Crowder College Is Coming: Coach Jake Holt on Building an NJCAA Top-10, Kenyan Pipeline, SWMO Running Camp & 2025 Plans | ABR 396 - Airey Bros.'s Radio

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

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Ladies and gentlemen, howdy and aloha. We are here. You
are there, and you are now rocking with the best.
Thank you for joining us tonight for another episode of
Airy Bros.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
But before we get rolling, you all know the drill.
Make sure you have her that like button and are
subscribed on YouTube. Drop a comment, every view, review and
share helps us grow and get back to the sports
we love. Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcast,
and as always, let's not forget while we're here. We're
here to shine a light on the coaches and programs
with the stories we wish we had access to growing up.

(00:52):
If you were someone you know is chasing your dreams
in cross country, track and field wrestling, please share this
episode with them. Now let's Lacey, I'm up and welcome
coach to j Colt. Coach j Colt has won seventeen
conference titles in seventeen district titles as the head coach
at East Newton High School. They were six times missouris
He's had six Missouri state trophies nearly eighty all state

(01:15):
athletes across cross country and track and field. He's a
founder of the SWM Running Camp, one of the largest
in the US with over four hundred plus campers yearly.
He's building Crowder's brand new cross country program into a
top ten national team, both on the men's rank number
seven and the women number five. Without further ado, is

(01:38):
an honored pleasure to have you joining us this evening.
We do greatly appreciate your time. Coach j Colt, Welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
To the show. Hey, thanks Rich for having me absolutely coach.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Before we get too far into it, anything you'd like
to plug or promote anywhere you'd like us to direct
recruits on any campers that might be looking for a
good summer camp.

Speaker 1 (01:56):
The floor's yours. Yeah, I mean coach at Crowder College
in the Oceho, Missouri. We're right in the middle of
recruiting season right now. I think next this Friday, we
probably have about ten recruits coming on campus for an
overnight visit. Just gonna have a good time, let them
meet the team, meet me, and just see if we're
a good fit for them. They can check us out

(02:17):
on Instagram, we'd have Crowder a cross country track and field,
or you can go on Facebook, or you can just
go to Crowder dot edu and you can find me
that way. As you guys said earlier, I am also
the camp founder and director of Swimo Running Camp here
in Southwest Missouri, And like you said, we have run
foreigner kids every summer and it's a great time and
just we actually do get a lot of recruits that

(02:38):
way as well. So yeah, those are my shoutouts. That's awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
And Jimmy and I are veteran cross country campers. We've
had a lot of great experiences. Is the best summer,
the best week of the summer, not only as a
as an athlete in high school running cross country, but
then as a college athlete as a camp counselor, and
then also as a coach, being a coach at a
cross country camp. Some of my fondest memories of cross

(03:03):
country revolve around that week in August, maybe in July
for some people that start school in August, but yeah, great,
great times to be had at across country camp.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
I love it so coach the way we like to
get started here.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
We all have our origin stories about how we got
into the sport, how we got into coaching.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
So we'd love to hear both yours. Well. I went
to Southwest Washington High School in Southwest Missouri all thirteen
years and they were had a really good program for
cross country. It's a really small school, so they didn't
have football. And in the eighties and nineties, if you
were going to play basketball, you had to be on
the cross country team. Starting in seventh grade. It was

(03:42):
just what you did in athletics. You ran cross country,
you played basketball, and you did track in the spring.
I mean, if you're going to be in the athletics class,
that's what you're going to be doing. And my older
brother was on the cross country team when I was
a seventh grader, and you know how little brothers are,
they like to be like the older and he was
a varsity runner, and I thought, hey, I might be

(04:02):
able to do that someday. And like I said, we
didn't have football. If we had it, I might have
been a football player. I'm six five currently about two forty.
In high school, I wasn't. I didn't weigh that by
any means. I was a six four hundred and sixty
five pounds junior when I ran cross country and only
weigh about one hundred and eighty pounds my senior year
at sixty five, but got into running that way. Honestly,

(04:24):
never loved running in high school. But we had a
good team. I think we probably at one point held
to school or state record in Missouri for the most
district titles in a row. And you know, class one
and two. We were winning district titles pretty much every
year and state trophies many times in the nineties as well,
And that's kind of how I got into it, went

(04:44):
into college and really wanted to be a basketball coach
when I got into education, and maybe coach cross country
potentially as a you know, a side thing. But I
quickly realized that you're not always going to have the
best athletes in basketball, so it's sometimes a little bit
more difficult to win. But what I loved about cross

(05:05):
country is that you don't have to catch a ball,
kick a ball, be able to throw a ball in
order to have success. If you're just willing to work hard,
you're going to have a chance to do something amazing.
And I was very fortunate to have a lot of
kids that believed in that over the years, So that's
it awesome.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
And so you went from coaching at the high school level,
and I think a lot of high school coaches have
aspirations or dreams that one day they could coach at
the college level.

Speaker 1 (05:31):
So how did that come about for you with Crowder? Yeah,
I mean I was at East Newton High School for
twenty one years and I hadn't really thought about coaching
at the college level. I just happened to be at
a meet, you know, watching some kids run, and I
don't even think we were running at that meet, and
I ran into the vice president at Crowder and she
mentioned that they were going to be starting a program,

(05:54):
and I thought it just got to me, thinking, you know,
might be a great opportunity. At that time, I was
planning on just staying at the high school and teaching,
maybe coaching track and just coaching cross country at the
college level. But I quickly realized that if I was
going to be any kind of college coach, it was
gonna have to be a full time thing. And so
that was four years ago. We're on year four and

(06:14):
it's it's been a great experience for.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
Sure, coach. Sure, you're on year four and you started
the program. So how did it start and how's it going?

Speaker 1 (06:26):
First year was really tough. They didn't approve the program
until November and so you know, that was in twenty
twenty one, and we're supposed to feel the team in
fall of twenty twenty two. So I didn't get hired
until December of twenty twenty one. And by that time,
I mean a lot of the kids that you might
be able to get, they've already made decisions to go elsewhere.

(06:47):
So that first year, I think we had eight guys
and five girls on the team, and a lot of
them were kids that really crowdter was going to be
their only option to go to, especially on the girls side.
On the guy's side, I I did get a kid
that was going to go to a school in Tennessee
and he decided to give us a chance, and he's
now at the University of Central Arkansas running, you know,

(07:09):
earning for the Bears. So he was a pretty good
pickup for us. And then we just had a bunch
of unknown kids and so the first year was just
a lot of growing pains and kids putting in hard work.
But in that group, we had three kids go on
to run d two or D one, and one of
those kids was a two o seven eight hundred guy
when he showed up on Crowder's campus and he transferred

(07:32):
to Pitt State and last year broke the indoor school
record ran one fifty flat. So, you know, shout out
the coach Rutledge. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (07:41):
So you got two teams right now ranked in the
pre season polls. Yeah, how's this year's team looking, and
how's it come since those first couple of years where
you were kind of straggling to get people there. You
have more recruits coming in, more people aware of what
you got going on Crowder.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah. Year two, we had a pretty good recruiting class
with the American kids, and we had quite a bit
bigger team. We ended up with around thirteen or fourteen
guys and we got up to eight or nine girls,
so the team grew quite a bit. We in our
region were the only Division one school at the JUCO level,
so we did. We were the top team in year

(08:22):
two in our region. We beat the Mineral Area pretty handily,
and you know, they're perennial contenders for the national title
at the D three level. Of course, we have the
advantage of having the housing scholarships. Of course, year three
we ended up with thirty one kids. We had nineteen
guys and twelve girls, and we went from seventeenth and
eighteenth in the nation to the girls finishing fifth and

(08:44):
the guys got sixth. You know, we do have a
little bit of a cheat code. We did have eight
Canyons on our team, so I had four Kenyon male
and four kN In female athletes. So yeah, they they
helped tremendously. But our American kids continue to continue to
improve as well.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
So, speaking of that cheat code, how'd you break through that?

Speaker 1 (09:05):
How'd you get a Canyons on your team? Well, when
I first got into the junior college coaching, I was
told be prepared because you're probably be inundated with emails
from from Africas, from at kids that say they're very
fast and they want a full right scholarship. But I
was also told to be very weary of these athletes,

(09:25):
and so I just kind of ignored them. We didn't
we didn't have much scholarship money, still don't, so if
I was going to take a chance on a kid,
I had to be one hundred percent, hundred percent certain.
And so I had a kid and he kept. He
was very persistent. His name was Titus Q. Bertiche, and
he just kept preaching out, saying, Coach, I'm fast, I
want to come run for you. I'm fast, gim me
and I twenty and I wouldn't do it. So I

(09:47):
finally got an email from a guy by the name
of Elkana. I can't think of his last name, but
I looked him up. He was the number ten rank
marathon in the world at the time, and he said, Hey,
I know this tightest kid. He's from my village. I
vouch for him. I've seen him run. I wouldn't vouch
for him unless he was a good runner. I still
didn't believe it, you know, just because I've heard too
many horror stories. So I friended this el Kana guy

(10:10):
on Facebook, on Instagram, I looked up videos of him
so I could hear him speaking, and then I asked
him to call me at that point, and it was
obviously the same person, so I made sure I was
actually speaking to the right person, and he said, yes, See,
Titus was indeed a really good runner, and he said
I should give him a chance. So at that point
I tried to set up a time trial and we

(10:32):
set up a time trial. We issued a Night twenty.
He was pretty fast, by the way. He never got
his visa with US. He went to the embassy six times,
was denied all six times. I finally said, hey, why
don't you go try with another school, because at this point,
you know, we've been talking back and forth for a
year and a half, so you kind of develop a
relationship with these guys. And I said, won't you try

(10:52):
with another school? So again Night twenty with Hutchinson. Long
story short, he was top ten in the nation last
year with Hutchinson. But he's really good guy. Felt like
he owed me a lot, you know, because I gave
him a chance. While he was waiting to come to us,
he started hosting time trials for US in Kenya, so
he was videoing and checking passports, telling me which guys

(11:15):
were good. And before he left, he connected me with
a really good source over there, and then that guy
has been doing our time trials ever since. So we've
been really fortunate that everybody that we brought in was
a legitimate runner, and you know, that's kind of how
we got into the game. And it's a lot of work,
but they're really good people and They're very humble and

(11:35):
very appreciative to be here and with everything we can offer.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Them, how did they take to be in Missouri?

Speaker 1 (11:43):
It's very cold in Missouri. As you know, the winners
can be pretty harsh. I think the first Kenyan guy
that showed up, he flew into Kansas City and it
was minus twenty actual temperature and he was wearing like
flip flops or sa poles or something, and and he
had a coat, but it wasn't nearly enough, so it
was it was definitely a learning experience. You know. This

(12:05):
morning was fifty one degrees and the Kinnon's we had
they thought the thought they thought it was into the world,
so it was pretty cold. But they've adjusted well, you know,
it's this year is a whole new crew. We had
eight Kennins last year and seven of them end up
transferring to D one or D two schools and so
we only had one returner. And so we have eight
this year, five guys, three girls, but seven of them

(12:26):
are new. So it's a whole new experience for them.
Once again.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Is that tough with them? You know, having such success
so quickly at the Junior College of do you kind
of anticipate that they're going to be one and done.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
Usually, well, you know, your hope is that you've invested
too much time, money, and just a lot of effort. Honestly,
it's you know, if you were to look at my
phone on WhatsApp, it would scroll forever with all the
people that have contacted me want him to come to
the US. So, I mean, he just tried to develop
her relationship with them and let them know that you're
there for them, and go above and beyond and just

(13:04):
you know, be a family for them really, you know,
here in the United States, and just hope for the best.
We're kind of in a bad situation at Crowder. There's
not a whole lot of there's not a whole lot
of on campus jobs. That makes it really tough for
them to support themselves. You know, coming from a third
world country, they really need some help. So you know,
I do understand it. If they leave, you know, you

(13:25):
hope that we can we can do our best to
provide for them and they can find with some way
of supporting themselves. And obviously the hope is that they'll
be there for two years. The first two guys that
we brought in, they stayed for a year and a half.
They came in the spring, but they said they stayed
because they really felt like they owed it to me
and they felt like that was their way of paying
me back and just trying to build the program. So

(13:46):
I was very fortunate to have those guys for a
year and a half.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
And how's the season going for your so far? Have
you guys had some meats get underway yet?

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Yeah, we're dumb. We ran back to back weeks. You know,
we did come in in amazing shape, some of us,
and I knew it would be okay because we're going
to train through these these meets and basically treat them
like glorified tempos, you know, the four milers that we do.
But we went to Memphis. The guys got fifth, the
girls got fifth. We had, honestly, our our top five

(14:17):
average time was faster than our top five average time
last year. And we lost our top nine guys from
last year's squad, So we had, you know, we had
four canyons up front and then a bunch of Americans
and another one of our canyons that came in in
a little little bad shape, but he's really progressing. The
girls got fifth, and then we also ran at Bolivar
at Southwest Baptist University on Friday and ran really well. Honestly,

(14:41):
the girls got third to Missouri Southern, who has a
pretty good squad this year, and Southwest Baptist University who
had a really good recruiting class. And the guys got
third as well, to Missouri Southern that that ran really well,
and to Missouri s and T they beat us a
byt one point. Shout out to Missouri Southern. They're about
twenty minutes north of the third. Number four guy ran
for me last year, so he ran really well. We'd

(15:04):
love to have him one more year, but he came
into high He came out of high school with thirty
six credit hours, so at a junior college it makes
it tough to stay more than one year. Yeah, wow,
that's crazy.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
What do you guys have on tap leading into heading
to Fort Dodge in November.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Well, in about a week and a half we'll be
going to Missouri Southern to the Stampede. That'll be a
huge test for us the guys. For the Americans for sure,
it'll be their first eight K so it's a it's
kind of a big adjustment. Going from running five k
to a K. Most of the guys on the team
have already pr and the five k during their four mile,
you know, so I anticipate the same thing. But you know, honestly,

(15:43):
our recruiting was really good on the guy side. We
had four guys that could have gone D one or
D two, and a lot of those schools would have
loved to have the opportunity to develop them, but I
was fortunate enough to let them see our program. They
believe in what we're doing and just really really excited
to see their development over the next year and a half.
So yeah, we Mizari Southern. We hopefully we'll do really

(16:05):
well there. We've looked great in practice. Just keep improving.
We've had our girls team is getting better and better.
And then we'll go to the Chili Pepper Festival in Fayetteville, nice,
which will be a great test as well. And then
we'll hit kind of a low key meet at Allen
County it's the fire Starter Classic. Then we'll have a
regional meet, which is honestly, it's kind of a joke

(16:26):
just because we don't really get any It's we don't
get any awards because we're the only team in the
region that's D one, and then we'll head on to
Iowa and see what Iowa Central has the offers up
there at Fort Dodge.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
Coach mentioned that you have eight international guys on the
team this year. Yeah, are you more with those guys
coming in starting college, being in a farm land, being.

Speaker 1 (16:50):
In the United States?

Speaker 3 (16:51):
Do you feel like you're parent at times as well
as the coach?

Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah? Absolutely. I was telling somebody that the other day.
I said, when I signed up for this job, I
didn't realize I was going to become the father of
eight international kids. But it's a lot because they have
so many things that they need done. They need to
get Social Security numbers, and they need looking for jobs,
and they need help finding food and different things like that.
I mean, there's just a lot, honestly, getting their physicals done,

(17:18):
making sure they have insurance, helping them get their housing
depauses paid, getting them enrolled in classes, and letting them
know where everything is, and explaining them how the refrigerator
works and the shower works, and honestly things that we
don't even think about that we need to let them know,
you know, so, But yeah, it's you know, it is
a lot of work, but honestly, I really do enjoy it.

(17:41):
They're great guys. It's so humble, and you know, it's
just it's a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (17:46):
You mentioned that there are many jobs on campus. Have
you made any through lines with any of the local
businesses where you can kind of put guys through there
and be like, hey, I got some guys coming in
this year.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
You got any job up? Yeah. Unfortunately, with international students,
because of their F one visa, they can only work
on campus or in a field of study, and they're
all nursing majors. So unless there's a local you know,
medical facility that's willing to give them a job, it's
almost impossible to get a job, especially your first semester
as an international student, unless it's on campus. We had

(18:22):
some kids last year they got their CNA over Christmas
break and we're able to get some jobs that way,
working in some local businesses. But it is really tough
for sure. And then you know they're getting a lot
of requests from back home from their families for money,
you know, because most of them have seven, eight, nine
brothers and sisters, and it's pay as you go to school,

(18:42):
so you know they're like, Hey, you know, my little
sister needs to go to school. Can you send twenty
bucks so she can go this month? And because they're
in the United States, their families think they're rich and
which is not the case. Coach.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
Geographically speaking, where are you located? Jimmy and I's point
of references. We know everything in Missouri through Route seventy
or Ice seventy, but other than that, you know, outside
of like Kansas City, we're pretty limited.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
In our Missouri geography. Where you guys located at. Yeah, well,
if you're on Ice seventy and then you go and
take seventy one south to Joplin, Missouri. Okay, you know
Joplin is where Missouri Southern is. We're about twenty minutes
south of there, so just a dot on the Arkansas border.
We're probably twenty miles north of the fifteen to twenty
miles north of the Arkansas Order. We're probably an hour

(19:31):
from Fabul, Arkansas north of there, so that's considered the Ozarks. Yeah, yeah,
for sure. So I imagine you have some pretty good
training Crowns. Yeah, I mean Crowders located. It's in the oshow,
but it's almost a town itself. It's a former military base.
If you've ever read the comic strip Beetle Bailey, Beetle

(19:52):
Bailey was stationed at Camp Swampy, well Crowder College is
where the guy that created you know, Beetle Bailey was stationed.
So Camp Swampy is Crowder. It's kind of landlocked by
paved roads, honestly, but we're pretty fortunate that there's a
military base surrounding our school. And I happen to know

(20:12):
the lieutenant and he's a former coach at a rival school,
and so he lets us run on the base. And
they have lots of gravel roads and hills and just
lots of different terrain. We have also have some conservation
areas that are very close that have two, three, four
or five mile loops that have really good footing. We
have a what we call Kentucky Thunder, which is a
sixteen mile out and back that's all gravel with lots

(20:35):
of hills that we can go to. It's about fifteen
miles away. And if we travel north to jop when
they do have the Frisco Trail, which is really nice
to run on in the Ruby Jack. You know former
rail lines that have had the hard packed chat. So, yeah,
we do have a lot of cool places to run.
We don't have a track on campus. We actually access
the Neosho High School track before they get on there
in the afternoons. Sometimes we hit the mornings. We're not

(20:57):
there a lot for cross country, but we use it
a lot more track season.

Speaker 2 (21:01):
I like the sounds of that Kentucky thunder. Yeah, it
sounds right up my alley, doesn't it, gym.

Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yes it does. I would want to do that with you.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
It's like a it's there, it's crowded version of Magnolia Road.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
Yeah, there you go. Coach.

Speaker 3 (21:15):
You mentioned the dorms and that being a big highlight
for kids coming to Crowded that they can stay at
the dorms. What is your team look like as far
as kids from Missouri and kids from out of state.

Speaker 1 (21:28):
Yeah, primarily where Missouri compromised, no pun intended. But we
have a program in Missouri called the Plus program, And
so for junior colleges, if you do fifty hours of
tutoring and you score proficient on your ALGEBRAEOC and of
course examination, you get all your tuition paid for. So
I think every Missouri kid in twenty four to twenty

(21:50):
five was on the A plus program. So even though
we don't have a lot of athletic money at times,
you know, we do have that avenue. We do have
a couple of kids out of Northwest Arkansas that ran
at Harbor Springdale. One of them was he was wanting
to walk on maybe at Uba, but he only had
a one fifty six in high school. But that's a
pretty good pick up for us to get a one

(22:10):
to fifty six kid out of high school, especially with
our middle distance training. I think he can probably get
close to one fifty this year as a freshman. He's
got really good endurance, he's running pretty well across, and
he's got good foot turnovers, so I think we can
do something with that. But yeah, mainly Missouri kids. So
you know, we have thirty kids on the roster this year,
fifteen guys, fifteen girls, five Kenyons, seven Americans, and two

(22:36):
kids Markansas. On the guy's side. All the girls are
from Missouri except for three Kenyon girls.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
And are all those guys and gals are they living
on campus or you got some living off campus?

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Yeah, they all live on campus. The eight Kenyans live
in the apartments which are across the street that's technically
part of the school, but those have their own kitchen,
you know, refrigerator, sink, everything, because the Kenyan athletes really
do like to cook their own food. They like to
eat through golley and greens and potatoes and rice and
lentils and things like that. We have a couple of

(23:08):
twin girls that are living in the apartments as well,
and then one of our sophomore girls is living in
the apartments, so everybody else lives in the dorms. All
the guys live in one house and the girls live
in another. They say it's kind of like having summer
camp all the time, so they do a lot of
fun stuff together. Hopefully they stay out of trouble.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Coach, could you just go back real quick and repeat
what you said about the I think you said it
was the A plus program. If students coming out of
high school have fifty hours of tutoring and they get
a certain grade on the EOC, they get free tuition.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, Missouri, it's called the A plus program. And in
high school I like to do is tutor for fifty hours.
It could be in the summer. You could even do
like a cadet teaching class. Where you're basically helping in
a classroom and you get fifty hours of credit for that,
and then you have to score just proficient on your
algebra and of course examination and as long as you're
a ten and it says okay, it has to be

(24:01):
I think it's like ninety five percent. And you don't
have any referrals for behavior. You know that we're serious. Yeah,
you can get all your all your tuition and fees
paid for at any junior college in Missouri. So it's
a great program.

Speaker 2 (24:15):
Honestly, are are a lot of a lot of students
in Missouri taking advantage of that?

Speaker 1 (24:20):
Yeah, there are a lot that do. But it surprises
me sometimes in the middle of recruiting, like so are
you doing a plus? And they're like what's that? And
I'm like, how do you not know what that is?
You know, someone's counselor has failed them along the way. So,
you know, junior college is a great route to go,
especially with you know all the eligibility, you know, potential
eligibility issues that are going on right now at the

(24:41):
college level. I mean, if you're looking at getting your masters,
why not go and go and run into JUCO get
to compete potentially keep all for your NCAA you know years.
So yeah, check all the way. Yeah, that's amazing coach
with the diverse roster.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
How is it with the American athletes and the Kenyan athletes?
Do they come together or is it take some bombing
at a summer camp no pun intended to kind of
you know, break through some barriers.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah. One thing that we really wanted to stress this
year was having one team. You know, at times last
year it seemed like we had two teams. We had
our Kenyon guys kind of doing their thing and their
American guys doing their thing. The guys at a way
better job than the ladies, the ladies seem to. I
think it was just the ladies that we had last year.
They were just very quiet in general, just kind of

(25:31):
kept to themselves. I think it was more of a
just their personality, not necessarily just cultural. But we really
do stress like, hey, we're gonna warm up together, we're
gonna we're gonna cool down together, we're gonna do things together.
I try to provide opportunities for them just to come together.
We do team meals together, you know, and you know
a lot of times we'll like, hey, the first mile,

(25:53):
we're just gonna we're gonna warm up together, you know,
I know we're all different paces, but we're gonna spend
this first mile, you know, talk to each other. We
do buddy runs where you know, I just you know,
like I pick a day and it doesn't matter if
you're faster slow, You're gonna run with this person. You're
gonna get to know them, you know, ask them about
their culture, ask them about, you know, what's going on
back home, ask them how they made the United States,
and or vice versa, you know, if they're an American.

(26:15):
We also do a team retreat. We go away for
three days and just they stay. The guys stay in
one room, the girls stand another, and we just they
set goals and just get to know each other a
lot better that way. But I would say, honestly, the
culture is really good, way better than I've seen it
in some other places. And they do really I know,
the American guys just absolutely love the Kenyan guys. They

(26:35):
love going over their apartment and just spending time with
them and just trying to hang out with them as
much as they can.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Yeah, that's huge, I would imagine. I know myself as
a younger runner, I would have had a couple. There's
only some Canadians and some Brits, but you know, you
try to learn from them and get to know different
things about the culture.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
And I would imagine it's even more.

Speaker 2 (26:59):
So with with having you know, guys from Africa and
Kenya to be able to pick their brains and just
absorb some of that, you know, just their ability to
run and how they run and all the rising tide
rises off ships. So I'd imagine that helps everyone. I'm
curious on those buddy runs, do you when they come
back to you equism a little bit? Do you ask

(27:20):
them like what's what's their favorite color? What are they
like on their pizza?

Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yeah, so, yeah, that's what we do. We go back,
We get in the circle and be like, okay, tell
me tell me something about you know so and so
and they, you know, they share the go around and
just kind of let everybody know what they learned about
their buddy during that time. So and you know the
thing about the Kenyan athletes, you get to know their
story a little bit and it's very humbling, you know that,
you know, with the embassy situation going on, the way

(27:47):
it is right now, it's almost impossible going to visa
these families over there. Pretty much they're ransoming everything they
have's selling off all their property just to give their
children a chance. And then most of the time it
doesn't even happen. You know, it's it's really heartbreaking, honestly,
and the kids that I have is very thankful to
be here.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Was it difficulty with getting visas and that sort of
stuff to get over here, and you know, it's a
lifetime opportunity.

Speaker 1 (28:14):
You say that they're there.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Sometimes you have to rain them in a little bit
because they're they're trying so hard to get to that
next level or get that Division one scholarship or maybe
an nil deal.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Is it? Sometimes you got to be hey, we got
to pump the brakes a little bit. No, I mean
our training is pretty intense. I think they're they're getting
about all they want. I think at times, Okay, so
either I haven't really seen that aspect of it at all,
you know, the trying to think which direction might go
with that. But no, I mean I haven't seen that

(28:45):
at all. They just come out, they put in the work.
You know, they don't really question what we're doing. Sometimes
they'll mention like hey, can we do a fart lake
or something like that. I'm like, you, actually, we have
that planned or you know, I'll tell them like, hey,
you know what, we can't already have the season kind
of have this for a while and you know, we're
probably gonna do this on that day and this on
that day. But they're, you know, very respectful about what

(29:07):
our plan is. And I'm always we have one on
ones every week and they come in the office, everybody
on the team, and we just sit down and talk
about how training is going and discuss like where they
want to go, where the what their goals are, do
we need to adjust those, and how their health is,
how's how's life, how's school going, and just uh, we
have conversations like that, and I think those things kind
of help, you know, curtail any any of those issues

(29:29):
that we might run into.

Speaker 3 (29:31):
Rich I'm gonna steal your thunder on this one. Well, coach,
you said your your training is pretty intense. So what's
the training looking like you guys dabble on in double T?
How far out are you programming and are you just
and accordingly throughout the season.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
Well, no, we haven't dabbled in the double tea. But
we definitely do two workouts, not two workouts, but two
runs a day, four days a week, especially those that
are on higher mileage for sure. So I'm sorry if
somebody's at my front door. So if I get if
somebody rings the doorbell, try to ignore it, all right,
But yeah, back to the train of thoughts. So we

(30:10):
train Monday through Thursday, twice a day, Friday and Saturday mornings. Selfishly,
I do take Sundays off to spend with my family,
go to church. So we do take Sundays off, which
is a little bit normal, not normal for a lot
of programs. A lot of people do their long runs
on Sunday. We do ours on Saturday generally, and if
we don't get our long run in because of racing,
then we'll just have a really longer run on Monday.

(30:32):
But like we'll be doing a really intense tempo. He'll
run tomorrow morning. It's gonna be it's super super inclined,
like eleven percent grade, so it's gonna be pretty challenging.
They're gonna they're gonna hit that one pretty hard. Then
Thursday will come back and be doing like two thousand
and three thousand and one thousand intervals at subway Space.

(30:53):
But our mileage isn't quite as high as I would
like it to be, just because I'm trying to keep
everybody healthy. You know, with the Kenyan athletes, they're not
used to running on pavement, and sometimes we have to
run on that a little bit more than we want to. So,
you know, we're keeping it about a max of seventy
miles per week right now on the guy's side, and
the girls are going to get closer to fifty five
to sixty some of them.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
So coach, you have a benchmark workout that you do
with the athletes that you check in like maybe once
a month.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, we do thousand meters repeats, and we usually do
them on the track just because it's you know, we
know it's the same every time, and from our first
session first week on campus to our last one, it
was like night and day. It was like we didn't
even look like the same team. So yeah, we do
that one quite a bit, which is something that I
like doing. You know, it's a really taxing workout, but

(31:42):
it's also something that's doable. As the season goes on,
though we do decrease the amount of recovery time that
they get for sure, and then we adjust the paces
as we go as well once the kids get a
little bit more fit.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
So, and you mentioned a lot of the Kenyan athletes
are nursing major. Are most of the students on the
team otherwise maybe doing like a kind of just like
a liberal Arts associates degree and then thinking about their
major once they go move on to a four year Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
I'd see most of the kids on the team are
just doing a general education degree getting there in that.
You know, a lot of them they come to junior
college because they're not sure what they want to do
with their lives and they're still trying to figure out
what they what they want to do. I have some
sophomores that still don't know what they want to do.
So yeah, I think most of them just just the
general education I don't really think a lot of them

(32:33):
have a focus yet. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:36):
Well I'm forty nine and I tell my students and
my athletes, I still don't know what I want to
do when I grow up.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
So same coach you mentioned at nursing program. Is there
any other unique programs at Crowder?

Speaker 1 (32:50):
Well, the Crowder is has a huge technical school, and
our agricultural program is amazing. We have like a five
hundred acre farm that surrounds the campus, so we get
really good ag students from all over the place because
they get to work hands on with with all the
different animals. The nursing program, even though we have an
amazing nursing program, it doesn't work really well for the athletes.

(33:11):
So even though the Kenyans are technically nursing majors, they're
not really taking a lot of the nursing classes because
at Crowder you can get your whole nursing r N
degree in three years, and that's not going to work
for the Kenyan athletes because you know, obviously they can
only stay for two. So and then all the technical
schools and we have diesel Tech and we at one
point out a solar program. You know, it's a pretty

(33:34):
big school. I think we have like six thousand students
at Crowder spread out over we have six different campuses.

Speaker 3 (33:41):
Oh wow, So coach you took over the program in
twenty twenty one and that's when stuff got going and
you have a pretty successful program at East Newton High School.
Has there been any time in that stretch for you,
like what did I do what I get myself into
just teaching and coaching?

Speaker 1 (34:03):
Well, I taught high school English, so I'll be honest,
by the time I was twenty one years into it,
I was kind of ready to be done teaching, you know,
so the idea of just being able to go and
coach and and not have to teach, And really I
love teaching, but grading papers, I mean when you're in
the middle of season, you know, you're you know, got
two track meets that week and you've got you know,
five page at research papers degrade and no time to

(34:26):
get it done. You know, I don't miss those days
at all. So, you know, I said goodbye at East
Newton and it was really really tough because I had
a good team, I really did, and there's some good
guys coming back, and but there's always gonna be those
kids that you're gonna be looking forward to coaching and
hate saying goodbye to. And honestly was pretty much a
perfect time, you know. We had just we just got

(34:47):
third in the state. You know, in Missouri, even like
Class three is pretty tough in cross country, it's a
it's a pretty deep state in terms of ability, and
we had a good four by eight hundred. I knew
we had a chance to win state again and we
were going to threepeat. Would have been a four peet
without COVID, and we did so, you know, we went
out on a high note. We got third in state
and track and a cross country one state in the

(35:09):
four by one hundred again on the guy's side, and
you know, went and started that program, and I'm trying
my best just to keep building it up and just
creating good athletes and good people and it's our goal.

Speaker 3 (35:20):
So sorry, Rich you mentioned that grade and papers is
not something that you like doing, and we know as
a college coach, you're not just a coach or CEO
of small business.

Speaker 1 (35:32):
Yeah, you got to manage a lot of different things.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
Sounds like you really like doing the programming and the
workouts and stuff. What is the grading papers of your
job a crowd?

Speaker 1 (35:43):
I mean budgeting Obviously it's tough. You know, as a
fairly new program. Our budget's gotten way better, but in
the beginning it was pretty tight and just making sure
we had enough money just to get through the season.
Also scholarships, you know, I wish I had more money.
You know, there's always kids that aren't going to get
the amount of money that you wish you could give them,

(36:03):
you know, and trying to build the best team you
can around what you have available. You know, I think
the monetary side of it is probably the hardest thing,
for sure. Just budgeting scholarships and recruiting, you know, is
a never ending thing. I mean, I honestly never stop working.
You know, you get home and your phone's going off
and you're checking stats, and you know it's my wife

(36:25):
did say I was kind of married to my team,
which you know, it's that's that kind of hurts a
little bit, but in a lot of ways it is true.
You just if you're going to be in this, and
you're in it, it's a lot. For sure.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Do you find recruiting to be a bit more challenging
than recruiting at the high school level where you have
the kids in your around them all day and you
can see them and you can talk to them. Whereas
I guess now a lot of recruiting isn't even on
a phone call anymore. It's probably WhatsApp or text message
or some other form that I don't even know about

(37:00):
out Yeah, you.

Speaker 1 (37:01):
Know, we use social media a lot trying to reach
out to kids. I mean, I have access to every
coach's email address in Missouri, Arkansas, Kansas, any state I want,
really and I'll send out messages and we don't get
a lot of response that way normally. You know, it's
tough to the amount of time it takes to go
in and add specific names. So I've had a coach say, well,
if you don't put a specific name on there, I'm

(37:23):
not going to even like bother you know, like passing
that information on or asking, which that's fair. So we
use social media, honestly, We'll go and we'll follow kids
on Instagram and hope that they follow us back so
we can start a conversation that way. And we've actually
signed a lot of kids just through Instagram. Honestly, a
few kids have reached out to us. But you know,

(37:43):
it's a junior college and that's a tough sell. It
honestly is, because everyone wants to go bigger. But a
lot of times kids just don't realize how difficult college
running is, no matter what level we're running at. And
we're kind of in a tough spot in terms of
our recruiting because Missouri Southern is twenty minutes north of US.
Pitts State is an hour away from US. University of

(38:06):
Arkansas is an hour away from US. Springfield, Missouri has
a Drury and a evangel and Missouri State University they're
an hour away from US. We're kind of like right
in the middle of some really good programs, you know,
and so kids have a lot of options, and especially
on the girls side, it is really really tough. You know.
The girls that I American girls that I'm getting, and
most of them ran like twenty two and twenty three

(38:28):
minutes in high school, you know, and then I in
one year hopefully get them down close to twenty flat
and if they really you know, buy in and focus.
Hopefully after two years get them down to potentially breaking
nineteen minutes or low nineteens. You know. But you know
that we're starting at a different baseline for sure. You know.
We did sign one really really good American this year.
She was third in class three in the two mile

(38:50):
and ran around eleven thirty. And she's already doing really
really well. First meet it ran the fastest American girls
time we've ever had, and I think she potentially can
run high seventeens by the time she leaves here. Next year.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
Okay, as it excuse me, as the success of the
program has that. Have you seen a little bit of
a pump in recruiting because of that?

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Yeah, I think so. I mean, the the kids that
we've had on campus, you know, that have moved on,
you know, they've We've had a lot of kids move
on even after two years. I think last year we
had sixteen kids move on to D two or D
one schools, you know, and that's that's over half, you know,
and then we had quite a few kids coming back.
So the majority of our kids that they graduated last
year and I'm going to m double A schools like

(39:32):
University of Central Missouri and Missouri Southern, Pitt State. We
had a kid to go to Wichita State, Drake, University
of Fayetteville, North Carolina, Penbrooke, North Carolina. We had a
kid go to NAI School in Indiana. So yeah, I mean,
the success definitely, it doesn't hurt for sure, And you know,
you have a little bit of credibility when kids start
seeing the improvement of the American athletes especially you know,

(39:56):
when you see a kid go from two seven to one,
you know, fifty two in two years, you know that
that does open some eyes, but he had that in
in the whole time. That's the thing that people don't realize.
I just found a way of getting out of me.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
Sounds like from some of your recruits and athletes. And
then with your success at the high school level, is
the eight hundred year bread and butter event?

Speaker 1 (40:18):
You like the coach? I you know, I love that event.
I love running all the events. Honestly, I get excited
for every event. But yeah, I mean at the high
school level, you know, we at a small school, Like
I taught at a school that had three hundred and
fifty kids, and there weren't a lot of good athletes
to go around, so I had to share those athletes

(40:42):
many times with the basketball team. So in track season,
if you're going to be good, it's probably not going
to be at the two mile, because they come in
with no base whatsoever. There's not enough time. You know,
they're they're playing all the way up until almost April
at times. You know, especially because we had some good teams,
and so you just raise them into shape, and you know,
the was a was a place that we could have

(41:02):
some success and hopefully we get them enough shape to
run a good mile. As well, and if if they're
pretty talented, they might be able to hang on and
make All state in the two mile as well. So yeah,
but the eight hundred, I love it. It's it's so fast
and exciting. Honestly, Yeah, I was not an eight hundred
runner myself, so but I love coaching it rich.

Speaker 3 (41:20):
You had to share a lot of the basketball athletes.
Do you want to ask the next question? You want
me to steal your thun?

Speaker 1 (41:25):
There again?

Speaker 3 (41:26):
You so coach, You had to share athletes. You had
a multiple multi sport athletes. What is your thought on
the multi sport athlete? Do you feel there's benefits of
playing more than one sport.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
I think you can argue either way. I think if
you're gonna argue, I'd say, if you're like a ball athlete,
I would play lots of different sports. You know, But
if you were a running athlete and you're gonna have
any success, you have to be running pretty much year
round in my opinion. You know, from you know, by
the time you're a sophomore junior in high school, you

(42:03):
should be doing cross country and track and probably training
summer and winter if you're going to get to the
level that these kids are getting to nowadays. If you're not,
you're just probably getting left behind. But you know, I
think multi sports for sure. I mean it strengthens so
many different muscle groups that you know, kids get in
the weight room and they get really strong, and the
major muscle groups and they don't get very strong, and
the minor muscles that we use, you know, I think

(42:25):
that's what the ball sports really are good at strengthening,
you know, the medial and lateral muscles in your thighs
and stuff like that that you know, I think that's
probably why we see so many ACL injuries nowadays, because
we're so strong on our quads and hamstrings and we're
not really strengthening all those little bitting muscles that kind
of keep everything attacked.

Speaker 3 (42:43):
So you mentioned that sometimes kids don't understand the benefits
of junior college and sometimes it might be a tough pitch,
and like Rich said, we are products of the junior
college system. But I won't speak for Rich. I want
kicking and screaming. It was my only option, so that's
where I went, But it wasn't my first, you know,
choice where I wanted to go. Have you figured out

(43:05):
the magic pitch? Have you figured out the magic words
to kind of make a seventeen year old eighteen year
old to kind of understand the benefits or do you
not understand until you see the price of college and
you're paying loans off when you're your thirties and forties.

Speaker 1 (43:19):
Yeah. Yeah, it seems like with the guys, the idea
that they can compete right away. You know, a lot
we lose a lot of girls. They'll go to like
the Ncaady School, Division two school and yeah they have
a uniform and they got to be on the media
day pictures, but they never get to raise you know,
they're probably red shirting for a year, maybe finding a
way to red shirt for two years, or you know, honestly,

(43:41):
they're just not getting many opportunities. Just the idea that hey,
you're going to come to a junior college, you're going
to get really solid training, you're going to improve, and
you get to be a contributing factor on our team
that's going to have success while you're getting better and
hopefully making some money down the road for D two
or D one school. You know, that's that's kind of
all what I can offer them. On the guys side,

(44:02):
you know, we get a lot of walk ons, just
because guys are not quite as ready to give up
athletics I think as girls are. Sometimes a lot of
the girls are just ready. Oh I've got good grades,
I'm gonna be able to go to a D two
school and I'm just gonna be on my academic scholarship
and not worry about it. But yeah, I don't know
what the magic words are, but I think opportunity to
compete right away, and then if they're decent, you know,

(44:26):
we're gonna be able to pay for most of it,
you know, So that's a good cart as well.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
Yeah, I think that's a really good benefit of Hey,
you're going to compete right away, and guess what, we're
going on a lot of these invitationals, a lot of
meats that you're going to compete against Division one and
Division two school so you're going to see the same
competition with the exception of the national meet, and you
might actually have a chance to become All American and
then you know, open up doors that you didn't have

(44:51):
maybe coming out of high school.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Yeah, I would say one thing I'm guilty of as
a coach. I would probably be a way different coach
if I taught, and if I coached at a four
year school, we race more often than I would like
to because I'm trying to get these kids opportunities to
get good times, you know, and it's it's a very
quick development period.

Speaker 3 (45:12):
You know.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
They need to get fast and they need to get good,
and they have a very short amount of time to
get good. So I think if there's anything I'm guilty
of that I would definitely change. If I was at, like,
you know, NCAA Division two school, it's definitely our training
would look a lot different and we wouldn't race nearly
as often.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Coach you said, in the recruiting process, it's helped that
you know, people are taking notice of what you're doing
at the school and that people you know, you guys
are ranked, you know in the preseason five and seven.
Do you enjoy that or do you kind of wish
you could kind of stay on at the radar more
and surprise some people and turn more heads as the

(45:48):
national meet and creep up on them.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Yeah, I mean, I think the ego on the team,
you know, it's hard to you wish you could kind
of fly under the radar, and but the ego of
the guys that, you know, they they want to see that, hey,
what we're doing is paying off, you know. I think
the guys kind of felt like it was a slap
in the face when they got ranked seventh, because we
actually have I think we're better this year than we
were last year. But we lost our top nine guys,

(46:14):
and when you lose your top nine, that's a big rebuild,
you know. And we yeah, we lost to all four
of our Kenyon guys that were number one, two, three,
and four or five, and at going to Missouri Southern
where he was the number fourth or first meet, so
that you're losing a lot of really good runners. But
the kids that got visas and then the transfers that
we had come in, and then our American guys. I mean, honestly,

(46:36):
I think we're way better than we were last year.
And the girls, they were ranked fifth, and that's probably
about where we should have been. We lost our top
three girls from last year. We did get a girl
with a visa that won our meat the other day
at Southwest Baptist. She ran seventeen fifty one. She's pretty solid.

(46:57):
But yeah, I mean, I don't know. Rankings are what
they are, but it's cool to see and I think
the kids get excited for when they come out and
all those things like that. But I don't know if
you can really fly on the radar under the radar
anymore with all the with all the data that's out there.
Looking at Iowa Western their last race, and I was like, yeah,
we're not maybeat Northwest Missouri and you know, I think

(47:19):
they won thema A last year, so that's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
So what are the goals for postseason? Have you guys
have the team started talking about that or yeah?

Speaker 1 (47:31):
I mean from the very beginning of the year, it
was our goal to you know, get a trophy at Nationals,
top three both sides. I think on the girls side
it's gonna be a lot tougher. If we hadn't lost
a couple of our key runners that transferred to D
two schools, I think we'd be right there, especially with
Salt Lake. Looks like they may be down just because
they did away with their track program. But I think

(47:53):
maybe those kids went to a different junior college potentially,
So it looks like, yeah, it looks like Snow is
going to be They look pretty good too, But yeah,
top three, it'd be awesome to get a national trophy
just so they see the kids hoist that in the air.
Would be really really cool, you know, because we do
work hard and we you know, they're my kids, honestly.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
So, and the JUCO is a unique experiences. There's a
half marathon Championships the Monday after the National cross Country Championships.
Will you be entering teams in the half marathon Championships?

Speaker 1 (48:27):
Yeah? I think we will this year. We didn't last year,
and honestly, our girls would have done very very well.
Our girls could go out and just completely slay a
ten to twelve long run, you know, ten on a
long run. They were super super good. I don't know
if we would have won, but we would have definitely
been top two or three last year because you know,
they only score three and we went four, six and

(48:49):
sixteen in the nation and cross country with those girls
and those three you could definitely put on a long run.
Guys would have done pretty well too. I think potentially
top three on the guys side year. So we're gonna
try it this year. We had a bad experience with
it two years ago down in Huntsville. Just the kids
were just tired. Yeah, we just we didn't perform very well,

(49:10):
and yeah, it was just but I'm hoping this year
will be different. Now they scored three. But are you
allowed to run more than three? Yeah, you can run
as many as you want you can. Yeah, we will
probably send most of the team home just because it's
on Tuesday. Now, okay, so you run Saturday and then
it's on Tuesday. So just the hotel, Fige's and stuff

(49:30):
like that, will probably send most of them home and
we'll just take Advan back. Coach.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
Is there anything about crowd or college that we haven't
spoken that you want potential recruits parents to know, Anything
that you want to speak on that we haven't spoke
on the floor as years?

Speaker 1 (49:47):
Sure? Yeah, I mean it's a good school. It's like
a thirteen to one. You know, students to professor Ratio.
The professors know who you are. I mean we even
we've even seen them at our cross country meets. They're
very part of the program.

Speaker 3 (50:02):
You know.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
I am very happy with our administration. Even though we're
not highly highly funded, we're way better than we were
and they're continuing to work just to build that program.
I think they see the success that we're having and
they want to try to make it, make it even better,
you know, I think we just you know, potentially if
we had, if we'd had two more scholarships last year,
we may have been national champions. I gave away el
Konick Abruto, who went twenty two nineteen. He actually got

(50:25):
his visa with US, but I didn't have enough money
to sign him and he went to Stephen F. Austin.
Now he's the number one runner, which is tas State.
I think he ran he ran thirteen twenty on the
track in the five thousand, you know. So you know,
just it's a good school. We're continuing to work to
make it even better. You know. Treat cross country, track

(50:46):
and field like a like a big family, crowded itself.
It's a good place to be. There's a lot going
on on campus. It feels like a real college. We
have student events. We have a really large Baptist student union.
They have about fifty It's that attend like Bible studies
and stuff like that on Mondays and Wednesdays, and so
faith is your thing. They have that aspect of it
as well. And we do have really good baseball softball programs,

(51:11):
so you know, that gets really exciting on campus. So
there's a lot going on. It's a good school, good
place to live, you know, Southwest Missouri's low crime area,
and just a great place for your kids to go
for two years.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
Yo Ozarks Jim yep will definitely got me excited to
follow the team, coach, and I'm expecting big things come
come November. So very grateful that we have this conversation. Rich,
Do you have anything else for coach before we get
in the final four?

Speaker 1 (51:44):
Now, let's get him in the final four. Okay, coach,
are you a coffee drinker? I am? How do you
brew your coffee and how do you take it? I
just use just a regular coffee the coffee pot and
use soldiers, and I just brew enough for my thirty
two ounce big cup, you know that keeps it warm

(52:05):
for like four hours. I put just a little bit
of milk in the bottom of it, and then I
also put in like three splendor and I drink that,
you know, starting at five in the morning until about
ten am, and then I'm done.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
So, Coach, do you have any daily practices or rituals
you do on a regular basis to show up as
the strongest version of Ja Coble?

Speaker 1 (52:29):
Well, I read my Bible every morning. So that's the
first thing I do when I wake up. I do
a yearly Bible reading app. And so I'm almost done
with this year, but I do that every morning. Yeah,
I just I don't know. That's a tough question, man.
I would say, I try to tell the people that

(52:50):
I care about that I love them. That's awesome. Rich.

Speaker 3 (52:55):
I think Coach is like the third or fourth person
who told us about.

Speaker 1 (52:58):
That daily Bible reading app. I think the universe might
be trying to tell us something. I think. So it's
a tough habit to get started, but once you get started,
it gets pretty easy. So, Coach, what are you listening
to right now? Music? Podcasts, audio books? Are you reading anything?
I'll just I'll be honest. I'm a really strong Christian

(53:19):
and so all I do is listen to Christian music.
So that's it. I watch a little bit of TV.
I'm a Cardinals baseball fan, but they're not really worth
watching right now. They're pretty bad. But that's about it.
I listened to the radio. I guess I better be
listening to the Airy podcast a little bit more.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
Yeah, well, you'll definitely get all your junior college cross
country track and field, the.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
Scouting reports and scattering coach.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Last one we have for me to close out as
a lighthearted one, a little fun. Maybe it's a unique
food item that you guys have down there. Maybe it's
a beverage. Maybe you like to play golf. Do you
have a guilty pleasure?

Speaker 1 (54:02):
Golly, this is this is bad. But I have ten
thousand plus trophies on Clash Royale, okay, and mostly guys
on the team play Class Royale. So at running camp,
it's kind of a joke, like I dismiss everybody for dinner,
and I always say, if you think you have more
trophies than I do, you can come up here, and

(54:24):
if you do, you can go first. If you don't,
you go last. And so you know, normally, normally I
have more trophies than the kids, which is kind of funny.
So got my nine year badge. So yeah, there we go.
Nice congratulations. Yeah exactly, not at all.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
Honestly, I don't even know what it is. Is it
a video game or is it on online game?

Speaker 1 (54:49):
It's a phone app online game. You play live against
another opponent every yeah, and you have to battle like
every day. So it's like it's like a ten minute
a day pleasure.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
So do you limit yourself? Do you have a timer
that comes on that turns the appaull for you on
a hot streak?

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Will you keep out on? Honestly, don't play that much.
I just you know, if you're in a klan, you
have to. I hate talking about this. If you're in
a klan, you just you do your battles, you know,
on uh say, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then that's
really the only requirement that you have.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
So do you play with kids on the team or
do you have like a bunch of ringers all over
the country that you play with.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
I actually used to be in a plan that was
rinked top twenty in the nation, but I left it.
It just it was it was a lot of pressure.
Not gonna lie. A little bit of a double life there. Yeah, yeah,
that's sad. Coach.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Thank you so much for your time this evening. I
can't wait to follow the team for the rest of
the year. I'm expecting some big things and super excited
that we have this conversation.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Thank you so much. All right, guys, I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
Yes, Coach Hold is honored a pleasure to meet with you, Jim.
We're gonna be losing our voices. We have so many
teams to root for come come November eighth.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna be a rough one this year. Rich.

Speaker 2 (56:10):
Yeah, well, maybe we'll get to reconnect on the seventh
if we do our live coverage at the banquet out
there in Fort Dodge. We'll do some remote stuff. Maybe
we'll see you out there do a little pre pre
meet conference. So coaches honor a pleasure to meet with
you this evening. We do appreciate your time. And yeah,
best of luck with the rest of the season. Best

(56:31):
of luck at Chili Pepper. I know that's a that's
a pretty big deal. And yeah, we'll be rooting for
you as well as some of the other schools that
we root for out in Fort Dodge come November eighth.

Speaker 1 (56:41):
All right, thank you, Rich, Thanks Jim.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
All right, ladies and gentlemen, that's coach Jake Holt from
Crowder College. Make sure you give them a follow let
them know the air bro sent you, give.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Them a little bit of love. We will be back
tomorrow night.

Speaker 2 (56:53):
Quinn Taylor, sorry, Quinn White from Taylor University will be
joining us they're one of the top nai A programs
right now, and on Wednesday night, Jeremy Sudbury from Iowa
State will be joining us to talk all things cyclone
cross country, So thanks.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
For tuning in tonight.

Speaker 2 (57:08):
We'll be back here same time tomorrow as well as Wednesday,
so tune in

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Crowder College Is Coming: Coach Jake Holt on Building an NJCAA Top-10, Kenyan Pipeline, SWMO Running Camp & 2025 Plans | ABR 396

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Crowder College Is Coming: Coach Jake Holt on Building an NJCAA Top-10, Kenyan Pipeline, SWMO Running Camp & 2025 Plans | ABR 396