Ep. 380 – NJCAA AD Roundtable: Championship Culture & JUCO Leadership - Airey Bros.'s Radio

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Airy Brose Radio. Be there or B.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Square because it's all killer, no filler.

Speaker 3 (00:14):
Ladies and gentlemen, howdy and aloha, welcome to another episode
aery Bros.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Radio.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
We are here and you are there, but we appreciate
you tuning in tonight. Tonight, we're sitting down with seven
of the top leaders in junior college athletics, the athletic
directors shaping some of the most successful and well rounded
programs in the NJCAA. Let's not forget while we're here.
We're doing this show for our younger versions of ourselves
and for those athletes, coaches, and families still searching for

(00:42):
the right fit. If you're looking for a college that
wins and develops people, this is where your journey starts.
But before we get rolling, y'all know the drill. Make
sure you like and are subscribed on YouTube, drop a comment,
every view, review and share helps grow and get back
to the sports we love. Follow us on Instagram, YouTube, Spotify,
and Apple podcast. And as always, this episode is fueled

(01:06):
by Black Sheep and Endurance Coaching. All right, ladies and gentlemen,
here is the lineup for tonight's NJCAA ad Roundtable twenty
twenty five highlight show. From seven to seven to twenty,
we've got Deron Clark from New Mexico Junior College. From
seven twenty to seven forty, we've got Josh Gooch from
Hutchinson Community College joining us from seven forty to eight,

(01:29):
Shane Larson from Iowa Western eight to eight twenty, Tammy
Davis from Western Texas College A twenty to eight forty,
Trevor Rolfs from Barton Community College eight forty to nine PM,
Shelby Barnett from Central Arizona, and to close it out
from nine to nine twenty, Kenny Hernandez from Colby Community College.

(01:49):
Ladies and Gentlemen, Josh Goots joining us from Hutchinson Community College.
You might remember we had coach Jafette on back in
the winter time. They are the Blue Dragons. He's a
former football coach and athletic director. Josh has built Hutchinson
Community College into a perennial powerhouse with national titles of football, basketball, golf,
plust major facility upgrades. His leadership reflects a gritty football

(02:11):
coach mentality and a track record for postseason success across
Blue Dragon athletics. Josh, we do appreciate you joining us tonight.
Sorry for the confusion. How are you, sir, I'm doing good.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
I'm doing good. Thanks for having us on anytime we
can talk about Blue Dragon Athletics. And really, I mean
the list of people you have slated to come on
tonight day, they've sure done it well.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, Jimmy and I are both junior college alumni. We
are Jimmy's an All American wrestling myself and cross country,
and so we know there's a lot of great athletic
departments out there, a lot of great schools out there,
and being a part of that two year experience, we
know the benefit that that could be for a multiple
of reasons for student athletes. So we want to do
everything that we can to get the word out about

(02:59):
the junior college system and some of the programs in
athletic departments that are that are doing great things. And
like I said, we had coach to fed On to
talk about the track and field program, and so we
wanted to pick your brain a little bit about the
athletic department as a whole.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
You know. I schnuck on and looked at some of
the archive ones and I listened to Cole Sprees you
know podcast through the guys, And I was at Ellsworth
Community College when Cole as an assistant coach and then
as a head coach at Ellsworth. And when I was
a head coach, he was the wrestling coach. And it's
awesome to see his success and just what he's done

(03:37):
at Indian Hills now. But it was fun to listen
to you guys chit chat back and forth with him.

Speaker 3 (03:42):
Oh well, that's awesome. And that's another reason why we
do this. We like to make the world smaller over here,
and over the course of the last six years or so,
we've made a lot of connections, and we find the
more that we do this, the smaller the world gets.
I was looking at your your resume and your bio
on the website. I'm curious you you were a graduate

(04:03):
of Fort Hayes. Correct.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
I was a graduate of Fort Hayes. I wrestled and
played football there in the mid nineties and and just
loved my time. I was a Coffeeville Community College football player.
They didn't have wrestling and I wanted to wrestle. Oh
another recorders, You're good.

Speaker 4 (04:21):
We were recording on live but I just wanted to
double back just in case finish.

Speaker 1 (04:26):
That's all right? They uh, you know, Fort Hayes offered wrestling.
I wanted to get back in it. When I finished
my sophomore year at at Coffeeville, I went and wrestled
in an open tournament at Labette, and then Jody Thompson
sent out, Hey, there was this guy that wrestled heavyweight
and won our takedown tournament. And so I started getting

(04:47):
a few offers to wrestle, and Fort Hayes was one
that I had I had, you know, knew about from
high school times, and I wanted to do both. Fort
Hayes was an opportunity to do.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
Both, okay, and we loved the multi sport athlete. That's
a big thing here. As I mentioned, I wrestled as
well as did cross country and track, and Jimmy did
as well, So we're big proponents of that. My question
and getting into the Fort Hayes stuff curious with the
junior college system and the the popularity of Last Chance You,

(05:17):
I was wondering, did you ever cross paths with coach
jb at all while you were at Fort Hayes.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
I did you know? I took over as offensive coordinator
the year he was done. But I've known Jason for
a long time and when he first got into coaching,
you know, and so I'm knew him for Netflix, and
we of course we coached against each other, you know,
just like anything else. I mean, these type platforms showcase

(05:45):
a different persona. I mean, I think there's a lot
more good you know, coach JB than what what he
maybe lets a lot happen, but he's made an impact
on a lot of young young men, and at the
end of the day, that's kind of what we're all about,
you know, trying to impact student athletes lives. And he's
done it, maybe in a different way than I would,
but nonetheless he has done it. And he was a

(06:08):
you know, he's a good football coach, Like he turned
independence into a you know, a formidable foe and and uh,
you know, I certainly did I cross pass with him.
And and it's been even in the junior college ranks.
So yeah, that was that was some exciting times awesome.

Speaker 4 (06:24):
So talking about coach JB. We're talking about junior college football.
We know how big junior college football is in Kansas,
and you guys brought home national title this year.

Speaker 3 (06:33):
What was that like, you know, it's.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
A it's a credit to so many people. I mean,
anytime you have an opportunity to win a championship, it's
it's so much about all the things kind of we
you know, you listed we were going to talk about culture,
but leadership, you know, leadership from our president, from our
board of trustees that you know, provide us the resources
to to put together a solid quality team. And then

(06:58):
you have a head coach like Drew Alice, who is
cutting edge, he's a tierless worker. Has put together a
staff that would be the mvy of most you know,
most four year colleges, and from top to bottom. They
they don't have many flaws in their in their in
their organization. And so it was a challenge this year.

(07:18):
I mean, we we fought some adversity, you know, we
lost during the during the season and knocked us out
of the number one ranking. So then we get to
the end of the season, we're ranked number two in
the country, thinking we're gonna host a n JCA playoff game.
The last poll came out and we moved the third.
So in a in a short period of time, we
had to organize travel to Georgia to play Georgia Military,

(07:43):
so to navigate that, and and the things we did
on the way home are Our flight into Wichitaal was about,
you know, four hundred feet from the ground several times
trying to land. They ended up taking us to Amarillo,
Texas and landing us. Problem was there's nobody to pick
us up. So we we took forty ubers to a

(08:06):
hotel with the football team and the next day I
woke up and some Amarello people, Independent School District came
and picked us up and buses and took us back.
But within all that, you know, you ask me what
it's like, It's that at the end of the day,
we were able to you know, persevere, you know, even
within the national championship game, persevere you know, with you know,

(08:29):
coming from behind. You know, it was a testament to
our coaches, you know what they do at halftime, their adjustments.
But those are fun moments, you know, you get to
celebrate those, and winning is a byproduct of what you
do all year long. And that's what Drew Dallas represents
as a leader of his program.

Speaker 4 (08:47):
So since twenty seventeen, the college has brought home six
national titles, and rich and I know, and you know
you've been around the junior college game, junior college athletics.
At some schools, they can be it can be up
for a short period of time and then they're gone
and then you never heard from them again. When you

(09:08):
went to Hutchinson, did you know that you were gonna
stay there and help build a dynasty or is this
just something that hey, year after year, Oh we're doing good,
we're doing good, We're doing good, and oh my god,
we got six national titles.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
You know, I really can't pinpoint anything like just specific.
I will tell you that, you know, when you take
a job at a place like Hutchinson, the expectations are high.
We hadn't won a ton of national championships, although we
host the Junior college National Basketball Championship. But you just
try to inspire a vision, you know, give a vision,

(09:48):
constantly pushing the envelope in fundraising and providing the resources
at the highest level possible that the rules will allow.
And then you know, you challenge every process that you
have or in this thing to be successful. And then
you know, you enable your people to do their do
their work. You hire coaches or we had coaches already

(10:10):
here that we're primed for success. They needed a few
more resources. And then every day you've got to get
in there and encourage those hearts. You know, I think
you can. You can do so much together and our
athletic Department staff we try to take all the pressure
off of our teams to have all the things ready
to go game day operations, so the coaches can coach

(10:34):
and we can we can handle the other business. And
so if you do that each and every day with consistency,
that's really what's helped us from top to bottom. Even
like a coach like Joffette, who you had a chance
to have on your show, I mean, I think a
national championship is right around the corner for him, I
really do. He's a tireless recruiter. He individually trains those

(10:56):
those runners, and he's not being provided with the resources
that that program deserved. And it took a while for
me to build up and uh, you know, an endowment
so we could do those type things. And so I
never talked to my coaches guys about winning and losing,
not one time. It's just a byproduct of what they

(11:17):
do want to we want to do all those other
little things right, you know, provide a great culture and uh,
those things are those things will fall into place. So
each each program has an opportunity now here at.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
HUTCH that's awesome. And talk about another opportunity. You guys
hosted the Track and Field Championships this year. What was
that experience like for you, What was it like for
the school and what kind of impact does an event
like that have on the campus in the community.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
It's it's tremendous for our community. Over seven hundred student athletes.
We hosted again, ironically in twenty twenty seven, and we've
already began to work on it. We've got the bids
for the timing company. It's a year round, uh process
of getting volunteers. It's it takes an army to run
an event like that. It was you know, it was

(12:09):
it was awesome too. Uh to be a part of
You gotta you gotta give a ton of credit to
coach Robert Spiez. He put hour after hour into getting volunteers.
His wife, I irma coach spies Uh. She she did
the same thing. Josh Fett helped. But uh, it's a

(12:30):
it's fun to host those type events in your community
when the community supports it like Hutchinson does, and it
does it. It takes a lot of volunteers, but not
a lot of You don't have to beg people to
get in there and do it. And so this is, uh,
this is this was my fourth one. We actually brought
Pat Becker, the former coach, back to help run the

(12:52):
event because on a Thursday and Friday of the national
track meet, I had to be at National Golf and
Newton as the air of Golf, and so I was
back and forth. I did get back for the ten
thousand on Thursday evening. Watched it. But it runs like
clockwork because of the effort that's put in prior to

(13:14):
from start to finish, that thing is is turnkey. And
it's fun to watch the level of at leticism there
as well. I mean, the runners, the throwers, all of them.
You're watching Olympic caliber athletes right there on your campus. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
And as a former ten thousand meter record holder at
mom at the university, so he made it back just
in time for the best event on the track.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
I'll tell you that the young men that won the race,
that ten thousand and the five thousand he got out,
he was something special. To watch, and I wish I
could just pull his name from the top of my head.
But he was special, really impressive.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
Josh.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
We know that Kansas Junior College especially is something like
rich and I have never experience. We saw on Last
Chance us a turnout they would get for football. Did
you have a good turnout? Did the community come out
for the national championships?

Speaker 1 (14:09):
For the basketball championship? It has a good it has
a you know, a good following because it's here every year.
They sell tickets year round. When we're in it, it
fills the arena to the top. When we are not
in it, it's it's you know, you know, half full.

(14:30):
Just during the regular season, our arena holds about fifty
six hundred. We average a little over twelve hundred. For
our football games, we average around one thousand, so you know,
volleyballs in the you know, three fifty four hundred range.
So we have a good following for Community Community College.

(14:52):
Those national events, I mean the track and field meet
those are kind of specialized events. But well, we had
a nice crowd. You know, we do take a gate
for those the you know, just on a on an
average basis though, those are kind of our numbers and
and uh, we draw as much as anybody else. Hutchinson
draws as good as anybody else community college wise, really

(15:16):
throughout the country.

Speaker 4 (15:17):
As an athletic director at a junior college, is that
something you're worried about or trying to get more people
in or are you just worried about the people on
the court, people on the field.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
You know, today, for instance, I had a meeting with
a local bank and and they're they're they're a nice sponsor.
And whenever I was in an athlete you know, a
place like Hutchinson, it was the regular season games were
were sold out. You're talking to early you know, early nineties.
But with the you know ESPNS and you can watch

(15:52):
you know, six or eight games a night at home.
You know, our games are live stream on on the
Blue Dragon Sports Network. You can you can flip back
and forth on your phone, listen to the listen to
the game, the audio audio cast. So there's so many
things pulling for that clientele. What I've tried to do
is bridge the gap with corporate sponsorships. I've been the

(16:14):
athletic director since twenty fifteen and we haven't raised a
ticket price one time. We have a raised up to
our corporate sponsorships and so that kind of bridges the
gap between the two. We give away more tickets than
we probably sell. Quite frankly, anybody, any large group that
would you know in our community that wants to come
to the game, they reach out via email. I have

(16:37):
no problem giving them tickets. You know, they come in,
they'll buy a drink and a popcorn, and it's it
works itself out. And oftentimes those are the fans that
are in there cheering for you, and you want to
get as many as you can. But yeah, I focus
on trying to get the corporate sponsorships and then those
that want to come, they'll be there.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
For those are listening. Geographically, where is Hutchinson in the state,
and what is what is the community itself?

Speaker 1 (17:07):
Like Hutchinson is is Centuria, located just forty five minutes
northwest of Wichita, conveniently located within you know, the state
of Kansas is like a rectangle and we're right in
the middle of the rectangle and the junior colleges are
spread from tip to tip, northwest, northeast, southeast, southwest. Kansas.

(17:30):
Were really fortunate that we can, you know, we can
get to most of our contests in a you know,
three hours or less time frame. The community of Hutchinson
is is quite honestly, probably the best community in all
of junior college sports. It's a community of around forty thousand.

(17:50):
Hutchison sits in the middle of some smaller communities that
are around at Buehler, Nickerson, you know Haven, you know,
the Reno County area. But we host the state Fair
here each and every year. There's plenty of things to
do for our for our student athletes away from campus.
Plenty of shopping opportunities, restaurants. It's big enough that you

(18:14):
have all the amenities you need. It's close enough to
a larger city like Wichital for convenience of travel. So
it really is. It's a place that that's why put
people or coaches come here and they don't leave. The
coaches like John Aunchis and Samue Lane and Jamie Rose
and now Drew Dallas, they're here. Chris Young, our golf coach,

(18:35):
you know, twenty twenty four years, you know, and those
those coaches come and they don't leave because they can
they can be a part of a nice community that
has amenities they need.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
Yeah, Jimmy and I are familiarity with Kansas Is driving
through on I seventy and then when I lived in
Oklahoma to drive to Colorado and for the summers, I
would drive up thirty five. So those are my points reference.
I know where witch Tie is, we know where Lawrence is.
We've been stopped to Kansas City a few times. I
think Kolby's in there once or twice for a coffee break, your.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
Grandma home, the oasis on the planes, that's right, Yeah, Josh.
I was looking through your social media. A great job,
by the way, you can keep up and see everything
you guys got going on. As someone who is focused
on social media, you do a great job.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
So I want to paulge on that.

Speaker 4 (19:27):
But I was scrolling through the social media and I
saw you guys have an NFL coach that used to
be a coach at Hutch and you have someone in
the MLB that is a lum of Hutch. How important
is that to kind of get that message out there
of Hey, these people were here and you could start
here and you can go to the next level and

(19:49):
you don't necessarily have to start at division one to
get to where you want to go.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
I mean, I think that's that's the dream of most
of these individuals, not only the players, but the used
to try to elevate to the highest level possible to
to you know, do their craft, and we certainly market that.
You know, I coached with Brandon Staley. Brandon was the
defensive coordinator when I was the offensive coordinator here. You know,

(20:15):
my wife taught Brandon Staley's wife on a swim and
you developed good friendships with those people. He had different
goals than I had. He loved the NFL from the
from the time I met him, and he he would
watch Thursday night NFL games and he coached like an
NFL coach when he was here. Sam Pittman at the
University of Arkansas was the head coach. Heer Andy Hill,

(20:37):
who was especially teams coordinator assistant for the Kansas City Chiefs,
was the head coach here. So we have those those
coaches that have you know, came here and left, and
then we have you know, of course, we have the athletes,
many of them in the NFL. Michael Hellman in baseball
is with the Texas Rangers. I don't know each and
every one of those, but certainly that that's a that's

(21:00):
a dream you want to you want to provide them
with those opportunities to play and compete versus elite talent,
and then provide them a setting to you know, have
success and then let that you know, let that you know,
opportunity come as it will. Our our best player in
football last year, you know he's at USC, which is

(21:21):
you know, in December he was playing for US and
in the spring he was at USC. And the platform
he has and you talk about social media, and when
he gives us shout outs on social media, those go
a long ways. And uh, Brandon Staley has been good
to us, and he recognizes his time here at Hutchinson
was special and and uh and so does Sam Pittman.

(21:42):
And I'm sure each of them hold a special you know,
holds a special place in their heart. But one thing
that I want to highlight back with what you said,
Jimmy that social media stuff is that's not Josh Goots.
That's Steve Carpenter, our sports information director, who was the
s Idea of the Year in junior college. He is
the absolute best. Every person that's going to come on

(22:03):
this will know Steve Carpenter. Any event that's held here
at hutch basketball, track and field. It runs smooth because
of Steve Carpenter and the things he does. And then
Billy Watson is our coordinator of events. He's cutting edge
on that that social media stuff. And they just told
me what to say in those little spots I did.

(22:25):
It might have to have a couple of takes, but
those are that is not my strength. That's those guys
of strength. But I'm smart enough to, like we talked earlier,
and enable them to act, let them, let them do
their job, and they do it well.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
Yeah, thank you for highlighting them and mentioning them. Because
in this day and age where kids are always on
social media, that's easy, right if you're just scrolling and
looking for junior college and one happens to be ahead
of the game as far as the social media, and
you can go and you can watch the team you
want to perform on. You can watch all their games

(23:00):
that you got a leg up, and there might be
a team that might be better, but because they don't
have a s I D. That's doing the job like
you guys, You guys have a leg up on them.

Speaker 1 (23:10):
He does a hint. Steve Carpenter and Billy together really
have elevated our game. I can't thank them enough and
give them enough, you know, give them enough credit. They'll
they'll never they'll they'll never get enough credit for what
they do. But our student athletes love them. I mean
they're at there at every event, pushing the envelope, giving

(23:31):
them recognition and and doing it in a cutting edgeway.
And that you're right on. That's what That's what student
athletes are seeing now that you get a little glip,
you get a little bit of time with them. They
don't have uh, they don't open up letters like we
did when I was growing up. They look at social media.
What where where can they you know, fit in? Is
that is that you know, does that meet their standard

(23:54):
or meet their you know cup of tea? And and
it's it's really it's really special to have those those guys.

Speaker 4 (24:01):
Josh, you came on a little bit earlier before your
time slot, but we have time communication issue and we
have an open till seven forty. Would you be able
to stay with us till seven forty, sir, I'll.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
Stay as long as you need. Here's what I got
to be. I got to be at my daughter's fifteenth
birthday dinner at seven o'clock, so I have thirty six minutes.
I'll stay as long as you need me though, all right, yeah,
all right, if I don't blore your fans.

Speaker 3 (24:27):
No, not at no way, no way. So Josh, you are,
we're talking about a championship mindset, championship level competition. And
as Jimmy mentioned earlier, from where we're from, community colleges,
junior colleges don't have dormitories. You know, we were both
Division three junior college athletes. But you look across the

(24:50):
board at all the sports and there are Jayhawk Conference
teams in all the top rankings. Is it pretty standard
that if you get to the top of the Jayhall
Conference in your sport, you're going to be pretty close
to running for a national championship at this you.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Know, lately that's pretty much the case. I mean, our
our minimum's basketball programs are are really really elite men's
basketball even another notch up and there it's something special.
You know, the team that wins the Jayhawk Conference in
baseball and then our region has to go through the gauntlet.
You kind of just kind of go through each one

(25:28):
of those sports. Volleyball, we had two teams from the
Jayout Conference in the final four. Uh this last year soccer.
You know, in the Jayout Conference, we have some Division
one and Division two teams and so there is some separation,
maybe there a little bit, but those Division two teams
are super successful. Cali and volleyball undefeated two years in

(25:49):
a row. You know, the wrestling, the wrestling although we
don't have it. I mean the wrestling teams are you
know Pratt and and uh Northwest Tech or you know
Fort Hays Tech Northwest. I mean, those those programs across country.
I mean, just to kind of across the board. But
in football right now, if you can win the jay

(26:11):
Conference and then go through the gauntlet of playing the
three Iowa schools, you're gonna be ranked in the top four.
And uh, there's just opportunities there. We get to recruit
the highest level of student athletes. They they know that
if you come to Kansas, it's in football the sec
of junior college. I mean, we you know, it's it's

(26:34):
it's true athletics right now. I mean, the the what
gets lost in the almighty Division one stuff is that
the dollars are just swaying it so heavily that you're
really not getting to see sometimes true competition. They're in
it for the wrong reasons, and it's it's nice. You know.
We we have a lot of freshmen that will be

(26:57):
coming in this summer and get to watch them be
part of learning our culture and getting up each morning
and doing things right. And so yes, Jay out conference.
You run the gauntlet there and in most any sport,
you're gonna have a chance to be, you know, recognized nationally.

Speaker 3 (27:13):
Yeah. Do most of the athletes live on campus?

Speaker 1 (27:16):
Most of them do. We'll have some sports have a
few more. Baseball seems like baseball has a few more
off campus student athletes. Most of the freshmen and over
three hundred student athletes live on campus in the dorms.
The nice thing about the dorms, you know. Then you
have the cafeteria, which they renovated our cafeteria two years ago,

(27:39):
and that wins as many recruits as anything we have
on our campus. Our cafeteria.

Speaker 2 (27:44):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
The lady that runs at Brenda and her staff, they
put out some unbelievable meals and we have community members
that just come and eat lunch in the cafeteria with
our students, and the food's excellent. You know, it's quality,
it's prepared right. You can have a nutrition meal, you
can have a not sown nutritious meal each day. But
when it's all you can eat, you know, that's that's

(28:07):
so that's nice, and it's you're not standing in line.
There's different bays. It's clean, it smells good, and she
has some really good menu items.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
And do you know in terms of homegrown versus out
of state, what's what's the breakdown for the athletic department?
You have an estimate, you know, we.

Speaker 1 (28:26):
Were working through some insurance stuff yesterday. We have right
around four hundred little over four hundred student athletes. About
forty forty percent are non Cans, and so we have
a pretty high contingent of Kansas student athletes. We have

(28:48):
sixty one international athletes, which is about sixteen percent or
you know or more of that. So those are those
just ballpark figures. I can't I don't have the data
right in front of me. But the nice thing about
where hutch is that we can recruit the state from
from end to end, tip to tip, and with the

(29:11):
success that we've been having, especially in football, and allows
us to you know, to bring in you know, some
really good quality Kansas student athletes, and and they're the
ones some of them have been the ones that have
went on and played at the highest level. You know,
just we we truly believe you got to recruit from
inside out, so protect our home boarder and then you know,

(29:32):
recruit nationally as as you as you need. But yeah,
each one of our programs has good quality Kansas student
athletes in it.

Speaker 4 (29:41):
Got you So you mentioned sixty one international student athletes.
What do you guys do to accommodate those student athletes
and make them feel like they're at home and kind
of make that buffer a little bit easier to the
language change and just feel like they're at home in
the far Land.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Yeah, we have there is some there is some stipulations.
They have to have some English proficiencies, some toful scores
and whatnot. But I think just like any of our
any of our athletes or any of our regular students,
you know, we have ambassadors that help, you know, show
them around campus, give them the give them tours, and
then you know, specifically athletically, they have a built in family.

(30:23):
You know, do our best to just you know, follow
up with them, be you know, be proactive and use
your experience of where maybe some have fallen through the cracks,
you know, get them involved in in different organizations around campus,
perhaps maybe in a local church or or something to
give them, you know, something to make them understand that,

(30:45):
you know, they're supported there. There it's more than just
being here for a sport. And for the most part,
I mean we've had a lot of success with that.
We have you know, an international student advisor. She does
a great job of of you know, helping them navigate
the classlassroom, you know, the adventure through the classroom, and
and just you know, our coaching staff knows that their

(31:07):
success heavily relies on how well they can continue to
get you know, get quality student athletes, but also keeping
them you know, keeping them happy, keeping them successful, and
whenever you're you're having success of course in the sport
you're in, it makes it a lot easier. You know.
Some of them have you know, different cultural challenges, but

(31:30):
I just just trying to provide, provide for them and
and being proactive in that not wait until until there's
a problem where or if there's a problem quickly to
try to address it, not wait until it festers.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
Yeah, I mean I was homesick being from New Jersey
in Massachusetts my freshman year. I can only imagine what
it's like if you're from another country and then in
not just Kansas, but anywhere else that far away from home.
It could probably be a rough adjustment for people.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
No, it certainly can. And you you know, you you
want to be around them as much as possible. I mean,
just have an open door policy. You know, your athletic
department's open, whether you're up here as a basketball player,
volleyball or across campus. You know, just just having them,
you know, know that there is resources for them. Don't
don't hang out in the dorms, in your room and

(32:20):
and and be isolated. Get around people, and a lot
of times that that helps as much as anything, just
being being amongst friends, being amongst those that have you know,
a similar interest that you have. And it's, uh, we've
had a lot of success with it. You know, other
places have quite a few, you know, quite a bit
more international student athletes. We you know, that's kind of

(32:41):
been a good mix for us.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
That's what I got for you, Josh. You know you've
mentioned earlier when we got on that you have spent
some time on the mat You're in charge of the
athletic department, always looking to grow the athletic department to
add new sports. Is there a possibility that I might
see a men's and women's wrestling program and time soon
at hutch.

Speaker 1 (33:02):
If I had one hundred dollars for each time I've
been asked that question for the teammates or local Hutchinson people.

Speaker 3 (33:09):
You start team, I could.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Start a wrestling team. I've had a guy, local guy
tell me I'll buy the bats, and I'm just it's
not probably on a radar currently, you know, with there's
not many football schools that have wrestling currently in junior college.
I have to really think really quickly through it. But
I don't think any in Kansas that have football have
have wrestling, and so it's it becomes a little bit

(33:35):
of a Title nine issue. But more importantly, I just
I mean, we're we're in a spot right now where
we have I think the right mix and number of
student athletes. I was on the wrestling committee for for
a couple of years. I try to help out any
way I can. I miss I do miss it. Good

(33:55):
buddy mine. Cody Bickley is is you know up in
car Springs with USA Wrestling, so I get my fix
a little bit there. I'll get me a Flow Wrestling
account during wrestling season and watch the.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
Newels or the there and you're in there. We just
need a little bit.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Yeah, But I don't I don't think right now. I
don't think it's it's not on the radar, but certainly
certainly know that I love the sport. I think there's
enough junior college wrestling in Kansas currently. If you really
kind of look at the numbers, you know it's it's
to be successful. Right now, they're having to recruit non

(34:33):
Kansas to really have a chance to compete nationally, and
so pack I would hate to have to steal Cold
Spray away from Indian Hills because that would be my
first phone call.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
Let's go, Let's go, Josh, thank you so much for
your time this evening, the last one I have for you.
Or what are the plans going forward next year? What
can we look forward coming from hutch And if there's
anything that we didn't ask you that you want to address,
the floor is yours.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
No, I think much of what we've what we've seen
in the past. I mean, we want to we want
to continue to build on the success we've had, but
you have to keep working. Others are going to be
shooting for you in those sports that we have had success,
and there's other programs that have set the benchmark that
we need to try to attain. And so I think

(35:21):
just this summer has been about trying to continue to
secure our corporate sponsorships, our coaching staffs all intact, everybody's
everybody's put together, and and really just try to continue
to push the envelope provide those resources to coaches haven't
been a coach before. That's what I would have wanted.
I want an athletic director that's going to provide for

(35:43):
me in a way that I can I can be
successful and not have to worry about those other those
other items. And so that's really what you can you
can look for from us, and I hope that you
would if you have a chance to, you know, flip
on our live stream and watch a football or a
volleyball game, or a soccer game our Blue Dragon Sports Network.
I mean, watch joh Fett's first cross country me it'll

(36:05):
be live streamed as well. The Terry Masterson, you know,
Twilight Classic, but I don't know that there's much else
to share. I'm very honored that you would have me
on and really the list of athletic directors you have,
I'm I'm I'm really, I'm friends with many of those
you're going to talk to Kenny hopefully, Kenny, Hernandez and

(36:25):
Trevor all good colleagues of mine that when I have questions,
I ask them Like you said, I'm a I'm just
a former ball coach that gets to be in this
this position, and I'm very thankful for it. So I
appreciate what you guys are doing for junior college athletics.
Thank you, and I hope that you know you'll you
would you would find find time to catch a Hutch

(36:46):
game or Huch something.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
You know what we are. We're Blue Dragons through and through.
We love making these connections and anything we can do
to support the junior college experience and promote it the
benefits of it. We're here to do our part to
help grow that. So we do appreciate your time and
we want to get you off to your daughter's birthday.
Wish are a happy fifteenth birthday from the area bros.
And hopefully you guys got a nice meal planned.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Thank you guys. Blessings to you.

Speaker 3 (37:11):
Thank you, Josh. Great night. Josh enjoyed the rest of
summer watching area bros.

Speaker 4 (37:16):
Might be there to sample some of that great cafeteria
food you got one day.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
Yeah, you got sideline passes in the game.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
Heck y.

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Let's go September thirteenth, a rematching last year's national championship game.

Speaker 3 (37:27):
Okay, all right, on the books, Rich, goa, my god,
what we got next?

Speaker 4 (37:34):
All right, Rich, we got Shane Larson coming in from
Iowa West.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
All right, Shane Larson is joining us from Iowa Western.
He's been since twenty twenty one. Shane's guy to the
Iowa Western too, multiple NJCAA national titles, including football, women's soccer,
and indoor and outdoor track and field on the women's side,
while expanding the athletic department to twenty six sports. He
was named in twenty twenty four the NACD Athletic Director

(38:01):
of the Year. And he's led one of the most dominant,
well rounded athletic departments in the country. And you know,
we are big fans of iow Western thanks to coach
Mark Bierbaum. So, Shane Larson, welcome to Ariy Brose Radio.
How are you, sir, good? Thanks for having me Man, Absolutely,
we are excited to chat with you this evening. We
are fans of Iowa Western. We've had coach Bierbaum on

(38:24):
twice to talk about the program. Campus looks beautiful from
everything we see, and looks like the athletic department is
doing a lot of great things. We're honored a pleasure
to chat with you and help promote junior college athletics
but also the student experience. Jimi and I are both
junior college alumni. Jim is an All American wrestling myself
and cross country, so it's an honor to have you

(38:47):
with us.

Speaker 5 (38:48):
Yeah, well, thank you.

Speaker 4 (38:49):
Yeah, So Shane, you guys brought home was it five
or six national titles this year?

Speaker 5 (38:56):
Well, it's kind of ridiculous. You got to get my
fingers out and count we had. We had eight overall.
We have several sports here that are not sanctioned through
the NJCA shotgun sports. We have competitive dance, competitive cheer,
so we won national championships and those three shotgun competes.

(39:17):
International Association for It's called a c U. I don't
ask me the words of the acronym and then cheer
is UCA and the dances DTU are the governing bodies.
They compete. You dance and cheer both go to Florida
for the national championship shotguns down in San Antonio. So

(39:38):
we won those three non NJCA sanction events and then
what one, two, three, four, five, six national championships sanctioned
through the n JCA in various sports.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
So what's the secret to have in all those successful
championship programs.

Speaker 5 (39:54):
Well, I can't take credit for anything. I came to
i WES from four years ago. Everybody in junior college
athletics knows Iowa Western's history and reputation. It was a
school I wanted to be a part of, just knowing
that I worked up here in Blair, Nebraska. I was
a women's basketball coach at a little NAI school, Dana
College years ago and would come to a lot of

(40:17):
the i Western women's basketball games just trying to recruit kids.
So I think number one the culture that was built.
Doctor Dan Kenny Senior was the president for about thirty years.
His athletic director was Brenda Hampton. She was here for
about twenty five years. They really took it from just
a little two year school with five or six sports

(40:39):
to the you know, not just powerhouse, but scale. We
have twenty six sports here now, you know, so it's
a constantly moving machine. We haven't had a day a
week off and since August we run rentals and events
all summer long. So I think number one is the culture.

(41:00):
It's a good location. Council Bluffs isn't a huge metro,
but we're right across the river from Omaha, so the
Omaha airports ten minutes from the airport front steps to campus,
so it's a good location. Kids like to be in
the metro. But we're on the far east side of
town over here, so you to go twenty feet east

(41:23):
to campus and you're looking at cornfields, but you've got
all the amenities of a big city within ten minutes
of us. So I think, you know, location, We have
amazing facilities. We've had amazing supporters over the years that
have allowed us to really invest in program facilities. You know,
we've just built a new soccer football complex this past year.

(41:45):
We took an old grass soccer field that you know,
people just put lawn chairs on the sidelines to watch
the games, and now we have a full turf field
with muscow lighting and press box and score score vision
video board. Four years ago when I first arrived, we
renovated baseball and softball full full turf lighting, you know,

(42:06):
all of those things. So we've got amazing facilities here.
I think that's what if we can get a kid
on campus with ninety percent of the time, we've gotten
locked into coming. Because you know, I was listening to
Josh earlier. Josh's an old friend of mine. We were
both at Fort Hayes way back. Who was talking about
Cody Bakley. I texted him he needed to start wrestling
because Iowa Western has football and men's and women's wrestling

(42:30):
there with But but no, you know, it's it's just
a good place. We've got good people. I mean everybody
says their people are special. I think i Western, you know,
sets the bar on that. And you know, he was
talking about how good his cafeteria is. I would put it,
I would like to have the Hutch versus Iowa Western
cafeteria challenge. We got the McDonald's ice cream machine. We

(42:54):
got a slushy machine in there, you know, the you know,
make you not make your own. But we got a
kind of like a Little Ellie Sandwich where they make
to order sandwiches and paninis and I eat in there
every day. I've gained twenty pounds since I came up
here because Amy Parks is our food service director. She
does an amazing job of taking care of her kids
and making sure they're fed good. So but now just

(43:16):
a special place. And I think, you know, culture is
something that it takes a long time to build. And
I said when I came on, my job is not
to screw anything up that Brenda Hampton and doctor Kenney
Senior created over their decades here and and so far
we haven't, you know, ran the wheels off the bus yet,
so we're doing pretty good job.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
You mentioned your time at Dana. Did you ever cross
paths with coach Steve Costanzo wrestling.

Speaker 5 (43:42):
The wrestling coach?

Speaker 3 (43:44):
Yes, sir, he was before my time.

Speaker 5 (43:46):
Bo Best was the wrestling coach when I was at Dana.
I was there about I was there two years and
was there when it closed its doors in twenty ten.

Speaker 3 (43:54):
So okay, yeah, he knows for me.

Speaker 5 (43:57):
But I never met I never had a chance to
meet him.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
Who's a former guest. We're just having a little call
back there talking about the facilities and again all the
upgrades and those sorts of things, and you see the
stuff on social media, see the photos on the internet.
You guys have facilities that rival probably a lot of
Division one schools.

Speaker 5 (44:17):
Yeah, we're very fortunate. We say all the time, we're
a four year campus given out two year degrees. We
actually with our baseball and softball facility upgrade, we have
a lot of NCAA schools that will call us early
in the spring from Minnesota, North Dakota. They still got
two feet of snow on the ground that they look
up our schedule, see when we're on the road, call

(44:39):
down and see if they can rent the fields out
to play their conference games. We had Creighton playing Seattle
University out here this past spring, and some of the
D one we're getting them into locker rooms and stuff.
And I can hear the comments of this is nicer
than our campus. So you know, we do have. Like
I said, we're fortunate. We've had some amazing donor you'll

(45:01):
see if you're looking at the pictures. Doctor John and
his wife Jean I have been longtime supporters. They've donated
a lot of money to allow us to do some
of these athletic facility enhancements. You got the Doctor John
and G. Marshall Wellness Center that is a student center,
but it's got an eighty x fifty turf indoor field.

(45:21):
So in the winter months when it's cold up here
in Iowa, our kids, you know, got almost a full
field for practicing and working out in the off seasons
for soccer and football. It allows our baseball and softball
teams can do a full infield practice, you know, when
it's a little chilly to be out playing baseball when
it's thirty degrees outside. So you know, John and Harriet

(45:43):
Weeby donated land to the college years ago for football,
and that's that land donation is what we use to
do the renovation on the soccer. Basically, it was a
soccer field, football practice on some grass fields on the
backside of camp and now we have a full terurf
facility for football to practice on and then in soccer

(46:06):
uses it for practice in their in their contests as well.
So yeah, we've been very fortunate to have a lot
of great supporters that have allowed us to have the
facilities we do.

Speaker 4 (46:16):
And you mentioned that you had some sports that weren't
sanctioned by the NJCAA dance, cheering, and shotgun, and you
also had a swim program that qualified first year, qualified
all the athletes for nationals.

Speaker 5 (46:34):
What is the sorry no, gohad, Sorry?

Speaker 4 (46:37):
Well, what is the mindset of just like getting as
many new sports, getting sports that might not be sanctioned
but can get some participation, get more athletes on campus.
What's the mindset behind that and what's the long term
goals with new sports and on sanctioned sports.

Speaker 5 (46:53):
Yeah, I think the main thing is, like, like we
refer back to culture. Our culture here are mission has
provide opportunity for students. We have a lot of academic programs.

Speaker 6 (47:04):
Uh.

Speaker 5 (47:05):
You know, I go, I walk through our buildings and
like we've got a robotic slab that I won't ever
walk in the door because I'm afraid to touch anything
in there. You know, nursing programs, dental hygiene, and we
we mirror that. On the athletics side, we you know,
swimming is something that has been big in this area.
Omaha has hosted the Olympic Trials for swimming and diving.

(47:26):
You know, we try to look at areas that you
got great student athletes that maybe aren't basketball, football, baseball
players that are. They're in some of these other sports
that don't get you know, quite the recognition or maybe
looked at as closely as as the big sports or whatever,
the you know, the more popular sports. So swimming is

(47:47):
something we have a good partnership with the local high school,
Lewis Central. That's where we play our football games. We
have a shared facility agreement with them. They play their
baseball and softball games at our facility. Uh, they have
a pool. You know, they got a few kids swimming
in their program there. But it was if we have
the resources to be able to put a program together,

(48:10):
you know, in the first year. I think we made
the decision to start the program in March and hired
to coach in April, and she had about fourteen kids
in three months of recruitment. I mean that's late to
start a program from scratch and say go get a team.
We got thirty kids coming into the program next year.
This past year was the first year Iowa Western had swimming,

(48:34):
and our men finished fourth and our women finished six,
both with relatively small rosters. So we're really looking forward
to seeing what we do as the program progresses In age.
You know, we'll solidify those rosters and get the numbers
where we need them to be and see if we
can start competing for some trophies. Indian rivers down there
in Florida's won like fifty straight national titles, so that's

(48:57):
the goal, is to upset their streak someday. But the
we got some work ahead of us, and we got
actually our coach that we hired is a local Mackenzie. Listen,
she swam for Houston and Auburn in her collegiate days,
So you know, to have a local person from the
community that always feels good. That's a high quality coach

(49:18):
with that kind of experience. Hopefully she's happy living in
her hometown and we'll be here for a long time
with that program.

Speaker 3 (49:25):
I'd say it's probably only a matter of time before
the wind streak gets taken down.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (49:31):
But now, as you were saying, we've added since since
I came on board four years ago. We've added women's wrestling,
we had a knees sports program, We've added swimming and dieting,
we've added dance, and like I said in the last
you know, ten years before I got here, this process
was already going they added you know, football and wrestling
or like in the last twenty years, bowling, shotgun sports.

(49:55):
You know, we've added quite a few programs over the
last fifteen years here, but it's you know, we've got
out a model that works. We try to create as
much opportunity recruit. You know, we're right next to the
Omaha metro, so we got a metropolitan area to recruit from.
But you know, we're anticipating about nine hundred and forty
athletes to arrive here in a few weeks for the

(50:16):
fall semester between twenty six sports. So you know, we
want to provide those opportunities and give kids a chance
to have a you know, a first rate college athletic experience.

Speaker 3 (50:29):
You know, we talked to coaches a lot of times.
Coaching is a lot more than just the x's and o's,
and especially as a head coach or director of a program,
you're really a CEO of a business. Being athletic directors
is even probably a step above that in terms of
running a business and being a CEO. Do you have
favorite aspects of being an athletic director.

Speaker 5 (50:53):
My favorite part, like I said, I came up as
a coach. I love it when I get the opportunity
to work with the student athletes a little bit. Obviously,
transitioning from coaching to administration, you lose that relationship building
experience of the recruitment process, so you know, I don't
know the kids until they show up. It's a two
year school, so about the time I'm getting names and

(51:15):
faces figured out for twenty six sports, they're graduating and
moving on. But really, what I liked moving into the
administration chair was getting to work with coaches of all
these different sports. You know, when I first became an
ad I had never watched a soccer game.

Speaker 7 (51:32):
You know.

Speaker 5 (51:32):
We played soccer and pe We just kicked the ball around,
you know, and then to start understanding how different sports relate.
When you're when you're looking at a soccer field as
a basketball coach and you're looking at the defense shifting
as the balls being reversed from sideline to sideline, you're seeing,
you know, you start to pick up. I know more
about soccer today than and I still don't think I

(51:54):
know anything about the sport, but I know more than
I used to because I've been around really good coaches.
I mean, I wasn't a baseball.

Speaker 7 (52:01):
Guy growing up.

Speaker 5 (52:01):
You know, we played reg baseball until about high school
and then you know, let that you know, summer summer
thing flew away and I was working and focused on
the sports I liked better. But I've had the opportunity
to work with some of the greatest baseball coaches and
junior college athletics. I was at Cali College in Art City,
Kansas for seven years before coming up here. Worked with

(52:22):
Dave and Darren Burrows, and then I had a little
bit of time a year up here with you know,
our baseball coach at Iowa Westron. What I got here
was Mark Reerton, who's now at Western Kentucky. He's being
inducted into our Hall of Fame this fall. So you know,
learning what goes in, you know, standing on the sideline
watching coach Stromeyer coach a football game, and you know
played high school football, but you know, to see what

(52:45):
goes in behind the scenes to different sports, preparing recruitment
and being able to relate that. And then like said,
using that, you know, talking to our new swim coach
about recruitment. She was a young coach, hadn't recruited much yet,
relating what our soccer coaches are doing and what our
cheer coach is doing, you know, in different recruiting techniques
and styles to help them achieve their goals. So now

(53:09):
I just you know, it's a people job. You know,
nobody likes to set meetings all day. I do a
lot of that. You know, we'd all got parts of
our job we'd like to push to the side if
we could. But you know, the best part is working
with the coaches and and get and interact with the
kids and get to know them a little bit.

Speaker 4 (53:24):
Shane, you mentioned your time before being an athletic director,
you were a coach. Is there any aspect of being
an athletic director When you were a head coach you
would say, man I wish he A D would do this,
or man I wish they would do that.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
And now you make it your sole purpose.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
I'm going to make sure that the coaches are taking
care of exposition.

Speaker 5 (53:46):
Oh yeah, And I think I think it's a double
edged sword. Now that you're setting in the chair, you're like,
I get why, you know, like you said that to
me back then. I think the biggest thing is, you know,
and I was listening to Josh talk before I came
on on his stuff same thing. Our job is to
figure out what programs need, what coaches need to be
as successful as we can. And I've been at really

(54:08):
small schools had zero funding, you know, where you know,
where a two hundred dollars po was being questioned by
the business office over whether you needed fifteen basketballs? Couldn't
you get by with only ten basketballs for the season?
To coming up here where? You know, as big as
we are, we have a lot of zeros on our
budget because we have you know, almost almost a thousand

(54:30):
student athletes that we got to spend money on. But
you know, I think the number one thing I wanted
as a coach was don't tell me no, you know,
I want to know why not. I want to understand.
And I think that's the biggest thing with our coaches
is as a coach, you're you're zoom focused in on
your program and it's getting them to see the bigger
picture of you know, yes, if I could do that

(54:51):
for you, I got to do it for twenty five
other programs. And that you know that five thousand dollars
turns into fifty thousand dollars, uh, you know, real quick?
And now we're not talking about a simple purchase. We're
talking about a major budget allocation, So getting them to
understand the big picture that that you know, we're we're
athletic programs, we want to be highly successful, but at

(55:13):
the same part, we are a small part cog in
the wheel of a larger organization. That's you know, our
primary goal is to get these kids in here and
get them an education and help them, you know, advance
into their future because we're all going to be out
of competing in athletics at some point in our lives
and our jobs to get them on a path to
where they they've got options when they get done playing

(55:36):
sports with what they're going to do with their lives.
So I think that's the part mostly though. I think
I approached the coaches like if they want something, I
expect them to come with a solution, not just an
ass like how are we going to fund this? So
we got a lot of coaches doing a lot of
fundraising for projects. You know, everybody's kind of got what
they're looking for. Some programs want more scholarship dollars to

(55:58):
get you know, more athletes or better kids, and some
coaches are looking at facility upgrades they think would enhance
their programs. But the main thing that we focus on
the conversation is is this going to make your program better,
you know, versus is this just something you want or
something that's going to make your job easier. Like we
got to have a vision of what's this going to
do to improve the program if we're going to invest

(56:20):
in it, And sometimes we get to say yes. A
lot of times we got to say no. But I
think having that conversation where they understand where I'm coming
from instead of just saying no, we're not going to
do that.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Rich you got one last one for Shane. Shane, what
are we looking at for twenty twenty twenty five, twenty
twenty six.

Speaker 5 (56:40):
Hopefully the wheels don't fall off the bus. I don't know,
it's ridiculous. In four years, We've won twenty eight national
titles since I've come here, and I keep telling people
that this isn't normal. Like we I've always said, you
got to be a little bit lucky when you get
to a national tournament. May be the best team, but
you got to have a little luck because the ball
is not going to bounce your way once or twice. Know,

(57:00):
you know, something's gonna happen. You know, players going to
get hurt or foul out. You got to have a
little bit of luck. And we have been in more
championship games in the last four years and won them
than we have coming in second. Like last year we
got eight national championships and we had three runner up finishes,
and it's kind of been that way for four consecutive years,
so I think coming up we're just trying to replicate.

(57:24):
We got some new coaches, new wrestling coaches, new women's
soccer coach. So every year it's a matter of getting
the new coaches on board and acclimated to the way
we do things here in our culture and making sure
they've got the support they need, and then as well,
not forgetting about the long term coaches that just you know,
it's a well oiled machine and you don't have to
ever worry about what they're doing, but you got to

(57:45):
make sure that you're checking in with them so that
the program. Like I said, if you're not doing something
to improve your program every year, you're falling behind. So
we hope to just keep the success rolling. I know
at some point we're going to have a unlucky year
and not have as many wins in the postseason as
we do losses. But you know, I think you know,

(58:05):
after year four, I feel like I'm finally getting my
feet on the ground. It takes a few years at
a new school just to learn everything, learn the people,
and and really right now we're turning our focus kind
of like Josh said, everything's about if we want to
have resources, we got to find the money to do that.
So continuing to find ways to generate revenue for the college,

(58:26):
you know, to support our scholarship fund and support the equipment,
the things and the facilities that we need to continue
to work on to get better.

Speaker 4 (58:37):
Shane, thank you so much for your time tonight, sir,
you already had the area bros. This fans coach Beerbamb
already had us in the boat. But like we say
to everyone, we're bigger fans now. So thank you so
much for your time and can't wait to keep on following.
And just like we said to Josh, we're gonna have
to do some my cafeteria wars or something.

Speaker 3 (58:58):
Thank you one bite. Everybody knows the rules. With the area,
Rose set.

Speaker 5 (59:03):
Up the bracket. Just get touch on us on the
other side so we can meet up in the championship again.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
Okay, like where your head's at.

Speaker 4 (59:09):
Have a great Timmer sir, Well, thank you guys, thank
you all right, Rich, we got Tammy Davis coming in
from Western Texas, Western Texas, Western Texas, the Westerners. Tammy
has spent over a decade leading Texas largest community college
athletic program and remains the only female A D in

(59:31):
the NJCAA Region five. She's a former basketball standout and coach.
Davis continues to foster a culture of growth, academics and
athletic excellent at Western Texas.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
That's a cool logo.

Speaker 8 (59:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
I'm a big I'm a big mascot guy. So I
love the unique and interesting mascots. And I said to
Jimmy the other day, I like the ones that kind
of tie in to the region or the community.

Speaker 8 (01:00:04):
Yes, definitely.

Speaker 6 (01:00:05):
It makes it a little more what would you say,
maybe a little more relatable. Yeah, And I think it
helps to athletes to lay into what we're asking him
to do.

Speaker 4 (01:00:21):
So, Tammy, how are things going right now since you
took over as the athletic director? How was it when
you started and how's it going?

Speaker 8 (01:00:32):
It's good.

Speaker 6 (01:00:33):
I've been here at Western for this is starting my
twentieth year going into this upcoming year.

Speaker 8 (01:00:40):
And it started as a coach and loved doing that.

Speaker 6 (01:00:45):
I honestly wasn't looking to get into the administrative end
of things until our president had visited with me about
it and was appreciative of the opportunity.

Speaker 8 (01:01:00):
Loved it.

Speaker 6 (01:01:00):
We went at Western Texas College for a period of
time where we had no athletics other than rodeo, and
so in two thousand and three is when they started
bringing back all of the sports, and so I came
in in two thousand and six, and so a lot

(01:01:22):
of fun watching the growth and the development. You know,
I think anytime that you're starting everything back from scratch,
there's a lot that has to go into putting things
together and making sure that things are done correctly. And
I think initially programs were brought in and there was

(01:01:46):
just the reality of I've got to put things together.
We've got to put people either on the field or
on the court, or wherever it was that they were.
And so as time has marched along, we've been able
to really focus more on quality and what it is
that we want to do institutionally and making sure that
we help these kids achieve what junior college is about, graduate,

(01:02:09):
move forward to that four year level, and continue to
have success as they march forward.

Speaker 4 (01:02:17):
So two years or two decades, I'm sorry, build them
from scratch. What are some of your biggest accomplishments, you know,
starting from scratch and where you're at now?

Speaker 6 (01:02:29):
I think, honestly, I think one of the things that
we are most proud about here is we compete. I
think Region five is a brutal region to compete in,
as well as a very fun region to compete in.
And you've got to bring your a game every night

(01:02:49):
and be prepared to go. And so I think that
the competition end of things, of course, is what we're
all in it for. That's what we love. But we
also love helping kids succeed. So we are definitely proud
of our academics here. I feel like academically we were

(01:03:10):
able to certify GOSH. I think we have seventeen teams,
fifteen of those are in GCAA, and we certified thirteen
four team academic awards this year nationally, and so that
was a big accomplishment of ours, as well as watching

(01:03:32):
our kids be able to move on to the four
year level. You know, we've got kids at all different
levels and they were able to go on and become
doctors and lawyers, and you know, we've got a wide
variety of things that are out there that these student
athletes go on to become. And that's really I feel
like we're Our coaches absolutely love getting to do what

(01:03:57):
they do. They get to compete, help their kids compete
successful in whatever arena they're in, and then also just
in life.

Speaker 3 (01:04:07):
So starting from scratch, having fifteen teams, it's the largest
athletic department was in the Texas Community College. Would have
been the keys to building and growing such a large
athletic department.

Speaker 6 (01:04:20):
I think, I think, hands down, you've got to have
the right staff in place. I think it's all about
who you select, and I think that if you get
the right coaches in place, there's a lot of things
that are able to operate without worry. They're going to
bring in quality kids, They're going to bring in kids
that have the right goals, the right focus. They're going
to help the ones that might be on the fence

(01:04:42):
that maybe need a little more guidance and might need
a little more direction, they are able to navigate through
that and help them to be successful. But you know,
I feel like our staff here is absolutely phenomenal. We've
got great coaches, greatest assists, sorry assistant coaches, and they
work hard, they help each other, and I truly feel

(01:05:06):
like that is the biggest, the biggest key to having
success and to be able to bring consistency, and I
feel like that's something that we have bettered ourselves at
over time.

Speaker 8 (01:05:20):
Initially, like I said.

Speaker 6 (01:05:21):
You know, you're there, you're competing, you're hoping to make
it to postseason. But I think at this point we've
got several of our programs that there's an expectation there
that they will be in post season play and not
only there, but being able to be successful. You know,
our track team is always great, they do really really

(01:05:42):
well on the national level, and as well as our golf,
our rodeo team, to which I realize is not a
nationally ranked and then we've been able to have success
in several of our other programs men's soccer and softball
and whatnot that they just go on and they compete
and they they might not make it necessarily to the
national championship, but they have been able to get to

(01:06:04):
regionals and be able to be part of postseason play
and that's always a great, a great accomplishment, and I
think that over time it allows with the help of
the right coaching staff, it just allows to bring in
really top quality student athletes. We've been able to attract
from all over the world. We've got a lot of

(01:06:26):
kids from Texas, but we also have a lot of
student athletes from all over the nation as well as
all over the world, and that that's very enjoyable.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
Tabby, Jimmy and I are both junior college athletes. We're
both junior college All Americans myself and cross country Jimmy
and wrestling. And in New Jersey where we're from community colleges,
junior colleges or commuter campuses, and they're in the you know,
they're classified as Division three what and our coaches were
part time coaches, So I'm curious where where does West

(01:06:57):
Texas are you guys? Division one? Do you have dormitories
coaches full time coaches?

Speaker 6 (01:07:02):
Yes, sir, we do, and I too am a junior
college athlete, which is fun to be able to give back.

Speaker 8 (01:07:08):
Yes, that is a great thing.

Speaker 6 (01:07:11):
We are Division one and our coaches are full time.
We're very fortunate that Western Texas is very progressive as
far as making sure that our coaches have got resources
in order to be able to do their jobs. So
both of our assistant and our head coaching positions are
full time positions, and so they're able to work and

(01:07:33):
do what they need to do, be out recruiting when
they need to recruit. And we do have dorms and
our student athletes fill up the majority of the dorms,
which is a lot of fun, very like minded people
that you see on a day to day basis on campus.
Snyder itself is about twelve twelve five hundred people within

(01:07:56):
our community West Texas. It's we're we set kind of
equal distances from Lubbock and Abilene and Midland, and so
you can get to a larger area if you need it,
and but we've got all of the amenities that you
would need to have to be successful here. Community is phenomenal.

(01:08:16):
They're very, very, very supportive and very helpful towards our
programs as well as our student athletes, and it's really
it's been a it's been a great place. So we
are fortunate that we have a lot of great tools
in order to be successful for the student athletes here,
that's awesome.

Speaker 4 (01:08:38):
Tammy, correct me if I'm wrong, if I if I
read this wrong. But is it correct that every player
who stayed with the basketball program has for two years
got a two year degree?

Speaker 1 (01:08:49):
Is that?

Speaker 3 (01:08:49):
Is that a correct fact?

Speaker 6 (01:08:52):
On the women's side, yes, I believe so our men's
are men's. Yes, our men's is just shy uh, but yes,
I we've been really fortunate that we've been able to
graduate one hundred percent in that in that area.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
So what do you think the key to that success?

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Is?

Speaker 4 (01:09:11):
Rich and I know how important academics are. We didn't know,
probably me, I won't speak for Rich.

Speaker 3 (01:09:17):
Didn't know.

Speaker 4 (01:09:17):
It's a little bit later in life how important academics were.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
And it wasn't just sports. But what is instruction?

Speaker 4 (01:09:24):
What programs you guys have in structure to make sure
your kids get it to your degree and go on
to the next level.

Speaker 6 (01:09:31):
That's a good question because I think that that's the
battle that everybody, everybody works and fights against. I feel like,
of course, first off, you've got to have a coach
in place that values that and understands the importance and
how developmentally tied into what their future goals are are

(01:09:57):
and so if you have that in place, and there
fortunate that we have coaches that have regular study halls
and are able to do classroom checks and whatnot. But
we also institutionally have got a lot of things in
place that the school's put in place in order to
be able to help student athletes as well as the

(01:10:19):
rest of our student body. But it's very it's very
much geared towards let's figure out what each individual student needs,
and so they're able to get to tutoring, they're able
to get outside resources as far as if they have
a class that's kicking their tail, they can go and
get that help. And we try to catch through our

(01:10:42):
counseling office as well as that tutoring program that we've got.
We try to catch them early and identify those student
athletes early that might be struggling so that we can
get them back on track and help them to attain
those goals.

Speaker 4 (01:10:56):
Well, I want to thank you for that. I am
true through junior college athlete. I probably attended maybe every
junior college within a couple mile rights of where we live,
so I appreciate that. I know how important it is
to have academics first, So I appreciate you making sure

(01:11:17):
that that is something that the athletes have.

Speaker 6 (01:11:20):
Absolutely, I think it's such a value and a lot
of times we can't see that when we're in that
part of our life and it's not until later on
that we go, yeah, that was really important.

Speaker 8 (01:11:30):
I'm glad I had somebody pushing me.

Speaker 6 (01:11:31):
To get that done and and I, you know, I
think that's true to so many aspects of life. And
I think that that's the value of junior college is,
you know, we help them navigate through those early years
and trying to figure out what it is and what
they want to be doing and how to get there.
And I, you know, I being a junior college athlete,

(01:11:52):
and I'm I'm sure you guys can testify it as too.
It is such a important thing for so many of
us that have the opportunity to.

Speaker 8 (01:12:03):
Be in the junior college world.

Speaker 6 (01:12:04):
See how that has impacted our lives individually and be
able to give back. I know that junior college was
the perfect fit for me. That's exactly where I needed
to be, and it really helped prepare me for so
many bigger things down the road which I didn't even
know we're coming.

Speaker 8 (01:12:24):
And so.

Speaker 6 (01:12:26):
I feel very honored that I'm able to help give
back to other student athletes that are coming through. And
I know I hear our coaches talk about that all
the time. We have several other coaches that have been
junior college athletes, and so they just understand, They understand
where it's what takes place, what it feels like, what

(01:12:48):
your goals look like out of a two year as
opposed to a four year, and how to navigate through that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:55):
Tevy to one of the things we're seeing a little
bit more and more, not necessarily in your college level,
but we're seeing athletic directors that are coming from different
positions where they're not coming through the ranks as coaches,
but you have come up as a coach. How is that?
How is your background as a coach shaped how you

(01:13:16):
lead and support your coaching staff today?

Speaker 8 (01:13:19):
I love that question.

Speaker 6 (01:13:20):
I think that being able to be a coach first
really gives you the opportunity to see what that day
to day looks like, see the areas that maybe I
needed help as a coach to be able to turn
around and help our coaches, you know, we want for
them to be able to focus on the student athletes

(01:13:42):
we don't want to have.

Speaker 8 (01:13:44):
We'd love it if.

Speaker 6 (01:13:45):
They never had to worry about any game day administration
or you know, for me as a basketball coach who's
working the table or you.

Speaker 8 (01:13:53):
Know, things like that.

Speaker 6 (01:13:54):
And so I, you know, I think that the background
is what's in and I and I love the opportunity
that I had to be able to coach first and
see those things. I think I heard somebody talk earlier
about the fact that they didn't know what the other
sports looked like, and I had to, you know, there
was there's a lot of learning if you've.

Speaker 8 (01:14:15):
Coached a certain sport, there's a lot of learning.

Speaker 6 (01:14:18):
That takes place as you're trying to become familiar with
other other teams, and that gives you the opportunity to
ask a lot of questions and see what it is
that they need and maybe tie that into what your
personal experience is. And so I'm really grateful for the
opportunity that I had to be able to coach first,
just because it's relatable to me and and it's I'm

(01:14:43):
able to feel what they feel. I understand the game day,
what that needs to look like, and how stressful that
can be if you're fighting to get to postseason. What
does that look like and how does that feel? And
what can we do to support them in that in
that journey, And so very grateful for the opportunity that
I've had to be able to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:15:04):
With the largest athletic department in the Texas Junior college
system fifteen. I'm curious in terms of adding sports growing sports.
As I mentioned, Jimmy and I are coming from across
country and track and field background, which you have covered,
but we're also former wrestlers. Texas has a fast growing
wrestling community and population, both for boys and girls. Is

(01:15:27):
there any chance we can convince you tonight that we
can maybe add men's and women's wrestling at Western.

Speaker 8 (01:15:33):
We would love to.

Speaker 6 (01:15:34):
We're all about growing, and so you never know, down
the road we would have to add a few pieces
of property in order to be able to get where
we can wrestle that. Yes, I know that wrestling is
a fast growing sport and I think that that's a
neat thing. That is another part that I love about

(01:15:55):
junior college is just the very progressive approach in g
shet JCA is taken in adding sports, and so yes,
you never know. I can't commit to it right now,
But you never know, because we're all about trying to
find things that will help build the college and help
build our conference in our regions.

Speaker 8 (01:16:15):
So I need a few more programs to add around
us as well.

Speaker 3 (01:16:21):
All right, Well, as soon as our check clears to
Hutchinson Community College to start their men's and women's program,
I'll have Jimmy cut you one for Western.

Speaker 6 (01:16:29):
All right? That sounds great, That sounds really good.

Speaker 4 (01:16:33):
I mean, is there anything about Western that we didn't
cover that you want our audience to know that you
think is important that they know about the community college?

Speaker 6 (01:16:43):
I think if you know, of course, I'm always very
pro WTC, as all of the athletic directors are. You
know about their institutions, and I think that we offer
a very unique experience here. We have been we're in
a smaller community. We have the opportunity to really focus
on student athletes and be able to be tied into

(01:17:07):
them and help them to achieve goals and and grow
into the people that they are wanting to become. Maybe
some of them don't know that they're wanting to become
that until they have those challenges put in front of them.
And so I feel like our facilities are phenomenal here.
Our college is absolutely top notch, and we just.

Speaker 8 (01:17:28):
We have great pieces here to help people be successful.

Speaker 4 (01:17:33):
Tammy, thank you so much for your time, Richard, more
and more we start talking to these countries out in
western Texas.

Speaker 3 (01:17:40):
I don't know we're telling you. I've been talking up
Texas for quite a few years now.

Speaker 6 (01:17:44):
Jim, Well, thank you so much for having having me
on and letting let me be part of your conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:17:51):
Yes, a pleasure to chat with you. And we do
appreciate your time. And we're going to be adding a
Westerners banner to our wall of of support that we
throw to our junior college friends and family. But thank
you so much, and we hope you have a great
rest of your summer. I know the athletes you're going
to be coming back pretty soon, so you're going to
be pretty busy, so enjoy your time while curious.

Speaker 6 (01:18:14):
Thank you, Thank you so much, Thank you, all right,
you you bye bye?

Speaker 3 (01:18:19):
Right, all right, rich we have Trevor coming in. All right,
ladies and gentlemen, Trevor Wolf's from Barton Community College is
joining us. The Cougars, the home of sixty national champions,
A former coach and Barton alum. Trevor returned to lead
the athletic department and has overseen continued success in the
Jayhaw Conference competition. He brings championship experience and a deep

(01:18:42):
community ties to Barton's leadership, shaping and winning culture and
on and off the court. Trevor, how are you, sir,
How you guys doing. We're doing great. How are you?

Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
I'm doing well? Thank you doing very well.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
Yeah, we appreciate you joining us, taking time out of
your business schedules join us. We're excited to hear all
about Barton. We've talked to many coaches and some athletic
directors within the Jayhaw Conference. So where we come from,
junior college isn't quite what it's like in the state
of Kansas. But Jimmy and I are both junior college
all Americans myself and a cross country Jimmy and wrestling,

(01:19:19):
and so we just try to do everything we can
to support and help get the word out about the
junior college experience and the benefits it has for young
men and women student athletes.

Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
Yeah, I'm happy to be with you. I'm glad you
guys are doing it. And yeah, I've been listening along
and a good friend of mine, coach Gooch, visiting, and
then we had we had Shane Larson here in Kansas
too before he slipped up to Iowa. So you know,
a lot of good people have come through the ranks
of the KJCCC over the years.

Speaker 3 (01:19:48):
And you're an alumni, correct, I am yep.

Speaker 2 (01:19:51):
I played basketball at Barton from ninety one to ninety three.

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
Okay, And it looks like you've had sixty national championships
within the champ within the athletic.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Department, sixty national titles Barton is proud owners of.

Speaker 3 (01:20:05):
Yes, that's pretty impressive. How many of those have you
been a part of?

Speaker 2 (01:20:10):
Sorry, Jim, I have been a part of six of those, Okay,
most recently men's basketball in twenty twenty four.

Speaker 3 (01:20:21):
Is that your baby?

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
Well? Being a basketball guy's, I can tell you that's
been the baby of a lot of Barton Community College supporters,
loyal supporters and fans for a long time. They've desired
a national championship in basketball, and probably particularly men's basketball.
I know when I was at Barton, it was a

(01:20:43):
it was a big deal. It was always striving, you know,
and that was kind of when you know, basketball was,
you know, not having a football program that was, you know,
kind of the the leader of the pack, the ship
in the front, you might say, and flagship. And you know,
we've got tremendous balance within our sports now, but certainly

(01:21:05):
for our long time and loyal fans, winning the national
championship in basketball was very very sweet and very very special,
and we certainly appreciate Coach Combs's efforts and bringing that
to Barton.

Speaker 4 (01:21:19):
So we talk about that rich history, sixty national championship
and you were part of six as the ad.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
You guys had a great year.

Speaker 4 (01:21:28):
You had a bunch of track and field All Americans,
had a national runner up finish in tennis, top ten
finish in baseball. What's the philosophy to keep the program
so strong and to be competitive across the board in
all the sports in junior college athletics.

Speaker 2 (01:21:46):
I think the philosophy is people. I think it always
starts with people. You know that old adage that's you're
only as good as those you surround yourself with. And
I've been very fortunate at Barton over the past fourteen years,
start year fifteen, to surround myself with a lot of
quality people, and we get quality people, and again fortunate

(01:22:08):
at the junior college level, if you can keep really
good coaches and good people around for an extended period
of time, that certainly helps with your longevity and winning
and success. And so been fortunate in that aspect as well.
But you know, I came back to lead Barton because
I was a student athlete here and it was a

(01:22:28):
very special place when I was a student athlete here.
And it was a special place because of the people
that make up Barton and not just an athletics department,
but the campus as a whole. And so you know,
really that's been a goal of mine as athletic director
in the leadership position, was to try to create a
great experience for all of our student athletes that come

(01:22:50):
onto our campus, whether that be for one year, two years,
or three years. And I think most of them would
tell you that Martin is a special place, and it's
very special mostly because of the people that they're surrounded
with on our campus.

Speaker 3 (01:23:05):
Geographically speaking, for our fans back home in New Jersey
and other places that are listening, where is Barton in Kansas?

Speaker 2 (01:23:12):
Great ben Kansas is almost smack dab in the middle
of the state.

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
And how we're in relation to I seventy, are you.

Speaker 1 (01:23:20):
We are.

Speaker 2 (01:23:22):
About twenty miles south of I seventy, okay, maybe thirty
at the most, and then we're about an hour and
a half west of I thirty five.

Speaker 3 (01:23:35):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (01:23:36):
So Solana is at the intersection of I thirty five
and I seventy, and we're about an hour and ten
hour and fifteen minutes southwest of Solana.

Speaker 3 (01:23:45):
Okay, Jim, I think we've had a couple of coffee
or two in Solana, maybe maybe eight to breakfast at
the village, and I think, yeah, I think you're right, Trevor.

Speaker 4 (01:23:54):
You you mentioned the people being key to the success
of the programs, and we know junior college tends to
be a little transient as far as either coaches or
athletes going there to build their name and going to
the next level. But we do know Kansas Junior College,
you guys have the Division I programs, so you're able
to have full time coaches. Do you feel you're able

(01:24:15):
to get the most out of your coaches and keep
them a little bit longer because of the culture there?

Speaker 7 (01:24:21):
I do.

Speaker 2 (01:24:21):
I do you know the community a great bend or
surrounding communities, But in particular. A lot of people don't
know this. Our campus sits outside of town about three miles,
so we're kind of on our own little island and
it's our own little community. And with twenty three sports programs,
you know, about ninety percent of our residence hall occupancy

(01:24:44):
is student athletes, so it's kind of our own little village.
And yeah, there's just such a connection there because of
that village. And you know, I've talked about the people
a lot, you know, the culture, but I think it also,
you know, to that end starts at the top. You know,
we've got tremendous support from a booster club and the

(01:25:05):
foundation that was created with that Booster Club a long
time ago, the college's foundation, the boarder trustees, from the
administration all down that all have the same mission and
same belief that we want to provide and create the
best experience we possibly can for all those students and obviously,
in my position, all the student athletes who we come

(01:25:26):
in contact with and call Barton home.

Speaker 4 (01:25:30):
So you mentioned being through miles outside of town, but
a lot of athletes are living on campus. Do you
feel like the mayor at times?

Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
Yeah, all of it, the mayor of the president, the
vice president, you name it. But again, it's such a
great support staff culture from you know, all of our
vps and our president that we really work well together
to manage you know, the village, the community that's our own,
so to speak. And we're very fortunate too, you know

(01:26:01):
you hear some of those on your panel and others
that share a lot of facilities with USDs are surrounding
communities and you know, fortunate for us. You know, we
have all of our facilities right there in our own village,
which which also makes it very very nice.

Speaker 3 (01:26:20):
You know, coach Coach was putting over the new dining
hall on campus for the student athletes who who we're
talking up in Iowa Western. They want to have a competition.
How is the food? How are the digs at Barton?
Are we going to add you to the list of
having a challenge here?

Speaker 2 (01:26:39):
Yeah, I don't know about the challenge from the dining service.
I love the the guy that runs our dining service.
It's awesome. And I can tell you because I was
a coach in the league for seven years at Prior
Community College prior to coming back home to Barton to
be the athletic director. So I visited a lot of
those cafeterias as a student athlete, but particularly as a
basketball coach when we go on the road, and if
we had the same dining hall service, we would eat

(01:27:01):
in some of those. And I can tell you Hutches
was not good. Uh, but I can tell you now
we've had several conference meetings at hutch you know, over
the years, and uh, yeah, they're the improvement that they made,
Uh was incredible. Uh it it'd be hard. You'd be
hard pressed arrival there. They're food service situation now, but

(01:27:24):
it was. It wasn't good for a long time, but
it's really good now. I've never been up there to
eat at Shane, eat with Shane and I West and
he hasn't ever invited me, So I can't compare apples
and apples there.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
Talking about, you know, having the athletes on campus and
everyone lives in the dorms, we're here curious about the
breakdown in terms of students. Are we staying within the
state and a lot of athletes, you know Jayhawks, are
they from the state of Kansas. What's a breakdown for
versus out of state? And are their international students on

(01:27:57):
campus as well? With the athletic department.

Speaker 2 (01:27:59):
I'm glad you bring that up. I have prided myself.
We pride ourselves at Barton. We win, and we went
a lot within the conference regionally and certainly compete very
well nationally as well, and we do a lot of
that with a lot of Kansas kids. I can't get
to the exact inside bone statistics across our league, but

(01:28:24):
I think you'd be hard pressed to find more Kansas
participants at any college in the conference than Barton. We
were over fifty percent and have been as long as
I've been here. And whilst saying that, we also have
a very diverse student athlete population, you know, four hundred
plus student athletes, and we'll have roughly one hundred international

(01:28:49):
student athletes. But we have a wonderful presence of participation
from Kansas student athletes, and not only participation, but those
that are that are right in the mix of starting lineups,
you know, all conference players. And so I'm very, very
very prideful of that because it is a community college.

(01:29:11):
In fact, the Jayhawk Conference for years has talked about
putting limits on the number of out of stators in
all sports, and so you know, some colleges you know,
weren't really flushed with that, and believe you know, they
might struggle to get that many participants from Kansas, and

(01:29:32):
we've always done it, so you know, I was never
concerned if those if those byelaws were passed and came
into play, which actually this fall they were passed, going
into effect for twenty six twenty seven, and so we're
in good shape and we love having a lot of
Kansas presence on our rosters.

Speaker 3 (01:29:52):
Is that something that the Jayhall Conference is brought back?
I feel like I remember that being a topic in
the independencies in the last chance you were they had
maybe maybe lesson that are allowed more out of state
athletes at one point they did.

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
You know, there there was always restrictions on football, men's
and women's basketball for a lot a lot of years,
and those numbers kept climbing. You know in basketball, when
I played, it was five and then it went to six,
and then it was unlimited for quite a few years,
and and there was some folks that thought there was
a need to, you know, to put some slight restrictions back.

(01:30:31):
It's not going to get to anywhere that level to
where you know, seventy five percent of your rosters are
Kansas because they have so many opportunities and selections from
colleges in Kansas. From you know, the twenty one community colleges,
I think there's twelve or fourteen Neia colleges, you know
in the state of Kansas, three divisions twos and then

(01:30:51):
of course the three division ones in which das State,
k State, and KU. So a lot of opportunities and
a lot of windows there. But at the same time,
you know, the press and it's across the league felt
it was important to UH to maintain that. Kansas President
and so a bylaw did pass this past fall.

Speaker 3 (01:31:09):
Is having that homegrown situation and the pride in that
does that maybe not encouraged, but does that attract Kansas athletes.

Speaker 2 (01:31:20):
I think, I really think it does. It has its advantages,
for sure. I think you also get a lot of
UH while we get very good support UH locally. I
think when you have student athletes from the state of
Kansas that they can you know that they know about

(01:31:41):
and are are aware of and have seen come through
high school and and now donning of Barton uniform, I
think that generates enthusiasm from your fans as well, you know,
more so sometimes so.

Speaker 4 (01:31:53):
So we talked about that Jayhawk Conference and if an
athlete comes from that Jayhawk Conference, they're going to be
able to go to for your school and compete. What
edge do you hope that kids get from going to
Barton when they go to that four year school that you.

Speaker 3 (01:32:08):
Know, hey, they're going to do well.

Speaker 4 (01:32:09):
You did two years here, You're going to be better
off here because the X that you got at Barton.

Speaker 2 (01:32:14):
Well, I think they're going to get great coaching. And
any any athletic department that has success, it starts with
great coaches. We all know that. Now the student athletes
play the games and win the games, but you've got
to have a good leader. You've got to have a
good captain. And I think you'd be hard pressed to
find a coaching staff across the board that's better than mine.

(01:32:36):
And that's not being Braggadosia's saying that, I firmly believe
that we have one of the best coaching staffs across
the board in the country. And again I started this
whole conversation with it's about the people, and it starts
there at the top with coaches. And so they're going
to get coached by really good coaches who not only
care about their development as a student athlete, but care

(01:32:58):
about their development as a person them. You know, there
we have three pillars at Barton that we live by
and that's that's what that we want to socially develop
or we want to develop student athletes athletically, academically and socially.
And our coach is firm of the believe in that mission.
And I think to your question about are they prepared

(01:33:20):
to go on and be successful at the next level
with those three pillars in mind and that mission in mind,
They're they're goodting they're getting a well rounded experience here
at Barton that that bodes well for them in the
future wherever they choose to go.

Speaker 4 (01:33:35):
What are you most proud of your accomplishments as a
day at barn in your time there.

Speaker 2 (01:33:42):
That we're not just we've been very very successful. And
again I'm very very fortunate human being in the position
that I'm in as athletic director at Barton. We finished
in the top three of the NATICA Cup standings for
six straight years, which what's that combine success? As you
two are aware, and that makes me really proud. You know,

(01:34:04):
I think there's a lot of colleges, whether it's community colleges, NCAA,
and AI that hang their hat on a few programs,
and as long as they're successful in their programs those
specific programs, you know, everybody feels pretty good about it.
We've been very fortunate that we've been successful in almost
every program that we offer, and again twenty three of

(01:34:25):
them in my fourteen years at Barton. So that's probably
what I'm most proud of, is the consistent success across
the board with our sports.

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):
Yeah, we talk about when you're head coach or director
of a program, it's a lot more about than just
the x's and o's, and you have to run a business.
And taking that a step further, as an athletic director,
you're really running a business. What are your favorite aspects
of running the Barton County Athletic Department.

Speaker 2 (01:35:00):
I go back to that word people, and that's why
I'm in this business. If you don't like connection and
you don't like, you know, the social aspect of athletics
and all the wonderful things that athletics can can bring
to someone's life, whether that's a student athlete or a coach.
And in my place as an administrator, or a fan.

(01:35:23):
You know, I love the connection that I have. But
I heard Shane earlier talking about, you know, when you've
got that many sports, by the time you figure out
all the names and put the faces with the names
and all the programs and stuff, they're gone. So I
miss the closer connection that I had as a community
college head coach. But I get that connection with the

(01:35:45):
coaches and the programs and the student athletes, and I
love watching them grow. Another analogy that I use, and
I think our coaches do a really good job. I've
always believed that if you take student athletes and you
just call them oranges, and we know oranges are full
of juice, right, it's the coach's job, it's my job,
it's everybody's job. At Barton, we talk about hoping they

(01:36:07):
have a good experience and putting them in place to
have a good experience. But let's squeeze every bit of orange,
every bit of juice out of that orange that we
possibly can. And again, I love watching that process and
watching student athletes grow. And again, it was my own
team with a basketball program when I coach, and now

(01:36:29):
I kind of get to see it on all different
levels and aspects. In the twenty three programs that we
have here.

Speaker 3 (01:36:37):
Talking about those twenty three programs. You know, as I mentioned,
Jimmy and I are both former wrestlers. Jimmy was an
All American and Middlesex Community College. We know you have
a men's wrestling program. Is there any chance we can
talk to you into right now adding twenty four and
getting the women's programs up and running.

Speaker 2 (01:36:53):
Well, that's a great question getting the call here, fellas,
can you still see me? Yes, there, that's a great question,
and there is no doubt we will be adding women's
wrestling at Barton in the very near future. We've had
some facility challenges that have kind of kept us from
adding women's wrestling, but as you both know, it's a

(01:37:14):
transcending sport across the country. It's become very popular here
in Kansas and our high schools, and there are more
and more community colleges adding women's wrestling, and we'll be
in that mix for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:37:26):
Excellent.

Speaker 1 (01:37:28):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:37:28):
Also, one last one I got for you. You know,
coming from New Jersey, there's definitely hotbeds of certain sports,
you know, depending on the region of the state, that
are more dominant in certain sports than in others. Is
that similar in Kansas or their hotbeds for certain sports
or is it well balanced across the state.

Speaker 2 (01:37:47):
You know, there's a lot more balance than there used
to be. You know, Kansas was kind of a hotbed
for football and basketball players, and I think Kansas has
become a whole lot more diverse in terms of quality
student athletes who can come to a community college program
at Division two, Division one in the state and help
a team be successful and win. So it's it's been

(01:38:10):
great to see that and again much more to your question,
much more spread out than.

Speaker 9 (01:38:15):
It used to be.

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
Yeah, support to sport crever.

Speaker 4 (01:38:20):
Is there anything about our in community college that we
haven't spoken that you want our audience to know?

Speaker 2 (01:38:26):
Well, you know, I talk about support and that's key,
and I've I've heard some of your other panelists you know,
visit about you know, and and I talked about you know,
the administration, the board of trustees. There there has to
be a belief and and there there has to be
I call it, you know, proof in the pudding. Uh.

(01:38:47):
We want to be successful. Uh, we want to develop
great student athletes and and turn them into better people.
But you have to support that. You know, financially from
you know, operational from scholarships. Facilities is a big part
of the recruiting game, as you both know. I'd be

(01:39:07):
remiss to say if I didn't talk about donors. And
I've heard some of your other panelists talk about that.
We've got some very big facility renovation projects going on
right now to the tune of about seven million dollars,
and over half of that is from private donors. And

(01:39:28):
so again that's just part of our support system. Are
our loyal fans and our donors who support our athletic programming.
And it all takes that village to develop that culture
and make it all work if you want to be successful.

Speaker 4 (01:39:44):
Hey, man Rich we always hear that when we talk
to good coaches people, it's all about the people you
surround yourself with, people in.

Speaker 2 (01:39:51):
Relationships without without a doubt.

Speaker 4 (01:39:55):
Yeah, Trevor, thank you so much for your time.

Speaker 3 (01:40:00):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:40:00):
The more and more we talk, Toda's Jayhawk Conference College
is rich and more I got.

Speaker 3 (01:40:05):
I want to go check it out. Come get it.

Speaker 2 (01:40:08):
You come out and see me. Well, we'll have a
stake dinner. We might have to go to the food
service there at Huts to get a good meal.

Speaker 7 (01:40:15):
The way.

Speaker 2 (01:40:17):
We can, we can get together and hang out, and
I'd love to show you our campus and our facilities
is a second to none. It's it's a great place.
And again I'm very fortunate to be there.

Speaker 3 (01:40:30):
Yeah, it would be nice to see some different parts
of Kansas other than driving on a nice seventy or
I thirty five. So we'll have to take you up
on that and maybe do a Jayhawk tour in the
fall or something.

Speaker 2 (01:40:41):
Jim, shoot me a mess and shoot me a call.
I'd be glad to have you.

Speaker 7 (01:40:44):
Guys.

Speaker 2 (01:40:44):
We'll put you up and we'll hang out.

Speaker 3 (01:40:46):
We appreciate that, Trevor. You have a great rest of
the summer. Enjoy it. I know that this the calm
before the storm, before the athletes get back on campus
coming up here pretty shortly, so enjoy what time you
have before everyone gets back and we'll be rooting for
you to come fall.

Speaker 2 (01:41:02):
Hey, appreciate the time, fellas, and again, very glad to
be a part of this tonight.

Speaker 3 (01:41:07):
Pleasure. Thank you, Take care, take care, great night, you too,
so rich.

Speaker 4 (01:41:13):
We don't have anyone waiting for us. Our first guest
that he had a family issue, arise. I was trying
to do double duty when we were talking to Trevor
and actually be a co host to as well, where
I if you want to keep on talking, I can
try to try to do double task. But so far

(01:41:35):
tonight has been a great experience. Some great coaches or ads.

Speaker 3 (01:41:39):
I'm sorry.

Speaker 4 (01:41:40):
And the more and more we talked to jay Hawk
Conference coaches, man, the more and more I'm getting those
last chance you vibes and want to want to go
check out what it's all about.

Speaker 3 (01:41:51):
Yeah, I mean that's you know, we talk about it
all the time offline. But I think just we've got
a lot of opportunities and a lot of people have
opened their doors to us. It's just a matter of
us of getting in the van and going to see
these places, getting some We got a lot of steak
dinners that have been offered to us and a lot

(01:42:12):
of cups of coffee. So I think it's it's only
a matter of time before we we go and collect
on some of those and meet some of these great
people and tour these campuses and give the fans a
little bit more content of what the campuses are like,
what the facilities are like, what the athletes themselves are like.

(01:42:33):
You know, there's a lot of great things going on
in the in the junior college system, and it's it's
fun to connect with these people. There's a lot of
stories out there other than what's going on in the.

Speaker 4 (01:42:43):
Power for Yeah, and you don't learn about some other
sports that give student athletes opportunities that rodeo want to
check out of rodeo?

Speaker 3 (01:42:54):
Who got some rifle in there?

Speaker 4 (01:42:57):
And the more and more we talk to people, some
of these colleges with some are merging programs. You see
these esports coming up across the board. You see with
the ANTII A see with some of the top JUCO programs.
I'm curious to what that is about. I'm curious if
that's what they kind of lump everything that's not and
see NCAA.

Speaker 3 (01:43:21):
Did I say that right?

Speaker 4 (01:43:23):
J and J c AA. I saw it on my head,
but it didn't come out of my mouth the right way.
But yeah, I'm just curious to what that's all about.
And I guess participation is key across the board with
all these sports.

Speaker 3 (01:43:36):
Yeah, I mean I would imagine it seems like too
with the Division I programs, a lot of the students
that are living on campus are actually within the athletic department.
So that's kind of like he's like Trevor said's kind
of like the athlete village, you know, like an Olympics
or World Championships, where all the athletes are there for

(01:43:57):
the same reason and keeping each other in check and
building a great community in a great culture. Kerry, come
back on you guys want to talk tomorrow.

Speaker 2 (01:44:05):
I'm listening to you with your technical challenges.

Speaker 3 (01:44:07):
Oh yeah, thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:44:09):
I don't know where Shelby's at. I don't know Shelby,
but I do know I talked to Kenny today, so
I know Kenny's plainning to come on.

Speaker 3 (01:44:16):
Man.

Speaker 4 (01:44:16):
Trevor, you put out a fire for us. I appreciate
you listening. That goes a long way with the area. Bros.

Speaker 2 (01:44:24):
Well, listen, you were talking about Olympics and Olympians. You know,
there's a million things we could talk about about Barton.
We got sixty national championships, but most people don't know
fifty eight of them are from track and cross country.
And when my first my first year at Barton was
in eleven twelve. In the Olympics of twenty twelve, Wichita State,

(01:44:48):
k State and KU combined had five student athletes, former
student athletes in the Olympics, Barton had nine.

Speaker 3 (01:44:57):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:44:58):
So just a when you were talking about Olympics there,
and of course I had some notes down here in
twenty minute session. We're not getting to all that stuff,
but the fifty eight titles at Barton track and field
and cross country and uh, a multitude of Olympians. It's
it's it's pretty cool history. Like if you guys were

(01:45:19):
to come out and check it out. Part of our
one of our renovation projects that I was speaking to
that's going on this summer as we're totally remodeling and
redoing our Hall of Fame. It's going to be an
interactive deal. And some of the history that you're going
to see from our college in particular and sport of
track and field is amazing. It's amazing. You'll you'll hear,

(01:45:41):
you'll remember a lot of the names that you hear
and see when you're here.

Speaker 3 (01:45:48):
Has there been a lot of different coaches through that
cycle of all there?

Speaker 2 (01:45:51):
Ass thereass Yeah, And our Dave Shenniks, our head coach.
Our women were runner up in indoor and outdoor this
year and had an injury in the in the hunter
meter that took one of our top female athletes down,
and if she wouldn't have got hurt, I think we
would have won it in the women's again, so it
would have been fifty nine titles. But Dave's been around

(01:46:15):
here a long time and does an outstanding job, had
several throw He's a throws guy. So our head coach
is a throws guy, and and he's had several throwers.
In fact, we broke the national mark in two different
events this year in the throws. And so it just
just seems like every year someone special is on our campus.

(01:46:39):
And when I talk about special, I should I should
talk I should say Olympics special on our campus, which
is is really cool to watch.

Speaker 3 (01:46:50):
Yeah, that's a big thing because like one of the
reasons why we do this is because everyone mainstream, you know,
sports out they're always talking about the power for schools,
and we just there's so many great coaches, great athletic departments,
great stories out there of athletes that are doing amazing

(01:47:10):
things and you know to stop watch the tape measure
those those things don't lie and if you're good, you're good,
and you see it all the time where there's so
many athletes that make the US Olympic team and other
Olympic teams for that matter that come through the junior
college system.

Speaker 2 (01:47:28):
But it's much less to, like you said, the debate
and the sport of track and field. Yeah, no, we
can debate a basketball player and how good they were
and what kind of impact they made and all those things. Yeah,
the stop watching the tape measure. That's a great line.
They don't lie. And Yeah, Barton Community College and it's
fifty plus years of existed, has seen a whole lot

(01:47:50):
of very very special track and field athletes come in
and out of the community of great men and to
our little village and made us very proud in their
time after Barton for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:48:02):
And I can remember when I was coming up. I
graduated high school in ninety four, competed at Ocean County
College NJCA Championships in ninety five at Alfred State, and
especially on the track side, you always heard of Barton
and Blynn, and those were always the teams that were
battling each other. But you don't hear as much about

(01:48:24):
Blynn anymore as you do still hear about Barton.

Speaker 2 (01:48:28):
Burton, South Plains, New Mexico, and Iowa Western we're at
the national you know, we were fortunate too that you know,
Hutchinson and Butler Community College have hosted the NJCAA National
Outdoor Championships, which has been very nice, very close to
go watch, and it was at Hutchinson this year. And
you heard those schools announced a lot in nearly every event.

(01:48:52):
And I'd be remiss to not give a shout out
to Cloud County Community College as well, who's been very
strong and they are another jay Howt Coong Conference member,
very strong in track and field and cross country. As
a matter of fact, they're coach that was there for
forty plus years just retired, just retire. Yeah, they've had
an unbelievable track and field program over the years.

Speaker 3 (01:49:15):
Well, what is it, Like I said, where we're from
New Jersey, junior colleges or commuter colleges, they're all Division three,
But across the board, Jayhawk Conference is top notch. What
is it that makes the Jayhawk Conference and the junior
college system within the state of Kansas so strong?

Speaker 2 (01:49:36):
Coaches? Yeah, and I've said that for years, you know,
being a coach in the league for seven years, and
you know, I grew up watching this league. I grew
up watching the league. You know, the men's basketball National
Tournament's been in Hutchinson my whole life. You know, went
there every year as a kid, nearly every day. You know,
played at Barton. You know, Barton was got third in

(01:49:58):
the nation when I was a senior in high school.
So I got to see a lot of special athletes
come through there. But I think two year question, without
a doubt, it's been the number of quality coaches. If
you looked at coaching trees, and again, I'm a basketball guy.
I was a basketball player, basketball coach. If you look
at some of the coaching trees out there at the

(01:50:20):
Power four level and coaches that are having very very
good success at those levels, a lot of them started
at the community college level. You know, Chris Beard was
a community college coach at Fort Scott. If we could name,
there's hundreds of them out there, but just a couple
that come to mind. You know, Brad Underwood is from McPherson, Kansas,

(01:50:41):
head coach at Illinois. He was coaching at Dodge City,
you know when I played at Barton in the early nineties.
And that tree again kind of goes on and on
and on, and that's specific to basketball, but you'd find
that in a lot of sports. In our conference. There's
just been a lot of really great coaches. And I
one of your pin all I said earlier. I think
it might have been the gall that was on before me.

(01:51:03):
You know, it was talking about you know, coaches and
recruiting and and the importance of that in making things
go and making their uh, you know that Texas region strong,
the Jayhawk Conference I would put up against any conference
and region. You know, jay Conference basically makes up Region six,

(01:51:26):
all of it, and our region is is so so
strong in so many sports.

Speaker 3 (01:51:34):
Do you know off the top of your head, how
many national championships came out of the Jayhawk Conference this year?

Speaker 2 (01:51:41):
Wow, that's a great question. Iowa Western just keeps one
of them all. So I'm yeah, they did. He changed
done a tremendous job there. He's a good friend, and wow,
they are they are killing it there as well as
you know. I believe and know that Barton is doing
well and what they're doing there and multiple sports is incredible.

(01:52:02):
But I couldn't put a I couldn't put a pin
on that without without doing some research. And I got
a couple of really good assistant ads that are really
stark with that stuff. Can I phone a friend? Is
this one of their shodes?

Speaker 4 (01:52:18):
We know you guys got a football. We know hus
got the football this year, yep, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:52:22):
And uh you know our volleyball team got fourth in
the nation and and you know ran into Miami Dade
and the Semish. You know, I focus more on what
we're doing and probably not as much on what everybody
else is doing, maybe from a statistic standpoint and having
the knowledge of that stuff. But uh, I got plenty
of plenty to keep track of at Barton, for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:52:44):
Do you good wrestling matches?

Speaker 2 (01:52:46):
I do, and I don't know squat about I call
it raffling sometimes just all. I got a great, great
head coach and on our wrestling program, and he's any
second year, our numbers had kind of fallen off. We
start started wrestling, and during my time here at Burton
and our men's program did great right out of the gate, tremendous.

(01:53:08):
We had a national champion in all the years run together.
Let's see, what is it now, twenty five? We probably
started wrestling in probably twenty fifteen ish and had a
national champion in like our second or third year, and
it was a great ben Kid. It was really cool
to watch and see. But I don't know much about

(01:53:31):
wrestling at all. You know, they're out there doing the
traveling signal and holding up two fingers and stuff like that,
and I just try to keep up as best I can.
All I know is that if you're a wrestler, you
are the most disciplined, one of the most disciplined human
beings on earth. What those young men and young women

(01:53:52):
have to go through in terms of making weight and
you know, discipline in their diet and all those kinds
of things, There's no way I could have heard who
adhered to anything of the sort as a student athlete.

Speaker 3 (01:54:05):
It certainly adds another dimension to being a student athlete,
that's for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:54:10):
Without question, Trevor, thank you for saving my butt, for
helping me with some dead air. We got Kenny who's
been patiently wading sweet Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:54:21):
I don't want to take Kenny Thime up for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:54:23):
He's a good man, So thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:54:26):
We are even bigger fans because he saved our bus
for twenty minutes, So thank you, sir.

Speaker 2 (01:54:31):
All Right, I enjoyed it and I'll enjoy listening to
your conversation with Kenny here. You guys are doing great
things and again, appreciate it. Kenny, you kill it here.

Speaker 9 (01:54:39):
All right, all right, we'll do I'll have to pick
up the time from you.

Speaker 2 (01:54:41):
I'll try, all right, man, Thanks guys.

Speaker 3 (01:54:44):
Thank you, all right, all right. Kenny Hernand has joined
us from Cooby Community College the Trojans. He was hired
in twenty twenty three. He brings a background of media
coaching student athlete support to his role with Kobe. He's
a rising leader in NJCAA. He brings fresh energy and
communication savvy to Colby program On the Rise. Kenny, how

(01:55:06):
are you, sir? Thank you for joining us this evening
as an honor to pleasures to have you with us.
Welcome to the show.

Speaker 9 (01:55:11):
I'm doing well. I appreciate you guys having me.

Speaker 3 (01:55:14):
Yeah, it's awesome. As I mentioned if you haven't been listening.
But Jimmy and I about junior college athletes. Jimmy is
an All American wrestling myself in cross country at the
Division III level, a little bit different for wrestling, but
we are big fans of the junior college system and
all that provides for student athletes, and so anything we
can do to help grow the information, get the information

(01:55:39):
out there about these programs because they think where we're
from in New Jersey, there's a little bit of a
stigma around being a community college, going to a community
college or a junior college, where in places like Kansas
and i in different places, it's a completely different ballgame.
And we just want student athletes to know that there's
a lot of opportunities out there and if you're willing
to be a hard, work working student athlete, we can

(01:56:01):
find a place for you.

Speaker 9 (01:56:02):
Oh for sure. I'm pretty similar with that as well.

Speaker 10 (01:56:05):
I come from Minnesota originally, Okay, and a lot of
D three jucos in Minnesota as well, and a very
big stigma up there too about going junior college because
there's a lot of D three opportunities NCAA D three
opportunities in Wisconsin or you know, are going down to
Illinois or Iowa, but if you go D three jucos,
a little bit of a stigma there too.

Speaker 9 (01:56:25):
So I understand that.

Speaker 3 (01:56:27):
Yeah, we just want a lot kids to know that,
you know, there's a place for everyone, and I have
to let go of that stigma. But at the same time,
you know, we didn't know. I didn't know until we
got to Nationals that it's like, oh, you can go
to a junior college and you can live on campus
and do all these different things. And so it's always
just been fascinating to us. And so we were coming

(01:56:49):
from wrestling and cross country backgrounds, but we've had a
lot of coaches in those sports from the community college
talk about those things. And we did a couple of
roundtables with track coaches, and we thought we'd do the
same with athletic directors. So we did the nai in
Division two last night, and so tonight we're doing a
round table with the community college athletic directors that are

(01:57:09):
at the top of the heap across the board with
the athletic departments.

Speaker 1 (01:57:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:57:14):
No, I appreciate that, and I think more eyes that
were able to get in the NJCA space and understanding,
you know, what the day to day is from a
student athlete perspective, from coaches perspective, and from the admin perspective.

Speaker 9 (01:57:27):
I mean, it's a grind and it's a lot of
fun too.

Speaker 4 (01:57:30):
Absolutely, So, Kenny, thank you for joining us a little early.
Sorry for my panic email I sent you. We were
trying to juggle some guests, but we are honored to
have you on representing Kobe Community College. Like Rich said,
we are from New Jersey, but being from New Jersey,
I as a junior college athlete, I was looking at school,

(01:57:51):
so Kobe was always always on the radar. I actually
beat an athlete from Kobe to All American at the
UK College National champ Chips. We also know, I believe
Daniel Cormier was alumni of Kobe. We know you guys
have a rich cross country track program.

Speaker 3 (01:58:10):
So what's it like for you to take.

Speaker 4 (01:58:12):
The helm of such a prestigious junior college program.

Speaker 10 (01:58:15):
Oh, it's been wonderful for me, especially from the wrestling side.

Speaker 9 (01:58:19):
And I know you have kind of a little.

Speaker 10 (01:58:20):
Bit background in the wrestling side, and here in Kolbe,
we're very similar to Iowa and the sense in this
Northwest corner very strong wrestling community. Something that was new
to me. So this is going on to my year
three here at Kobe. Whenever I'm out, people always ask
me about the wrestling program, how we're doing, and kind
of always eyes on the wrestling program. So that was

(01:58:41):
that was definitely new for me to kind of figure
out similar to Trevor. Don't really know what's going on
during the wrestling duels during the matches, but it's a
lot of fun, high energy, and great to see them
out there competing to see kind of what they're what
they've been working on. I always joke with my wrestling
coach whenever practice is happening, I can't stay too long

(01:59:01):
because I always think something's gonna happen. Though they're just
throwing each other or the weird kind of the position
that they put them in, I'm like, all right, something's
gonna happen.

Speaker 9 (01:59:10):
I got to step out.

Speaker 10 (01:59:11):
Don't really know what's happening, but I know they're working
on drilling and techniques and things like that. So it's
definitely been a learning curve in that sense. But at
the same time, I'm just I'm jumping into an engine
that's already been running and just keeping it afloat, and
it's been It's been wonderful to see the progress that
we're able to have. Similar to kind of what Trevor

(01:59:31):
talked about, the coaches, the coaches that have been here
for so long and also the coaches that come in
understand what it takes, the effort that needs to be
had and the day to day grind. It's I always
joke when I, you know, talk to a coach like, hey,
sorry for calling you so late, and and we understand
it's a twenty four to seven hour job.

Speaker 9 (01:59:50):
There's no time off.

Speaker 10 (01:59:51):
There's you know, something may come up that we got
to you know, jump on a call for at at seven,
eight o'clock, sometimes midnight, but you know we're there for
the call too.

Speaker 9 (01:59:59):
So it's definitely a grime. But man, it's been a
lot of fun.

Speaker 4 (02:00:03):
So you mentioned some of those season coaches that that
have been there. Were they when you came in? Were
they kind of helping you as far as like, hey
you need to do this here, you need to do
this there?

Speaker 3 (02:00:15):
Were you going to any of them like hey what
do I do here?

Speaker 1 (02:00:18):
Oh?

Speaker 10 (02:00:19):
Yeah, especially early on, just kind of figuring out the
lay of the land, specifically with their programs, you know,
what works for them, what has worked, and not not
putting something in place that is going to deter their
their leadership already or things that are they already have
said in place, So make sure I communicate with them
early on, just kind of figuring it out. And then
obviously for me, seeing ways that we can improve too.

(02:00:41):
So understanding where you know, getting having real conversation with them. Hey,
what are your strong points? What are your weaknesses? Okay,
let me help me. Let me help you with your weaknesses.
And it's not you know, it's not an attack on
them or attack on their leadership or anything like that,
but just understanding where I can come in and help
the program and lift it up to the next level.

Speaker 3 (02:01:03):
Yeah, you're coming from start as a broadcaster, correct and communicator.
J How is that play? How has that shaped you
in your background? How has that shaped your approach to
athletic director? You know a lot of times we have
talked to some athletic directors in the NAI and Division
two that are coming from the administrative side, not necessarily

(02:01:24):
having been in the coaching side of the coach. Athletic
directors we spoke to tonight have all been coaches in
certain different sports. How has your approach been coming in
as coming from like from more from an administrative side
of athletics.

Speaker 10 (02:01:41):
Yeah, so coming from play by play. I had a
really unique opportunity. My brother was actually the head coach
of the men's basketball team, so that I traveled with
for three years. I did play by play for men's
and women's basketball at at Wilson State College, another NJCA
Division One program up there, So I got to do under
stand the day to day behind the scenes, not just

(02:02:02):
showing up in the gym when it's game day, but
also getting to see them in practice or seeing them outside,
you know, going out to eat with them, the hotels
we stay at, the practices before leading up to the
actual event. So really understanding the student athlete experience through
the play by play perspective. Not fully invested or engaged

(02:02:23):
from an admin side where you know, I had to
say on where we're staying or where we're eating, but
still being able to understand those decisions and why those
are being made.

Speaker 9 (02:02:33):
Or traveling on the bus.

Speaker 10 (02:02:34):
You know it was up there, we were traveling six
hours for conference games, and so understanding, you know, with
the road condition's bad, what that looks like from being
on the bus and now being here in the admin
erle The roads are bad, Okay, I know what that
feelings like being on that bus and having that perspective
and being able to communicate that with the coach and

(02:02:54):
also with the bus drivers.

Speaker 9 (02:02:56):
Hey, it's it's.

Speaker 10 (02:02:57):
It's on it's a kind of up to me and
to come up with this decision. But if you're saying
the roads are bad, I'm not on the bus with you.
Let's pull over and get somewhere safe. So that's kind
of what I've kind of taken from that experience is
more or less to behind the scenes the day to day.

Speaker 9 (02:03:13):
Game days are always so much fun. That's that's one
of my one of my.

Speaker 10 (02:03:17):
Favorite days, always game days, getting out there and seeing
them compete. And that was a great thing that I
could have with the play by play perspective and having
building those relationships with student athletes too, being kind of
a third party and just being a play by play
analyst and now being an admin erle we have a
lot more serious conversations, but at the same time being

(02:03:37):
able to build those relationships beforehand and still have those
serious conversations when needed.

Speaker 3 (02:03:44):
Have you used your background as a broadcast from those
sorts of things to help with the SIDS and getting
the social media and using that sort of stuff to
boaster the social media presence.

Speaker 9 (02:03:55):
Oh for sure.

Speaker 10 (02:03:56):
So before we actually just hired and athletic director a
couple a month ago.

Speaker 9 (02:04:03):
Now I've started in January or in June.

Speaker 10 (02:04:06):
And so my first two years we didn't have an SID,
so I was doing all the SID work as well,
so social media. I had a staff of student workers
that I implored to help me with that on the
day to day, but I was doing the programs. I
was also doing the PA work for our softball team.
They got upset when I wasn't doing the PA, but
I kind of tell them, hey, there's other things that

(02:04:27):
come up.

Speaker 9 (02:04:28):
That I have to deal with as well day to day.

Speaker 10 (02:04:30):
Can't just be out there at one o'clock on a
Wednesday every day for try and so it's been it's
been really great in that aspect, and then also finding
out students' interests and doing PA work or doing media
such as podcasting such as this as well, and you know,
being able to deal them some guidance on you know
how Adobe works, you know how you can you know

(02:04:52):
record and how you can edit, and you know if
you want to put it on the radio, you know
obviously it's got to be clean and you know cut
for commerci and do.

Speaker 9 (02:05:01):
That as well.

Speaker 10 (02:05:01):
So having some media background there is help with those
on a day to day and then obviously too with
writing scripts or for our PA announcer doing pronunciation guides
as well has kind of helped with that media side.

Speaker 3 (02:05:17):
Can you give some of those pronunciation guys to Jimmy
He needs a little sometimes.

Speaker 10 (02:05:22):
Oh mine are pretty rough too that the team always
makes fun of how I write it out or how
I kind of sounded out. They're like, that's not it,
but we try.

Speaker 3 (02:05:31):
Yeah, you do like the fonetica like approach to certain names.

Speaker 9 (02:05:35):
Yeah, I try.

Speaker 10 (02:05:36):
And we have a lot of international students, so they
always come back to coach and they're like, this isn't
how you say it at all, Like I.

Speaker 4 (02:05:44):
Tried, Kady, we might have to have a talk offline
that said you're putting on the heartstrings a little bit.
We started this podcast in the college radio station, so
if you're talking about getting you know, some of the
games in podcast form, helping the apples with that, we
could talk you all night about that, but we got
you here to talk Kobe Athletics.

Speaker 3 (02:06:06):
What was your goal coming in as ad and how's
that going so far?

Speaker 1 (02:06:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (02:06:11):
My goal coming in so One thing that I always
talk about with our student athletes and our coaches as
well is being being active, being engaged, and being present.
So I always tell my student athletes that as well
every start of the year, and I tell, you know,
talk to with our coaches as well.

Speaker 9 (02:06:29):
We're a small community.

Speaker 10 (02:06:30):
We're sitting around five thousand people here in Kobe, and
we got to be active and involved and engaged in
the community. We have to be active involved in on
campus as well. A large population of our on campus
students are our student athletes. So if there's an event
on campus and our student athletes don't show up, there's
not a lot of people there. So I want to

(02:06:52):
make sure that we're active involved in getting out to
certain events and being being an active participating in our
community too, and that's something that Kobe historically has done
a great job of. When I took this role over,
I had a few calls early on when I first
got here, and I had to kind of explain to
people that we don't actually own a moving business, but

(02:07:14):
they always call for volunteers to help move or to
move furniture, or to assist with you know, moving things
out of their garden or helping them with their garden
things like that, and that's just the the mindset that
comes with Kolbe Athletics is hey, they'll help out. So
they always say like, how much is it? And I'm like, well,
we're volunteering, but if you want to make a donation,

(02:07:35):
you can, But that's that's completely different. We're volunteering and
we want to help support the community that supports us.
And that's something that's been very important for me and
I see that day to day with with our athletes.
Also with that as well, I wanted I wanted more
more of our programs to interact with each other and
get involved more with each other's programs. Understanding you know,

(02:07:58):
I know you guys talked a little bit about Rodeo early,
understanding what Rodeo is going what it's going on with Rodeo,
and also what's going on with volleyball this week or
what's a question, what's going on with the question this week?
And then also what's going on with softball this week.
So what we do is we have a Student Athlete
Advisory Committee. Two members from each program come together at

(02:08:19):
least once a month and they sit down and we
just discussed some things that come up. My biggest thing
with that is our student athletes are involved in every
aspect of the college.

Speaker 9 (02:08:29):
So if there's something that's going on.

Speaker 10 (02:08:31):
With the dorms, with a class, with the boss situation,
hotel stays. More or less, it's going to affect somebody
else on campus too. So if we're able to kind
of get in front of that, it's probably going to
cear up a lot of those situations or anything that
is coming up for other students too that may not
be able to have that voice. So being able to

(02:08:51):
do that also gives them a chance to intermingle, get
to know each other, and kind of build that culture
on campus of you know, instead of being signed just
to your program or to your team, now you get
to know what else is going on around you.

Speaker 9 (02:09:05):
And other programs and other teams.

Speaker 3 (02:09:09):
Well, I don't have to do the sales pitch because
you guys just launched the women's wrestling program, but you
also had your questioning team to crack the top ten.
How do you balance supporting kind of the legacy sports
but also trying to grow the emerging sports and some
of it, like you said, the rodeo and these unique
sports as well.

Speaker 10 (02:09:27):
Yeah, it kind of goes back to my core strengths.
So at Strength Finders, I did that a couple of
years ago. Now, and my top one is included. So
for me, I want to make sure that everybody feels included.
I want to get out and it's just part of
my DNA to get out and get a feel for
each program and figure out what's going on with each program.

Speaker 9 (02:09:50):
And that's practice.

Speaker 10 (02:09:52):
That's seeing them out at different events, talking with them
when I see them here on campus, and then also
getting with the coaches. So what I've done now is
I set up bi weekly meetings with all my coaches,
so we meet every other week.

Speaker 9 (02:10:06):
They know bea thirty minutes.

Speaker 10 (02:10:08):
We book it for thirty minutes, but it's it's spanned
out to an hour until the next one, until the
next meeting with the next coach. So if it is
a longer meeting that we need to have, we can,
But otherwise it's just thirty minutes, and I leave it
up to the coach to kind of direct that. And
then also I can ask questions and kind of figure
out what's going on with the program, how can I
be there to assist or how can I be there

(02:10:28):
to help? And so obviously Monday to Thursday or Wednesday
some weeks, it's my mornings are more or less just meetings.
But that's important for me to know what's kind of
going on and have that time for my coaches to
have a conversation with me and sit down and we
can just talk about what's actually happening.

Speaker 3 (02:10:50):
You know, we're talking about We talked to a lot
of coaches directors more than just EXUS and o's, especially
as when you're running a program CEO of a business
and as an athletic director you're taking that even a
step further and being the CEO. Do you have favorite
aspects of your CEO role running the Colby College Athletics business?

Speaker 10 (02:11:12):
Yet, one thing when I saw I was an SID
at Seward County before this, and I really enjoyed the
student athlete experience and being able to see them grow
within the two years. You know, they come in as
freshmen and then in two years time, it happens fast,
turn around happens quickly, and all of a sudden they're
moving on to their four year and you can just

(02:11:33):
see their confidence and you can see them just progressing
in their life stages. And that's just something that's been
really fun for me to be a part of. But
on the same side too, it's also that coaches side
as well as being an ad now seeing the coaches
and seeing them kind of come in and not knowing
exactly where the program's at, but having a vision and
then trying to figure out how to implement that vision.

Speaker 9 (02:11:54):
And for me, it's to assist them. You know, their
vision for the program, their idea, how they want to
get there.

Speaker 10 (02:12:01):
I need to be there to help them along that
path for their vision to get there, to be successful
in the program, So kind of aligning what I see
and what I value. And that's during their hiring process too,
when finding the next coach and seeing if they aligned
with what we have established within the program, within the department,
within the institution, and then obviously with our community as well,

(02:12:24):
and building that from the start and seeing their vision
and grow and being there to support help them whatever
need be and being accessible as well for them.

Speaker 3 (02:12:36):
What are we looking at in terms of from the
athletic department, how many student athletes are are we carrying?

Speaker 10 (02:12:43):
So with the addition of women's wrestling, we'll be looking
at around two thirty to two forty kind of depending
student athletes, and that's including our ex sports as well.

Speaker 3 (02:12:54):
And do they all live up most of the student
athletes are are they living on campus?

Speaker 7 (02:12:58):
Correct?

Speaker 10 (02:12:59):
Majority of them will live here on campus. And we
have a really good dorm structure here. We've been redoing
our dorms every summer. They're doing them again here, just
touch ups. We did the carpets and a few of
the dorms last year as well.

Speaker 3 (02:13:15):
And do you know off the top of your head
in terms of the breakdown of in state, out of state,
and international, I do not.

Speaker 10 (02:13:22):
I know our international students will have eighty eighty international
students this fall. In state, I'm not one hundred percent sure.
And then say without a state right now, I couldn't
give you those numbers.

Speaker 4 (02:13:33):
Okay, Kenny, is there anything about Kobe Community College that
we haven't touched on? You got a kid like me
back in Jersey. They're they're googling junior colleges. They see
the rich history of Kobe Community College. What do you
want people to know?

Speaker 10 (02:13:49):
I just want people to know that the Kobe Community College,
our campus culture is phenomenal, but people here are great.
Do you see longevity across campus not only with our coaches,
with our staff and faculty, with our admin staff as well,
and then our students, our students When they leave here,

(02:14:10):
I hear a lot of student athletes say, Hey, I
wish this was a four year institution.

Speaker 9 (02:14:14):
I wish I could stay here longer.

Speaker 10 (02:14:16):
They grow a bond not only with the campus with
their friends and colleagues, but also with the campus too
and with the with the community. The community is heavily
invested in the college. Being a small town kind of
have to be. We overlap quite a bit, and they
invest into our student athletes. And so when you have
that connection from all levels, it just creates an home

(02:14:39):
environment that the students want to be a part of
and they want to be here for a long term.
And seeing that since I've been here has been wonderful.

Speaker 3 (02:14:48):
You mentioned that small town atmosphere.

Speaker 4 (02:14:51):
I love how you have a little old ladies calling
up seeing if you have someone that can come pick
their weeds.

Speaker 3 (02:14:56):
I think that's amazing. What do you we have to
look forward to?

Speaker 4 (02:15:01):
What do we have to look forward to in twenty
five twenty six seasons coming up?

Speaker 10 (02:15:05):
Yeah, twenty five twenty six. I know you talked on
at women's wrestling starting this year. Really exciting to kind
of get that off the ground and running again. Our
community here is heavily invested in wrestling, so it's going
to be a big time events for us to host
tournaments here at the event Center. Event center here and
close to campus. It's right off of College Drive here

(02:15:28):
and it's one of the best facilities for us to
host home events. It's a very large event center space
for everything else.

Speaker 1 (02:15:38):
I mean.

Speaker 10 (02:15:38):
Our volleyball team just finished third last year and Nationals.
We lost to the national champions in the semi finals
Florida Southwestern, and got third place there.

Speaker 9 (02:15:49):
So looking to turn around.

Speaker 10 (02:15:50):
We have two All Americans coming back in that front
as well. Men's basketball finished sixth in the Jayhawk and
that's not an easy feet especially in the men's basketball space.
It's one of the best conferences in the nation, and
so we finished in top six. That was really good
for us to get there and host the home playoff

(02:16:10):
game as well. Women's basketball they upseted Cloud first round
of regionals went to Hutch.

Speaker 9 (02:16:16):
Had a chance at Hutch.

Speaker 10 (02:16:17):
That's a tough arena, especially when near the road team
in regionals in playoff play, but fell short there. And
there's a lot of great things happening softball or baseball.
Our baseball team hosted first round regionals here as well,
and coach Carter got Jayhawk West Coach of the Year.
We had MVP for the Jayhawk West and All American

(02:16:38):
Isaiah Padilla moved on to Division I school. And we
also had Freshmen of the Year who was returning next
year for the Jayhawk West as well. And softball reloading again.
Made to the quarterfinals of regionals at the in Dodge
City last year, looking to go back to it. So
there's a lot of great things happenings. It seems like
it's all moving forward and we're progressing a year after year,

(02:17:00):
which is really fun to be a part of and see.
And again, I think that culture of seeing positivity and
seeing the growth across other programs, it just thrives other
programs to get there too.

Speaker 9 (02:17:11):
And the belief is there too for.

Speaker 10 (02:17:14):
Other student athletes when they get on campus that success
is possible right here.

Speaker 3 (02:17:20):
Yes, success breed success. It's all about that winning culture
and it's awesome to hear it. Everything is moving in
the right direction. I'm sure the athletes across the board
support one another, and that's that's a beautiful thing, and
that's it's tough to beat and that and I know,
it's tough in that Jayhall Conference to be competitive. It's
across the board, no matter what support it is. If

(02:17:41):
you're if you're doing well in the Jayhall Conference, you're
probably doing well on the national level.

Speaker 9 (02:17:46):
Almost definitely.

Speaker 10 (02:17:47):
And that's what I always tell our coaches too, is man,
this is a dog fight through conference play, year in
and year out. It's a dog fight, and it's it's
a lot of fun too to be out there and
competing at at a high level. We see a lot
of great players, a lot of great plays happen throughout
the year, and it's just a fun, fun atmosphere to
be a part of.

Speaker 3 (02:18:08):
Sure, we're gonna have to to a Jayhawk Conference road show.

Speaker 4 (02:18:15):
Between the competition and the cafeteria food. Let's go, Rich,
I'm ready to check it out.

Speaker 3 (02:18:20):
Thank you, Kenny.

Speaker 4 (02:18:21):
Thank you so much for hopping on with us a
little early. Sorry for that panic email I sent you,
but no worries. We appreciate your time and thank you
so much. Can't wait to follow Kobe going forward.

Speaker 9 (02:18:34):
Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 3 (02:18:36):
Absolutely.

Speaker 9 (02:18:37):
Go Trojans, Yeah, go Trojans.

Speaker 3 (02:18:39):
Let's go enjoy the rest of your summer. Kenny know
it's going to come fast and furious pretty soon with
athletes coming back on campus. So enjoy a little bit
of what downtime you have left and best of luck
in the fall.

Speaker 9 (02:18:50):
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, we got three weeks and we're
back to.

Speaker 3 (02:18:52):
It all right, We'll have fun. Enjoy.

Speaker 9 (02:18:55):
Thank you guys.

Speaker 3 (02:18:55):
Take care, Kenny, right, thank you. That'spe certainly not at least.
John Clark, winner of the twenty twenty five NJCAA Appreciation Award,
has led New Mexico Junior College to seventeen national championships
and seventeen runner up finishes consistent top tier rankings during
his nine year tenure. He's a builder of both programs
and people. Coach Clark has expanded New Mexico Junior College

(02:19:20):
offerings with four new sports and helped host multiple national championships.
Without further ado, Coach Clark had, is an honored pleasure
to have you joining us this evening. We do appreciate
your time. Thank you to the show.

Speaker 7 (02:19:36):
Well, I appreciate it, thanks for putting this on. Appreciate
your interest in junior college athletics.

Speaker 3 (02:19:41):
Absolutely. Jimmy and I are both junior college alumni. Were
both junior college all Americans, myself and cross country in
nineteen ninety four and Jimmy and wrestling, I believe in
two thousand and eight.

Speaker 7 (02:19:52):
Yes, what institutions.

Speaker 3 (02:19:55):
I ran cross country for Ocean County College in New
Jersey and Jimmy wrestled for a minute Sex Community College
in New Jersey.

Speaker 1 (02:20:02):
Nice.

Speaker 7 (02:20:03):
Nice, well, congratulations gentlemen.

Speaker 3 (02:20:05):
Thank you. Yeah. Anything we can do to help get
the word out about the junior college experience and the
benefits that it can provide for student athletes, we're here
to help and grow grow those opportunities for people for sure.
For sure, before we get under way.

Speaker 4 (02:20:23):
Part of my ignorance or I have a hard time
with reading sometimes, is it Theron Darren?

Speaker 1 (02:20:28):
Darren?

Speaker 3 (02:20:29):
There you go?

Speaker 4 (02:20:30):
You are right, Jim Yeah, So five straight years in
you know, coming in the top ten of the of
the Cup. What's that mean to you as an athletic director,
to you know, show that success across the board in
all the sports at New Mexico Junior College.

Speaker 7 (02:20:46):
You know, it's obviously you've got to give a lot
of credit to the athletes. Without them, you know, you
don't do anything. You guys know you've you've competed, and
then you immediately follow that up with their leadership, because
keeping those kids focused and on direction is always challenging,

(02:21:07):
and especially with as many different directions they can be
pulled in at this point in their life. So give
a lot of credit to them, and then the institution,
you know, it's it's making making a committed effort for
them to have an experience that's successful. And I think

(02:21:30):
we're gradually, in my opinion, starting to trend away from oh,
let's add a sport so we can have more students.
And I'm saying this nationally and not just New Mexico
Junior College. I think that when institutions buy into a
program now, they realize that the parents and the student

(02:21:55):
athletes both expect something positive to come out of that
seat situation, and if it's not, there are so many
platforms that they can stand on and complain that you know,
it's just not worth fighting that battle. So I applaud
the presidents that have approached it that way. I know

(02:22:16):
that I competed at a time when there wasn't that way.
It was, hey, let's just add a sport, you know,
let's let's count how many heads we'll have in beds
and uh, get that thing working, and that's that's just
all it really mattered. It didn't matter how many championships
you want or anything like that. So that would be

(02:22:38):
the path that I think the success has gone that,
you know, from athlete to the coaches to the institution
for sure.

Speaker 4 (02:22:47):
So you mentioned that leadership being key, and you're you're
the head of the athletic department, so you help the
coaches with the leadership. What do you kind of coaching
them on as far as leadership and being good coaches?

Speaker 7 (02:22:59):
You know, it really changes. So when I arrived at
Mexico Junior College, we had a thirty five year veteran
for the women's basketball team and he had just, you know,
success every year. He didn't need many people holding his hand.
He kind of had it figured out. But then you
turn around and you hire an individual that may not

(02:23:19):
have any college coaching experience, and you're giving them an
opportunity to get their careers started, and you wanted to
get started in the right path, and so you're probably
a little more connected with that individual. And I think
it's just young coaches are excited, they want to be successful.
I was there, I've done that, and you just you're

(02:23:41):
always pushing, You're always trying to figure out what your
next opportunity to win is going to be. And you
think that or I did. I thought everybody on the
planet knows whether I won and lost that game. That's
just the way you feel. And when you get a
little more mature, get a few more innings. I'm a

(02:24:01):
baseball guy, so I had a few more innings under
my belt, and I started realizing, you know it, there's
just a really really small microcosm of individuals that number
one know that I even compete, and number two even care.
And if I can focus on that group and make
sure that that experience is what they wanted to be,

(02:24:25):
then I've done a little bit better job of being successful.
So I just kind of had to channel my energy
in that direction, try to tuck those guys off of
the ledge. Some days, say hey, you know it's gonna
be okay. I know you got beat by a lot
last night. Hey we got to recover. I remember I'd

(02:24:46):
been here all the first month. No, it was it
was a second semester and we played South Plains and
they were ranked and they beat us by fifty. Men's
basketball and I went in the next morning, and I
was just going to try to ease the pain of
my coaches a little bit. And I said, hey, we'll
be all right. We got another game Thursday. Hey, just
keep your chin up. And I don't I didn't do
any good. I'll just tell you that they were in

(02:25:08):
their daughter was in the dirt, and they were young fellas.
It was the head coach's first season, and and he
was just trying to, you know, get his mind wrapped
around how in the world he could get beat about
fifty points. And uh so, Yeah, the emotions, the range
of emotions that impacts coaches and their maturity levels, it

(02:25:32):
really varies, and it varies by the years of experience.
And in junior college we don't get very many of
those thirty five year veterans. You know, we're usually breaking
somebody in.

Speaker 4 (02:25:45):
Darren, you mentioned that young coach full of P and
V and kid, you know your your season athletic director.
Do you see that from a mile away? And do
you know when you bring in that that young coach
maybe a year or two in the experience, that that's
going to be part of the mentorship.

Speaker 7 (02:26:02):
Yep, And and I repeat over and over and over
until they finally start. As I said, you got to
listen to me, You got to listen, and they don't
at first, and I don't expect him to and uh,
I don't give them earth shattering information. It's just little
stuff like, hey, you know, yelling at the officials is

(02:26:22):
not going to change the outcome of the game. Yelling
at your own athletes in the middle of the game
is usually not a positive outcome. Figure out when the
right time is, figure out what the right reaction is
going to be, and figure out how to motivate the
kid for the best performance that he can get out there.
And if you're in his head, then he's probably not
going to perform well. And like I said, they you know,

(02:26:44):
they're not going to listen for a while. They just
they've got to kind of go through the process themselves,
and in most instances fail a little bit, and then
you know, then they're a little more receptive. And it's
it's fun for me to see that evolution because you know,

(02:27:06):
if you've ever coached, you've been through it. You know
there's you know, you don't jump into this pool on
the deep end and immediately know how to swim, you know,
there's there's a you know, you got to figure out
when to get into the life raft and when to
you know, take it on your own and start treading
some water and uh getting them to relax and just

(02:27:30):
enjoy the process. Too many times and I know I did.
This is that you take the fun out of it
for yourself, and as soon as you take the fun
out of it for yourself, you take the fun out
of it for the kids.

Speaker 3 (02:27:43):
Man, Darren, I wish they would have had you as
an athletic director as a young coach, because as those
are hard lessons to learn coming up that it's not
always about the you know, the winds of the times,
or the state championships or you know how many things
you could put on your resume. And now when I
coach kids, it's more about, Hey, I'm here to make
you a better human being. And if we win some

(02:28:04):
wrestling matches or we run some fast times on the
cross country course on the track, well then it's that's gravy.
But really, my number one job is here to make
you a good human in society.

Speaker 1 (02:28:15):
Yep.

Speaker 7 (02:28:16):
Yeah, we all we all strive for that and once
we figure that out, we all you know, I'm blessed.
I've got a group of mature people work with us
right now, and that's the way I define them. I'm
not going to tell you they're the greatest coaches on
the planet or anything else. Are they run an offense
or a defense that's just phenomenal. They're just quality individuals

(02:28:37):
that truly care about the kids. And you know, our
men and women's basketball team was recognized by the Chamber
of Commerce for having the Volunteer Teams of the Year
this past year. And even though we've won the Cup
five years in a row or been sorry in the
top ten five years in row, that was probably that

(02:28:59):
said more for the city of Hobbes and the institution
than any of the other recognitions we've earned.

Speaker 3 (02:29:10):
Talk about Hobbes where geographically, where are we in New Mexico.
What's the community like? Is it a big support within
the community for the student athletes.

Speaker 7 (02:29:22):
So we are right in the middle of the Permian Basin,
which is the largest old field in the world, and
we are two miles from the Texas border, and to
our east, we are in the far southeast corner of
New Mexico, right in the middle of the desert. And yes,

(02:29:43):
there is a lot of support just for the youth
in our city. You know, it starts at the high
school level and works its way up. We have to gravitate.
We're in an unusual situation. We recruit a lot of
Internet kids. We've had forty one countries recognized in our program,

(02:30:05):
and a lot of that's just because sometimes when we
go to recruit the US kid coming to the desert,
it's not what they want to do at age eighteen.
And so you know, we can pick up the phone
and call just about anybody else in the country and
they're welcome to jump on board and compete with us.
And so that's kind of where the institution is gone.

(02:30:27):
We've had a lot of success with that, and I
had not been a part of that before I became
an athletic director here. I hadn't experienced those kind of dynamics,
and it was really such a life changing experience because

(02:30:47):
you know, I tell people, we go from Spanish to
Swahili in ten seconds here on our campus. And so
I could be walking down the hall and have to
engage someone from a collect Umbia and then in just
a minute, I got Angola, you know, coming into my
office wanted to talk and so uh when you have

(02:31:08):
to respect those cultures and they're so diversely unique, and
we talked about student success and they're what they expect.
They don't expect anything extra terrestrial necessarily, but they do
expect to be respected. And if you don't understand that

(02:31:33):
when they walk into your office, you'll scare them off,
you'll piss them off, or you'll run them off. And uh,
so I've had to learn that and uh, you know,
learn to engage them and get them to teach me.
I just break down and say, all right, what is
it you're having problems with? What can we do to

(02:31:56):
help you? And why? You know, why are we in
this situation, whether it be academically, athletically, emotionally, you know,
it's it's tough. We We had a young lady won
the Women's Basketball Coaches Association Player of the Year and
she was from Angola and during her time, her mother

(02:32:16):
had a severe stroke and she had to get home
and helping her get through that experience, you know, which
was life changing for her at that time. It took
so many people on our campus investment in that process.
And you know, I'd mentioned a minute ago about how

(02:32:37):
the institution wants to see that that student success. And
without that, you've you've just got a grete withering on
the vine, and they're going to go home. They're never
going to come back, they're never going to finish that
collegiate career. Just so many negatives come out of it
other than rather than positives. And so now she's at

(02:32:58):
the University of New Mexico, she's on an ic nil.
You know, she's uh, financially in a positive situation and
you know, probably for the first time in her life,
you know, because we're talking about a kid that lives
potentially with a dirt floor and a dirt hut, and
now she's you know, got a very solid situation going

(02:33:21):
on for herself. So those are rewarding and that that
I've had to learn and appreciate.

Speaker 3 (02:33:30):
I'd imagine to the diversity of that has got to
be such an invaluable experience for those individuals of taking
in and learning in each other's cultures and bridging those
sorts of gaps and making the world smaller.

Speaker 7 (02:33:44):
Yeah, yeah, you know, the the US kids that get
to learn from them, the benefits that they receive. You know,
obviously you talk about the friendships and things of that
nature that they they gain. But just us spending time
living down the hall from somebody that lives on the
other side of the world, and what does that mean?

(02:34:07):
And you definitely get a pretty good image about how
small the place is that you live, and you know
it's it's a big planet with a lot of people
and a lot of good people out there, and we've
been fortunate to have them come through our program.

Speaker 4 (02:34:22):
Darren, So you have us sold on the stage, wisdom
that you can provide athletes and just that community of
taking care of each other. And I feel like you
take care of the person, you respect the person.

Speaker 3 (02:34:34):
Stuff hut on the field.

Speaker 4 (02:34:35):
Obviously that's important, but that's going to take care of
itself if you take care of the person. But so
you got you got our ears perked about New Mexico
Junior College. What does the college have to offer that
we may not know about.

Speaker 7 (02:34:49):
Uniquely? Well, Uh, there are more p RCA Rodeo World
champions in our county than any where else in the
United States, and so rodeo is huge. The Western horse
culture is huge, and so the college is gravitated to that.

(02:35:14):
And so we have a fifty member rodeo men and
women's rodeo team. We have an equine program where a
student can come in and learn to train a horse
from colt to a three year old, and that's a
process in itself. They can get animal science, they can
get farm and ranch management, which is popular because we

(02:35:35):
get a lot of farm and ranch kids and they
come in and they get that degree and they can
go back home and run the family ranch. And you know,
we talked a minute ago about how I had to
adapt to the international piece. Well, man, rodeo's foreign to me.
I had to learn that whole thing, and what's a purf,

(02:35:56):
what's a you know, what's a you know, the final
go around and the short go round and all of
those terminologies and how those kids think and what they
do and what they appreciate. And so most people don't
understand just how good we are at that and what

(02:36:20):
we bring to the table. So that's unique to New
Mexico Junior College for sure.

Speaker 4 (02:36:26):
Rich Just like that, we've talked to three colleges this
season that have rodeo. I think we might have found
a new sport we might need to look into.

Speaker 3 (02:36:33):
We might need to add that to our list of
coverage learn about rodeo.

Speaker 4 (02:36:37):
I'm sure to the junior college radio doesn't have any coverage,
so we might have a way in.

Speaker 7 (02:36:43):
Well, you know, the Cowboy Channel has really gravitated to
that group, and we actually had a coach here back
in the eighties and when she left, she wrote a
book about college rodeo and it's kind of opened up
some people's eyes. But the Cowboy Channel does a really
nice job with taking care of us and and keeping

(02:37:07):
us in the forefront and in our part of the world.
There's some programs like Charlton State University, which is over
in Stevenville, Texas. So they've actually got world champions on
their college team, and that's that's just a neat deal
for our kids to get to compete against and compete

(02:37:28):
against people where they're that athletic and that gifted.

Speaker 3 (02:37:34):
They just stated a wrestling team, Jim, Yeah, that's the
first Division I program in Texas.

Speaker 4 (02:37:39):
All right, Yeah, Rickie got anything else for Darren before
we let them go?

Speaker 3 (02:37:46):
Darren? What do we I know? You know, the institution
came on our radar because we were as I mentioned
cross country and track and field. Guys, you have an
outstanding programs there, what can we expect going into the
fall and for the twenty twenty five, twenty six years rich.

Speaker 7 (02:38:01):
I got asked that this this afternoon, and uh, I
went into the print shop, and of course, you know,
everybody's asked the same question. Now you're gonna be a
good coach, You're gonna win them. And I said, hey,
today we're outstanding. We're gonna we're gonna win them all.
So we'll get those kids here in a couple you
next month, we'll see whatever we really stand out. But uh,

(02:38:22):
you know, the uh, the recruiting is good. Uh you know,
it's this is just a unique time in these young
people's lives, and they some of them find out that this,
this is just fantastic and I don't want to do
anything else for the rest of my life but compete.
And then some say, you know what, I've had enough.

(02:38:45):
I'm ready to go do something else. And so, uh,
you know, to to label that and say, hey, we're
going to be great, we will, we're going to be successful.
And I and we had to actually had a coaches
meeting this afternoon and and I just you know, I said,
you guys are too good, you won't fail. You won't
let your team fail. But we've created such a program

(02:39:11):
that now the expectation is we're not successful unless we
win a national championship. Well that's a pretty high standard.
And so if your ad stands in front of you
and tries to repeat that, well that's no different than
telling your team that if we don't win every game,
we've had a failure season. And so I kind of

(02:39:33):
have to temper that. And today we just talked about
getting better, you know, embracing the fact that these young
people have got to be trained on what an NIL is,
what their future could hold if they were able to
earn one of those, and then they've got to be

(02:39:56):
mature enough to embrace that. And if they're doing things
while they're competing in junior college that are not reflective
of what a person that's going to earn one of
those opportunities should reflect, then they're gonna they're gonna pass
it up. And uh so we are directly responsible for that,

(02:40:16):
and that has nothing to do with winning or losing games.
That's just taking care of a young person that really
needs some guidance because it's getting to the point now
that they'll come in and they'll just point blank, coach,
what do you think my nilsworth? And I'm going you know,
some sports, such as tracking cross country, they're very quantitative.

(02:40:39):
You know exactly what the time is and you know
where that slots out. And the NCAA wants to turn
this into a reflection of professional athletics. And so it's
no different than if you've got a Tom Brady, you
know he's the best quarterback in the league. Well, then
you also knew who the second best is and the
third best, and you know how much you're going to

(02:41:01):
pay those people. Well that's fine and good. But if
you've got a sport like baseball, well, god, Lee, that's
year to year. You don't know if you're gonna have
a good year. You don't know if you're gonna have
a bad year. Uh, you know, until you get out
there and actually compete. And so the conversations change, and
so we've got to flip the tables and we got

(02:41:21):
to say, hey, are you going to be productive in
the classroom. Are you going to perform there just like
you do in your field of competition? Are you going
to be a reflection in the community. That's what someone
wants to put that support behind. Uh, you know, those
are things that these kids do not think about. It's

(02:41:43):
it's not on their plate. And I think that that
we're very, very responsible for that, and I take a
lot of interest in what we produce in that respect.

Speaker 4 (02:42:00):
Man Rich, When we talk to someone who's all about
the person, all about building great humans, it's it's hard
not to want to see that program do well.

Speaker 3 (02:42:09):
Huh yeah, I mean, I'm at eighteen. You might not
have been able to convince me to go to the desert,
but at almost fifty, I'm round, let's go.

Speaker 4 (02:42:18):
Do we have those two years from Drew co? Did
we get those backyardage?

Speaker 3 (02:42:21):
Might have one? I might have one.

Speaker 7 (02:42:24):
You know, if the NCAA keeps meddling in this stuff,
you never know what we're all going to They all
get our eligibility.

Speaker 4 (02:42:32):
Dan, is there anything we didn't cover about New Mexico's
great job?

Speaker 7 (02:42:36):
I can't apologize enough for my tardiness. I regret that
that occurred, but thank you for taking the time. And again,
I'm glad that there's people that think we have a
product that's worth talking about.

Speaker 3 (02:42:51):
Absolutely, we love supporting the junior college experience, and you know,
everyone likes to talk about the power forward. But there's
a lot of great coaches, athletic directors, athletic programs, athletic departments.
There's a lot of great interest stories out there, and
we're just trying to do our part to get the
word out and share those experiences and then also create

(02:43:13):
conversations so that our younger selves can hear them and
know that, you know, there's nothing wrong with going to
a junior college. You can have a lot of success
and that can set you up for a lot of
things down the road, open up a lot of opportunities
that you may not have had coming right out of
high school.

Speaker 7 (02:43:29):
Yeah, you know, and since you guys have been there,
I think that conversation has always been had. You know,
there's nothing wrong with junior college, and you know, I
guess I wish we could always get away from that stigma,
but we'll always be compared to the NCAA. And I'll
be honest with you, I'm fine with them running off

(02:43:51):
and doing what they're doing, and I want to get
away from being compared to them because that's not a
fair comparison. We provide our own level of success and
it fits so many people that we need to we
need to kind of figure out our own tagline. Yeah,
the NCAA benefits from all of the work that we

(02:44:14):
put in, and we need to kind of start going
down that path as opposed to comparing ourselves to what
University of Texas has. I mean, we'll never match that,
and I don't think we should ever try. I don't
even know if we should necessarily compare ourselves with one another.
We just need to unify and say, we all do

(02:44:35):
a great job at whatever it is that we're doing,
and let's support that, and let's let's rally around that.
And I do think that in the NJACA specifically, we've
got leadership in place that's starting to organize ourselves that way.
And it just takes time.

Speaker 3 (02:44:53):
Amen, And that's a beautiful thing to see. Yes, for sure, Darren,
Thank you for for us in.

Speaker 4 (02:45:00):
I hope everything works out on your end and everything's
copaesetic there.

Speaker 3 (02:45:05):
Thank you so much for finit us in and we're
we're super soaked. We got to have you on tonight.
Thank you so much. Hoping anyway, absolutely good luck this
fall go thunderbirds.

Speaker 7 (02:45:16):
Amen, thank you for take care.

Speaker 3 (02:45:20):
Well that is it?

Speaker 4 (02:45:21):
This seavening rich we uh, we got six Junior College
athletic directors on never thought I would want to move
to Kansas, but I am super excited for the conversations
we had tonight and uh more proud than ever to
be first team All JUCO.

Speaker 1 (02:45:39):
You know it?

Speaker 3 (02:45:39):
And maybe maybe maybe Kansas, maybe Council Bluffs, maybe West Texas,
New Mexico, in New Mexico in Desert right. I do
like the schools that have wrestling, you know. I think
that's having that balance of the cross country and the wrestling.
We can. We have something to do in this fall,
we have something to do in the spring. We gotta
have something to do in the winter.

Speaker 1 (02:46:00):
You know.

Speaker 3 (02:46:00):
Rodeo might be a new thing to say.

Speaker 4 (02:46:02):
I know you want to wear a cowboy hat, so
could just get it through here.

Speaker 3 (02:46:06):
I get to wear my belt buckle more frequently. I mean,
I think we got those are things on the table
to consider as we head into the school year twenty
twenty five and twenty twenty six.

Speaker 4 (02:46:18):
Yeah, we got things to think about. But this was
a great show. Thank you for all the fans and
listeners that hung in there with us, hung in there
with our technical difficulties. But we I missed that word
up Rich, I'm sorry, but we made it happen for
him tonight and send them home.

Speaker 3 (02:46:37):
Rich. Just big, huge thank you to all the athletic
directors that joined us this evening. We really appreciate the
athletic directors and the coaches and all the guests that
we've had on that taking a chance to sit down
and chat with the Area Bros. You know, it means
a lot to us that people are willing to talk
to us about their programs, tell us their stories, and

(02:46:58):
we are grateful for them, and we're also grateful that
we get to share those stories with the fans of
Area Bros. So thanks for tuning in, thanks for listening,
and again thanks to all the guests that come out
and sit down and share their journeys with us. That
is it for this evening. We do appreciate you tuning in.

(02:47:19):
This week, we are coach where on the sixteenth newly
hired University of Northern Colorado, we're going back to our
roots Greeley where it kind of all started for the
Area Bros, covering wrestling with coach Troy Nickerson. But UNC
has a new coach, Tian Ware is coming in to
join us away this once for you buddy, and we'll

(02:47:42):
see you

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Ep. 380 – NJCAA AD Roundtable: Championship Culture & JUCO Leadership

Episode Transcript

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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;}Ep. 380 – NJCAA AD Roundtable: Championship Culture & JUCO Leadership