Gary Jewell USATF Level II

@stevemagness @pete_bieghler Bob Knight did the same thing 40+ years ago - except he locked the team out of the locker room.

Arizona's was Down 7 to Purdue at halftime of the Elite Eight. Their first Final Four in 25 years slipping away. Coach Tommy Lloyd walks to the front of the locker room and says: "Guys, the coaching staff and I are going to leave right now. You guys figure this deal out." There wasn't some huge speech. He walked out. Every instinct in a coaches body says to give the movie style inspirational speech. Light a fire, demand more, sound like Al Pacino in Any Given Sunday... Lloyd did the opposite. He left 5 minutes on the clock and sent a key message to the players: This is your team. I trust you to lead it. The veteran players took charge. They'd been through the tournament losses before, helped with emotional regulation, and reiterated that they still had a shot. Freshman Koa Peat said afterward: "They told us to keep going. Can't get too high or too low. Just stay even-keeled." Arizona outscored Purdue 48-26 in the second half. They had zero turnovers and shot 51.6% from the field. Second half: Arizona outscored Purdue One. They put on a clinic. When asked why he did it, Lloyd said after the game: "The most powerful thing in a team sport is a player-led program. The coach, you have to help them navigate it, but when you can get the players to own these moments, you are just so much better." He said he'd done it four or five times this year and it worked every time. There's a mountain of science behind Lloyd's approach In 2003, researchers Mageau and Vallerand found autonomy-supportive coaching, giving athletes choice, acknowledging their perspective, and avoiding overt control, consistently produced more motivated, more resilient athletes. Controlling coaching did the reverse: higher burnout and lower resilience. This is at the heart of one of the most theories in psychology, Self-Determination Theory When people feel autonomy, competence, and relatedness, you get the highest quality motivation. When a coach trusts his team to figure it out and right the ship, he's handing them all three at once. It's the ultimate signal of trust when his team needed it the most. Lloyd built a culture where the players internalized the stuff that matters. A 2025 meta-analysis by Clare and colleagues looked at 50 studies and over 17,000 athletes. They found that team captains had nearly twice the effect on performance as coaches did. Coaches help set the culture and expectations. They guide good leaders, but the players look to who else is in the arena with them. We need peer pressure in the positive direction. Lloyd understood this. Too often, as coaches we think we need to "do something." That instinct pushes us to over control, to grip the wheel harder. When so often, what we need to do is trust that we've guided them the best we can, and show them the trust they deserve. Steve Kerr once did something similar with the Warriors, telling his team that he was sitting out and they were coaching the team for a game. Build the culture. Coach the team up, giving them the skills and ability. And then sometimes, you've just got to step back, tell them you believe in them, that it's there team. That ownership and self-belief is the fuel of the purest motivation. Sometimes, when we're struggling, we don't need all the answers. We just need to hear that we've already got the inside of us. And to give us that belief to go get it done...together. -Steve Research: Mageau & Vallerand (2003) "The coach–athlete relationship: a motivational model." Journal of Sports Sciences, 21(11), 883-904. -Clare, Hardy, Roberts, Tod, & Benson (2025) "Do Leaders Actually Influence Sports Performance? An Integrated Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses." Journal of Sport & Exercise Psychology, 47(4), 205-222.

@Siemers_XC_TF @MikeCunningham Many don't know when to get out of the way.

@MikeCunningham Anyone can screw up talent.

"anyone can coach talent" is a fallacy in our profession.

@pntrack @jttoczynski Our top 100m kid is the point guard on our varsity basketball team.

@jttoczynski Off-season for sure! Why not improve athleticism to compliment skills? Too many 🏀 players play the game, lift and do mindless unnecessary aerobic conditioning. Performance-based training makes sense.

The training of a shot putter is not much different than developing a sprinter or an athlete playing 🏈🏀⚾️ etc. Sprint Lift Jump Bounce Throw simplifaster.com/articles/devel…

TREY KAUFMAN-RENN FTW!!! @BoilerBall

@Mr_Husky1 Dude sounds like a narcissist.

I’m about to get married, and my fiancé knows I have an inheritance that was left to me by my grandparents. It’s in my name only, and I’ve been saving it for years. Now he’s saying that before we get married, I should put the entire inheritance into a joint account so we can “start fresh together,” or he doesn’t think we should go through with the wedding. I’m 36 already and this is something my family worked hard to leave me. I’m torn between wanting to build a life together and feeling like I’m being pressured to give up something important to me. What do you think I should do? By isitmeaitah

@KeruboSk Narcissists are the kings (or queens) of projection. They accuse others of the very behavior they're engaging in.

My neighbor accused his wife of cheating because their newborn came out much lighter than both of them. He made it a whole scandal, shouting, dragging both families into it, even packing his bags. She kept saying, “Just do the test.” He did. The results came back: he is the father. He felt stupid for about five seconds… until the doctor added: “The baby isn’t hers.” Turns out, there had been a mix-up at the hospital. Two babies, same night, same ward. Somewhere between delivery and discharge… they got switched. Guess who was cheating?

@Repent_2_Jesus @pntrack Two years ago I had to rescue our track program from an idiot sprint coach who was destroying our sprint group with excessive volume. No speed dev, all high volume lactate tolerance. The line out the door of the training room was a mile long. And, yeah, I'm the XC coach.

@pntrack wow...my kids have to run club track due to their current high school track program operating like a cross country team...the head coach is cross country focused and has sprinters running 7x200 during regular season and they only wear spikes if they are doing block starts only

I will continue to expose track coaches who break their sprinters. Imagine a good sprinter after missing a week with a strained quad… Day-1: 200, 150, 100 Day-2: 4x200, 4x90, 4x60, 4x30 Now he has a hip flexor issue. What if there was a way to get fast, stay healthy, and have a blast doing it?

@ohhanxiety I grew up 4 miles west of town in the middle of corn fields. At age 12, it wasn't uncommon for my sister and I to ride our bikes to our grandparents house, about 6 1/2 miles each way. Mom worked the day shift in a factory. Dad worked midnights. We were free range latchkey kids.

Be honest

@Aestheticsn1 Kokomo, Indiana

Name a city without letter E Can you?

@HawkEmDownChris Archie Manning

Age yourself by naming an NFL quarterback you grew up watching. I’ll start: Peyton Manning.

@NDominator @AltamontXCTF @Siemers_XC_TF @coachjayjohnson @hunterco Our base is a consistent combination of volume, speed development (i.e. flying 30's) and threshold. Two days ago my top guy dropped a 9:12.95 3200m at a mid-week indoor meet. Negative split the race by 26 seconds (4:49, 4:23). Long, slow running begets slow racing.

#1. We build bases of speed. Speed is our top priority, not mileage. The longest HS track race is the 3200. He's already gone through XC season... The HS track season is too short to build another base of volume to then sprinkle in speed in a mad dash at the end. #2. There's a time and place for more aerobic work, but if he's running 5:04 running 40-45 miles a week how is more mileage going to improve that number? It sounds like an outsider trying to be a cook in someone else's kitchen.

We’re trying to train HS milers here, not middle aged marathon runners (or building stinking pyramids for that matter). Am I wrong for disagreeing with this training plan? Help me out here @Siemers_XC_TF @coachjayjohnson @hunterco

@td_nash Bo Jackson Track & Field • 100m 10.39 (Auburn) • 60 yds 6.18 (Indoor) • 100 yds: 9.59 (HS) • 110m Hurdles: 13.81 • LJ: 24' 8" • HJ: 6' 9" • TJ: 48' 9" • SP: 50' 1" • Discus 149' 1" • Decathlon: ~8,340 points Focus wasn't T&F but these are respectable marks for anyone.

Out of these two, who do you think was the greater “dual sport” athlete?🧐

@Matt_Pinner 24

8 for me! You??

@KurtSupeCPA POA ceases when Mom stops breathing (at least it does in Indiana). 3 siblings - one out of state, one in state but not local, one local. The best conversation we had was the one we had with my mom's attorney the day after the funeral. #SameTeam

Their mom left $800,000. Split equally between four kids. Simple. Clean. Done. Except: One brother had borrowed $60,000 from mom over the years. Never repaid. One sister had Power of Attorney the last 4 years and managed all the finances. One brother lived across the country and showed up once. One sister was there every single week for 6 years. "Equal" split: $200,000 each. The one who was there every week got the same as the one who showed up once. They haven't spoken since the check cleared. The $60,000 in unpaid loans? "That was a gift," he said. The sister with POA? Two siblings hired a lawyer to review every transaction. Legal bills: $90,000. Net to each sibling after legal fees: $177,500. "Equal" is a number. "Fair" is a conversation you should have while you are healthy. Hypothetical composite example. Not personalized legal or financial advice.

The North Central Conference will be 100 years old in two weeks. Every year since, the NCC produced at least one sectional champion - most years multiple. Until this year. bit.ly/4sK00Vw

@HawkEmDownChris Tony Perez

Age yourself by naming an MLB first baseman you grew up watching. I’ll start: Albert Pujols.

@Simon_Ingari And before he could leave he was told he had to train his replacement.

An employee was just fired for something ridiculous. He'd been with the company for ten years. He was never late. He never missed a goal. He was always the first to help when someone was overwhelmed with work. Last week, he asked to leave 40 minutes early. His daughter had a school presentation. It was her first time performing in public. He requested it two days in advance. The manager replied, “We're at month-end. I need everyone focused.” My coworker said, “It'll only be today. I'll make it up tomorrow.” The manager replied, “That's not the right message for the team.” He left anyway that day since the office wasn't busy. The next morning, HR called him in. They told him, “Your commitment to the company's priorities is in question.” They gave him 10 minutes to pack his things. Ten years. For 40 minutes with his daughter.

@DrB365 @SamTheManFrick James Blackmon Billy Shepherd Todd Grace Joe Luce Moe Smedley Bill Green

@SamTheManFrick Blackman, Sr took the post after Green?

This has been known publicly for months, but the time has come to reflect on the career of James Blackmon Sr. After 13 consecutive seasons leading the Marion boys’ basketball program (a school record), Coach Blackmon is calling it a career.

@Siemers_XC_TF I lost two of the four HDDs on my 4TB home network drive two years ago. There was so much info that was lost that I had to start over.

I asked myself a question a few years ago that I didn't like the answer to. If someone took away my laptop, my spreadsheets, my saved season plans, could I rebuild my program from memory? I hesitated. Not because I'd forgotten the workouts. I could list those in my sleep. But the logic behind them? Why this workout comes before that one? Why Thursday is structured the way it is? Why the emphasis shifts in week seven? That was harder. I realized I'd been carrying around a collection of good practices. Not a system I actually understood. Good practices need a hard drive. A system just needs you. The stuff that would survive a laptop crash. That's your coaching. Everything else is borrowed.

@Mr_Husky1 @SeptembersRain Cuckoo clock weights. My grandmother had some just like that.

Nope, not ornaments. My friend is going through the house where her grandma and aunt lived their whole lives and finding weird stuff. Apparently these are solid and very heavy; too heavy to hang on a tree. What are they