telling our head coach that if we're spending, you know, 50%,
• 57:24
  we had a very limited like at that time, you know, like 50,000
• 57:28
  in scholarship or 60,000 if we're spending 50% of our money
• 57:31
  in scholarship on the throwing events.
• 57:35
  We're not ever going to win. Conference because pretty much
• 57:39
  I'm maxing out next we can score so I need to take less as a
• 57:43
  throws coach just develop take more kids on and develop them so
• 57:48
  our other so our other event groups can get better.
• 57:50
  So we can actually win a conference championship because
• 57:53
  I there is nothing worse than me Mike than losing.
• 57:57
  I just, that's my daughter gives me a hard time lol all the time
• 58:01
  about that. She always asked me what I like
• 58:04
  best about track and field and it's like winning, winning that
• 58:08
  drives me everywhere. It's a it's a lot of fun.
• 58:11
  That's for sure. And by the way, I, you know,
• 58:17
  when you go into a conference meet, you know, it's very
• 58:19
  famous, most coaching Staffs will you know get the white
• 58:21
  board and you start estimating all that kind of stuff.
• 58:23
  I can't imagine doing that with you.
• 58:24
  Your analytic side might be too much for me on that one.
• 58:27
  I I, I just have this feeling you you have a beautiful mind up
• 58:30
  there. You know seeing all the
• 58:32
  different, well, if we put this person here, if we put this
• 58:34
  person here, if we do this with the you, you might you might do
• 58:36
  over me on this one. I don't think I can handle that.
• 58:38
  Just to observation, actually leave it up to my event.
• 58:40
  Coaches cause. OK.
• 58:41
  All right. All right.
• 58:42
  I want them to. Now the point's how we track it
• 58:45
  at conference. That's hotel.
• 58:46
  Yeah, that's what I'm saying. That's a little different.
• 58:47
  There's no way your analytical. Mind.
• 58:49
  OK, as I said. There's no way your.
• 58:50
  Analytical mind is not getting involved in the scenarios there.
• 58:53
  Absolutely. OK, so we're talking about
• 58:55
  changing the culture of Winona State when you're there for 13
• 58:59
  years. I asked you what was the easiest
• 59:02
  thing about that Something you thought was going to be hard.
• 59:03
  I love your perspective there that coming from a UW lacrosse
• 59:07
  with good facilities and you go to Winona, there's no
• 59:09
  facilities. I thought it's going to be hard
• 59:11
  for me to attract kids and you found a way to attract the right
• 59:13
  kids to the situation. Or hey, that kind of goes on.
• 59:16
  That recruiting conversation that we had, what was the
• 59:19
  hardest part? What was something that really
• 59:21
  took a while, you had to dig in, you had to consult mentors.
• 59:24
  What was something that was just, you know, frustrated for a
• 59:26
  while and and how did you unlock that?
• 59:29
  The hardest part for me? Was the type of kid you needed
• 59:31
  to win a national championship. Just constantly.
• 59:36
  Like I I look at you don't win division two national titles
• 59:39
  with division two athletes. You win them with Division One
• 59:42
  athletes who choose to come to division two level.
• 59:44
  So it was just not getting frustrated with non-stop going
• 59:49
  after the kids and they, you know, I'd have parents tell me
• 59:53
  well why would you know like stop wasting my kids time?
• 59:56
  Why in the world are you recruiting a kid?
• 59:58
  They're going to go. They need to be in a Power 5
• 1:00:00
  school and knowing that. That you know that's.
• 1:00:06
  Where? But those are the types of kids
• 1:00:08
  I have and I and I always thought early on once I can get
• 1:00:11
  one and then I'm going to get more and I'm going to get a lot
• 1:00:14
  more, a lot easier. And so I kind of in 2000, you
• 1:00:19
  know, it took me about five years to get my first one, Mary
• 1:00:23
  Tyson. And you know, when she came in
• 1:00:27
  and was able to win a national title or sophomore year as a
• 1:00:30
  discus thrower. And now she's gone on and been a
• 1:00:33
  very successful weightlifter and broke the American record in
• 1:00:36
  McLean and jerk and but it was just trying to get my first one
• 1:00:42
  and I got told no so many times and it was just not giving up on
• 1:00:47
  that. I mean it's funny now like I
• 1:00:49
  early on my first year coaching getting told no by a 34 foot
• 1:00:52
  shop putter, you know, you know and it's like and now like you
• 1:00:56
  know, you see a 34 foot shop putter come in and you kind of
• 1:00:59
  chuckle. But it was.
• 1:01:02
  Just not kind of giving. Up on that and figuring out what
• 1:01:06
  can I do to be more successful with that, What?
• 1:01:09
  I'm trying to figure out how to ask this.
• 1:01:11
  Mike. Without being.
• 1:01:14
  Kind of insulting. Know that I'm not being
• 1:01:16
  insulting when I ask this way. Forgive me for my you know, I
• 1:01:19
  always tell people I'm from Alabama, so my vocabulary is a
• 1:01:21
  little limited here, right? How did you have the audacity
• 1:01:26
  this early? You're still early in your
• 1:01:28
  career here at Winona State to not give up.
• 1:01:32
  I I love how you said that you don't win D2 Nats with D2 kids.
• 1:01:35
  You win it with D1 kids who choose D2 and and I want to talk
• 1:01:39
  about that as well. Like what?
• 1:01:40
  What's the D2 culture. I've been so blessed to go to
• 1:01:43
  the D2 national meet now for the past five I think championships
• 1:01:46
  and it's amazing. It's amazing, but how did you
• 1:01:50
  have the audacity like to? Have that attitude.
• 1:01:54
  And then to run into nose left and right and yet keep just
• 1:01:59
  grinding and it and it and it worked.
• 1:02:02
  It paid off that that grind that hard work that continuation paid
• 1:02:05
  off but how did you not back up and go OK, you know you you're
• 1:02:09
  right. We need to start with this
• 1:02:10
  caliber of kids and then build you.
• 1:02:12
  You were going for the bull's eye from the get go.
• 1:02:18
  Part of it, I'm just so stubborn.
• 1:02:19
  Mark, OK, that's fair. Like I I just feel like.
• 1:02:24
  I. Coach Parno and then?
• 1:02:28
  Our other jumps coach, our jumps coach, coach Sabera and I, us
• 1:02:31
  three always talk about like we really get annoyed when other
• 1:02:34
  top kids in the state pick any other school and it's like well
• 1:02:37
  why would you do that? You know, it's just like we feel
• 1:02:41
  we should be coaching those kids and it's kind of been right from
• 1:02:45
  the start it it's, you know, I go back to my time from Guthrie.
• 1:02:49
  Why was Mark Guthrie recruiting a 66 foot high school shop
• 1:02:53
  putter, right, You know? Because.
• 1:02:55
  He can. Why not, you know.
• 1:02:57
  And so you got Jim Nelson to come to UW lacrosse or or you
• 1:03:02
  know, all those other athletes that that I was lucky to be
• 1:03:05
  teammates with. You know, to me, the level
• 1:03:08
  doesn't really matter, you know? You know, it's finding the right
• 1:03:12
  fit with them. I love that, you know.
• 1:03:14
  I said audacity. Audacity is typically a a
• 1:03:16
  negative word. But now that, you know, as you
• 1:03:18
  answer that, I'm kind of think it's like you guys all have
• 1:03:20
  audacity, obviously that, I mean that's a positive, a trait, a
• 1:03:24
  personality trait. You know, maybe you need to have
• 1:03:26
  a little bit of audacity to to be successful.
• 1:03:28
  I bet if I talk to Dennis Shaver and now AG Krueger at AT Ashland
• 1:03:33
  and those kind of successful people, I bet they have a little
• 1:03:36
  bit of audacity with them as well.
• 1:03:38
  Yeah, it's interesting. I have so many questions on you.
• 1:03:45
  Spit in my head. This is amazing.
• 1:03:46
  I love this. Thank you again for this time.
• 1:03:48
  This is awesome. OK, You're at Winona State.
• 1:03:50
  You have audacity. I love it.
• 1:03:52
  You haven't said it this way. And I don't get the sense.
• 1:03:55
  Sometimes we hear that. I just kind of thought about
• 1:03:57
  this with audacity. We hear it sometimes.
• 1:03:59
  Also, said Chip on our shoulder. I'm not.
• 1:04:01
  I'm not hearing or feeling that from you.
• 1:04:03
  You weren't coming out of high school.
• 1:04:05
  You didn't apply to the big you and got rejected.
• 1:04:08
  So I'm going to show you. I'm not feeling that from you at
• 1:04:10
  all. No, I I mean.
• 1:04:13
  Coming out of high school, I think I actually got like 3
• 1:04:17
  recruiting letters total. You know, it was just, yeah, I
• 1:04:21
  had the, the only one I had sent a couple letter I wrote.
• 1:04:25
  I remember mailing, we had a one, whatever class it was.
• 1:04:30
  I remember writing a letter to NDSU, trying to see if I could
• 1:04:33
  go there, you know, and they were growing up an hour from
• 1:04:39
  Fargo. That was always the big school
• 1:04:41
  that you saw and didn't have luck with that but so and but at
• 1:04:47
  the same time like I wasn't at all.
• 1:04:51
  I was, you know, I was on the path if I was going to go to
• 1:04:54
  higher education it was going to be to a two year Technical
• 1:04:57
  College. And so even when I made that
• 1:04:59
  change, I had to take 7:00 AM geometry class to try to now
• 1:05:04
  start making up some credits that I wasn't, you know, in the
• 1:05:07
  college prep classes going on. So yeah, I didn't really.
• 1:05:13
  I didn't really. I was a small town kid.
• 1:05:16
  So I wasn't like the Twin Cities wasn't.
• 1:05:20
  It wasn't going to do that. Yeah, it's a big city for me.
• 1:05:23
  Yeah, it's just, it's just intra.
• 1:05:24
  You know you hear about chip on your shoulder and that's that's
• 1:05:26
  a lot of times the positive side of if if I'm going to equate
• 1:05:29
  audacity and and Chip on your shoulder, the positive side of
• 1:05:32
  it and I'm not hearing that from you.
• 1:05:33
  I'm here more just like an internal drive of when you
• 1:05:36
  wanted to be a coach and be and as being a thrower yourself
• 1:05:40
  being the best. You know the study and the
• 1:05:42
  analytic side. The analytical mind of you as
• 1:05:44
  well kind of this mesh of this of this motivation not the I'm
• 1:05:49
  going to prove someone else wrong type of motivation which
• 1:05:51
  is not not wrong necessarily. It's just a just difference.
• 1:05:54
  You know that's interesting. It it it's also interesting you
• 1:05:57
  talked about you know Guthrie recruiting a, you know 66 foot
• 1:06:01
  thrower at D3 and the kids you were recruiting there at D2
• 1:06:06
  Winona. And I don't know I know I saw a
• 1:06:09
  tweet today you know I live on Twitter Mike.
• 1:06:11
  You know and so when we're recording this for you guys that
• 1:06:14
  listen and you're hearing this probably in May this is
• 1:06:17
  Evergreen content. So you actually might be
• 1:06:19
  listening to this May of 2030 for all I know.
• 1:06:22
  But in May of 2024 is when you're when it was published.
• 1:06:24
  We're recording this on April 15th and I just saw the D3 girl
• 1:06:29
  that set the national record and the triple jump 44 feet or
• 1:06:32
  something like that which is you know again it doesn't matter.
• 1:06:35
  D3D2D1, that's nuts. So it's 44 feet and you know at
• 1:06:39
  D3 last year there's what, a 20 point kid and a 10 point kid and
• 1:06:42
  those are two different kids. And AD two, don't get me started
• 1:06:46
  on, you know, we we had, Oh my gosh, my hurdler from Pitt
• 1:06:50
  State. Oh my gosh.
• 1:06:53
  What's his name? Well, just Denisha Cunningham.
• 1:06:56
  Or sorry, Denisha Cartwright, what?
• 1:06:57
  She's done, didn't Denisha? Cartwright, yes, athlete.
• 1:07:00
  She's amazing, the zoos. Of Pacific of tathlete.
• 1:07:03
  What I'm getting at is. It is true that it doesn't
• 1:07:07
  matter the level. And I and I know.
• 1:07:10
  We hear about the D1 or bus mentality and things like that,
• 1:07:13
  but I saw a tweet today from I think it was a high school
• 1:07:15
  coach, pretty sure. And she just said something like
• 1:07:18
  it's becoming clear every day that it doesn't matter the
• 1:07:22
  division that you go to, it matters about what coach and
• 1:07:26
  situation you go to. Y'all better start, you know she
• 1:07:29
  was speaking to the athletes. Y'all better start looking at
• 1:07:31
  what coach is the best fit for you, not the jersey.
• 1:07:35
  I'm paraphrasing there a little bit near the end now.
• 1:07:38
  We still got to get this through to 18 year olds, by the way.
• 1:07:41
  That's hard, but it is amazing all the.
• 1:07:45
  Three you. Know and we can include NAIA and
• 1:07:47
  JUCO in there as well. There is success.
• 1:07:50
  There are amazing coaches in every level and it is regardless
• 1:07:54
  of whether you, you know to your point it went on to state is
• 1:07:56
  regardless of whether you have a a Crystal Palace track facility,
• 1:08:00
  whether you have a Nike contract for your uniforms.
• 1:08:04
  It's regardless of that people, kids and coaches are being
• 1:08:08
  extremely successful. So I love that you were proving
• 1:08:11
  this out very early there at Winona State.
• 1:08:15
  OK, so you said. 13 years at Winona.
• 1:08:17
  We're not at Winona today. So where do we go next and why?
• 1:08:22
  Yeah. My wife and I always.
• 1:08:24
  Kind of had this kind of agreement though.
• 1:08:27
  You know, like when we talked about having children, it's kind
• 1:08:30
  of where we were located. We were going to say once we,
• 1:08:34
  you know, once they started middle school and you know, it
• 1:08:36
  kind of just happened that when Mark Shook had retired, they had
• 1:08:42
  named Jim Dillon, the new head coach, right.
• 1:08:45
  Kind of was an assistant and was the new head coach, was a 76
• 1:08:48
  high jumper, you know, for the Maverick.
• 1:08:50
  I've got a great story about him.
• 1:08:52
  I'll tell you in a second. Please go.
• 1:08:53
  Please keep. Keep going.
• 1:08:53
  Yep. But he.
• 1:08:56
  You know, and I had told my wife, I was, you know, when they
• 1:08:59
  named Mark retired and they kind of named him right away.
• 1:09:01
  And I was like, you know, that might be probably one of the
• 1:09:03
  only jobs I would ever leave Winona.
• 1:09:06
  Four was to to go be a head head coach there, you know.
• 1:09:10
  And I was kind of on a route on you know a kind of basically
• 1:09:13
  three career paths. One do I want to stay on the
• 1:09:16
  career path? I am.
• 1:09:17
  And and just, you know, work at Winona State for for a long time
• 1:09:21
  or. Two, go be an athletic director.
• 1:09:23
  Or three, go be a Hut, track and field coach.
• 1:09:26
  And I've always had like, what I really, what I really loved in
• 1:09:30
  my time at lacrosse is winning the team national championships.
• 1:09:33
  You know, and you know at that start we were successful.
• 1:09:36
  You know what as a team. But the ability to go to a
• 1:09:39
  national meet and know that your team can actually win and what
• 1:09:42
  you do matters more than just the trophy that you're
• 1:09:44
  personally going to bring home. And that that's what makes
• 1:09:48
  college track and field special. And I knew Mankato had that
• 1:09:53
  ability, that, you know, they had the facilities, they had the
• 1:09:56
  coaching staff, the coaches were full time.
• 1:09:59
  They weren't doing other things. You know, 75% of my job at
• 1:10:03
  Winona was I was the associate athletic director and doing a
• 1:10:06
  lot more stuff other than just coaching.
• 1:10:09
  And I wanted to see what could I do if I was just coaching and
• 1:10:13
  you know and and so it kind of just my son wasn't.
• 1:10:16
  My kids were in elementary school at the time and kind of.
• 1:10:21
  My wife and I. You know, I always look to
• 1:10:24
  before I apply for a job, I need to be able to take that job.
• 1:10:28
  And so my wife and I had kind of came over to Mankato, met with a
• 1:10:34
  few different people over a Friday.
• 1:10:36
  Saturday I came with a, it's like 120 some different
• 1:10:40
  questions that we had and spend all this time asking all these
• 1:10:45
  different people, all these different questions and then
• 1:10:47
  doing research on all the different people.
• 1:10:49
  And kind of when we're going home, we left like, yeah, we
• 1:10:53
  could see ourselves moving here and then so we're like, well,
• 1:10:56
  let's why don't I apply and see what happens.
• 1:11:00
  And so I was lucky enough to be chosen, you know, chosen as the
• 1:11:03
  head coach here. And but I just felt everything.
• 1:11:08
  They had all the things to win and we just needed to put all
• 1:11:11
  the pieces of the puzzle together.
• 1:11:14
  And you know, I remember I think our first year we were 30 on the
• 1:11:19
  women's side. We were like 55th at the end of
• 1:11:22
  the season, you know, and then right?
• 1:11:25
  But you know in the. Last four years, the worst we've
• 1:11:27
  been at indoor nationals is third now, you know, and so it's
• 1:11:31
  really kind of taken off and our men's team now it's really kind
• 1:11:35
  of taken off too. And so it's it's.
• 1:11:38
  Been a really fun kind of. Experience, kind of leading
• 1:11:40
  that, leading that and getting all those pieces put together.
• 1:11:44
  So how many years were you? The assistant And how many years
• 1:11:46
  have you now been the head? So I've been when I.
• 1:11:49
  When I started at Mankato, I was hired as the head coach for both
• 1:11:53
  the men's and women's team. So this is my 7th year here.
• 1:11:56
  I was an assistant at Winona for 12 years.
• 1:11:58
  I I thought Dylan was. Was the head coach.
• 1:12:01
  Dylan was the head coach. Dylan was the head coach and.
• 1:12:05
  Then when he got out of it to go be a firefighter.
• 1:12:08
  Yeah, I remember that. Short lived.
• 1:12:09
  OK, OK. OK, Mike to be the head coach I.
• 1:12:12
  Thought when? Jim became the head coach.
• 1:12:14
  You came in as a OK, So you came in as the head coach.
• 1:12:17
  Yep. OK.
• 1:12:18
  So let me tell my Jim story then.
• 1:12:20
  Fascinating learning your This is your first head coaching job.
• 1:12:24
  So I always love knowing more about that aspect.
• 1:12:26
  So Jim was a athlete there at Minnesota State, and I'm at
• 1:12:30
  Division Two Nationals. I think of my senior year out at
• 1:12:34
  Johnson C Smith out in North Carolina and somehow I'm sitting
• 1:12:39
  underneath like the big scoreboard on the field where if
• 1:12:44
  someone was taking a super long approach in the high jump,
• 1:12:46
  they'd be right where I am basically.
• 1:12:48
  And you remember Jim Dilling, he took a super long approach to to
• 1:12:52
  the high jump. And so I don't know him at all.
• 1:12:54
  I just know of him because he's you know, he's really good.
• 1:12:56
  He's jumping 7 foot plus and all this kind of stuff.
• 1:12:58
  And I was, I was having fun watching.
• 1:12:59
  And I also heard he was kind of a you know, not very he'd have
• 1:13:03
  been the opposite of you from what I understand on how he did
• 1:13:06
  his approach and what step I thought to Clifford Belt about
• 1:13:08
  him as well. So I believe I'm, if you
• 1:13:10
  remember this correctly, he was a little bit haphazard on his
• 1:13:13
  approach and where he took off from and you know, he just
• 1:13:15
  jumped really high. It's basically kind of his
• 1:13:16
  philosophy. So I'm sitting back on the
• 1:13:19
  scoreboard, you know, on the concrete there and he's walking
• 1:13:22
  back towards me and it's the best thing in the world.
• 1:13:26
  He looks at me, he gets about 20 feet from me, he looks at me, he
• 1:13:29
  goes, he don't know who I am, he just looks at me.
• 1:13:32
  He goes, let's do this, points at me, let's do this, turns
• 1:13:36
  around and just sprints at the height.
• 1:13:39
  Makes it I was like. I was instantly a fan.
• 1:13:42
  I was like, oh, it's the greatest high jumper in the
• 1:13:43
  world. This is amazing.
• 1:13:45
  It's like the rock and roller of of jumper it was.
• 1:13:48
  There was no calculation. There was no tape mark for his
• 1:13:51
  takeoff point. None of it.
• 1:13:53
  He just like, let's do this and turn and ran.
• 1:13:56
  It's awesome. I was hoping you were his
• 1:13:58
  assistant because I was like, did he head coach that way?
• 1:14:00
  I was always curious on when he became a coach.
• 1:14:02
  How much can you change your personality just because you go
• 1:14:05
  into the coaching seat? I don't know.
• 1:14:08
  OK, now you're sorry. I just love that dude.
• 1:14:12
  You are first time head coach. I ask every person on the
• 1:14:17
  podcast the same two questions, very similar to my question of
• 1:14:22
  culture that I asked when you became the head coach at
• 1:14:26
  Minnesota State. You never know the job until you
• 1:14:28
  get the job. You can be as prepared.
• 1:14:31
  I don't. I honestly don't know.
• 1:14:33
  I don't believe that our head coaches, I'm doing this in
• 1:14:36
  aggregate. You may prove me wrong here,
• 1:14:37
  Mike, for you individually, but as a collection of head coaches
• 1:14:41
  in track and field, I don't believe we're doing a good
• 1:14:44
  enough job of coaching up our assistant coaches to become head
• 1:14:48
  coaches one day. I think we talked about it and I
• 1:14:51
  almost used the word gaslight. Gas them up of like you can
• 1:14:54
  become head coach one day. Sure, sure.
• 1:14:55
  But then we don't give them responsibilities or teach them
• 1:14:58
  budgeting, scheduling, all the other things that I want to make
• 1:15:01
  sure we talk about as well. So you get the head coaching
• 1:15:04
  job. What was, it's very similar to
• 1:15:07
  that culture question. What was something that when you
• 1:15:10
  became you the big dog, now you sit in the head coaching chair,
• 1:15:13
  What was something that you thought was going to be easy?
• 1:15:16
  You kind of rolled in like, I'm used to this, this will be fine.
• 1:15:19
  And it actually turned out to be a little harder because now
• 1:15:21
  you're the head coach. And that inverse question, what
• 1:15:24
  did you think? Like, OK, And you know, you're a
• 1:15:26
  thinker, you're not a little guy.
• 1:15:27
  So I feel like you're going to have a really good answer for
• 1:15:29
  this one. Not to pressure you here, but I
• 1:15:30
  feel like you're going to have a really good answer, something
• 1:15:32
  that you like. OK, I know I'm deficient in X
• 1:15:35
  that I'll need for head coaching, so I'm going to really
• 1:15:37
  buckle down. But it actually came naturally
• 1:15:39
  to you. Maybe it was a little easier.
• 1:15:40
  So what do you think was going to be easy, end up being maybe a
• 1:15:43
  little hard? And what did you think was going
• 1:15:44
  to be hard and maybe became a little bit easier than you
• 1:15:47
  thought as the head coach? But.
• 1:15:50
  I think the what I thought was going to be easy, the easy part
• 1:15:55
  of the question was really being able to balance the head
• 1:15:59
  coaching stuff and the event coaching, yeah.
• 1:16:02
  There's not a lot. Of throws, coaches that are head
• 1:16:08
  coaches and you know all three levels, do you think?
• 1:16:13
  Again, I'm sorry. I love that you said that.
• 1:16:15
  Do you think that's because it's hard to coach the throws and be
• 1:16:19
  a head coach or is it because of bias that we don't believe
• 1:16:24
  throws coaches can become head coaches?
• 1:16:27
  I think there's two things with. It.
• 1:16:28
  I think a lot of athletic directors get a 2 for one and
• 1:16:32
  hire a cross country coach who's also the head coach and it saves
• 1:16:35
  them money in the department money.
• 1:16:36
  Sure. The other thing is the amount of
• 1:16:41
  time that throws coaches spend coaching.
• 1:16:43
  I mean, like you have a you can't put 20 shop putters in a
• 1:16:48
  circle and have practice. You can't put 20 sprinters on a
• 1:16:51
  track and have, you know, 400 practice, you know, So a lot of
• 1:16:55
  it is just time. Yeah, OK with them.
• 1:16:59
  But so I so I really kind of had to learn and found out really
• 1:17:06
  quickly Like I really need like a volunteer assistant person
• 1:17:10
  that kind of can just help with the stuff that I was used to
• 1:17:13
  doing. And basically like if a kid was
• 1:17:14
  struggling to be able to let's let's go have a one-on-one
• 1:17:17
  practice and kind of work through those things that that I
• 1:17:22
  kind of had to manage. And also, this was the first
• 1:17:24
  time that I started coaching men and you.
• 1:17:27
  Know because I was. When I was a women's only
• 1:17:30
  program and I. Thought you know.
• 1:17:33
  That kind of answers your second question.
• 1:17:34
  I thought that was the the flip side.
• 1:17:38
  You know I was team mates for so long but it kind of been out of
• 1:17:41
  men's track for 13 years that I thought well that would be no
• 1:17:45
  not an issue and kind of then kind of learned about OK some of
• 1:17:49
  the little bit of training differences that I had to do or
• 1:17:52
  or just kind of approaching things or I got.
• 1:17:55
  I felt I was getting successful on creating relationships and
• 1:18:00
  getting, you know, the women athletes motivated and going and
• 1:18:04
  then realized, you know, trying to use just a use all that kind
• 1:18:09
  of the same on the men's side. But realize I had to do a little
• 1:18:12
  bit some of the changes there. It made me think.
• 1:18:18
  About when you. Said you got a volunteer coach.
• 1:18:20
  How did you? How did you lose?
• 1:18:24
  Some of your ego and give up some of that control.
• 1:18:30
  That makes sense when I say that.
• 1:18:31
  You know you've got control over your throwers.
• 1:18:33
  You're writing the programs, you're writing the script.
• 1:18:35
  You know. Throwing is certainly one of the
• 1:18:37
  more marriages between the weight room and and what you're
• 1:18:41
  doing on the track, even though all of our coaches should be
• 1:18:42
  doing that. But you know the the weight room
• 1:18:45
  is or the throws, coaches are usually a bit more in tune there
• 1:18:48
  and you get a volunteer to help out with some of the stuff.
• 1:18:50
  That means you got to, you got to lose a little bit of control.
• 1:18:53
  You got to you know, the volunteer.
• 1:18:54
  You got to trust that volunteer and and trust the volunteer is
• 1:18:56
  going to do the things that you want them to do, how you want
• 1:18:58
  them to do them when you're not looking, when you're not there
• 1:19:01
  and you're doing the other activities.
• 1:19:02
  How did you handle that, that control side, a lot of that.
• 1:19:06
  Was just giving up and like you're not giving up, but like
• 1:19:10
  having the. Ability to know that.
• 1:19:11
  OK, I need to put the person in the position and kind of I I
• 1:19:16
  always look at it as like an efficiency meter.
• 1:19:19
  And my kids always make fun of me about efficiency.
• 1:19:21
  But I always look at what I'm doing.
• 1:19:23
  Should the state of Minnesota's taxpayers, is it cheaper for
• 1:19:27
  them to pay somebody else to do that job than me and looking at?
• 1:19:34
  It's not a value. Use.
• 1:19:35
  Of time. So then trying to just find
• 1:19:39
  people that kind of do those types of things but it was it
• 1:19:43
  was the first time in my life I had to give up.
• 1:19:44
  You know I I I started writing the weight room stuff you know.
• 1:19:48
  But as an assistant, I was in the weight room with our
• 1:19:51
  throwers and and doing all that and realizing, so OK, how about
• 1:19:55
  I just write it, but then have the strength coach go through
• 1:19:57
  with it to now completely where I have nothing to do with the
• 1:20:01
  strength training stuff. And it took me a couple years to
• 1:20:05
  go and a couple different people to let that go.
• 1:20:08
  But now, yeah, 100% love it. Like it takes so much stuff off
• 1:20:12
  my plate. That's huge.
• 1:20:14
  The. The the weight room specifically
• 1:20:16
  part and again you know I talked about the marriage of throws
• 1:20:18
  coaching in the weight room that that had let.
• 1:20:22
  Me ask you a different way. How hard was that for you?
• 1:20:24
  Because that's a very controlling thing and you you
• 1:20:26
  you hear the opposite actually where you know hey track
• 1:20:29
  coaches, you need to be in that weight room.
• 1:20:31
  You can't just let the the the S&C coach do it.
• 1:20:34
  They don't know what they're talking about and and certainly
• 1:20:36
  there are you know, I've seen both sides of it.
• 1:20:39
  I've seen the very poor S&C coach who does not care what
• 1:20:42
  you're doing on the track. He's he or she's going to do
• 1:20:44
  what they want to do. And I've seen the other where
• 1:20:46
  it's like hey, what are you doing this week?
• 1:20:47
  Because I want to make sure I'm programming the the right way.
• 1:20:51
  You you had that? Expertise that that experience
• 1:20:54
  and you were able to let go of it, that seems like that's the
• 1:20:57
  that's a big not loss of control but giving control to someone
• 1:21:04
  others. Yeah, I mean.
• 1:21:07
  It's kind of odd, like when I. Thought I started coaching here
• 1:21:10
  like I thought my track and field coaching was going to
• 1:21:12
  prepare me for the head job here, you know?
• 1:21:15
  But it was actually my associate athletic director, and my
• 1:21:18
  administration background actually helped me.
• 1:21:20
  By far the most. And it was just really
• 1:21:24
  understanding that, yes, coaches are important, but they have
• 1:21:29
  one. They're one piece of the puzzle,
• 1:21:32
  you know, but they're all these supporting roles that go into it
• 1:21:35
  to make these kids successful. You know, I mean, to the point
• 1:21:38
  where, you know, 2002, 1020, we had a phenomenal team set up, we
• 1:21:46
  thought, and then we had a whole bunch of back.
• 1:21:48
  I mean, we didn't have the academic support stuff and we
• 1:21:51
  had to get that going because you can have the best athletes
• 1:21:54
  in the world if they're ineligible, Doesn't matter.
• 1:21:56
  It's just a waste of time, you know for everybody.
• 1:22:00
  So we've spent a lot of time on getting kind of the academic
• 1:22:04
  support arm really rolling and being able to work with some
• 1:22:08
  departments on campus to build that up.
• 1:22:11
  You know the same with where we needed to see athletic training
• 1:22:14
  really grow you know and where when I when we started here I
• 1:22:17
  was I had a graduate assistant for 20 hours a week and now I
• 1:22:21
  have two full time athletic trainers for the track and field
• 1:22:23
  program. You know, to where we're able to
• 1:22:26
  grow that. And you know it's just all those
• 1:22:29
  little pieces of a puzzle to get that because you know, I I look
• 1:22:35
  at you know every coach if you coach long enough, you're going
• 1:22:37
  to have great athletes. You're you're going to find
• 1:22:39
  somebody that's just going to all once come out of nowhere and
• 1:22:42
  they're going to do something good.
• 1:22:44
  But it's like you need a system created if you're going to have
• 1:22:48
  a long time and successful teams that keep going.
• 1:22:54
  So how many years at? Minnesota State now seven.
• 1:22:58
  So what have? What was the?
• 1:22:59
  I don't want to ask. It that way.
• 1:23:02
  How have you changed the culture in Minnesota State?
• 1:23:05
  You have your own culture that's built from a lot of different
• 1:23:09
  experiences in your background. So all the way back from UW
• 1:23:12
  Stout, all the way back from high school, actually UW Stout,
• 1:23:14
  UW lacrosse. I know the state.
• 1:23:16
  You're continually developing your culture because of
• 1:23:18
  influences on your life. You know, Jed, Logan, etcetera,
• 1:23:21
  those are all influences, Hal Conley, Those are all influences
• 1:23:25
  of your culture, your life. So when you come to Minnesota
• 1:23:29
  State, whether they were ultra successful or not, you're still
• 1:23:32
  going to change culture because now you're the head honcho, You
• 1:23:35
  drive that culture. How have you changed the
• 1:23:38
  culture? What are maybe some specific
• 1:23:40
  things that you've done to help build to the success that you
• 1:23:42
  guys have today? I think our biggest.
• 1:23:45
  Thing is the expectations on you know and realistic expectations
• 1:23:50
  too. Like you know, I know that our
• 1:23:52
  women's track team is funded dramatically better than our
• 1:23:56
  men's. So like our women's program,
• 1:23:59
  like we if we have the resources in place and the staffing in
• 1:24:03
  place, we should be a top four program every year.
• 1:24:05
  You know, minimally of a bad year should be still top ten.
• 1:24:09
  You know, our our men. You know it's we're.
• 1:24:14
  Getting through fundraising and all that.
• 1:24:17
  Getting up there. But yes, our men should be 10th
• 1:24:20
  place. And I I look back to two years
• 1:24:23
  ago or three years ago when we won our our national
• 1:24:25
  championship on the women's side.
• 1:24:27
  You know our our women were first or second all year and we
• 1:24:30
  ended up winning. But our men came into the
• 1:24:32
  national meet rank 16th and took six.
• 1:24:34
  And I I felt that I told our men's team afterwards that I
• 1:24:38
  thought that was more, that was more impressive, you know, and
• 1:24:41
  that's we're taking a team that was 25% funded at the NCA level
• 1:24:45
  and came in and took six in the country.
• 1:24:48
  You know, I mean that that was pretty insane, you know?
• 1:24:53
  And then what's? So what's unique with track?
• 1:24:56
  I mean you think track to win a national title you need all
• 1:24:58
  these people. And in reality, we won a
• 1:25:01
  national title with five, with five athletes.
• 1:25:03
  We had three throwers and one. One that was a sprinter jumper
• 1:25:09
  and one sprinter, you know, and most 5 athletes scored the 50
• 1:25:13
  some points we needed to win. That's amazing.
• 1:25:15
  That's amazing. Well, so when I was at
• 1:25:20
  Mississippi State, that's kind of what we are going for.
• 1:25:22
  We we couldn't win the SEC. We couldn't win the conference
• 1:25:24
  because of depth with some of those other monsters out there.
• 1:25:28
  But we wanted to win nationals And to your point we knew was
• 1:25:30
  like, OK, 5 to 8 athletes, you still got to hit.
• 1:25:34
  Quote UN quote Perfect and might.
• 1:25:35
  Need a a baton? Drop somewhere else.
• 1:25:36
  But you know, a mistake made. But you could do it.
• 1:25:39
  So what was it like winning that first title?
• 1:25:41
  I mean it's you've had the experience as an athlete, but
• 1:25:43
  it's different as a coach. What was that like?
• 1:25:46
  It was different because you know.
• 1:25:47
  The year before we were second, you know, and it's always the
• 1:25:50
  first time you do it, it's really special.
• 1:25:52
  The first time we won a conference championship, Yeah,
• 1:25:54
  like how special that was. And the men we won right away
• 1:25:58
  and the men that pretty have won like 22 conference championships
• 1:26:03
  straight now, you know? But the first one we won.
• 1:26:06
  Wait, did you say you guys have won?
• 1:26:07
  22 conference championships in a row, yeah.
• 1:26:11
  Yeah, you know, you're just selfish.
• 1:26:13
  Mike is what I'm starting to figure out.
• 1:26:17
  Here. Holy cow.
• 1:26:18
  OK, good. And we knew once we.
• 1:26:20
  Got our women's team turned around to where we wanted them
• 1:26:23
  that that would start to happen. You know and so we've been
• 1:26:26
  successful on the women's side here as of recently over the
• 1:26:29
  last few years. But you know, it's it's really
• 1:26:33
  special the first time and then you know, but you got to keep it
• 1:26:36
  going, you know. But it looks at the first time
• 1:26:38
  we were second. You thought our team won a
• 1:26:40
  national championship. The next year we won a national
• 1:26:43
  title, the. Following year last.
• 1:26:46
  Year we, you know, we're first all year and we just had a rough
• 1:26:49
  national meet and if there's something that can go wrong it
• 1:26:51
  went wrong for us and we want lots of national, I mean.
• 1:26:56
  It was by far the. Worst meet I've had in my
• 1:26:59
  college career and we lost the national championship by a point
• 1:27:03
  and 'cause we thought we were going to go in and score 8085
• 1:27:06
  points and you know, scored 50 and 50 and Adam State, they
• 1:27:12
  scored a lot in the distance for 51.
• 1:27:15
  And one. It's never over with those guys.
• 1:27:17
  There was not one athlete that. Wanted to take a photo with with
• 1:27:20
  that trophy. Nobody touched it.
• 1:27:23
  You know, I still to this day, I don't think I've ever touched
• 1:27:27
  our national runner up trophy. But the two years before or the
• 1:27:33
  first time we were second. I mean, that was the most photo.
• 1:27:36
  Isn't that interesting? Same place, same place.
• 1:27:40
  And then totally different attitude towards it.
• 1:27:43
  Wow. Yeah, and then I'll, you know,
• 1:27:44
  then I. Look at last year outdoors, you
• 1:27:46
  know we were we were kind of 4th, 3rd or 4th all year ranked
• 1:27:49
  or or worked our way up to 4th. I mean, every week got a little
• 1:27:53
  better for us. And then we ended up having a
• 1:27:55
  great national meet, team takes second.
• 1:27:58
  Everybody wanted to take a trophy with that or a pitcher
• 1:28:01
  with that, you know, it's just such a different you're just the
• 1:28:04
  expectation level, yeah. You know.
• 1:28:09
  So. That's interesting.
• 1:28:12
  The I mean the same thing second place.
• 1:28:14
  It's the same thing whether it's 2020, 20/24/1980.
• 1:28:18
  It's the 2nd place, second place.
• 1:28:20
  And yet the difference in attitude, expectations,
• 1:28:25
  happiness levels, that's really interesting.
• 1:28:29
  That's really interesting. OK, Mike, let's spend some time
• 1:28:35
  here at the end. Let's talk about you're you're
• 1:28:37
  obviously an accomplished coach, so we don't need to talk about,
• 1:28:39
  we don't talk about XS and OS. So we're not gonna try to figure
• 1:28:42
  out why. You know how you you you get all
• 1:28:45
  these all Americans and national champs in the throws and all
• 1:28:47
  those kind of things. But you are a it's it's evident
• 1:28:51
  that you are a very good general.
• 1:28:54
  You're a good leader of other people.
• 1:28:57
  And we've been talking a lot about that leadership as it
• 1:29:00
  relates to the athletes. I'm curious, let's flip it a
• 1:29:04
  little bit here. When you become a head coach,
• 1:29:07
  when you're an assistant coach, and I don't think we realize
• 1:29:09
  this when sometimes we do, but most of the time I think we
• 1:29:12
  don't realize this when we're in it.
• 1:29:14
  And you can be excused for not realizing when you're in it.
• 1:29:16
  Being an assistant coach is easy.
• 1:29:18
  I know there's a lot of pressures on you because you got
• 1:29:20
  your event group and you got to do well and head coaches on you
• 1:29:23
  and all those kind of things. But when you become a head
• 1:29:25
  coach, and we talked about this earlier, we we hinted at it
• 1:29:29
  earlier. There's just so much more.
• 1:29:31
  In fact, when I asked you what was the thing that you thought
• 1:29:34
  was going to be easy, actually became a little hard.
• 1:29:36
  Your your answer right on on point here was yeah, I thought
• 1:29:39
  it'd be fine to, you know, coach my kids and still do all the
• 1:29:42
  administrative stuff that I have to do.
• 1:29:43
  And you're like, Yep, that actually became a little hard
• 1:29:46
  right off the bat. Like I realized oops that was a
• 1:29:47
  mistake. That's gonna be hard.
• 1:29:49
  So how do you let's let's start first with staff management cuz
• 1:29:54
  you got a great staff there including you know good friend
• 1:29:57
  Chris Parno. You know obviously I start with
• 1:29:59
  him with things. How do you.
• 1:30:04
  We talked about culture of the team.
• 1:30:06
  How do you influence, affect, coach your staff to have the
• 1:30:14
  same or similar. We're not carbon copying here,
• 1:30:17
  they are all individuals, but how do you raise their level to
• 1:30:22
  your expectations? I don't want to get into
• 1:30:25
  specifics like with Chris, one time I had to wag my finger at
• 1:30:28
  him. I know you didn't have to deal
• 1:30:29
  with Chris, but saying how do you keep the staff on the same
• 1:30:33
  page, keep the same expectations, keep the same
• 1:30:36
  motivations to go after D1 athletes so that you can win D2
• 1:30:40
  nationals? How?
• 1:30:41
  How do you, as a staff manager, handle that part of the job?
• 1:30:47
  The biggest thing for me, Mike? Is have great people that are
• 1:30:52
  way different than what I am and stay the heck out of their way
• 1:30:56
  and just basically support them you know.
• 1:30:58
  And so that's the the biggest thing we talk about.
• 1:31:03
  We talk about winning and in reality like, I don't like, I
• 1:31:08
  don't know if Chris and I have ever talked about.
• 1:31:12
  Legs of four by ones or. 4 by fours Sometimes he'll just tell
• 1:31:16
  me, hey, I'm going to this is what I'm thinking what do you
• 1:31:18
  think? You know?
• 1:31:20
  But it's 100%. I just want him to run his
• 1:31:22
  thing. Like I I look at event coaches
• 1:31:24
  should be head coaches and it's my job to just support them in
• 1:31:28
  their position and help them through it or help them work
• 1:31:32
  through a problem or or if they need something administrative
• 1:31:38
  support wise or logistic wise and help them with that.
• 1:31:42
  You know and like for example like Coach Parnell, Coach
• 1:31:45
  Parnell is AI am one of my downfalls is I am not a public
• 1:31:49
  speaker. I don't like getting in front of
• 1:31:50
  people and talking to him, Mike. It took me some convincing to
• 1:31:53
  even do this Mike well. Thank you for stepping out of
• 1:31:56
  your comfort zone then I appreciate way out of my comfort
• 1:31:59
  zone. I'm.
• 1:31:59
  Not a fan of talking to myself that you're doing excellently.
• 1:32:02
  Let me just say that you really are brother.
• 1:32:04
  Absolutely so. Still like our team meetings
• 1:32:08
  like a a lot of times like I'll have our kind of more of the
• 1:32:11
  logistical side of things. But I'll let coach Parnell do
• 1:32:15
  more of the rah rah. I'm shocked that he's so good at
• 1:32:18
  that. You.
• 1:32:19
  Know you know, he loves that stuff and it works.
• 1:32:21
  Out really well, you know, and there's so there's just it's
• 1:32:25
  finding what each of our assistant coaches are passionate
• 1:32:28
  about and letting that and letting them shine.
• 1:32:32
  But then. You know, and just kind of.
• 1:32:36
  But we all keep talking about winning.
• 1:32:38
  I mean, we. We got on the bus.
• 1:32:42
  Back from Pitt State after we won our national championship
• 1:32:45
  and the whole discussion for the next three hours, I mean we left
• 1:32:49
  at 10:00 at night and the whole discussion the next three hours.
• 1:32:52
  So one in the morning was about recruiting and who's still
• 1:32:56
  available out there and what can we do and what what are some of
• 1:33:01
  the kids that we can get to? How can we get our men's team
• 1:33:03
  from six up farther? Are we doing, you know, what are
• 1:33:07
  we doing right or what went wrong?
• 1:33:08
  Or looking back at the national meet, was there things that
• 1:33:15
  travel time or whatever things that we could have improved on?
• 1:33:21
  And so it's really that it's. Not I don't have really any
• 1:33:23
  secrets. It's just, well, you.
• 1:33:25
  You. Really nailed a great leadership
• 1:33:27
  line there. Have great people.
• 1:33:30
  So you hear this a lot, have great people and stay the other
• 1:33:32
  way. I've heard that a million times
• 1:33:33
  and it and it's important. I'm not.
• 1:33:35
  I'm. I'm going to downplay it here a
• 1:33:36
  little bit, unfortunately, but that is really important.
• 1:33:38
  You added something in there that I thought was really unique
• 1:33:41
  and important. Have great people and then you
• 1:33:44
  said who are different than you and then get out of their way.
• 1:33:50
  I've heard a line that you know, great leaders, like what makes a
• 1:33:52
  great leader? Well, all different types of
• 1:33:54
  personalities can be a great leader.
• 1:33:56
  All different types of communication styles can be
• 1:33:58
  great leaders. What makes great leaders is
• 1:34:01
  people who are hire, people that are not good at this, that are
• 1:34:04
  good at the stuff that they either aren't good at or don't
• 1:34:06
  like to do and then get out of their way.
• 1:34:08
  So that's what I kind of heard the way you said it was that or
• 1:34:11
  who are different than you people who have other skill sets
• 1:34:13
  whether it's obviously the coaching side.
• 1:34:15
  So sprints and hurdles versus throws and then you know maybe
• 1:34:18
  more extroverted than introverted And then let them
• 1:34:21
  say, OK good, I'm going to bless you to I'm a I'm a support you
• 1:34:24
  to be as good as you can at that because I'm really good at this
• 1:34:26
  part over here and I'm going to be guessing myself up over here
• 1:34:29
  to do these things because together we'll we'll lift the
• 1:34:32
  whole the whole program up. Yeah.
• 1:34:35
  And I look. At when Brian Sabera is 1 coach
• 1:34:39
  on our staff he's our jumps coach and multis coach and you
• 1:34:43
  know and and I really like early on when I got to know him he
• 1:34:48
  used to be the former head coach at Saint Cloud State and just
• 1:34:52
  I'm always watching coaches coming up and how they're
• 1:34:56
  interacting with their kids. They have no clue that I'm doing
• 1:34:59
  that you know but how they're interacting with their kids at
• 1:35:01
  meets how their kids are responding to them you know are
• 1:35:05
  they staying put or are they jumping ship every year.
• 1:35:08
  But then just seeing them, do they, are they different at a
• 1:35:11
  regular meet than a national meet?
• 1:35:13
  You know, some people go to a national meet and all once
• 1:35:15
  they're changing everything in the world and it's like, well,
• 1:35:16
  that's not what got you there, right.
• 1:35:18
  You know, And then just kind of then kind of having my list of
• 1:35:22
  people that I have. You know if if coaches change,
• 1:35:26
  I, you know, I need to be prepared for all.
• 1:35:29
  That, that right there might be, you know, we have a ton of
• 1:35:31
  assistant coaches that listen to the podcast.
• 1:35:34
  That is really like when you go ask someone, you know, how can I
• 1:35:39
  get this job or that job or how can I become a head coach one
• 1:35:41
  day, etcetera, etcetera. That might be the best advice
• 1:35:44
  that can be given right there. Mike is, hey, someone is always
• 1:35:48
  watching. So conduct yourself with the
• 1:35:51
  high integrity that you have all the time, all the time someone's
• 1:35:56
  watching you and that is the best when when there's a
• 1:35:58
  position open and a coach like Mike already has a list and
• 1:36:02
  you're on that list, you're ahead of the game and but you
• 1:36:05
  only get on that list if you're doing the right things at at the
• 1:36:08
  dual meet up to the national meet, do the right things each
• 1:36:11
  time. And when you stack, you know you
• 1:36:12
  do the right things. You make the right decisions
• 1:36:14
  over and over from little ones to big ones, those stack and
• 1:36:16
  become huge ones. That's how you end up that
• 1:36:18
  that's how you've won a national title.
• 1:36:20
  Mike is you guys have taken a lot of little and medium and big
• 1:36:23
  sized decisions and done the right decision and stacked and
• 1:36:25
  stacked and stacked until it ends up with a a national
• 1:36:29
  trophy. Yeah.
• 1:36:30
  And I mean, that's as simple. As you know things that I'm
• 1:36:32
  looking for like you know you're just having a little side
• 1:36:35
  conversation with an assistant coach and are they talking about
• 1:36:38
  how they could be doing their head job coaches better or how
• 1:36:42
  their. Athletes are and you know.
• 1:36:43
  It's it's just all little things that accumulate that that you
• 1:36:47
  have. But then it's also kind of helps
• 1:36:50
  my coaching friends that, you know, like if I can recommend
• 1:36:53
  somebody to them, I'd be like, yeah, this person at this other
• 1:36:56
  school that I really respect, you know, and kind of help that
• 1:37:00
  way. You know, a big thing has always
• 1:37:02
  been for me, you know, I've had now 12 women that have got 12
• 1:37:07
  women throwers. I've gone on to be collegiate
• 1:37:09
  coaches. Is that right?
• 1:37:11
  You know and. You know not, and I always look
• 1:37:15
  at what I was. There, you know, there's
• 1:37:21
  definitely. There's been a huge uptick in
• 1:37:23
  the amount of women coaches in college track and field.
• 1:37:26
  But just kind of that's always been a big kind of passion for
• 1:37:29
  mine. You know.
• 1:37:30
  You know it started in my earlier coaching days.
• 1:37:32
  But just also if I see an athlete that I think would be
• 1:37:36
  the coach really try to help them where it might be just
• 1:37:39
  something as simple as hey why don't you come I'm once you come
• 1:37:43
  you're at the 3:00 session. Can you come at the 1:00
• 1:37:45
  session. I have a bunch of freshmen.
• 1:37:46
  I want you to help me out with the hammer and then kind of help
• 1:37:50
  them, teach them a little bit on how to do that and kind of
• 1:37:53
  blossom that, But the greatest superpower.
• 1:37:56
  Of a coach specifically a track coach is seeing things in other
• 1:37:59
  people before they can see it in themselves.
• 1:38:01
  Man that's awesome. So you're you're not even
• 1:38:02
  talking about athleticism of like hey I believe you can be
• 1:38:04
  A50 footer in the shot one day you're talking about hey you
• 1:38:07
  know what like you could be a coach one day like that.
• 1:38:10
  That's an amazing amazing ability and trait.
• 1:38:14
  I I love that. That's that's really awesome.
• 1:38:18
  OK, we talked about. So I told you, you know before
• 1:38:21
  we hit record, you know your journey is important and I love
• 1:38:24
  the journey that you've been up to today.
• 1:38:26
  And then I love that your journey is continuing.
• 1:38:28
  By the way, this is not even like maybe if we're going to use
• 1:38:30
  a quarter mile as a reference, maybe you're at the 150 mark,
• 1:38:34
  you still got a long long pathway in front of your career.
• 1:38:38
  So I love that. But I also told you, you know
• 1:38:40
  the other part that has made this podcast so popular is the
• 1:38:43
  value that the guest brings. And by the way you're not going
• 1:38:46
  to out of the park on that. But I'd like to talk about the
• 1:38:49
  continue the conversation, you know the well roundness of a
• 1:38:51
  coach, not just the on the track coaching component.
• 1:38:54
  We talked about staff management.
• 1:38:56
  I asked you earlier in the show about your staying curious and
• 1:39:02
  has that you'll continue to stay cranked at 10 today and you
• 1:39:05
  mentioned yeah, but differently. So maybe not a 10 and I'm sure
• 1:39:10
  you're still at some level with the training and things like
• 1:39:13
  that. But you you said you know out of
• 1:39:15
  10, yeah I am, but it's off the track stuff.
• 1:39:17
  You mentioned facility design, budgeting.
• 1:39:23
  I'm trying to think of the other things you mentioned.
• 1:39:25
  Talk to us about. So we also have a a.
• 1:39:30
  A good number of athletes that listen to the podcast, they're
• 1:39:33
  typically junior to senior in college and they're so they're
• 1:39:35
  thinking about coaching. So they're listening to to
• 1:39:37
  coaches like yourself. Again, we get very much into the
• 1:39:41
  trap of we think coaching at any level is oh, I'm just in the
• 1:39:44
  sand pit coaching long jumpers, that's what the job is that's.
• 1:39:47
  And you know what? Oh sure, I'm sure I got to do
• 1:39:48
  some paperwork. But 80% of the job is on the
• 1:39:51
  track and that's not true at all.
• 1:39:53
  Talk to us about how you are continuing develop holistically
• 1:39:57
  as a coach in think getting better at those those items that
• 1:40:01
  you mentioned that you might also mention now.
• 1:40:03
  Yeah. I mean.
• 1:40:06
  Going back to the kind of the question you brought up about
• 1:40:08
  coaching, You know, I was just at the dentist this morning and
• 1:40:10
  the lady asked me what I did. And I was a college coach.
• 1:40:12
  And she goes, well, what do you do all day?
• 1:40:14
  Like, you know, and you always get those questions, but, you
• 1:40:19
  know, you know, as an assistant coach, I always look at and I
• 1:40:21
  told our assistants when we started that I wanted them to do
• 1:40:25
  what they're good at. And that's coaching.
• 1:40:27
  And so trying to figure out we were spending so much time with
• 1:40:30
  the academics. Coach Primal spent a lot of time
• 1:40:33
  doing academic stuff, and I wanted to get that off his plate
• 1:40:35
  so he could just spend more time coaching and recruiting.
• 1:40:38
  You know, we're always trying to make our kids better, but then
• 1:40:41
  recruit kids better than our current kids and.
• 1:40:45
  So it's for me. It's just been learning more
• 1:40:48
  things about that, you know. You know, I've been very curious
• 1:40:52
  on. I didn't have much fundraising
• 1:40:55
  experience in my previous role in job and now that's a big part
• 1:40:59
  of it. And so I've had to really learn
• 1:41:02
  how to do that, engage, you know, engage people.
• 1:41:05
  How can we market, track and field more and really try to try
• 1:41:10
  to build that up? You know another big piece, you
• 1:41:14
  know we. We host a lot of track.
• 1:41:17
  And field meets at MSU. You know it's almost you know,
• 1:41:20
  we just we just had a we and we just got done with our 14th high
• 1:41:26
  school meet. You know, we did this year.
• 1:41:30
  Yeah, this year 11. Indoor days, indoor college
• 1:41:33
  meets, you know, we have just had a huge high school or huge
• 1:41:38
  college meet here, you know, and so it's just learning every time
• 1:41:42
  we have a meet, you know, and we've done this for seven years.
• 1:41:45
  And Tuesday at 10 is our staff meeting.
• 1:41:47
  I know it's cringy for some of our assistant coaches, but we go
• 1:41:50
  through, even we've hosted our indoor conference meet seven
• 1:41:54
  times, we still spend 1/2 hour discussing what things we can
• 1:41:57
  improve on and how can we make that better.
• 1:42:00
  Now those meetings were a lot longer early on, but we've
• 1:42:04
  really been able to make it. I mean, you know, down to it
• 1:42:09
  that we always, you know, we always have a goal that you
• 1:42:12
  know, as a field event background.
• 1:42:13
  I always it it was always annoying to me when I go to
• 1:42:16
  track meets and the track would get done and then there would be
• 1:42:19
  field events going on for four hours and we always try to get
• 1:42:23
  it where the last throw, you know the last pole vault, the
• 1:42:26
  last long jump. He's also happening during the
• 1:42:29
  four by 4. You know and you know it can get
• 1:42:32
  it down to throws. We're pretty good now we can get
• 1:42:34
  it down to within 5 minutes of predicting when when the all the
• 1:42:38
  throws are going to be done at the time pulled off a little bit
• 1:42:40
  more trickier but long jumps. Pretty simple.
• 1:42:43
  Different times for different officials that we have.
• 1:42:46
  Different times for different genders that we have.
• 1:42:50
  But just trying to make that more efficient, you know, And
• 1:42:53
  then it's just looking at, you know, like I knew a few years
• 1:42:59
  ago that athletic training, you know, they changed the standards
• 1:43:02
  that you could use to have a bachelor's degree for athletic
• 1:43:05
  training and now it's going to go to a master's degree.
• 1:43:08
  Saw that as a big hurdle for trekking all for our program
• 1:43:11
  here, what we're going to do. And then had to learn a lot more
• 1:43:15
  about athletic training and figure out, OK, how can we
• 1:43:18
  expand this model. You know, and it's kind of
• 1:43:21
  looking at taking basically the biggest threats that I have to
• 1:43:24
  our program that are preventing us from being more successful.
• 1:43:28
  Taking one and trying to just fix it and then move on to the
• 1:43:32
  next one. You know, and not trying to I
• 1:43:34
  think where some people might look at where they look at
• 1:43:37
  everything that's going wrong and then try to fix them all at
• 1:43:40
  once and you don't really fix them.
• 1:43:41
  It's like, OK, let's, let's, like, I I knew for our thing
• 1:43:45
  that the first thing I had to do is we had to remodel our indoor
• 1:43:48
  track because the surface was old.
• 1:43:50
  And that was going to cut down on some of our, you know, some
• 1:43:53
  of our issues that we're seeing. And so it was how to.
• 1:43:58
  I know I'm jumping all over the place, but there's two types of
• 1:44:01
  fundraising. There's internal fundraising at
• 1:44:02
  your university and there's external fundraising.
• 1:44:05
  Oh, explain that. Explain that.
• 1:44:06
  That's important. Internal fundraising is.
• 1:44:08
  Getting your university to come up with the funds and that I've
• 1:44:13
  had experience with external fundraising to me is the easier
• 1:44:17
  portion of it. And it's just trying to get the
• 1:44:21
  people that make the decisions to kind of get it your way and
• 1:44:25
  what they're passionate about, you know.
• 1:44:27
  And it's the other, it's the other flip side, I guess for
• 1:44:31
  other, since this is more for a broader coaching thing.
• 1:44:34
  You know, I look at is it's not the people.
• 1:44:38
  You have people in higher Ed leadership and VP roles.
• 1:44:42
  The most important people are the people one step below them
• 1:44:44
  that you find that are successful, that you know in the
• 1:44:46
  next few years are going to be in those roles.
• 1:44:49
  And you start getting them attached to your program now so
• 1:44:52
  that as they move up in their careers, they're already a big
• 1:44:55
  believer in your sport, Especially if you're at a place
• 1:44:57
  that you feel you're going to be there long term.
• 1:45:02
  That'll help you grow your program, you know, or a huge
• 1:45:08
  portion for us is, you know, we have our inclusion diversity
• 1:45:12
  office is almost basically funding 2 full time positions
• 1:45:16
  for academic support, you know, and that's relationships we've
• 1:45:20
  built through track and field and help it helping with that.
• 1:45:23
  But now it's kind of really fixed our academic support stuff
• 1:45:26
  that I had and now I don't have ineligible athletes.
• 1:45:29
  All our athletes are graduating and we're keeping our higher
• 1:45:32
  high academic or our higher basically are higher risk
• 1:45:37
  athletes and know we have the academic support for them and
• 1:45:40
  they're going to, they're going to graduate, you know.
• 1:45:44
  Mike, I encourage track coaches to go into administration.
• 1:45:48
  You've been in administration, but I encourage our track
• 1:45:51
  coaches to go in administration because you know a lot of our a
• 1:45:54
  lot of decisions, a lot of important decisions of our sport
• 1:45:56
  are happening in those conference rooms with
• 1:45:59
  administrators. And so I'd like for someone who
• 1:46:01
  has experience with our sport to to be in those those meetings.
• 1:46:05
  So it's interesting you you've I don't want to say you came from
• 1:46:08
  the administration but you have a a very large administration
• 1:46:11
  background with the academic side there at well I know, I
• 1:46:14
  know and stuff and you're doing an amazing job as a coach and as
• 1:46:17
  a head coach and and you know I guess if you have still a lot of
• 1:46:20
  runway in front of you but man you as an administrator would be
• 1:46:24
  really important for our sport not only at that school that
• 1:46:28
  that might ever happen but also in that conference and on the
• 1:46:31
  national level as well. You said a a great brain about
• 1:46:35
  just the analytical side of of what it is.
• 1:46:37
  I just want to encourage you, you know as you continue through
• 1:46:40
  your career path of you know that maybe it's not over that
• 1:46:43
  administrative side for you. So just want to encourage you
• 1:46:46
  with with that Mike to wrap us up.
• 1:46:50
  What's got you excited man, there's a lot of things to be
• 1:46:52
  excited there as a Maverick, as you look forward to maybe you
• 1:46:56
  get to choose what feature here is it this season, one year,
• 1:47:00
  five years? What's got you excited about
• 1:47:02
  your program there? The biggest?
• 1:47:04
  Thing Mike is just kind of the growth all the all the grinding
• 1:47:08
  and not giving up that we had over the you know the last few
• 1:47:12
  years just kind of seeing that all come together seeing our
• 1:47:15
  athletes that you know I mean when we when we sit down and
• 1:47:20
  start talking about them and then early on in the recruiting
• 1:47:22
  that we have chances that you know I mean we've really tried
• 1:47:26
  to expand our international kind of recruiting with that and you
• 1:47:30
  know and that's that's been really gone really well for us
• 1:47:35
  and one of the big things Coach Sabira brought to us when with
• 1:47:38
  that and. Then just.
• 1:47:43
  The biggest thing is just growth.
• 1:47:45
  Like we want to keep, want to keep growing as a program.
• 1:47:49
  We kind of like our roster kind of to stay kind of where it's
• 1:47:52
  at. You know, we've gone where a lot
• 1:47:55
  of our coaches believe in a bigger roster.
• 1:47:56
  We think the depth helps you sustain conference championships
• 1:48:01
  really well, you know, so we do have a larger roster program on
• 1:48:04
  the side. You know we we're this year we
• 1:48:07
  were at one, we started the year about one 94190.
• 1:48:11
  Four, yeah. Yeah.
• 1:48:13
  So we're you said large roster I'm.
• 1:48:15
  Like, Oh yeah, 100 athletes. That's a lot.
• 1:48:17
  Double it. You're at nearly 200 athletes
• 1:48:20
  and you are this is awesome because some people think it's
• 1:48:25
  it's a it's inverse proportional that the larger your roster.
• 1:48:28
  You can't win Nationals because you can't focus on the athletes,
• 1:48:31
  the five athletes you need things like that you're able to
• 1:48:33
  you're and your staff are able to do both 200 athletes nearly
• 1:48:37
  and pushing for national titles. Wow.
• 1:48:41
  It's a lot harder. I would I.
• 1:48:42
  Would I would say that it's it depends on your coach coaching
• 1:48:47
  staff like I'm lucky enough that I have coaches that have been
• 1:48:52
  here a long time that are a little older that you know, I
• 1:48:55
  mean. They run their event groups and
• 1:48:58
  we. Have a plethora of volunteer
• 1:49:00
  assistants that are trying to get experience to move on that
• 1:49:04
  help out with that. But I mean Jerry Baltus has been
• 1:49:08
  out, doesn't know it, but a good mentor of mine since I've been
• 1:49:11
  in the head coaching role, just kind of seeing the success he's,
• 1:49:14
  he's built at Grand Valley and you know they've done it with a
• 1:49:17
  large roster public school like ours, a little larger school
• 1:49:21
  than ours, but just the success he's had, you know, so it can't
• 1:49:27
  happen. You can't do it.
• 1:49:29
  I love it. Growth.
• 1:49:30
  You're excited about growth. Continued growth.
• 1:49:32
  I love hearing that from a guy who's won a national title.
• 1:49:33
  Because again, it's easy to sit on our laurels and be like, hey
• 1:49:36
  man, I've done more than 99% of coaches will ever do that will
• 1:49:39
  ever won a national title. So I love the continued vision
• 1:49:42
  towards growth and growing the program, growing yourself and
• 1:49:45
  growing your staff. Yeah, I appreciate it.
• 1:49:48
  I love it. Thank you, guys.
• 1:49:50
  We're gonna wrap it up right there.
• 1:49:52
  Mike, thank you so much, man, for I say this to everybody.
• 1:49:56
  I'm amazed because this is not an easy podcast, not easy
• 1:49:59
  podcast to listen to. So I always love you listeners
• 1:50:01
  being here all the way to the very end because it is longer
• 1:50:04
  than normal podcast, but that also means it's not an easy
• 1:50:07
  podcast to record for. I asked for two hours of your
• 1:50:10
  time during offseason. That would be extremely hard.
• 1:50:13
  But right now, Mike, I'm so grateful for you.
• 1:50:15
  You're coming off a host and a track meet, you're staring
• 1:50:18
  conference and nationals in front of you and you're able to
• 1:50:21
  give me your time. And that's one of the most
• 1:50:22
  important and valuable things you can ever give me.
• 1:50:24
  So I'm really, really grateful for your time today and you've
• 1:50:27
  just really killed it with the value, my friend.
• 1:50:30
  It's amazing that really you're still a young part of your
• 1:50:33
  coaching career here. The experiences you've had, add
• 1:50:36
  the lessons you've learned and and you continue to keep that,
• 1:50:39
  that grindstone mentality of of growing and and getting better
• 1:50:41
  every day. So I'm just so grateful for you
• 1:50:43
  and really thankful for your time.
• 1:50:45
  Appreciate it, Mike. Thanks for everything you do for
• 1:50:47
  our support too and promoting it absolutely.
• 1:50:49
  You deserve it guys. Thank you to being here.
• 1:50:51
  Join us next week. We're, I think we're in the
• 1:50:53
  middle of May when you're listening to this.
• 1:50:55
  So we've got nationals, conference nationals coming up,
• 1:50:58
  We've got the summer track. We're going to keep bringing
• 1:51:00
  amazing people like this to the podcast every week to join us.
• 1:51:03
  Next week we'll do it all over again.
• 1:51:05
  Thanks everybody. If it goes to.
• 1:51:08
  Appreciate the coach. The ones appoint people.
• 1:51:10
  Most every season needs a voice of reason speaking the growth
• 1:51:14
  you got to prep for, you carry the load.
• 1:51:16
  It's called to the soul. For those of us to stand, to go
• 1:51:19
  proper handoff. To stay in the zone with you
• 1:51:21
  packing for the road. There's more than one way to go.
• 1:51:24
  Take notes. That's paying.
• 1:51:25
  You're told it ain't practice. If your purpose ain't clear, it
• 1:51:28
  can't happen to you. Listen what both is.
• 1:51:30
  Can't mentor without a mentor of years of experience.
• 1:51:33
  You can reinvent those years. Every plan's got a standard live
• 1:51:37
  up to enterprise sacrifice. Can you give up you.
• 1:51:40
  It's a choice and to fight not a win or lose.
• 1:51:42
  It's not a ploy boy device Y'all can make more moves.
• 1:51:45
  It's not about how to it's all about why you don't know till
• 1:51:48
  you know who you are inside 6. When you waste time choose none
• 1:51:52
  So your course finish line. The work ain't done.
• 1:51:54
  So we learn from the experts. We all got to put in the leg.
• 1:51:57
  Work kill. Athletics network.
• 1:52:00
  It's all about connections put together for the profession.
• 1:52:03
  To every track coach could be blessed.