Brett Nelligan on Team Culture, College Recruiting, NCAA Success

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode
of the shift show, where mynumber one goal is to give you
the tools, ideas and the latestscience to help you change
gymnast lives.
Today in the podcast we arehaving back on fan favorite
someone who's the first episodewas extremely popular.
This is Brett Nelligan, who'sthe first episode was extremely
popular.
This is Brett Nelligan, who'sthe head coach of Maryland
Gymnastics, university ofMaryland Gymnastics, and Brett
and I have become good friendsvia my friend JJ, who's the

(00:32):
assistant coach at Maryland, andso the first time we had Brett
in the podcast I think we werestill kind of getting to know
each other and kind of likegetting the ropes out.
But there was so much goodinformation on that podcast that
people said they really enjoyedBrett's take on culture and
kind of technique andprogression and kind of getting
some insight into the collegeworld as well, and so wanted to
have him back on after we linkedup at Club Nationals and I

(00:53):
wanted to be able to kind of goa couple different ways here.
So I want to.
I want to talk a lot about NCAAas a whole and how important
that is and kind of the thingsgoing on, but also like I think
that Brett and many of thepeople at Maryland and kind of
his experiences through collegehimself, he has a really good
perspective on culture and teamchemistry and kind of making
sure that you're getting themost out of the entire profile
of athletes and you know studentathletes and coaches themselves

(01:15):
and so I've always been a fanand cheering on of what they're
doing.
So I think they do a great job.
But also, you know, I thinkBrett gives great insight into
kind of pulling the curtain backon the college recruiting
process and how prospectivepeople in the club world can
kind of learn what is the bestthings that they can do to get
themselves ready for any collegeprogram not just Maryland

(01:44):
no-transcript gymnasts about howto get themselves in the best
position to move towards thecollege programming and move
towards that different kind ofphase of life, and so loads of
good information here all theway from, like I said, the
culture building, the personaldevelopment, some tough around
college gymnastics as a whole,which is fun.
But the middle and end of thisepisode when we talk about

(02:05):
advice for club gymnasts andrecruiting and all that kind of
stuff, I think is probably themost impactful stuff that you
can kind of take on.
So nice long episode.
We really dive in pretty deephere and I hope that it gives
people a lot of information tochew on.
So hope you guys all enjoy thiswonderful podcast with Brett
the lighting person behind you.
I just can't see them.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
So the bad news they took the day off.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
Okay, well, this is what you get in a live Brett man
two years since the last one.
How are you?
How are things?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
I'm good.
You know I'm good.
It was a great season and nowwe're heading into that
off-season recruiting time.
So things are good.
And you're doing well too, myman, I know, I know I hid for
like six months.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
I like hid for six months and just did post 10 year
anniversary, personal life,family stuff.
And then, yeah, just worldshave collided.
Where you know, nationals, Isaw you guys and I was there
speaking with the collegecoaches, a bunch of club kids,
saw some elite people.
So it was a nice little energyboost going into olympic trials,
like you know what.
Let's get some podcasts going,let's get some blog posts going
for people that are, you know,in the trenches.
So it's all good man, I got nocomplaints at all yeah,

(03:05):
absolutely.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
I mean, when you asked me to do this, I I I'll be
honest, dave, I had so much fundoing the first one.
Um, when you asked me if Iwanted a second, it was like a
no-brainer.
It's like, yeah, let's do this.
Yeah, I'm ready for whateveryou want, yeah the podcast.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Also, like at olympic trials or I mean at umals, when
I was at nationals and I hadsome consulting work I just
forget about, like the peoplewho have their headphones in or
just on the treadmill runningand like people were like yo,
when's the podcast coming back?
Like I haven't heard a bunch.
And I was like, oh, that'sright, like people look forward
to it, like I enjoy doing thepodcast.
It's one coming.
I'd like some new perspectives.
I was like you know, maybewe'll get a couple more.
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
I mean you're doing what, what it not only
entertaining but for thecommunity, right like, if you're
tuned into this podcast, you're.
You're probably pretty deep inthe gymnastics world to begin
with, whether you're a fan or anathlete or a parent or a judge,

(04:01):
who knows?
but, um, you know, so thisyou're, you're hitting so many
of those target markets thatthis is so beneficial that, um,
I'm glad that we're doing it andI'm excited for who knows what
you're gonna throw at me, so I'mready I got a couple barn
burners first that we have to gothrough first fan fan submitted
questions number one what isthe best type of wood to build a

(04:21):
coffee table out of?
I, I, I can't believe you'restarting me with these hard ones
.
But funny, I am building acoffee table right now.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
Funny.
You should mention that.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Go on Out of Claro walnut and it is going to be
beautiful.
So walnut is is a beautifulwood to work with.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Okay, good.
So second, most importantly,this is for JJ what is the best
sandwich on the Jimmy John'smenu?

Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, here's the thing, jimmy John's, if you are
listening, I am open to any typeof sponsorship.
I work for free, like I willwork for sandwiches only, but I
started the Beach Club, a bigfavorite of mine, but lately
it's been the Cubano, and youknow this because we had lunch

(05:09):
several times together down inDaytona.
Jimmy John's, just I don't know, it's delicious, I can't get
enough of it.
I'm not like I hope your fansknow like I am being dead
serious, like you can acceptthis right.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Oh, very yeah.
This man knows what's on themenu.
Backwards, he didn't even look.
We went in and he didn't lookup.
He just knew exactly what hewanted to order.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Number 13, let's go Add chips.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
It's so weird because we were in Daytona, we've never
been to this Jimmy John's andthe staff stopped and said Brett
, oh, brett's here.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, there you go, there you go.
So I'm dead serious.

Speaker 1 (05:43):
There's two hilarious backstory lists, so one is that
we went to Daytona.
There was a Jimmy John'soutside of the hotel that had
delivery service, and I was likeBrett, bro, if you want to pick
up some shifts while you'rehere, you can get a sponsorship.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
I mean, that would be the dream, Like if I could
somehow fold coaching gymnasticsand working for Jimmy John's
into the same realm.
I think I'd be.

Speaker 1 (06:11):
Dude, there's.
There's some sort of likecharity sponsorship over here
with catering from Jimmy Johnsfor the team for me, right With
like Maryland gymnastics.
Like there is something in themiddle here that I'm sure can be
worked out.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, absolutely, jimmy Johns.
If you're listening, reach outto the shift show, dave Tilly.
Tilly will connect you with mycontact info.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
We'll get a but the target audience venn diagram of
jimmy john's fans and gymnasticsis small.
So yeah, you've also probablylost half your listeners, just
right yeah, there's gymnasticsquestions coming, but this is
more important, so anybody whocares, just skip forward a
couple seconds.
But the other hilarious thingthat I have to tell is that.
So I was at nationals speakingto the college coaches about
stuff and we had lunch.

(06:45):
Jj, the assistant coach, is ateammate and a friend of mine.
When Brett's hyping us uppretty good on this, I gave my
sandwich a five out of 10.
I'm not going to lie Like, andI was starving, so JJ the same.
So maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe I need a new menu item.
I'm down to try again.

Speaker 2 (07:01):
Yeah, maybe it's an acquired taste, maybe it's got a
grill Like coffee.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Right, I didn't drink black coffee when I was 18, but
now I love it.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
There you go.
Just give it a couple moretries, you'll be okay.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
I'll give it at least two more tries too.
That was my mom's rule withlike seafood and I like seafood
now, so three times, and if Idon't know, I don't know.
Jimmy John's is great.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
I like Potbelly too.
Those are the top tworestaurants, All right.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Noted.
Okay, now that we got theimportant stuff out of the way.
So, yes, time of the year worksout very well.
Just finished college season,we're kind of circle the drain
on, and then olympic trials wehave to hit on, and then also I

(07:54):
think that in the middle too isa little bit of this layer of
like everyone is looking at theoff season, whether you're in I
mean, maybe elite is different,obviously, but club college
everyone, and so you have awealth of knowledge and
experience in off-season typestuff.
And I feel like I've beentrying to pick the brains of
people who are on the podcast togive people advice, because the
majority of people are clubcoaches or people just in the
trenches every day.
So let's start with collegefirst.

(08:14):
So let's just think about, like, big picture, 30,000 foot view
as a whole.
In the last two years sincewe've talked, I personally feel
like somehow college got crazierand excitement and drama and
you know, fan share.
So like, what's your thought onthe current state of ncaa in
the last few years?

Speaker 2 (08:28):
yeah, we're living, you know that that term like the
good old days, right like we're, you know.
You look back and like how doyou know when you're the good in
the good old days?
Like we are in it right now.
Like college gymnastics hasnever been more exciting.
It's never been better to be agymnast in college athletics, a
fan um you know, a judge, a, adonor, whatever it is any way

(08:51):
that you're involved in collegegymnastics.
Like this is the time, um, youknow, uh, attendance is up all
across the country.
Uh, viewership is up on tv, um,sponsorships are up, everything
.
This is a great time to beinvolved with college gymnastics
.
I feel lucky that I'm kind of inthis era and, like you said, I
probably, when we did thispodcast two years ago, I

(09:14):
probably said the same thingRight, so right.
Like two years later it's evenbigger, like it's booming right
now and you're seeing thepopularity in this country just
skyrocket.
So it's a great time.
If you're not, if you're notlocked into college gymnastics,
you're, you're really missingout, because it's so fun, so

(09:35):
exciting.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
There's so many non-gymnastics people that are
starting to get involved, whichI think is the first like sign
that it's really going well, islike when you flip past an SEC
meet or some sort of meet on tv,you're like, oh, like I, this
is kind of fun, you know, andyou'll stop and you'll watch it.
I know, like a lot of friendsof mine who have texted me being
like, hey man, I watched like ablah, blah, blah meet last
night and it was down to thelast event.
It was like it's actuallypretty exciting.
I was like like something ishappening where, like that, we

(09:57):
call them normies.
You know the normies are.
So one is I think that theobviously the, the viewership,
the scoring is easier.
Like I think that fanfare is ahuge part of it, right, so shout
out to people who are helpingmake a really good, deliver a
product.
John Roethlisberger is did apodcast and he'll be around this
time it comes out and, likeJohn and the commentating Sam
and Bridget, like like beingable to translate what's

(10:18):
happening to the fan is a hugepart of why.
So I think the announcing andthe production staff is massive.
But two things I think I think alot about behind the scenes is
one is because we have so manyincredible athletes like elites
and Olympic level athletes thatare now in college, spread out
across the whole country.
It's really exciting to watch abunch of different teams and
matchups, because Jade's overhere and Shailese is over here,
or I mean, oh my God, notShailese Shailese we'll talk

(10:40):
about later.
Jordan Childs is over here,right, they're not all clumped
in one university.
So I think that that makes itreally exciting because there's
so many talented elites and tensthat are now in college that
like it's cool to see them go todifferent schools and I think
that's a hat tip to thediversity that we have.
But also I think that there'sbeen a lot of shakeups, man,
like within a conference, when Iwatch, like I watch big 10

(11:08):
meets or you watch, like youknow, big 12 meets or whatever,
and it's like it's interestingbecause, like one team is no
longer just wiping the floorwith everybody.
I think that's at the regionallevel and I mean, obviously
oklahoma had just an insane runfor a long time, it was georgia
for a while, but now, likemichigan, state cal, like so
many of these other teams, aregetting really great and I think
that's a testament to thecoaches and the gym is who are
working their tails off.
But I personally feel that'swhy it's so exciting to watch
from the outside looking in.
But I'm not sure if you sharedifferent thoughts yeah, I I.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
I think you hit the nail on the head and actually in
two aspects of why it's soexciting for the fans.
I think also the access to thestudent athletes.
Now like they all have their ownsocial medias and you feel like
you can follow them and get toknow them on a deeper level,
right, and then then go watchthem.
You have that connection.
That's what we're seeing.
You see all these Netflix uhsports documentaries, right, and

(11:53):
that's brought in a whole newfan base to formula one and to
tennis and to golf, because whenyou have that that personal,
you know viewership of theathlete, then go watch them do
their sport and I think that'spart one that's brought in a lot
of new fans, fans followingJade on social media and Jordan

(12:14):
Childs and these super highlevel gymnasts.
But it's cool seeing them aspeople and as humans and doing
their daily lives.
And then you go watch them dotheir sport.
So I think that's part one.
And then part two you, you hitthe nail on the head again is
the parody across the country isexceptional.
I mean, you know it does getboring watching the same teams

(12:36):
win all the time and we don'thave that at all anymore.
And the big 10 morning sessionsession one came down to the
last routine and we werefortunate way to come away with
the win on that one.
The night session came down tothe last routine and our
national championship this yearcame down to literally the last
routine and congratulations tolsu and jay clark and his staff.

(12:57):
Um, and for a fan, like I said,access to the student athlete
and then parody like walkinginto a meet watching it going.
That anyone can win this meetis thrilling for a fan and for a
coach.

Speaker 1 (13:11):
Yeah, and I love the like.
There's always a bit of a fromthe consulting side, you can see
it.
There's a bit of a halo effectthat, like, one university has
in their region or their stateor whatever.
You know, with kids obviouslywho go to the meets.
Growing up and I think that'sone of the more rewarding things
of me is, you know, right now Ihave a bunch of 12 to 14 year
old nines and 10s who are soexcited to watch college
gymnastics, they're so excitedto go to the meets, they go to

(13:32):
camps, they go to whatever and,to your point, you know, they
see people that they know whenthey're older and then
eventually, if they if themargin is close they're on team
with these people.
And I mean we were talking aboutRaya, shout out Raya.
But like I know girls at campsthat know Raya from camp or at
UNH know people from UNH campand their juniors getting
recruited and they're like, holycrap, I'm going to be on team
with this girl that I watchedfor three or four years in club

(13:54):
and then I watched for two yearsin college and the halo effect
that that university, thatprogram that has like on the
community of gymnastics I thinkis enormously important and I
think it's a hat tip to, I think, a lot of the coaches and
gymnasts just in the trenches,but also the support staff, the
donors, the people who I thinkthey don't realize how important
that is for overall, becauseall these little pockets across
the country, yes, it's fun towatch, you know no-transcript

(14:54):
campus.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Like I, have gymnasts on the team that maybe were
never a football fan, neverwatched a football game in their
life, but now they're footballfans because their friends are
on the team.
Or, oh, you know thequarterbacks in my, in my
chemistry class.
So it's really fun.
You know, it's that personalconnection that takes the
enjoyment of the sport to thenext level.
Um, so it's fun.

(15:15):
I mean, this is the time to getinvolved and I encourage
everybody get in deep man,really do do your homework.
It gets even more fun when youknow, yeah, where the student
athletes came from and like, oh,their club background, and then
they competed.
We have gymnasts competinginternational for other
countries and then come do NCAAgymnastics.
So if you're a fan, jump inwith two feet because you won't

(15:37):
be disappointed.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, and the other thing that is on my mind a lot
these days that I want to againhat tip to the coaching quality
I think at the college level nowis and this will tie back into
like maybe club and recruitingstuff is.
I think 10 years ago, when Iwas coming through the ranks of
whatever it was like, a lot oftimes I felt as though people
would get their skills when theywere 14 or 15 and more or less
do a lot of the same stuff orkind of just kind of go and
learn new skills.
Like there are so many uh kidsthat I work with now that I'm

(16:10):
like, hey, listen, like you'renot going to just get your full
and then like, ride that intothe sunset for six years.
Like you can learn a one and ahalf.
You can learn other skills incollege.
I don't know if, maybe I don'tknow why, but I didn't feel the
same way 10 years ago.
I felt as though sometimes kidswould go to college and maybe
they didn't want to wear more ofthe coaching staff, didn't have
a technical prowess.
But I work with some programslike especially you guys and
others.
Like you guys are technicians,like you know how to people.

(16:31):
Well, and JJ was talking aboutyou know I'd rather take
somebody with this beautiful,nice, high layout and teach them
a good full or a hat.
Tip to the coaching quality andstaff across the whole country.
I think is getting a lot betterin college, which is exciting
because now we can have kidsmaybe slow down a little bit
when they're younger and knowthey have six years more ahead

(16:52):
of them, you know.

Speaker 2 (16:53):
Sure, and it makes it more fun, like if you're a
student athlete coming tocollege, you just do you want to
do the same bar routine forfour or five years.
It's boring, like, how about wetry upgrading that dismount?
How about we add a secondrelease, third release?

(17:14):
But you're right, is, I thinkthe talent in the coaching world
across the country has grownand we've done a good job as a
country of sharing knowledge.
Right, the conventions that youcome to and the Congress and
sharing drills, um have and Iknow we're going to get into
this talk kind of towards theend, but, like we, we share that
base knowledge.
Everyone gets better.
The club programs have gottenbetter, the colleges have gotten
better and as a country, I mean, look, you know we'll we'll

(17:38):
talk on it later but we couldput four Olympic teams together
with the talent we have and andthey'd all be in the top five,
right, I mean that's a realistic, you know, a statement there.
So we do a pretty great job inthis country of sharing that,
that knowledge base.
And then, yeah, exactly, yousaid it's it's led to, coaches
have come up through the systemas a club gymnast, college

(18:00):
gymnast, and now coaches areable to give that knowledge back
to the next generation and,like you said, take a full, turn
it into a one and a half incollege.
So again, just a great time tobe a college gymnast because you
can keep getting better.
And also the other thing I'lladd, and this kind of ties into
everything you do the educationaround strength and conditioning

(18:25):
, rehab, nutrition, sports,psych.
I think is also contributing tohow much further we can take
student athletes.
Um, I think you would see 10,15 years ago you're gonna hit
some stopping points becauseit's like you could be a great
coach and a great hard-workingstudent athlete, but without the
additional, like the nutritionpiece, the strength and

(18:46):
conditioning piece, the rehabpiece, the knowledge about sleep
hygiene and and um andhydration, all that stuff has
allowed us as coaches, um totake student athletes further
and more safely.

Speaker 1 (19:01):
Yeah, it's uh, looking back on 10 years ago
it's even more impressive what Ithink athletes were going
through like how successful theywere without those things Right
.
So I have been fortunate to gothrough like the traditional
coaching, you know, education oftechnique and spotting and
strength conditioning, and thenI also got super lucky of like
the non-gymnastics, other sports, pro Olympic elite levels.
And looking back on what I didand what I think a lot of us

(19:23):
went through, not without likesome of what you said is super
impressive.
And yeah, I think for me I meanI don't know I there's there's
a couple of things that I'mwilling to die on the hill for,
like landing the right way andusing cross training or weight
training is something I thinkI'll keep saying that till the
day that I die, cause it's soobvious that it helps everybody.
So hopefully, I think what'shappening is the college systems

(19:44):
are showing how important it isto have, you know, nutrition
involved in hydration and sports, psych and mental health and
strength conditioning.
If we can find a way to teachthe club coaches that, hey, like
this can start when you're 12,13, 14, like this is really
important, if not more importantthan because it lays the
foundation for their entirecareer.
I'm really proud of the factthat we have a lot of like level
10s and level nines now workingout with us, a champion coming

(20:05):
proactively, like that's a bigpart of what I hope that we can
kind of translate into is that,man, I'm so grateful for college
, I'm so grateful for you guysand for the teams that are
working hard because, like Isaid, you're such a it's such a
positive light for so manypeople to look up to that.
The vast majority of kidscompeting at the club level
probably want to either have agreat high school career and
move on with life and that'samazing or go to college

(20:26):
somewhere from the club level tothe D1 level, or just do adult
gymnastics and have fun and like, if that is the larger audience
of what we're working with,then making sure that you guys
have the information that youneed is the most important part
for me, because you don't havetime to read research studies
and do research studies and talkabout training, conditioning,
like that's what dorks like medo, and if I can just go to a
you know a Congress and sharethat to you, it's like I just

(20:46):
saved you 45 hours, that you canjust go coach, you know, and I
think that's the importantcollaboration.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And, like you said, who careswhat the reason is that you're
doing gymnastics?
Get in there, it's right, likeif you just like it because it's
fun, you want to do adultgymnastics, who cares?
Just get in there and do itlike you'll have a blast, it's

(21:11):
good for you.
And then, yes, like you said,sharing that knowledge and and
people like you and doing thisresearch, those hours of of
studies on injuries and andnutrition and and you know some
of the fans know or don't know,but we have.
You talk to our.
I know you talk to a lot ofcollege teams, but getting that
information into the younggymnasts' brain and coaches just

(21:33):
makes our country as a wholebetter, makes the sport safer,
more exciting, more enjoyable.
So keep doing what you're doingand anyone who's listening, if
you're into that too.
Keep keep sharing the knowledge.
That's another thing I'll I'lltell people like credit to you,
dave, is that you giveeverything freely, like you know
all your information.
Like people you tell me all thetime it's all on my website.

(21:55):
Just go on there.
Like you and these podcasts.
Like you're not charginganybody for this.
It's like if you really want toimprove your club gym, your
college program.
You know, use Dave as aresource because he's giving it
away for free.
Most people will charge you forthis, so well, thanks.

Speaker 1 (22:11):
I appreciate that.
Yeah, there's a referral.
I'm going to text you a JimmyJohn's referral link.
You'll get a cutback ofeverything that we 10% of all
courses.
There you go OK.
So kind of got that baseline.
I think it's good.
So now the next transitionquestion I want to ask is you
and I think you and jj and aaronand others have been pretty
successful year after year, andfor success for me is kids that
are like healthy, happy and highperforming, right, like I think

(22:32):
that that defines why we're inthe sport in general, and I feel
like it's challenging to havecompetitiveness year after year
after year but also have aconstant, um kind of influx of
people who are interested inMaryland or interested in your
college program.
I think it speaks to thepersonality, but also there has
to be some key fundamentals thatyou guys intentionally focus on
as a staff or as a team or asrole models for seniors to

(22:53):
freshmen coming in.
Is that a culture?
Is that like great techniqueand basics?
Is that like that gritty factorwhere, like you guys are
willing to do the hard stuffeven though it doesn't feel
awesome at the moment, likecommunication?
There's a lot of things thatpop up as possibles, but what
are some things that you feel asthough maybe are making you
guys successful over the lastfive to 10 years?

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Yeah, you know, and this is such, a such a big
question because I think so muchgoes into it and you, you hit
on a few of them, like cultureand and work ethic and um, but
if I had to kind of kind of sumeverything up, it's work, it's
work ethic, right, there's no.
You know, we all search for thesecret to success.

(23:33):
I'll tell you there's no secret.
It's just hard work, right,like now, apply that to every
aspect you just talked to.
So like I'm really fortunateand blessed that I have a team
of student athletes and acoaching staff that are just
relentless when it comes to thework.
Like my team gets in the gymand we crank, I'm like we go,

(23:55):
like we're hitting routines andwe're trying to stick dismounts.
And my staff they're in here inthe office every day.
We're grinding, we're on theemails, we're out recruiting my
staff.
They're in here in the officeevery day.
We're grinding, we're on theemails, we're out recruiting.
It's just hard work.
But apply that to everything,not just, not just the physical
stuff.
Apply the hard work to theculture, like work on that
culture.
Talk to each other as a team,get to know each other, find out

(24:19):
about each other on a deeperlevel.
Apply that hard work to your inthe weight room, in the
training room.
Apply that hard work.
Get in the training room, dothat rehab, that physical
therapy, um, but even apply itto it sounds like things that
aren't hard work.
But apply it to your sleep.
Yeah, dial down on the.
Do the hard work when it comesto your sleep.

(24:40):
Are you getting that eighthours Like?
Are you going to bed at areasonable hour?
Are you turning your devicesoff?
Apply it to everything thathard work mentality, even the
days off.
Are you?
Are you really taking that dayoff to let your body recover?
I don't.
I think there's a misnomer thathard work just means like

(25:01):
physically destroying yourselfevery day.
It's not.
Hard work means, like you know,like getting better at every
aspect of your craft every day.
Work hard in the mental game,right, are you?
Are you you know we have oursports site come in once a week
and ask them to do breathingexercises and mental energy.
Are you doing?

(25:21):
Are you putting that hard workin?
Do you wake up every morningand do you know a five minute
breathing exercise?
That that counts as hard worktoo.
I think people really justthink a hard work means like
doing a thousand reps in the gymand doing a million, you know,
reps in the weight room yes,those are, those are part of it.
But what I mean is hard work inin all of the aspects that we

(25:45):
know weight room, training room,um, the, the psychology, the
nutrition, um, the rest andrecovery.
Are you working hard in allthose aspects?
For us as a program, that'swhere we kind of hang our hat.
Is that, um, we, we got tooutwork our opponents I?
I think another big transitionfrom club to college is you're

(26:09):
going to do less hours ofgymnastics in college, like we
only get it's NCAA limit, weonly get 20.
And the majority of kids we'rerecruiting are doing above that
right now in club gymnastics.
So what that means is everyminute's got to count, right,
every, every time we're togetherat practice, it's got to count,
it's got to be important.

(26:29):
Um, and that's what I meanabout that hard work ethic, that
hard mentality is that we can'twaste any minutes because we
don't.
We don't have as many Um, andif you can do that, you can be
successful.
And and remember, you knowanytime that you're not doing
those things, somebody else isout there doing it Right.
So, like any, you take thatpractice off.

(26:51):
Remember, we're doing much lessthan you did in clubs.
So any, any practice you'retaking off.
Somebody isn't.
Somebody's out there grindinglike they want to get you.
So you've got to outwork youropponents.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Yeah, I think that you're very accurate here.
So I think hard work alwayscomes to mind.
The other thing I think and Iwant to explain this well is is
discomfort tolerance.
You know, I don't I pain is notwhat we're talking about.
We're not talking about likepushing through injuries and
like mental health not at all,and I'm actually the opposite
for that.
But discomfort tolerance isreally important, I think, and I
think to the point.
I think people think about hardwork.

(27:26):
Discomfort tolerance is like canI grind through seven more rope
climbs when I don't want to?
Sure, there's a part of that'simportant.
But for me it comes more to isthat a lot of athletes and
people in our positions have alittle bit more tolerance
towards physical discomfort, butlike emotional and mental
discomfort, like are you goingto go to practice early and have
a hard conversation with yourcoach about something that's
really bothering you?
Because you guys feel thisawkward eggshell tension and

(27:48):
it's kind of like putting themood down Right and it's kind of
making things like those kindof cultural level hard
conversations.
I think that is putting in thework to your point.
That is discomfort tolerance.
Everyone here with theirheadphones on and the treadmill
no, there's probably one or twoconversations that they have to
have with their boss, with theircoworker, with their athletes.
They work with that they don'twant to have, cause it sucks,

(28:13):
because it sucks.
That's why because you don'thurt someone's feeling.
So, yeah, I think that part isreally important and also I
think you said it well which islike do you put in the the small
three to five percent effortsto go to sleep a little better,
to actually, you know, take careof yourself with meal prep or
to pack snacks because you'rebusy during class or something?
Or in the summer, here in theoff season, people are working
jobs, people are busy, peoplehave lives.
They don't have, you know, allthat time, but all those little
things add up and I would.
What comes to mind, too, isalso what's what you're not
doing right?

(28:33):
It's what you're saying no to,to give yourself a better
opportunity and you know we'reall adults here, but like
there's a choice on Fridaywhether you're going to stay out
to 12 o'clock with your friendsand wake up and miss your
Saturday morning workout, andthen Monday comes.
You got to work.
Like those things are cumulativeand the teams that I see and
that I work with that seem tohave a competitive edge.
Always they understand there'sa common goal, that it doesn't.

(28:54):
It doesn't feel in the momentWonderful, but it's important.
And the and the nugget of maybe, uh, I'll give people is that
more or less teams are doing thesame thing during preseason and
season.
Like I see a lot of programs, alot of places.
Most people are doing the samething in season.
They're doing routines,whatever, but they're not doing
the same thing in June, july andAugust.
Yeah, and so next year, if youwant to be happier with the

(29:14):
results of your season, you haveto be willing to.
You know, set the alarm atseven on a Tuesday morning and
go get an hour of your lift inbefore you have to go to work.
Like that, that's the reality.
No one's around you, no one'scheering you on, there's no, you
know Rocky in your earscreaming at you saying we're
going to do it.
It's just you by yourself and astupid alarm clock and like.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
That's really for me what I think a lot of the basics
come down to ago, right, likeit's not, you don't put that
seed in the ground and thentomorrow come back and you don't

(29:52):
get to pick the fruit off it.
So we talk about season is isthe harvest time.
That's when we were reaping thebenefits, that's when you get
to eat the fruit and kind ofenjoy all the hard work.
But in the summer and the fallis when you're doing the
planting, the watering, the, youknow, the, the fertilization,
whatever analogy you want to use.
That's when you're prepping allthat growth.

(30:13):
And then, in season is is thereward, that's the bounty,
that's the harvest yeah, that'sa great analogy too, because
what?

Speaker 1 (30:19):
the the first two months of that is like nothing's
happening.
You just keep pouring water inthis dumb patch of dirt and
nothing's happening.
And then two to three monthslater you're like, oh, look at
that little thing coming up likein, that's like in the gym.
In the gym you're like, oh,that kind of felt good, like I
actually like got through, like,like that was a good fall, like
I felt really cool and like, orlike my back doesn't hurt, this
is great, like my back doesn'thurt, and I'm doing a bunch of
series like those little momentsthat do it and that first inner

(30:41):
squad.

Speaker 2 (30:41):
Okay, let's that first inner squad in the fall,
let's see how the team's gonnalook at.
That's like you said, like theplant coming up, the leaves
coming off yeah, it's all thosesteps along the way.
But you're right, those firstman, the first, the summer and
the first couple of months ofschool, it's really just head
down and work.
I, you know you and I havetalked on the podcast before I I

(31:03):
do believe you need to make itfun.
Like that's up to the, to the,to the personnel on the team,
the coaches and and the athletes.
Like I really believe that youget a higher quality output when
you actually enjoy what you'redoing.
So don't get me wrong.
Like we make the gym fun, likeyou'll if you've been to my
practice like yeah, this is whatit looks like.

(31:24):
It's like I coach bars.
They're on on bars.
I mean they are working theirtheir tails off.
They're really trying to hithandstands.
They're really trying to beprecise with all their movements
.
They're trying to sticklandings when they get down.
We're laughing, we're joking,we're having a good time.
We make sure practice is fun.
Maybe we're playing stick gamesand things like that, but I

(31:45):
love that my team and mycoaching staff have a great
balance of like being able towork hard and enjoy every moment
of it.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
Yeah, Two things can be true at once.
Right, you can work super hardand also have a good time.
Of course, there are times whenthe slider shifts more fun
versus more serious.
But yeah, those things canhappen.
Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
And it's harder to do .
Like again again, credit to mycoaching staff Like it's it's
easier to be to work, it's easyto work hard I mean, I guess
it's easy to have fun, right.
Like it's not as easy as youthink to make both of those
things happen at the same time.
And you have to be a veryskilled and talented coach.
And I'm lucky, like Aaron JJMorgan and our trainer, our

(32:27):
physical therapists, ourphysical therapists, our um
nutritionists, our sports, likethey they do all of those things
.
Like we're going to work hardat all of those aspects, but
like we're going to enjoy itwhile we do it.
That's what makes it.

Speaker 1 (32:38):
Yeah, that's, that's the art of coaching right,
that's the art of coaching side,absolutely yeah, no-transcript.
Like you more or less will dothat every year, or bar routines
or stuff like that.
Or there's always these momentswhen you kind of have to check,

(33:01):
like, was what I did the lastthree months paying off?
And I think that to your point,you know you don't feel
progress or feel in the momentwhen you get to that checkmark
and you're like, oh actually Ican get these routines pretty
well.
The watering the plant wasbeing on the freaking bike doing
bike sprints at two in theafternoon when you're hot and
you don't want to do it.
No-transcript.

(33:34):
Somewhere there's somethingthat's going to matter, because
I'm doing this right nowconsistently, week after week
after week, and I think that'swhat people should anchor to.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Yeah, and I'll even example we you know gymnasts, if
you're listening, that thatfirst phase like like dave was
just saying, it's hard and youdon't see a lot of progress,
I'll tell you you might even seea little regression there and
I'll give you a story about ourteam and it.
Every fall I fall victim tothis, like I get worried.
So every fall we have a reallygreat and talented strength
coach and you know, dave, thatyou've worked with our strength
coaches.
That first phase.

(34:11):
They're doing a lot of powerwork and there's actually a time
where the gymnasts, like theyreport they don't feel great,
right, they feel a little slowfor a couple weeks, and it
happens every year.
And we have to remind ourselves.
I'm looking over at floor andI'm like man, double backs are

(34:33):
looking a little bit low.
I, you know I'm a littleconcerned and then it happens
every year and I have toremember we switch from that
power phase to an explosivephase in the weight room.
And then, oh my gosh, like wewalk in the gym and it's like
boom, like double pipes full ins.
Everything is looking massive,the vaults are looking massive.
You see, JJ and Morgan are mycoaches on floor and vault.

(34:56):
They were like relax.
They're like okay, I wasworried for a second there and I
have to remind myself everyyear that is part of the process
, right, Like it's part of thelike you know, breaking the
muscles down and then buildingback up and building your bodies
in the appropriate manner.
So, gymnasts, if you'relistening, like sometimes

(35:17):
through hard work, there mightbe like a small regression phase
, like hang in there, Becauseyou know, if you're, if you're
working smart and hard, you'regoing to come out on the other
other side in a better setup.
And you can probably put thatmore technical than me.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
No, that's good.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
But from a coaching staff.
That's what we see.
There's that like when we getreally deep in the hard
preseason phase, there is a two,three-week regression, but hang
in there because you're goingto come out, you know, explosive
on the other side.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
Yeah, I'll say people the massive darkness, but out,
you know, explosive on the otherside.
Yeah, I'll say people themassive darkness.
But essentially the thingthat's important here to
remember is that there's thereare biological limits on how
fast this process goes.
You could be sleeping perfectly, eating well, your timing is
great, whatever.
But, like, if you do a reallyhard leg conditioning circuit or
you do a strength trainingcircuit or something, it's going
to take two, if not three daysto get back to full.
And there's been studies on thiswhere they have kids do tens,

(36:08):
do physical prep, testing,pull-ups, leg lifts, whatever,
they do a super hardconditioning practice and they
say how many days does it taketo get back to baseline level of
your reps or whatever?
It takes up to three dayssometimes if you're doing it.
And so that is sometimes I meantype A personalities we're all
wanting things like, we want tosee results right away.
But there are times when, like,you could have a four week
block in September and it'sgoing to be three full cycles of

(36:30):
like, work really hard, recovertwo days, work really hard,
recover two days, and it's notgoing to be until the end of
those three weeks that you get adeload week and that's probably
what you're saying is like okay, I finally got like my legs
back under me.
But like that lack of maybeperspective is sometimes
frustrating for younger gymnastsin particular, because they're
used to doing a great correctionand getting a turn to just go
flawlessly well.
But the hard stuff of reallysqueezing more juice out of the

(36:52):
lemon takes forever sometimes.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Sure, sure and yeah.
So that's the message there isjust is just be patient.
You know it's like I sometimeswe use the analogy is like you
see, um, in baseball.
You know they warm up with that, the yep, the weighted bat
right, and it's like I mean, ifyou're mentally saying, gosh,
I'm swinging this bat reallyslow, like I'm not, this is bad,

(37:15):
this is a good for me, likewhat am I gonna do, um, but then
you switch to the regular batand you feel like a million
bucks.
And that's kind of whatpre-season strength and
conditioning is for me is likeit does feel a little rough.
I'm not gonna going to lie Like, yeah, your legs are sore,
you're tired, we're reallyputting in a lot of work, um,
but when we get to season and weback a lot of that stuff off

(37:37):
and your legs feel fresh, uh,and you don't feel as tired and
we're giving you know kind ofmore days off when we get closer
to season, man, you, you,hopefully the goal is you're
walking in that meet, feelinglike a million bucks.

Speaker 1 (37:49):
Yeah, and I mean I want to move on to a new topic,
but this is important.
But I think you also, ascoaching staff and as you guys
do really well, you have to beempathetic and you have to
communicate and you have to talkto this, because you'll have
seven girls who do the samestrength program.
One girl she doesn't feelanything, she actually feels
pretty good.
The other girl feels like shegot hit by a freaking truck, and
three or four in between I'mlike, yeah, I could get through
it a little bit.
But like when you're not, whenyou don't have really sore quads

(38:12):
and not butt scooting down thestairs, it's really easy to be
like well, we have routines todo, or like well, we have stuff
to do.
You know you have to be so intuned and empathetic and, uh,
communicate with athletes.
I don't feel what you're goingthrough, but I know that that's
hard on you right now and so I'mactually going to modify your
assignment.
I'm going to give you like halfthe assignment and then do some

(38:33):
extra, like stick work orwhatever, or prehab, because
those moments back to culturebuild enormous amounts of trust,
enormous If you, if somebodycomes in and they say like
listen, I hear you let's do somebasics, let's do some drills.
But instead of doing all ourreleases today, we'll do this
tomorrow and we'll do somedrills and some extra stuff on

(38:54):
the side, like the amount oftrust you bank with an athlete
down the road when season isthere and they're like man, I am
gassed right now.
You're like listen, I know themeet come time.
We might have a back to backday.
That's really important.
So, like I want you to pushthrough this and you have those
moments where you build rapportand trust with people.

Speaker 2 (39:13):
Yeah, and think about it this way Like you know, in
the gym, the coaching staffmaybe the the experts in
coaching.
The strength coach is theexpert.
In the weight room, thenutritionist is the expert, but
the athlete is the expert ofthemselves, right?
They are the best form ofknowledge that you can receive
about that student athlete.
So you know the best MaddieKomorowski in the gym is Maddie

(39:35):
Komorowski?
Like she, she's the one thatcan give you the information
like, hey, I'm I'm sore today,or my shoulder's bothering me,
or I was up studying all lastnight.
Like, she is the expert in thefield of.
Maddie know what I mean.
Like, no matter how great acoach you are, you will never
know, uh, what she's feelinginternally.
So you have to rely on thatinformation, just like you rely

(39:58):
on your, your, your staff, your,uh, your strength coach, your
nutritionist.
You have to rely on studentathlete like and and um.
You have to encourage them toshare that information with you.
Or you're both just kind offlying blind and and hoping that
you're making the rightdecisions for those student
athletes.
But hopefully you can build aculture and a and a relationship

(40:19):
with the student athletes thatthey feel comfortable telling
you what's, you know, acollaborative effort of what the
best course of action on thatday is like.
And they know we got to getroutines done, we got to get
strength in.
But yeah, like you said, ifthey're up all night studying,
maybe today's not the day.
Maybe let's let you get a resta day or two and then routines

(40:40):
will always be there, you know.

Speaker 1 (40:41):
Yeah, no, totally.
It seems as though there's alot of things I think in the
last two years since we'vetalked, but even five years
beyond I think there's been somany things around that like
culture, communication, thestyle having fun that I think
have changed for the better, andI'd like to also talk about
things that maybe you'd stilllike to see change.
But are there things you noticenow, maybe from five years ago,
that you noticed like, hey,this is actually a lot better in
our sport in college thatyou're, you're happy to see and

(41:03):
you wish more people were alsoembracing?

Speaker 2 (41:05):
Yeah, I'll give you, I'll give you two.
So I think you know, you and Iare we're older, we're not old,
right Like?

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Monday I'm 35.
I'm not old, but I'm not young.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, yeah, and I'm not going to say what I am, but
so, but you know, we grew up inan era of gymnastics where, um,
it was very different, right,and like there was less
knowledge and and I thinkculture wasn't really a
discussion point and the studentathlete had a had very little
say and very little avenue forfor input.

(41:39):
Right, and me personally, I wasreally fortunate to grow up
with some of the greatestmentors that were really ahead
of their time in that aspect, ofthe greatest mentors that were
really ahead of their time inthat aspect.
So my father, for example, wasthe head coach for 31 years and,
um, a national Bermuda nationalcoach for six years, and my
uncle was the two-time Olympiccoach.
And these are, these werecoaches that were ahead of their

(42:02):
time in in how they treatedtheir student athletes and
making them taking a holisticapproach, uh, at looking at the
student athlete as more thanjust a routine or a score,
looking at them as a wholeperson and then also giving them
the ability to have ownershipof their path and their career.

(42:23):
And I'm just lucky that that'sthe way that I was raised in
this sport and fast forward tonow.
I think that's becoming verypopular and what you're seeing
across the NCAA and club and andhopefully even internationally,
is that you can find just asmuch success in treating these

(42:44):
young athletes with with thisnewfound holistic approach and
looking at them from all anglesand not just the one of them as
a student athlete and hopefullyI would encourage athletes look
at your coaches the same way,right, like they're not just
coaches.
I want to get to know them, asyou know, as mentors, as as

(43:04):
family people, as businesspeople, right, like when you
become more knowledgeable abouteach other, the relationship can
build and the trust, like yousaid, is very important.
The other aspect I'll say thathas changed a lot is what the
NCAA has really come forward andlet us be able to provide
student athletes in college.

(43:25):
I mean it's astonishing, fromwhere I started in coaching, of
what we were allowed to provideand when you and I were student
athletes in college, I mean it'sit's astonishing, from where I
started in coaching, of what wewere allowed to provide and when
you and I were student athletes, it was very little.
I mean there was zero, zeronutrition that the NCAA was
allowed to provide.
That was illegal, like right,and I don't know if you remember
this and people listening toyour podcast, they'll be shocked
.
But like it was illegal andthen it became okay.

(43:48):
You could only provide, like uh, nutrition bars or bagels, but
with no.
There was like ridiculous yeah,you couldn't provide spreads for
the bagels, but you, it waslike silly.
And now we've come full circlewhere we're literally feeding
our student athletes.
You know, three meals a day,we're we're our student athletes
get to take.

(44:08):
They have, uh, takehome mealservices that deliver to their
apartment and everything's paidfor, like we've gone full circle
with with the things you werenot allowed to provide.
Now now we are, and I thinkthat's creating a better
experience for the studentathlete, a safer environment for
the student athlete, and it'sreally letting athletes achieve

(44:30):
their peak performance, becausenow we're providing nutrition,
we're providing sportspsychology, we're providing
physical therapy every day,we're providing knowledgeable
strength coaches that are usingtechnology and all these things
like to take your gymnastics tothe next level.
It's all those additionalpieces that we're now allowed to

(44:51):
provide that are making all thedifference in the world.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yeah, I think there's two things that come to mind I
want to touch on which I agreecompletely.
The first thing on the culturepiece is when you talk about
like coaches being, I guess,more in tune or kind of asking
non-sport related questionsabout their life, getting to
know them in the other way,which is gymnasts learning a bit
more about you.
Know their coaches Jimmy John'sobsession or woodworking
obsession Right Like they, uh,those things are uh kind of

(45:17):
shown in research to be likewhat are called micro events and
they're actually the bestbuilders of cultures.
So, like the during warmup,like hey, I heard, you heard
that I remember you had thattest that you were really
stressed about in physics.
Like how'd that go?
Like those very small passingmoments of non-sport related
issues is like what builds theglue?
And they, they studied this andum, it was like four or five
pro teams, it was Googlebusiness and then seals, navy

(45:38):
seals.
They looked at across all thesegiant like really high
performing teams in differentsectors and they're like what do
they have in common?
And one of the things wasthere's like glue, there's not,
there's banter, a little casualside talk.
That's more than just likewhat's the mission, what's the
job to do, and I think that thebest coaches I see, who seem to
have a really great rapport withtheir athletes, are constantly,
you know, curious and generallywant to know how these people

(45:59):
are like.
How are you doing?
And that's what the fun part ofit is getting to know people.
That's my favorite part aboutcoaching is like developing
someone and helping to kind ofunderstand their life as a whole
.
So I think that's reallyimportant to remember is that
it's not just about like theskills, the drills, what the
assignment is like, it's all thelittle things in between which
really make the success happen.
And the other piece of it too,and provision to athletes is I
think that when you look at aprogram like Maryland right or

(46:22):
somewhere, it's easy for a clubcoach to be like sounds good
with your $500, you know, extrameal plan, whatever, but every
single thing that you justmentioned is completely
accessible for a club.
There's no, there's no clubthat I've seen that hasn't
really tried to put the work inand found you know something or
some way to get a strength coachinvolved.
Or there's there's so manypeople online that are experts
in gymnastics that do zoom teamconsults right.

(46:43):
That will do.
My friend Christina will talkto like a summer camp 200 girls
for like a nutrition, you know,fueling for performance thing
and she'll just charge like 200bucks for like a nice one to 200
, right, like consultingsessions.
So it's easy to look at thecollege setting and say like
well, you guys have all theseresources but, like, thanks to
the internet and a lot of reallysmart, kind people, there is
unlimited amount of stuff thatyou can find and get it into

(47:05):
your gym.
So, yeah, I wanted to mentionthat because I feel like it's
easy to kind of poo poo from theclub level that Yep, and
there's levels to it, right thatI'll add, there's levels to it,
right.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
So maybe you're right , we're in a very, we're in a
very blessed situation to havethe finances to have.
You know, we have five sportspsychologists on staff.
So you're right, but there'slevels.
Maybe you in a club gym, maybeyou you don't have the resources
to have an onsite sportspsychologist, but you know what,

(47:35):
like you said, you could have aconsultant come in, you know,
once a month, or or you knowonce a week.
You know, like there's alwayslevels to it, um, and I would
just encourage people, startsomewhere, start somewhere.
If that's what you can do is isonce a year, um, have a sports
psychologist come to your gymand talk once a year.
You can have a nutritionistcome to your gym and talk once a

(47:56):
year.
You can have, you know, daveTilly come to your gym and do a
talk.
Then do it right, like thatstarts somewhere, and build from
there.
And again, even all theuniversities, we all started
somewhere to.
Here at Maryland, you know, yougo back five years ago.
We didn't have five sportspsychologists.
We had one right, and then weadded two.
You know it's like it's aprocess of building it up.

(48:18):
And same with the nutritionpiece I just mentioned.
Like we are to the point wherewe're feeding them.
Almost every meal, you know, isin some way shape or form
coming from us.
But it didn't start like that,you know.
It started with with lunchesand then one day a week, dinner.
And you know, like you, youjust start somewhere and and be

(48:39):
within your means but work yourway up.
Yeah, the other thing you saidthat you're always better at
explaining.
There's like a technical reasonwhy we do things.
But I, I love that you explain.
Like those micro talks withwith the kids in the chalk
bucket and yep during warm-upsand getting to know them, like
they just feel important to me.

(48:59):
But yes, but I don't even youknow, I don't even know why.
Sometimes we just do it becauseit feels like the right thing
to do is to know these kids on aa personal level.
But I like hearing from youlike there's a there's a
scientific reason of why that'sa good thing.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Yeah, it's a.
It's the culture code by DanielKonya is the book that I think
did that, and uh, yeah, he's a.
Um, he's a social psychologist,so I think that he's probably.
Yeah, I would agree with you.
Like some things I do, I can'ttell you why it just feels like
the right thing to do man aslike a human.
You know what I mean, because Iknow, I know it's going to be
the right thing when they, whenthey show up at bars, it's like
it's just nasty.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Like how are you doing today?
Like how are you feeling?
You feel good, you know what Imean.
It's like I don't know no onetold me to do that, maybe, but
it just feels like.
I feel like we should checkthat before we, yeah, fling our
body around a bar.
Like it just seems like theright thing to do, you know.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
And a shocking update .
Being nice and working hard isgood.

Speaker 2 (49:50):
That you can do those things Like it can be done.

Speaker 1 (49:54):
Yeah, and I'll give a very concrete example of
something you know.
So I worked at.
The gym that I was coaching atfor like eight years was a YMCA,
so we were part of a largerbudget, very donor charity based
.
Like a lot of kids weredefinitely struggling
financially.
And the first year that Iworked there myself and Eva I
actually didn't have a strengthconditioning degree.
I wasn't at all.
I didn't know how to teachpeople to lift or whatever.
I knew it was really important,but I had no idea what to do.

(50:17):
And so, through friends, it waslike, well, what do we do?
Like what can we, what can wefeasibly do?
Well, I can talk to the peoplewho I was working out with like,
hey, would you guys mind comingto our gym once per week?
Um, and we'll figure out whatit is for finance or payment and
just teach them how to lift andlift with them one day per week
.
Right, and tell us what thatwould cost.
And thankfully, dave and, uh,derek, who are the coach at the
time, they said well, one, it'sgood for our business if we

(50:39):
reach out to the communityanyway.
So one, we're going to cut theprice in half.
So it ended up being like ahundred dollars per session for
both of them, 200 bucks for twoexpert strength coaches to come
in and lead a lift and teach ushow to teach them how to lift.
So I was learning the skill setof lifting, the kids were
getting a workout in andeverybody else was going
involved and it was $200 for uswas very feasible, right.
So $200 for the month wasextremely doable.
But then it was like, okay,well, we need equipment, we need

(51:02):
kettlebells, we need dumbbells,we need some stuff and those
are expensive, right.
So half of it was who in their,in their garage, has an extra
set of 20 pound dumbbells.
They can donate to the gym forthe summer or have this and then
Facebook marketplace a bit,right.
And then we were able toscrounge up like enough
donations from the parents aboutlike, hey, if everyone ships in
25 bucks, we can buy a full setof kettlebells which we're

(51:22):
going to let.
We still have them in the gymtoday from 10 years ago.
They just lasted the wholedecade.
So it's like, okay, can we getsome off Facebook marketplace?
Can we have somebody kind ofdonate?
Can we get some stuff over here?
And I think, all in all, if youlook front to back.
For the first couple of summersthat we lifted it was a
thousand dollars from Facebookmarketplace to hiring coaches,
and now that is like literally astaple in the entire program
that we have.
So it doesn't have to be fancy,it was like still Facebook

(51:44):
marketplace dad's dumbbells fromthe basement that he's not
using.

Speaker 2 (51:56):
You know I love it.
It's that.
Find a way.
It goes back to what we talkedabout.
Is that hard work mentality islike you identified early that
this is a need that we have andyou worked hard to to fulfill it
right, like and again itworking hard, wasn't you?
You know, like I don't knowdoing it was it was finding a
way to supplement that and youdid it, and that's that's again.
That's that hard work mentalityof like.
Let's find a way to get it done.
So, yeah, that's great, andpeople can use that example as

(52:18):
well.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Yeah, and any sector, whether it's strength,
nutrition, whatever, there'sjust drills and technical
knowledge.
There's a way to find.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
There's always a way there's always a way and I think
I noticed this too.
You know, in my office myhallway is some of the most
successful coaches in thecountry are lacrosse coaches and
field hockey coaches and soccercoaches, and the ones that have
been successful and been aroundhere a long time, they just
find a way.
It's not early in their career,it's not because they had

(52:45):
everything, not because they hadeverything.
It's that they found a way toget the things that they needed
right, like, um, just beresourceful, be creative, be
open-minded to trying thesethings.
Like you said, go, you know,looking in people's garage to
find weights, whatever you gotto do, to find the things you
need to help your program do it.
And and then the other benefitis I think it goes a long way

(53:07):
with your culture.
Like when your student athletessee you like, oh, you know,
like Dave, wow you, you foundall this stuff for us, like
that's really great, thank you.
You know like it goes a longway for building that culture.
They know that you're there forthem and and then in response
that they can be there for youLike they're, they'll work hard
and they'll they'll have a goodattitude coming in the gym

(53:29):
because you've built that, thatrelationship and trust.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
Yeah, and on the physical side I've.
I've tried a lot of things inmy day to help build culture and
to try to help people and I'veread a lot of books and research
by far and away the best thing,the only thing that worked, was
me dying on a sled next to theathletes during conditioning me.
Me pushing a sled up and downeight, 30 at night when I'm
tired and sore and don't want todo it.
I can't do fricking 30 leglifts anymore, dude, I can't do
the stuff that they're doing.

(53:53):
But like I could push a sled upand down the floor, I can jump,
I can do some squats.
And so always early in ourcareer with the program, when we
were trying to turn our cultureover, it doesn't have to be you
doing strength, but you showingthat you care about you know
sleep and wellness and health,and hard conversations like by
leading through those, I don'twant to do this, but I'm going
to do it anyways.
A lot of that came down of like.
They were like are you gonna doconditioning with us?
And I was like I don't reallywant to, but I'm going to do it

(54:16):
just to prove a point, to helpout, and I think that is, those
lead by examples and not justall talk, is very important to
as well.
Back to the Facebookmarketplace, kind of thing, on
that, on that.
So those are two things thatyou think are great If we had a
magic wand and we could getthings to change.
Are there things from thebreaths, inner workings of his
brain that you still see acrossthe sport or college that you're
like I think we could do betterhere.

Speaker 2 (54:37):
Oh man, that's a tough question, because you know
everything is going so wellright now Like the popularity is
up.
I think probably and you know,if I don't say it, your fans
will call me out it's like we,we constantly have to be
improving the scoring and, andyou know, I do think, and let me
take it from this approach Ithink we have to continue to

(55:00):
build our relationship andculture with um, the coaching
population and the judgingpopulations.
And I'm going to tell you astory of where it really really
dawned on me.
It's like we're set up for thisadversarial role of, like
coaches arguing with judges overscores.
And listen, if there's a judgelistening to this podcast,

(55:21):
they're going to say, like Brett, you're, you're, you're one of
them too.
Like we, I get pretty fiery atmeets, right.
But you know what?
I'll tell you a story Over thatCOVID year.
It really hit me that we show upto meets but the judging

(55:41):
community put themselves at riskfor us, for our student
athletes, to have this dream ofthat year where we were
traveling with masks on andthere were no fans allowed in
the arenas.
And you know we were taking allthese, we were testing like
daily.
Our judging community putthemselves directly in harm's

(56:04):
way, getting on flights everyweekend, going to these meets,
leaving their homes.
They didn't have the the, thesports medicine support that we
had, um, and it really like thatwas like a an eyeopening moment
for me that we are really inthis together, that we can't we
can't have our sport without thejudges, um, and the judges need

(56:25):
athletes to judge.
So we are in this together.
So we have to continue to buildthat relationship with judges
and find, you know, continue toimprove the process to make
judging fair across the boardinternet.
There's a lot of frustrationabout scoring and inequalities

(56:50):
in scoring and deductions thataren't being taken.
That's one area that I thinkwe've always got to continue to
work on, but from acollaborative standpoint, not a
hey, you judge, have to getbetter.
It's, we've got to get better.
Maybe we've got um change someof our rules to make it easier

(57:11):
for the judge to applydeductions or or to rank teams
and rank routines.
Maybe some of it is in rulechanges and uh, skill
evaluations, um, and then someof it is on education and and um
judges feedback.
So things like those.
Uh, I think you know thatthat's the everlasting topic in

(57:32):
in ncaa, really in all ofgymnastics is is the judging.
So, yeah, that's, that's thehill that I'll I'll be on is
let's work with this judgingcommunity, yeah, together, not
in an adversarial manner, andtry to improve, uh judging
across the country yeah, no, Ithink it's a great one and I I'm
again very.

Speaker 1 (57:51):
I think that always when you have one of these like
little like uh, traffic jammoments is like you have to have
a head of empathy on you.
And shortly before I went tothe college lecture I gave for
all the coaches, I actually waswith all the judges last year
talking about the landing rulesand I was with 1,800 judges and
when you hear what theirperspective is, you're like oh

(58:11):
wow, I never understood this,because what happens on their
side is they try to judge fairand honest and then they get
ripped apart by everyone onsocial media, right Destroyed
because they didn't give 10 tothis person or whatever.
And like, literally, imagine,as a coach, if you're a coach or
whatever, everything you didevery single time at work there
were 3000 people yelling at youyou're doing it wrong, it's not

(58:32):
good enough, right?
You'd be pretty pissed too andyou wouldn't want to really be
involved.
And you wouldn't want to reallybe involved.
I'm surprised judges aresticking around sometimes, to be
fair.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
And give me that result in seconds.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Exactly Because we need to go faster.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
We need that score immediately.
We need it to be right.
We need it, you know, and, likeyou said, there's no one at
your job 3,000 fans telling youlike I need it right now and it
needs to be perfect.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
So hurry up.
You know, yeah, and I give abig shout out to Cookie from the
judging side.
She's like the chair for themand she's retiring now.
God bless her.
But you know she opened my eyesa lot of the reality of how
hard it is to be a judge in themodern social media landscape.
Where it's great there's a lotof more eyes, it's great there's
a lot of popularity, but thewhiplash is that there's like
almost like a hail fire comingdown on every judge at every
meet.
Who's always upset withsomething?
Because what if you call itright and the team that you, you
know, judged on fairly lost?

(59:21):
And then now you have a bunchof angry fans.
Someone's always upset with youas a judge, always and that's
what I mean.

Speaker 2 (59:27):
Like I think again, we talked about looking at the
student athletes as people yougotta look at, look at the
judges and look at coaches aspeople too, right like these.
Every judge that's sitting inthe chair wants to get it right.
I really do believe that theyreally want to get it right, um
but but we're all human, like weall make mistakes, and let's

(59:47):
remind ourselves we're watchinga sport that goes at the blink
of an eye, like a ball, takeswhat you know and they're
supposed to find all thedeductions in the pre-flight
flight, the post-flight, andlook at the landing.
Oh, and you know, sometimes youhave to decide what the vault
was and what the start value is.
Like all these things arehappening and, yes, we have

(01:00:08):
judges that have been judgingfor 20, 30 years and maybe this
is second nature to them.
But how about new judges?
Right, like wow, like they'vegot to do the shorthand, um, and
take deductions and and watchthe gymnastics all at once all
happening so fast.
I just think we have to givethem a little, a little grace.
And again, I can't wait to getthe text messages from your,

(01:00:31):
from judges that are listeningthis podcast that I've maybe
given dirty looks over the years.
They're gonna be like right,you are talking out of both
sides of your mouth right now,but I, you know, I gotta remind
myself too like, yeah, just be,be kind, the judges want to get
it right and work with them sotheir credit, though there's
probably some judges out therethat you know had the fieriness
and stuck to their guns and werelike you know you were right,

(01:00:51):
that's right oh for sure I've,I've had and get again you know
those sneaky two and a two and aquarter kind of landings.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Come on now.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
And nothing but respect for these judges that
you know.
There's been ones that havetold me you know, pay Brett, zip
it Like you know you're.
You're going too far, shut yourmouth, and you know that's part
of the game.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Yeah, they're right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
They're right, there's times where I need to
cool down.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
So yeah, and the other thing too is, I think,
when you treat it all at a humanlevel, empathetic, the love of
the sport, whatever.
I've almost never been in asituation where you step outside
the arena or the drama of themoment and it doesn't cool down
and it's chill, it's all in love.
You know what I mean.
It's just it's wanting to makethe best sport possible for
everybody.
No-transcript.

(01:01:43):
I think it's really exciting.
Everything's been amazing, butI have a unique perspective
because this year, for example,the first gymnast I ever treated
, kylie, shout out, I love you.
She was 12 when I treated her.
She's 22 and she just graduatedafter her fifth year.
And so I saw Kylie when she was12 or 13 with some back pain,
and I've helped her throughouther entire career.
And I have multiple rounds ofthis now of kids that were young

(01:02:06):
.
They're going through college,they're done on college, you're
looking back and the sport haschanged a lot for the better.
But I think you we're atnationals, right, there's this
line of two, two judges, twoentire college panels all
staring at games and gymnastics,from the gymnast who's a
sophomore or junior.
You are all terrifying to them,right, until they get to know
you and they want to do it.
And then I think from thecoaching point of view they're

(01:02:27):
trying to find the line betweenwell, these are my adult peers,
but I have to be professionalfor you.
So I'd like to kind of unpack alittle bit.
Hopefully through theconversation they realize that
you're a normal human who just,you know, like sandwiches and
woodworking.
That's great.
But I think that's reallyintimidating for a young college
gymnast looking up atperspective coaching and to get
into that kind of comfort level.
So what is some of your adviceyou have to?

(01:02:48):
Let's talk about, like juniorlevel athletes, because they're
obviously recruiting, eligible,so like junior year type of
stuff June 15th is literallyfive days away from now, or
whatever like it's going tostart to get into this process.
Like how does somebody get thatprocess started?
Looking at schools and findingwhat school is a good fit for me
, what team's personality isgood fit for me?
Do I have the level ofgymnastics that's competitive
with this team?
Like all that kind of stuff.
I'd love to kind of pull thecurtain back a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Sure, I mean, I think the first and foremost thing I
would say um to to the studentathletes is just run your own
race.
Like, don't you?
You can't compare yourself toother athletes.
You can't, um, compare yourselfto other.
You know, like this school,that school right, like you got
to run your own race, and whereyou are right now is not where

(01:03:32):
you'll be three months from nowand six months from now.
Like, just worry about the oneday at a time and getting better
.
Don't, don't look up.
Well, this person's getting youknow, recruiting emails and I'm
not.
Or they're, or they're gettingthem from the school that I want
, but I'm not.
You have to run your own race.
There's a saying that comparisonis the thief of joy, and so if

(01:03:54):
you're, if you're constantlyworried about those things, I
think you're wasting energy.
What you're doing in worryingabout all the things that aren't
happening is you're not makingthe good things for you happen,
and those good things are justgo to the gym, have a great
practice when you get home, geta great dinner and get a good

(01:04:14):
night's sleep, and do thatconsistently, over and over and
over, and then check back inwith yourself three months, six
months, 12 months, two yearslater, I think you're going to
see a ton more progress, um, andand don't waste energy worrying
about I'm not, you know I'm notthere yet.
I'm not good enough.
They don't like my videos,don't worry about it.

(01:04:35):
Just keep taking any amount ofsteps forward, little steps, big
steps.
Just keep moving forward.
That's step one.
And then, when the recruitingprocess does begin for you, be
patient, because I'll give you alittle secret, right?
Everyone listening, everyschool in the country, like
we're all going to go after thesame, like top 10 kids at first.

(01:04:57):
Right, but guess what?
There, like 65, 80 division oneschools, whatever it is, we're
not gonna get them all.
So, yeah, be patient, right,like everyone's gonna work their
way down, um, you know.
So be patient.
Just because you're not gettingan email or a call now doesn't
mean that you won't.
Um, it just means it's not yourtime yet and it's going to come

(01:05:20):
.
That you know that everyone'sgoing to work their way down.
We can't, we can't all get thetop 10 kids.
There's only 10 of them.
So be patient with yourself, bepatient with the process.
I also, you know, believe that.
You know it will work out, andwhere you're meant to be.
That's where you'll end up andI'll tell myself there's

(01:05:44):
something that my father gave mein the recruiting process that
I think applies to the athleteas well Never get too high and
never get too low, right?
So just because you got oneemail from your dream school,
don't get too high, stopanswering all your other schools
and all that.
And then, just because youdidn't get your email from your
dream school, doesn't mean thatthey're not going to email you.

(01:06:05):
So never, you know, never,never think that you're done you
.
You you've made it, you youknow.
Oh, that one school emailed meonce.
I'm good to go and never gettoo low either.
Just kind of take it day by dayand get better.
And then, like I said, you'veheard me on this podcast say how
important communication is.
Try to do that as best you canin the recruiting process,
because there are a lot ofgymnasts that do a lot of the

(01:06:28):
same skills.
So how do we, as coaches,differentiate?
How do we pick?
Well, by getting to know you asa person.
And how does your culture, yourvalues and your ethics that
you've been raised with?
And how does your culture, your, your values and your, your
ethics that you've been raisedwith how does that fit with my
program?
So the more information you canshare through your emails or
through your social media orthrough phone calls with the

(01:06:51):
coaches, um, do that, becausethe more we get to know you, um,
the more we'll see you're abetter fit, and hopefully
coaches will be trying to dothat in reverse as well.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
Yeah, and there's so many good like things to kind of
pull threads on here.
So one is to say upfront so JillHicks is on the podcast, she's
a big involved in recruiting andshe was saying is, yeah, going
into the recruiting process youhave to be honest with yourself
about is my level of gymnasticsand my goals on par with what
this team shows consistentlyRight?
So you know, whether it'ssocial media, you're at camps,

(01:07:21):
you're you know you're talkingto the gymnasts themselves.
Like you know, I have a goodlayout and a layout half like,
is that competitive with thisteam that I'm interested in?
Or, you know, could it be if Igot a full or something?
So, like, I think going intothat mindset from the junior
level of you know, am I beingrealistic with the level of
gymnastics that I have, isreally important.
First Cause, I think sometimeswe talk about the human level
stuff, which is great, but likeif you're doing a tuck, tuck

(01:07:47):
your Janko and you want to go toFlorida, like they might not
match with their level ofdifficulty.

Speaker 2 (01:07:49):
Pull up YouTube and watch the meats.
You got to do your.
Yeah, you got it.
We watch, we watch all theirvideos.
I think you've got to, you know.
Get on YouTube.
Get on YouTube.
Get on Big Ten Network, get onSEC Network.
Watch some meets and, like yousaid, say would my skills fit in
that lineup?
And if yes, then go full cement.
If not, look at another school,watch another video, watch

(01:08:09):
another meet.
There's a lot of greatgymnastics programs in the
country at all different levels,so take a look.
Do your homework, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
And to that.
I think what's the mostimportant thing here is that in
that process, before you evenstart, that 0% of your
self-worth and self-esteemshould be tied to how good your
gymnastics is and I mean thiswith the biggest sincerity is,
like the coaches that I know andrespect the most, the gymnasts
I know.
Gymnastics is not who they are,it's what they do.
So you are not a gymnast whoneeds a scholarship to be happy
and to prove that your mom lovesyou, right?

(01:08:38):
That is like a terrible way andI don't mean it to, I don't say
it to like be joking, but likeI work with some very committed,
high level, hardcore gymnastsright these days, and some of
them I literally worry.
I'm like.
I'm like do we have otherthings in our life besides
gymnastics that are important tous that we want to do and
realize that in the blink of aneye it could go away?
Like that's just the reality ofgymnastics and sports is
injuries happen, things happenand like we have to make sure

(01:09:00):
that as parents and as adults,that we are constantly
reinforcing like, hey, this issomething really important to us
, but it is not us, it does notdefine us.
You know, if I don't get thatemail.
If I do get that email, if I dogo here, if not, you know that
is not my self-esteem marker andso it makes those around skill
level and difficulty and emailsmuch more easy to swallow when
it's not all of what you are.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
You know, and my staff and I, we have a saying
during the recruiting processthat we are looking for good
gymnasts and great people.
Like.
That's right, that's thebarrier, right, I would rather
have a good gymnast who's agreat human being than a great
gymnast who's not a good humanbeing.
Right, so, like that.
So like to what you said, likeyou know, being being, um, you

(01:09:45):
know, loving of yourself andsupportive and positive with
yourself, I think is maybe moreas more important than just
being a really good gymnast butnot having any other, you know,
positive, redeeming qualitiesthat can help my program.
I, yes, I want you to be a goodgymnast, but I really want you
to be a great human, becausehaving any other you know
positive, redeeming qualitiesthat can help my program.
I guess I want you to be a goodgymnast, but I really want you
to be a great human because wecan make you a better gymnast,
right, like, we have goodcoaches, we have trainers and

(01:10:08):
strength coaches.
We can make you better, um, youknow like, and we can work with
you on the on the culture piecetoo.
But if it's only gymnasticsthat you bring to the table,
that's not enough for us.
Yeah, we want?
We want a person that's goingto add to our culture, that's
going to grow and that's goingto learn and it's going to get
better and that's going to bringlight and positivity and joy to

(01:10:30):
every practice.
So develop that side of your,of your I don't know life of
your of your culture, um,because that pays off, both in
gymnastics and then in, you know, in life, in the professional
world, and things like that too.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
Yeah, think about what we talked about at the
beginning of this podcast.
Right, we're talking about howimportant it is, like why is
Maryland successful?
Why are these collegessuccessful?
It's because you know, theybelieve in work ethic, they want
to be nice, they want to, theywant to be there for each other,
they want to have that goodcommunication skills, like those
things are super important andrealize that.
You know, I think this is agood thing.
But different teams havedifferent personalities.
I think the best way to kind ofmaybe explain and see the

(01:11:06):
differences you have some teamsthat are just like in a good
competitive way, they're alittle bit more focused, a
little bit more like you knowtight 90 degree angles, they're
very like you know they, theirvery personality is a little
more focused, whereas otherteams are a little bit more laid
back, a little more loose, alittle more you know fun, and
both are OK, both are actuallyvery competitive and very fine,
and so I think you have torealize that is there a team or

(01:11:27):
a style or a personality thatyou fit more?
Because if you are a superloose, fun, dancey, relaxing,
you need that to perform welland you go to a super strict
school, you're going to transferin the first semester.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
You're going to be miserable you know You're right,
yeah, I mean, and we, we andyou know every, like you said,
every program has kind of their,their vibe, or whatever you
want to call it.
The goal is how do we get tothe best version of ourselves?
Yep, and you're right, For somepeople that's being loose and
being relaxed and but for somepeople it's being very tight and

(01:11:58):
very focused, Like, and I'lltell you within that, from year
to year it's different.
Even at Maryland, I've hadteams where for us to compete
our best, it was like me beinglike let's go kill everybody
Like, let's destroy every teamthat
we see, like that's what theyreally like.
And then I've had years whereit's like, hey, let's go into

(01:12:21):
this meet and pretend we're theonly ones there, like I pretend
that there isn't even anotherteam.
And then I've had years whereit's let's just go have fun, I
don't like, let's not even worryabout the outcome, it's
whatever your team needs to be.
The best version, version ofthemselves, is what you need to
do.
And and then to your point ifyou're a student athlete and you
know for me to be my best, Ineed, I need it to be fun, or I

(01:12:47):
need then go to programs thatkind of share that philosophy.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
Yeah, absolutely, and I think I want to kind of wrap
this one up too with a bit of atransition to a conversation
around injuries.
A little bit is that, you know,I've seen, I think, along with
a lot of the things we talkedabout, honesty in response to
adversity, I think, is somethingthat a lot of coaches look at
and respect, right.
So obviously, how you handleyourself when you do well, you
want to be humble, but also likegymnastics is mostly letdowns.

(01:13:14):
You know it's like a lot morenegatives than positives.
So you know whether it'sinjuries or not doing well at a
meet, and I think a lot ofcoaches that I know that are
friends.
They find a lot out aboutprospective athletes, about how
they respond to failure and howthey respond to letdown and
adversity, right, whether that'sgoing to be, are you honest
about this?
You tell us upfront?
Or is this something that youkind of buried for a year and
didn't let us like find out?

(01:13:35):
And I'm not going to tell,obviously, who or where.
It's privileged information,but I was consulting with a very
large team and I, for someweird twist of fate, was
treating the person and also onthe consulting side for them.
And this athlete, wonderfulgymnast, high level, very sour
personality, did not handleadversity Well, um, did not do

(01:13:55):
well with competition at all.
She was just unfortunately alittle in a little bit of a
bratty phase.
She's nationals.
She fell, slams her grips down,pouts off, moves away, nowhere
to be seen in the bathroom.
And I two weeks later, on theconsulting side, you know, had a
conversation and not about her,but in general they're like,
yeah, you know, we saw thisathlete at nationals we were
looking at and, um, they werelike the worst sour personality

(01:14:16):
we've ever had and like weactually are moving away from
offering her something becauseshe slammed her grips down.
She walked away and for me Iwas just like I don't know who
you're talking about, but like Iknow and like she was a great
gymnast, very high level, butlike that's a perfect example of
like personality and yourresponse to adversity and you
know your ethics and your moralsand your behaviors.
Like, unfortunately, I thinkthat might have cost her her

(01:14:37):
spot in that team.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
Yeah, and I'll tell you this is that's a great
lesson for recruits.
When I come to watch a practice, I'm giving my secrets away
here, but yeah, like, I'mlooking for the gymnastics,
obviously, but I want to see youknow, yeah, how do you act
after a bad turn, like, how areyou with your teammates, how are
you with the coaches, how youknow what's you know?

(01:15:04):
Are you with your teammates,how are you with the coaches,
how you know what's you know?
Are you taking the extra turns?
Like it's all those littleintangibles that that I continue
to watch, because not only isthat behavior bad for you, for
you personally, right, that'sthat we already have enough.
In gymnastics.
We're a sport that's based onperfection.
You almost never get it.
Like we're based on the 10 andlike almost every routine you're
gonna do your entire life.
You're not gonna get a test,like it's already so hard on you

(01:15:27):
mentally by by, you know,expressing frustrations, like in
those ways, like slamming downyour grips and those things,
you're harming yourself evenmore mentally.
The other thing is what's thatdoing for your teammates?
Right, like the girl who has togo up next?
Right, she wants to get in thismental space.
That's like I can do this Like.

(01:15:49):
This is going to be great, thisroutine is going to be awesome,
and at the corner of her eyethere's this gymnast.
That's just the worst thing inthe world just happened.
I'm slamming my grips.
The world has ended.
We might as well pack up and gohome.
Like, how does that next gymnastfeel?
Getting on that?
Getting on that event?
Hopefully it's not beam, butyou know, no matter what events

(01:16:11):
it is like, that is not a greatsetup for the next athlete.
So, just like I said that goesback to my point Like I'd rather
take a good gymnast.
That's going to add to ourculture.
I want the gymnast that makes amistake in a meet and um, that
gymnast should be the first oneup to the next gymnast and say,

(01:16:31):
hey, you got this, like you gotthis.
Don't worry my, my, myroutine's over.
You got this Like.
You can do it.
You can bring us back Right.
That's the evolution of thatculture and we're always looking
for for kids that want to dothat.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
To the, to the upside right, which is obviously the
negative we don't want, butsomeone who swallows that
adversity well and, you know,takes 20 seconds to walk away.
Okay, it's over and I come back.
I'm the team's more importantthan me.
Like those things are huge.
Oh my God, this is, this is anincredible person.
We want this person as part ofour program.
You know, that's something thatputs a shining beacon of hope
on you and from a recruitingpoint of view, it's a benefit

(01:17:05):
for you too, as as the athlete,if you're going through.

Speaker 2 (01:17:08):
If the routine didn't go the way you want, the
quicker you can get back tocheering for a teammate or
supporting another studentathlete on your team.
You know, obviously it's goingto help them in that next
routine they have coming up, butit's going to help you too.
You're going to start feelingbetter.
You got to leave that routinethat you just did behind you and
move on, because you might haveanother routine.

(01:17:29):
You got to do Don't, don'tcarry that with you, that energy
, it's just wasted.
It's wasted time and wastedenergy.
The routine happened.
It didn't go your way, leave itand start getting mentally
ready for the next one.
And, dave, you and myself, likeI, had a multi-fall palm horse
routine in college.

(01:17:49):
I got a couple of fives, I got acouple of fives Like there were
a couple of routines thatdidn't go super well for me, but
you know what?
I'm in the vault lineup.
So it's like I can't just sitaround and and feel bad about
how that palm horse routine went.
I got to get ready for vault.
So same with you If you fall onbeam.
You got to get ready for floor,like floor's coming up.
Let's be in a mental space forfloor.
Leave beam where it is.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
Yeah, for sure.
And I think on this note,there's another like little sub
niche topic that I want to justhit on before we wrap up is so I
work with a lot of likesophomore, junior level, you
know, perspective, collegewhatever's, and things happen,
man, people get banged up,injuries happen, people fall and
I think the gymnast perspectivein their recruiting situation
is like I'm not going to tellanybody, I'm just going to try
to get this better or worse.

(01:18:32):
Is that they want me to helpthem push through the meets,
letting up to stage regionals,nationals, Cause they want to be
like you know, showing thatthey're tough and showing
whatever, and who knows whetherit's pressure from parents or
that they're putting onthemselves.
But like I am constantlytelling, like that age of
sophomore and junior levelathletes like, listen to me, I
know the college coaches Well,they do not want you hurt.
They also do not want youtrying to push through and

(01:18:54):
making things worse and then nowyou're rolling this shoulder
thing with you into college,Like I promise you, they would
rather you rest, get completelyhealthy, take the summer to
rehab and have your junior yearor your senior year be all of
you.
What you saw and like I think Idealt with four girls before
nationals that all ankle, knee,shoulder, whatever.
They're like no, I gottacompete, I gotta compete.
I'm like why, why do you haveto do?

(01:19:16):
One of you was committed.
You didn't go, so they don'teven know.
But like the other three, I'mlike I promise you that, like,
the risk of you hurting yourselfmore or falling right Is not
going to be great, and if youjust hide it from them and say
like, oh no, I'm fine, nothing'shurt, I'm totally okay when you

(01:19:36):
have surgery.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
Well, you're lying.
They know, let's look at you,push through, you get to that
meet, but then you do really bad, like how's that going to help
you in recruiting?
And then to, like you said, notbeing honest with the coaches
during the recruiting process.
You know, even if you end upgoing to that university, you've
you've started yourrelationship on the basis of
mistrust, right, like that's nothow we just talked about

(01:20:00):
building culture andcommunication, and like you're
starting off on the wrong foot.
It's really hard to build a realrelationship with your student
athletes If it's if the firstthing that you ever did together
was a lie.
Right, like you didn't tell usand a lot of times remember that
a lot of this us collegecoaches were former athletes

(01:20:21):
ourselves.
Do you think that we thinkevery athlete is going to come
to us without injuries?
Like, don't be afraid to tellus that you have some back
issues, because guess what?
Almost everyone we take has hadsome sort of injury in their
past.
I've never gotten a studentathlete.
That's like I've never beeninjured before.

(01:20:42):
Right, so don't be afraid totell your coaches.
I think you'll be surprised tohear from them like, hey, that's
okay, like make sure you takethe proper time and rest it,
because we want to see you outthere competing at full peak
performance, not at 60, at 60,70, and we want you to be safe,

(01:21:02):
right, and we don't, like yousaid, we don't want to turn a
two, three week recovery take alittle break into a six month
yeah surgery like you cancertainly make things worse
really fast in gymnastics.
So, yep, listen to your body, bebe honest with yourself and
your coaches.
Um and and and.
Don't be afraid to.
You know, sit and meet out ifyou need to, you know yeah yeah,

(01:21:26):
so we do it in college too weyep.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
Exactly that's what I was gonna say.
I'm happy you said that toobecause, like I think the
college every college coachprobably was a gymnast or
somewhat and has been throughthings themselves and to your
point, is like everybody hassomething and I always joke
around with the girls.
I'm like, well, good thing foryou, you're the first gymnast to
ever have a labrum injury everand so you're pretty much a
one-of-one and you're.
No one exists besides you.

Speaker 2 (01:21:45):
I'm like comma, every person has shoulder pain at
some point and it's fixable yeah, yeah and say and in college
too, there there have been meetswhere we'll rest student
athletes.
Um, yeah, we would like theirscore in that lineup.
But hey, you know, I reallywant them healthy the back half
of the season.
So we're gonna keep them outfor a couple weeks, let that

(01:22:07):
ankle heal up.
Maybe they'll only do bars,whatever you need to do.
But um, yeah, apply that toyourself in the club process as
well yep.

Speaker 1 (01:22:16):
And to the positive point the same person who
doesn't slam their grips downbut is over there helping your
teammate, the person who says,hey, listen, this is what's
happening.
Like my shoulder's been buggingme a bit, uh, I've been doing a
lot of releases, but I justwant to be honest with you.
You know it's a little sore.
I'm not going to be competingfor a cup, I'm going to petition
in, I'm going to get this rightand then I'm going to be good
to go for whatever.
Like that speaks volumes toyour character.
That you're willing to have ahard conversation, that, even

(01:22:36):
though you were nervous to tellthem you did, like it kind of
ties back into this whole thing.
Well of, like the opposite isactually better for you.
Is that being upfront, beinghonest, saying like I'm actually
going through PT, like here'sme doing PT and my videos, like
I'm doing all the things I needto be long-term successful?
Um, it speaks to your characteras a young person, possibly
going to college?

Speaker 2 (01:22:54):
and builds trust and builds trust.
So we on our team, if, if, if agymnast comes in and says, like
we talked about, hey, I I'msore today or I stayed up
studying or whatever it is, canI, you know, can I move to these
routines to tomorrow, and and,and we say, yes, we'll give you
that trust.
And then they do it Right, theycome in tomorrow and they they

(01:23:16):
follow up on their word.
Like now you've really, you'rereally building a lot of trust
that I have athletes when we getto junior and senior year,
where they're like, hey, I, youknow, like I can't do it today,
is it okay if I do it later, ahundred percent, because you've
built, I have nothing, but, uh,I have no reason not to believe
you because you've been true toyour word your entire time here

(01:23:38):
at Maryland.
So, absolutely, you can takethis break, skip this day,
whatever you need to do, becausewe've built that trust.

Speaker 1 (01:23:46):
Yeah, man, I could literally sit here and talk to
you for another two hours, butunfortunately we have both
things to do.
But last question, given theproximity to trials, is Olympics
thoughts.
Hot takes, anything goodthoughts.

Speaker 2 (01:24:02):
Hot takes anything good.
Um, I said it earlier in thepodcast, but, um, I think, man,
the us, where the talent isimmense.
Here in this country we have,like I said, we could put
together four olympic teams andI think they'd be in the top
five.
Um, I don't envy the selectioncommittee.
Right, like, however you sliceit, there's gonna be some of the
the best.
I mean, this statement is is sotrue.
Without a doubt, there will bea gymnast who is one of the best

(01:24:26):
in the world that will not makeour olympic team like gosh.
That that's tough to say, youknow, because you only get five
and um, but, that being said,it's going to be exciting.
I, you, you know I can't waitto watch.
If you're, if you're, locked ingymnastics, you already know
everything I'm saying.
If you're not, watch, watchOlympic trials, watch the

(01:24:50):
Olympics, watch every sport man.
When the every summer, I try towatch every sport.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
I love watching every sport during the Olympics.
We just leave it on tv like allday long.

Speaker 2 (01:24:59):
It's so cool exactly it's cool, like it's really man
and it's so historic.
It's been going on for, for youknow, 100 years.
I went to the original olympicstadium in greece on my wife and
I went on our honeymoon likejust the history of it and that
the world has been comingtogether every four years to
like see who's the best athletein this.

(01:25:20):
Like it's just so cool.
And I love to see a countrypride, like I love to see the U?
S pride and then you knowEngland and France, like
wherever you're from, like beingreally proud of your, your
athletes, representing yourcountry.
It's so cool to get out thereand do it.
So if you can watch, watch itall and go team USA.

Speaker 1 (01:25:41):
Yeah, man, what a great way to finish Nice little
holistic campfire moment.
I thank you and JJ Aaron Morgan, everybody.
You guys are crushing and Iappreciate your willingness to
kind of share behind the curtaina bit and help a lot of people
who are probably very feelingvery good about the situation
now after listening to thispodcast.
So thank you for everything,man.

Speaker 2 (01:25:58):
And you too, like the work you're doing for the
gymnastics community is likeunmatched man.
We're all getting like we wetalked about.
We're all getting better as ascoaches and staff, and a lot of
it has to do with the, theknowledge we're gaining from you
.
So thank you so much for allyour research and everything
you're sharing with everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:26:16):
Pleasure man.
I'm going to have this meetingand then go to Jimmy John's and
try my second sandwich.

Speaker 2 (01:26:20):
Let's go.
Number 13, Cubano Delicious.
All right, man.
Have a good day Later, buddy.

Speaker 1 (01:26:25):
Peace.

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