MAHPERD "Voices From The field"
In this podcast, you will hear from educators and professionals in the field sharing their insights and experiences in the HPE (Health Physical Education) and allied fields. I hope you find this podcast informative, and inspiring. Learn about best practices and tools that you can implement in your teaching practice. We want to know not only what you do, but also the action steps you took to get you where you are. The Status Quo is not in our vocabulary folks, my guests are leaders in the field who are taking action to make an impact in their respective fields. If you have any questions or would like to be a guest on the show email mahperdpodcast@gmail.com
"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got" Henry Ford
MAHPERD "Voices From The field"
Equipment That Works, Support That Lasts GOPHER SPORT 100% Satisfaction Guarantee
We sit down with Gopher Sport’s assistant marketing manager, Michael Ewen, to dive into the systems that help teachers deliver better lessons with less stress: a true satisfaction guarantee, teacher-designed equipment, and a ton of free professional development opportunities that are practical.
Michael traces his path from videographer to brand lead, showing how listening to educators turned feedback into product upgrades and new and unique designs. We talk through the 100% satisfaction guarantee with a real story of hassle-free replacements and how that promise doubles as research, guiding durable materials and smarter builds. You’ll also hear why Now Nets are a favorite for fast setup, more touches, and scalable stations that fit tight schedules and crowded gyms.
The learning support is extensive. We highlight the weekly blog with classroom voices, a webinar library of 120+ PE-specific sessions with certificates, and PE Universe’s curated video platform where standards-based lessons come to life. Then we break down the Master PE Teacher course with Dr. Robert Pangrazi: 18 modules on lesson structure, behavior management, and routines, filmed with professional quality and backed by Dynamic PE ASAP classroom footage. It’s the kind of training that shows the “how,” not just the “what,” so you can apply it tomorrow.
Ready to plug in? Subscribe to the newsletter for new resources, contribute to the blog, or pitch a webinar and share your best ideas with peers nationwide. And if you want to collaborate or have questions about gear, innovation, or PD, reach out to Michael.
Contact:
michaelewen@gophersport.com
Resources
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If you picked up a new idea or felt inspired by today’s episode, I’d love to hear from you and if your interested in being a potential guest on the show; email mahperdpodcast@gmail.com
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Check out our advocacy video about quality health & physical education
Hello and welcome to Voices from the Field, a MAHPERD podcast where we talk with educators in the field to hear about their perspectives and experiences. The goal of this podcast is to share the voices of leaders in the field of health and physical education. My name is Jake Bersin, advocacy chair for MAHPERD, and today I have the pleasure of speaking with Michael Ewen. Michael Ewen is the assistant marketing manager at Gopher Sport, where he spent the past 11 years creating and promoting educational resources for the Phys Ed community. He oversees initiatives like Gopher's webinars, blog, and educational tools, including Dynamic PE ASAP, the curriculum mapping tool, the PE Calculator, the Master PE Teacher course in PE Universe, just to name a few. He's a recent recipient of a 2025 Minnesota Shape Health and Fitness Advocacy Award. And outside of work, he enjoys coaching tennis and playing sports with his three young kids. Welcome to the show, Michael.
Michael:Thanks for having me, Jake. Looking forward to a good conversation.
Jake:Definitely. Thank you so much. It's so great to be in this space with you. So before uh getting started, what's making you smile these days?
Michael:Uh good question. I like it. Just starting off, uh starting off with a with a tough one. Uh no, I'll be honest. What makes me smile is I've got three three kids under six. Uh, and as as stressful as it is, like there's nothing better than having uh young kids that that just bring so much joy. And ., they they see the world in a completely different lens uh than you do, and it just kind of reminds you of the the important things in life. So I just I really get a lot of joy uh . playing in the backyard with them and and doing sports. My my oldest is six now, so I'm starting to coach them in sports, and um that's just been a lot of fun seeing seeing uh the world through their lens, and um it kind of . makes you feel young again at times.
Jake:Definitely, definitely So Michael, give us a beef uh background on your role at Gopher and how you got into marketing for physical education.
Michael:Yeah, yeah. So I started at Gopher Sport probably, ., about 11 years ago is what my bio said uh in 2014. And I started as the the videographer. So if you go on Gopher Sports website, you'll see if you visit one of our uh . product pages, you'll see a video attached to it. And those are the videos that I put together. So we uh started, we I think we did like 100 in our first year, and then we were doing three, four hundred a year. We were just kind of cranking them out left and right. Um and ., I kind of was ready for a new challenge, ready for something different. So then I transitioned over to the marketing side where I started doing more of the free resources. So providing educational materials for teachers, uh, doing the blog. And we uh shortly after we added the dynamic PE ASAP uh free curriculum that's out there. So I've been doing a lot more work with that uh over the last ., six, seven years. Uh, and then more recently, I kind of transitioned into our role of assistant marketing manager where I more oversee our brand efforts now, uh, our marketing, our email, social media, uh that sort of thing. And then I also do some stuff with partnerships and uh all of all of that great stuff. So uh it's been a long journey, but gopher has really been an opportunity uh to grow and . develop in my career. And my uh both my parents are, or I should say, formerly were PE teachers. Oh really? So I grew up and we had the gopher catalog uh in our, ., I in the kitchen, and ., like for birthdays, I'd be flipping through the gopher catalog, being like, oh, I really want, ., some juggling scarfs, or I want, ., this basketball. So I was very familiar with the gopher brand growing up. Uh so then it was just kind of a perfect fit, ., just there's an opportunity to be a videographer, and I was like, I know gopher, and it's been it's been a great match ever since.
Jake:That's so cool. You grew up with gopher, and um, ., now did you ever think that you would be working here when you were looking through the magazine?
Michael:It's so funny because uh I didn't even know that gopher was from Minnesota. I mean, I was just a kid with the gopher catalog, and like I love flipping through it, and then it wasn't until I started looking for jobs and I was like, ., gopher in in Owatana, Minnesota? I know gopher. So, ., I applied for it and it just it worked out perfectly. But uh yeah, no, I've it's really a great company to work for. They they care a lot about their employees and they care a lot about teachers too. So I think it'd be really hard uh with just in my background as ., parents as teachers, if it was a if I worked for a company who didn't care so deeply about the teaching profession, um it, ., it would be a tough company to work for. But I'm I'm so lucky that uh they care about the profession, they care about teachers, and they really want what's best for kids.
Jake:That sounds good. And that leads me to my next question is what sets Gopher apart from others in the P space? And it sounds like you talked about a couple of things. They're fairly they're really teacher-oriented, they care about the profession. But what else, might set gopher apart from some other folks?
Michael:Yeah, I mean, we as I mentioned, we care about teachers, we care about the profession. We want to make sure that we deliver high quality equipment. So uh we've got, I'm sure many teachers have used this before, but we have uh a guarantee. It's called our 100% satisfaction guarantee. Uh and it basically means like at any time, if you aren't happy or if you aren't satisfied with your purchase from Gopher, give us a call and we'll replace it. So that's that's unlike any other equipment supplier in that we really stand behind the products that we offer. Uh as I mentioned, like we have to have high quality equipment, or like teachers are gonna have a poor experience with gopher. So we use we use the comments and the feedback that we get from teachers who, ., if they happen to have to return something if something didn't last uh the way, ., as long as they were expecting it to last. You know, we take that feedback and we improve our products based off of that. So it's really allowed us to uh provide better quality equipment. And then, ., we have that guarantee to kind of back it up. We say if you don't, if you weren't happy with what you bought, let us know. We'll replace it for you.
Jake:So you're really listening to the customers and seeing what they have to say. And ., I'm sure everybody's different too in what what their expectations might be with equipment. You know, some people get stuff and it lasts for years, and other people get stuff and it might last for a couple months. So, but that's really good, that that guarantee.
Michael:So for sure. It's it's all it's all based off of, I mean, it's so subjective, right? Like you mentioned that some teachers might expect their dodgeballs to last, ., 10 years, others might expect them to only last three years. But either way, the guarantee is basically saying, like, it's based off of your satisfaction. We want you to be happy with ordering from Gopher, and we want you to continue to come back because . you're blown away by the quality of the equipment, the customer service. If you happen to use our guarantee, like, ., we just want you to be satisfied and we want you to continue to order from us.
Jake:Definitely. And the word of mouth goes a long way, right? Positive experiences. So gopher does a lot more than just equipment, right? What other stuff or products or services does Gopher offer beside beyond just equipment? I know you have the blogs, right? You mentioned that. You have the P Universe. You have what are some other things? There's a master teacher course, right, with Dr. Pingrazy. Yeah, talk a little bit about that.
Michael:Yeah, there's um there's quite a few resources, and um I might overwhelm you by just listing some of this stuff off, but I think I you you mentioned you're gonna include some of the links in the show notes. Yes. Uh so that'd be a good place to look. But all of these are completely free resources for teachers. We've got um our blog that we're posting weekly to, uh, and that features like voices from physical education teachers. So it's not, ., it's not gopher writing to try and promote our product. Like we're we're out there working with teachers and they'll put together a blog about a new unit that they put together or ., a new idea or new strategies on how to manage students. So that's uh that resource is at blog.gophersport.com. We've also got a a great webinar uh website, and that's at pd.gophersport.com. So a lot of teachers need to get continued education credit to renew their teaching license. So this is a great resource for them, and they can go on there. There's over, I think, 120 different physical education specific webinars. Wow. Um, so they can go on there, they can watch the webinar, answer a few reflection questions, and then download a certificate that they can submit to their, ., their school district or their principal to receive those continue net credits. Uh another one is PE Universe. That's that one's been around for a while. I'm not sure if you're familiar with PE Universe, but that's yeah.
Jake:They have great videos, great videos in there. In fact, I just renewed um last week. I went on it years ago and I just renewed it to trying to get some more ideas um for elementary. So yeah, it's great, it's a great site. So so go ahead. You were gonna say that people upload their videos, right?
Michael:Yeah, yeah. Basically, that's a site that's that's driven by PE teachers. Uh, it's ., it's just essentially a platform where you're gonna specifically get videos for PE. So you go on YouTube, there's there are some great content creators on YouTube or ., on Blue Sky or Twitter, but you're also gonna get a lot of like extra stuff. PE universe is solely meant for PE teachers. So you go on there and you search for, ., maybe you're you have a soccer unit coming up in elementary, you can just type in soccer, you're gonna get hundreds of videos of . activity ideas from other PE teachers.
unknown:Right.
Jake:And it's there's a lot of variety, right? I think there's locomotive skills, there's soccer, there's skill building, there's gymnastics. So it's not just one-dimensional, there's many different top, many different grade levels, right? Grades k-12, and there's many different units and and topics available, which is great.
Michael:So yeah, and it's all completely free. Uh, there's no we're not charging anybody for it. Like it's just it's our way of giving back to the profession and and trying to elevate the profession by giving you guys . you new, unique ideas that um . that can help improve the experience for for you in your school and then also for your students.
Jake:That's great. And you just need a password, right, to get on, right? So username and password, okay.
Michael:Username, password, yep, and that's it.
Jake:Perfect. So let's talk a little bit about the products. Michael, what's one product or piece of equipment you think more teachers should know about?
Michael:Oh so I mentioned, I think you mentioned in the bio that I'm a tennis player. So uh and like when it comes to like racket skills, paddles, like that's that's totally my area. My my favorite uh product, and I get a lot of like ., a lot of people at Gopher know that I love this product. Uh so I get a lot of like crap back and forth, ., about my love for for now nets, gopher now nets. Have you heard of our our now nets?
Jake:I've heard of it, but I haven't tell me a little bit more about it. Like, what's it is it a quick setup or what's it what's it do?
Michael:Yeah, so so our now nets, so basically it's a it's a net that that fits between two cones. Uh and instead of, ., back in the back in the days before now nets, you pull out your pickleball net, you'd have to, ., maybe spend a few minutes setting up a pickleball net. If you had multiple ones of those, well, that time adds up, ., 10-15 minutes just setting up pickleball nets, or maybe they're band bit nets. Uh now nets, they fit between two cones. You can set up. We were just I actually did a video shoot this afternoon. I kind of took my old video camera out again, and we just did a video shoot this morning, and we had uh 12 different nets set up in a gym. So if you think about it, 12 different nets, four kids per net. That's what 48, 48 kids playing at one time. So it really like condenses the playing area. Uh so ., kids have to make sure that the ball is under control. Uh, ., then they can have longer rallies, see more, see better success that way. Uh, but it's it's really a way to get all your kids moving at once. Very minimal setup, two cones and a net. Uh, and then as I mentioned, you can set up 12 nets in your gym.
Jake:So you got me thinking, how which is great because the more contacts they have on the ball, the more successful they're gonna be. How how long do they expand to? Is there like a what is it, four feet, six feet? Do they come in different sizes?
Michael:Or yeah, I want to say, ooh, let me look that up. Maybe six feet.
Jake:Okay.
Michael:Uh, they do come in different sizes. So we do have like our standard now nets, and then we have an adjustable now net, which basically will adjust to the size of a volleyball port.
Jake:Oh, oh wow.
Michael:So you could use it as a volleyball net if you wanted to. But I mean, mainly for elementary PE, like ., we've had people play volleyball over it, we've done nitro ball, we've done handball where the ball the kids hit the ball underneath the net. But it's really just a barrier. Uh a net is just a barrier between two kids. So yeah, I mean, maybe it's not going to be as high as a volleyball net, but it still serves the same purpose by having that net between. So you could do like you could do um pickleball, you could do tennis, you could do volleyball, you could do badminton, you could do, like I mentioned, floorball, doing it underneath the net. We worked with a PE teacher who's doing different movements with their kids. So like they had to jump over the net or crawl under the net or go around the net, or ., yeah, different pathways, that sort of thing. So definitely moving. There's just so many, yeah, the movement concepts. So there's just so many different things. Like, it just it gets me jazzed because um like it's a very affordable product, too. I think it's maybe ten dollars a net, something like that.
Speaker:Wow.
Michael:Uh, it works really well, it's easy to set up. It's something that like you can set up 12 nets in a couple minutes. So I love that. That's why I love it.
Jake:Yeah, I love that idea too. I mean, I have a pickable net, which is great, but it takes seven to eight minutes just to put together, and it's it's big and kind of cumbersome. So I love this idea of the now nets. So, Michael, let's move on. What's an example or a story you can share about gopher's guarantee or customer service that made a difference to either a school or a teacher? Can you share any examples?
Michael:Yeah, well, I'll be honest. Like, I so I actually had had an experience with our guarantee, and it's it's not like because I'm an employer, they're like, oh, we're gonna give him special treatment. Like I just went through the same normal process that any other teacher would experience. But uh I ordered up some, like I mentioned, I'm a tennis coach. I ordered up some numbered cones, they're plastic numbered cones, and I was gonna use them for targets, kids to aim at them, and then they are gonna get points if they hit a target. And then one of the cones, the the base, like the base kind of like separated from the like you have your triangle cone, and then it's separated from the base.
Jake:Okay.
Michael:So I just called our customer care team, I was like, hey, I ordered up these cones, had them for ., maybe a couple weeks. I used them a couple times, and there was one cone that started to separate. And they were like, Well, like, no, no problem, we'll send you out 10 brand new cones. So there's one, there's one cone that separated, and they sent me 10 brand new cones.
unknown:Wow.
Michael:So now I've got now I've got, I ended up, I ordered two sets before. So now I have 30 cones, and then ., one was broken. But it's just it goes to the um back to the point that like they want you to have like gopher wants you to have a good experience with your order, and we want you to we want you to be satisfied. We don't want you to order something and then like leave saying, Oh, like Gopher really kind of ripped me off with this one, or man, I ordered that product and it was so cheap. Like that's that's what you're gonna get from Amazon, or that's what you're gonna get when you order from the dollar store or five below. Like, we don't want you to have that experience. If you're not happy with Gopher, give us a call. Like, we'll we'll make it right, we'll we'll figure out how to make it right because we want you to be happy. You know, a lot of PE teachers order, ., tend to order yearly, and ., they come back year after year. We want you to be happy. We don't want you to have a poor experience with us. We want you to, ., keep on coming back and continue getting some great high-quality equipment.
Jake:That's a great story. It really sheds light on . how important that is, the quality. So thank you for sharing that. So, how does Google just on top of that too, Jake?
Michael:Sorry, I don't I don't didn't mean to cut you off. No, no, go for it. Um, kids are tough on equipment too, right? Like these are these are kids using product every single day, and ., they're they're beating it up at times, right? They're they're playing really rough or physical with the equipment. And as as many times as we say, like, hey, try to take care of the equipment, ., it's something that we want to . keep year after year, they're still gonna like ., try to pick the holes in the dodgeballs, or they're gonna like, ., they see one thing that's . going on with the product, they're gonna try to rip it open as much as they can just because that's what kids do, right? So uh we know that. And like we we try and develop our products to uh withstand the use and abuse that students put on equipment. Now, ., it's not we're not always able to do that, right? Like if someone's trying to destroy a product, they're gonna be able to destroy a product, right? But we try to make our product as high quality as possible so it does last a little bit longer.
Jake:You know your audience, ., . what the kids they're acting their age, what they might do, ., like you said, they'll they're putting their fingers in the holes of the gator skin balls and it just gets bigger and bigger, ..
Speaker:Right.
Michael:But um well, and that I mean, like PE is our like it's our bread and butter. We everything we do is for the PE teacher. So all the equipment that we're designing, it's specifically for physical education. You're not gonna find that anywhere else. Someone who's who's only thinking about the PE teacher and every one of their decisions that . that we make throughout the day.
Jake:Right, good, good point. So you mentioned design. Let's talk a little bit about innovation. How does Gopher approach innovation when it comes to creating new PE equipment?
Michael:Yeah, yeah. So that's um kind of another example of us developing products specifically for physical education. We've got a product development team here. they've got the best job in the world. Their sole job is to come up with new equipment for physical education. So we do work with a lot of PE teachers who might submit a product idea. Um, and there's like a process that we would work with them. We'd include them in the process, and then ., in the end, they get some sort of royalty or something uh, ., after a product is launched. But we also have . CAD designers on staff, and we've got . product developers who are working and trying to find the best relationships for manufacturers who are gonna create this product. So it's it's really it's really fun, first off. Like we have brainstorm meetings and we're like, how are we gonna solve this issue? Or what's a new team game that that's gonna get uh . teachers and students really excited? We just developed this one of these uh a brand new product called Target Tip. Uh and it's a one of our new team games. And it's uh do you remember those like inflatable punching bags that like you punch back, they go back at you, you punch it, comes back?
Jake:Yeah, yeah.
Michael:You'd punch it and it kind of come back at you. Yeah. So we we took that concept and we made a team game out of it. So you can the idea is like, ., instead of targeting other kids in dodgeball, you would target this punching bag type of thing called the target tip. So as kids throw balls at this target, the target actually falls down and it stays down. So there are three red, three blue targets, and kids are throwing the balls at the targets, and your goal is to get all three targets to fall down, be the first team to get all three targets down. So it's that type of thing where it's like, what are some different materials that we can create products out of? Or what's a unique game that we haven't seen before that that can really energize students and kind of get them excited about what they're doing in PE. And of course, like all of our games are, ., we call them um our action team games. So I'm not gonna be able to share the acronym. If you look in the catalog, you'll be able to see what Action stands for. But essentially they're all . aligned with the national standards and they, ., they they follow that and they . bring active activity to PE. And I'm trying to remember what action is. No, that's okay. We'll we'll we'll we'll look it up.
Jake:We'll look it up and we'll link it. We'll link everything in the show notes so people won't miss anything. So in addition to the um all of GoFirst educational resources, what are some of the most popular ones you would say are right now? What are people really going to?
Michael:Yeah, I would say probably the our most popular resource right now is our master of PE teacher course. So we worked with with Dr. Robert Pangrazi, who um, ., is a legend in the the physical education world. He's ., some some call him the the godfather of PE, but ., he's he's been in the profession for I want to say like 50, 59 years, almost 60 years, wow, uh advocating for PE. So he's uh we met with him a couple of years ago and we're like, ., Bob, I'm just gonna call him Bob from here on out. Uh Bob, like you've done so much for the profession. You've got a lot of, ., just wisdom and knowledge and historical like reference of how physical education has grown over the years. And we wanted to like encapsulate that in a professional development course. So we worked with him, he put together 18 different modules of what he believes physical education is and how he believes . teachers should manage students and discipline students and how they should lesson plan. So it was kind of like ., almost like your physical education 101 course, but ., we've got a lot of feedback from even experienced teachers who have said this has just been such a great reminder, and I've picked up different nuggets along the way. Um, so there is a cost to the course, it's I think it's like 50 bucks or something, pretty minimal, but we didn't want like our goal was to get people to attend the webinar, to watch the webinar. And a lot of times, if you just give . something for free, they might not feel ., people might not feel invested in it. You might not feel like, oh, ., I'm gonna take this full course. So there's a slight fee, but like, ., we just we want people to take the course. We want people to feel like uh they're learning from it and . they're getting a lot out of it. So uh you can find that course at at PD.goversport.com.
Jake:Okay.
Michael:Um, and once again, it's kind of like a highlight of Dr. Pangrazi's teachings and um a course on . how to be a great PE teacher.
Jake:You know, that's a really reasonable price. Plus, you're getting, like you mentioned, nuggets and insight from a master teacher who's been in the field. I remember going to a PD, gosh, it's probably been 20 years. I forget where it was, but it was a while ago, and I remember him shaking his tambourine and talking about behavior management. And uh, I still use a tambourine to this day. Some yeah, sometimes people come in and like, what's the tambourine for? But there's so many different uses for it, for ., for music, for dance, for starting and stopping. So, but I got that from him, and um so I'm glad to see that he's sharing his insight uh in this forum where where people can watch and in and see it in action. So that's really cool. And I and again, the price is minimal. I mean, it's 50 bucks. That's ., a few coffee, a few coffees and a couple meals, .? So yeah, for sure, for sure.
Michael:And we actually have videos of um so the uh Dr. Fangrazi runs the dynamic PE ASAP curriculum, uh, which kind of is follows the dynamic physical education textbook that a lot of teachers use in college. Um, and we actually followed teachers and we videotaped teachers using the lesson plans from dynamic PE ASAP. So that's included in the master PE, but there are teachers in there with their tambourines, they're using their tambourines. They're uh I think the TomTom, the drum, is the other one that uh was popular in the Mesa School District. But it just there's some real, like real-world examples of teachers, ., managing students and ., performing some of these lessons. So though those resources are all available for free on the dynamicpeasap.com website. Um I like that would be another resource that I would encourage teachers to check out because how often do you get to observe other teachers teaching students?
Jake:Not too yeah, not too often. I mean, unless you get time off or you get subs to come in, but that's a whole nother set of challenges to be able to do that. But no, this you can do this in the comfort of your own home and and watch and observe and take notes and reflect. And so that's great. So you kind of answered the next question, which was ., tell us about the master P teacher online course and what makes it different from other PDs. But you kind of you kind of answered that. Do you want to expand on anything else about that?
Michael:Or yeah, I think just what makes a difference or what makes it different is um there's a lot of like planning that went into this course. Uh it's not it, it's not your typical webinar. Uh it was professionally recorded. Dr. Pangrazi spent, oh my gosh, like six months probably writing for this course. Uh, I would, I would, ., compare it more to like a ., a TV show type of thing than a webinar. Um, because yeah, it was it was shot professionally. We had we had lights, editing music. Uh it's very well done. It's very um condensed in that there's not a lot of rambling.
Speaker:It's like Dr.
Michael:Pangrazi gets the point. Uh and ., there's just a lot of nuggets that you'll that you'll take away from that. So uh you can, yeah, as I mentioned, you can learn more about that at pd.gophersport.com. Um, and it's called Master PE Teacher.
Jake:I love it. Yeah, we'll definitely make sure to link that. Michael, what's one thing about gopher you wish more teachers knew about?
Michael:I would and I've kind of covered, I feel like I've covered this a lot, talked a lot about gopher. Um I would say the the one thing that I wish more teachers knew about it it would have to be the guarantee. Like that's the best kept secret in physical education. One to say one of them. When it comes to equipment, there's a lot of great secrets when it comes to PE, but when it comes to equipment, uh I'm just yeah, I'm still blown away when I talk to the people and they haven't heard of the the gopher um satisfaction guarantee. Uh, because it's something that ., if you buy from Amazon, if you buy from Dollar Store or Walmart or, ., get your equipment somewhere else, they may have a warranty. They may, or ., they may have a 30-day or they may have a year-long warranty or something. Uh ours is ours is different. It's uh it's not a warranty, but it's a guarantee. We're guaranteeing that you are gonna be satisfied with your equipment. Uh and when it comes to PE and when it comes to kids abusing equipment, knowing that you . you bought your equipment from Gopher, you're always gonna be happy with what you got, no matter what. Uh we're gonna make sure of it.
Jake:I like what you said. It's it's not a warranty, it's a guarantee. There's two different things, right? Exactly. Yeah, that guarantee is really the key word there. So that's great. Yep.
Michael:So and it's not it's not something that we hide behind either. I mean, if you if you get our gopher catalog and you pull the catalog out, you'll see the 100% satisfaction guarantee on the bottom of the cat on the bottom of the cover of the catalog. So some people will have . their their warranty like language, and you'll read the fine print, and it's like, oh, not for institutional use, only for customers, or it's only a 30-day warranty. Like, no, we don't, that's not how we do business. You know, we we're loud and proud about our guarantee. And as I mentioned, it's twofold. Like, it's great for teachers, and it's also great for us because we get feedback on the product that we're sending out. Uh, and it helps us improve our product to make sure that other teachers have a better experience uh with that equipment that we were able to improve based off of feedback.
Jake:That's great. That's great, great cycle there. Great, great, great news about that. So, Michael, how can teachers get involved? Um, whether it's maybe contributing to a blog, presenting a webinar, um sharing new product of the year. What are some ways that . teachers like myself or other people can get involved in with Gopher or just . interacting?
Michael:For sure. Um well there's there's a few things. So we uh Gopher has a newsletter that we send out weekly. Uh that newsletter includes information about um . new blogs or new articles or new webinars uh new product that we're releasing different resources that are free and available for teachers. So the newsletter is one great thing if you just go to our website and scroll down to the bottom there's a way to subscribe to our newsletter. If you're interested in contributing to our blog you can visit our blog blog dot goforsport.com and then there's a in the top like navigation there is a contributors section click on that contributors and you can see all of the contributors there and then there's also an application that you can just it's a very easy like just tell us about your experience and then you can fill out that application and then that'll go to me and then we'll be in touch about . some resources that you could you could help with.
Jake:Well it's funny you mentioned that because that's kind of how we met I I I filled out that application I wrote a I think it was a blog on cricket. This is what a couple years ago and that's how . we we've been going back and forth and so I figured um let's connect some more so yeah it's a great I went on the other folks other people's blogs and they're great I mean they really cover the gamut from um special Olympics to different units to dance it's really a wide variety of different folks experts in the field sharing their knowledge so so that's great. So that's it's easy to do. So I encourage folks who are listening to go on the blog and . submit something. So um what else what else besides the blog? Anything else?
Michael:Um yeah we we do have our our webinar series so Dr. Aaron Beatley is kind of leading our our charge when it comes to webinars he's a professor at the University of Kentucky uh and has has been an advocate for for physical education for his entire career as well and he's the co-author of the dynamic physical education textbook. He's kind of the one who's um leading the way with our webinars so we're always looking for new webinar guests if you're interested you can fill out one of those the contributor application uh and we can kind of get you in touch with Dr. Beighle but we're always looking for new guests that are uh . energetic passionate enthusiastic about PE who have some insights to share with the community that's awesome and is that on the same page as the the blog or is it a different page? Yep you can just go to the blog and then fill it out as a contributor but perfect uh we we see ourselves like we don't we don't like to create our own content we like to work with PE teachers we see ourselves as a um a megaphone of sorts like how can we help blast out great ideas that PE teachers have come up with to help and enhance the PE community . you can go on social media and Twitter and we encourage you to do that and share all your ideas on there but we also have . a newsletter that we can blast out to every PE teacher in the country. So we're just we're helping to to help and trying to think of ways to help spread the good news about PE and share resources and . help help elevate the profession.
Jake:That's really cool. And I want to say something going back to like the P.E universe because I think that's such a great resource as well because as you mentioned you go to some social media and you'll get a 30 second clip. But these videos or some of them are four or five seven minutes long explaining what the game is how to play and the games are standard based
Jake:which sometimes things it's getting missed in the social media the standards part of it so sure so it's really a great resource and you get to see what other people have contributed and there's great stuff out there. So I encourage folks to go on that so and I like what you said about the what do you say megaphone? You're kind of amplifying other people's right voices so that's awesome way to advocate so Michael how can our listeners connect with you is email are you on what's the best way to reach out sure yeah if you guys want to email me my um it's gonna be my first name last name at gophersport.com so it's michaelywin at gophersport.com there's no s at the end of of sports um so it's gophersport.com feel free yeah feel free to email me happy to um connect with you guys if you have any any questions about gopher or questions about physical education or our resources happy to answer questions that's awesome Michael thank you so much for sharing your experience and expertise with us it's really been great chatting connecting with you well jake before before we leave I want to know what puts a smile on your face that's a that's a uh . I'm glad you asked that um . I really love I love PE I love the profession I'm uh I'm at a couple different schools I love learning . I you would never stop learning I think it's important to to be open minded and . learn from um colleagues learn from the students and it's really about um . improving I I have a strong believer in in reflection so what puts a smile on my face is just learning something new every day. I'm always trying to better myself so I can be better for the students. So and of course I have a family I have two kids they they put a smile on my face to keep me busy . so um that's that's really what puts a smile on my face. So just learning new things um when it comes to physical education and health so but yeah thank you for asking that you're you're the first person to ask me that so I felt like I had to ask a question. Yeah yeah any other questions let me know but um . it's really been great connecting um I I hope I'm sure the listeners are getting some a lot of insight about what we talked about and . I'm I'm confident that folks will reach out and really check out gopher the website the webinars the blog there's really a lot of great resources out there. So once again I I thank you so much Michael.
Michael:Yep thanks Jake for having me
Jake:Absolutely, so listeners we'll have this episode uploaded soon also please rate and share if this podcast has been helpful in supporting you in any way as it does help other folks find it thank you all for listening. Have a great week and we will be back soon..
