Episode #143 - Round 2 - Tommy Zaferes, Contract Photographer & Head of USAT Talent ID

Tommy Zaferes reflects on his evolving personal life and professional role in triathlon, discussing the need for better athlete development, marketing, and structured pathways—especially in draft-legal racing. He emphasizes initiatives like Summer Sharpeners, the importance of supporting young talent (particularly women), and aligning efforts with programs like Project Podium. He also highlights the value of coach incentives, education, and creating a sustainable pipeline to grow the sport in the U.S.

Tommy’s IG: https://www.instagram.com/tzaferes/

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
How's it going everybody? And welcome back to another
edition of the Stupid Questions podcast.
Today on the pod, we're going tobe talking with Tommy Zafiris.
This is a round two interview hewas on not too long ago.
It's probably about a year now and hopefully we'll continue to
have these conversations with him once a year just to see how
things have been going on, the development pipeline that he
continues to work on for USA Triathlon, the work he does with

(00:20):
WTS, and so many other things. So don't want to talk and spoil
too much, but I hope you enjoy this conversation with Tommy
Zafiris. Hour from now.
Perfect, that's all we need. One hour.
You can do a lot in an hour. All.
Right, let's let's do it. Sweet.
Well, how you doing? What's what's been new in your
world? I mean, you've got probably

(00:40):
what, 12 months between the lasttime we talked.
So there's a lot that happened, I'm sure.
Yeah, it's actually not that new.
I mean, just my son who's two years old, almost 3 now, is just
grown up vast and he's able to ride a pedal bike now so we can
go on bike rides. I think that's probably the
biggest change is that's pretty fun and doing actual sports with
him because I think probably thelast time we talked I couldn't

(01:03):
really do much with him, yeah, because he was like just
learning how to walk. But yeah, it's like, it's really
good now with hanging out with him.
So yeah, he's loving daycare life too.
So. Oh, another big change.
Katie's working for USA Triathlon now and.
She's retired. Talk to her about that.
Racing. So man, that's the big change as
well now working together with her in a completely different

(01:25):
capacity. So yeah, figuring out the the
work life balance there. And sometimes we'll be in the
same room working and I'm like trying to work on a project and
she'll just keep asking me questions about things that
she's working on. I'm like, you need to schedule
time with me like. That's what she told me when we
talked a few weeks ago. That's so funny.
Yeah, right. Yeah, I was good.
And yeah, backing off the world triathlon stuff a little bit to

(01:47):
stay home a little bit more, butstill traveling a bit.
And yeah, so. When you yeah, when you guys had
a Kimball and now she's by the way, when is she she?
Isn't she pregnant again? So when did she do?
Yeah, she's due July 5th, which is the same due date as Kimball
was three years ago. So that's amazing.
What? What actual day was Kimball

(02:07):
born? On July 7th, so 7/7/2022.
Yeah, well that could be fun or not fun depending on how you
look at I guess if she. Ends up having any.
Yeah, there's going to be pros and cons of it all, but.
Yeah, yeah, 22 back-to-back birthdays.
That's funny. So I'm curious with the change
in pace that you're talking about with trying to spend more
time at home, has this been something that you've been

(02:28):
looking forward to for, for a while and now you're like really
taking advantage of it? Or is it just this is what the
the best you think is for the family?
So when the first kind of discussion was about setting up
like the yearly calendar with things that were going on with
Katie starting her new role and stuff, I was actually pretty
bummed because I'm like, that's one of my favorite things about
the last 10 years of my life is like being part of the triathlon

(02:51):
community and traveling a bunch.And like the people that you
train with and going to the races and seeing all those
athletes, they become your family.
So it's like some of your best friends are the ones that, yeah,
you're training with every day and seeing at the races.
And so now it just felt like it was kind of getting cut off,
that it was just like stopping. And so I was kind of sad about
that. But then now that Kimball's

(03:11):
getting older and we're doing a bunch of stuff with USA
Triathlon and like, it's super busy.
When I travel now, I'm like, well, it's overwhelming.
It's stressful. I'm like, how did I travel
before? Like before, it seems so normal,
but but it's just like, Oh yeah,it's a lot.
So I am actually very glad that I kind of made that decision
earlier on to yeah, back off a little bit on the travel.

(03:31):
I'll still work like photographywise at around 7 races this
year, but five of those races will be domestic.
And so it's a much. Less travel time, yeah.
Maybe like 3 days or four days Max rather than like full on one
weeks and going across the world.
And yeah, so earlier this year Idid do Abu Dhabi, which was a
big trip. And then at the end of the year,
I'm doing Wollongong, Australia for the grand final, so that's

(03:55):
gonna be a big trip as well. But in the middle, everything
domestic. Yeah.
Do you have, has your relationship with traveling
changed since you've been in this profession?
Because I know most people get the fly for the first time.
It's like, this is exciting. And then after you do it about
10 times you like this is annoying.
It's changed both good and bad because you get annoyed with it

(04:15):
when you have to travel with your bike and like you pack your
bike, unpack it, and then you have to pack it again.
And like you're doing laundry every single day because you
only pack like a little bit of stuff because you have to go
from place to place to place. And so you're doing bathtub
laundry. Like that gets old pretty quick.
And then now I'm like, yes, I get to travel with just my
cameras. Like I don't have to bring a
bike. I just like fly there.

(04:36):
It's like carry on only basically.
And yeah, it just makes travel so much easier.
But then when I get there, I'm like, man, I don't have my bike.
Like this is kind of a bummer. I wish I could ride because I'm
like not travelling as much. So I'm not like sick of it.
Yeah. So I dip in and out with the
feelings about it. But I guess it's like anything
like you really like a food, butif you eat it too much, then
you're not feeling it anymore. So yeah, travelling like, yeah,

(04:58):
you may like it a lot in the different places.
But then if you're just constantly doing it all the
time, then you're just like, OK,this is this is now a job.
It's no longer like fun. Yeah, for sure.
So with the world triathlon stuff, you're still doing that.
Are you still doing kind of the scouting and help work with USIT
with Project Podium and whatnot?So not project Podium, but yeah,
USAT, basically the most simple way to say is I'm a recruiter

(05:21):
and that's my full time job is finding athletes who don't know
what the sport of triathlon is, who are world class runners with
a significant swim background. So basically world class
swimmers as well and introducingthe sport of triathlon to them.
So that's like my main role, butI do work for USA Triathlon like
in the development space. So I'll work with Parker just
like brainstorming ideas and like trying to come up with how

(05:43):
do we make USA Triathlon better?How do we develop this pipeline?
How do we create more opportunity for younger
athletes? Like how do we make incentives
for people to want to do this? And how do we incentivize
coaches to want to work with athletes and how do we
incentivize people wanting to dodraft legal racing or be
invested in draft legal? And how do we grow that side of
the sport in the US? And yeah, it's a, it's a huge

(06:03):
long process. But yeah, the whole high
performance team's really good and it's awesome working with
everyone and just kind of like starting from scratch and just
brainstorming, like, what can wedo better that's going to help
future generations of USA Triathlon?
And then like, how do we implement that on a limited
budget? Or what do we need to be able to
do that in like 1 step at a time, but thinking like, you
know, eight years in advance, like 2 Olympic cycles away, It's

(06:25):
like what do we have to implement now in order to be
successful 8 years from now and stuff.
And it's hard because like we'vetried multiple different things.
Or like USA Triathlon as a wholehas tried multiple different
things. But then it's like bandwidth,
like the people who are in the roles, like sometimes they leave
and then like nobody picks up that up.
And sometimes they try things and that didn't work.
And so then you just revert backto like the old way.

(06:47):
But then changing things like takes like 4 years.
And then it's like 4 years down the road, you figure out that,
OK, maybe that plan wasn't a good plan.
And so then you have to change things back.
And then that takes, you know, years to kind of like recoup.
And so it's, it's not like you just try something and then the
next week you you change it. It's like, yeah, things are very
long term here, which also makesit very exciting.

(07:07):
But yeah, you're kind of workingblind because you're like, I
just hope that this is better. Yeah, for sure.
And like. You're talking with different
committees and different people in the know and you're studying
past data and like looking up all kinds of information about
what other countries are doing and like different development
processes and pipelines and all that stuff.
And you're just trying to come up with your own that's
innovative as the sports innovating itself.

(07:31):
But at the same time you don't reinvent the wheel.
And then also at the same time like you have to do this without
spending money, which is like the biggest strain because.
Yeah, almost impossible. Yeah, and.
Then you're trying to keep the most people happy at the most
time, I guess, but you're there's always going to be
angry, upset people and there's always going to be some outliers

(07:52):
that like these policies are like this plan isn't going to
work for like this one off thing.
But I'm trying to come up with the best plan for the majority.
So the greater good, I guess youcould say.
Yeah. Who do you think in terms of
countries is leading the way on having just the best pipeline
for future development? It's a good question because it

(08:14):
does fluctuate a little bit. But currently right now you're
looking at Germany and Germany just has so many Rockstar
athletes that their top like 8 could be basically top 30 at
like every WTCS race. And like that's how like the
American women were in a couple years ago and like GB women,
like France, like their pipelineon the men's side like is huge.

(08:37):
And so I would say Germany, Great Britain and and France are
kind of like the leaders. And then yeah, USAT like we're,
we're hanging in there. But I think yeah, we, we have
work to do with the other, the future pipelines and development
and stuff. Yeah, I'd almost wonder like
what what percentage of that development success is based on

(09:00):
just the luck of the jaw with the genetic pool of like, OK,
who, who is interested in the sport right now?
Because I've seen a lot of timesin just from my limited
experience with professional athletics, you'll meet people
who are not at all interested inathletics, but have a tremendous
amount of like natural ability and talent.
But then they will be literally disinterested.
But then other people who are very interested may not have as

(09:22):
much talent. And you know, you can, you can
get to where you get. But when you have that golden
star line up with they're good at what they also enjoy doing.
I feel like that definitely would probably help build up the
the credibility of a program. Yeah.
And especially like the countries I just mentioned, they
have superstars that they're notjust superstars within the
sport. They're non endemic superstars

(09:44):
where even though they're triathletes, they're famous
amongst just regular people. They're in the news like winning
an Olympic medal or going to theOlympics or performing, winning
a world title. Like all of these things just
elevate their sport and it makesyounger athletes see that on TV,
see them doing interviews, see them in the newspapers, see them
in the in the articles everywhere, like see them online

(10:04):
and like it's just getting plastered everywhere because
they're quote famous in the country as a whole.
Whereas in the US, like if somebody does something in
triathlon, like it's not going to make national news.
Like unfortunately, like the viral videos of triathletes are
always them like throwing up or pooping their pants or something
like. That.
That's all people think triathlon is.

(10:26):
And yeah, there's never any liketriathlon viral videos because
somebody is incredible at what they're doing.
There's no way for. Younger cheap entertainment for
the US want to. Achieve that, you know.
So yeah, it's unfortunate. Yeah, it's interesting.
Hopefully that changes. I feel like we throw that on
ourselves and to some degree, but then you hear about these

(10:47):
algorithms being specifically targeted to like US populations
to kind of it's just all about being funny or what not.
And it kind of dumps people downto and we get less of the
content that you're talking about, like the, oh, that person
is doing something amazing physically so that this is
therefore interesting to watch. And I feel like it's hard to
with triathlon because when you combine the swimming and the

(11:07):
running, like because triathlon is all about points and like
finish position and times, like courses are always different.
Race dynamics are always different.
The general public doesn't know what a time means in triathlon.
And like, we can try to break itdown where it's like, oh, Alex
Yee ran 29 flat off the bike like for 10K.
And then it's just like commentsbeing like, oh, that's not a

(11:29):
real 10K. The course was probably short or
like whatever. And like, people aren't.
Grasping. They're not able to, like,
compare themselves to triathletes to figure out if
what they're doing is amazing. So like even if somebody wins a
race and they run 30 flat, like on the guy's side runners, we'll
look at that and be like, there's 2000 people that can run

(11:50):
30 minutes and 10. K but after smashing your legs
for 20. Minutes, yeah, if you combine
the swim times and the run timesplus like their bike power,
which how many people know what all three of those things mean?
Only triathletes. It's like such a small niche
thing, like you're not going to impress anybody with those
numbers outside of triathletes. And that's what I find like with
my job because I'm looking for the world class runners of the

(12:11):
swim background. They don't even know that their
runtime, which may be for running, it is pretty good, but
it's not like exceptional, it's not pro.
It's not like you're going to bethe best and go to the Olympics
for running and then swimming. It's like, yeah, maybe you could
get a scholarship to school, butyou're not even going to make
the finals at NCAA. Like you're kind of just like on
the verge of good good, but you're not great.

(12:33):
But those two things combined make you one of the best in the
world at triathlon. Like they don't even realize
that those times like together make them one of only like a few
athletes in the world. And so like the rest of the the
population, especially in the US, like there's no way they're
going to grasp that if the people doing it themselves don't
even know that, you know what I mean?
So it's hard and trying to figure that that aspect out of

(12:57):
marketing wise, I'm trying to market the professional side of
the sport while trying to marketthe participation side of the
sport and how that kind of collides in the US is, is tough.
What are some of the things thatyou guys are throwing against
the wall to see what sticks in order to communicate that or
educate? I mean, there's a level of
education, I don't know if it will ever be able to be solved,

(13:18):
but what do you think? Like is there some things you
guys are trying right now? Basically localized recruitment.
And so when I go through all my list of names and I'm like
trying to find all the athletes,I basically color code a list of
anybody that I find who has swimming and running times.
And then I'll send the list to the NCAA coaches so that they
can reach out to these athletes and tell them that like,

(13:40):
triathlon is an opportunity if you want to get a scholarship,
like to come to our school or there's collegiate club
opportunities. And then yeah, localized
recruiters who like regionally are reaching out to like high
schools and trying to start clubs there and just spread
awareness about the sport. But beyond those things, like
from a grassroots perspective, there's, there's not much

(14:02):
happening other than than that. And yeah, I'm trying to create
more project podium type successacross the board in development
where it's like, hey, you have the potential to be a
professional triathlete, go to school online and pursue a
sport. But then also like get your
degree and kind of turning on its head that it's like you need

(14:25):
to be a student athlete rather than being an athlete student
and having people see that thereis opportunity there for having
a successful career as a professional athlete, which is
like a lot of people think it's pretty unattainable.
I met a lot of people's parents are like, yeah, that's like not
a sustainable career path. So we'd rather you focus on the

(14:45):
educational portion. And we're missing the entire,
you know, peak years of your college age where you could be
focusing on the sport, but instead focusing on education,
which is great. Like, I I think that's both
aspects are important. But if you have an athlete
that's showing like super talentin triathlon, like.
Where they feed it. They, yeah, they definitely
could make this a sustainable career and like eventually go to

(15:08):
the Olympics and stuff. And they also could get a
degree. To me, I'm growing up in the
generation where it's like I'm not using my degree in
philosophy like at all. And it's all about the
experiences that I've had, the people that I've met, and then
the skills that I've attained onmy passion.
And when you become passionate about something, you focus in on
that and it kind of brings you to the people that you need to

(15:31):
know in that area. And if you capitalize on that,
then you're going to fall into aline of work that aligns with
your passion or your love. And by doing that, it's going to
provide opportunity in your life.
So to me, I'm of the opinion that it's like, try to pursue
these things that you have skills at and if you love it,
then just continue to do it. Like obviously I don't want
somebody, even if they're just talented at triathlon but hate

(15:53):
it, like to do that, don't, thatdoesn't make sense.
But if we give them the opportunity and they fall in
love with the sport, like I would rather rather than pursue
that and then know in the back of their mind that this is going
to lead them to something else or where they're meant to be in
their life rather than like focusing on just getting a
degree. So they have this on a piece of
paper so that when they go into a job interview when they're in
their mid 20s, that they can maybe make minimum wage at some

(16:16):
like working in a cubicle or something like that.
So there's two sides of the coin.
Like, I think it's important in education and to have something
to write down on a resume, but Ido think it's a lot more about
who you know rather than what you know, and not just a name
and a degree on paper because yeah, we could get into that.
But anyway, you understand? I love that.
I love that conversation. I almost quit college multiple

(16:37):
times and my wife is the probably the primary reason why
I just stayed in and finished. So I totally get that.
What kind of friction do you seelike percentage of the time wise
between the parents and the potential, you know, college
athlete when you're talking about the education versus the
athletic pursuit? This would be more to the high

(16:59):
school athletes who are, like, deciding what they want to do in
college, where their parents have more say or they're like
influencing, like, yeah, going to school online, like an online
degree is not a real degree. Like that's kind of the mindset.
And so they're like, you have togo to a respectable college.
Like this looks better on paper.That's kind of where I'm seeing
it more in college, Like, yeah, the the kids are already in

(17:22):
college, so the parents are happy and it's kind of just more
up to the the kid what they wantto do.
And I think kids, these are these 2223 year olds.
They're still kids. Yeah, they, they, they can
decide for themselves at that stage, like what their passion
is and what they want to pursue.So I've had many athletes that
are insanely talented that couldbe incredible athletes, but
they're just more focused on, yeah, furthering their education

(17:44):
and going into the field that they're studying.
Then they don't want to give thethe sport a shot.
And so it's one of those things where you have to find the
balance of like encouraging them, but like you can't force
somebody to do something they don't want to do, even if they
could be the best in the world at it.
Like it's not going to work. They're not going to make it if
they they don't have that like self intrinsic motivation.

(18:05):
Yeah, sometimes you can. You can push to to a bend, but
not and to be flexible, but necessarily to a break and
finding that everybody's made ofa different material.
So figuring out that balance is not an easy thing I would
imagine. Yeah.
So providing the opportunity, but without forcing and hoping
that they make the decision, that's kind of the the line that
I walk the. Crux yeah, for sure.
So I'm curious, going back to what you were talking about a

(18:27):
little bit earlier, with professional athletes abroad
being a bit more endemic, and this does happen to some, I
would assume, American athletes,but it's not as as often that it
happens. But from your experience of
seeing people from like a young age, then they come into this
sport, maybe they become a bit more ubiquitous and they're just

(18:48):
becoming more famous. How have you seen in your
experience that effect the different athletes just going
from a place of obscurity to becoming, rising to be a star
and like how that affects their mental preparation, the way that
they operate as an individual. Does it help them?
Does it break them? What have you seen?
Yeah, no, I think everybody just, I think everyone has in

(19:09):
the mindset of becoming famous or whatever that it's like
overwhelming, but it's not. All it does is provide
opportunity and that helps you in the end because providing
opportunity and becoming famous like makes you valuable and it
makes you valuable to partners. And the more partners you have
and the more sponsorship and themore backing that you have, the
more funding you have and the more flexibility you have in

(19:31):
life to do what you love. So it's kind of a, I've never
seen it become to the point where they're like, Oh, this is
so overwhelming. Like I can't go anywhere without
people wanting to take a pictureof me or like, I don't know,
like it's like you get asked to like come to schools and like
everyone is just incredible. They just want to touch you or
like get a picture with you and like autograph stuff.
And I don't know if you've seen any of the Super try like behind

(19:52):
the scenes stuff. And like Toulouse, France is the
the first example that I always think of is like, you just see
these schools with these kids and like people coming out to
the stage where the athletes arejust signing things and it's
just a sea of people. And they're just obsessed with
triathlon and, and that aspect and like having that is very
valuable. And to an athlete, it's not, I

(20:13):
haven't seen anybody like get stressed out or, or break over
that. Like, yeah, it's just a value
add to to the entire sport. Yeah.
Do you think it's just because it's so much bigger in other
countries because of the historical background of
cycling? And I mean, I cycling is like
the only thing I can think of that goes back that far.
Like I'm thinking Tour de Franceand the different Tours that go

(20:34):
all around Europe. Is that why it's so much bigger
over there? Yeah, I don't really know the
answer to that question, but that is one of the reasons.
But also draft legal racing is like more important and also a
lot of these countries. So Germany has their Bundesliga,
which is their draft legal racing circuit.
France has their French Grand Prix, GB has their Super Series,

(20:56):
Italy has their Italian Grand Prixs, they have Spanish Grand
Prixs they like. They all have their own draft
legal kind of like format and all the races are or although
teams, the club teams are named or based in locations and
they're all backed by those specific locations.
So a lot of people are racing for the city that they live near

(21:17):
or the club team that's named after the city that's backed by
the city. So it's it's not that like it's
just a triathlon club. It's like literally the whole
town, the whole city, like the whole area is backing these
people to like, do sport. To an export.
For them, yeah. And, and, and like in the US,
like as an, for example, if we have NCAA and you can get a

(21:38):
scholarship for like swimming orfor running and now for women's
triathlon. But what is the incentive when
you're in high school to pursue these sports is, oh, I can get a
scholarship in college. And then once I get to college,
like it's paying for my education.
So that's why I'm doing this. And if I get good enough, then
maybe I'll get a contract for a professional sports team or
whatever. And if I don't get quite good

(21:59):
enough in college, Oh well, I'lljust go into the working world.
Like, what is the incentive in triathlon to continue doing it
if you're in high school? Like let's say you're a male and
you're not going to get a scholarship for triathlon, but
you could get a scholarship for swimming or running.
Like, why would you choose triathlon when you could get a
full ride or something for doinga single sport?
And then after you graduate fromcollege, what do we have in the

(22:21):
United States that you can just pursue in Triathlegal racing?
Nothing. Like there's literally nothing
there. Whereas like you can get
professional contracts and like Division One, division two,
Division Three in France or likein Germany, like you can get
signed to these teams to race their French Grand Prix, which
is like 5 races throughout the year in like all the different

(22:42):
cities. And you could sign for a
Bundesliga German team and like race 5 races there and you get
start money, you get prize moneyand you get equipment from your
team. And there's incentive to
continue to pursue the sport andtry to get good.
Because if you get good, then you're backed by your club,
you're backed by sponsors and you have the opportunity to get
starts at world triathlon racingand get into the World Cups and

(23:04):
then start working your way towards Olympic points.
And then you're on that Olympic pathway.
It's just a much more, there's aladder, there's like a stair
step that is directly from like younger kids development all the
way up to like the Olympic Games.
And in the US, it's just completely, there's way too big
of steps for people to want to like pursue that.
And so it cut just cuts down on the amount of people who want to

(23:28):
do that because of that reason that there's there's nothing
that will benefit them if they do pursue that other than like
spending their own money on it. Like, yeah, we don't have a
draft legal series in the US that leads to anything.
And your world triathlon racing opportunities that you have like
you have to travel internationally.
We only have one race a year in the US and that was Miami this

(23:49):
year. And that race is alongside
collegiate club nationals and NCAA.
So those races are like massively full.
And then now, like after March, every race that you'd want to go
to if it's a world triathlon race is international.
And so if you're a college kid who has no money, like, how are
you supposed to get started? Like why would you even want?

(24:10):
To move to Europe. So that's what we're working
through, is trying to build something that incentivizes
athletes to continue to race, draft legal racing and then also
bring draft legal racing to morelocal races so that people have
the opportunity who are just agegroupers to participate in that
side of the sport to make them interested in it.

(24:30):
And then hopefully that kind of.Snowball.
Build a community. The bigger races and like I've
wanted to kind of implement that.
We're still working on this stuff.
And but the idea is like in cycling, they have CAT5, Cat 4,
Cat 3, Cat 2, Cat one pro. They have the different levels
that you have to race. The better you race, then you
cat up and then you race in yourdifferent classification, but
there's not ages because it's just like your ability.

(24:53):
And so if we had something similar to that in triathlon
where now this is your incentiveis you can go from CAT5 to CAT4
and then Cat 4. To I would love that, yeah,
that'd be so much fun. USA Swimming is a perfect
example. They have C * B * A times AA AAA
quadruple APRTNRT Olympic trials.

(25:13):
You know, they have like all of these different cuts of times
that all kids talk about are I need to get my AA time and once
you get AA time, I've got to getmy AAA time.
Like I'm so close. I got to drop like half a second
to get my quadruple a time. We know like that's all they
talk about is the next step. And in triathlon, there's no
next step. And so we need to create that to
incentivize younger kids to wantto keep pursuing it to try to

(25:37):
achieve something that is attainable other than like, all
right, I'm in high school. Here's the junior series.
Now the junior series is over. Now the next thing is like the
national team, it's like that's impossible.
So yeah, there needs to be a bridge to to cover that and have
smaller stepping stones that keep incentivizing people to
come back and. How, how close are we to having

(25:59):
that type of a segmentation categorization system is?
I mean, who do you, who do we have to convince to make that
happen? Iron Man like not.
Actively like right now. So we've already updated USA
Triathlon draft legal rules. So there was a change that was
made about 20 years ago that allthe domestic draft legal races
were following world triathlon rules.

(26:21):
And the reason was is so that athletes who are racing in the
US, they would get the world triathlon experience so that
when they would race a world triathlon race.
Or go international. They'd be ready for that.
And so then that it makes it like closed courses, looped
courses. It has to be a separate race.
It can't be like during another race like you, you have all
these specific rules that need to be followed.

(26:43):
And what happens is that made itvery expensive for race
directors and makes it expensivefor USA Triathlon staff.
The officials needed to be educated in a different way
because it's completely different rules.
Your venue for triathlon needs to be very specific because to
do a looped course that was safeand all closed and stuff like

(27:04):
that is very hard. So anyway, there was all these
like, roadblocks in creating draft legal racing.
So then it kind of narrowed downwho was running these races.
It was only a few people who arewilling to put this on.
And like a lot of times race directors are losing money
because also field sizes were capped.
So it's like if they're trying to make money and get more
people to participate, draft legal racing was doing the

(27:25):
opposite of that. So we what we want to do is now
implement draft legal waves in front of age group racing.
So instead of having a separate race, it's literally just a wave
that starts 30 minutes before all the non draft races.
It's on the same course. So it doesn't have to be loops.
It could just be an out and backor one big loop OF20K or 40K,
whatever it is, and the race is now just draft legal.

(27:47):
And you we also implemented there's no lap out rule.
So if the there are multiple loops, if you get lapped, you're
not out of the race. You can just jump on the back of
the the race. And so now race directors, if
they want to host a draft legal race, they can contact USAT and
say here's my course, here's theplan, here's the roads that are
going to be closed off. They can use the same officials

(28:09):
for the non draft race and for the draft legal race.
So they don't have to add extra officials.
They don't have to add extra rules.
Athletes who are just getting started like they don't need a
Tri bike to do non draft and have the the advantage.
They could just do it on a regular road bike.
Athletes, it's from ages 16 and up.
So it's all ages. And ideally if we have, let's
just say we have 10 races this year in the US Now it's spread

(28:32):
across the US where people have the opportunity to race draft
legal. But in in the future, let's make
those 10 races make it so that your finished position gets you
points towards catting up. And then we be we grow this to
like 20 races. And let's just say this is
hypothetical. None of this exists yet.
But like, let's say the New Yorktriathlon, LA triathlon cap

(28:55):
techs, like a race in Florida orwhatever, like spread out some
of the more major non draft races.
If they had a draft legal wave in front of those.
But those were only like cat oneraces.
So now you need to race other draft legal races in order to
cat up to even get into those. And then those races qualify you
for like age group nationals or age group world champs at world

(29:15):
triathlon or they, they qualify you for something.
But it's basically you're just trying to get your points and
your cat up so that you can get starts or priority position for
races that matter more. And then that's kind of your
your pathway to being professional.
And then also if you have eventually, let's say every
single non draft race in the whole country all had a draft

(29:38):
legal wave before it. Now everyone knows what it is.
Everyone has the possibility to race that.
And it's more on people's mind and they get the experience so
that it kind of, I don't want tosay they respect the Olympic
athletes more, but like it kind of means more to them.
And then for sponsors within theUS, if draft legal racing
becomes more prominent and it becomes more popular, that's

(29:59):
better for the top athletes because now sponsors actually
care about that. And then if sponsors care, then
these athletes can be funded better.
And if they're funded better than they can perform better and
and so on. So that's the idea is like,
let's just grow the draft legal side of racing.
Let's create smaller steps that want that make people want to
continue to pursue the draft legal side of the sport.

(30:21):
Let's open up the races to 16 and up so that like the junior
race series, which is fantastic,but it only goes to 19 years
old. So now we have some top juniors
who are 19 years old and they'reracing exactly the same kids
every time and they learn how tolike win these races that they
learn the race dynamics. They're they race the same.
So I, I want them to be introduced to like racing some

(30:42):
30 year olds or 40 year olds whoare like insanely strong on the
bike or like super talented in these other aspects of the race.
But the race dynamics are completely different because
when they go to their first world triathlon race, that's
what it's going to be like. There's no age restrictions on
Continental Cup racing. And you?
Go to, nobody has elite licensesthere.
They just sign up for the race. So it it's kind of like junior

(31:04):
series and like domestic, the way that we made it, it was
almost more professional than when you go to the first level
of world triathlon racing. So when you go to that level,
it's almost like a backward stepwhere you're like, wait, I
thought I was preparing for world triathlon, but now this is
absolute chaos and I'm not readyfor this.
So we kind of want to, I don't want to say we want to create
chaos, but the race dynamic change is what is important for

(31:27):
developing the the next generation of athletes where
they don't just rely on exactly the same kids, their same age of
their same abilities. We wanted them to rate be racing
kind of a completely different format of athlete and expose
them to that so that when they get to world triathlon racing,
they're like, oh, this is normal.
This this feels right. Anyway, Yeah, it's kind of a
long. No, I dig it.

(31:49):
I dig it. Yeah, it's super informative and
like kind of unrelated, but froma like amateur age group
perspective. I wish actually that more are
all races were similar to that where you had the different
categories and because you can race your age group and like you
get to you get this concentration of certain age
groups are really fast, but thenyou have the outliers.
But if you could put people in asystem where they could graduate

(32:11):
up, I feel like that that would be it would throw luck out of
the equation a bit more because some people can go to a random
Iron Man race 70.3 and like theycan win it and they not even be
that competitive. Or the other way around where,
you know, you see somebody who'sjust super fast or just blows
everyone away and then it's likethey're on their own race rather
than, you know, going in and having people who are of your

(32:32):
same stature and level. I would love that.
So I hope it works. Can you make Iron Man do it?
Yeah. Yeah.
Sweet man. So I mean, it sounds like you're
super busy and you're saying that, you know, you're planning
5-8 years ahead and you're hoping that these things are
making changes. Obviously you're seeing some
fruits of your labor through some of these changes going

(32:55):
through and the on the draft legal side.
What other things are you starting to see if there are any
that are showing like, OK, well,my, my work does matter and I'm,
we're making a difference. We're making headway in the
right direction. Just the athletes that I've been
in touch with that I've brought to like a high school
recruitment camp in the past. And then even though they
decided to like run in college and focus on that, they still

(33:18):
during the summer. So I, I launched a new program
that is going to be happening inJuly.
It's called Summer Sharpeners. And what I was finding is that
as I was saying before about thescholarship opportunities for
athletes like in college, they would rather choose like a
single sport to like focus on that to guarantee their like
scholarship to pay for their school and stuff rather than
pursuing triathlon. And yeah, I NCAA women like you

(33:42):
can get a scholarship for triathlon, but these girls who
were just finding are like deciding on college right then
and they've only heard about triathlon for like a month.
So they're not going to like change their whole life for that
anyway. So these girls that have
decided, and I say girls becauseParker Spencer's, he's got our
men's development under control.Like they've got the best US

(34:02):
like 16 to 20 year olds right now that our men's development
pipeline is fantastic. So I'm kind of focusing more on
on the women's side. So I for my high school
recruitment camp it was just women and they've all decided to
go and run in college because they're fast enough to do that
and but I wanted to they are allinterested in trathlon and they

(34:23):
want to pursue trathlon. They're all actively doing
swimming and cycling as like supplemental training to their
running. But in between outdoor season,
outdoor track and cross country season, there's about 3 months
in the summer. So usually during that time they
go home or like they have familyvacation or it's kind of
whatever. But I wanted to provide an
opportunity for these athletes who have already been to a camp

(34:45):
and that we've identified as like you could be extremely good
at the sport. I wanted to give them an actual
training opportunity. So I started what's called
summer sharpeners. So I have 5, actually six women
who are coming out to Cary, NC, which is where Oxo Collective is
based, where my wife. And so they're going to join the
Oxo athletes, the full time ones, but just for the month of

(35:08):
July. So in the month of July, they'll
come out here to carry for one month and like be fully immersed
in the triathlon experience, in the triathlon world.
And we'll probably have one, maybe 2 like local races that
will throw them into. And the goal is because they're
freshmen in college, over the course of the next four years,

(35:29):
if they do one month out of the year, that's by the end of their
college career. That's four months.
And in my development, kind of like pathway, usually it's four
to six months that it takes athletes once they've graduated
to kind of like get their bearings and like figure out how
to to ride a bike and like maybedo one or two races.
And I call it a pre participation period where

(35:49):
basically you're just learning how to train as a triathlete and
you're transitioning your life and it's before you're actually
like actively pursuing and participating in like world
triathlon racing. So basically that's a whole
season. So once athletes have graduated
in May or June, let's say that'staking them to October, the
season is already over. So then we have to wait till the
next year, like March basically for them to like start racing.

(36:13):
So I'm like, OK, if we give themone month a year for the next 4
years, that completely eliminates the four to six month
pre participation period that they have.
So when they graduate in May or June, now they can start racing
immediately and they have an entire season.
So that accelerates their progression like through the
world triathlon pipeline and earning points and stuff by
about a year. So the goal is to have these

(36:36):
athletes stay in touch with the sport of triathlon to keep them
involved so that when they graduate, they do want to do the
sport of triathlon as a profession and like pursue the
Olympics. But then at the same time
they're getting that racing experience over the course of
their colleagues career where they're being paid to go to
school for running. So USA Triathlon doesn't have to
fund it. But yeah, that that's the idea

(36:58):
of summer sharpeners. So yeah, I've been actively
working on that as well. Yeah, that's awesome.
Is there a aim to start a women's version of Project
Podium? The idea of Oxo was that, but we
found that having and, and a lotof other countries like the
that's kind of what we're basingthings off of is having a mixed

(37:21):
training group is always better.Having athletes like the male
athletes can push the women a bit more, but then also like the
cultural dynamic. It's better to have those
different personalities. Yeah.
And sometimes it can get a a little intense with some yeah,
just single gender. Yeah, specificity, I guess.

(37:44):
So it's just nice to to have different athletes that are have
multiple different ability. So everybody has somebody to
train with. So the goal for Katie's group
Oxo is specifically for women's development for athletes who do
not choose the NCAA route. So we're we basically put
applications out and anybody who's interested like will come

(38:05):
to, but we're not like going outand actively trying to recruit
like NCAA athletes or like current juniors or whatever.
It's like we want I'm recruitingthe, you know, the two, the dual
sport athletes who don't know what the sport is and the goal
is to bring them here as well, project podium style, but not
just women. So we'll do both men and women.

(38:28):
So right now, like Katie has five signed athletes and two
men, three women. So and then the goal is to have
like 10 plus by the end of the year.
And yeah, I just have like 5 andfive.
That would be fine. But yeah, the the main goal is
to focus on the woman's development side of things,
since Project Podium is focused on the men's side.
But we'll utilize the male training partners, Yeah, as we

(38:50):
can. Do you think that Project Podium
would ever change its focus to doing like Coed and then would
that put you guys in direct competition or because they're
more focused out West it would be different or?
No, Yeah, definitely not in in competition at all.
We all work together. So yeah, Parker and Katie are
constantly in contact and Parkeris coaching a couple women right
now and that potentially could change.

(39:13):
Project Podium is growing so well and we're finding a lot of
talent that he's going to need to hire a kind of an assistant
coach and almost split his groupinto like two different things,
like a higher performing one andthen like the development side.
And so if that happens, if he splits the group, then
potentially both groups could become Coed.
The interesting part is that whole thing was created because

(39:35):
NCAA is a a scholarship opportunity for women in
college. So that's why Project Podium is
it exists is to have scholarshipopportunities for the men to
pursue triathlon like professionally.
So I think for the men, it will stay the funding model that way.
But then for the women who want to be part of Project Podium, I
think that it's going to be a little bit different.

(39:57):
So yeah. And that's something with a high
performance team. Like we kind of have a list of
talented athletes and we want the athletes to be in the best
place for them. So we kind of open it up to be
like, hey, where are you at in life?
Like what are you studying? What relationships are you in?
Where do you live? Where do you see yourself
living? Like what are all the things
that need to come together to make you your best?

(40:18):
And who are the training partners that bring the best out
of you and stuff like that. We want you to be with that
coach and that training group. Like we don't care who it is.
It is or where it is, as long asthat's what's best for you.
So we discuss every athlete and give them the opportunity to
kind of like check it out and see.
So yeah, there's, there's not really a competition at all.
It's more just like a collaboration between who's the

(40:40):
best person for this athlete andif this athlete believes that
this is the best for their development, like let's let's
pursue that. Yeah, If we were to compare the
this development pipeline to like a ladder, it sounds like
there's a lot of little rungs that need to be there from, you
know, juniors all the way up to the Olympic level.
You guys are starting to see as USAT starting to have more of

(41:01):
these rungs in place. How long do you think it's going
to take before you have like a solid, well-rounded, here's this
rung, here's this rung, like kind of built all the way out?
So there's two different parts of that right now.
We just re implemented all of the new what we call the Mallow
U 25 national team or it's a program we call it because it's

(41:23):
not really a team, you just qualify for funding and then the
senior national team. So kind of before I touched on a
little bit where it's like you graduate from the junior series
or even U23, how do you get funding?
The only way to get funding is to be on the national team.
So we're supposed to expect a 19or 20 year old to be hitting the
same metrics as like Seth Ryder or Kevin McDowell or Morgan

(41:47):
Pearson, you know, John Reed, like these guys.
Like that's such a huge jump that it's impossible.
So we made the, the senior national team now has four
tiers. The 4th tier you can only
qualify for if you've never qualified for a national team
before, the other 3 tiers, or the 4th tier if you've never
qualified for the national team.If there's two criteria that

(42:09):
need to be hit, if you hit one of them, you get on what's
called the interim national team.
And so the interim national teamfunds you to the races.
So now you're guaranteed fundingto the races, but you don't get
a living stipend or coaching stipend or like bonus structures
or anything. All you get is travel to races
and the goal is to help you not have any costs at these races,

(42:30):
but then get a secondary result to qualify you for the national
team. So, so the senior national team
has let's just say 5 tiers, 4 main ones plus the the interim
team. So that leads you starting from
like the World Cup level all theway up to like the an Olympic
medal sort of thing. And the different funding models
kind of like value your results based on on the tier.

(42:54):
So that's the senior national team.
But then we had EU 23 Mallow team before it was junior and U
23. So we had junior results and U23
results that like we're different programs or different
funding. And so then we ran into the
problem of like, OK, now we haveathletes who are part of EU 23
national team, but then they still need to get on the senior

(43:15):
national team and there's a hugejump.
So we made it now U25 and we made it 4 tiers as well.
So it matches perfectly with thesenior national team.
So it's exactly the same format,but the senior national team
starting from the Olympics and like world championship podiums,
then goes down to the 4th tier of senior national team is like
World Cup podium. And then the the top tier of

(43:38):
Mallow starts with like a World Cup top ten and then goes down
from there all the way to like Conti Cup podiums.
And in addition to that, I stillfelt like it wasn't fair that
athletes who are 20 or 21 years old had to hit the same metrics
as somebody who's 24 or 25 yearsold.
So in the Mallow team, and it's called Mallow because the Mallow

(44:00):
family donated all the money to be able to to fund this.
We USA Triathlon would never be able to fund this or support
this without their help. So shout out to the Mallow
family. They, this is their donation was
incredible. And yeah, it's been huge for us.
So the the Mallow team is now you 25 and you have the
opportunity there. There's, it's hard to explain

(44:22):
like in via podcast and I'm showing, showing you on the
screen, but yeah, it's all posted on the USA Triathlon
website. So if you're interested in
checking out the criteria, go there, check it out.
But basically you there's U25 criteria, but we also have U 23
criteria. So U 23.
If you hit an easier result, youcould qualify for the same
amount of funding as somebody who's like 24 or 25 years old,

(44:44):
only because if you're hitting ametric that is slightly easier,
but at a younger age, it should be equivalent to somebody at an
older age who should be hitting something higher.
The secondary thing is like I'm finding athletes in my role, my
main, main job of recruitment isthe CRP or the talent transfer.
So athletes who graduate and they come into the program,

(45:05):
they're 23 years old at that stage.
And so once they start, if we gothrough the like pre
participation period and everything, by the time they
start racing, they're race age like 24, sometimes 25 S With the
U23 program, there was no way for them to qualify for funding.
So now with the U25 program, they have at least two years to

(45:25):
qualify for a little bit easier of criteria to get them on a
funded program. And in addition, the previous
funding models did not have coaching incentives.
So it was the athlete that was getting like funding to races
and stuff. But now we're incentivizing via
a coaching stipend that is a significant one to help support

(45:46):
the coach. So now coaches are incentivized
to work with athletes in the draft legal space to try to get
them to go to races and achieve certain things because then they
get a like a kickback basically for having an athlete qualify.
So those things that the four tiers of mallow that leads that
bleeds straight into the four tiers of senior national team.

(46:07):
We now have the exact model of what we need of what we're
talking about with the stepping stones of funding where it's
like these are attainable things.
So if I'm a junior coming out ofthe junior series, like why
would I pursue triathlon even though like I'm not going to go
to college for that or I'm currently in college, but like,
why would I pursue draft legal? Like what are the opportunities

(46:27):
now? There's the opportunities for
you. Now you can get funding to
Continental Cup races. Now you can get funding to World
Cup races and like work your wayup.
So that has been a huge thing interms of, yeah, closing that gap
and, and creating that ladder. But that's only half the picture
is like creating the funding models.
And then the other half is like creating the coaching stepping

(46:48):
stones, the the clubs that existaround the country, the draft
legal racing opportunities. And then yeah, just growing that
side of the sport. That's kind of be a little bit
harder to bridge the gap than just creating new criteria and.
Yeah, the clubs. The clubs seem like it would be
almost the hardest part because like you said, these are like
almost towns that put their entire like that becomes their

(47:10):
export. It's like this sports centered,
I don't know, way of life and given American values and even
the size of like American towns and stuff, I feel like that
would be super difficult to try to instill.
Yeah, man, that's the the biggest $1,000,000 question is.
How you doing? Still, this in such a big

(47:30):
country where like everything's so spread out and like and, and
people don't care. So, yeah, yeah, I don't know,
buy a day, do what the NFL does,buy a day where you own the day
of the week and you push all your games and stuff.
I mean, yeah, it's it's it goes back such a long way.
And I think it really goes back to how America started and some

(47:52):
of the sports that were key and like the founding.
It's just hard to rewrite history in that way.
Like you have to really from thegrassroots build something up
and it takes so much time. So it's really cool to see how
you guys are actually doing thatthough, given the challenges.
I mean, there's, it seems like areal legit pipeline that's now
built. But yeah, you guys got your work
cut out for you. Yeah, and that's the thing with
manpower, cuz like I, I'll brainstorm a lot like with Katie

(48:16):
and then like with Parker and stuff and we come up with these
ideas, but then it's like, all right, we need a whole team of
people to be able to implement this and do this.
And then there's like, all thesehoops you have to jump through
and there's legal things, and then you have to go through
committees and like, think you can't just snap your fingers and
be like, let's change this. Like it takes months and months
and sometimes years to be able to, like, implement these

(48:38):
changes, which, yeah, it feels like it shouldn't, but it just
does. And it just takes that long.
So, yeah, actively working on it, but still trying to find the
manpower. And that's the thing with USAT.
It's not like they're rolling init, paying everybody like such
these good wages that everyone'slike, so happy to be there and
work their butts off. It's like, you got to be
passionate about what you're doing if you want to, like,

(49:00):
survive here because yeah, we'renot making tons of money, but
the only people that stay are the ones who are doing it
because they love. The sport.
Yeah, yeah. So everyone who's critical of
USAT, like they need to step back and realize that we're
trying very, very hard, like as a whole to to make the sport
better. It's just very difficult with
the manpower and like things available, different hoops and

(49:24):
yeah, yes, so it's tough. Yeah, well, obviously you're
passionate about what you do, and it sounds like there's
plenty of opportunity to find frustration.
But what keeps you, like, the most motivated?
And have you ever thought about,I'm just, I'm done with this?
Have you thought about just taking a step back and being
done because of the bureaucraticred tape?
No, no, not at all. Not yeah.

(49:44):
I love what I do. And like I haven't been doing it
long enough, even though I've been working for USAT for now
four years. Like I haven't been doing it
long enough to see any of my changes that have been
implemented, like be successful.So that's what drives me is
like, I want to see four years now down the line, like what did
we build and who's being successful?
And like, how did we make that change?

(50:06):
And then like for some reason, if things aren't working, like I
want to be able to help fix that.
And one of the biggest things, the biggest differences that I
personally take like that my focus on things is like, if the
athletes aren't performing, it'snot because the athletes like I,
I'm like, this is because of me.Like I, I take that on myself.
I'm like, what do I need to change in order to help these

(50:29):
athletes perform? Or like, what do we need as a
whole, like USAT as a whole, what do we need to implement in
order for our athletes to perform?
Because you can't just put the blame on the athletes, which a
lot of people do. And like bad coaches will do
that all the time. Like your athletes not
performing week after week afterweek and you're like, oh, this
athlete, they're not performing.It's like, dude, look at
yourself, like the athlete is not performing.

(50:50):
You need to change something with yourself and with your
coaching or your communication or or whatever to get that
athlete to perform. If you keep doing the same thing
over and over again, like you'renot going to get, you're going
to just continue to get the sameoutcome.
And so, yeah, that's how I look at it is like if if we are not
performing as a country or in the development side space, I

(51:11):
feel like I need to look at myself and what I'm doing and,
and fix that. Because it's I don't think it's
the athletes. I think we have the talent.
We just need the infrastructure.What have you found is maybe a
little bit more of a personal question, but what have you
found of things that you had to change personally that
contributed to the growth and the stabilization of the system
as a whole? Yeah.

(51:33):
I mean, I just, I the first year, I guess thinking back is
like the athletes that I was choosing or like the athletes
that had quote qualified for theprogram, the way that I was
funding and going about it. Those athletes literally like
all of my mistakes helped me shape to where we are now.

(51:54):
So when I look back at it, it's like, were those mistakes or are
those just like learning processes?
And yes, they were both for surelike they were mistakes, but
when you would first start them,it's like, how would I ever have
known that was a mistake until after the fact?
Like you don't know until you try.
So it was kind of an experiment.It's, well, kind of it's like

(52:15):
being a bike mechanic where you don't exactly know what the
diagnosis is. You're like riding it around,
you're like listening to different things.
You tweak this. No, that wasn't it.
You tweak that, OK, that wasn't it.
And you keep doing that until you find the thing.
And then you're like, all right,now we can fix it.
So that's kind of how the beginning stages of me and this
position was, was me trying to figure out turning this,

(52:36):
twisting that, and then all right, this worked.
This did not work. Let's eliminate that.
Let's add more of this and then,yeah, straightening things out.
So a lot of it I think was, yeah, the, the metrics that I
was using were probably too low for the the strength of what the
international fields are. The next thing was not putting

(52:57):
the right athletes with the right coaches or the right
training group or not pursuing actively like helping coaches
develop, which I've already changed and and actively doing
as well like the educational side of things.
And yeah, I think the the funding model kind of helped
itself with like funding races, funding coaches and like,

(53:19):
because before it was like just giving athletes like a living
stipend and then like getting them to races sort of thing.
But then realizing I'm like, whyis a coach wanting to work with
this athlete? Or like, how do we build
coaches, training groups who arecommitted to this?
It's like we need to incentivizethe coaches.
So like taking some of the funding away from the athlete to
put towards the coaches because obviously I can't just like,

(53:39):
grow my budget. I have to like, figure it out.
And so, yeah, using those types of things of like, where is the
money best spent? And when I first started, like I
didn't know. And it was kind of just like
guessing. And so I feel like now we have a
really good handle on where the money is best utilized.
And those decisions being made are are much more educated based

(53:59):
on actual experience rather thanlike a what if.
Like I, I think this might work because, yeah, I'm the only
person in my role doing this in the whole country.
And there's not like a blueprintfor.
Exactly what we're. Doing of how the best way to do
it. So yeah, just trying to figure
that stuff out has been quite the puzzle and and but it's
always fun, you know? Yeah, no, for sure.

(54:20):
I feel like you are probably writing down almost like a
handbook manual that do you do you do that and keep that notes
enough. So yeah.
So whoever comes to not even necessarily succeed you, but to
maybe work alongside you, they'll have a little bit more
of a training, I don't know, manual to go to an encyclopedia
and appendix to figure out how to how to do this type of a

(54:41):
thing. Yeah.
And that was one of the things that when I first started USA
Triathlon High Performance Team A, we're a little bit removed
from the organization as a wholejust because like the whole is
focused mainly on the age group side of things and like the
collegiate side of things. And like it, it's based on
participation rather than performance.
And the high performance side ofthings, it needs to be kind of

(55:04):
cutthroat. You know, it needs to be focused
on performance. Like that's the literally the
whole. The name.
And so before the high performance team, everyone was
kind of functioning in their ownlittle world of like their
things that they needed to to work on.
But now our team is functioning as a whole where we talk every
single week about what we're working on and we bounce the
ideas off each other and we say what it what do we think if this

(55:26):
would work? Like, what are some negatives to
this? Like let's play devil's
advocate, like poke holes in this.
How do we, I think we see this playing out.
Let's run through some scenariosand like everybody in every
program, we all just talk to each other about things we're
thinking about or that we what we want to do and what do we
think about that. And like it's been the most
cohesive we've ever been as a department.

(55:47):
So and then now that our department is that cohesive, we
are trying to do USAT as a whole.
We're trying to do that with high performance within the rest
of the organization of like letting the rest of the
organization know what high performance is, what we do, why
we do it, and understanding whatother people do at the
organization and why they do that.
Because, yeah, we are basically the money spenders and everybody

(56:08):
else is the money getters. So they've always looked at high
performance. Like all they do is spend money
and like travel and like go to all these cool places and like
talk with Olympians and stuff and like they're elitists or
whatever. Like, And so having that kind of
like cohesion with the rest of the organization is super
important to be able to build something bigger like in the US.
And I think that we're on a super good track with the the

(56:32):
employees we have right now and then with the high performance
team we have. So I, I think it's really good
and looking good for the next, you know, few years.
Yeah, sweet man. Well, I'm excited to see how it
continues to grow. And even just from the
sidelines, it's been fun tracking you over the past year
and getting to interview some ofthe guys from Project Podium.
We'll have to start to get some of the people from the Oxo
Collective over. And if you ever have guests you

(56:53):
want to send this way as well, it'll be super fun.
But yeah man, I'm excited. You obviously are a high
performer in your own right. Your brain seems to be working
pretty fast and overtime. So it's a beautiful thing to be
witnessing a man like you in theposition that you are.
Because I think that with your skill sets and just 1,000,000
miles a minute that you have to go to make something like this

(57:15):
happen and run on hopes and dreams is pretty, pretty cool.
So I'm excited for your future, man.
Yeah. Thanks man.
Appreciate it. Sweet, awesome.
Well, thank you so much for taking the time.
I know you got another meeting here in just a few minutes, so
we'll let you jump off, but I really appreciate you taking the
time again to be on and we'll have to do around 3 sometime
here in the next several months or something to see how things

(57:36):
are going. Yeah, we should touch base after
every season and just see where things are at.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I'll make it happen, all right.
Sounds good. All right.
Thanks man, thank you so much toTommy for jumping on the pod and
sharing about everything that are a lot of the things that
been going on right now with theUSA T programs that he is

(57:56):
involved in. Really a neat guy.
Obviously his brain works super fast and I can relate and really
enjoy that. Just hearing what's going on in
the energy that he exudes. Wishing him all the best of luck
as he gets ready to introduce a new kid into the world of life.
So thank you again, Tommy, for coming on.
Really appreciate it. Make sure to check out the show

(58:17):
notes for anything that I list there.
If you are on YouTube, if you could like, comment, subscribe.
If you're listening on any of the podcast platforms, if you
could like, comment, follow, leave a review.
Those things continue to help togrow the podcast.
And yeah, really appreciate you guys for being here and for the
conversation with Tommy. All right, we'll catch you guys
in the next one piece.