Former Olympic Pentathlon Qualifier Tom Buning Talks About Almost Making The Olympics And How He Became A Highly Decorated Army Officer

Tom Buning joins Hunter Santoscoy to talk about his experience from swimming at Army West Point to almost qualifying for the Olympics. He also talks about his time as a combat engineer in the U.S. Army and serving the country in several combat tours, where he was awarded several medals. After his time in the U.S. Army he then got into being an athletic director, which brought him to his current job at Chaminade University. Buning's experience in athletics and the U.S. Army brings out some great stories for this weeks podcast. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, welcome back to another episode of Athlete Talk. Today I'm I'm joined by a guest who has um a big and an amazing resume, which includes uh qualifying twice for U.S. Olympic swimming trials, was uh a college swimmer at Army West Point, served in several combat tours, where became a highly decorated officer, and now is working as the athletic director at Shamanade Um University and uh sitting down me today, Tom Bunning. Thank you for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

It's great to be here. Thanks for the initiative.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um just to start, I mean, you have a huge resume uh of kind of a bunch of different things. Um I want to start with what stood out most to me. What was it like being an athlete at Army West Point? Um everybody knows of that school, and it's oppressive just to go there, but you were an athlete there as well.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah, it was uh an amazing opportunity. I grew up in Orlando, Florida. Uh family had a swimming tradition. The key thing was to learn how to swim and so my parents didn't have to worry about about you around the water. And uh before you know it, tadpole minnow, shark, flying fish, dolphin, uh you name it, I graduated through the YMCA program and and uh uh found swimming. I tried other sports and certainly loved them, but I think at some point I realized I was uh not tall, uh not big, and not fast. Um but I had a head start in the water and and it ended up being a great, great sport for me. And it and it offered this opportunity to continue to swim in college. And I found out about West Point really, really late in the process. And they started asking about all the things that you did in high school, and boy, was I blessed because I could I said, oh yeah, I did well, took all the college prep classes and did well in them. I was involved in clubs, I was in uh some leadership positions in student government, and not a bad swimmer. And the combination of all of those things really checked the boxes that they were looking for, um, and led to the nomination and appointment to go to West Point. There was something special about it from the very beginning. I mean, certainly the opportunity patriotism is one, two, the best college scholarship offer ever. You get four full years of fully funded education, whether you swim a lap or not, once you get in. And the other thing was um I had never been on a plane before, and I had only been out of the state of Florida once. Wow. So my first trip to college was to go there for the start of it, but there were a few things in the background that said, hey, this is the right choice. Luckily, the swim coach there had a background at the University of Florida, and he knew the state well and how good the swimmers were, and about half the team at West Point were swimmers from Florida. And they were the kind of kids that I grew up looking up to because the parents would say, Hey, you know, he's a really good swimmer, but they also great at this and great at that, and I just thought that's the kind of people I want to be around. Uh always having the high expectations and doing more. Um the other benefit was, since um going to West Point is is a is a huge shock because you go there to start two months before school uh for basic training, um, was the fact that the opportunity to swim was the one normal thing that I was doing that I did before I got there.

SPEAKER_04 3:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

And and there was some certainly some camaraderie around there and the ability to um, you know, just say with commiserate with somebody or say, is this for real? And have somebody say, Yeah, don't worry about it. It'll it'll go this part of the training goes away in a couple of weeks. It's you'll be you'll be just fine. And uh so for me uh with a with a real positive attitude, I I felt like for the next four years, I had won this uh little sweepstakes convert um competition where you could run up and down the aisle with a shopping cart and just throw whatever you could in there. Because I got to do things that I never would have been able to do if I'd have stayed at home um and gone to the University of Florida or somewhere else. I'd have been a student and a swimmer, but boy, did I get exposed to some really neat things and and uh you know sometimes you're you know you feel like you're a super boy scout or some some of these other things. And uh and it was just so well professionally done. And I grew up in a large family, a lot of accountability, a lot of teamwork, expectations. Parents invested largely in our education, and I wanted all of that to pay off. Fascinating, I had five older sisters growing up. And I w I went to West Point, I arrived with the second class of women. So a school founded in 1802 was in 1776, adding that's first class of women. So the summer of 77, the second class. And I say, that was actually more difficult than being in the first class. And people will look at me and say, why is that? I said, well, I was in the first class to get yelled at by women. Um because once you are um the the the three upper class um all oversee the plebs, the first year students, and so I I get a little bit of a joke out of that. But my background training that set me up for success was having five older sisters. So I was used to getting told what to do.

SPEAKER_04 6:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

What was it like balancing schoolwork, athletics, and then also you're doing the training because it is a military school too. Like, what was that like?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, I think there was a certain sense of um I need to know what my limits are and how much time I have. I I know that I am gonna be almost brain dead by around somewhere between 10 and 11 p.m. Because I'm just gonna be worn out. And so the time I have between now and then, I gotta get all these things done to the best of my ability. And then I think the other thing was key was pay attention in class because the teachers were phenomenal. And what they imparted on you and how instruction was based was you you were guaranteed a C if you participated and and prepped and part and uh paid attention in class. Um you know, the the rest was all the other work you did outside of that.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Yeah. Well, going back to the one thing I introduced when I was introducing you was uh you qualified for the U.S. Olympic trials twice and uh also read it, you competed in 16 World Cup competitions. So what what what was uh was this before college and then how did you get invited to these things?

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Yes, so on the swim team, um we had my my freshman year uh a senior that would swim with us in the morning. And uh the first practice, I'm but boy, he really got out of shape this summer. Uh because he was not that not that fast in the pool. And someone said, Oh, uh he's not really on the swim team, he just swims with the swim team. He's he's on the triathlon team. And um swimming's his worst event, and so he puts an extra practice with us. And uh so after practice one day, he says, Um, hey, you should join the triathlon club because our season starts when the swimming's over. Um and it's a lot it's a lot better than just doing swimming in the offseason. And he said, Two, we had to do a two-mile run test. So you could ask somebody what their time was in the two-mile run. And he says, What'd you do? And I said, Gave him a time, and he says, Oh, that's pretty fast. He says, You should join the club because we're gonna go to California, Texas, and Montreal uh for these trips. And of course, the idea going on a trip and getting out of West Point for a weekend uh seemed like a great deal. And so I joined this triathlon club, and it was poor man's pentathlon, because it was run, swim, shoot a pistol, but no fencing and equestrian riding. And those are the five events of the modern pentathlon. And it's the it's the only sport created solely for the purpose of Olympic competition, and they're the events of a military messenger around the time that the modern games were started in 1896. And so you imagine a general um hands a message once it delivered across the battlefield, messenger runs out, jumps on a horse, armed with a pistol and saber, horse goes lame, can run and swim the rest of the way, uh run out of bullets, you've got a p uh a a sword to protect yourself. And so th those were the events. And I was adopted into the National Training Center based off of how well I did in that triathlon. Because I I mastered the the shooting and I had this phenomenal run-swim combination. And uh so they they started saying, hey, in the summertime, come join us for training and we'll teach you the fencing and the riding at the National Training Center, which was San Antonio, Texas, and it was run by the Army as part of the history of standing this sport up all the way back into uh the the early um and and a lot of former military officers uh being Olympians in the sport. And uh so I did really well and I graduated from West Point. My first assignment was in Germany, and and I was brought back from Germany to um for the junior nationals and then and then the senior nationals, and uh and then I qualified in 84 for the Olympic trials and uh got to compete and really uh caught the bug then and said, Hey, I want to give this a try, I have a chance. And so for the next four years I was essentially a full-time athlete uh prepping for the 88 Olympics and was on perfect track. 87 I was in the uh national championships and got fourth, which uh got a trip to the Pan Am Games and was put on this U.S. uh national pre-Olympic training squad and got to travel all around the world in preparation for the Olympic trials, which um is that's the good news. The bad news is everyone knows that you're the person to beat for the next year. And so uh it came up short in the finals of the Olympic trials, uh, but but don't regret any minute of it because it was an education I never would have gotten um traveling around the world and the things you learn about yourself and the sport um have held me in um uh good stead ever since.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

Yeah, yeah. What was it like um like representing your country and those type of events like such a big event and you're you're representing America in a way?

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Yeah, that that part is uh just you know kind of pinched me uh great. I think you know you're so used to being around just swimmers that it it you're awestruck the first time you go to a sum event where there are athletes from all the different sports. I remember um you know lining up for the um the welcoming ceremony and the parade for the Pan Am games and standing next to David Robinson, you know, and uh and and saying joking that you know I was a captain in the army and he was a lieutenant in the navy and and um Yeah, we that how lucky we were to be you know representing our country. Yeah, it's it's it's fascinating. And then at that time, shoot, the the wall was up, and so we we were traveling deep into the Soviet territory and you know, Hungary and Moscow and um the Czech Republic, Czech Lit Svakia at the time.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Yeah, yeah. It's fascinating. What um an event like that that's so like different than most most other sports. You have so many different things that go into it. Like as somebody that did it at like the highest level, how how hard is it to like mentally and physically switch from swimming to then running to then all of a sudden you're shooting a pistol? Like how how is that like mentally deal like going through that?

SPEAKER_01 12:42

It's a huge part of that process, right? Because um you and I can go out and run both fast, right? Yeah, and and we're getting the same amount of points. And we can jump in the pool and we can both swim fast and we're still you know essentially tied.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Um but the shooting is interesting because you're like, oh, I need to really do well, which is like your worst enemy. Um it can get you to do something that's um counter to doing the same thing every time and not engaging your brain in a different way. So that's that's amazing. And so that shows up in the you know, it's about the the fourth event, and it sits at a point where you have the opportunity to say, oh, I really need to do good, or I can't afford to do bad. Yeah. And uh those are your nightmares. Yeah. The um and then the fencing is um the most important event because it's the one event that's essentially graded out on a bell curve. In other words, if I win, I get the points, yeah, and you lose the opportunity to ever get those points again. So it's one event with two results. And uh so that's the one that that just has the greatest effect on distributing the field with respect to points.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Yeah, yeah. What was your uh like you just graduated college and you went off for a little bit and you come back and you're like, I'm gonna do this full time. What was kind of like your family like when you're like, yeah, I'm gonna pursue this thing that a lot of people have never even like heard of or done before.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Yeah, though that was a lot of raised eyebrows. Um, you know, can you really afford to do this? Aren't you supposed to be building uh your army career? And and um which I ended up having one, but I I think the going through the thought process of are are they compatible? Um it does this work in a in a 20-year career, is there time in a career to take four years out? And the answer was yeah, probably, but you gotta be doing some other things at the same time. And so there was some opportunity to keep up with some um military educational training uh at the same time. Um and then later, after finishing my sports career, realizing that I I was gonna need to go to grad school um on my own, you know, at the same time holding a full-time job. And so so those paying paying back was something that was a constant for years afterwards. But I had the focus to do it, I had the certainly the energy and the physical stamina to do it. Yeah. And um, you know, we had a young young family and a and a great wife who's who said, yep, those are the things you need to do. Go go get it go get it done.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

Yeah, yeah. Um what like you're so close to to like say qualifying for the for the Olympics. What do you think is uh like maybe a key difference between almost making Olympics and there's people that do make the Olympics?

SPEAKER_01 15:52

Yeah, there's um sometimes it's just a matter of uh you want to say divine providence or whatever, that that boy, it you know, it just wasn't my day. And and you gotta under understand that because it really does come down to um uh one bad pull of the trigger or um you know lose your footing on because we ran cross-country, you know, losing your foot and coming around a corner and tripping and and the and it can be it can be that close.

SPEAKER_04 16:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Um and you know, it's a it's a sport of averages too, and and part of it, um in other words, you you have to get better in each individual event, but you also have to get better at putting five good performances together, and and it can be addictive because you you can say, oh man, it wasn't my best, but I was really great in four things. Yeah, I got I gotta hang around one more time to to get all five together. Yeah. And so you gotta realize that you know, even at your best, you may not be the best in one of the individual things. And um and so that part is really also a key part of the mental training. And I think, you know, it's funny, early on, um, you know, we because we rode horses and it was the the Grand Prix style uh where you're going over um jumps, um significant jumps, doubles and triples, and um and uh and you draw for your horse by lottery. So there's this element of you gotta be a good enough rider to ride any kind of horse. And um and I remember early on getting thrown off a horse that um faulted at a jump, he just refused. And so he stopped, I didn't. Went over and you land into the wooden barriers and you come up limping and walking funny for a week, and you're like, hey, you know what, I can't afford to do that anymore. And so so the idea that you know I'm gonna spend three months and overdo it on just riding so that I can eliminate those kind of stupid things, or else my career in this won't won't go very far.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Um yeah, I mean, going into going into your military aspect, I mean firstly, thank you for serving us uh in the country. And uh what what was your time like uh spending in the combat tours and all that stuff, and then what was also your role in the military?

SPEAKER_01 18:20

You bet. So as an engineer, uh I st luckily studied engineering, didn't know whether the military was a long um term opportunity for me or not. It wasn't a lot. I didn't grow up in a uh career military family. So I was gonna hedge my bet and say, hey, I'm gonna study engineering, I'm gonna be an engineer, and the things that I will learn will have, if you would, continuity outside of the uniform. That people will understand what I did.

SPEAKER_04 18:50

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

And uh and I can find that job if if a career isn't for me. But the bravado of being in the military, the engineers, they're there's the combat engineers, and they're the ones that are um nestled in um with the infantry and the armor on the battlefield, uh, you know, taking it to the enemy or defending a against them. And so that was my line. And so so in the combat engineers, I ended up with the in the armored divisions, which are the tanks. And and first assignment was in Germany, then I did the pentathlon, which would have me in Texas. And when I finished the sports back to Germany, and I and I knew that that was a place I was comfortable with, I knew the mission, and I needed to play catch-up. And um one of the things that I hadn't done was be a company commander, which is important for a captain, and you don't get promoted unless you've done it and you do it well. And uh so I arrived and and uh told some folks I said, hey, I'm a more senior captain, I need to get a company command. And and lo and behold, um one opened up and I got pushed, uh moved into it. And so a company is at this particular, you know, it was about 180 soldiers, a lot of a lot of different capabilities. And um and I was at the the normal end of uh time in command, 18 months. And it's Thanksgiving weekend, and we're at a training center just finishing up a very successful um force on force uh unit um training event and actual live fire, et cetera. And we're gathered around the TV because um there's this problem in um Iraq and Kuwait. And Colin Powell gets on uh who's the Secretary of State uh at at the time, says um we are increasing our offensive capability in Saudi Arabia because of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. And we're sending two armored divisions from Germany. And we all looked at each other and went, wait a second. That's us. We're one of them. So this is Thanksgiving, and the next thing you know, we go back to uh our our base and and start packing up to go to um the Middle East, which was fascinating because this was a unit that had stayed in Germany post-World War II and been there for some fifty years with one mission, and that was to defend the East-West German border against a a Russian invasion.

SPEAKER_02 21:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

And uh now we're talking about getting on a boat, which was uh pretty undeniable. And they said, Oh, by the way, nobody leaves and nobody changes. So this kid that needed to play catch-up now all of a sudden um st essentially starts company command all over again and and deploys a unit to combat and ended up being um with the seventh corps which was five armor divisions um that did this end around and we I was in the lead brigade of the lead division of this attack that came in behind the Iraqis as they were focused on the main battle mm in uh Kuwait and Kuwait City. And uh so a phenomenal opportunity for me it was it reinforced some things that I use today the the value of good training um and and and how that plays dividends when it comes time to execute. So the the similarities between sports and and this military operations were were not lost on me. And I think the other thing was you know um taking care of your your people and you know I kind of made a promise I'd bring them all home and I did. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Yeah that's literally my next question was going to be how have you found success in sports and in the military? Because you've been successful uh another thing I read was the medals that you've gotten from the military Legion of Merit Bronze Star three uh material service medals and the bronze order of the the flurry medal so all these successes and then swimming you were extremely successful um like you kind of talked about it what what is the the true key for you and then now I mean you're you're an athletic director uh which is I would say a high status as well so what is the the key to being six successful in every kind of part of life almost yeah thanks well one I've been extremely bl blessed to be around um great people that have provided great experiences and having an an open heart and an intentive mind um uh being an observer and will wanting to willingly learn from other people is is really really key um somewhere along the line of my uh when I was getting um in an MBA program that's getting a master's in business they made us do this a strengths um assessment and you you you're out to find out what your top five um signature traits are and and when I got them I had this aha moment and I said this really defines why I have one enjoyed what I've done the taken the routes that I have and been successful and I think one of them the first one was significance um that that the things that I want to be involved with need to be significant and not make me significant but they're significant to other people they need to have uh you know a mission that that um serves something bigger than myself the other one was responsibility and I think um that that's kind of the you know the call to serve being in the military um but it even started in high school this idea of getting involved and hey let's try let's try this leadership thing um let's work on it because it it is an acquired skill and it's something that needs to be practiced.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

I think the other one was learner um I I love learning and so you kind of have to have that mindset no matter where you're at and and it was a beautiful thing in the Army because you never got a job that you ever had before. Everything was a a cold start. Yeah yeah you're in charge and and you're learning on the job. And I think um self-assurance was one because you know that pays dividends when you go into some of those situations. You gotta everyone wants to see a confident, self-assured leader. Yeah. Yeah and then um and then the other one uh that that goes as a book into that is the positivity and uh I'm I'm fatally a uh um an optimist about things. Yeah yeah so that pays off. Yeah and you know what I think so those all jumped out at me and those are those are kind of woven in into my DNA but I think um I born and raised in Orlando strong family values but Catholic education K through 12 um my West Point experience was also very faith based I think forty to forty five percent of the students there came from a Catholic family or parish or school. And uh and so that has always been um a strong uh foundation for me and and if you would a platform in which to um project other skills in a meaningful way. For sure for sure and yeah you talk about uh leadership uh the positions that you've been in have definitely been leadership positions uh in the military you you said uh your goal was to be sure you bring all of them back alive uh which is like one of the biggest leadership things you could do uh so what to you for somebody that maybe wants to be a leader one day what what to you makes a great leader yeah I think you know there's there's lots of books that talk about you know the leadership domains you know being very um uh you know dominant and um you know my way or the highway very instructive and then there's this you know at the other end of the spectrum this this sense of collaboration and and somewhere in the middle folks uh um you know collaboration and doing things by committee and and um and and finding the way forward in that process I I think you gotta be able to navigate that whole spectrum but I think the one in the middle is um and and it worked and it works well for me and I feel comfortable in it is this idea of being uh more of a servant leader and that is um the the opportunity to to lead is also an opportunity to serve um I'm not gonna ask anybody to do anything that I wouldn't want to do or um and and think from their point of view um as as a follower and I think the West Point as one of the finest leadership institutions in the world and then of course uh the Army um as a as a branch uh of service puts its premium on people and so in a people oriented business um that I think that works the best but you gotta be certainly competent um you gotta know your job people gotta respect you for that and and that helps them look look to you for the guidance and the direction which you need to provide in lots of ways but you also have to have this um inspiring vision of what the implementation of that looks for looks like and the role they have in helping it come come to and and so I I I tell people I said you know this also being an athlete uh and also as an engineer it's a it's a way I think and somebody with this leadership background I said well uh the best way to say how that comes together is a you know build teams that solve problems um that have an opportunity to make a lasting and positive impact on people.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

Yeah yeah yeah and that that leads you to my next question of when did you decide all right I'm gonna start working in athletics now?

SPEAKER_01 29:45

So this goes back to the people business. I had um bit been the athl aide de camp which is um an executive officer and a personal staff officer for a commanding general um who was probably one of the most uh intellectual and magnanimous persons you could ever spend time with General Dan Crisman and he was a commandant of the engineer school in Fort Littlewood Missouri and and spent oh about 18 months on a daily basis essentially his executive officer and shadow um went with him everywhere and he later becomes a superintendent at West Point um and of course we stayed in close touch and I was in Belgium at NATO's military headquarters and uh I get a call from him saying hey Tom I got an opening here my engineer is retiring and he says can you can you come be my facilities engineer? And of course I'd had this combat engineering background and this is more like taking care of buildings and facilities and utilities and whatever and I said hey sir I I'd I left yesterday to come work for you but I don't know if you know that I don't have a lot of experience in that and he goes Tom if I asked you to cut down some trees so I could see from the plains of West Point down to the banks of the Hudson River, could you do that for me? I said sir I'd have it cut into core wood and stacked wherever you want it by the end of the day. He said you're hired and uh I get to West Point so I've got about 18 years in my career and I arrived the same day as the athletic director brand new first ever hired contract civilian AD who came from an AD job at a state university and Army was making a commitment to get its programs turned around. And he didn't know anything about West Point or the Army or any of that. And we made so the general who hired both of us says introduced us and we became fast friends. And I said oh let me show you around I'll teach you the skill ask me whatever you want and I said oh by the way I'm in charge of like a 500 man workforce with this budget to maintain everything I think your athletic facilities need a little help too so I'm happy to help you out there too. And uh two years later he had a senior person in the athletic department it's a military position, chief of staff that person retired and there was an open competition across the entire army to compete for this job. And I did I put my name in the hat and competed with finalist and got selected which amongst the most beautiful things was uh started my clock over again so the Army wasn't going to reassign me somewhere. So I got to stay at West Point with my family and within a week I said boy I love this. What's it take to stay in athletics the heck with being an engineer. Now the one of the big attractions for me in that job was my knowledge of the engineering because at that particular time they were doing about $200 million worth of gift funded athletic facility construction projects or renovations and they needed someone to oversee that. So that that was certainly in my wheelhouse. But I also knew operations and you know I kind of told them I said hey look you know one of the most military things that we do on it during the school year here is have a football game. It's like we're going to kick off at 1202 right not 1203 not 1201 1202. And I said I know how to do that. Yeah do all the backwards time planning and I'll pull all the pieces together we'll make it happen. And uh so lo and behold four years of mentorship and coaching and introduction to people in the business I put I put in my retirement papers to go become the athletic director at the University of North Dakota.

SPEAKER_00 33:56

Yeah and I mean uh you you started like you said at West Point and obviously you didn't go to North Dakota and then you spent some time at SMU and then you end here end up here so over two decades of working in athletics with kind of different schools maybe uh smaller D1 to mid-D1 uh to like the Army which is a bit of like a different type of Division I school than here which is like kind of a little bit about mid D2 school. What have what differences or similarities do you see between all those schools going in them?

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Yeah of all things it's still the student athlete experience and it's the opportunity to get um you know young men and women in a position where they can trade off you know their skills and talents in a sport in exchange for also a desire to get a good education and bring those two things together in a in a positive way that sets them up to be you know real contributors, actual leaders in the future wherever they work, in their community and in their family and in their church and faith life. Those are the things that that really drive me and they are so synonymous with what I experienced in the military because you're constantly getting you know young young soldiers coming in you're having to integrate them get them get them trained up as a unit and then get them in a position where they can uh perform. And I and and I love I love that developmental process and I think um athletics in a lot of ways if you're not going to be in the military it it has um some similar benefits in that you get to run a leadership laboratory and it's in a classroom without walls. And I think and I think it's those things are complementary because the move in the body and the and and uh and engaging your money and mind as an accelerant for learning and and vice versa. And so there's there's a great reciprocity there that it's fun to be a part of and um yeah enjoy it. Now where you go, uh so the people people thing is very constant. The decimal place on where your budget is at can change significantly and um and but you know if you think about it uh we used because I was at SMU in Dallas, right? And so we're we're not too far away from University of Texas and and uh they have by far the largest largest athletic budget in the in the country.

SPEAKER_04 36:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

And we said but we would look at some of their outcomes and no knock on them. I mean it it changes and no one's gonna let you win everything. But uh that we used to say, well Texas they have their problems but money is not one of them. And one of the things that you do learn is that you know money um doesn't solve all your problems. If you would no one else would ever get a sniff at a national championship because Texas and Winnemol. Yeah. And so other people have a say in that and I think that's the dynamic um that that you know good coaching combined with good character student athletes and facilities and a fan base to support them, you know, really create an an amazing if you would perpetual cycle of success.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Yeah, yeah and I think it's interesting you say uh that about the money because I think that's something that's being lost right now is that everybody thinks that with the NIL that the more money you have just like you're gonna start winning championships or whatever. But I think it's still that's not that's never going to be the case, you know? But bringing up NIL, uh you've been working in sports for so long now how have you seen uh not even just NIL, but sports as a whole just change in college because it's just like it's changed a lot. So how have you seen it really change?

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Yeah it's um and it's funny NIL is um being used now almost euphemistically as a as a catchphrase to cover all the changes uh that are associated with money and you know it really honestly started it from a very very good place and that was you know the O'Banion case where EA Sports was creating NCAA basketball every year and there's a new addition and a former UCLA basketball player says hey that's me running up and down the basketball court they didn't ask they didn't ask me to if I could be in their video game. Yeah and he's like what do you think EA Sports they started looking at the m all the money EA Sports makes um on these video games he's like man I don't get any of that and uh and so that peeled back the onion and and he goes yeah it's even crazier than than that that like if I'm a student athlete and and I'm an artist and and I make t-shirts or whatever I can I can't go set up a a tent at the flea market and sell my artwork because I would be making money as an athlete off my other talents. And so of course the these changes have been wonderful and and they have begged all the right questions of, you know, there's a lot of people profiting and um off of this that um except the kids and and so that's not right. And and I think one of the big nails in the coffin was you know when Texas A M has a couple of bad years in football and an embarrassing loss to UT Texas UT and they fire their coach and he walks away with $75 million buyout. And that's that's when the world kind of said where do they get that kind of money? Yeah. Right? And of course you got you know kids um that you know are looking scrounging up money for a Coke and candy and that kind of stuff. So I think some of that stuff's right I know the coaches have a tremendously difficult job now to keep the focus. The distractions there are um at a magnitude larger than they ever were and and keeping a kid long enough to develop them I mean um it at West Point we we have it down to the month. They say this is a 47 month leadership process right? You come in in July and you're gonna graduate four years later you know one month earlier 47 months. It's gonna take every minute of that time to get you where we want you to be in the Southeastern conference 16 colleges men's basketball let's call it 15 to 18 players on a team we're talking north of 250 student athletes there's only one of those 250 that have been at their school for all four years. Now I can't I yeah that I don't I can't tell you whether they're a big time player or whatever white but that's that's the in that's where we're at today. Yeah and so um I I'm reminded of the craziness that goes on in club sports. Like yeah my coach doesn't play me or my coach I don't like my coach so I'm gonna get mom and dad to pay my way out of this club and join a different one. And so the antidote was that for that was hey college you don't get to do that. So we're at a point where the pendulum has swung really far um to the point where now we need to get it back in and lock it in around the goodness that was associated with um you know having some revenue share that go to the student athletes if they are entrepreneurial and they want to go out and and use their name, image and likeness to their benefit, they should be able to do it. But there's got to be rule rules associated with it. I just remember the um you know the time the Alabama quarterback um was talking about meeting on Monday to go over a new NIL deal and then proceeds to go in and lose a a football game unexpectedly on Saturday. And I'm like I think they need to be spending Sunday and Monday figuring out why they lost that game and not what the NIL deal is. But there's this there's generational wealth potentially being earned at this window now of eligibility in college sports, which has driven all kinds of craziness because the output into the pros is not changing. Those numbers still remain infinitesimally small. So the idea of if if this is where I can make some wealth before it the opportunity disappears, that's why you see this bulging amount of people wanting to stay student athletes or fifth year and all that kind of stuff. Yeah yeah and the all the lawsuits associated with it.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

Yeah yeah I mean it's a lot going on and then you're an athletic director who's like in the middle of it obviously at a D2 level so we're not as strongly into it but it's heading this direction for sure and you're seeing impacts a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 43:43

Yeah and I think there's there's some things that you know at our level we should help leverage you know student athletes to make sure that you know if there's a way that they can minimize their expenses minimize debt post graduation and do it in a way that's all beneficial, uh we need to be a part of that. Um because there's I mean we could offer more athletic scholarships um but we're funded where we're at because um of the institutional sub decision that this is where your funding's at. And of course I have the opportunity to go out and get donor support to increase that if we can. And some communities have that because of the larger alumni base or whatever and they've been around longer, have the opportunity to do that. So you can offer more scholarships, that that would be amazing. That's where we have some room to grow. But I still think when when you think about um the NCAA as a scholarship granting institution, it is now the preeminent one in the country. It used to be the military and this GI Bill and of course that transformed who we are as a world power post-World War II. But the military is a fraction of its previous self. When I went to Germany out of college out of West Point there was a million U.S. Army just in Germany today in the whole world there are about 1.3 million Army, Navy Air Force Marines were a we're a small fraction. So the number of people that are benefiting from that GI Bill is smaller. So NCAA is now the larger and and and there's one thing that I think that we can at this level stick to that makes that the most valuable proposition for the student athlete is that this sense of accountability of being a member of a team and the pay and and a sense of a need to pay back um for the scholarship opportunity they have in the most meaningful way to not only the institution but the team and and then to their family is the key driving point we need to stick to. Because if you think about it so if I go R O T C or the academies I get a scholarship but I have a four or five year payback period. If I join the military I'm doing my service and then I have the GI Bill afterwards. So there's there's a contractual relationship there between the benefit and the service. And I and ours is only complicated in that they are parallel that they're happening concurrently and so to drive home that sense of responsibility with the student athletes is I think our our biggest challenge but also our biggest opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

Yeah yeah for sure and um you were you were brought in here at Shamanod in 2020 uh which was COVID year so just tell me kind of what that experience was like coming into a new job in athletics where things were very uncertain at that time and you you're getting hired and you're trying to figure out where to go uh in this situation what was that like I I arrived when they actually had the the full quarantine and uh campus was empty I lived in a room in one of the uh Halepahaku uh for two weeks and I was able to come out in the evening when everyone was gone and walk around campus.

SPEAKER_01 47:25

But I I told someone I said, you know I think I'm drawing from my military experience more in my first year than I was from you know the previous you know 15 or 18 years of athletic experience because of you know all the operational pieces and the and the taking care of people and the logistics that went along with it. And luckily we had some really good coaches um who knew the lay of the land and knew the sense of what was possible and how to do it safely. And I think the other key thing was how to normalize things for our athletes as much as possible, right? In other words, it it's like telling a kid not to play, a bird not to fly, a dog a dog not to chase a squirrel. You're doing all the things that go against what's what's normal. And so how how to find some normalcy in that. And of course sports is that for a lot of people and we did a really nice job. There are some campuses that were in some ways 70-80 percent student athletes as part of the total campus population and they suffered greatly because the absence of sports and the opportunity to participate in practice people just said well I'm s stay home I'm not gonna go to school right because I can do that at any time but the opportunity to be here to be engaged to be around a team and and do that safely was fun and then we we had the great competition season and we we it was in pod right so we played only HPU that was an abbreviated season and we played only um UH Hilo. And I said well if you don't know the sneaker size of the person you're covering by the end of the season you haven't been doing a good scouting scouting job because we're gonna play them like 12 times.

SPEAKER_00 49:19

Yeah yeah for sure for sure what a time so um but yeah I think I think a lot of people know who athletic directors are when they look at a college they like know your face um or a lot of people are aware that there's always an athletic director but maybe some people don't exactly know what you do like on a day-to-day basis. So just kind of give me a summary of like what is your job uh around campus and with the athletics.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

Yeah thanks um well I think the key thing is is um stay positive because everyone thinks you have uh the greatest job in the world because they see you at all the sporting events and are like what a life you get to you get to go watch the games. And but I also if I get a chance say hey that's that's the additional benefit to the job. And I think there's um you're you know you're always in the moment of execution because there's always the next game and there's the the rollover into the next season and making sure those things are all in place to happen. Because there's a lot of logistics everything from getting the other team team here and ready to practice and the officials like say um there's but then there's the long term plan. You know we're we're using this year to work on scheduling two years out in advance. There's the opportunity to evaluate coaches and teams uh because you're essentially the you know if the provost is the dean of deans right um in some ways the athletic director has to be the coach of the coaches right and and so there's there's that piece. And you know keeping an eye on the campus culture. And then I tell I tell people I said you know the athletic department has the opportunity to touch more people on and off campus than um potentially even the president's office. But we certainly don't have the same resources that that they might have I said but they exist. And so the opportunity to to work um across campus to gain the discretionary effort of people to lean towards us and help help out in some of those situations where we need an extra hand is is a constant relationship building opportunity. Because because we're constantly feeding the pipeline you know our coaches are working on bringing in next year's classes. Yep. They're working on trying to move the ones we have towards graduation and uh so it's always an ongoing process thinking in a lot of different directions.

SPEAKER_00 52:03

Yeah for sure for sure uh so nowadays are you still swimming or running or are you still when did you even though uh you went back to the military after you realized you were done with the uh the Olympic trialing and all that uh did you keep doing everything? Are you still doing it now?

SPEAKER_01 52:21

Well it was a little always one of the things I learned about switching from swimming to running was the fact that you could get your run and work it out and in one fourth the time and you really didn't need a a pool. Yeah right yeah and and time uh set aside time in a pool. So a lot of my activities have switched over in that direction. Yeah I hit I hit the gym uh almost every day to to stay in shape and um and and keep up with keep up with um oh gravity and all those things that want to take over and do um but so that part's fun and it's and it's important and I think it it continues to pay dividends in terms of you know energy and stamina. You know the there used to be a a time when lethality on the battlefield had to do with um looking a lot more like Arnold Schwarzenegger or um Hercules or whatever. Whoever could swing a sword the the hardest or the fastest or whatever was the winner. But today you know the the the mindset is is you know who who's the most um physically fit from a a total you know the the um you know from a flexibility from an endurance from a strength from a whatever all of those things combined so that it's really the total definition. So I try I try to stay as well rounded as possible. But it's fun to be here around the water and and those kind of things and of course golf is kind of fun too.

SPEAKER_00 53:48

Yeah. Just as we close out kind of uh looking into the future what is your overall goal with Shaman athletics and maybe just a couple years ahead or just in the future in general?

SPEAKER_05 54:01

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Yeah you know I'd like to uh I'd like to win a national championship and and a men's sport and a women's sport. So I think we have some teams and coaches that could do that. We need to get the lightning in the bottle. You know I want I want our teams um to enjoy um winning seasons. You know I I someone heard me say um that I how do you spell fun. And I said W-I-N. So and I'm and there is great joy in that. There's a lot to be learned in every competition but there's great joy in in winning and I want I want to see teams have that uh ability um through both good coaching and resourcing and uh good teamwork.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Yeah for sure well I appreciate you joining me and uh I'm really glad I got to get you on.

SPEAKER_01 54:54

You bet. And you know what if if more people in some way know something about Shaman then we've been successful because it's an amazing place, a powerful mission and it does such a great great service to not only its students but the community.

SPEAKER_00 55:10

Mm-hmm for sure. All right thank you.

SPEAKER_01 55:12

Thank you honor