Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / #257: Nick Stenuf-University of Alabama

Transcript

#257: Nick Stenuf-University of Alabama · 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 Gill
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  Athletics connections. All right, we're back here on
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  the Gillahunters Track and Field Connections podcast.
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  So humbled that you impressed play today.
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  We're excited about today's guest.
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  We're excited about all of our guests and really just pumped to
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  continue the journey, the mission of getting everybody,
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  getting every coach in the whole country.
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  High school, junior high, college elite.
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  We want them all. It's like Pokémon.
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  I want to I want to catch them all here and I'm excited to
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  catch this one today. So help me welcome from the
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  University of Alabama, the coach, the wise, the wonderful
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  Mr. Nick Stenoff. Nick, how are you today Sir?
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  I'm great. Thank you for having me.
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  I really appreciate it. I I thought it was law that
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  anytime someone said how are you or you know how you for Alabama
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  it was automatic. You just said Roll Tide.
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  Like that's just the answer for every question.
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  Roll Tide is a response. Like hi, how are you?
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  Welcome. Roll Tide.
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  You know, I I grew up in the great state of Alabama, high
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  school and college there. I went to the number one College
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  in the state of Alabama, Troy University, but grew up close
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  enough to Auburn that Auburn was kind of #2.
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  But it's hard to be in in Alabama without having some
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  respect and reverence for the University of Alabama.
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  And really you know, I know a lot of people know it from the
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  football team, of course we coach Saban and and whatnot.
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  You know the track team has certainly stepped up in the
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  last, call it a 5-10 years here now, that's for sure.
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  But the the university is it's a really like academic good
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  university. It's it was quite amazing as I
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  started kind of digging into the university itself.
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  So it's really interesting. Well, we're we're excited to
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  learn how you got there. You're not an Alabama.
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  Well, I don't know that you're not an Alabama native.
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  I know you're you weren't at Alabama for your whole career.
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  So we're excited to check out that and learn more about that.
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  You are a distance coach, so you know, certainly no questions
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  about how to make a distance run or run fast because I know
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  nothing about distance. If I if I was a distance coach,
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  they'd all be doing long runs every day.
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  I'd just be like, oh, you're going to be aerobic monsters.
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  That's all I would ever know. And you know, I'd move on.
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  So we'll talk about that, that's for sure.
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  So let's talk about you, Nick. Let's kind of get in our way
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  back machine here. Let's talk about track and and
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  distance running, maybe other sports.
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  Where does track track coaching? Where does all that begin for
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  you? Yeah, I was originally a soccer
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  player. Grew up love for soccer, played
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  high school, played club ball. I actually played my first two
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  years in college, believe it or not.
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  Yep. So I didn't run cross country
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  until my junior year in college. Yeah, first time ever.
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  And what's fun about that is so I never had a 5 KN cross.
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  I never had an 8 KN cross. My first ever cross country race
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  was actually a 10K no. Welcome to the big leagues,
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  yeah. So my love for it, I should say
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  it kind of came from there. Yeah, well, before we get there.
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  So then tell me about high school.
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  Did you did you run track? So were you soccer in the fall,
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  Track in the spring? Tell Tell me more.
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  Yeah, soccer and then track. But kind of track came on.
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  I had. It's funny story, I had somebody
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  on my street. So I grew up on a street with a
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  lot of kids. You know, you're always out
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  there as you remember, you know, playing football or playing
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  baseball. We're racing each other up and
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  down the street. We're on bikes.
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  We're just playing a lot. And one of the neighborhood kids
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  who I knew I was faster than ended up being the track
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  captain, he was a year or two older than I was.
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  And so he came home, went bragging one day like I'm the
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  captain of the track and I was like and track took you like
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  we've raced each other all the time.
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  Growing up like I, so I was like, all right, I'll go out for
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  track. So it was kind of like a
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  friendly, competitive, you know, atmosphere.
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  And then my soccer coach was actually one of the track
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  coaches. He coached hurdles and jumps and
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  kind of did a little bit. We had a different distance
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  coach, but he was always encouraging the soccer guys, if
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  you're not doing anything, you know, come out and run track,
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  right. And he was like, hey, I know
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  soccer's our first love and I know you play club ball.
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  So, you know, on Tuesdays and Thursdays was my my club soccer
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  practice. Like you don't have to come to
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  track practice. You can come Monday, Wednesday,
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  Friday, you can play soccer, you can do.
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  So I was like, OK, well, it's not going to interfere with my
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  soccer, might as well. And then it kind of just
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  transpired from there. All of a sudden I started
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  running. I started running faster,
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  started having a little bit more success, and then junior and
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  senior year, I didn't really start running track in high
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  school until junior year. So senior year, it kind of
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  really took off and I was like, oh, maybe I want to do this in
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  college, so. And you know one of the things I
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  have to work hard at here on hard on the AS being the host
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  here is not having assumptions. I'm really bad at when when when
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  I know someone's from a school, I just, you know my whole
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  assumption is oh your whole life has been and and because I know
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  you I know it's not true here but it's like oh Nick's been in
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  Alabama forever and you're a distance coach.
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  I'm like oh, so you obviously you were a distance runner and
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  did nothing but distance. What are you doing event.
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  Are you doing like the mile and two mile during this junior
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  senior year or you you you're kind of giving me vibes of like
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  you're sprinting and things like that?
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  I had every range it was actually crazy.
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  So when I first started they had me in the mile and two mile like
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  almost everything right And I was like no I want to run run
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  it. So they ran me I was on 4 by
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  fours I was 800 I was more than 800 guy in in high school but
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  they'd run me up into the mile and two mile every now and then
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  especially in dual meets right to get points and but now I was
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  more than 800 guy and. Where?
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  Where are we? Where are you growing up at?
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  So I grew up in Syracuse, NY. Got it.
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  OK. Right, right.
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  So, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
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  So, so keep going. You were saying senior year it
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  started kind of getting a little bit more serious on the track
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  side? Yeah, so I was, I was OK.
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  I was like a 50.400 guy. I ended up running 153 on relays
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  154 you know 800 meter like a 420 Miller, you know never
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  really raced the two mile, raced the two mile.
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  Didn't duel meets like I said for points, but yeah, I really
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  just did everything. I I did 4 events, probably every
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  duel meet, even ran on the four by one 4x4 everything.
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  So that's actually probably something for me.
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  I was on the state qualifying team in the four by one, the
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  4x4, the four by eight in the Open 8.
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  Wow. Holy cow, My dude's got range.
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  Yeah, so whatever coach needed, whatever the team needed, I just
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  kind of did. I loved it.
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  You know, I love the there's a real lesson here.
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  When he talked about the soccer coach and the track coach and
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  practices and you had club soccer which that's, you know a
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  very big topic. You know this is funny, this
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  there was a topic for you back when you were growing up and now
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  you know today it feels like that's a topic every day.
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  Club coaching, club sports versus high school sports, etc.
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  I love that kind of lesson of the communication side of it's
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  like, OK, you're going to do club coach didn't try to talk
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  you out of it, but it's like, OK, you're going to do club on
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  Tuesdays and Thursdays. Cool.
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  We'll work around that. You're not going to do track
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  practice those days and we'll modify.
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  I assume they modified Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
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  Did did you realize, you know, you can be forgiven as a 1718
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  year old kid, but did you realize, I don't say how special
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  that is. Was that common in your ear?
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  Like did you have other soccer players or other sports people
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  working dual sports at the same time?
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  Or was it kind of like, yeah, Nick's a little little
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  different. He's, he's good at soccer and we
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  want him on the track team. So we're going to work around
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  it. A little of both.
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  I would say our better soccer players kind of ran or did
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  something else like some of them played lacrosse or you know dual
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  sport athlete. Especially at my school it
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  wasn't very large. I mean I graduated with about
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  two 6265 S fair enough. But like I would say our better
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  soccer players were dual sport and I think my coach, he was the
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  soccer coach, basketball coach and the track coach.
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  So he understood the dynamic of, you know, multi sport athletes
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  and yeah that was good. I I well you know it's funny you
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  just said that and it's kind of just popped into my head.
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  You know I'm a big believer in multi sport athletes.
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  I think especially in high school they should play
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  everything even at the detriment of whatever their number one
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  sport is. And you know I I see it feels
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  like on the track side we lead with the hey, there should be
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  multi sport athletes like you know if my track kids want to
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  play football and soccer and volleyball, great, go do it.
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  We'll work around it and because of that it seems like the
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  reverse is true. It feels like and I'm here in
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  the one side of it, the track coach side of it, you know, the
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  football coach only wants you to do football and seven on seven
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  and spring practice and volleyball club, it's 365.
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  It's such AI wonder and certainly there's a club aspect
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  to it. But that made me think about
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  like is the amount of coaches. You mentioned your soccer coach
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  was the basketball coach and a track coach.
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  I remember, you know, growing up in Alabama and all of our
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  football coaches were all the other sport coaches.
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  There was no single like no one just did basketball.
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  You were a a football coach who did basketball, a football coach
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  who did tennis, football coach who did track.
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  I wonder are we losing it multi sport coaches on the high school
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  level? Are more coaches specializing in
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  high school? I don't know that that's a
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  really good question would be you know you probably find more
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  now that are cross country and then indoor and outdoor track I.
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  Right, right. I would say it depends probably
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  too on the size of the school. I bet you the smaller schools
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  you have a lot of coaches who probably do multi sports.
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  Yeah, I remember when I first moved to Chicago and I called
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  the local high school, De La Salle, to see if they needed a
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  volunteer or assistant what not. And I'm talking to the head
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  coach. And I asked him, I was like, So
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  what position do you coach in football?
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  And he was like, what are you talking about?
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  I mean, he was, you know, it was like, what are you talking
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  about, idiot? I mean, it was literally like,
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  what are you? And I was like, oh, well, you
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  know, where I come from, every football coach, you know, all
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  the other sport coaches come from football.
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  And he's like, oh, no, dude. He's like our football coaches
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  coach football. We've got a whole separate
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  basketball staff, wrestling staff and how it blew my little
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  Alabama mind. Trust me, it blew my mind, had
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  no idea. So yeah, I don't know, I don't
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  necessarily pigeonhole you to give us the answer on that
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  question just kind of made me think about are are we losing
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  multi sport coaches in high school?
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  Is that, is that affecting the multi sport athletes?
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  So anyway, OK, let's get back to you Nick.
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  You know we almost called this podcast, the Tangent podcast
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  'cause I knew I would just you know interject your story and be
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  like well what is this? What's going on here?
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  Senior year, you're running on every stinking relay from the
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  four by 1 to the four by eight. You're doing the miles quite
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  amazing. I didn't hear any field events.
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  So, you know, maybe, maybe not the decathlete route, but as you
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  start looking towards college, you're a soccer player and
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  track. Do you?
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  Do you, would you have called yourself a soccer player who ran
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  track or track athlete who I kind of think I know the answer
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  here that that played soccer. So if you were to ask high
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  school me, I'd say it was a soccer player that ran track.
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  Right, right, right. Now looking back on it in
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  hindsight, you know as we get older, I was definitely a track
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  runner who played soccer. I was far better at track and
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  didn't realize it, and I never had anyone really kind of steer
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  me in that direction. Well, subtly.
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  Now looking back on it, I can see some coaches, but really
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  they kind of let me do it. In hindsight, I probably should
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  have made the transition to track sooner.
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  Yeah, that's in. You kind of feel like now you're
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  like, I was masquerading as a soccer player.
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  I was really a track guy. But I, you know, I was wearing
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  the Halloween costume of a soccer player.
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  Yeah, that's interesting. Perspective is amazing, isn't
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  it? Oh, yeah.
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  What was it? Hindsight's 2020.
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  We can look back like, oh, man, what was I thinking?
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  What what would have happened if I had done it earlier?
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  Right. Yeah, that's the.
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  But I had fun with it though I I tell recruits this all the time,
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  it made me probably love it for longer and enjoy what I was
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  doing in the moment. So I I just want you to have fun
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  with it. Interesting.
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  And I truly mean that. So when I talk to athletes who
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  are multi sport like I had, I have one recruit who's a soccer
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  player and I was like hey, do it for as long as you can.
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  Cuz if you know you're gonna be a runner and you know you're
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  doing that in college, I want you to continue loving it.
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  So I've encouraged that and I think that's something special
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  to have. Yeah, that's really cool.
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  The alternative is, hey, you're good at this sport, so go all
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  in. You know you hear this and this
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  is, you know, quite often a refrain of go all in, give it
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  your all 100%, block out the distractions and it's like, hey,
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  you're talking about an 18 year old and and really even in
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  college you're talking about a 20 year old.
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  That's, you know, when we look at where our athletes are doing
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  the best in any sport, soccer, baseball, basketball, track,
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  it's 28 to 32 because you need years of layering on there.
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  And it's like, why are we doing this at 20 years old and 18
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  years old and 16 years old and have less, you know, more and
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  more younger and younger, 12 years old, That's awesome and
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  you should have fun. I love that kind of attitude.
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  Where does that come from is that you know that most of our
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  traits that we know it at our age and stage of life come from
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  background, whether it's teachers or parents or clergy,
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  etcetera. Where does that like, hey man,
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  have fun with it? Where does that kind of attitude
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  come from for you? Probably started with my family,
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  right? And then and then my high school
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  coach, right, who was very open to kind of just making sure I
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  was enjoying it. Like, he always used to have
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  this thing. He'd come up and ask me, like,
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  how you feeling? So I'd be like he's like, oh,
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  good, OK, good. You feel rough.
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  Like he, he'd kind of joke about it and kind of make it fun and
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  make the atmosphere enjoyable. And, you know, I had a really
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  healthy relationship with him. I still talk with him nowadays.
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  And wow, looking back on it, I first met him around 2000.
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  So I've known him for about 20-3 years now.
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  And so we still have that healthy, fun, cordial, you know,
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  kind of enjoying laughable, you know, kind of conversation.
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  And I wanted to apply that because I'm like, yeah, at the
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  end of the day, like there's going to be certain times when
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  we're going to work hard and and running, let's, let's face it,
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  there's so many miles and so many workouts and long runs of
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  stuff that are not glamorous. But if we can enjoy the process
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  and I can make them laugh and keep it, you know, fun, you know
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  that's that's important to me. We we love Shout Outs.
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  What's Coach's name? Oh, so coach Scott Love was my
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  first coach and then coach Mark Carr.
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  He's still currently at my old high school, East Syracuse.
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  Manoa, still coaching away. So both of them are still really
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  big in my life, But yeah. Love it.
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  Love it. Love it.
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  The impact of a coach, man, it's it's immeasurable.
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  It it really is. You know what they what they did
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  for you and it's and it's interesting if you're watching
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  us on YouTube, you can actually see Nick's face here but the way
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  your face lit up saying their name.
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  I know you have your memories when you're telling the story
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  but when you say their names out loud it makes it more tangible
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  for a person. So when you said that your face
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  lit up even more and it really tells you the impact that they
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  made on you and are still making on you as mentors today and
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  still talking to them. And and now what's amazing is
• 14:54
  you know they get to see their legacy through you and what
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  you're doing with the athletes. It's really an extension of
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  their legacy and and the impact on on young people.
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  So I love, I love seeing that. Like I said that's that's why we
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  started publishing these on YouTube because it's one thing
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  to hear and hear the voice and you can certainly hear that
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  Nick's voice here but if you go on YouTube and actually see that
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  light up it's it's special. It really is special.
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  OK. As you're looking into college,
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  tell us first of all where is coaching in your mind if at all?
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  Like are you thinking like, oh, maybe I could be a coach.
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  Where are you looking to go and for academically and because
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  you're still this, you know, pretty high level dual athlete.
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  And are you thinking soccer track.
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  Both. Neither.
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  Tell us about that process. I was.
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  I was looking for both right out crazy story with the start of
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  it. So I was looking for both more
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  on the soccer route, actually, right away I went to Coastal
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  Carolina for a semester. Is that right?
• 15:56
  Yeah. Was a walk on soccer.
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  You know, I was talking with the coach, you know, red shirted.
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  They had a really, really good team back then.
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  So kind of red shirted, was on the track team, on the cross
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  country team and back then the coach that was there and
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  recruited me when I showed up on campus found out that he
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  actually ended up leaving. So I go all the way down to
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  Coastal Carolina, want to do both, start to get my feet wet
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  in both. And then all of a sudden the
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  coach for track leaves, new coach comes in, he's like, hey,
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  you know if you're going to do this, you got to, you got to
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  pick one or the other. So I was like, OK, well that's
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  not why I came here originally and the coach I really liked and
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  things were kind of, I was far from home.
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  So I then at that time, coach Scott Love, who coached me a
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  little bit in high school, ended up taking a Division Three
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  position up at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY Oh yeah.
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  And I remember calling him for advice because, again, he was
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  one of my high school coaches along with coach Mark Carr and
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  was kind of just like thrown out there, hey, you know, this is
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  what happened. I don't know what I want to do.
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  I don't know if this is where I want to be.
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  It's kind of far from home. Things aren't going right.
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  And he was like, well, I just, you know, started and took over
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  the Division Three position here.
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  And I knew the soccer coach at the time actually, as well.
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  And he was like, if you want to do both, you know, Division
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  Three is kind of a good area for you to be a dual sport athlete.
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  A lot of division ones might try to pigeonhole you and, you know,
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  put you in one. And so I was like, OK, it's an
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  hour and a half from home. I know the coaches already.
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  Why don't I just go and do both? I know the area.
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  I have a lot of friends who were in the Rochester area growing up
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  in Syracuse. So yeah, I moved back home and
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  went in the Division Three route and played both.
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  Wow, What? What were you academically
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  thinking? Like for for it?
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  To me, and I'll say this every show, it still boggles me that
• 17:44
  we make 18 year olds pick a major, which is going to affect
• 17:48
  their professional life for the rest of like at 18 years old.
• 17:50
  I mean it. Just still.
• 17:51
  I don't have a solution. But Oh my gosh, 18 is just
• 17:54
  crazy. What were you thinking at 18?
• 17:56
  I wanted to become a firefighter, a business owner, a
• 18:00
  priest. I don't know.
• 18:01
  What were you thinking as 18 years old?
• 18:03
  So I started an international business.
• 18:05
  Yeah, OK. And then when I went, I was
• 18:09
  trying to still figure it out. Obviously as freshmen like you
• 18:11
  said, we don't know. Like I tell my athletes here all
• 18:13
  the time, you you don't know you're going to change, you're
• 18:15
  going to. So I actually went into being a
• 18:19
  dual, dual major at the Division Three route.
• 18:22
  So I went secondary education because I thought I wanted to
• 18:25
  get into teaching and then I was still a business major, so I was
• 18:28
  business and marketing and secondary education.
• 18:31
  I didn't hear you. You said teacher, but I didn't
• 18:33
  hear you necessarily say, Oh yeah, 'cause I wanted to coach.
• 18:36
  That's still not even maybe in your purview at this point.
• 18:40
  No, I thought if I did end up getting into coaching, it'd
• 18:42
  probably be a little bit later. And I do high school coaching.
• 18:45
  That was originally the plan. But really, I really found a
• 18:48
  love for teaching and making connection with high school.
• 18:51
  And actually, I wanted to be an inner City High school teacher.
• 18:54
  Yeah. Why?
• 18:55
  Why is that? I just felt like I made a bigger
• 18:57
  impact. I felt like I was able to help
• 19:01
  more. I I did inner city kind of like
• 19:05
  what is it now? It's not substitute teaching but
• 19:07
  like student teaching, right. And understand.
• 19:10
  And I just felt like especially with the athletes I was able to
• 19:12
  make a bigger impact and connect with them and really kind of
• 19:15
  help them as I navigated their college.
• 19:17
  Junior college you know, secondary options.
• 19:21
  Once high school was over with and that impact in that
• 19:24
  relationship I was able to build with them during my student
• 19:26
  teaching and my, you know, helping out with them.
• 19:28
  I was like, this is something I think I really want to do and
• 19:30
  I'd I'd actually feel I'm happy and proud about doing.
• 19:33
  Yeah, What What did what? What did Mom and dad what What
• 19:37
  Family do for professions? So my dad was a lawyer.
• 19:42
  Oh, OK And then my mom did a lot of stuff.
• 19:45
  So she worked insurance for a little bit.
• 19:47
  Then she was an administrative assistant, kind of did a lot of
• 19:50
  like out end jobs, but always, always working.
• 19:54
  You know, I've got, you know, there's four of us siblings
• 19:56
  wise. So my older brother is 10 years
• 20:00
  older than me, so he was kind of like a pseudo parent.
• 20:03
  But yeah, I mean we're Jack of all trades.
• 20:05
  My older brother owns his own automotive shop.
• 20:07
  My dad was a lawyer, my mom was that and then she was a part
• 20:09
  time sheriff and then my little brother works.
• 20:12
  Hold on. You really kind of went right
• 20:14
  over that one. Did you say mom was a part time
• 20:17
  sheriff? Yeah, for New York sake.
• 20:21
  Yeah, OK. There's a lot of peculiar job,
• 20:24
  you know, not normal jobs. Mom was.
• 20:28
  Hold on. I need to know more about this.
• 20:29
  Mom was a part time sheriff. First of all, mom sounds like a
• 20:33
  bad ass beyond the sheriff part. But to become a a sheriff part
• 20:36
  time, full time, quarter time doesn't matter.
• 20:38
  That's amazing. What How in the world does she
• 20:41
  become? How has that happened?
• 20:43
  Yeah. Well, we've got a lot of
• 20:46
  military and law enforcement stuff in our family.
• 20:47
  So there always came like a natural respect for that and
• 20:50
  appreciation for it. And you know, for her growing
• 20:53
  up, she, you know, she's a Italian lady.
• 20:55
  So as you can imagine, you know, she was always kind of like the
• 20:59
  ruler of the family and, you know, the law setter.
• 21:01
  And so the joke always growing up was you guys got to stay in
• 21:04
  line because mom will get you in trouble and then it's up to Dad
• 21:07
  whether or not he's going to bail you out.
• 21:08
  So that was a fun dynamic with the sheriff and the lawyer.
• 21:12
  But yeah, kept us in line. And yeah, I grew up with a big
• 21:16
  family, you know, cousins and stuff.
• 21:18
  So yeah, the mom was always, you know, she's the oldest of 10.
• 21:20
  So she was always kind of like the the law, you know, growing
• 21:24
  up. Yeah.
• 21:27
  Sounds like you grew up with a pretty good example of of hard
• 21:31
  work. Like you're always going to be
• 21:33
  working. You're going to be doing
• 21:34
  something. You're going to be serving other
• 21:35
  lawyer serves others. And I tell you, I know there's a
• 21:37
  lot of lawyer jokes and all that kind of stuff.
• 21:39
  But man, you can't be a lawyer if you don't know how to read.
• 21:41
  I mean they read a lot is what a lot of law stuff is.
• 21:44
  And then of course, you know, assimilating that into an
• 21:47
  argument before the judge. But you have that, you have mom
• 21:50
  who's you know, the oldest of 10, holy cow sheriff, things
• 21:55
  like that. You had a pretty good example of
• 21:58
  like Work is important. You're you're going to be
• 22:00
  working. Oh yeah.
• 22:02
  I mean, I can remember. So my dad always was up first
• 22:06
  thing in the morning, last one to bed, first one up, and he
• 22:09
  opened up his own law firm. I remember he worked for a
• 22:11
  bigger firm when we were younger.
• 22:12
  And then when, you know, the four kids got older and we
• 22:14
  started getting sports, he opened his own because he was
• 22:16
  like, listen, I'm going to work. I'm going to take you guys to
• 22:18
  practice. I'm going to be at your games.
• 22:20
  But then he'd go and work later at night.
• 22:22
  And I always just remember that I was like, this guy doesn't
• 22:24
  have an off switch. Like he was always going, but
• 22:27
  always doing what he needed to do for the family.
• 22:28
  And the same thing with the mom. My mom was working nonstop to
• 22:32
  make sure we always had extra things.
• 22:33
  And then my older brother owned his auto shop.
• 22:36
  And I remember I'd go, I'd get up in the morning, I'd go into
• 22:40
  workout, I'd run, go to school, go to practice.
• 22:43
  And then I would either drive or I'd take a bus over to my
• 22:46
  brother's shop and I'd be helping him with brakes, oil
• 22:49
  changes, fix up cars, clean up the shop.
• 22:52
  So I just remember even from a young age, like I'm either
• 22:54
  working or I'm playing sports and then I'm home sleeping,
• 22:57
  studying. So it it just kind of ingrained
• 23:00
  in me at a younger age. Like now you just you get up and
• 23:03
  you do it. Like you can complain about it,
• 23:05
  but nobody's going to listen to you.
• 23:07
  Right, still got, still got to get it done.
• 23:09
  Still got to get it done. So, you know, I think that
• 23:11
  helped me, especially when I got into running because it's like,
• 23:13
  hey, this isn't easy. This isn't going to come easy
• 23:17
  and you got to work. It's going to be hard.
• 23:18
  And the harder you work and the more you take, you know, the
• 23:21
  better you will be. And so I think that helped
• 23:24
  transcend, Transcend when I started getting into running,
• 23:26
  right, That's. Cool.
• 23:27
  I love that you grew up in New York.
• 23:29
  It just reminds me, you know, we're in the middle of April and
• 23:31
  May 2024 here when we're recording and maybe you're
• 23:35
  listening, of course, you know someone's going to be listening
• 23:37
  to this in 20-30 Nick. So I always have to make sure I
• 23:39
  stay the dates that we're where we are.
• 23:41
  But I found it interesting because we're in the middle of a
• 23:44
  special state meet series for the podcast.
• 23:47
  So every day starting April 2nd, all the way through the end of
• 23:50
  May 1, high school coach from each state.
• 23:52
  And so probably right around now, future land end of April,
• 23:57
  beginning of May when this will actually publish, New York will
• 24:00
  be there, 'cause it's right in the middle in New York, the
• 24:02
  state meet. That's an interesting thing.
• 24:05
  Did you did you qualify for state That's AI was kind of
• 24:09
  blown away with how New York does the state meet qualifying,
• 24:13
  who actually goes, how you score, spoiler alert, how you
• 24:16
  don't score the state meet. It was really interesting, that
• 24:19
  whole concept of of New York. Yeah, I mean from sectional to
• 24:24
  state qualifier to state, and then you have state and then you
• 24:27
  have federation. And it's even changed since I
• 24:29
  was there, but it's a big process.
• 24:32
  It's a big a big state of course and you know it's it sometimes
• 24:36
  gets lost when we talk about our high school states for you know
• 24:40
  that lead population and and participation.
• 24:44
  You always say the big three, you know, Texas, California and
• 24:46
  Florida. However, New York top five, I
• 24:50
  think it's #4 and I want to say Ohio #5 in regards to
• 24:53
  participation and things. So it's we, I don't know why we
• 24:56
  forget it, 'cause it's up, you know, the top, right, I guess,
• 24:58
  but and it's not sunny, you know, like a Texas, et cetera.
• 25:01
  But man, don't sleep on on New York and and high school
• 25:04
  athletes. Quite fascinating.
• 25:06
  OK, so you're at Nazareth. I love that you're there.
• 25:09
  You know we I got to go to Rochester for the very first
• 25:12
  time, I think in 2019. I think that's when I went for a
• 25:16
  site visit for St. John's Fisher for the NCAA
• 25:19
  Division three and I popped over to Nazareth because they're
• 25:22
  hosting indoors. I think next year.
• 25:24
  I think 2025 is their year and had never been to Rochester,
• 25:28
  knew nothing about it and really was kind of blown away.
• 25:31
  That's a cool city, man with the video game and Toy Hall of Fame
• 25:37
  had some of the best. Texas is going to get mad at
• 25:40
  this. The best wings I've ever had.
• 25:43
  Dinosaur BBQ smoked wings. Oh my God, that was a cool.
• 25:49
  Like, I was like, I got to come back.
• 25:50
  I got to bring the family here for the Hall of Fame.
• 25:52
  So that was a cool place. So what was it like at Nazareth?
• 25:55
  Seems like a, you know, been on campus.
• 25:56
  Seems like a cool little campus there.
• 25:58
  And being a dual sport athlete, How'd that go?
• 26:00
  Yeah. So they didn't have that indoor
• 26:02
  track when I was there, by the way.
• 26:03
  Yeah, I'm going to say that's pretty new, right?
• 26:05
  Yeah, right. Yeah.
• 26:05
  So they oh, I'm jealous of them. For that, but I love it.
• 26:10
  I was actually on the committee, the student athlete committee
• 26:13
  for bringing an indoor track back in 2006 and then they
• 26:19
  didn't. They got a couple years back.
• 26:21
  But I, you know it was kind of on one of those initial like
• 26:24
  talks about why to bring it there.
• 26:26
  But no I loved it. I It was what I liked about it
• 26:29
  is I I obviously knew the track coach, right?
• 26:32
  And then I was able to play soccer and it was a smaller
• 26:35
  community, but I had a lot of friends in that area growing up,
• 26:37
  obviously in Syracuse, you know, only an hour and a half.
• 26:39
  So I had a lot of friends in the Rochester area.
• 26:42
  But what you don't really realize is like I had high
• 26:44
  school friends that were at Saint John Fisher, at Geneseo,
• 26:47
  at Brockport, at RIT and then I was at Nazareth.
• 26:52
  So what was really cool for me is within a 20 to 30 minute
• 26:56
  drive, I had a lot of friends and they went to other colleges.
• 27:00
  So to me it was like, OK, I'm going to the smaller school, but
• 27:03
  it felt like the extension of a larger field because I had all
• 27:07
  these friends at different places and I really enjoyed the
• 27:11
  community and the atmosphere. So to me it kind of felt more
• 27:13
  homey. So yeah, so it was really,
• 27:17
  really nice And I felt, you know, from an academic
• 27:19
  standpoint all the way to an athletic standpoint, it was very
• 27:21
  individualized. I had a great rapport with my
• 27:25
  college professors and you know, I had family.
• 27:29
  I had aunts and uncles and cousins who were in Rochester.
• 27:31
  So you know, if I need a home cooked meal or get away from
• 27:34
  home, I drove over and saw them. So to me, it was really good for
• 27:38
  me to kind of grow up in that time and have a lot of support
• 27:42
  around me. Did you play both sports all
• 27:44
  four years? So I only did it my sophomore
• 27:48
  year there. I started for the soccer
• 27:50
  program. We made the NCAA Championships,
• 27:54
  played there and then I have a funny story on how track fully
• 27:58
  took over for me. Yeah, yeah, that's what we're
• 28:00
  here for. All the funny stories.
• 28:03
  So sophomore year, I finished third in the 800 meters at the
• 28:08
  NCAA Outdoor Championships. Wow.
• 28:11
  And you probably remember Nick Simmons and Will dear and so
• 28:17
  they might remember this, but I, you know, I kept in touch with
• 28:19
  them a couple years past, haven't really talked to Nick or
• 28:21
  Will in a while. But they were always really,
• 28:23
  really, really nice guys, really supportive of the Division Three
• 28:28
  track athletes. And I love that about them.
• 28:30
  So here I am as a sophomore, really still kind of a young in
• 28:33
  and I was still kind of naive to it.
• 28:36
  Like I love when runners are naive, 'cause you know, other
• 28:38
  competitors. But I always tell athletes like
• 28:40
  just toe the line and then any given day anyone can beat
• 28:42
  anybody, right? Especially in the 800, the eight
• 28:45
  hundreds crazy race, it's, you know, so Nick always did the
• 28:51
  15-8 double. And I remember I'd I'd go back
• 28:55
  and watch film and watch videos. I'm like, man, they just give it
• 28:57
  to this guy. He's so good.
• 28:59
  They let him jog around in the 15 sit and kick and win.
• 29:01
  And then the 800, they let him sit and they let him just kick
• 29:05
  and win. And I was like, I turn to my
• 29:07
  coach and I'll never forget this.
• 29:08
  And I was a sophomore. I go, I'm going to give it to
• 29:10
  him. I'm going to take it out not for
• 29:12
  600 meters and I'm going to try to hold on, but I'm going to
• 29:15
  make him run. And so I remember I took it out.
• 29:20
  It was like it was like 50 point, maybe 51.
• 29:23
  Is this at Nationals? At Nationals.
• 29:25
  OK. OK.
• 29:25
  Yeah. And we're at, I think it's
• 29:28
  Benedict or Benedictine College there in Chicago.
• 29:31
  Yeah, yeah. And it's like one O 8, one O 9
• 29:34
  on the track. It's a hot day.
• 29:36
  And so I just watch him jog around for the 15 and you know
• 29:40
  they like kind of rolled over and gave it to him.
• 29:41
  And I was like, man, I'm going to make this guy run.
• 29:44
  So I took it out. I just went and I'll I was
• 29:49
  leading until like 60 or 70 meters ago.
• 29:52
  And then him and another guy, Jeff Zoda passed me and I end up
• 29:55
  getting 3rd. But I remember them they went
• 29:57
  by, I finish, I get third, we're in the tent.
• 30:01
  So after you finish nationals, they bring you over to 10.
• 30:03
  They're like top 8. Go wait for your All American
• 30:05
  awards. Get up on the stand.
• 30:07
  And I remember it gave me the biggest smile on my face.
• 30:09
  It looked like absolute carnage in the tent.
• 30:12
  Every guy just laid out and I remember Nick's like hand on
• 30:15
  knees like huffing, puffing and you know, for viewer discussion.
• 30:20
  I won't say exact, but he said who?
• 30:23
  Who? The Blank took that out, right.
• 30:27
  So I'm at the end of the tent and I remember, I hear Nick go,
• 30:30
  who the blank took that out and I just looked at and I raised my
• 30:32
  hand and he looks at me, goes you and me cooling down after
• 30:35
  awards. Wow.
• 30:37
  I'm like oh man, so I go for a cool down with Nick Simmons and
• 30:40
  Willier and. Dude.
• 30:43
  And Nick goes, how come I don't see you in the fall?
• 30:45
  What are you doing? I was like, I'm a soccer player.
• 30:47
  And he looked at me and he goes, not anymore.
• 30:49
  You're running cross country. You're a runner.
• 30:52
  Wow. That's.
• 30:56
  Did you know Nick was AD 3 legend in at that time like
• 31:02
  actively as an athlete, Like, you know, like I said he won a
• 31:05
  lot of races and was, you know, I don't want to say necessarily
• 31:08
  far superior, but, you know, was was was obviously very, very
• 31:11
  talented. And then he, you know, goes on
• 31:13
  to become, you know, bigger than life in regards to, you know,
• 31:16
  Olympics Olympics and things like that and will Lear gosh
• 31:19
  plus. But that's so it's hard to see
• 31:22
  it in the moment. You know, he's really good.
• 31:24
  But you like, you don't know necessarily right there like oh,
• 31:25
  you know this guy's going to end up setting this and doing that
• 31:28
  and making this team etcetera, that you look back on that.
• 31:31
  Now that was pretty cool and pretty, I think I can say this
• 31:35
  on the podcast, pretty ballsy on your point of like, hey, I'm
• 31:38
  just whatever's going to happen is going to happen.
• 31:40
  But I certainly am not going to sit back and just give it to the
• 31:42
  guy. Let the guy have it.
• 31:44
  Yeah, he's going to beat me if I go, if I let him have his race.
• 31:47
  So I'm going to make him earn it.
• 31:48
  And you know, I've got this really cool picture.
• 31:50
  I have it saved and kind of my memory.
• 31:52
  I don't have it here. I have it at home.
• 31:54
  But he turned around and the best thing was like after he
• 31:57
  won, he turned around and gave me this hug and somebody took a
• 31:59
  capture of that and here we are finishing everybody.
• 32:02
  Like you just look at there's people laid out on the track.
• 32:06
  But I was like, man, that was really cool for him to all of a
• 32:08
  sudden just take time out of his, you know, pull aside and
• 32:11
  have a conversation with me and. So it's one thing for, you know,
• 32:15
  he's a stranger still, but it's one thing for a stranger, even a
• 32:18
  good stranger, in your sport, to say, hey, you're not doing
• 32:20
  soccer anymore, you're running cross country.
• 32:22
  Did you heed that advice? Oh yeah.
• 32:25
  So then I was like I'm, I'm done like cool.
• 32:28
  Here's the guy who's at that time he won Nationals in the 8
• 32:31
  and 15, you know, at three of his four years, you know, I
• 32:34
  think the one year he had a slight injury so he didn't run
• 32:36
  the 15. But like this is like a multi,
• 32:39
  multi time, you know, national champion and he walks up to me
• 32:42
  and just I was like, yeah, I'm going to take this in, OK And I
• 32:46
  loved it. And at that point, you know,
• 32:47
  obviously we, you know, it's always more fun to win.
• 32:50
  Like we tell our athletes it's fun winning.
• 32:52
  So here I am third and first, second and 4th are seniors and
• 32:56
  here's the seniors, multi time all American, you know, national
• 32:58
  champion coming up. I was like, you know what?
• 33:02
  Yeah, OK fine. I'm going to go all in on it and
• 33:03
  that's when I made that kind of transition.
• 33:06
  And then your first race was a 10K.
• 33:07
  So that fall you took the advice, you go to fall, you, you
• 33:11
  do the mileage, you're not doing soccer, which you know you had a
• 33:13
  a long time love for and passion for.
• 33:15
  And then the first race is a 10K and you get done and you're like
• 33:19
  is can I still go to the soccer team?
• 33:20
  Is that still open for me? Yes, it my love for cross
• 33:25
  country did not come right away. Was it OK, that's good.
• 33:29
  I was going to ask that it like automatically or you were like,
• 33:31
  you know, soccer is not that bad.
• 33:32
  I can hop over there still. No.
• 33:35
  And I think I had a really bad first 10K experience.
• 33:38
  So we went up to my college used to go up to because that's when
• 33:41
  it was easier to go to Canada and race.
• 33:45
  You know, we just made a little drive over.
• 33:46
  So we went to Western Ontario, ran a 10K.
• 33:50
  And as you know, like Canadians and Europeans and all this,
• 33:54
  they're used to like kilometers, right?
• 33:57
  And even distance runners like even now I talk and you know, 1K
• 34:00
  to go, 2K to go 3K, you know, you know that 10K race.
• 34:04
  This is why it's still probably really ingrained in my brain is
• 34:06
  like an awful experience. I went up and ran the 10K and it
• 34:10
  was a it was a 5K loop. You did it twice and came
• 34:15
  through 5K and I was like OK, it's not as bad but I'm hurting
• 34:18
  And then I was with this group of runners and and their coach
• 34:21
  goes 2 to go. You got to go now in my head is
• 34:23
  a track guy. I'm like O2 to go.
• 34:25
  So I took off. You thought 2K to go?
• 34:29
  I thought it was 200 to go. Oh no.
• 34:32
  It was 2K, so I'm sprinting and I'm going for like 400 meters
• 34:35
  and my coach was there at the mile marker to go.
• 34:38
  So here I go from 2K to 1600 to go and I'm gas.
• 34:42
  And he looks at me and he's like, what are you doing?
• 34:43
  I think I ran like a 7/27/30 last mile because I just gassed
• 34:48
  it and so I finish at 10. I'm gone.
• 34:53
  You did the I I didn't count my laps correctly And so you know
• 34:59
  on the 7th lap of the 88 lap race, I, I I'm kicking it and
• 35:03
  it's like, oh bro, you still got another lap, you had another
• 35:06
  mile. Oh man.
• 35:09
  So that's my first ever cross country experience and I think
• 35:11
  my love for it was like oh. How does that feel?
• 35:14
  Yeah, we've seen that and as as an observer if you've never done
• 35:19
  it, you know you feel bad and you know sometimes there's
• 35:22
  judgment of like well you should have counted last or you should
• 35:24
  have known you know he meant 2K or whatever, all these kind of
• 35:26
  things. But you, you know, so you have
• 35:28
  the experience you're you're running well, you, you you're
• 35:31
  obviously accomplished. You know your your third at
• 35:33
  nationals and 800 the the spring before you.
• 35:35
  So you're an accomplisher. You're not you're not some
• 35:37
  rookie first time running track or first time running cross
• 35:41
  country, even things like that. You're you're running well you
• 35:45
  finish that first up a 5K feeling OK, I'm not feeling too
• 35:47
  bad. You have something left to kick
• 35:50
  so you kick and then you have a mile that has to feel like you
• 35:54
  are running in cold molasses and and there has to be a little bit
• 36:00
  of a helpless feeling of like well, I can't not finish but Oh
• 36:04
  my, I'm not able to run anywhere near what I want to and can be
• 36:08
  running right now. How does that feel?
• 36:10
  How in the moment when you're just there's no no one can help
• 36:14
  you. This is the great thing and the
• 36:15
  the maybe not so great thing about cross country and track.
• 36:18
  No one can help you. Your teammate can't come grab
• 36:21
  you and and there's no substitutions.
• 36:23
  You've got to finish this mile and you said you run in 7
• 36:26
  minutes which is pedestrian for an athlete of your level.
• 36:29
  How does that feel? Yeah, so the best way to
• 36:32
  describe it, like I've tried to explain it because I I tell the
• 36:34
  story to a lot of my athletes all the time and kind of joke
• 36:36
  about it. My coach, even in the moment,
• 36:38
  instead of getting mad, he laughed about it.
• 36:39
  That's where I think that enjoyable kind of background for
• 36:42
  me comes. He was like, oh, well, that was
• 36:44
  a mistake, right? And the best way to describe it,
• 36:47
  because I think we can all relate in track and field.
• 36:49
  Imagine doing a full lactic workout where you just laid out,
• 36:53
  you're doing a full Sprint, you cross the line and your body,
• 36:56
  your legs just shut down, the elephant jumped on your back and
• 36:59
  you got the last 50 meters and you're like, I don't know if I
• 37:02
  can pick up my legs. It felt like I did that.
• 37:05
  And then instead of laying on the ground, what you want to do,
• 37:08
  they were like, OK, go for your cooldown right away.
• 37:09
  And you know, those cooldowns, you just can't get moving and
• 37:12
  your legs shut down. That's how it felt.
• 37:14
  I was like, I'm already shot. I'm dead, my legs are gone.
• 37:19
  And here I still got to jog a mile, like, or race a mile, but
• 37:23
  I'm jogging like I'm Yeah, 'cause I think at that point,
• 37:26
  like, I want to say we came through on grass, right?
• 37:29
  And this is early September. We came through like 1540, 1545
• 37:34
  and I was pretty good and I was through it through 8K, right on
• 37:37
  pace in the winners and all the guys I was around ended up
• 37:40
  running, you know, low 30 ones on grass, which back then you
• 37:43
  know was pretty good. I think I ran like 33 right?
• 37:48
  Because they put 2 minutes on me in the last.
• 37:50
  Aisle. And I just remember just
• 37:54
  everyone just going by into it, just seeing like waves of people
• 37:57
  just go by me. And I was just, I couldn't even
• 38:00
  respond. So I think the only thing in my
• 38:01
  head was like just stay up. Just.
• 38:04
  Don't go down. You got to finish for your team,
• 38:06
  right? Because obviously there's still
• 38:08
  a team score and everything else, so that helped me get
• 38:10
  through, but I just couldn't respond.
• 38:13
  Yeah, that's what I love about it is, you know, the attitude of
• 38:17
  have to do it for my team. You know, we see I haven't seen
• 38:20
  this much lately and maybe I'm just not paying attention to
• 38:22
  much. But I remember when I was
• 38:23
  coaching, you know, we'd see 10K5K races and you know a guy
• 38:27
  would be having a bad race and would step off the track.
• 38:30
  And there's always like man, if you do that once, it's really
• 38:32
  easy to do it the second time, the third time and maybe in
• 38:35
  track. It's a little air quotes here
• 38:37
  easier because the team aspect, team scoring isn't as prevailing
• 38:41
  as in cross country. Certainly we have conference and
• 38:44
  nationals and things like that. But you know the at the normal,
• 38:46
  the Alabama Crimson Tide, there is no school team score.
• 38:50
  So it's easy for me to hop off. I don't negatively affect my
• 38:53
  team. But you you had, you kept at it.
• 38:56
  There was not there was a OK, if I if I'm going to run 20 minutes
• 38:59
  for this mile, it it's going to be completed.
• 39:01
  It's not going to be shut down because of my mistake.
• 39:04
  Yeah. Oh man.
• 39:06
  That's amazing. How did you mentally prepare for
• 39:10
  the next race? So you that was the first race
• 39:14
  of the season. There's a few more to go.
• 39:16
  How did you make sure? Like, OK, this is not going to
• 39:18
  happen again? Well, I think in track it's just
• 39:21
  so easy to kind of know where you're at.
• 39:23
  And so in cross country then what I started try to teach
• 39:25
  myself is OK, give yourself markers or placements or visual
• 39:30
  cues. So I started realizing, OK, when
• 39:32
  I make this turn or when I pass this tree or this building or
• 39:35
  this, this is how far out I am. So it gave me a a better way to
• 39:40
  kind of visually prepare for cross country, right, and give
• 39:43
  myself cues and markers. So yeah, it was kind of like a
• 39:47
  learning experience right away, you know, full on the go.
• 39:49
  And then how to mentally prepare for cross country different than
• 39:53
  track? I love turn.
• 39:55
  I love turn it into a lesson. I feel like that's probably been
• 39:57
  something that's that that that mistake has probably benefited
• 40:01
  you 100 times over, not only as an athlete but as a coach of
• 40:04
  preparation for future races. Yeah, and now I go back, even
• 40:09
  with my team now, because when I go to mark out courses and we
• 40:11
  have certain areas and certain queues, I'm like, OK, hey, this
• 40:15
  is how we're breaking up your race.
• 40:16
  This is how we're segmenting it because every athlete has a
• 40:18
  different race plan, different tactic, different.
• 40:21
  I try to give them visual cues along with the verbal right?
• 40:25
  But I'm like, OK, hey, when we come into this because sometimes
• 40:28
  I even tell him I might not make it there.
• 40:31
  If you guys start getting spread out and then I've got this girl
• 40:32
  here, this girl here. So I try telling him I'm going
• 40:34
  to try to make it to this mark and you're going to hear this.
• 40:36
  But when you hit this point in the race and you hit this
• 40:39
  straight away, this turn this, this is when you got to make
• 40:41
  this decision, right? And if I'm not there, you've got
• 40:45
  to do it. I like that.
• 40:47
  So that's helped me, yeah. I I know we all grow up.
• 40:50
  You know our track athletes today and cross country athletes
• 40:53
  today grew up wanting to be a Crimson Tide, an SCC athlete
• 40:58
  running for for you and Dan and the and the group there.
• 41:02
  But you seem to have had a really good Division Three
• 41:06
  experience. When you talk about you at the
• 41:09
  championships tournament for soccer, you're at the national
• 41:13
  meet, you're you're placing at the national meet, that seemed
• 41:17
  like that's a pretty good college experience for you.
• 41:20
  Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I did.
• 41:22
  I did. I I loved it.
• 41:23
  I think it fit me. I don't know, you know,
• 41:27
  sometimes you go back and you're like, oh man, would have a big
• 41:29
  Division One, you know, I don't know because it it, it kept my
• 41:32
  love for it and I ran a little bit post collegiately and I
• 41:37
  think that's what got me into coaching, right?
• 41:38
  And it helped I expand my career because when I started I was a
• 41:41
  408 hundred guy and then I moved up and then I was more 15 and
• 41:45
  then I was 15-5 K and then so I got to have the range of it and
• 41:50
  I think being a Division Three athlete and I think having the
• 41:52
  soccer. So now when I coach from middle
• 41:54
  distance to 10, Ki really feel like I'm a versatile coach, you
• 41:58
  know, just like I wasn't an athlete.
• 42:01
  So it helped me grow because I remember even in college
• 42:04
  running, you know, I I graduated College in the highest mileage
• 42:07
  week that I ever had I think was like 46 miles.
• 42:12
  And then as a post legion I got up to running 85 to 90.
• 42:16
  So I know how to coach athletes cross training, I know how to
• 42:19
  coach them at 2530 miles a week. I know how to coach them at high
• 42:21
  mileage and everywhere in between because I I did it
• 42:24
  right. So I now apply that now even my
• 42:27
  coaching, even in my team, like my 5K runners, I've got some
• 42:30
  girls cross training a lot, running 35 miles a week, you
• 42:33
  know, based on their, you know, history and what they're capable
• 42:36
  and what they can handle. And then I've got some run at
• 42:38
  8085. SI coach them everywhere in
• 42:41
  between. And I want to touch on that, but
• 42:44
  before we touch on that specific topic, so you mentioned post
• 42:49
  collegiately and then that's how you got into coaching.
• 42:51
  So give us that story. How did you actually get into
• 42:54
  coaching? Yeah, so at the time, one of my
• 42:58
  800 meter friends, Kenny Jaczynski, he ran at Florida
• 43:02
  State. He started running post
• 43:05
  collegiately for Kevin Sullivan, who's now the director at
• 43:07
  University of Michigan. So he called me up and I still
• 43:11
  wanted to run a little post collision.
• 43:12
  He's like, hey, we got a small group down here.
• 43:13
  You know, there's 3-4 guys, you know, running the 800-1500.
• 43:17
  Why don't you come down here for the summer run with us, kind of
• 43:19
  see what it's about and if you like it, you know, move down
• 43:21
  here and train with us. So I went down, stayed with
• 43:24
  Kenny for about 2-3 weeks, ran with them, met Kevin.
• 43:27
  Kevin's like, yeah, hey, if you want to make a go at this, I'll
• 43:29
  coach you. And I was like, Oh my gosh,
• 43:32
  there's a, you know, four time Olympian.
• 43:35
  Amazing guy. Really, really, you know,
• 43:38
  personable. I was like this is the
• 43:41
  opportunity of a lifetime. So I'm going to go down.
• 43:43
  I'm going to just run. I worked.
• 43:45
  I wasn't in grad school, didn't do anything at the time.
• 43:47
  I was just like, I'm just going to go down and run and take this
• 43:49
  in while I can. You know, I'm still young at the
• 43:51
  time. I graduated at 21.
• 43:52
  Oh wow. So here all these athletes have
• 43:55
  you know, 232425 years old at the time I remember Was it David
• 44:00
  McNeill at NAU is still 25 and running you?
• 44:03
  Know. And I'm like, man, I still have
• 44:05
  my best years ahead of me, so I'm going to give it a go.
• 44:09
  And so I went down there, ran for Coach Sullivan, ran with the
• 44:13
  group. And then we were training down
• 44:16
  at Florida State because Kevin was down there at the time.
• 44:18
  And one of the graduate assistants at Florida State left
• 44:22
  mid year to take a job. And I was in my running and I
• 44:26
  was still around. And coach Bob Braman kind of
• 44:29
  pulled me aside. He goes, hey, you're running.
• 44:31
  You're the guys seem to like you.
• 44:32
  You're in the area. What if you come and be a
• 44:35
  graduate assistant, go to grad school, You know, start that
• 44:37
  route and then help me out when you can.
• 44:39
  And you can use the facilities, obviously, as Aga and you can
• 44:42
  still keep your training career. And then you just help me.
• 44:45
  You drive a van occasionally when I need.
• 44:47
  And so I was like, OK, that sounds like a really cool idea.
• 44:50
  Like, I'll do this and then, you know, unfortunately enough, but
• 44:55
  fortunately enough for my collegiate career, I actually
• 44:59
  partially tore my planner that outdoor season.
• 45:02
  So I ran really, really fast. And then I had a slight tear in
• 45:04
  it and ended up, you know, that kind of cycle.
• 45:09
  It really disrupted my running career.
• 45:12
  And so now here I am hurt and I'm like, OK, what am I going to
• 45:14
  do? Well, I just went full into the
• 45:16
  GA mode with the graduate assistant role with the Florida
• 45:19
  State man. So I'm hanging out with the guys
• 45:20
  more. I'm driving in places.
• 45:22
  I'm helping Coach Braman, you know, he's doing the coaching
• 45:25
  and stuff and I'm just kind of there and helping out.
• 45:27
  And the guys really gravitated towards me.
• 45:29
  I had a good relationship, good rapport with them and I found
• 45:33
  this other love of it, watching them succeed and talking to them
• 45:36
  and and they were always coming to me and just talking to me
• 45:39
  about personal advice. You know, Coach Braman did the
• 45:41
  coaching. But then I found like Coach
• 45:42
  Braman's like, hey, you know, walk them through this or hey,
• 45:44
  give me a guy to kind of mentor got and he started kind of
• 45:48
  nudging me that way without really seeing it.
• 45:50
  I kind of took on this other role and that's when in my head
• 45:54
  I was like, man, I think I might like this side of it too.
• 45:59
  So I didn't really consider college coaching or even
• 46:01
  coaching full time until I had that graduate assistant
• 46:03
  position. Quite interesting and definitely
• 46:07
  a great mentor to have. And Bob love Bob and he was an
• 46:12
  amazing guy and I love that you, you know, a lot of us think that
• 46:17
  when we get into coaching, whether it's specifically
• 46:19
  college coaching or not, that it's like this.
• 46:21
  You know, all consuming passion. You know, I had a coach and I
• 46:25
  wanted to be like them, but, you know, but most of the time it's
• 46:28
  like it's a slow burn. It's it's less of a light switch
• 46:30
  of like 01 day. It's like boom, I'm going to be
• 46:32
  a coach and more of that fader button and it's like, oh, OK
• 46:36
  yeah, I'll do this GA thing. Sure.
• 46:37
  You know, I'm hurt. I need something to do.
• 46:40
  I'll become a grad assistant. I'm not necessarily going to be
• 46:42
  a college coach, but, you know, I'll be a grad assistant.
• 46:44
  And then you find yourself the slider button goes up a little
• 46:46
  bit more. It's like, oh, I kind of like,
• 46:48
  you know, watching these workouts and all these guys.
• 46:50
  You know, there's it's running and off the track stuff that
• 46:53
  helps affect your running positively or negatively.
• 46:56
  And those guys didn't seem to like to talk to me about it and
• 46:58
  I can help. The fader button goes up a
• 47:00
  little bit more and it's like, oh man, now I like running my
• 47:02
  own group. That's really I like that slow
• 47:04
  burn because it helps people to see a path towards this one day.
• 47:08
  You know not a lot of people think they want to be in college
• 47:12
  coaching. A lot of people think that they
• 47:13
  cannot ever make it into college coaching.
• 47:15
  So to see that it's that it can be a process to get there is a
• 47:20
  really good example for for others that are out there.
• 47:23
  So I like that so how'd that keep going you your, your GA,
• 47:26
  your GA at Florida State. I grew up was born in Florida
• 47:29
  and I grew up a huge Florida State fan.
• 47:31
  So anytime Florida State's mentioned, I, you know, I feel
• 47:33
  good about my my roots there with Bob Raymond and other
• 47:38
  great. I mean he's always had an
• 47:39
  amazing staff around him as well By the way.
• 47:41
  I don't know what it is, but he certainly seems to attract
• 47:45
  really good men and women to be coaches and athletes for him
• 47:49
  there. How'd that continue as you went
• 47:51
  down your GA route? Yeah, so I met a lot of great
• 47:55
  coaches there. You know, Coach Metters, who's
• 47:57
  back there now, Coach Ken Harden, who's now at Auburn.
• 48:01
  You know, I see him all the time.
• 48:02
  So he was back there. I mean, this was floor state,
• 48:04
  like really good days, right? Like I I got to see some amazing
• 48:07
  track and field. I'm spoiled in that regard.
• 48:10
  Yeah, I walked out there and at that time he just turned
• 48:13
  postponed. But like, Walter Dix was out
• 48:15
  there. And then you had the Borley
• 48:17
  twins, and you had. It's.
• 48:19
  Just arranged and then Michael Cherry was there before he went
• 48:21
  to LSU like and so you have them and then you have the cross
• 48:25
  country team which then goes the next year and gets second at
• 48:27
  NCAA nationals when I was there. So I see like the cross country
• 48:30
  team succeeding. You know one of my good friends
• 48:33
  at the time too Mike Fout was on the team so like you had
• 48:36
  distance the sprints the jumps to realize that throwers like.
• 48:41
  And to me I was just like taking it.
• 48:43
  I was like whoa, OK this was the D1 experience that maybe I
• 48:46
  missed out but I was like I get the best of both.
• 48:48
  I had my D3 experience and I get my D1 experience and I got to
• 48:52
  see the whole range, right? So yeah, I was there doing that,
• 48:57
  trying to figure out kind of my next step.
• 48:58
  And then when I finished up running with Coach Sullivan, I
• 49:02
  then started running for a post college group, Stoughton Racing,
• 49:05
  which was like John and Bill Aris up in Syracuse,
• 49:07
  Fayetteville, NY I ran for them as kind of like a satellite guy.
• 49:11
  So I still wanted to get into coaching, still trying to figure
• 49:13
  out things. So I moved back home for a
• 49:16
  little bit. And it's funny you mentioned
• 49:17
  Saint John Fisher. So I went there and I was the
• 49:19
  recruiting coordinator for a year.
• 49:22
  So I lived up in the area, was still kind of running, ran for
• 49:25
  Stoughton Racing at the time, and then I was just became like
• 49:27
  a full time recruiter. I didn't have a coaching
• 49:29
  responsibility, I just recruited for Saint John Fisher.
• 49:33
  Yeah, and. I like that.
• 49:35
  Sorry to interrupt. I love busting myths.
• 49:39
  And one of the myths out there is if you are a Georgia for a
• 49:42
  Florida State, a Bob Braman or a Texas, UCLA, whatever, you know,
• 49:46
  quote UN quote, big name school, oh, you're getting the next job.
• 49:50
  It's automatic. Knicks.
• 49:51
  You're the GA Florida State. You're certainly getting the
• 49:53
  assistance job at Auburn or South Carolina, whatever, right.
• 49:57
  I love that. It's like, Oh yeah, no.
• 49:58
  I went back and became a recruiting coordinator for Saint
• 50:01
  John's Fisher. Like it's part of, again, really
• 50:04
  important in this podcast that people hear others journeys
• 50:07
  because there's a lot of misconceptions of it.
• 50:10
  It's easy to to look on the other side and think oh Nick's
• 50:14
  at Alabama because he was the GA Florida State and it's like
• 50:17
  we're about to find out there was a there's a route to get
• 50:20
  there that takes hard work time experience dedication networking
• 50:24
  for sure coaching excellence those are all it all culminates
• 50:31
  to get to where you are today. Not an automatic oh I was Aga
• 50:35
  Florida State so I automatically get the Alabama job.
• 50:38
  So I love this stacking of your journey.
• 50:40
  So you're at St. John's Fisher you're back home.
• 50:43
  Home seems to be AI know you're at Alabama now but home seems to
• 50:46
  have a pull right Coastal Carolina back close to home.
• 50:50
  You really made a point about when you're there at Nazareth
• 50:53
  that it felt home because you had friends at this school, at
• 50:56
  RIT and Genesee, you know. So Home and friends seem to be a
• 51:01
  kind of a theme for you that that's an important stabilizer
• 51:03
  for you. Yeah, that was that.
• 51:06
  It was a big comfort. I think, you know, especially
• 51:08
  with what we do. To me it's enjoying where you're
• 51:11
  at, what you're doing and having the good support system around
• 51:13
  you is really beneficial. And I did miss a important
• 51:17
  segment there too that in between.
• 51:18
  So I was actually, I did 2 stints as Aga at Florida State
• 51:22
  and in between the two I was actually a volunteer for a year.
• 51:27
  So I went, was with Kevin Sullivan, was a graduate
• 51:31
  assistant, and then I left and I was actually a volunteer at the
• 51:35
  University of Connecticut under Andrea Grove McDonough, who was
• 51:39
  who I just worked with at Toledo before here, so.
• 51:41
  OK, Right. Yeah.
• 51:42
  Yeah. We'll get this long.
• 51:43
  But. So I went with her for one year
• 51:45
  and it was that last year she was there before she went to
• 51:47
  Iowa State, right? But it was when she took that
• 51:50
  team and really they got onto the national scene.
• 51:52
  So I got to see the transition of like the back end of her
• 51:55
  working really hard and getting this team who never qualified
• 51:58
  for NCAA's, build them up. And then I went and helped her
• 52:00
  for a year and helped out with the women's team, was a
• 52:03
  volunteer. And then she took the Iowa State
• 52:05
  job. So here I am back in this like
• 52:08
  flux of like, OK, well, I'm a volunteer.
• 52:10
  So, you know, I don't have this paid position.
• 52:12
  She just left. And I still needed to finish my
• 52:15
  graduate work, believe it or not, because Long story short, I
• 52:18
  didn't end up finishing. I thought I finished, but then I
• 52:20
  got this call that I missed one important class that you can
• 52:23
  only take in person. And so here I am.
• 52:26
  I leave, think I finished my master's degree, think I'm
• 52:28
  graduating, And I'm a volunteer now up at UConn and Florida
• 52:32
  State calls me and says no, your advisor missed something.
• 52:34
  You're one class shy. Dude.
• 52:37
  So it kind of lined up because Andrea leaves and then I needed
• 52:43
  this class and Coach Braman and I are still talking.
• 52:45
  And he's like, funny enough, we just lost another graduate
• 52:48
  assistant, you know, mid year who took a job.
• 52:50
  He goes, why don't you come back and finish it.
• 52:53
  So I went back to Florida State, finished up that year with Coach
• 52:58
  Braman again one more year, and then I took the Saint John
• 53:00
  Fisher job. So I mean you're a little bit
• 53:03
  like a you know sometimes these these kind of roles are diminish
• 53:08
  but you're the the Swiss army knife.
• 53:09
  It's like oh man, I need somebody for a who am I going to
• 53:12
  get for a semester. Oh thank God Nick needs a class
• 53:15
  it could come back. You know what I'm saying that's
• 53:17
  it's extremely valuable. It's all part of the puzzle to
• 53:20
  to put together a a program. So that's really good and
• 53:23
  valuable that you had that skill set and that need.
• 53:26
  What was this one class that you had to take?
• 53:29
  Oh my gosh it to be honest, I can't even remember exactly like
• 53:33
  I could have done this remotely. Exactly.
• 53:37
  That's exactly what I was thinking.
• 53:39
  No, it was. But it was fun, 'cause I went
• 53:42
  back and so that helped me. And then what was good is it?
• 53:46
  It exposed me back to the ACC and back with Coach Braman and
• 53:50
  it it expanded my role when I went back the second time, too,
• 53:53
  'cause I was a little bit older with it.
• 53:54
  And then Coach Braman had a, you know, something with like his
• 53:57
  hamstring, his back. I can't remember what he did,
• 53:59
  but he had an injury then. So I had stepped me into a
• 54:01
  little bit of a larger role than I had before.
• 54:04
  And so that kind of helped evolve my coaching career a
• 54:06
  little bit faster. And then yeah, and then I took I
• 54:11
  I was applying for jobs. I was looking.
• 54:13
  Nothing really was biting. And here I am, I'm like, OK, I
• 54:17
  was a volunteer with Andrea. I was back at Florissant and
• 54:20
  then this recruiting coordinator position opened up and it was
• 54:23
  near family. It was an area I knew, so I took
• 54:25
  it. So how was that?
• 54:27
  Because you know, we think of recruiting coordinators as a
• 54:29
  very D1 type of thing here. You're recruiting coordinator
• 54:32
  for recruiting coordinator for Division Three school.
• 54:34
  What was the learning process? What were some of the tasks that
• 54:37
  you were tasked with? And then, and what learning did
• 54:40
  you have to do to actually become good at it?
• 54:43
  Well, I think I'm very. I'm a very social guy anyways,
• 54:46
  right? And I love going to track needs
• 54:48
  and it almost felt like you're an admissions counselor at the
• 54:50
  Division Three level, right, Because then it's about numbers
• 54:54
  and a couple other, you know, just essence of like holding,
• 54:59
  you know, big recruiting weekends or going out to high
• 55:02
  schools and watching a lot of meet.
• 55:03
  So they're like, listen, you just got to recruit, bring
• 55:05
  numbers in. Obviously we want some talented
• 55:07
  kids, but we want numbers and you know, we're big on bringing
• 55:11
  kids in and then retaining them. So I turned into a supportive
• 55:15
  role, right. And for me, I was like, OK,
• 55:18
  well, I can still keep running. I'm recruiting, I'm going to
• 55:21
  meet, I'm doing whatever. So it gave me a lot of
• 55:23
  flexibility with what I needed to do.
• 55:26
  And you know, I've got a nine year old now, so he was just
• 55:29
  born right around then. So allowed me to be a full time
• 55:31
  dad, get paid in a position, still kind of run, still do it.
• 55:36
  So it allowed me to kind of find, you know, that next step
• 55:40
  for me. And it gave me a lot of that
• 55:42
  flexibility. And coach Mike Henshin, who was
• 55:45
  there, who just recently retired, you know, he stepped
• 55:47
  into a a different role there. But yeah, he, he gave me a
• 55:53
  different view on coaching. And I kind of evolved down to
• 55:55
  like, OK, my recruiting tactics or learning a little bit more on
• 55:59
  like a full program because obviously Florida State
• 56:00
  operates. Yeah, I mean, you, you've got
• 56:03
  everybody in every position, everything.
• 56:05
  And now you're going to a Division Three school back to
• 56:06
  what I was, and I got to see the other side of what maybe my
• 56:09
  coach dealt with. And OK, now here's a smaller
• 56:12
  staff, here's many hats you have to wear, here's different things
• 56:15
  you have to. So I liked it 'cause I got to
• 56:17
  see both ends. You're certainly busy.
• 56:21
  You know, you're running yourself, you're recruiting, you
• 56:24
  got a job, you're recruiting coordinator for the for St.
• 56:27
  John's Fisher and your father. That alone right there, right?
• 56:32
  Did you have time to miss the actual coaching component to it
• 56:36
  or not? I don't know.
• 56:40
  I at that moment, I think it I was still kind of, I would say
• 56:46
  the best thing as I was. I was aware of what I would so
• 56:50
  like. Even now, like I tell people
• 56:51
  like I don't have the ambition just yet to be a director,
• 56:56
  right? I love being a distance coach.
• 56:58
  I love having my group. I love coaching the women here.
• 57:01
  But I know that comes with learning and comes with
• 57:03
  experience and that comes with time.
• 57:05
  Right? At that time, I know what I know
• 57:08
  and I know what I don't know. And at that, at that point in my
• 57:11
  career, I was like, I could be a distance coach, but I'd rather
• 57:16
  role. When I have a program, I want to
• 57:17
  feel like I'm excelled at it, right?
• 57:20
  I want to feel like I'm a little bit more knowledge.
• 57:22
  I have a little bit better grasp of it.
• 57:24
  So even at that time, I was still more aware of, there's
• 57:27
  still things I need to learn if I want to be good.
• 57:30
  Because let's face it, even being at Alabama, I wouldn't be
• 57:33
  here if I didn't, if I wasn't competitive and I wasn't good at
• 57:36
  what I did. And I didn't find ways every
• 57:38
  single year to be a better coach, a better person, a better
• 57:41
  father. Every aspect of my life, I'm
• 57:43
  always like, how can I be better?
• 57:46
  So at that point, I think even in a coaching realm, I didn't
• 57:49
  miss it because I still needed to learn more, right?
• 57:54
  I was. Still things that every day.
• 57:56
  Every season, every week, I was learning how to be a better
• 57:59
  coach for. So I was still taking in, like
• 58:02
  even when I was at Florida State, they joke about it,
• 58:03
  'cause I even do it here at Alabama.
• 58:06
  I go around and I I just watch and listen to the sprints,
• 58:09
  practice the jumps, practice, the throws, practice.
• 58:12
  I listen to Coach Waters, who's been here for years and had
• 58:15
  amazing success at, you know, the different levels and
• 58:17
  different programs he's at. But I'm always trying to find
• 58:20
  ways to learn and implement it into my distance coaching.
• 58:22
  And that doesn't come from just distance workouts and distance
• 58:25
  running. Like I listen to the way they
• 58:27
  communicate with their athletes. I listen to the way they give
• 58:29
  cues. I listen to the motivational
• 58:31
  aspect, like Coach Yosh, Coach Pate, Coach Wiley.
• 58:34
  Like, we have some Coach, Gibson, even Coach Duckworth,
• 58:37
  who's, you know, younger and Coach.
• 58:39
  I learned from every coach on our staff here how to be a
• 58:42
  better human, how to be a better coach, how to be a better.
• 58:45
  And I think it can apply to every event in track and field.
• 58:50
  So yeah, that's what I was doing at the Division Three level.
• 58:52
  I was like, how can I be a better coach?
• 58:54
  I'm just going to soak it in and fit it in with my personality
• 58:58
  and my style to what, you know, my athletes.
• 59:01
  How do you balance it's? It's interesting to hear.
• 59:03
  You say that because on the other side of the coin, in
• 59:06
  today's 2024 coaching world of, you know, be the head coach, be
• 59:11
  the the man or the woman in charge.
• 59:14
  You know, if you're 25, you should already be looking for a
• 59:17
  head coaching job. And you're kind of, you're
• 59:19
  deploying massive amounts of patience through that.
• 59:23
  Like you you know one side that the hustler grind get to the
• 59:26
  extreme top today mentality would be like hey Nick, what do
• 59:31
  you mean you don't want to be a director right now.
• 59:32
  What What's wrong with you? Why aren't you charging forward
• 59:35
  and trying to you know the next head job that comes open why
• 59:37
  aren't you applying for it and yada yada and you're you're kind
• 59:40
  of, you know I'm hearing you set up with patience for a long
• 59:45
  successful career. Not a get into it and learn it
• 59:50
  on the job, which you're still going to have no matter what.
• 59:52
  You know you never know the job until you're in the job.
• 59:53
  But I'm hearing really massive amounts of patience for you.
• 59:57
  Oh yeah, I like 'cause when I do.
• 59:59
  Things I want to do it right, right, like Alabama came in at
• 1:00:02
  the right time, Toledo came in the right time for me when I was
• 1:00:04
  there. But I hope you can see if you
• 1:00:07
  look through my careers, like when I have gone places in a
• 1:00:11
  shorter amount of time, meaning shorter like 2-3 years, got to a
• 1:00:14
  point where it has either been successful or has.
• 1:00:17
  And I think that's because I I took the time to learn and apply
• 1:00:21
  it and grow with it that when I make that transition or that
• 1:00:25
  step. It's at the right time, or I try
• 1:00:28
  to do it the right way. We're not always going to be
• 1:00:29
  perfect. Like no one is perfect and no
• 1:00:32
  coach is perfect. No program's perfect.
• 1:00:34
  But you can. You can do it the right way and
• 1:00:37
  you can do it a certain regard that fits you.
• 1:00:41
  And so for me, like, I'm in the place I need to be and the place
• 1:00:44
  I want to be and doing it a successful way because of the
• 1:00:50
  stops that I've had and because of the lessons I've had.
• 1:00:52
  And yeah, so like, even in this moment, like you, you were
• 1:00:57
  saying like, I I think just being here and having the
• 1:01:00
  patience and understanding, this is where I want to get.
• 1:01:02
  I can see a bigger goal, a bigger picture, a bigger view
• 1:01:05
  and have that aim. And through my experiences, I
• 1:01:08
  know certain steps that I have to check off before I get there.
• 1:01:12
  I just can't go from A to Y and expect Z, right.
• 1:01:17
  It takes all these time. So if I can do A through G,
• 1:01:20
  which I know, and then continue to build it, which is what we're
• 1:01:22
  doing here, I've known those stops.
• 1:01:25
  And yeah, as a younger age, you know, a lot of us want that
• 1:01:29
  like, oh, we're we're all about having that big time, that big
• 1:01:32
  result, that big. But I think if you skip over
• 1:01:35
  some of those key steps and you just put yourself in, it can
• 1:01:39
  lead to a harder fall or a bigger disaster because you can
• 1:01:44
  take that job. And if we're not ready for it,
• 1:01:46
  if we don't have the foundation, if we don't, you might have a
• 1:01:49
  short amount of window. And I tell this even with
• 1:01:51
  athletes, right? There's certain things we can do
• 1:01:55
  as athletes to get immediate success, but then the downfall
• 1:01:59
  from that or the repercussions or the consequences could be
• 1:02:02
  really hard, right? Look, we jump our mileage really
• 1:02:06
  high, right? We go from 30 miles a week to 90
• 1:02:08
  miles a week. You could all of a sudden have a
• 1:02:11
  race or two that all of a sudden it's like a big breakthrough.
• 1:02:13
  But then do you get hurt? Do you burn out?
• 1:02:15
  Do we overdo it? Does something disastrous happen
• 1:02:18
  that's now so detrimental that it ruins your career or ruins
• 1:02:21
  the season or so? If you miss all those
• 1:02:25
  middleseps, even as a coach, I I you can have short.
• 1:02:28
  Success, but it's not going to. Be I'm trying to build long term
• 1:02:31
  success. I I love how you connected that
• 1:02:34
  and and if you're. Listening, you'll hit the rewind
• 1:02:37
  button here a little bit and go back and listen.
• 1:02:38
  I love how, Nick, how you connected the dots all the way
• 1:02:42
  because I was going to ask that I was going to help bridge that.
• 1:02:44
  But you, you bridged it for me of, OK, here's what I'm doing in
• 1:02:47
  my career. What I'm really doing is I'm
• 1:02:49
  slowing down to speed up, by the way, is exactly what Nick was
• 1:02:52
  describing there. And then my connection question
• 1:02:55
  was going to be, OK, so how do you implement that in coaching?
• 1:02:59
  And you did, you know, thank God you did it because you you could
• 1:03:02
  have did the opposite. Well my athletes, it's different
• 1:03:04
  though because I only got 4 you know, But you're like Oh no, no.
• 1:03:06
  We've got to make sure we're putting the plan together
• 1:03:09
  correctly in building you know the proverbial distance coaching
• 1:03:12
  right. Building on that base to get to
• 1:03:14
  the successes that we want on the track for a 5K10K mile
• 1:03:17
  whatever you might be your your target race might be.
• 1:03:20
  So go back and listen that's a that's a really important thing
• 1:03:23
  that he's discussed describing here for your career.
• 1:03:27
  You know we have a lot of athletes that listen to the
• 1:03:29
  podcast now as well, your career as an athlete.
• 1:03:32
  But you know, mainly for our coaches out there, this is not a
• 1:03:37
  an idiot of don't have ambition. This is a lesson in preparation
• 1:03:44
  so that when you get to those jobs, when you get those
• 1:03:48
  opportunities, when you earn those opportunities, you have
• 1:03:50
  more success faster and therefore you're leading your
• 1:03:54
  athletes faster to have more success there.
• 1:03:57
  So I I really love that that attitude really that you have of
• 1:04:02
  of your career and how you're continuing to develop it.
• 1:04:04
  OK. So you're at Division Three St.
• 1:04:07
  John's Fisher as a recruiting coordinator.
• 1:04:08
  You you you keep hinting and mentioning Toledo.
• 1:04:11
  Is that is that what's next do we go from there to Toledo?
• 1:04:13
  What what's next after St. John's Fishers.
• 1:04:15
  It's then I'm at Duke University.
• 1:04:18
  Oh, OK, Of course I knew. You know what I just like We're
• 1:04:20
  not going. To go straight to Toledo,
• 1:04:21
  There's something else. All right.
• 1:04:22
  So you go to Duke. What?
• 1:04:23
  Where? Why?
• 1:04:24
  How did you get to Duke, man? So I'm there for two and a.
• 1:04:28
  Half years under coach Norm Ogilvy.
• 1:04:31
  Great, Norm. So they had a.
• 1:04:33
  Runner back in the day. There, Sean Thompson, he was an
• 1:04:37
  upstate New York guy as well. He was a 5K10K runner for Duke,
• 1:04:39
  but he grew up 1015 minutes from where I grew up.
• 1:04:44
  He knew of me. I worked at a couple running
• 1:04:45
  camps. You know, he's younger.
• 1:04:47
  And I remember Sean and I were talking on the phone and I was
• 1:04:49
  still kind of getting into coaching, still working out.
• 1:04:51
  And I talked to Sean one summer and I was like, I'm trying to
• 1:04:54
  get back into Division One. I'm trying to, but nobody's.
• 1:04:57
  Nobody's biting, nobody's bringing me along.
• 1:04:59
  Nobody's. And he goes, well, we just lost
• 1:05:01
  our volunteer. Like we need a volunteer coach.
• 1:05:03
  Why don't you call the coach Norm and Nick, you got some kind
• 1:05:06
  of like North. Star towards When someone loses
• 1:05:09
  someone, it's like, all right, I'm in, I'm in.
• 1:05:13
  You're the greatest tag team partner.
• 1:05:14
  In the world, it's like, Oh my. God, it's gone.
• 1:05:15
  All right. Tagging Nick.
• 1:05:16
  Let's get in here, Yeah? And I'll I'll never forget.
• 1:05:21
  So I called Coach Ogilvy like I'm the blue.
• 1:05:23
  So Sean gives me his number. I I sent him a text.
• 1:05:26
  Call him up. And I call coach and I'm like,
• 1:05:28
  hey, coach, I want to come coach for you.
• 1:05:29
  I know you just had a position. I want to come fill it.
• 1:05:32
  And I remember his first thing. He's like, we don't have a paid
• 1:05:35
  position, like, and I'm not hiring now.
• 1:05:37
  I'm like, coach, no, no, no. I want to volunteer for you.
• 1:05:41
  And he was like, oh. Like it completely?
• 1:05:43
  Changed. He went from like, I'm not
• 1:05:45
  hiring you. Like what?
• 1:05:46
  And then obviously he's like, oh, wait, you want to volunteer?
• 1:05:49
  Like, cool. Like when when can you start?
• 1:05:53
  So, you know, at that time. So then I I end up OK, I'm gonna
• 1:05:58
  go volunteer at Duke. Like this is an awesome
• 1:06:00
  opportunity to get my feet back in Division One, expand my
• 1:06:02
  networking. And so I worked at a running
• 1:06:05
  shop as much as I could to make, you know, ends meet and then
• 1:06:09
  helped with, you know, Duke with the men's side.
• 1:06:13
  And I did that for 2 1/2 years. Still trying to find my way,
• 1:06:16
  find my way, you know, waiting for paid position, doing all
• 1:06:20
  this. So it was.
• 1:06:22
  It was a long, roundabout way to get into coaching.
• 1:06:24
  And then I actually took an NAIANAIA job from Duke.
• 1:06:29
  What? I'm always interested in this
• 1:06:31
  'cause I I. Actually, yeah.
• 1:06:33
  I've been very public about this.
• 1:06:34
  I actually don't like this route that you're taking.
• 1:06:37
  And here's why. How are you?
• 1:06:40
  You mentioned the running shot. Your father.
• 1:06:43
  Even if you weren't a father at this point, you're a humane, but
• 1:06:47
  you're 2526 ish. You're in that range.
• 1:06:50
  You know if I got my age group right here, you know, there's
• 1:06:53
  life. There's, you know, the rent
• 1:06:56
  there's car payment. There's insurance you know,
• 1:07:01
  passions, charities. You know there's all these
• 1:07:03
  things that you could and should be doing that take money.
• 1:07:07
  You know, we we'd like to make money.
• 1:07:08
  This big evil thing and it's like, sorry, it's how it's how
• 1:07:11
  we do anything around here. So it's not a shame for a track
• 1:07:15
  coach to make money. I I really dislike when I hear
• 1:07:17
  the I do it for the kids and that's awesome.
• 1:07:19
  That's great. So do teachers.
• 1:07:23
  You need to get paid for this. So.
• 1:07:26
  So the reason I say I don't like this is I don't like volunteer
• 1:07:29
  coaches. I think you should be paid.
• 1:07:30
  I think we should have, you know football gets what you know, 100
• 1:07:33
  coaches. I think they're allowed
• 1:07:34
  technically to get paid. I think track should be able to
• 1:07:37
  hire 20 coaches because one of the questions if we get time
• 1:07:40
  here, you know in the Alabama system there are several
• 1:07:43
  distance coaches that you have there and I'm always curious,
• 1:07:45
  you know a Sprint coach will look back and be like well why
• 1:07:47
  is there five distance coaches? I only, you know one for all
• 1:07:50
  these events and I I look at it like Oh yeah, Sprint coach, you
• 1:07:53
  should have four assistant or what?
• 1:07:55
  You know, I I think there should be more.
• 1:07:56
  So I really don't like this system but 'cause I think you
• 1:07:59
  should be getting paid but in the heat, maybe not in the heat
• 1:08:03
  of the moment let's use perspective in perspective.
• 1:08:08
  Is it worth it? I I mean you're you're I say
• 1:08:11
  you're struggling. You you probably are struggling.
• 1:08:14
  You're hustling for sure, but you're not getting paid what
• 1:08:18
  you're worth to do what you are good at and want to do and
• 1:08:22
  that's coaching cross country and track and field.
• 1:08:25
  Yeah, I will say I probably had. Some opportunities.
• 1:08:28
  I just knew kind of what I was looking for the moment.
• 1:08:31
  And I think over years I evolved and kind of looked at it in a
• 1:08:35
  different scope. Like I made my network, I made
• 1:08:38
  my connections, and I think every stop I did helped me to
• 1:08:40
  get to where I am right now. Certainly I could have taken.
• 1:08:44
  Certain positions. To go a certain way and I turn
• 1:08:47
  them away, that probably would have made life financially
• 1:08:49
  easier. But it goes back to, you know
• 1:08:52
  what I was saying earlier on understanding sometimes there's
• 1:08:55
  a process in there. I knew my end goal, right?
• 1:08:57
  Like I'm in my dream position right now.
• 1:09:00
  My experience is certain things along the way, if it helps set
• 1:09:03
  me up to be successful here and to get this job.
• 1:09:07
  So in that regard I I'm not like, OK, I, you know, I should
• 1:09:12
  have maybe done it different. Yeah, I probably could have,
• 1:09:14
  probably could have made life a little easier.
• 1:09:16
  But I also knew in order to be successful, it wasn't going to
• 1:09:18
  come easy, right. It goes back to being a
• 1:09:20
  successful runner. And so no, I yeah, I wish I was
• 1:09:25
  paid. But in the moment, like I think
• 1:09:27
  there are so many valuable lessons that I learned being a
• 1:09:30
  part time, being a volunteer when I got my full time
• 1:09:33
  position, working in AI, working Division Three that now have
• 1:09:36
  made me a better coach and a better human being for where I
• 1:09:39
  am today. So yeah, it would have helped,
• 1:09:42
  but I don't regret it. So let let's let's speed up a
• 1:09:46
  little bit. For time reasons, because I want
• 1:09:49
  to explore this week, I think you and I can have a good
• 1:09:51
  conversation about this and have some disagreements and
• 1:09:53
  agreements that will help the greater coaching body.
• 1:09:55
  Because you're in a position now as you know a coach at the
• 1:09:58
  University of Alabama and the age and stage that you're at.
• 1:10:01
  And certainly you're no, you know you're not facing
• 1:10:03
  retirement. So it's not like, you know, you
• 1:10:05
  have that much experience and relationship to some other
• 1:10:08
  coaches that we've had here, but you are certainly kind of in the
• 1:10:10
  muck of it right now and coming out of of the muck of it.
• 1:10:13
  So I want to have that conversation.
• 1:10:14
  So let's speed up here just a little bit.
• 1:10:16
  So you go to Duke 2 1/2 years, I think you said volunteer coach.
• 1:10:20
  Where next After that? Then I take position at Ottawa.
• 1:10:24
  University When the heck do we get to Toledo?
• 1:10:26
  OK, so Ottawa in Kansas. In Kansas?
• 1:10:28
  Yeah, I know it. Well, yeah.
• 1:10:29
  OK. All right.
• 1:10:30
  So you go to Ottawa. I was there about 3 years, NAIA.
• 1:10:33
  It was near. My ex is in laws, so it's more
• 1:10:37
  of a family move, right? And paid paid position, Paid
• 1:10:40
  position. Congratulations, I'm happy.
• 1:10:42
  For you. OK, good, good, good.
• 1:10:43
  Thank you. So full time position.
• 1:10:46
  Yeah, a bit of a family move and Ottawa is NAIA.
• 1:10:50
  If I remember correctly, Yep, you said that already.
• 1:10:52
  Sorry any. So this is important because I
• 1:10:55
  always like to. I really like to try to squish
• 1:10:59
  down. Incidentally, Division One.
• 1:11:01
  And really, you know to me Division One is is two different
• 1:11:03
  divisions. There's the, you know formerly
• 1:11:06
  now Power Five. We got no one's formally called
• 1:11:08
  it the Power 4 yet. I got to start pointing that
• 1:11:10
  term, the Power Four and then the rest of the Division One is
• 1:11:13
  a guy who grew graduated from Troy University.
• 1:11:15
  Trust me. It's Troy is not competing
• 1:11:19
  against University of Alabama. I'm sorry but we're not.
• 1:11:21
  Alabama has a shot at winning the national title.
• 1:11:23
  Troy does it and no. Yeah, my son's name is Troy.
• 1:11:27
  So no one's a bigger Troy fan than I am.
• 1:11:29
  I'm not slamming Troy. It's the economics of of where
• 1:11:31
  we are in this society. So I try to squish.
• 1:11:33
  Incidentally, Division One, Power Four, and any IA JUCO
• 1:11:37
  together. Meaning, if you're truly in it
• 1:11:39
  for the kids, and I think every coach would say that, and I and
• 1:11:42
  I believe every coach believes that, then it to me, it does not
• 1:11:46
  matter if you're coaching at Paducah High School in Kentucky
• 1:11:49
  or if you're coaching at University of Alabama, just
• 1:11:51
  because your kids run faster, because you get them naturally,
• 1:11:54
  they're they come to you faster than what Paducah is getting.
• 1:11:57
  When he first starts coaching, he or she starts coaching,
• 1:11:59
  right? That does not matter to me how
• 1:12:01
  good the athletes are. I could care less.
• 1:12:03
  I'm happy when you guys win cross country and things like
• 1:12:05
  that, That's cool. But I don't care.
• 1:12:07
  Doesn't make you more valuable or or less valuable to me.
• 1:12:10
  So I I'm curious you talked about you know you're at your
• 1:12:14
  dream job now you know you're at UConn.
• 1:12:17
  That's a big school. You're a Duke.
• 1:12:19
  That's a big school as far as you know stature and Division
• 1:12:22
  One and power four and all those kind of things.
• 1:12:24
  How did you handle and it was a family thing and that's all.
• 1:12:27
  And again that's a think listen to this guys as you're listening
• 1:12:29
  that this is a theme here a family move.
• 1:12:32
  How did you. I'm going to say this kind of
• 1:12:34
  bluntly handle coming air quotes here.
• 1:12:37
  Make sure you're hearing me say air quotes down to any IA you're
• 1:12:41
  coming from Duke ACC going up against your old boss by the way
• 1:12:44
  Bob Rayman and now you go to Ottawa.
• 1:12:47
  No one. You know, I I said it was in
• 1:12:49
  Kansas because I lived in Kansas.
• 1:12:50
  I coached in Kansas so I knew it was there. 99% of people
• 1:12:52
  listening had no clue where they're like oh Canada is that
• 1:12:54
  where Ottawa University is. How did you handle ego wise of
• 1:12:58
  like oh the same things I got at Duke.
• 1:13:01
  I don't get over here in Ottawa. I was a Division Three athlete.
• 1:13:04
  I was a Division Three recruiting coordinator, right?
• 1:13:06
  So here I am like, OK, well, I'm going to make the most of this
• 1:13:09
  moment. I'm coaching.
• 1:13:10
  I'm got a full time job, you know, doing the family route.
• 1:13:13
  But I've made the connections, right?
• 1:13:14
  And I have it. At this time in my career.
• 1:13:16
  I still have Andrea in my corner, I have Norm.
• 1:13:20
  And then through Andrea, I had other coaches that I could call
• 1:13:24
  up any point, you know, at that point I made a really good
• 1:13:26
  relationship with Martin Smith too, you know.
• 1:13:29
  So I've got these coaches who I would say are kind of in my back
• 1:13:33
  pocket, right, who are mentors I can call up at any moment I can
• 1:13:37
  have. So I'm like, OK, I'm going down
• 1:13:38
  for family move. But I still have these kind of
• 1:13:43
  people in my corner that if I need or if I wanted to ever
• 1:13:45
  explore that route later on, it allowed me to step in there.
• 1:13:49
  And I and I saw a lot of D1 coaches.
• 1:13:50
  Like, it's hard to have a young family, right.
• 1:13:51
  So I was like, if I go down to NAIA, right?
• 1:13:54
  Most of the time you're leaving in the morning, you're
• 1:13:57
  competing, You come back same day.
• 1:13:59
  I'm, I have a lot of flexibility.
• 1:14:00
  I can do what I need to. I'm closer to family where we've
• 1:14:03
  got family help. So when I'm gone, you know my ex
• 1:14:05
  at the time had family on deck. So like, come help out with the
• 1:14:09
  kids, come take a new thing. So to me it was like, this will
• 1:14:12
  make my life easier and allow me to be a better coach because we
• 1:14:16
  have more help. So to me, it was kind of like a
• 1:14:20
  life balance kind of like, OK, if I absolutely no, no, and
• 1:14:24
  you're you're kind of painting my picture.
• 1:14:26
  For me, you're that's huge, huge, you know, now.
• 1:14:29
  And I didn't realize how big that was until I had children as
• 1:14:31
  well. So now I look at them like
• 1:14:33
  whenever someone tells me they're moving this school to
• 1:14:36
  this school or hey, we're having, I'm getting married or
• 1:14:38
  we're having children, it's always like oh, where's family?
• 1:14:41
  Like are you getting closer to family, farther from family?
• 1:14:43
  Because trust me, as much as you may like or dislike your in laws
• 1:14:47
  and thank God I love my in laws and they love me.
• 1:14:49
  It is always better to have family near for for the children
• 1:14:53
  and things like it's just no matter what your career is, but
• 1:14:55
  certainly for coaching, it's huge.
• 1:14:57
  It's huge. OK, three years at Ottawa, where
• 1:14:59
  do we go from Ottawa? And then Andrea calls me up.
• 1:15:03
  Finally, you're at Toledo, so she calls me up and she's.
• 1:15:06
  Going to take the director job at.
• 1:15:08
  Toledo and says, hey, do you want to get the band back
• 1:15:10
  together? Is that what you really said?
• 1:15:12
  That'd be funny. Oh, that's what she.
• 1:15:13
  Said Love it because we kept in. Touch like her and I were close.
• 1:15:17
  I actually used to take my kids up.
• 1:15:18
  And go have like family little week with her because she was at
• 1:15:21
  Iowa State at the time. So it's like a three, 3 1/2 hour
• 1:15:24
  drive. But I'd go up.
• 1:15:26
  I used to actually help and this is how I first met Coach Smith.
• 1:15:29
  I used to go up and either pace and rabbit, that Iowa State
• 1:15:32
  Classic, that indoor meet they had, Oh yeah, I'd help them set
• 1:15:35
  up for home meets. I help them.
• 1:15:36
  Set up their regional cross. Country meets like to me, I just
• 1:15:38
  love the sport. So I'd go up and stay with
• 1:15:40
  Andrea and her family, bring my kids up and help them prepare to
• 1:15:43
  host a meet. So I was just all hands on deck
• 1:15:47
  type guy. And so Andrea calls me, she's
• 1:15:50
  like, I'm going to take this job.
• 1:15:51
  Do you want to you want to come with me?
• 1:15:54
  And I turned my, you know, my wife at the time now my ex.
• 1:15:58
  But I turned around. I was like, hey, this is me to
• 1:15:59
  get back into Division One. This is my next stabbed.
• 1:16:02
  This is what we always wanted. And she was like, yeah, This is
• 1:16:04
  why we came down. NAIA.
• 1:16:06
  Now our kids are older. They're out of diapers.
• 1:16:08
  They're moving. Like, this is your dream.
• 1:16:10
  Let's do it. So we went to Toledo, and I was
• 1:16:13
  there for almost four years. Yeah.
• 1:16:16
  And you know, I have. A special place in my heart for
• 1:16:19
  Toledo, 'cause I coached at Ball State that Matt Conference, in
• 1:16:21
  fact, who I was just hanging out with a couple of Matt guys.
• 1:16:25
  Can't remember who it was, Dang it.
• 1:16:27
  But we were talking about, you know, I was there in the O1, O2
• 1:16:30
  era when Kevin was at Toledo and Wendell was at Kent.
• 1:16:35
  And, you know, we just had, you know, Sue was at Ball State.
• 1:16:39
  Now she's up at Eastern. And you know it that conference
• 1:16:43
  is, it always felt like when I was in it and still to this day
• 1:16:47
  felt like the little conference that could.
• 1:16:49
  And that seems like it's kind of a slam on it, but it's like it
• 1:16:51
  punches above its weight. Like there's all excuses in the
• 1:16:54
  world for the Mack to not be that great in track and field.
• 1:16:56
  You know, we dropped almost every men's program throughout
• 1:16:58
  the conference, which sucks. You know, it's it's it's a
• 1:17:01
  conference that wants to be a power fight, right?
• 1:17:03
  They're always trying to figure out how to make their football
• 1:17:05
  teams better, bigger and better. And so they're always, you know,
• 1:17:07
  putting a lot of resources into those those sports And then the
• 1:17:11
  track just outperforms. There's all Americans every
• 1:17:15
  year. There's a heck of national
• 1:17:17
  champion almost every year and something, you know, the throws
• 1:17:20
  are amazing distance, all of it. They're sprinters.
• 1:17:22
  Like it's really an amazing conference.
• 1:17:24
  How did you enjoy at Toledo, you know, going against Bowling
• 1:17:27
  Green and Ball State and Akron and Kent, man, just some some
• 1:17:31
  dogs, man. There's amazing.
• 1:17:33
  Yeah. No, I loved it.
• 1:17:34
  I, you know and Andrea. And I are still like, she's,
• 1:17:38
  it's like family to me, right? It's she's.
• 1:17:41
  Yeah, I I can't say enough about her.
• 1:17:43
  Right. And that experience.
• 1:17:44
  So yeah, I loved it. I loved my time at Toledo.
• 1:17:47
  I also knew though like you said, I was working more with
• 1:17:49
  the men. Like I helped her.
• 1:17:50
  I was helping out with the steeple, I helped the middle
• 1:17:53
  distance women there. But I coached the men's cross
• 1:17:55
  team and we didn't have a track program.
• 1:17:56
  So the the frustrating part for me personally and professionally
• 1:18:00
  was there was always going to be a ceiling or a cap.
• 1:18:03
  And you know, I explained it to the director at the time before
• 1:18:06
  I left the athletic director and I had to sit down talk and I was
• 1:18:08
  like, you know, it's kind of like you, you win the Olympic
• 1:18:11
  gold. Like there we were back-to-back
• 1:18:13
  runner up conference champions. We had guys who could qualify
• 1:18:16
  for a regional system if they had a track program.
• 1:18:19
  And now we're, you know, and we're in a position to win a Mac
• 1:18:21
  title. I go, where do we go from here?
• 1:18:23
  I'm now associate head coach. I'm making the most, you know,
• 1:18:26
  there's a ceiling cap on how much you're going to make at the
• 1:18:28
  mid major. And you know, so I'm like I'm,
• 1:18:31
  I'm paid the most. I'm going to be paid.
• 1:18:33
  I'm at the highest title. I'm going to be paid.
• 1:18:35
  The men's team is having success.
• 1:18:36
  The women's team, we get back to nationals.
• 1:18:37
  So I almost felt like there and especially how young I was in my
• 1:18:43
  career, how young I still feel I was when I left there.
• 1:18:46
  I still felt like, OK, we just reached a lot of what we're
• 1:18:50
  going to reach like the pinnacle of it and there wasn't much
• 1:18:53
  more. So to me, I always knew there
• 1:18:54
  had to be more like I I needed more growth.
• 1:18:57
  I needed to be able to kind of continue to move on or feel, you
• 1:19:00
  know, at that point. I think if I was 1015 years down
• 1:19:02
  the road maybe it's a job you just continue to have fun at
• 1:19:06
  continue to be successful at. I just wanted a little bit more
• 1:19:10
  right. So I still love the Toledo
• 1:19:12
  program. I think they've got a really
• 1:19:15
  cool set up. I love the Mac Conference.
• 1:19:18
  I think they are you know, and and not to say this in a bad I,
• 1:19:21
  I just thought like it was holding back the men's side of,
• 1:19:24
  you know, no one can argue that. I mean that we've dropped like I
• 1:19:27
  said, almost. Every men's program in the, I
• 1:19:29
  think we're down to four teams. Last time I looked for maybe
• 1:19:33
  it's five, but it's not you know, it's a full slate of you
• 1:19:35
  know what 12 or 14 total schools and you know, having four or
• 1:19:38
  five programs. I mean it's just it's it's
• 1:19:40
  ridiculous what they've done with men's track and field
• 1:19:43
  inside that conference. That is one of the big knocks
• 1:19:46
  for the Mac for sure. So no one can, you know, no one
• 1:19:49
  can say, Oh yeah, no, we support men's, right?
• 1:19:50
  No, we we don't. We we are killing men's track in
• 1:19:53
  that have killed it in that conference, Okay.
• 1:19:57
  So little similarities here, 'cause you go from Toledo to
• 1:20:00
  Alabama, right. You didn't sneak in Syracuse
• 1:20:04
  University or anything here, okay.
• 1:20:05
  Good, because I remember my whole.
• 1:20:09
  Goal when I was coaching track and field was to make it to the
• 1:20:12
  SEC. I grew up in Alabama, so I was
• 1:20:14
  an SEC Homer. I still am an SEC Homer.
• 1:20:16
  You know, I tell everybody, you know, if they do a national
• 1:20:18
  championships for tiddlywinks, I guarantee you that some school
• 1:20:21
  from SEC would win. I just believed SEC would win
• 1:20:23
  everything. I'm a full full-fledged SEC
• 1:20:26
  Homer in regards to that. So I remember specifically, you
• 1:20:30
  know, being an Appalachian State in the summer at AUSATF Level 2.
• 1:20:35
  And Al Schmidt pulls me out of class.
• 1:20:38
  You know, Dennis Shaver was my teacher, pulls me out of class
• 1:20:40
  and says congratulations, you're a bulldog.
• 1:20:42
  They had hired me, you know, so I was going to start, you know,
• 1:20:45
  one week later or whatever. And I remember just, you know,
• 1:20:47
  the feeling of like, oh, I made it like this has been everything
• 1:20:50
  I've been working for is to get to SEC.
• 1:20:52
  And here I am. I am at 28 or whatever I was.
• 1:20:55
  I am an assistant coach in, in charge of sprints, jumps and
• 1:21:00
  hurdles at an SEC school like it.
• 1:21:03
  You know, it's still one of the, you know, feathers in my cap, if
• 1:21:06
  you will. How did you get to Alabama?
• 1:21:09
  How? How did you get find?
• 1:21:11
  How did, how did you find out? You got the job?
• 1:21:13
  Tell tell us because a lot of people, listener now are like,
• 1:21:15
  OK, Nick did it. Nick went from Toledo to SEC to
• 1:21:19
  Alabama, so I can, too. How did you do it?
• 1:21:21
  Tell us about that process. Yeah.
• 1:21:23
  So you know all those. People I had in my corner who I
• 1:21:27
  told you like, I really believe in this.
• 1:21:29
  So when I was looking at jobs, applying for jobs, I didn't call
• 1:21:32
  up all the people that I've made along the way and asked them,
• 1:21:35
  hey, call this school, because I applied for a lot of Division
• 1:21:38
  One schools when I was at NAIA, volunteer everything.
• 1:21:41
  But I never called in favors because I felt like if if a
• 1:21:46
  coach came across my resume and came and they thought I was
• 1:21:49
  worth enough, they'd go to my references and they'd they'd
• 1:21:51
  make the calls themselves if they skipped over it.
• 1:21:54
  I'm not ready for it yet. I might be frustrated.
• 1:21:57
  I might think I'm ready for it, but for some reason I'm probably
• 1:22:00
  not ready for it yet. So that that was my view on it.
• 1:22:02
  Like a lot of people get frustrated.
• 1:22:03
  They're like, oh man, I deserve this.
• 1:22:04
  I I need this or hey, I'm going to call in a favor.
• 1:22:07
  If I've got to call in a favor, I want it to be the one or I
• 1:22:10
  want to feel like I'm ready or I feel like I'm in the moment.
• 1:22:12
  So the old coach that was here left, obviously mid year took
• 1:22:17
  over another position. There's another theme by the
• 1:22:20
  way, with you. Yeah.
• 1:22:22
  People, people that leave in December, man, Nick is ready to
• 1:22:24
  step up in January. It it's my opportunity, so.
• 1:22:29
  So they left. So I actually reached out to
• 1:22:31
  Coach Waters myself before I called in my references, and he
• 1:22:34
  actually responded back to me. Did you know Coach at all I've
• 1:22:37
  met? Him at that point twice.
• 1:22:40
  But never had like a full on conversation with him.
• 1:22:42
  Know him through Grapevine. But if you know anything about
• 1:22:45
  Coach Water, he's going to do his due diligence and he's going
• 1:22:48
  to do his background, he's going to do his homework.
• 1:22:50
  He's a very meticulous guy and in a great way like he he goes
• 1:22:53
  to the XS and OS right? Like, he'll dot his IS and cross
• 1:22:56
  his TS. So when I sent him a message and
• 1:22:59
  he responded, back then I went and I was like, OK, this is a
• 1:23:02
  job. Finally, at my point in my
• 1:23:04
  career where I'm gonna call, I called Coach Braman, called
• 1:23:07
  Coach Smith, called Andrea. I was like, hey, I I need a
• 1:23:11
  payer. I think I'm ready for this.
• 1:23:12
  This is what's open. Can you guys help me?
• 1:23:16
  And so then from there it just kind of kind of just excelled a
• 1:23:20
  little bit faster obviously because they needed the coach
• 1:23:21
  but they weren't sure if they were gonna bring somebody in
• 1:23:23
  there or wait till June. And so the next thing you know
• 1:23:26
  I'm getting an interview going through the process and I was
• 1:23:30
  like, OK, this is the time and and what probably helped me
• 1:23:33
  being in the Mac and this is what I explained to Coach Waters
• 1:23:35
  at the time is I was the men's coach.
• 1:23:38
  Yeah I helped recruit the with the women and I was helping
• 1:23:40
  Andrea but she was the women's coach and I was help helping
• 1:23:43
  with steeple and middle distance.
• 1:23:44
  But Andrea could coach all those.
• 1:23:46
  So I was like coach if there's any time for me to leave and he
• 1:23:48
  was worried about taking another coach mid year, kind of like he
• 1:23:51
  lost. He didn't want to do that to
• 1:23:52
  another program, which I respect a lot.
• 1:23:54
  But you know, I even said to him, I said coach, we don't have
• 1:23:56
  outdoor track. We don't have indoor track.
• 1:23:58
  So like, I'm helping her, but we've got three distance coaches
• 1:24:01
  here because I had a part time assistant at the time.
• 1:24:04
  I was like he can step into my role.
• 1:24:05
  Andrea still got help. It kind of works out because my
• 1:24:10
  season was done. Yes, I'm still coaching.
• 1:24:12
  Yes, I'm still helping the women's program.
• 1:24:14
  But I know if anything, you know, now is a great time for me
• 1:24:18
  to kind of. Step into another role and it's.
• 1:24:19
  Not really going to hinder the program I'm at and I'm ready for
• 1:24:23
  it. And so Coach made his calls, did
• 1:24:26
  his things and he's like, hey, you know your references and
• 1:24:29
  people called and he goes, I even called people you didn't
• 1:24:31
  have on your reference sheet. I called and they were saying
• 1:24:33
  that you can, you can do this and you're the next guy and
• 1:24:37
  whatever. So I I really, really am
• 1:24:39
  thankful and feel blessed and appreciative of Coach taking
• 1:24:42
  that chance on me and giving me this opportunity and put me in
• 1:24:45
  this role. And yeah, I showed up first day
• 1:24:47
  and he's like, hey, you got them like take them, you're you're
• 1:24:51
  the women's coach. You do whatever I'm taking them
• 1:24:52
  at like just take them and and run from there.
• 1:24:55
  And he put a lot of trust and faith in me and you know, I I
• 1:24:59
  can't thank him enough for that. And now here we are.
• 1:25:01
  And yeah, to this day, you know, I'm just.
• 1:25:05
  I feel blessed So. So before I get into more into
• 1:25:08
  Dan, pause. That real quick because this is
• 1:25:11
  really important. People again, think that because
• 1:25:14
  you're the GA at Florida State, you get any job that you want
• 1:25:17
  and you know things like that or, you know, a job is posted.
• 1:25:20
  Here's what I see a lot there. There's one thread on let's
• 1:25:23
  Run's message board that I pay attention to.
• 1:25:25
  I I I know everybody shakes their head.
• 1:25:26
  I know, I know, I know. There's one thread that I do
• 1:25:29
  every day. Literally every day I will check
• 1:25:32
  this one thread and that's the annual coaches correct as much
• 1:25:35
  as you know. And there's some, you know, Full
• 1:25:38
  disclosure, terrible, terrible things that are said on there.
• 1:25:41
  However, there are people who are in the know who are on that
• 1:25:44
  thing too. So this is my way of just
• 1:25:45
  keeping up with, you know, coaches and who they're going.
• 1:25:47
  And my favorite thing to do is when a coach, you know for the
• 1:25:50
  first time gets bashed on, let's run, I'll, I'll, you know, if I
• 1:25:53
  know them well, you know, which I, you know most people.
• 1:25:55
  I'll call them up and say, hey, congratulations, like now you've
• 1:25:57
  officially made it. Now that you've been bashed on
• 1:25:59
  the message board. Yeah, like you should put that
• 1:26:02
  on your resume like. You know, was bad.
• 1:26:03
  You know, here's the. Quote I'm a terrible code but
• 1:26:05
  but you know whatever. Anyway, but so a a big theme on
• 1:26:09
  that on that thread is every job that's posted.
• 1:26:14
  In fact, this was just posted yesterday.
• 1:26:16
  Every job that's posted, especially the big schools.
• 1:26:20
  They've already got their candidate in mind.
• 1:26:22
  So I want to talk about, because you were not the candidate in
• 1:26:25
  mind. He didn't, you know, you didn't
• 1:26:26
  have a relationship with Dan Centris.
• 1:26:27
  I want to talk, talk about that. Pause for a second though.
• 1:26:31
  You mentioned, you know, hey, I'm going to call in my, my
• 1:26:34
  cadre. I need my help.
• 1:26:35
  I need my Martin, my norms, etcetera.
• 1:26:37
  Bob's to help out here. You also said, Andrea, did
• 1:26:41
  Andrea support you pursuing this job?
• 1:26:45
  Oh yeah. Yeah, that's important because
• 1:26:47
  that's a myth. That's a myth.
• 1:26:48
  That's. That's a myth that a head coach
• 1:26:52
  is is always going to be selfish, because even though you
• 1:26:55
  had an assistant that could take your position, you're still
• 1:26:57
  limited resources at Toledo. So every person leaving is a is
• 1:27:01
  a is a hurt, right? You add value.
• 1:27:03
  So if you leave, you know if if it was easy for you to leave,
• 1:27:06
  it's like, well, you didn't really have any value there.
• 1:27:08
  You didn't really add anything. You certainly were going to
• 1:27:10
  create a missing void when you left.
• 1:27:13
  So Andrea, selfishly self preservation could have been
• 1:27:17
  like, I know, I, I, Nick, you need to stay here for this
• 1:27:20
  reason that you know, talk. Hey, I, I worked at Iowa State
• 1:27:22
  man. That that those big schools
• 1:27:24
  they'll chew you up, spit you out, man.
• 1:27:25
  You're going to make impact here.
• 1:27:26
  Toledo. She could have done all those
• 1:27:27
  things. Instead what I'm hearing is she
• 1:27:29
  supported you in your career advancement here.
• 1:27:32
  She was probably my biggest supporter.
• 1:27:34
  Well, not probably, she was. My biggest supporter because her
• 1:27:37
  and I sat down and talked, you know, even before I sent that
• 1:27:39
  e-mail to Coach Waters. Like I went and talked to her
• 1:27:42
  about it. You know her and I have a great
• 1:27:44
  relationship with that and she was like she did that in her
• 1:27:47
  career too, right. She went took the Iowa State and
• 1:27:49
  she took. So she was like, yeah, I get
• 1:27:50
  that and I didn't have that opportunity yet in my career and
• 1:27:52
  I didn't have that you know, that feather in the cap as you
• 1:27:55
  you know were saying. And you know I talked to her on
• 1:27:57
  why and how. And yeah, I was comfortable
• 1:27:59
  there and we'd probably still be there and we'd, I'd be happy and
• 1:28:02
  we'd be successful. And, you know, I kind of felt
• 1:28:04
  like I needed that next step. And she knew that it wasn't an
• 1:28:06
  easy decision too, even by the way, at the end of the day.
• 1:28:09
  But she was my biggest supporter and even with Dan had many calls
• 1:28:13
  with him And and she told me this later on.
• 1:28:16
  She did. It took her a while too.
• 1:28:17
  She told called me about, I want to say it was that summer after
• 1:28:21
  NCAA's, you know, Mercy and Hill to go on and they're all
• 1:28:24
  Americans and Flo was an all American indoor and we had some
• 1:28:26
  good success. And she called me and she, you
• 1:28:28
  know, I went back and saw her that summer and stayed with her
• 1:28:30
  and her family. And she told me she goes, you
• 1:28:32
  know, back when Dan was making a decision, you know, I could tell
• 1:28:35
  it was going to be you because she he called me and he was
• 1:28:37
  like, hey, is he ready for this? Can he do this?
• 1:28:41
  Can he? And she goes, you want to what?
• 1:28:43
  She goes, don't hire him. Do me a favor.
• 1:28:45
  She she said this to the coach. She goes, don't hire him because
• 1:28:47
  she goes, he's awesome. He does everything we need.
• 1:28:50
  He's awesome. Coach, he's an awesome guy.
• 1:28:52
  Don't hire him. Make my life easier.
• 1:28:54
  Make my job easier. Have him stay here.
• 1:28:55
  Right. Right.
• 1:28:56
  And that stood out to me because I was like, man, yeah, it could
• 1:29:00
  have made it. Like we had a really good thing
• 1:29:01
  going and we had a great set up and we know each other.
• 1:29:04
  Like, I know what she's thinking on the back of my hand.
• 1:29:06
  Like I, we have a great rapport. And I was like, it could make
• 1:29:10
  her life as a director a lot easier.
• 1:29:12
  And here she is advocating for me and because she knew for me
• 1:29:15
  it was really good and I'm always going to love her for
• 1:29:18
  that and appreciate her for that.
• 1:29:19
  But, but yeah, she was my biggest supporter and advocate
• 1:29:23
  for getting this job. Yeah, she gets a big shout out
• 1:29:26
  because again, that's that's. Coaches.
• 1:29:27
  Coaching coaches and thinking not of themselves but thinking
• 1:29:31
  of others and typically we that that gets acted out through our
• 1:29:35
  athletes. But here's a great example of
• 1:29:38
  our Staffs of hey man this is what's best for you you you want
• 1:29:41
  this So you know what I want it for you and you know we'll be
• 1:29:43
  fine we'll survive we'll figure it out.
• 1:29:45
  But if this is what's best for you then how can I help how can
• 1:29:47
  I support. So I I love that because that
• 1:29:49
  that bust one of those myths of like you know someone is not
• 1:29:52
  going to help you to get another job.
• 1:29:53
  In fact here's Andrea. Andrea you know being your one
• 1:29:57
  of your biggest cheerleaders for it so shout out to her man
• 1:29:59
  that's that shows true leadership when you're when you
• 1:30:04
  are willing to hurt yourself to help another to me that that is
• 1:30:10
  an alternate definition of leadership man.
• 1:30:12
  I love that. So big, big shout out to her.
• 1:30:14
  OK, now let's get back, Let's unpause this.
• 1:30:19
  You didn't have a relationship with Dan thing because that is a
• 1:30:22
  big myth. Maybe the biggest myth we have
• 1:30:24
  in coaching for as a profession is that you have to know the
• 1:30:29
  other person. They've already got their person
• 1:30:32
  picked out. It's a formality.
• 1:30:34
  It's because of law that they actually put the job description
• 1:30:37
  out there. If they didn't have to do that,
• 1:30:38
  they wouldn't. They would just go hire their
• 1:30:40
  buddies or whatever. And instead, here you are.
• 1:30:42
  You didn't, you know you'd met Dan, but you didn't know Dan.
• 1:30:45
  You'd have a relationship with Dan.
• 1:30:46
  You didn't work Dan's camps, things like that, and you earned
• 1:30:50
  the job. I love that.
• 1:30:53
  That shows a lot of character on both both your sides.
• 1:30:55
  You know, I have, I have a lot of like almost said like hidden
• 1:31:00
  or secret respect for Dan. I've told Dan I respect him.
• 1:31:02
  So it's not that hidden. But you know, Dan and I have not
• 1:31:05
  done any significant business together.
• 1:31:08
  So it's not like Dan's a big Gil guy and he buys all of our
• 1:31:10
  stuff, right. And so he has all reasons
• 1:31:13
  because he's extremely busy and to your point, you know, very
• 1:31:16
  thorough and meticulous. He has all reason to kind of
• 1:31:20
  push me to the side. And I went, I was down visiting
• 1:31:22
  Tuscaloosa one year and you know, even though he doesn't buy
• 1:31:26
  anything from me, I like to stop it.
• 1:31:27
  You know, I don't like you or not like you because you do or
• 1:31:29
  don't buy stuff from me. So, you know, just stopped in
• 1:31:31
  and say hi and he was like, hey, do you, do you want a tour?
• 1:31:34
  And I was like, all right, he's going to give me the five
• 1:31:36
  minute, you know, good job, Mr. Sales Guy.
• 1:31:39
  Now get out of here. Tour, right.
• 1:31:41
  Dan take I think we spent over an hour took me through the
• 1:31:45
  through the football the facility and then obviously to
• 1:31:48
  the track and things like that and it just struck me of like
• 1:31:52
  man Dan you want nothing from me so you're not trying to butter
• 1:31:58
  me up for better price and things like that You it was
• 1:32:00
  really out of servitude of like oh I'm proud of our facility you
• 1:32:04
  know you're a human being Mike I'm I'll show you around and I
• 1:32:07
  was just really struck it just really there's others like a Dan
• 1:32:11
  in regards to business who won't give me the time of day and
• 1:32:14
  maybe they just don't like me. That's OK.
• 1:32:15
  I know not everybody likes me. I'm OK with that too.
• 1:32:17
  But. But it really struck me of Dan's
• 1:32:20
  outwardness of that of like, you know, acceptance.
• 1:32:23
  Regardless of what you know business wise, we may or may not
• 1:32:26
  do. So I can see him being very
• 1:32:27
  thorough in an interview process.
• 1:32:30
  How did that process go with Let's give some value to people
• 1:32:33
  who are listening here in the next last few minutes here.
• 1:32:36
  What did you have to do to prepare?
• 1:32:37
  Was it a formal interview? Did he want to see your logs of
• 1:32:41
  training? Talk to us a little bit about
• 1:32:43
  kind of that, like, how did you, what was that process like?
• 1:32:46
  So other people might be prepared for future interviews
• 1:32:49
  like yours. Yeah, well, Coach Waters, like I
• 1:32:51
  said, I mean, probably every question.
• 1:32:52
  He was going to ask me. He probably already knew the the
• 1:32:54
  answer to no. It's like, it's like your dad,
• 1:32:56
  right? Lawyers never ask a question.
• 1:32:58
  They don't. Already know the answer to,
• 1:32:59
  right. Dan would have been a good
• 1:33:00
  lawyer now that I think about it.
• 1:33:01
  Oh, yeah. Oh yeah.
• 1:33:03
  Tell tell him that when we get. I want to.
• 1:33:04
  I want to hear what his reaction is when you tell him that.
• 1:33:06
  OK. So he's a hard read like.
• 1:33:09
  I will tell you this, He is like, now that I know him, I'm
• 1:33:12
  starting to really pick up on like.
• 1:33:14
  But he was a hard read. I couldn't tell.
• 1:33:17
  Yep. Like Stone cold face.
• 1:33:19
  Like I came prepared by the way. So all those positions, all
• 1:33:23
  those jobs, others I came with an action plan.
• 1:33:25
  I came with first year recruiting plan, second year
• 1:33:28
  recruiting plan, how I'm going to train, where I'm going to,
• 1:33:31
  what areas I want to work on. Everything.
• 1:33:33
  Like I came detailed, right? Like I I went to the works for
• 1:33:38
  this and I could tell he appreciated and respected that.
• 1:33:41
  And then I remember he handed me this big, we got this big binder
• 1:33:44
  and book. I know this binder.
• 1:33:46
  Hold on, hold on. So when Dan first got there, he
• 1:33:49
  hired a good friend of mine, Matt Kane.
• 1:33:51
  And so one of my visits, I'm, I'm sitting in the office with
• 1:33:54
  Matt and I'm like, so Matt, so how's it working with Dan?
• 1:33:56
  You know, a Pat Henry disciple. You know, Pat again is another
• 1:33:59
  one, very detailed. And he reaches almost exactly
• 1:34:02
  like you were doing right there. He reaches behind and grabs this
• 1:34:04
  binder. And I said, oh, yeah, I
• 1:34:08
  remember. Yep, Yep, Yep.
• 1:34:09
  His was thicker. Maybe Dan's getting a little,
• 1:34:12
  you know, a little light in his age here.
• 1:34:15
  I've got 18 tabs here. I tell, I tell Matt I go, Oh
• 1:34:19
  yeah, yeah, I got that when. I got to Mississippi State too,
• 1:34:21
  you know, all the HR stuff. And he goes, Oh no, no brother.
• 1:34:24
  This isn't from the University of Alabama.
• 1:34:26
  He goes, this is Dan. He goes, this is every meet,
• 1:34:29
  every schedule, what we're where, everything detailed out.
• 1:34:32
  So I love that he's still the binder guy.
• 1:34:34
  That's so awesome. He handed that to me.
• 1:34:37
  So I showed up for my interview. And he just picks me up and
• 1:34:40
  takes me to the hotel because the interview is going to start
• 1:34:41
  the next day. He hands it to me in the car.
• 1:34:44
  So what? I do be me.
• 1:34:45
  And I already got my actual plan.
• 1:34:46
  I studied it that night. I see.
• 1:34:47
  That's like a guy giving you the playbook.
• 1:34:51
  Before the play, absolutely. You better read that absolutely.
• 1:34:54
  So I think I spent like 3-4 hours studying it.
• 1:34:57
  I'm like, I just don't want to be able to flip back and refer
• 1:35:00
  to it. I want to be able to recall it.
• 1:35:01
  So when we're having talking like Oh yeah I remember you do
• 1:35:03
  this with your program you do that you and so smart smart.
• 1:35:07
  So so I did that. So I went like I'm.
• 1:35:09
  All in like and I. Wanted him to know like, I'm not
• 1:35:11
  just coming down here interviewing.
• 1:35:12
  I'm not just getting this notch on my belt like I'm I want this.
• 1:35:18
  And I remember. Calling him and telling.
• 1:35:19
  Him that. And like after, you know, he
• 1:35:21
  called and he did his follow up and I was like hey, just, you
• 1:35:23
  know, coach, like why am I not the guy for this?
• 1:35:26
  Why don't you? Why, You know, And I I was like
• 1:35:28
  I'm just gonna be as straightforward as I can be,
• 1:35:31
  right? Like I can tell this is a guy
• 1:35:32
  that you know he doesn't take BS, he doesn't give BS.
• 1:35:34
  He doesn't you know. So why am I gonna do that to
• 1:35:36
  him. So no.
• 1:35:39
  And I I have a lot of appreciation and respect for
• 1:35:42
  him. You know, I watch him and you
• 1:35:43
  know he he forgot about this, but he remembers it now.
• 1:35:46
  When I came from my interview the next day, we were driving
• 1:35:48
  around, we were doing things. He's taking me on the tour, he's
• 1:35:50
  driving me around town. And then we had to make a stop
• 1:35:52
  and we picked up balloons for his kids birthday party on my
• 1:35:55
  interview. That stuck out to me like that.
• 1:35:58
  To me was like, OK, I saw this and I saw a genuine side to him
• 1:36:01
  and I saw this fun side to him. And I saw this dad side to him.
• 1:36:04
  And I saw, but I was like and he's still successful and he's
• 1:36:07
  still very serious and he's still accomplished.
• 1:36:10
  But he's not just accomplished in just track and field and I.
• 1:36:15
  You know, even now. Like the other day coming home
• 1:36:17
  like setting up for a meet week as you know is like I love
• 1:36:20
  meets. I hate hosting it's but like
• 1:36:25
  we're all go. And I can tell he's stressed and
• 1:36:27
  we've got all these moving pieces and he calls he's.
• 1:36:30
  And I'm on my way home and we're sitting through traffic and he's
• 1:36:32
  just like, hey, how you doing? I'm like, I'm good coach.
• 1:36:34
  He's like, hey, I know you've got to do this for me tomorrow.
• 1:36:37
  Just do your thing. You know how it goes.
• 1:36:38
  Just set it up. I tried, you know, And he goes,
• 1:36:40
  just wanted to let you know, I I really appreciate you.
• 1:36:44
  And I'm like, man, OK, This is why.
• 1:36:46
  Like we can go through war. We can go through battle, we can
• 1:36:50
  go through the trenches and there's going to be good days
• 1:36:51
  and bad days. But at the end of the day, like
• 1:36:52
  that was a genuine phone call. That was a genuine appreciation,
• 1:36:57
  good response. And I go, that's what I want
• 1:36:58
  from a leader, too. Like, yeah, times is going to be
• 1:37:00
  hard. Like, don't get me wrong there's
• 1:37:01
  going to be hard days and there's going to be days it's
• 1:37:03
  going to be firm. And there's days we got to be
• 1:37:04
  better and you got to push everyone to be better and step
• 1:37:07
  up and elevate. But then there's also going to
• 1:37:09
  be like, hey, we're we're humans soon we're people and we're we
• 1:37:13
  also got to enjoy this. So like, yeah, that's just a
• 1:37:15
  recent example of like I knew it was the right decision.
• 1:37:18
  You know, we're we're going to wrap up here because we.
• 1:37:20
  Both have to go. One of the subjects I wanted to
• 1:37:23
  get into and maybe I just need to have Dan on the show to
• 1:37:25
  actually talk about this. But you know, his recruiting
• 1:37:27
  style is and philosophy is on record of being very family
• 1:37:32
  focused. I don't mean, oh, we want people
• 1:37:34
  who are going to come in and be our family here at at, at
• 1:37:38
  Alabama, etcetera. But centered around his family.
• 1:37:40
  Meaning you know, you've got to be family first.
• 1:37:44
  I know coaches, we make it our identity and that's our number
• 1:37:47
  one role when in reality we're fathers, brothers, sons,
• 1:37:50
  daughters, spouses first. We, we are, you know, coaching
• 1:37:57
  is probably your 5th role, especially as a father, your
• 1:37:59
  your coaching is 1/5 role. And I think Dan takes that very
• 1:38:02
  seriously all the way up into how he actually runs the program
• 1:38:05
  and I think it's a a lesson that we could and should learn
• 1:38:09
  throughout our entire profession.
• 1:38:10
  So maybe I just need to have him on here.
• 1:38:12
  So. So we're going to cut it short a
• 1:38:14
  little bit here, Nick, thank you man.
• 1:38:17
  This is fascinating. I love having, you know, I do
• 1:38:19
  love these journeys as we continue to evolve the podcast.
• 1:38:22
  I love having these real conversations about the
• 1:38:24
  profession because I, you know, we want this to be an impact on
• 1:38:29
  the on the sport through our coaches positively and I think
• 1:38:32
  helping our coaches become better by sharing experiences
• 1:38:36
  like this. You don't get to share this
• 1:38:37
  experience and the experiences that you've had very often.
• 1:38:39
  So I think being able to share those makes our profession
• 1:38:42
  better. So I'm really grateful for you
• 1:38:43
  and your openness, your honesty. You know it's it's a it's a
• 1:38:48
  great lesson for people there. So there's people listening
• 1:38:50
  right now that are going to be better because of hearing your
• 1:38:52
  journey. And and we're just grateful for
• 1:38:53
  you sharing that with us today. Yeah.
• 1:38:56
  Thank you for the opportunity and for bringing me on here.
• 1:38:58
  And really appreciate what you do for our sport and for coaches
• 1:39:01
  in general and you know, thank you for everything.
• 1:39:03
  So I'm really happy. I'm looking forward to hopefully
• 1:39:05
  continuing this and you know, we can always follow up down the
• 1:39:08
  road. But yeah, no thank you.
• 1:39:10
  Absolutely. You deserve it, by the way.
• 1:39:11
  That's that's why I do it at the.
• 1:39:13
  End of the day, you, Nick, deserve it because of what you
• 1:39:16
  do, the positive impact you make on on young people, man, you
• 1:39:18
  really, really do. So hey, thanks for being here.
• 1:39:21
  Join us next week. I'm going to cut this short
• 1:39:23
  because I got an interview to go do.
• 1:39:24
  I got to do an intern interview here for Gil, so I got to run
• 1:39:27
  there. Nick, thank you.
• 1:39:28
  Appreciate your time. Good luck this week and come
• 1:39:32
  back next week. Thanks everybody.
• 1:39:34
  Appreciate it. If it goes to appreciate the
• 1:39:37
  coach. The ones appoint.
• 1:39:38
  People, most every season needs a voice of reason speaking.
• 1:39:42
  The growth you got to prep for. You carry the load to the soul.
• 1:39:46
  For those of us stand to go proper handoff to stay in the
• 1:39:49
  zone with you packing for the road.
• 1:39:51
  There's more than one way to go. Take notes That's can you told.
• 1:39:54
  It ain't practice if your purpose ain't clear.
• 1:39:56
  It can't happen to you. Listen, what both is can't
• 1:39:59
  mentor without a mentor of years of experience.
• 1:40:02
  You could reinvent those years. Every plan's got to stand and
• 1:40:05
  deliver to enterprise sacrifice. Can you give up you.
• 1:40:08
  It's a choice and a fight, not a win or lose.
• 1:40:10
  It's not a ploy but advice. Y'all can make more moves.
• 1:40:13
  It's not about how to. It's all about why.
• 1:40:15
  You don't know till you know who you are inside.
• 1:40:18
  Six when you waste time choose none.
• 1:40:20
  So we all forced finish line. The work ain't done.
• 1:40:23
  So we learn from the experts. We all got to put in the legwork
• 1:40:26
  kill athletics network. It's all about connections put
• 1:40:29
  together for the profession. To every track coach could be
• 1:40:32
  blessed.