Building a JUCO Dynasty: Coach Jim Robinson on 7 National Titles, Culture, and Faith at Lansing Community College

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Airy Brose Radio. Be there or B
Square because it's all killer, no filler. This is Jim
Robinson and you're listening to Airy Brose Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Ladies and gentlemen, how do you knowha? Welcome to another
episode of Airy Bros.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
We are here, you are there, and you are now
rocking with the best and as always, we appreciate you
tuning in. We are heading out onto the cross country
course again with none other than coach Jim Robinson from
Lansing Community College in Lansing, Michigan. But before we get rolling,
y'all know the drill ham are that like button? Make
sure you have subscribed on YouTube, drop a comment, every view,
review and share helps us grow and get back to

(00:48):
the sports we love. Follow us on Instagram, Spotify, and
Apple podcast. And let's not forget while we're here. We're
here to shine a light on the program's coaches and
stories we wish we had access to growing up. If
you were sooney you know is chasing the dreams in
cross country, wrestling or track and field, Share this episode
with them. On to tonight's guest coach, Jim Robinson. He's

(01:09):
been on staff at Lansing Community College for nineteen years
and he's been involved with six NJCAA national championships. He's
the head coach of lcc XC since twenty fourteen, with
four women's national titles in twenty fifteen, sixteen, twenty one,
and twenty two, and back to back men's national titles

(01:29):
in twenty three and twenty four. He's a former coach
at Portland High School, whereas team set multiple school records.
He also guided the Placemakers running team to a USATFAK championships,
and he's a three time ustf CCCA National Coach of
the Year twenty twenty one, twenty two, and twenty three,
and currently the LCC squads are ranked first on the

(01:52):
men's side in the NJCAA Division two and the women
are seventh. Without further ado, it is an honor pleasure
I have you joining us this evening. We do greatly
appreciate your time. Coach Jim Robinson, Welcome to the show.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
It's good to be here. Thank you for covering NJCAA
cross country. Yeah, it's a Let me make one correction.
I've actually been associated with seven national championships because my
first year as an assistant. Coach Block was the head
coach super mentor over those first years when I was
his assistant. But we won an NJCAA Division one men's

(02:28):
title in two thousand and seven, my first year as
an assistant.

Speaker 3 (02:32):
Okay, sorry, Rich stand correct.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
We were discussing that before we jumped on and we
thought we had it nailed down. But hey, seven is well.

Speaker 1 (02:40):
I want to give coach Block credit. I want to
give it if anyone's listening, super guy, and that was
a really good team we were even though we're an
NJCAA Division two team. That two thousand and seven team
had to compete in Division one because they didn't have
a separate championship. And then my first two women's teams
actually NJCA Division one champions even though we were we're

(03:04):
a Division two team. So I'm really proud of those
three teams. Shout out to the coach Block.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
So, coach, before we get too far into it, anything
you would like to share, plug or promote anywhere we
can send athletes, recruits, parents that have questions, If you
have any websites, links, social media accounts, anything you'd like
to share, and we put that in the show notes
for you, the floor's yours.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah. If you go to LCC dot edu l CC
for Lancing Community College dot edu, click on campus life,
go to the athletics tab, you'll have some contact information
for me and also a recruiting form that you can

(03:49):
complete and I get it filled out as completely. You
know some people, I just looked at one that someone
sent me. They left about half of it blank. So
you take the time to fill it out completely. I'll
get it. I'll get back to you and we can
go from there. But I'm always looking for people who
love to run. I have an open door policy. I mean,

(04:13):
there are people that I actively recruit, But if someone
comes to me and wants to run in college and
maybe doesn't have times that fit into what I'm actively recruiting,
if they're willing to show up every day and put
in the hard work, I got a spot for them,
So don't hesitate to reach out to me.

Speaker 2 (04:34):
We love that and that's why we're here because we
always say if there's if you're a student athlete and
you're willing to work hard and you feel like maybe
you haven't hit your stride or your potential, there is
a school out there for you. When we're here to
help you find it. So that's good to know, coach.
Why we like to kick things off here. We all
have our origin stories to the sport. Mine involves a

(04:55):
fish tank and a five mile race at the age
of five, and Jimmy's involves following me around while in
high school and college to cross country races, wrestling matches,
and track meets. He didn't really necessarily have a choice,
but curious, what is your origin story to the sport
and how did that lead you to coaching? And I
know you ran for Harry Grove, so I would love

(05:15):
to hear if you have an epic Harry Grove story,
because I had some friends and some acquaintances that ran
at penn State back in the day and they used
to love sharing Harry story.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
I'm yeah. So I grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I
think I had the best of all worlds. I grew
up in a classic nineteen fifties, post World War two
baby boom suburb, but I went to the city high school.

(05:45):
So I had a farm field back behind my house.
It went down to the Contostoga Creek and I could
run through the fields and play in the creek. But
then I also had the opportunity to go off to
city high school that was quite diverse and quite good
at athletics. I didn't have anyone in my family that

(06:07):
was involved in athletics, but I knew I was just
a really competitive individual. I'm a pretty low key guy,
but I just have a competitive bone in me, and
I loved sports. But you can't see it from this podcast,
but I'm tall, and when I was a junior high schooler,
I was a skinny little kid, and every sport I

(06:30):
went out for I got cut from except for track
and field. They let everyone run track and field, and
I wasn't particularly good at that even I remember, well
they were cinder tracks back then it was still muddy
in the spring. So they lined us up in the
pay parking lot, had us run fifty meters, and the
coach said to me when I was done, Robinson, were

(06:53):
you trying to run fast?

Speaker 3 (06:55):
So?

Speaker 1 (06:56):
I mean, I was just tall and gangly and not
real coordinated. But but I have one attribute that is
good for distance running, stubbornness or persistence. You know, I
don't give up easily. And like I said, I had
a competitive bone in me, and so I you know
I stuck with this sport, and I did have a

(07:17):
pretty good aerobic system and tall and slender, so I
had the body type for distance running and I stuck
with it. Was a decent high school runner back then.
High school was tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade, and again
not having any on my family that was involved in sports,

(07:40):
I didn't know when I went from junior high there
were actually four junior highs that fed into the high school.
I didn't know how one went out for sports. I
didn't actually even know there was a sport across country,
and so I missed out on my tenth grade participate
in cross country because I didn't even know about it.

(08:03):
But I went out for track in the spring, and
then from there in the eleventh and twelfth grade, competed
in cross country and went off to Penn State for college.
I don't know exactly how I went about doing this
because we didn't have the internet then, so I knew
Penn State was a big college. I figured they had

(08:24):
a pretty good team. But I remember writing coach Groves
a letter, but I don't know how I would have
known he was the coach or to you know, what
the address was for him. Unless maybe when we were
visiting the college, they gave us a directory of the
college and it included athletics. But I remember writing him

(08:45):
a letter and I got a card back from Harry Groves.
It said okay, yes, and that you could check into
your dorm. I think it was a week early because
practice started a week before the actual semester started. So
I had the opportunity, even though I was not a
blue chip recruit to run at Penn State and had

(09:10):
I just I'm still a big Penn State fan and
I'm forever grateful for that. So I discovered the very
first run there. Now again, I went to a big
city high school. We had a pretty good cross country team,
but my coaches were my cross country coach was a

(09:32):
baseball coach principally, and my track coach was the head
football coach. Neither one really knew much about distance running.
The cross country coach had gotten a book of Jim
Ryan's training, and you know, Jim Ryan in high school
did a lot of quarter miles. I think he ran
as many as forty four hundred, four hundreds in practice

(09:54):
four hundred back then it was four hundred and forty
yards in practice. So he did forty repeat four hundred
and forty yards. Mike Coach figured out if he did that,
we could do twenty. So on the days we didn't
have meets, we ran basically every day we didn't have
a meet, we ran quarter miles. So I didn't really
have much of an aerobic background when I got to

(10:15):
Penn State, or again, because you didn't have the internet,
I didn't know much about training, just what I had done,
but I probably had never gone on more than four
or five mile run. And the first day in practice
I think it was a thirteen mile run at Penn State.

(10:36):
And if you've ever been to Penn State, Rec Hall
is at one end of the campus, Beaver stadiums at
the other end. So we we ran through campus from
Rec Hall where we met for practice, to beaver Stadium
and then out into the country. And by the time
we got to it's about a mile I think a
mile and a half. By the time we got to
beaver Stadium, the top guys in the group were already

(10:59):
running about five thirty a mile. So we're on a
thirteen mile run and they're already under six minutes a
mile pace. And I mean I was just running as
hard as I could to just not lose sight of
the last guy in the pack, because I didn't want
to be lost out in the country in a happy valley.
So that was my introduction to college cross country. But

(11:22):
it turned out, you know, we had great athletes there.
I think I was there during the Golden era. Greg Fredericks.
That name might bring a bell. You stop me if
you if you've hearn it up. But Greg Fredericks, he
had graduated the spring before I started, but he still

(11:44):
trained with us almost every day. And that summer was
seventy two. He set the American record for ten thousand
meters twenty eight six or twenty eighth eight, and then
just missed out on qualifying for the Olympic team. And
then we had another runner on the team named Charlie

(12:06):
McGuire who was the NCAA six mile champion. So we
had an American record holder at ten thousand meters, American
champion at the NCAA six miles, and then another I
think it was my sophomore year, George Malley was a freshman.

(12:27):
George Malley went on to set the American record in
the steeple chase eight twenty two that would still probably
win the NCIA Steeplechase eight twenty two back in nineteen seventies.
So we had there were other really good runners. George
Christopher I think set the national junior record for the
marathon to seventeen and I'm gonna slip on his name,

(12:51):
but it'll come to me, admit. Anyway, we had some
really good runners there, and I had the even though
I was again not a blue chip runner, never had
a good race in college. People say to me, oh,
you must have been pretty good if you ran for
Penn State. Well it wasn't. And that's one of the
things I think helps me be a good coach is

(13:12):
that I went three and a half years. I graduated
in three and a half years. I went three and
a half years, ever having a good race, just one
discouraging race after another. And every runner at some point
in their career is going to have a trough where
things just aren't going well. Well I understand that because

(13:33):
I had a three and a half year trough. So anyway,
I had great experience. I saw what running at the
very highest level was like, and that's helped me. You know,
when I finally actually coaching is a second career for me,

(13:54):
and I always knew I would enjoy coaching. I always
thought I I would do well at coaching, but I
really didn't get to to get involved in it until
later in life as really a second career. But you know,
the experiences I've had from running at Penn State and

(14:16):
being around runners like Greg Fredericks and George Mallley, and
then the experience of disappointment and discouragement that I had
all pieces that have helped me, I think be a
good coach.

Speaker 3 (14:34):
Coach well kept you coming back, saying you had three
and a half years of discouragement, We'll kept you coming
back well.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Like I said, I have this. I have some characteristics
that make for a good runner. One is stubborness or persistence.
I mean, I am I'm pretty easygoing guy, but I'm
also pretty stubborn and I'm very competitive, you know, I do.
I could be a good runner, and I wasn't going
to get you know, I wasn't going to give up easily,
and so I stuck with it. And then I had

(15:04):
the good fortune, like I said, I graduated in three
and a half years. Part of my motivation there was
I had a friend who asked me if I wanted
to go to the seventy six Olympics. So I started
at Penn State in seventy two. You know, walked in
seventy six. But that summer of the seventy six Olympics

(15:27):
were in Montreal, and I was going to graduate school,
and you know, I wanted to earn some money to
help pay for tuition, and so I figured, Okay, if
I graduate early, I can work in the spring, and
then this friend and I can go to the Olympics

(15:47):
and then tour around Canada. So I finished up. I
was back in my hometown of Lancaster, and I saw,
i probably in the newspaper, that Arthur Lydier, the great
New Zealand coach who coached Peter Snow and Murray Halberg

(16:09):
to Olympic gold medals, he was in the run up
to the seventy six Olympics taking a tour of the
United States, and he was going to be in Millersville.
There's a small state school in Millersville. Actually I lived
in Millersville, lived in Millersville, and so we sat out
on the hillside there by the track for about three

(16:31):
hours in the afternoon and Arthur Lyddier introduced his principles
of training and taught us everything from even how to
Lacier shoes so there wouldn't be as much pressure on
your arch of your foot. Well, a light bulb clicked
when when I was done with that. I mean, you know,
the type of training he was talking about is what

(16:53):
we were doing at Penn State. But you know, understanding
the reason behind that training, you know, made a difference.
And I went to Track and Field News, which I got,
and in the back there was a you could write
off the Track and Field News and probably for a
dollar get a brochure that had more about Arthur Lyndier's training.

(17:17):
In the back of it, they actually had training, you know,
training charts, and I got that and started implementing that
in my own training. And the other thing was I
started college at seventeen, and like I said, went from
high school where we really didn't have a good arooic background.
Jumped in over my head. So here's another thing that

(17:38):
I understand is overtraining is just as harmful as you know,
in terms of getting good results. Overtraining you're likely to
get just as discouraging results as if you're under training,
you know, and I was, I was way over training
in college compared to the background I had coming out

(17:59):
of high school. But I didn't know any better.

Speaker 4 (18:03):
And.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
So, you know, Coach Groves, I remember one of the
first days of practice, and to be a good college runner,
you got run one hundred miles a week. So I
tried to run one hundred miles a week, even though
in high school I probably averaged probably added up all
the miles I ran in the fifty two weeks out
of the year as a junior and senior, I probably
averaged fifteen, you know. So I tried to go from

(18:27):
fifteen two one hundred miles a week. And I already
noted that I was a skinny little kid, you know.
I can remember one day after practice, I weighed myself
and I was six too, and I weighed one hundred
and thirty seven pounds. I'm sure sure if they had
Ferreton test back then, I would have been low on
iron sports and anemic, you know. So anyway, but I

(18:50):
was stubborn. I didn't give up, and I kept working
at it, and I applied Arthur Lydier's principles to my
training and didn't pry to again for him. One hundred
miles a week is the sweet spot. But I started
off kind of more in the ballpark of where I

(19:14):
was in terms of my aerobic development and work from there,
and you know, eventually ran some half decent times post college.
So I know trade, I know the training can work,
it makes it, and so I've had all those different
experiences that that piece together in how I approach coaching.

Speaker 3 (19:38):
Coach, we can still hear you, but you're frozen again,
is there again? Yeah? Can you just turn your video
on and off and that should be able to do
the trick.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Okay, there we go.

Speaker 3 (19:51):
All right, you are all right, I'm moving again.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Yeah, So I'll try to pay attention to and if
I see myself frozen again, I'll do that.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
Okay. So you mentioned that coaching was a second career
for you, and you said you went for your masters,
and I believe you got your master's in ministry. So
were you working in that area in that.

Speaker 1 (20:14):
Field, right? Yeah? So I spent thirty plus years as
a minister, pastoring churches to in upstate New York. And
then my wife is from Michigan. That's how I got
to the Lansing area. We moved back home to be
near her family and in the Lansing area. Her family

(20:35):
are farmers, and so I've been here now for thirty years.
But now I served two churches in upstate New York
and then a church for about two decades here in Lansing,
and when I retired from that. Actually back up a
little bit, my son turns out was a pretty good runner,
and of course I and it turned out we moved

(20:58):
to this little town of Grandline, and they had a
great high school program. He had a really fine coach,
Kim Spallsbury here, So I mean we didn't we chose
where we lived based on where my wife's family farm was,
but it turned out we moved to a really good
school for this is running, and he had a really

(21:21):
good high school coach in Kim Spallsbury, and he ended
up having the jeens to be a pretty good runner.
So he was a pretty good high school runner. And
if you follow this sport, you know, you go to
all the cross country meets, and you go to the
track meets, track meets, as you know, last forever. So

(21:43):
I was at that point in my ministry that I
was pretty efficient at getting the things done that I
needed to do for the church. So I was able
to do that, you know, go to his track meets
twice a week. And when he graduated and went off
to college, I thought, you know, if I'm going to
get into coaching, now's the time. I'll just take the

(22:05):
time that I spent watching him and cheering him, and
you know, devote that to coaching. And their local high school,
Portland High School, had an opening and I applied and
I got that job. So that was my first coaching job,
and I coached there for I think cross country for
three years, in track and field for two years, something

(22:27):
like that, and then actually a teacher wanted my job,
and by contract, teachers have priority. So I knew Coach
Block at LCC, and I called him up and said,
could you use some help. And I started as a
volunteer there now twenty years ago, in two thousand and five,

(22:49):
and then, like I mentioned at the beginning of the show,
in two thousand and seven, I got hired as the
official assistant cross country coach and the rest is history.
He went on to he started the timing company and
he's really good at it. If anyone needs a timer,

(23:11):
look at the Michigan Running Foundation and Chuck Block And
because he's so good at it. You know, his businesses
uh took off and he couldn't do both. So when
I was retiring as a minister, he was needing to
make a choice between continuing coaching and his timing company.

(23:34):
So it worked out very, very providentially, I'll use a
theological term, providentially. And and you know I slid into
the head coaching job.

Speaker 3 (23:46):
Do you feel your time as a minister helps being
a coach?

Speaker 1 (23:51):
I do. I think the skill set is very similar
between ministry and coaching. You know, in both fields, really
what you're doing is calling for the best in individuals,
encouraging them to be the best person, in the case
of coaching, the best person and best runner they can be.

(24:12):
So yeah, I think there are a lot of places
where the skills of a minister and the skills of
a coach intersect.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
So, coach, you've been head coached in twenty fourteen, got
a dynasty, seven national titles. What's been the key to
sustaining success over the last decade plus?

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Well, I think a culture. You know, when I talk
to runners, I have four principles in coaching. Let's see
if I can remember by other principles, Trust, so you know,
the athlete coach relationship has to be based on trust.

(25:00):
They have to trust that I know what I'm doing
When I tell them this is this is the training program.
They have to believe that this is this is going
to be good for them. It's going to help them
be the best runner they can be, and then I
have to be able to trust them. A lot of
a lot of what takes place in running takes place
away from the the vision of the coach. You know,

(25:20):
in basketball, the coaches watching everything that's going on, But
in running, you send them off on a ten mile
run and you know, unless you hop on your bike
and follow them, they're on their own. And you know,
in the off season, a lot of the training is
done by themselves. So I have to be able to

(25:41):
trust that that they're doing what they're supposed to be doing.
So that's the first principle. The second principle that I
have is pursuit of excellence. As long as you're gonna
do something, doesn't matter what you're doing, whether it's you know,
working on a podcast or or or doing track and
field and cross country, you should be pursuing that as

(26:06):
to do it the best you can. Do it so
pursuit of excellence. And then in our sport, maybe as
much as in anything in life, hard work makes the difference.
So that's the third principle, trust, pursuit of excellence, hard work.
And then the fourth principle is fun. If you're not
enjoying this, you're in the wrong sport. I tell people

(26:27):
I was meeting with a recruit today and I said,
you know, in high school, people have different motivations. You
might be doing it because your dad really wants you
to be involved in the sport, or you know, you
like the notoriety because you're good at it. But to
succeed in college, you have to actually like running because
we do a lot of it. Unless you like getting

(26:48):
out and you know, feeling the breeze through your hair
as you're running, you're probably not gonna make the step
to being an outstanding collegiate runner. So it has to
be fun for you. You have to really actually enjoy doing it. Now,

(27:08):
there's some days when it's s leading outside and the
schedule calls for a ten mile run, it's not going
to be fun. But you know, if it's drudgery day
after day after day, you're not going to be good
at this. So those are the principles. I try to
keep them in mind all the time. I try to

(27:30):
communicate them in one way or another to the athletes regularly.
I think I'm a good encourager. You know. That goes
back to my own experience of of you know, discouragement
in college. So but remind me of the question, oh,

(27:55):
how we kept this dynastic going. So keeping those principles
in mind, having a culture where you know, I remember
reading about John McDonald's the great coach at Arkansas, and
when he passed a couple of years ago, his athletes,

(28:16):
in talking about him, kept bringing up the word team.
But if you're focused on yourself, there's only so far
you're going to go if you're focused. And our sports
a very individualized sport. And yet here are these track
athletes and cross country athletes talking about team and how

(28:37):
they ran for one another. And I remember, you know,
the coach at NAU saying, you know, he passed on
some really good athletes because in recruiting them, he realized
that they were focused just on themselves. They weren't going
to buy into the team culture they had there. So,
you know, we really try to focus on the fact

(28:58):
that we're team. Whether you're our fastest guy or our
slowest guy, you're part of the team. You have a
role to play in encouraging your teammates, running for your teammates,
setting an example for your teammates. So you know, all
these things fit together. And then and then, I guess

(29:18):
a piece of that pursuing excellence is realization that, hey,
given the talent pool we have in Michigan, we should
be vying every year for being a national champion. So
we set pretty eye golls. I mean even back when
we were you know ours again, as an objective sport,

(29:41):
I jokingly say I'm a good coach because I can
count the five you need five good runners. And so
in recruiting and in coaching, I'm constly saying, okay, we
got one, we got two, we got three, we got four, up,
we got five. That you know, you can look at
past real results and see what sort of times you
need to be in contention. And I'm continually saying, okay,

(30:01):
we got one, two, three, four, we got five. If
we got six, that's even that. You know, that's a bonus.
So you know, from my end, I'm I'm looking at
that at recruiting and encouraging them and and and again
telling them that you got to dream about being national champion.
I think a large part of this sport in particular is,

(30:25):
you know, dreaming and imagining yourself as the mental side
of it is, uh, is equally important to the physical side.
So we we uh we routinely encourage that as well. Uh,
you know, dream about yourself being being champion.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Well, we got back to back champions and we've got
number one ranking so far, number seven on the women's side.
How has the season been going for you?

Speaker 1 (30:55):
How many.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Guys at or gals do you have returning from last
year squads?

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, so on the guys side, I mean this is
by far and I tell them this, you know every
other day. You're part of the deepest, most out team
we've ever had, and we've had some good teams. So
it's a unique position to be in. You know, it's
hard to win a national title, it's even harder to repeat.

(31:23):
And then when you're the favorite, that's that's another that's
another piece. But I think they're they're up to the task.
I like what I'm seeing day in and day out
in the training. So but no, I have you know,
last year's squad was a remarkable squad in that when

(31:47):
we won in twenty twenty three, it was mostly sophomores. Again,
community college is unique in that you only have freshman
and sophomores. You know, you rarely have a third year runner.
Every now and then you have someone that maybe was
injured or in terms of their academics, that makes sense
for them to, you know, continue to get some credits

(32:09):
at a cheaper rate at the community college, so they're
there for three years, but for the most part, you
only have your runners for two years. And that team
in twenty three was an experienced squad mostly sophomore, So
the top three guys were sophomores, and then our fifth

(32:31):
guy was a sophomore, so four out of the five
that placed were sophomores, and then the one the one
guy that was returning from that squad was injured last year,
so we had no one on the line at last

(32:51):
year's national championship that had any experience having run in
a national championship. And then on top of that, our
top two guys one got pneumonia and another was injured.
So out of out of our really we had a
really good incoming freshman class. So I believed they could
do it. I thought they could repeat even with no

(33:11):
one with with experience running out of national championship. But
then when you lose your top guide injury in your
and another one of your top guys to pneumonia. But
that group believed in themselves and they believed in uh
you know, they believed in themselves as individuals, and they

(33:33):
believed in their teammates and went to the line thinking
they could win, and they and they did. So now
all those guys are back, plus the two that I
didn't have available to me, the one that had pneumonia
and the one who were injured. Plus I have two
guys from the twenty three squad that that for variety

(33:57):
of reasons, different reasons last year, shirted. So I have
a I mean, this is a really good team, really
deep team, and they're training at a high level. You know,
they're not taking anything for granted. So I but the
other team, you know, we got some really good coaches
out there, and you know they're not There's no one

(34:19):
among the top teams that are conceding. And I'm sure
they went out just like I would and said, okay,
if this is the level where we have to be
to be in contention. They went out and tried to
get runners that would you know, put them in that position.
So we're gonna have a good, a good national championship.

(34:41):
I'm sure it's going to be very competitive.

Speaker 2 (34:43):
It sounds like almost you might have to make a
tough decision and leave two people home this year.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Well, I'm going to take all eight of the veterans,
but one of them probably, you know, one of them.
Obviously you can only run seven. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:59):
That's gonna make it fun competitive every day too.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah. But again, if you buy into that team mentality,
yeah yes, if you're that person, doesn't get to rude,
you're going to be disappointed, but you're also going to
be pulling for the seven that are on the line.
If if we've done our job right and teaching team
and you know, focusing on the culture that we want

(35:22):
to have.

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Cut your froze on me again, I don't know if
you move that.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Yeah, I'm not paying attention. I'm good.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
You're good.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
You talking about track and field, you can see I
like it.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
You mentioned that Michigan. There you go. You mentioned that
Michigan has great running is most of the men's and
women's team Michigan athletes.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
Uh, let's see, I'm trying to think if that's yes.
I think everyone on our men's team, uh. And I
know everyone on our women's team graduated from from Michigan
High school. So I have one guy who lives is
family lives in Toledo, but he went to a high
school in Michigan. So and that's been true across the board.

(36:07):
The I think my second women's team that won a
national title, I had one runner from Western PA, from Erie, PA.
But other than that, all the runners I've had have
been you know, Michigan Michigan runners.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
So rich. And I know the difference between the divisions
in junior college. Can you just explain to our audience
a difference between Division I school or what a Division
two school can offer athletes?

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yes? Yes, So there are actually three divisions in the
n j c a A in some ways very similar
to the NCAA. So a n j c A A
Division one school can offer what are called full ride scholarships.
So there are a few in the East Coast, but

(37:05):
most of the Division I schools, particularly in cross country
and track and field, are west of the Mississippi and
they're in rural, kind of out of the way places.
It makes sense once you understand it. So take for example,
Iowa Central in Fort Dodge, Iowa. You know, community colleges

(37:26):
for the most part, most of their students are commuters,
so there are not enough people living in Fort Dodge,
Iowa to have a community college where where the students
are commuters. So they function like four year colleges. They
have a nice campus, full athletic program, and dormitories and

(37:46):
dining halls, so you know, to get both students and athletes.
You know, they recruit from a much broader area and
with dorms and dining hall they can you know, bring
athletes in D two schools like l c C can

(38:07):
offer tuition scholarships, but not First off, some D two
schools do have dormitories and dining halls, but l c
C doesn't, and and if they're following the rules, they
can't offer room and board scholarships. So that's again one

(38:32):
reason why we have all Michigan runners and for the
most part local runners, although some of our runners come
from other parts of Michigan, and being in the same
community with Michigan state, there's plenty of housing available at
fairly inexpensive costs, but you know, they have to provide

(38:52):
their own housing. I can help them with the cost
of tuition. So that's what defines a D two school.
And then just like an NCAA D three school and
an n j c A A D pre school, they
have athletics, but they don't give athletics scholarships. So if
you get a scholarship, it's going to be either need
based or academically based. And again for the most part,

(39:18):
again there are a few exceptions. There's some D three schools,
excuse me, some D one schools along the East coast,
but for the most part, the n j c a
A D three schools are east of the appllations, in
kind of the original colonies running from New York State
down through Jersey and down the East coast east of

(39:41):
the appllations. Most of the D T two schools are
in the west of the appalations but east of the
Mississippi River. And then most of the big D three powerhouses,
at least in cross country and track and field, are
west of the Mississippi and very rural places like Kansas, Texas,
West Texas, Iowa. There are a couple newer h D

(40:05):
one schools in Utah and Colorado and southern Idaho. So
uh yeah, that's that's the difference. Now, in terms of competition,
if you look at the D one schools again, you know,
think of rural Kansas. If they're recruiting locally, they're just

(40:29):
not going to have a pool of a lot of
good runners. So quite often they'll recruit international athletes. So
if you look at the as I was sure you
and your brother have looked at the n j c
A D one results, it's dominated by Kenyon athletes. And
I understand that. I mean, if I were in their
position and with this competitive bone that I have, you know,

(40:53):
I'd be looking for runners also from wherever I could find.
It might even take a good kend and running here
lancing if I could get one, but not being able
to offer room and board scholarship, you know, it's it's
not likely to happen. So yeah, so that's that's the difference.

(41:14):
And but in terms of competitiveness, all three divisions are
really quite competitive. And but for the most part in
in D one, the top of the pack is with
the exception of of the newer school in Salt Lake

(41:38):
City because they're in a big metropolitan area and if
you look at you know, b y U and and
the talent pool there in that central part of Utah,
there's a lot of good runners there. So, uh, they're
able to be competitive with with runners with out necessarily

(42:01):
recruiting internationally, although I think their top runner last year
was an international athlete.

Speaker 3 (42:07):
Coach. I appreciate the breakdown of kind of the geography
of that. I'd never thought of it that way, but
you're one hundred percent correct when you broke it down
like that. What does LCC offer as far as academics,
Is there anything unique to the college.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
So we have a full range of vocational programs and
academic programs. I actually our board just recognized last year's
cross country team and I thank them. I said, you know,
I've never had a recruit come here and when I
asked them, what do you want to study? You know,
what's your goal academically or vocationally. I've never had to
tell someone, oh, you should not come to LCC because

(42:49):
if you do, you know, we don't have that program.
Or we have that program, but we're really weak in
that program. So we have a full range of really
high level vocational programs from tool and die to auto mechanics,
electrical electricians alignment. We have a fire academy and a

(43:11):
police academy, and robotics and auto mechanics and airplane maintenance.
So if you want to go into construction trades, if
you want to go into any of those fields, we
have really good programs, top notch. And then if your
goal is to get your first two years of college

(43:34):
for free and have a really solid academic foundation and
then transfer to a four year program, you can do
that here as well. I bet people go on and
get PhDs and particle physics, or go on get their
four year degree and then come back to MSU and
go to med school and are now physicians. I bet
people go on and become engineers and nurses and teachers

(43:58):
and you know, whole range of subjects. So and if
let's say, let's say you didn't do great academically as
a high schooler, I think some people think, oh, yeah,
that's that's the role of community college for someone who
you know, didn't do great academically in high school. But yes,

(44:19):
that is true. If you're in that category. We have
all sorts of resources to help you, and I tell
people all the time there's no reason for you not
to succeed with the tutoring and support resources we have.
But like I also said, I have people that have
had like fifteen hundred plus on their SATs and have
gone on and got PhDs and particle physics. So you know,

(44:42):
it's really a great place to start. And as the
cost of college gets more and more expensive, it just
is a better and better deal in my mind. You know,
you don't want to start life owing maybe one hundred
thousand dollars in student owns when you can get a

(45:02):
solid foundation and then transfer to in the case of Michigan,
to Michigan State or the University of Michigan, or in
the case of my team. Because my teams do so well,
I have coaches from all over the country email me
about recruiting my runners. So I've had runners go to

(45:23):
college in Florida, at Colorado and Oregon as well as
you know, a whole range of schools here in the Midwest, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan.
So it's it's a great opportunity. I tell people, I'll
give you my sales pitch. I tell people for a
good high school runner in Michigan. We're the only school

(45:48):
where these three opportunities there are going to be, you know,
where you all have these this combination of opportunities. One,
you can go to school tuition free. That's a pretty
good deal. Secondly, as a as a freshman and sophomore,
you'll have the chance to compete and contribute to our team.

(46:11):
And number three, you'll be on a really good team
that's frying to win national championships. You know, think of
think of those three opportunities and what schools would offer
you that combination of opportunity to go to school for
free to you know, because if you go to a
good running school, whether it's NCAA D two or NCAA

(46:35):
D one, they almost always red shirt you a year.
So I don't know how they talk people into doing that,
quite honestly, who wants to train for a full year
never get to wear their uniform, never get to wear
the school uniform. If you go to a meet, you
got to drive yourself and pay your own entry fee.
The coaches quite often they don't even go with you,
you know, they don't even show up to watch you run.

(46:57):
So anyway you get to go to school for free,
to contribute and compete on a team as a as
a freshman and sophomore, rather than just train and train
and train and train in the hopes that when you're
a junior and senior you might make the traveling squad
on you know, your NCA team and then be on
a really good team that gets to compete for national

(47:20):
championships and then have another great experience. Almost all my
recruited runners continue on at four year schools and have
really good scholarship opportunities. Like right now, the best runner
at Michigan Tech is my former guy, and he's going
to school for free at Michigan Tech. I think he's
even going to get his master's degree for free there.

(47:42):
The top runner at Hillsdale College is my guy, and
he's going to school on it's either a full ride
or nearly a full ride. The runner that set the
cross country record at Davenport University of Business School, it's
my former guy, and I'm pretty sure he didn't have
to pay anything. You know is freely free. So not
only go your first two years for free, but then

(48:03):
get good scholarship opportunities once you leave LCC, and you'll
know where you fit. Here's the other piece. I see
so many runners that I recruit parents and runners. If
you're listening to this, trust me on this one. I
see so many runners get recruited to you know, mid

(48:24):
level NCAA D one schools or NCAAD two schools because
they think, oh, that's the dream, you know, But then
they're red shirted their first year. They have one local
meet to determine the traveling squad as a sophomore, and

(48:44):
you know, they end up being like sixteenth or twentieth
on the roster, so they don't get to travel as
a sophomore. Then they start overtraining because they want to
break into that top group, and then they get injured,
setting themselves further behind. And then their third year, you
don't even see them on the roster. I prose again. Now,

(49:05):
let me fix myself, you know, and I see this
pattern again and again of people I've tried to recruit,
and and then their junior year, you know, I'd never
see anyone transfer down to a level where they're actually
going to Rarely does anyone transfer down to a level

(49:31):
where they're going to get to compete. They just drop out,
which is again That's probably what I should have done,
except I was too stubborn to do it. And most
people are as stubborn as I am, you know, so
they just drop out and here's a sport that they love.
They went to college dream of having this great experience
and they never got to fulfill it, you know.

Speaker 2 (49:52):
So I just.

Speaker 1 (49:55):
When my former runners come back, the one thing I
hear is say, yeah, I like my new co college.
But man, I wish el SEC was a four year
school because I loved running at LCC. So, you know,
it's a It's a great place to start, and I
can't think of anyone I've had that has regretted it,
you know. They you get two great opportunities, uh two

(50:20):
years to run for what I think is a top
notch program. And again, I don't treat it like a
junior college. We're a college. We're a top college running program.
We're going off to Louisville this weekend. And the meat director,
who by the way, was part of Southwest Michigan's great

(50:41):
traditioning distance running back in the eighties. He's the meat
director at Louisville. Anyway, he called me up and offered
us a spot in the Gold Race, which you know,
a few years ago Nau was the winning of the
winner of the Gold Race, so you know that was
quite an honor. But anyway, we don't treat what we're
doing like it's like it's somehow lower level. No, we

(51:07):
are a college running program, and we trained just like
you would whether you were at you know, regardless of
where you are. We have i think top top level training,
top level training partners, top level opportunities, and another piece

(51:28):
of the community college in you know, athletic experience is
that in cross country and track and field, except for
your championship needs, you compete in invitational races against every level.
You know. Our first meet was at Michigan excuse me.
Our second meet was hosted by Michigan State, who's hosting

(51:50):
the Big Ten championships this year. So you know, most
of the teams there were Big Ten college D one teams,
you know, getting a che answers to preview the course,
and that's the that's the competition we ran against. This.
Like I said, this coming week, we're going off to Louisville,
and even though we were offered a spot in the

(52:11):
Gold Race, we're going to run in the Blue race.
Which again is mostly four year colleges and universities, and
you know, we see if we see, how see how
well you do running against them.

Speaker 4 (52:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Yeah, I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions for
recruits is thinking that by going to a junior college
they're not going to get the quality of competition that
they might get at say Division two school or Division
III school. But as you were just saying, and I
think when I ran other than my conference championship, the
region meeting, the national championships, every other race I went

(52:45):
to was with four year schools.

Speaker 1 (52:47):
Yeah, they're invitational races and and you probably had more
opportunity because you got to go. You know, again if
you if you were you know, we have some great
actually at every level here in Michigan, Michigan State, you
have at the D one level or two outstanding schools
with really good coaches. At the D two level, I

(53:08):
think Grand Valley would be considered, you know, they're the
probably the top D two school in the country. And
then D three we have Calvin College and some other
really good college and they're great coaches. At every level,
we have a lot of good coaches. You know, some
of them have a hard time getting at the athletes,
but they know what they're doing when they get a

(53:28):
good athlete, there's no question about that. But you know,
if you go to Grand Valley, they're going to red
shirt your year first year, so you're not going to
get a chance to run. And unless you're really really
good as a sophomore, you're probably still not going to
make the traveling squad. So you're not going to even
havis as many opportunities to compete as you would at

(53:48):
the school you went to or at Lancing Community College.

Speaker 4 (53:54):
And you guys have pretty sweet uniforms too. I must say, oh,
thank you. That's one of the that's one of the pluses.
I gotta say, I stole that idea from North Central.
You know they had the Yeah, I got to give
credit where credit is due. I mean al Carreus is
again one of the all time great coaches, and you

(54:16):
know they for I think their regional meet and national meet.
If you make that squad, you get the red stripe shorts.
So we went to the traditionally vintage blue stripe shorts,
and then last year or maybe two years ago, we
made the vintage top to go with it.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
So I just ordered. I'd ordered them about a couple
of weeks ago. Make sure they come in time for
this year. But then I give everyone a chance to
earn that uniform. So if you if you stick it
out for two years and you are sophomore finishing up
in good standing, you get that uniform, whether you whether
you made the national championship team or not. So, yeah,

(54:54):
we run. We run traditionally. In our regular season meets,
we were Royal Blue tops and bottoms, and I have
a little saying that I, you know, just before they
go to the line, I say, it's a great day
to be a Royal Blue. So but we wanted to
stick out at Nationals. There are so many Royal Blue teams.
You know, you look across the field. You want to

(55:15):
see where your guys are, see if they're where they
need to be. And with those stripe shorts, they stick
out a little more.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Yeah, you know, it's funny you mentioned that because I
go back and forth with that as a coach, where
you know, you want the kids to stand out, that
you can see them, but then at the same time,
you don't want to stand out because you don't want
your competitors to know where you're at So it's like that, fine, yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
Beat those guys there. You see a guy in the
stripe shorts in front of you, make sure you beat them.
But I guess I I want our guys to have
a special utle for them.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
No, that's sweet. I love it.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
But yes, it shows all the all the other teams
you're competing. That's oh, that's the guy. But again, if
you're if you're a decent competitor, you're gonna beat everyone
you can beat, regardless of what their shorts they're wearing.

Speaker 3 (56:08):
Coach, is there anything about LCC that we haven't covered
that you want our audience to know?

Speaker 1 (56:17):
I don't think I mentioned that we have a really
nice campus. So I'm a I'm a In another life,
I would be like an academic counselor helping people pick
their colleges. And I wouldn't let my kids go to
college that didn't have a nice campus. I'm a fan
of architecture. If we have a really nice college campus, uh,
some two year colleges, Uh, they're all in one big building.

(56:41):
So if you went to a big high school, it
feels like you're you're still in high school. You know,
it's just all in one building. Uh, but we have
a college campus where where, like I took someone on
a tour today, you know, when class is let out,
you're you're not just walking down the hall of a building,
but you're walking from building to building. Has some nicely

(57:04):
landscaped campus and it's a great place to go to college.
I think Michigan State just ranked as one of the
top college towns in the country. And we're just down
the road from Michigan State. So there are fifty thousand
plus students in the Lancing East Lansing area, So you

(57:28):
have all the amenities. If you want to go to
a basketball game, you want to go to a big
time college football game, you're going to have friends at
Michigan State and you can take all that in, except
you're going for school for free and they're paying twenty
five thirty thousand dollars for that experience. So ed, if

(57:49):
you're a big fan of U of M, they're just
down the road. That's an hour to go down and
you take in ann Arbor. So it's a neat college
down and we have a nice college campus. And I
already mentioned that we have great academic, great vocational programs,
and you know, I got a nice Besides myself, I

(58:12):
have some great coaches on our staff, and I've had,
over the years an opportunity to to have some really
nice coaches on my staff. Some of them were young,
just starting their coaching career, so I knew they were
going to use LCC as, you know, something to put
on their their resume and use it as a stepping stone,

(58:36):
and I was super happy that to you know, provide
them that opportunity. So some of my former coaches are
you know, coaching different places across the country. But and
I've learned from them too. I had one of my assistants,
just for a short little time, was a member of
Syracuse's national championship team. So I'm always picking people's brains,

(59:00):
you know. I mentioned my son was a pretty good runner.
He went to the University of Portland in Oregon. So
you know, I'd be foolish not to be asking them, Hey, hey,
what you know what's coach Rob Connor doing there at Portland?
Or or you know what's Chris Fox Syracuse doing? How
do he turn that program around and make them national

(59:21):
champions And uh, you know, if there's something we're not
doing and we can tweet what we're doing to to
move our program further along.

Speaker 3 (59:34):
We do it.

Speaker 1 (59:35):
But what I found is most of these top programs
are doing very very similar things, and they're the things
we were already doing. So in some ways it was
just you know, authenticated what we're we're already doing here
at Lansing.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
Richie, anything else for coach you want to get in
the final four, I.

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Just got one more coach real quick. You know you
mentioned talking about Chris Fox and Rob Connor and what
other coaches doing kind of validate and what y'all are doing.
Do the stars dabble in the double threshold world at all.

Speaker 1 (01:00:08):
We don't have practices where the team will like do
a double threshold where I'll meet with them on Friday
morning and we'll do threshold work and then, you know,
Friday afternoon, will come back and do double threshold. But
for some of our sophomores, yes, they have done double threshold.

(01:00:30):
So the way we do it, let's say, well, we're
not going to do a threshold workout this Friday because
we're off to Louisville. But let's say it was an
off week and we were doing threshold work on Friday morning.
I might say to some of our sophomores, Okay, this
is an opportunity if you want to do a double

(01:00:53):
threshold you know what, have you do four or five
miles in the morning and then you can come back
and do four or five miles in the afternoon. So yes,
some of my guys that group that won in twenty
three that included Michael, Dennis, Liam and Gabriel Phillips, particularly Gabriel.

(01:01:17):
Gabriel we're in really quite high mileage, so he would
do some double threshold workouts, but we don't do it
as a team. I'll just set up the practice so
that if they want to or if we're doing let's
say Tuesday Friday morning, we practice in the morning. Tuesday
we practice in the afternoon usually Tuesday and Fridays or
harder days in terms of the routine, we practice routine.

(01:01:39):
So I would say in advance, hey, Tuesday, we're doing
threshold work in the afternoon. If you want to do
a threshold session in the morning, you know you can
do that. Just let me know and then I'll order
what the volume you have in the afternoon. So it's
not an overload. So yes, we have dabbled in that. Uh,

(01:02:01):
you know, if we're doing it in one session, we
just we just have volume. It might be a little
less than what the volume would be if you were
doing over two sessions. But but you know, we run
a substantial amount of volume wise when we when we
do uh I call temple work but yeah, temple running.
Yeah cool. And I have a guy on the team

(01:02:24):
now that uh he does a fair amount of cross training,
so he'll do a threshold workout with us, you know,
on the ground, and then he might come back and
do some threshold work you know in terms of heart
rate across training. Okay, cool, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02:43):
Final floor rich, let's do it, coach. Are you a
coffee drinker?

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
I am, you know I was, but not not heavy.
Uh So, how long do we have for this? When
I started in ministry, I never had I never had coffee.
I didn't like it. And you know, when you go
visit people, you know, they offer you a cup of coffee.
So I would decline, you know, now sorry, And then
it just got harder to explain that, so I started saying, yes, well,

(01:03:11):
you know, if I visited three or four elderly people
in the afternoon and I had three, four or five
cups of coffee. All of a sudden, I realized I'm
not sleeping, so I just knocked it off for years
and years. But in retirement, I have a routine. I
get up and you know, I make myself a cup
of coffee, a little what are they called, Oh, I

(01:03:35):
forget the name of my little coffee pot, but anyway,
I make myself a cup of coffee. I like one
and a half cups of coffee in the morning, and
that's pretty much it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
How do you take your coffee?

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
I just have cream in it now. I used to
like the flavored creams, but I just just go with
a little little cream a half and a half.

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Coach.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Do you have any daily practices or tools you do
on a daily basis to show up as the strongest
version of Jim Robinson?

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
Yeah? So you know, I was a minister for thirty
plus years, so I have a devotional life of prayer life.
And I also was a lifelong runner, so I ran
every day and I actually trained and competed. You know,
it's kind of college three season. I would run cross

(01:04:28):
country at road races in the fall, do some indoor
track in the winter, and do outdoor track in the spring.
I did that right up through my forties and fifties,
but more recently this was not a lifestyle thing. But
I discovered two years ago I had a really bad
mitro valve, so I had to have open heart surgery.

(01:04:48):
And since then I've developed a walking routine. So now
I try to You know, before that my running went
from you know, measuring it miles to measuring it five minutes.
I discovered, you know, when I was back training, you
know I might run ten miles. Well, now if I
ran sixty minutes, I count that it might be five

(01:05:09):
miles and sixty minutes or six miles, but you know,
the same amount of time, just just a lot fewer miles.
But now I do it walking. So my routine now
is to actually I'm doing two a days quite often.
I sometimes get a thirty mile walk in thirty minute
walk in the morning, at forty minute walk in the evening,
or a long walk of sixty or seventy minutes. So

(01:05:31):
those two things devotional life and still an exercise life.

Speaker 3 (01:05:35):
Awesome, coach. What are you listening to right now? Music? Podcast,
audio books? Are you reading anything? Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:05:44):
And yes, I still try to read regularly. I like
kind of historical biography. Well, biography obviously is going to
be historical, but you know then also beyond the person
gives you an insight into the error where that person lived.

(01:06:07):
So an example book like that is there's one about Lipton,
the guy of Lipton Tea. It's called a Full Cup,
and it was really a fascinating book. I read that
not too long ago. But right now I'm actually reading
a dominant Crossing, a biblical scholar part of the Historic

(01:06:29):
Jesus Movement. He's recently deceased, and I'm reading one of
his books right now. But I also like to not
so much podcast but I got a bet this has
been super fun, so I might start listening to more podcasts.
I'll watch you know, clips of top coaches on YouTube.

(01:06:50):
I like going to work out Wednesday and seeing what
other teams are doing and listening to other coaches. Like
I said, I was listening to actually Grand Blanks, you
know talk. It was a workout Wednesday, but you know
he was talking about his experience at Harvard, and then
Alex Gibby. You know, Alex Gibby was the coach here

(01:07:10):
at Michigan, and when I had this Playmaker's team, I
had some of Alex Gibbey's runners on my team. Once again,
I was picking their brains. Well, what are you guys
doing the U of M under Alex Gibbey. You know,
if you had to pick a half dozen super duper coaches,
he would probably be in that half dozen. But it

(01:07:31):
was interesting listening to him and Graham Blanks. You know,
they mentioned the word sacrifice again and again that you know,
we're looking for people that are willing to make the
sacrifice to be really good. And that's a piece of
what it takes. You can't run at a high level
unless you make choices. The way I put it is

(01:07:52):
every yes has a no. You say yes to being
a really good runner, you got to say no to
some other things, which is a sacrifice, you know, say
notice some other things that you might want to do
or so anyway, that was interesting. So yeah, and what
was the third one? No listening to? So I'm a
Bob Dylan fan. I just and that y're you know

(01:08:14):
they say the people the music they they they like
is kind of set back when you were a teenager.
What you're listening to in early teens, college years. So
I'm a classic rock guy, but I'm just fascinated. How
Bob Dylan can, you know, over forty years, keep writing

(01:08:35):
new new music. You know, most good groups they have
a span of a few years and then you notice
anything new they're doing is actually kind of a repeat
of what they used to do. You know, it's but
he keeps coming up with new stuff. And anyway, so yeah,
that's I'm a classic rock guy.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Right well with that classic rock, yes we do. And
coach just a little she plug plug. I know you
mentioned Northern Arizona and you mentioned Louisville a couple of times.
We had coach ron Man on last summer. That was
a great episode, so give that, give that a ship, listen,
and we have coach Jerry bolta Is on a couple

(01:09:18):
of times. Okay, you mentioned Grand Valley.

Speaker 1 (01:09:21):
So yeah, super wow and nice guy and obviously a
real good coaching. There's something I do that I got
from Ron Man at a clinic one time. You know,
he was the ANAU coach and then I think he
finished up his career at Louisville if I'm not mistaken.
But anyway, I remember Ron Mann had a clinic and
uh and he noted that I think they followed a

(01:09:44):
very similar pattern to us, where they do a hard
you know, a hard day is Tuesday, and then they
followed that up with the second longest run of the
week on Wednesday. And he noted that, you know, for
some reason, once running started doing that, they started getting
really good, really quickly, and I had like a snowballing

(01:10:05):
effect in terms of their fitness level. Now, some freshmen
aren't strong enough to do that. You know, if you
have a hard workout Tuesday and you follow that up
with a you know, twelve thirteen mile run on Wednesday,
they're going to break down. But as soon as my
guys get strong enough to do that, I do exactly
what ron Man was teaching. And he's right. I don't
want to give away too many of my too many

(01:10:27):
of my secress. I don't know whether my competitors are watching,
but he's right about that. I got that form ron Man.
So I'm always you know, like I said, I'm you know,
my basic philosophy was set way back in the seventies
listening to Arthur Lyndiard. But if I hear something that

(01:10:49):
makes sense, and again I trained, you know, and watched
people train at a high level of you know, so
I can match this up with my own experience in
running and say, oh, yeah, you know, I remember how
that worked. So anyway, he's right about that, I think.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
Yeah, coach, last, what we got for is a light,
harder one to close it out. Maybe it's a unique
food item out there in Lansing. Maybe it's a beverage.
Maybe maybe you play golf, maybe maybe like the fish.
Do you have a guilty pleasure?

Speaker 1 (01:11:20):
Guilty pleasure? Well, you mentioned food, So you know I'm
from Philly, so I'll wherever I go, I'll try their
cheese steaks. Okay, So I'm fan of cheese steaks, and
they're not too many as good as the ones you
get in Philadelphia. Yeah, it's not quite the same. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:11:44):
Being Jersey guys, we realized that further we get away
from New Jersey in the metropolitan area, the quality of
food is a slim picking sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:11:53):
Yeah. Yeah. So out here in Michigan, we actually have
several places that like, we have a Jersey Giants, a
small chain of sub shops that I think the guy
came from the East East coast there in Jersey, and
and yeah, Jersey, there's Jersey Mikes. But this is a
more local changer Jersey Giant, and I think he is

(01:12:16):
remembering back to the subs you bought at you know,
Ocean City on the boardwalk there, and they're pretty good. Michigan.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
Funny fact about the area, bros. The original Jersey Mikes
is from our hometown.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
Okay, there we go. So well, this has been a pleasure.
I really have enjoyed it. And as you can see,
you get me talking about running and I could go
on for a while. I didn't tell any Harry Grove story,
so you have.

Speaker 4 (01:12:41):
To have me back.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
We will definitely have you back well.

Speaker 3 (01:12:45):
Coach, thank you so much for your time this evening.
Like you said, after you guys do awesome amount of Nationals.
I'm sure we'll be doing a roundtable discussion with all
the coaches, so we'll try to get you on there
best luck for the rest of the season and I
can't wait to cheer the team.

Speaker 1 (01:13:02):
Am all right? Thanks you so much. Nice to meet
you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
Yes, coach, honored a pleasure to have you join us
this evening. Great to pick your brain a little bit here,
a little bit more about yourself and the program and
everything you got going on at LCC. We'll be adding
the LCC bounder to our Wall of fame and we'll
be cheering for you guys out and Fort Dodge. And
best of luck this weekendk you so.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Much, thank you so much. Hopefully we'll represent hopefully, but
a great day to be in Royal Blue.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:13:31):
All right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:32):
All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's coach Jim Robinson from
Lansing Community College. Make sure you go check out the stars,
give them a little love. Let them know that the
area bros sent you be rooting for them out and
Fort Dodge. In the coming months, we will be back
on Wednesday night. We'll be going back to our roots.
We're going back to the Jersey Shore. We're going back
to Region six. Billy George will be joining us to
talk all things Long Branch wrestling. So enjoy your Tuesday

(01:13:55):
and we will see you Wednesday night.

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