Masters in Coaching Podcast- Episode LXXI

Tim Cates talks with Palomar College Athletic Director Dan Lynds about his career as football player, football coach and coming back to oversee the Comets athletic department. He has helped with the building of a new football stadium and and softball stadium on campus at Palomar College. Dan also talks about his experience coaching football in Japan. Dan is a graduate of the MCAA program at Concordia University Irvine and talks about his experience in the program and how it helped him in his career.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
From football player to football coach tocoaching football in Japan. Now he's the
athletic director Palamar College in San DiegoCounty. He is Dan Linz and he
joins us now on episode seventy oneof the Masters in Coaching podcast. Let's
Go Well, Welcome into episode seventyone of the Masters in Coaching podcast here

(00:26):
on iHeartRadio YouTube. Wherever you're watchingor listening to our podcast. We're so
glad you did, so excited totalk to this this week's guest. Currently
the athletic director at Palomar College.He's been in education and coaching for nearly
thirty plus years, coaching football atdifferent levels and overseeing a team in Japan,
even which we're going to get into. But since twenty twenty, he's

(00:47):
been the athletic director at Palomar Collegein San Marcos and San Diego County.
Also a graduate of the Masters inCoaching and Athletics Administration program at Concordia University,
Irvine back in twenty eleven. Heis Dan Linz and he joins us
now here on the podcast. Howyou doing I'm doing great. I'm doing
great. I'm glad to be hereand really look forward to having our good
conversation. Well, I know you'redoing great because you just had your hip

(01:07):
replaced. How bad was it?And then again, how far out of
surgery from surgery are you? Well, it was bad. So this has
been an ongoing issue. It's oneof the reasons actually I got out of
coaching and wanted to get into theadministrative role. I just wasn't able to
demonstrate at the level that I thinkyou need to, especially as an O
line coach, and that's what Ilike to I've coached a lot of positions

(01:29):
of football, but I'd like tosay that's the position that I'd like to
hang my hat on. So muchof that is demonstrative, and so much
of it involves flection of the hips, being able to kick, step,
power, step, just being ableto do what you need to do.
I wasn't able to do it anymore, and said, you know what,
let's take a step back, let'sget in a seat somewhere and be a
little bit more of an administrative role. But that even led to more deterioration,

(01:53):
and boy, it was hard towalk for these last couple of years.
To be completely honest, I wasreally limping severely, but now I'm
two weeks out, two weeks postsurgery. I feel better than I've felt
in years. I'm walking way betteralready. I'm still using a cane,
but hopefully that'll go away within aweek and really positive It'll be a nice

(02:13):
six month, three hour or so. But who knows. Once I get
it back and run in might wantto do a little coaching again. We'll
find out modern medicine love it backin that at the same day during the
surgery and now on the men inrehabbing, lots of get to dan and
first off, for you, itfeels like it's full circle for you from
Palmar College. Is a young mannow back to athletic director. Is this

(02:35):
a role you ever thought? Maybeyou see yourself in from twenty twenty to
now well, and honestly it goesback way further than that. I'm Palamar
baby. So you know, mymom worked in the nursing department. She's
an instructor at Palamar. My dad, longtime faculty member in kinesiology, was
chair. He was a football coachat Palomar. I like to tell people
I learned to walk in the dome. I learned to play football on the

(02:59):
paler our Field learned to swim inthe Palamar pool. So I'm a long,
long time comment with a long reachback. I never saw the role
of athletic director really. I didsee, you know, maybe in a
faculty member someday coaching, teaching kinesiology. But you know, the path that
that Japan took me on, andthen to get back to our CC and

(03:19):
be fortunate to get my masters incoaching and Athletic administration at Concordia led me
into this role right now, andI'm really super grateful for it. A
lot of times in coaching we seea parallel coaching and teaching, whether it's
at the high school level, juniorcollege college level, but coaching and administration,
and that's a path you decided togo down to. You did some
teaching, but a lot more administrative. Was there a reason for that?

(03:40):
Did you? Did you see theadministrative side of it? I like department
working in that kind of capacity bettersuited for you. Well, it it
factors into kind of the Japan road. So in two thousand and five,
my youngest daughter was about to turnthree and we wanted to get her into
the American education system, so weleft Tokyo, came back to the States

(04:01):
for a year and I was kindof looking for a coaching gig, and
my coaching gig turned out to beat Palomar under our current head coach Joe
Early. I was coaching running backs. Form as I was coaching running backs.
Because I came over kind of latein the season, there weren't really
a kinesiology classes available other than maybea unit or two of weight training.
So I started volunteering time with theacademic advisor at the time, the athletic

(04:23):
counselor, Steve White, who wasmy former offensive line coach and also part
of the football staff. I fellin love with it. I really thought,
you know what, if I amever going to get out of coaching,
I want to get into this counselingor athletic administrative side, helping these
student athletes navigate their way through communitycollege. Community college is a unique level

(04:44):
where you have way more freedom thanin any other place you're ever going to
be Athletically. In high school,you're constantly being monitored, you're constantly being
grade checked. There's a real tightleash. When you get up to the
D one or D two level.They make their living off of you passing
your classes. If you don't pass, they lose scholarships. But at the
community college level, a lot ofthese kids can you know, fall between
the cracks if you don't really havea great system in place on how to

(05:08):
help them. And that's what Ibecame really interested in. And from that
point on, I started thinking,Okay, how am I going to gear
this so that I could eventually getinto some type of counseling slash administrative role.
Going back a little bit further,coaching, is that something I mean
you got going as a grat assistantin ninety five with the D line there

(05:28):
at Palamar? Is that something Ijaj Eger? I have to give a
shout out to j G. He'sone of the great all time coaches.
He's a Palomar legend, Montana guy. He moved back to Montana and is
living his best life up there.But he was just an incredible role model
for me. You know, I'vebeen around football. I've been around Palamar
my whole life. I played forTom Kraft and primarily, you know,

(05:50):
been around the officive side of theball. But when I went in ninety
five from Kalpawly back to Palomar,they had a need for an assistant to
the defensive side, and I wasable to take my knowledge as an offensive
lineman and teach the defensive lineman howeasy it is to win what the offensive
lineman hate to do. And thegreat thing about JG is he let me

(06:11):
run with a lot of that andhe's a real, you know, fiery
guy, and his emotions played intoit. And I kind of modeled a
little bit of my coaching after that. And Yeah, started out the D
line. Loved it, very funposition. When you got done playing and
Slow, did you want to immediatelyget into coaching? Did you know?
Hey, football, I also wantto be a part of it somehow,
someway coaching is the way to go. Yeah, sooner. I mean I

(06:32):
was injured at Slow, so Ididn't even finish up my career there.
It was a rehab type situation andI had even finished my degree when I
came back that ninety five fall atPalmer, so I was taking a couple
you know, classes that only requiredme to be there one day a week
or online, So it wasn't ahuge academic load at the time. But
I definitely even as a player.I'm six one at best. You know,

(06:55):
I like to tell people I'm sixtyone, I'm probably six foot and
probably after this hip surge, Imight be five to eleven now, who
knows. But you know, Ijust didn't see myself going on and being
a pro football player. But Idid think that I could go on to
be a pro football coach and havinggreat role models like Tom Kraft, who
you know, he was just sucha great coach to play for. And

(07:15):
the thing about Tom what he doesis he role models the type of relationship
that he wants the team to havethrough his coaches. So he's constantly positive,
upbeat, joking around with his coaches, high energy, demanding. Don't
get me wrong, he's very demanding. He wants you to teach great technique
and he wants you to be ontop of your game. But just just
having that type of role model andthen getting lucky and being able to be

(07:39):
an assistant for someone who's polished asJG, it just put me off on
a great start. I'm curious becauseat the JC level, you know,
you get players maybe who are bouncebacks, kids who are trying to get to
the next level, D three,D two, D one kids maybe you
didn't have the grades necessarily to getto a four year school and are using
the JC route. How receptive arethey coaching wise? Do you get a

(08:01):
mixture of kids who are like,Hey, I'm just here for a little
bit, I'm going somewhere else andthen the kids who, hey, if
in order to get there, Ireally need to hone in and get coached
up and get ready for the nextlevel. Is it maybe a mixture of
both and is that difficult to kindof handle? Well, I mean,
it's all about culture, and it'sall about establishing a culture within your program
that when the kids get into it, they understand that if I'm part of

(08:24):
this, if I'm a Palamar comment, I'm going to learn these core things,
and by learning these core things,it's going to help me to achieve
and get on to that next level. And we really want to engineer things
as a win win for the studentathletes. You know, our mission at
Palamar is to give each student thebest collegiate experience they can have whether out
Palmar. To do that, weknow that means they're going to have to

(08:45):
transfer on as an athlete, improvetheir game and become a great student,
start working on their major prep andget their AA degree. So I think
it is really just that culture ofexcellence and letting those students know right away,
Hey, when you're here, you'regoing to get better. That's what
our culture is all about, makingyou, helping you to take that next
step, helping you to be abetter person, better student, and better

(09:07):
athlete. The programs that really havethat culture intact, they don't really have
to deal with a lot of thosekids that you know, have gone through
the seven on seven culture, havegone through the personal training culture that yeah,
they might get to a JUCO andthey're going, well, hey this
is I had better coaching when Iwas somewhere else. We do, you
know, we try to do thebest of our ability. Make sure that

(09:28):
all of our coaches know, no, that's not what we are. We're
going to take that to a wholeother level, and we're going to help
these kids exceed even further than theythink they can. It's interesting, Dan,
because here we are in twenty twentyfour and you talked about the seven
on seven culture and the private coachingculture and the AAU culture for basketball,
and the private volleyball tournaments for girlsand boys, basket for volleyball as well.
Sports has changed dramatically, and talkingto you, talking to a lot

(09:52):
of our previous guests, wherever they'reat, whatever level they're at, the
Seaward gets brought up a lot,and you see the successful programs. It
doesn't matter what level. Culture.As long as you've got a good culture
and a foundation that your kids canlearn from and you can base your program
off of, it's the strongest thingyou can do because then the coaching comes

(10:15):
after that. But the culture issomething that I think a lot of I
think a lot of programs lose anddon't focusing on is the number one thing
you have to establish in order tobe a winning team? Well, no
question about that, And I thinkthere has been a shift. I think
that a lot of the parents ofthese young athletes are looking for ROI.

(10:35):
They're looking for a return on investmentand what they perceive of what they put
into their kids. So they justalways have this concept of, well,
you're here to do the next thing, So you're at this batting coach,
you become a better hitter so thatyou can go on to college and then
go on to the majors or whateverit is. They never let the kids
bloom where they're planet. So thesekids don't have a concept of achieving where

(10:58):
they're at. And what we tryto preach at Palmer is man, you
want to bloom where you are.You want to be the best person and
have the best experience while you're here. Why give up on these two years?
You know, you're not just herefor the next thing. You're here
to be here. And it's whenwe get those students that are like that,
and we have those programs that arelike that. Our women's basketball is
a great example. Our softball isa great example. Our baseball team's a

(11:22):
great example that they have such strongcultures that you know, the kids come
in and they immediately absorb it andthey love it and they'll run through walls
for you. At that point,you know, the other programs we're still
trying to develop and we're still workingthrough it, and you know, that's
the challenge. And that's the greatpart about being an athletic directors. Now
I get to coach those coaches andhelp them to develop and give them everything

(11:45):
they need to develop that type ofwinning mentality, that type of winning culture.
That's really primarily what I see myrole being. I'm not the primary
conduit to the student athlete. Thecoaches are, but I am the primary
conduit that I can help the coacheshave a road where they feel that they
have a chance to win and executetheir culture and do things the way they

(12:07):
want to do them to help thesestudents. I love it. I love
it. Dan Linz is our guestflight director at Palmar College here on the
Masters and Coaching Podcast. It's beenan exciting couple of years for you guys.
I mean, you guys have successfulprograms and have had successful programs for
many, many, many years.But you guys got new facilities and you're
about to cut the ribbon, soto speak, on the new football facility

(12:30):
and softball facility as well. Talkabout what that undertaken has been like since
you took over in twenty twenty duringCOVID and seeing the breaking the ground of
these new facilities and to now actuallyhave them be available for your student athletes.
Yeah. Well, I mean theCOVID pandemic threw a lot of things
up in the air, including youknow, the way that I think certain

(12:50):
school districts evaluate the role that athleticsplays. And we are very fortunate Palmer
the conversation did come up because therewas a bleak year that twenty two twenty
one. Where are we going tohave athletics at the community college level in
California anymore? So when you havea you know, a fairly large budget
to build these new facilities, butthere's this thing hanging out there, are
we going to have sports moving forward? You know, it's natural, uh,

(13:13):
for certain parts, with certain elementswithin the district, within the community
to ask these questions. I canunequivally say, though, when that conversation
came up that the leadership at palamarUH from the vice president's Student Services all
the way up to our new presidentDouc starover Lesi. You know, they
put their foot in the ground andsaid the athletics is absolutely essential to have
a robust campus culture and it's somethingthat we wholeheartedly support. Once we turned

(13:37):
that corner, got things reestablished,then the process has been fairly smooth.
You know, it's it's constructions.All kinds of things are going to happen.
We didn't expect to have torrential raintwo years in a row. That
that sets some things back. Butthe look on the student athletes faces on
the softball team when they got toplay that first game in the stadium,

(13:58):
I'll never forget it. And uhthat that team, you know, coach
Craft did an amazing thing. CoachLazy Craft or head softball coach. She
didn't just let them go down inthe field without educating about the culture.
And she let them know that youare standing on the shoulders of giants,
you know, with five times statechampion team, you know, multiple multiple
time conference champion, multiple time stateappearances, and that you're really inheriting a

(14:22):
culture of greatness and you're inheriting thehard work that these ladies have put in
before you've been there. So youhave a responsibility and that responsibility is that,
hey, when you're done with yourcareer, you're gonna leave this program
better than when you entered it.And she set that tone right away day
one. And you know, softballmade a heck of a run this year
all the way up to the statetournament. Unfortunately we couldn't finish it.

(14:45):
We didn't win state this year,but look out for Commet Softball next year
and every year. That that justculture is so thick and they do such
a great job. But that stadiumis amazing. You know, we We
have a bunch of little fun features. We have an outfield U basically grass
area where you can sit and watchthe game from there. We have up
close seating right behind the plate.Over two hundred and fifty people can sit

(15:07):
in the seating bowl, great soundsystem, a ton of batting cages,
ton of bullpens. It's just anamazing facility. And we're really really pleased
with it. That's all. Ilove it. So many great things happen
at Palamar. I want to goback to your involvement in Japan. You
don't mentioned it. You mentioned thatyou're in Japan with your young child and

(15:28):
you come back to the United States. But let's go back to that.
How did you end up in Japancoaching football? Okay, so nineteen ninety
five, I'm at Kyl Paulyly.Tom Calmyer. I don't know if you
know the name or not, butTom Calmyer played for the Seahawks, the
Giants University of Oregon. He's atPalomar Alum. He played when I think
I was probably in eighth grade.I think he was at Palomar either eighth

(15:50):
grade or my freshman year when Iwas a ball boy. Just kind of
run around just around the Palamar coaches. But I remember Tom is just being
this incredible strong safety. They calledhim the big Bopper up at Oregon.
I mean, he just would ripyour head off before the concussion rules are
what they were. He would hitpeople and he had this just incredible energy
and incredible personality about him. Inninety one, the year that I was

(16:15):
on Palmer's team, the Captain isthe Center, Tom was part of our
defensive coaching staff. He was actuallywith the New York Giants at the time,
but he had broken his thumb andwas going through rehab, so he
started to get into coaching at thatpoint. Well fast forward to ninety five,
before I got to Palmer. Oneof the reasons there was an opening
on the Palmer staff was that Tomwas asked by a friend of his,

(16:37):
Dave Prosnik, who's one of theoriginal American coaches in Japan, to go
over and coach at Japanese corporate professionalteam, the Onward Oaks. So Tom
went in nineteen ninety five and hetook former Grossmont head coach Jim Simington with
him, and Jim Simonton did thedefense. So they went through one season

(16:57):
and for a bunch of different reasons. Jim had to come back that spring
of ninety six, so Tom askedme, Hey, would you like to
fill in you. I know you'vebeen here at Palomar a really short time,
but you look like you're really energetic. I think the Japanese would really
respond to you. Is just somethingyou'd be interested in. So after that
one GA season coaching the D lineat Palomar, I found myself in February

(17:22):
of nineteen ninety six on a planeover to Tokyo, living in an apartment
right next to Tom and starting totalk defensive concepts and getting ready to coordinate
to a corporate team over there.And we had our first game in April.
The very first play that I washad responsibility for was kickoff coverage.
That was my thing. Well,he kicked the ball off to a team

(17:44):
called the Fijitsu Frontiers, who's stillthe dominant team in Japan. They returned
the ball to the one yard lineon us, but four plays later we
put a great defensive stand in andthat was the baptism under fire, so
gave him a big return, butwe held them out of the inZone on
that first series. Explain what thecorporate league is so so Japan at the
time didn't have a professional structure,so they'd have to hire these players out

(18:10):
of college into companies. So thecompany that I worked for was Onward Kashiyama.
They had a team called the OnwardOaks. Onward Kashiyama is a clothing
distributor. They did Ralph Lauren,Calvin Klein, all these major high end
brands at all the Japanese department stores. So they'd go to a college and
they'd you know, recruit a footballplayer and they'd say, we're going to
hire you as a football player forthe first eight to ten years of your

(18:32):
career in the company. But whileyou're doing this, you're going to learn
corporate culture. You're going to mirror, You're going to intern in these certain
corporate divisions so that when you retirefrom football, you will work for the
company. Wow. And there wereat the time, I think there were
probably eighteen teams that were structured likethat. Little by little, over the
past three decades, it's gone awayfrom that corporate culture into now more of

(18:55):
a I guess you'd called a semipro where most of the players are getting
paid salary, but they're not gettingpaid a t from meendus salary. Right
around the year nineteen ninety nine twothousand, they allowed American players that had
no Japanese ancestry to play in theleague. Up to that point, if
you had Japanese ancestry, you couldplay, but they wouldn't let someone that
played like at a Clemson just comein and dominate the league. But starting

(19:18):
in ninety nine two thousand, thatshift happened, and now you see most
of the players that are in theleague evolved from that corporate league, which
is now called the X League,has evolved into a cub club based structure
where most of the clubs have formaybe five Americans that are in a contract
as football players. Didn't I justsee recently the under twenty Japanese football team

(19:40):
beat a US football team. Yeah, that's more common than people think.
I mean, the Japanese football cultureis really, really thick. It goes
back at pre dates World War Two. There was a Japanese gentleman who's a
really famous athlete and in forging.I should know his name, but I'd
slip in right now. But heactually got to go to the University of
Chicago to study athletics, and oneof the sports in the University of Chicago

(20:04):
was they had a virgin in footballteam at the time and I think I
want to say it was coach Stagg, but it might not have been.
It was as one of the realfounders of football back in the States that
this Japanese gentleman got to study from. He brought that back from America to
three universities, to Kale University,was Sada University, and to St.

(20:26):
Paul's University and started teaching them Americanfootball. Wow. And this is all
the way back in I want tosay, the twenties thirties, World War
two comes, you know, wehave the American resocialization of culture in Japan
that had a big, you know, impetus to it. And in just
little by little league started to blossom. And there was a Canto Football League,

(20:48):
which is the Japanese College Association,a Konsi Football League which is a
Japanese college association that now is justspread out to national It's kind of the
version of the NCAA that has wellover one hundred teams playing collegiate football in
Japan. This is fascinating. Ihad no idea. Yeah, you just
don't think of it, right,You just don't think of it being part

(21:10):
of Japanese culture, but it reallyis. And it was such an honor
to coach the Japanese players because they'rejust sponges. They just absolutely live for
it. That they are not multisport based like a lot of our American
players are. Where you're going toplay soccer part of the year, football
part of the year, basketball partof the year. Once these players decide
to play football, they play footballand they study it. They study the

(21:32):
nuance of it, the terminology,the technique, and they get the most
out of what they can get outof it. And it was just a
ton of fun coaching them. Howmany Americans are are going over and getting
a chance to play. Are kidscoming straight out of high school to go
play collegiately as you kind of saidover there, or are these since they're

(21:52):
that route where you're going straight toplay collegiate is not that well established yet.
Okay, I think that what thegeneral case would be, a player
that gets invited to an offseason inthe spring, you know, he's a
free agent, gets free agent workdone for whatever reason, he doesn't stick
with the team. Kind of inthat late spring season. Yeah, that's
where a lot of that class ofplayer ends up looking to Japan. Okay,

(22:18):
they can eat you know. Mostof the teams have websites they can
either reach right out. Some ofthe teams have a fairly aggressive recruiting mechanism
where they'll identify players. The lastteam I coached for, the Obik Seagals,
actually has a really strong recruiting mechanismwhere they have all kinds of feelers
at all kinds of colleges throughout theStates where they can actually kind of get
the cream to the krim of playersthat they want to get over there.

(22:41):
So yeah, it happens a bunchof different ways, but right now,
it's usually from an American institution,American college into that Japanese X League.
What was the last year you werecoaching over there? Oh? Shoot,
what was it? So let's see. I stopped at Riverside in fourteen.
I coached Overing College for tears fifteensixteen, and then twenty seventeen twenty eighteen,

(23:03):
I was offensive coordinator of the overtSiegels. Wow, so awesome,
But it was actually three seasons.Actually, it was sixteen seventeen eighteen.
I had the quarterbacks I had wereamazing. So I had Jerry Newheiseel,
rig new Heiseel's son. Okay,Yeah, who would have stayed and would
have been there forever if he didn'tget a job at Texas A and m
under A thefensive corner. Now everybodyknows he's at Usila just doing an incredible

(23:26):
job. The next quarterback was aquarterback from the US for Hawaii named Ikeaika
Woozy uh I Kaika Woosley. I. Kaika was really great at Hawaii.
He was great for us. Heleft our team Orbick and went to Tokyo
Gas into a great job. Andthen the third quarterback we got in.
I mean this was a riverside connectionfrom now I was there in twenty thirteen

(23:47):
fourteen was Skyler Howard. So Skylerwent to West Virginia, started for them
for two years, went to theSeahawks training camp, ended up not signing
with them. As soon as hedidn't sign, I was on the phone
with him and going, dude,you got to get over here. He
immediately led us to a Pro BowlChampionship, which is the Spring championship.
Did a really good job in thefall for US. What was really really

(24:11):
fun to coach and a good guy. You have done it all, coach
over in Japan, coach your stateside, now a flight director at Palmar
College. Also got your masters fromConcordia University, Irvine in the MCA program
back in twenty eleven. Talk alittle bit about that, Dan, and
why at that time you chose toget your masters, and why this program
and what was it like for you. Well, I mean, I thought

(24:33):
I could coach, right, SoI started his band in ninety six,
and just with that one brief yearin two thousand and five, I was
either a coordinator or head coach overthere, So I thought I had a
pretty well defined image of what ittook to be a coach. In two
thousand and ten fall two thousand andnine Spring twenty ten, Tom Kraft took
the head coaching job at Riverside CityCollege and reached out to me and said,

(24:56):
look, I know you've been doingthis, I know Japan has been
really good for you, but isthis something where you'd ever consider coming back
to the States, And if so, what role would you see yourself playing.
And I said, yes, Iwould like to go back to the
States, but I don't see myselfas kinesiology instructor slash assistant coach. I
see myself either as athletic counselor oracademic advisor, along with being a kind

(25:21):
of a lead position coach like anO line coach. And he said,
well, that's perfect, but you'regoing to have to get your masters.
At the time, I was stillunder contract in Japan, so I needed
a place where I could start workingon my masters in an online format with
a masters that had an emphasis inathletic administration that I could kind of tailor
to what I would be doing atRiverside. So you know, some of

(25:45):
the classes I took speed in conditioning, I took an athletic training, so
I was just trying to get thiswell rounded. But of course I also
took the basis classes, the ethicsclass, the Fundamentals of Coaching. Like
I said, I really thought Iknew a lot about coaching until I took
that class, The Fundamentals of Coaching, and I think it was Tom White
that taught it. And then Itook Dean Wisselmeyer with Ethics, and yeah,

(26:08):
I learned a lot. And withoutthose two classes, I really don't
think i'd be where I am today. It just crystallized philosophy that I had
in practice in things that I wasdoing in Japan, but I never took
down the time to really write downor how would I apply this at the
community college level, how would Iapply this to this particular set of students?

(26:29):
And it really got me on theright path. The instructors were incredible,
the curriculum was great, and Ijust can't say enough about it.
I encourage everybody I run into thatis in the same boat as me.
They want to coach, but theydon't really know which direction they want to
take it. Get into the MCAAget or get into the Master coach with
the exercise science emphasis, and it'llopen your eyes and by the time you're

(26:51):
a third of the way through thecurriculum, you'll know exactly what you want
to do. So what's next toPalamar? You guys got this beautiful softball
facility. You're having the ribbon cuttingcoming up shortly in your first scrimmage and
then first game for Palmar football onthis new, brand new football stadium facility
coming up here in just a fewweeks, five PM, September seventh,
We're gonna have the pregame party kickingoff at about two pm. We're gonna

(27:14):
have face painters, bouncy house.I mean, we're gonna we're gonna really
do it up. Because we decidedthat we're gonna let all the students in
free for the first game. We'regonna let all the employees in free.
We just want to say thank you. And you know, we'll have local
dignitaries from sam Marcos. We'll getas many recruits in there as we can.
We'll get as many high school coachesto come as we can, and
just make it a big celebration aboutPalamar football. Finally, it's not that

(27:38):
we're coming home. We finally havea home. So right when you walk
in the stadium, you'll see abig logo, our big Palamar pe in
the stadium, and underneath the peit'll say established nineteen forty seven. That's
when Palamar started playing football, nineteenforty seven. This will be the first
home game. So what's to comeafter that, we'll see we have another

(28:02):
project attached these two stadiums. Wehave this field house that will have concessions,
ticketing, a state of the artathletic training facility, state of the
art weight room, state of theart kinesiology testing lab, in equipment room,
so all the accessories that we're goingto need to make these stadiums fully
functional. Plus different elements of theproject where this field house will apply to

(28:26):
all of the sports and not justfootball and softball, and that's what's really
important. We want to make surethat all of the sports have those elements,
those key things in place. Theycan help their cultures get really thick
and help them do what they needto do well. Dan, I've loved
our conversation, loved hearing about yourstory, loved hearing about Japan coming back
to Palomar. The things you've donenow in four short years as athletic or

(28:48):
at Palomar, the kickoff of thenew stadium, finally being able to play
on home, and the softball facility, so many great things happening at Palamar.
You're spearheading that athletic apartment. Sofun to catch up with you and
for people to hear your story andhow you went to a master's and coaching
athletics administration program at Kncordia University,Irvine. So we're so happy to chat

(29:10):
with you, and thanks for doingthis. Oh man, I love it.
I love it. Call me upanytime. I'm always about hyping Palmer.
I'm always about hyping the Eagles atConcordia. Love talking sports, and
I just really love the community collegelevel and the mission. Not just Palomar,
but all these community colleges are doingsuch great work. Like we said
before, the return on investment culture. Sometimes it's hard to make parents understand

(29:33):
that there's more value in going toa community college than taking that partial scholarship
to Division three or an naia.You're keeping the dream alive for your students.
Most students don't when they're twelve,thirteen, fourteen. They don't dream
of going to a Division two collegeand playing athletics or playing sports there.
They dream about going to that powerconference or that Division one. I think
even parents, if they sat backa little bit, they go, yeah,

(29:56):
that's what I want to talk aboutat the water cooler with my colleagues.
Don't get too enamored as a parentwith the concept of scholarship. Be
more enamored with skill development and whereis my student? Where is my child
going to develop as an athlete,a student, and a person. And
I think nine out of ten times, unless they're going to a place that

(30:21):
can really provide the amount of supportthat a USC or UCLA or a big
power five school can provide. Thejunior college is an excellent option, if
not the best option. There's somany great schools doing great work that I
don't want to name drop any ofour competitors, but I'll just say this.
I'm very proud to be an athleticdirector in the three C two A

(30:41):
the California Community College Athletic Association.Absolutely, Dan, thank you so much
for your time. We'll catch upsoon. Okay, thank you, good
talking to you. Well, therehe goes. Dan Lyn's athletic director at
Palomar College in San Marcos, SanDiego County, doing big things down there
in his four years at the Helm. Check out their opening of the football
stadium. They opened the softball stadiumjust a couple of months ago. Big

(31:03):
things happened at Palamar College, whichhas been a powerhouse in junior college athletics
for decades and it continues under hisleadership, now his fourth year as the
athletic director. Dan Linz, howabout that coach football in Japan? He
was a head coach, He wasa coordinator, He was a D line
coach. Interesting story and background allwoven together with him going to the Matters

(31:26):
in Coaching Athletics Administration program at ConcordiaUniversity, Irvine and graduating from that program
in twenty eleven. You can findout more at CUI dot edu slash coaching
CUI dot edu slash coaching. Sogreat to catch up with Dan, a
great story, fun to talk footballand coaching football in Japan the last few

(31:48):
decades. So hope you enjoyed that. Thanks for being with us here on
episode seventy one on the Masters inCoaching Podcast. Until next time, Tim
Kate saying, so long, everybodysit, step