bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 0:11

Welcome to Tracking the Cats. I'm Bob Saban, along with my co-host Steve White. We are brought to you every week by Stanbury Insurance. They have offices in Silva, Waynesville, Highlands, and Clyde, and they can serve all of your insurance needs. And today we've got a real good guest with us, but we first wanna start out with talking a little bit about how things are going with Catamount Athletics. We're starting to wind down. The spring sports and it's getting close to a couple of championships. Steve baseball and softball are looking pretty strong this season.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 0:46

There really are baseball has two. We're a back to back big series coming up this coming weekend, and then next weekend we got East Tennessee State here for a three game series. Starting Friday, it'll be Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And then next weekend we go down to the number one team the right now in the conference, the Wallford Terriers for a three game series in Spartanburg. Before ending the season with the three game series at home with. UNC Greensboro, but we're tied right now with East Tennessee state, both at eight and four and Wofford, as I said, at eight and one, they've played three less games, so they'll have to make up some time here in the next month to get everything even. But looking good now, I think we won five in a row nine of our last 11 games. So we're looking pretty good right now in baseball coach Allen Beck's team getting granted for the. Conference tournament down in Greenville at the end of the month. Usually Memorial Day weekend in there.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 1:40

And we've got a, we've got an interesting matchup coming up for a weekend that is a filler because of the way the season works. But we've got Wake Forest coming up for a

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 1:50

yeah.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 1:51

as well. And that'll be good tuneup for the conference, I think.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 1:55

Yeah, that's right. Nationally ranked D Wake Forest. And right now the cattle mounts are right in the verge of breaking into the top 20 in the mid-major polls. And we're actually in the top a hundred now in the entire poll, which we haven't been there in a while. But this is the highest ranking we've had in in the mid-major poll in many years. Wofford and Western, and I think East Tennessee's in there also in the top 30 right now. So that's a big one. Yeah.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 2:21

wins. We beat the heck outta Gardner Webb this week. We beat Appalachian State. We have wins over East Carolina,

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 2:28

Yeah. Georgia Bulldogs. Georgia Bulldogs, yeah. Yeah. Up Georgia. People forget that sometimes.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 2:36

Oh yeah, I wanted, no, I'm I like Georgia. My daughter went there, but I'm a Western Carolina fan all through and through, of course. Then softball. Let's look at softball also second in the conference right now and has another, I don't think we can take over the top spot.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 2:52

No Greensboro's looks back there. Head, head and shoulders above everybody right now, but they've won 32 ball games in second place in the conference. And again, a chance to maybe catch Greensboro. But Greensboro, I don't. Think they're gonna be slipping any, they, they have, I saw that series here, and they're very good. But hey, second place would be a great finish for the cat mouse the season. They're really a great hitting ball club. They are. I enjoy watching them play down there. Really do. It's it's fun. No.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 3:21

Yep. We got a couple other sports going on right now. the 10 ladies with tennis lost first round last week in the Southern Conference. The Southern Conference Championships for ladies, golf's going on right now. I think we're sixth out of eighth place on the last day. But the men look like they should finish in the top two.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 3:40

That could be Yeah. Be a challenge. Yeah, they they won that Wofford tournament and it was a very at prestigious field down in Spartanburg, Carolina Country Club. That's a tough golf course. And they beat some very good teams, and I think they've got a can a chance this year or two really pull off an upset. They were, I think they ended the start of the season, maybe in middle of the pack ranked and so forth. But they've moved up now probably overall score wise, the second best team in the league right now.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 4:07

Yep. And let's talk about one more team that's doing pretty strong so far, and that's our guest for today. We've got track and field coach Jesse Norman joining us. And why don't you introduce coach Norman for us,

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 4:20

Okay. All right. Just unlike most of our coaches here at WCU, Jesse has a long history as a CATA melon. He was an outstanding performer on our track and field and cross country teams in the early part of this cen century about 26 years ago. Jesse. Now, how's that? How's that old? Does that make you feel? But

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 4:39

Makes me feel really old.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 4:41

yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 4:41

mentioning that again.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 4:43

Yeah. He is one of our most herald distance runners. He was the first Catamount to ever win in the men's Southern Cross, the Southern Conference, cross country individual championship, and was the cross country run of the year back in 2001? I don't know. Did Adam Pruitt. He never quite made it. So you're still the only one that's been the

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 5:03

only one

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 5:04

The only one. So that's quite an honor. So he was also contract and fill and the 10,000 meters had seven top eight finishes in conference championships. So he is got the credentials. He began his coaching career as an assistant here at WCU to the legendary Danny Williamson, and then went on to UNC Asheville as head track and field coach for 12 seasons. He produced a bunch of big south conference individual champions and was two time, the big South conference coach of the year. He returned to Colory back in 2019, that'd be about six years ago, seven years ago, as our head track and field and cross country coach, and is preparing right now for his eighth Southern Conference Outdoor championship meet in a couple of weeks actually. May the 11th and 12th here at the Catamount Sport Sports Complex. Fred Kaler still wants that to be called the Kaler Sports Complex. It's, that's here at colorway USA and we want to talk more about that later on as far as the conference championship and what all that involves. But Bob, you want to lead off here? Yeah.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 6:11

And while this is your interview most of our viewers know and remember your coach and predecessor Danny Williamson. As Steve alluded to, how did his style and formula over that period of time affect what you guys are doing and moving forward with the track and field program?

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 6:32

Yeah. I think it had a lot to do with me, especially kinda early on in my career. When I went to Asheville, I think I tried to mirror a little bit about, what Western was about and kinda building that program up. And then when I came back to Western, I know when I was interviewing, being a distance guy, I think some of the concerns were, am I gonna try to turn this into a distance-heavy program and compete against Furman and do all that kind of stuff. And I was, very big on"No, our DNA is on, sprints, hurdles, and jumps." Like I w-- I'm coming to Western to, try to help us, win some track team championships. And so I was like we're gonna keep the DNA the same way." That's what Danny had built. I don't think there's... It'd be crazy to try to go any other way. I feel like we... COVID timeframe, coming in'19, in the middle of the year, like all that kind of stuff was led it to be a little bit crazy for those first probably three, four years I was here. I think bringing my assistants on board. I remember when I brought them on board, was hiring them I actually sat down and bought Danny a a drink and dinner one night and was like,"Hey, I need to, pick your brain about some things," and was picking his brain about, directions and things I needed to change with the program to kinda get us back towards winning. And he gave me a lot of credit and said, hey, I had the right ideas, I just needed to execute them and stuff. So that's kinda what been working on. But some big shoes to fill. I know he retired, I think it was maybe about two and a half years before I took over. There was somebody else between the two of us and COVID and all that stuff, it was definitely crazy. But yeah he's got a big influence on, what we try to do.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 8:07

You still see him here at Western. He comes to all the basketball and football games and 99% of the time he's wearing shorts. So that's his. If he didn't, I would know there was something wrong with him. But Jesse re before we're gonna come back and talk about. To meet this weekend, cut'em out. Classic. But I wanna talk to you about the Southern Conference outdoor track and field championships coming up next month. That's actually May the 11th and 12th, a Monday and Tuesday after graduation here in Calle Western's hosted several SoCon Outdoor Championships here over the last 30 years. So you and your staff. Must really know how to host such a big event. And I'm sure that's a determination a lot of times on who is going to host the championship. Give us an idea what a, what putting on a conference championship is all about how the problems maybe just how you've got this thing to be a machine.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 8:57

I think it's really just having great support staff. Trey, the facilities people, administration here. When we're hosting the conference championships it's all hands on deck, and so we get a lot of help. Ashley Simmons does a lot to help coordinate with volunteers and everything. As... It's definitely a lot of hands on deck, a lot of hands doing a lot of different things. The biggest thing that, that we have our hand in is helping with the schedule just around our facility restraint restrictions and stuff. So we, we do a lot with laying that out. I've been working a lot with Caroline out of the SOCON office on getting officials. We've got a good pool of officials that we use for the indoor championships up at VMI, and then a lot of them will not go down to Sanford because it's a long ways for them, but they'll come to Western. And so we're able to pull a lot of those officials in. It's just a lot of hands on deck, a lot of people helping out. I've got some great assistants in Coach Jill and Coach Dan that I can pawn stuff off on and have them kind of help with some different things and offering their insights. It's just all hands on deck. I maybe get to be the face of it, but it's definitely not just me running the show. It's a lot of... I have a lot of help in the background. Otherwise, wouldn't be able to do it at the level that we do it now.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 10:08

Yeah. It doesn't seem like it, but Sanford's been part of the Southern Conference for almost 20 years, and since they've came on, come on, they've really dominated the track and field scene both men's and women's when it. US and App State fighting it out. What, how are they so successful? What brings them so much success in this particular sport?

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 10:33

I think it starts with their head coach. Coach Stiffen there has done a great job with that program, building it up in his time there. I, I think when you look at it they've You know, they've decided that they want to be good in track. Their administration's really put a lot of support towards that direction. You look at that with their roster size, you can look at that with their staffing. They've got a lot more staffing than what we've got. That's one of my big things that I argue with and debate with our administration about is I've even been strong enough on it that I'm like, we get one more coach we should be winning in two years. And if we're not fire me type deal. I feel that confident and that strong about it. Hopefully we're putting some things in action and planning out for maybe down the road, being able to get another coach. I think that's really the only thing that's really stopping us. When we have-- we've started off this year with ninety-eight kids, and we've got three full-time coaches. That's a big workload on all of us. And especially in kind of the new era of NCAA athletics and everything that kind of goes along with that. I get a lot of grief from a lot of the old alumni about, what Danny did, speaking to Danny earlier, and I joke around, I'm like I can't do half the stuff that Danny did back then." He was able to get away with a lot of stuff. It's a different time but I think that's really the difference is they've decided they want to really invest towards track and field, and you see that in, in what they're able to recruit, what they're able to bring in their staffing. They've got almost dedicated coaches for every event group. And when we've got, myself and Jill that are really battling we're coaching across two or three event groups each, like that's-- it's pretty, pretty tough battle to go up against them with that. We're definitely making some good things. I think we, we got a good chance to be able to make some noise and do some good things this year, so I'm pretty excited about the squad looking ahead

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 12:16

And I wanted to follow up on that,'cause that was a question I had for later, but you hit on it and that is two, three coaches. How do you organize a practice when you've got so many different events between sprints, relays, distance, a number of field events? How do you organize a practice like that?

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 12:35

Lots of Mountain Dew very little sleep very long days coffee in between. It's long days with class schedules and the number of event groups we have on any typical day, we will get started with practices at nine o'clock in the morning, and we'll be out at the track all day until or five o'clock, and then we shift over to the weight room, because we also do our strength and conditioning here as a track staff. So not only are we coaching out on the track, but then we're also in the weight room coaching them up in there too. We kinda roll from one right into the other and then, follow up in the evening with recruiting calls and doing all that kind of stuff. The way we kinda break up our staff right now is so I oversee our sprinters and our distance kids. So basically any flat running events I typically will coach them up. Coach Jill will work with our hurdlers, our jumpers mainly like long jump, triple jump, high jump, and then our multi-event kids. So she's got a lot of technical things on her plate, and then Dan will work with our throwers. And and then I also, because I wanna be crazy and have a crazy day, I also work with our women's pole vaulters. They're usually the ones starting off the day for me and then I just roll right into the next practices and everything. So pretty full days. I've got a great wife and support system at home. My two kids and everything, they kinda know the deal now that once it gets into January, I just tell them,"Hey, it was nice knowing you. I'll see you guys again in May, June timeframe." So I pretty much disappear January through May. I do a crappy job being a father and all that kind of stuff just'cause it's... My life is track and field during this time and I'm just busy running around trying to keep my head above water,

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 14:10

jesse, I wanted to tell you, this is just all. For the record here we were talking about now, when I was in high school our, you played football. You had to run track and field because our track and field coach was also our head football coach. And so I really had a hard time, I wasn't strong enough in the, a lot of the throwing events. I wasn't athletic enough in the jumping events. It wasn't fast enough. And it started out making me the rabbit. For the milers. I was the guy who went out for 880 where half a mile and ran as hard. He didn't care if I died or what, just to set a great pace for our state champion miler. Then he wanted me to become the javelin catcher and but yeah, that's what you're talking about that. But getting back to Sanford, jesse, I know a lot of people don't understand this either, but about Sanford, Sanford is they're like a wake forest in our scheme of things. The campuses also look a lot similar, and they, over the years, since the turn of the century, they've been graduating a lot of doctors loggers, corporate heads, and so forth. Whereas Western was, education school teachers and so forth. So they have, it's amazing guy told me how many track and field alums they had that are now. Corporate heads or doctors or lawyers, and they throw the money back in the program. So that's a, that's another thing that a lot of people really don't understand. And now that could be said for a couple of other schools in our conference too. But again, let's talk about that cat about classic this weekend. Before we move on here I know that's a big beat prelude to the Southern Conference Championship and also gives you probably a little bit better to get everybody together on your own track. Two weeks in a row and so forth. Who all, how many teams are you gonna have coming in and so forth.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 15:49

So right now we've got, I think it's 11 teams coming in, if I remember correctly, if my Western math works out.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 15:55

Yeah. Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 15:57

I think we have some of the conference schools are be coming in as a little bit of a preview. We have Citadel Gardner-Webb, UNC Asheville, Wofford Tennessee Tech, Tusculum Mars Hill, Georgia. VMI was coming in, but they've changed their schedule now. So it'd be a, it'd be a good little meet. I feel like I'm

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 16:17

Yeah. Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 16:19

so it'll be a, it'll be a good solid meet for us. Kinda looking at the heat sheets and or the entries right now it looks like it'll be set up pretty good. We actually also, I think kinda baseball and maybe softball are doing it too. We actually made the adjustment. We're gonna be doing just Friday for the Catamount Classic looking at the weather coming in on Saturday. So we'll go all day Friday. We'll start off at ten o'clock in the morning do kinda the field events mainly in the morning, kinda early afternoon timeframe. Give them, an opportunity to kinda really shine'cause I feel like a lot of times the field events don't get the credit that they deserve. So we'll give them kind of an opportunity to kinda be, front and center, and then we'll have the running events get started later on in the afternoon, about three o'clock I think it is, and then run through about eight thirty at nine and stuff. So just try to take advantage of good weather on Friday rather than, pushing it off to Saturday and having to make delays and all that kind of stuff. And plus, like it's a full day track and field, man. What else can you ask for? It's

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 17:16

That's exactly right.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 17:17

So

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 17:18

we have those lights too. You can go on till midnight if.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 17:21

So Yeah. We'll run the four-by-four underneath the lights this year, so that'll be super exciting. When we were kinda doing the schedule, I was like,"Man, are we gonna do this in one day? Let's put the four-by-four under the lights. That'd be a good showing for them." So we'll have the four-by-four, and then we'll finish up with the 5K kids afterwards and everything. So they'll be the end of the show, so to speak.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 17:41

Yeah.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 17:42

It sounds a good weekend and hopefully everything runs smoothly and the weather holds out at least through Friday for us. Men's team finished third in the indoor championships. We've had a pretty good season. As a matter of fact, we've had several. Athletes of the Week chosen over several weeks. Can you tell me a little bit about the folks who have advanced and done really well? In the men's team in particular right now?

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 18:06

Yeah. I think a couple of the highlights have really been Austin Klein. He's been numerous times kind of SoCon Athlete of the Week in the field events. He's one of our throwers on the team, just absolutely killing it. He's a really good guy to have on the team. Really good for the team dynamic, team culture and stuff like that. So he's... yeah, he's been killing it. He's been moving up on the all-time list. He's just ready to rock and roll. So he's one that's kinda been doing really good. We've had Trevor Williams who's a sophomore kid for us from Virginia. He's kinda came in as a 4A kid. He's progressed pretty well. He's gotten down to where he's running forty-eight in the four hundred. So he's

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 18:43

Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 18:43

in the conference right now, I think it is ranked. And then he also came back and ran one fifty-three in the eight hundred. So he's like or eighth, I think it is, also in the eight hundred. I think he'll run the eight hundred at the Catamount Classic. We'll kinda see what he does there, and then we'll probably have to decide, is he gonna be a four kid or an eight kid at conference? We'll just kinda see where it kinda lays. Christian Roberts is another kid. I think he got it one year or one week. Really good dynamic hurdler for us both in the one tens and the four hundred hurdles. He's probably actually on the verge of being able to qualify for the first round in the 400 hurdles. So he runs a little bit faster. If he can kinda

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 19:20

Nice.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 19:21

over the next few weeks he might have a chance to be able to do that. So it's been pretty exciting to kinda see him I think Lexi Durbin maybe has gotten it one time. I think Erica's gotten it one time. Jackson maybe a couple times. Those are a couple of our standout female throwers that have been doing really good. Yeah, we've done some pretty good things this spring. I think on the guys' side, getting third place probably, fired them up a little bit. I maybe gave one event group a little bit of a, come to Jesus talking to of here's what we need to do, and we need to step up our game a little bit to kinda help out a little bit more afterwards. So maybe that was a little piece of it. And hopefully the guys are all fired up. I tell people all the time I didn't come back to Western to get third place. I tell the story all the time about Danny, the... I think the one year it might have been my junior year, I think we got third place at indoors, and the talking to that we got to from Danny that year was on another level type deal.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 20:11

Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 20:12

so I referenced that, that talk. I'm like the things he said were kinda crazy. It, it got us fired up, and we made a pretty good run at it that outdoor season.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 20:19

Yeah. Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 20:20

we- we've got a pretty good team on the guys' side that we can make a run at. Samford's definitely gonna be pretty tough to beat this year. They've got a really good, just group of guys that are running pretty good. I think our probably best chance to be able to win a championship this year is on the women's side. We're actually leading the conference right now by about forty points coming into this weekend. Knock on wood, we kinda keep everybody healthy and kinda keep it progressing. The ladies might be lining themselves up to make a run at a championship title this year

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 20:45

Great. Now speaking of that, tell us about some of your elite performers there. The the ones that are you gonna be counting on to make this run at Sanford this season?

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 20:54

Yeah, I think it's kinda gonna be across all the event groups right now. I think we got a really outstanding group of freshman sprinter ladies and some older junior ladies in those sprints areas. Samoria Thomas she's absolutely killing it right now in the two hundred. I think she's second in the conference right now. She was leading for a little bit. She's now second in the two hundred. But she's a gamer. When it comes to championship time, man she'll show up. So she's second place right now. She's gonna do everything she can to make a run at, doing really well in the one and the two. Right behind her, we got a freshman lady, Shaniya Shirley that probably is the reason why Samoria is running as well as she is. I think maybe Samoria came in and,"I'm gonna be the big girl on campus," and then Shaniya showed up, and Shaniya's pushing on her, and she's"Oh, okay, I gotta do some work." We

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 21:40

It.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 21:40

those two that are, really kinda holding it down right now in the short sprints. Emma's coming along really well as a freshman. Probably on paper, she was the best short sprinter we had coming out of high school. She was eleven seven, twenty-four two kid. She dealt with a little bit of injury issue during indoor season, and we kinda took our time getting her back into it. But she's coming in her own, so if we add her into the mix we'll be deadly. Jada Irwin she's another freshman's been coming along really well. She's more of a two-four kid, so she pairs up really well with Kendal and Leah, who are our four hundred kids. So we got those kind of in the sprints world. Shenille in the hurdles, she's a really good, one hundred hurdle, four hundred hurdle kid from Jamaica that's doing a really good job for us. Should be a top two, top three kid in both of those events. Our... pretty much our entire women's throws program Erica, Lexi Emmy, Gabby, like that whole group is just tearing it up. They're doing a really good job. They're gonna be a big group that we're gonna be leaning into scoring some big points for us this year. Jump side, we got Jasmine Green Raelynn Octavia. Those three ladies are gonna be really big for us. Multis Kendal, Celia McCary, those are three stud ladies. They're gonna be really good for us. Distance side probably Katherine Katherine Hopkins, who actually her dad's an alum of Western.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 22:58

Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 22:58

be kinda holding down the fort for us, probably in the longer races. And then you got Peyton that's gonna be holding it down Steeplechase 5K maybe. I don't know. We'll have to figure out. Probably definitely steeplechase will be what she'll be doing. Ashlyn Watkins in the 800, 15. I think one of the things when I came in and really worked on trying to develop the team, it was, I wanna develop a program where we can score in every single event. So last year on the guys' side, when we were second place we were within 10 points indoors of beating Samford, and we scored in every single event. And so that was pretty exciting a good little feather to have in our cap as a staff. So that's what we've been trying to build. Hey, you may be... Samford will be really good in one area, but we're gonna be really good in the other area, and we'll just beat you there. And that's the motto of the team. You can try to take us out in this one area, we're gonna try to beat you in the other area. So I think those are some of the sides and some of the areas and ladies that we're, really excited about that are doing a pretty good job. We got Sadlyn Midler on the team in the high jump. She's also plays golf. So you guys were talking about

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 23:54

Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 23:55

She should be a pretty good high jumper for us. Morgan Edwards and Bella Hillary in the pole vault. So those two ladies are ranked pretty highly right now. We just got a lot of kids, and I think that's the difference for us this year on the women's side.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 24:07

I'm glad to hear that we're strong in the jumps because my pastor's daughter is a freshman at Chattanooga and she's leading the way with the Chattanooga High jumps. So I've got I'm gonna try and bet him, I'm not sure if he goes, if he gambles at all, but we have a good thing going on. And speaking of the crossover on, golf team, back before all these changes in college sports and it got so serious. We had a lot of crossover. We had a lot of two sport letter people. I understand you've got a couple of them this year. Not only the golfer, you've got somebody from football, anybody else?

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 24:43

Yeah, th-that's it right now. So we got Painter from football. He came down from Dartmouth North Carolina kid. And so he came down to play football and basically be in college athletics for another year. And part of the deal and kinda getting him to sign was for him to be able to do football in the fall and then come back and run track for us in the spring. It's really like you said, the timeframe now as we're talking with recruits, especially on the guy side, and, they'll ask about football and being able to do both sports, and I'm like,"It's a no-go now." Football once they kinda have their hands on their athletes, like they are their athletes, like they're football full-time. And I understand it and everything. So I think it's, now athletes are more"All right, I'm gonna be a football player," or,"I'm gonna be a track athlete," type deal, and they gotta make that decision. And we pretty quickly if somebody is like, want to,"Hey, is there a possibility I can go over here?""No. You're either gonna be all in on track or you're gonna be all in on football and stuff." You gotta do one or the other type deal. I really think that probably Painter and Sadler are probably, the last of a, hate to say it, a dying breed of a dual sport athletes at a Division I level, which is, sad on some levels but it's kinda also, where the NCAA is kinda moving to at this point.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 25:53

Coach you ever dreamed about having an indoor track and field facility in your maybe

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 25:57

Every day,

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 25:59

long dreams?

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 26:00

Yeah. Maybe at some point, whenever they decide they wanna tear down Camp Lab here, which I'll

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 26:05

Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 26:05

long retired and probably in the ground by the time that happens, is the running joke around here they can pop one out here on the back fields. Yeah, that would be great. I think we got pretty good weather where we can train outside most of the year. Probably about ninety-eight percent of the time we'll train outside.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 26:20

Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 26:20

I'm probably a little bit softer than what Danny was back in the day.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 26:24

Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 26:24

And we'll make some adjustments to training, but yeah, an indoor facility would be great. So if anybody out there is, got a, a few extra million dollars sitting around that they wanna spend somewhere we c- we can talk.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 26:34

There you go.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 26:35

we got some areas we could probably use that in.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 26:37

VMI turned their old basketball arena, which when they first came into Southern Conference, old Cameron Hall, they turned that into their indoor track facility. And very interesting. Even when we were playing basketball up there in the last few years, you could see Spike marks out there on the edge of the floor.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 26:52

Wow.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 26:53

the one I remember when I was at Asheville, going up there and competing at that old facility, and it would go behind the bleachers over there on

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 26:59

Yeah. Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 27:00

And I remember hearing old stories from Western when I was in grad school and an athlete here of relays would go in there in one order and then they'd come out in another order and all bloody and stuff like that because people would be throwing batons at each other

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 27:11

That's great.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 27:12

each other up back there. Definitely crazy times. Think about we,

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 27:15

Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 27:15

That facility to what VMI's got now and all those state-of-the-art facilities all over the place now. It's just crazy how far, just track and field and NCAA has come over the years.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 27:26

Okay.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 27:26

One last thing NILI don't imagine you've got much NIL money. Do you lose any of your players to other schools for with that are willing to pay your performers?

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 27:40

Yeah I don't think that's a big thing for us right now at this point. I know I talked with administration, like they, they think it's probably gonna be something that's gonna be coming down the road and become more of an issue down the road. But let's be real, like track's not a big sport that anybody's willing to really invest in unless you got those supporters so un-unless something like that kind of changes maybe we do. But, most of the NIL deals that our kids have got, it's, T-shirts where they put their name on it and sell it to their friends and family and stuff like that. There's nothing that's super crazy or anything like that. I don't... It's nothing that's really come across my, my my plate at this point. I think for me the biggest thing is just, they kinda ask about scholarship money. Everybody's kinda wanting, a little bit of more of that. And, I think we're in a, we're in a decent enough spot for that. And talk with administration, like if we had to prioritize, NIL or scholarship money, like to me it's go to a staff. Like we need another staff member. Like I think we can... Cost of school here and stuff like that, we can really... And I learned really well from Danny. I joke that I can... I feel like I can sell I've learned how to sell ice to an Eskimo as the saying goes. And I feel like I'm pretty passionate about Western, about track and trying to win a team championship. And so I think that comes through with a lot of kids and a lot of recruits. So I think we're able to sell that piece of it that maybe offsets that a little bit. But I think until nationally NIL becomes a bigger thing with track and field, like maybe it filters its way down here to Cullowhee, but right now that's not a high thing that's on my priority that I'm worried about losing athletes to

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 29:09

That's great.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 29:10

quite frankly with Western and everything, if they're choosing somewhere else because of NIL and not because of the environment or team or the culture or anything like that, probably really don't want that kid in the

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 29:20

There. There you go.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 29:21

be a kid that's

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 29:22

Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 29:23

be very selfish. We tell everybody here it's about the team first. If you're gonna be about me, myself, and I you're not gonna last very long with this coaching staff and this program. We just... we ain't got time for that with roster limits and only bringing twenty-five or twenty-eight to the championships. Ain't, there isn't a whole lot of room for, people that are just focused on themselves.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 29:41

Yep. Thanks for being with us today, coach Jesse Norman, Western Carolina's track and field coach. One other thing I wanna mention before we roll out of here there is a celebrity amongst the three of us, and it's not you or me, Jesse. White has, been accepted into the College Sports Communicators Hall of Fame. He's traveling to Las Vegas in early June to receive the award. And everybody that I know of that knows Steve is like, yeah, course. We're really proud of you, Steve. It's. Been a great tenure for you and we're looking for another 10, 15 years of you being around here and helping with the podcast and being on campus at Western, helping those guys and,

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 30:24

Yeah

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 30:24

making the name on the press box. Shine too.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 30:27

that, that might be a stretch there 10 or 15 more years and so forth. But I'm gonna try, that's, Hey, drinking that tuck of Seed River water. Maybe that's it. That's where it all starts.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 30:37

There you go.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 30:38

But Jesse, really?

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 30:39

that, Steven.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 30:40

Yeah.

squadcaster-512e_1_04-22-2026_133545 30:41

man I'll take up a little bit of room in your suitcase if you get in your room, man. You can just throw me in the suitcase.

squadcaster-29ee_1_04-22-2026_133546 30:46

I'll be willing to make an, if you wanna make an investment, I'll try to return you something. Maybe from Las Vegas. I'm, I can't guarantee any return on your investment.

bob-sabin_1_04-22-2026_133546 30:55

Yeah, it could be a loss as well. But that does it for this edition of Tracking the Cats. We're brought to you as always by Stanbury Insurance offices in Silva, Waynesville, Clyde and Highlands. Again, coach Jesse Norman, thanks for being with us and we'll see you all again in two weeks on tracking the Cats.