Transcript
Joining us on coach's corner on KWBG, get a chance to wrap up the boom boys track season. Tony Costantino joining us, Torridors, did what they wanted to do, and that's you always want to end your season down in Des Moines on the Blue Oval. And coach, you're able to get down to Des Moines once again. I know we always want more relays. We want more individuals to make it down there. But I thought overall, or I guess I'll ask you, overall, were you pretty pleased with how things wrapped up? Yeah, I would say so. I mean, the weather was nice, and we had a lot of PRs at the State Qualifying Team, and I know you've talked to Bill and Chad, but we had a really young team. And for the end of the season, they really got better. And kids are already talking about, what do I got to do this year to improve my 100s 200 times? What do I got to do this summer? Are we doing an open track? And kids are just talking now, because the Rat Toon Mirror Conference, Ryan, you know, is one of the many states where they talk about this every year. And they're seeing North Polk and McGilbert and the Binder Ants, and they're like, wow, those kids are really good athletes. What do I got to do to do that work? So we're already kind of planning out, OK, what do we got to do this summer? What do you got to do this summer? Touch base with me. Do you need me to prescribe you a workout or a workout? Do I need to give you a weekly plan? So kids are already excited. I look at our 4x2 and our 4x1 towards the end of the season without running any of our seniors in there. They got down to 45. That's a big deal for a bunch of sophomores and freshmen that have only been together for three months to finally get a figure out in that chemistry, because that matters with those botanic seniors. So at the end of the day, I'm really pleased about where we finished. And I'm excited to see where we go in the future. I think the neat thing, too, and you just mentioned it with the youth and an experience and finding spots for those kids and what they were able to do by the end of the season, I know we had some great seniors, and we'll talk about them here in just a few. But I guess, Tony, for me, I look at the future of 2027 and what's coming back for track. That's exciting to me. I mean, Tony, the chances to relays and individuals and field events as well, I mean, there are all chances to have that all look really good in just a year. Yeah, and it was funny because Coach Wharton brought this up the other day about maybe we need to adjust our schedule and push our kids a little bit more. Maybe we need to adjust into those Northwest walkie meets. Good job to meet some of those kids who are in school. So that way we can get some really good competition. Because our schedule seems over there. We used to go down to walkie meets and all those meetings. We kind of got out of them and kind of revisiting them with that, like, hey, maybe we can adjust our schedule a little bit, because now that we have, like, Gabe qualified for suit as a freshman, up in 21, two and a half, I mean, maybe he needs to go to a meet where there's a lot of kids that are jumpin' 22, thinkin' he needs a competition or get a feel for it, because I know he was super nervous down at state. And rightfully so, he's been a freshman. And we just worked super excited because those kids did really well. And, I mean, 2027's looking great, because Kate Inspector comes back as a senior, and then he's thrown shot into the summer. I think you might throw a little hammer, which you're like, hammer, and they don't throw hammer. It's a new U.S. APF stuff. Yeah, a lot of the kids have messaged me saying, hey, thanks for a great season. Let's get after it next year. I'm like, let's do it. Well, they're not gonna have to message too long to get Tony excited about track. I know this much, so. Senior class, though, as I just mentioned, Tony, another great group that's going through. Tell me about this senior class. What do you think you'll remember about them in five or 10 years down the road? I just, you know, you think about, and I know it didn't end the way that Chief Baumgartner wanted it to, but he's done so much for our program. I mean, he looked at it when he first started. He was actually doing, he'd be my, my shuttle hurdle guy. He'd be a fill-in. He didn't do this the last two years, but he would come over after throwing, and he'd jump in and do some shuttle for us. And you're like, man, he's a big kid. He's a big kid, and he can move really fast. And he's gonna play football at Buena Vista, so we're excited for him. I'm not sure if he's gonna be a quarterback, but he's gonna do something there, and he'll make definitely an impact. And Blade, you know, I mean, everybody knows Blade around Boone. I'm gonna miss him. He's gonna throw at the Cora, but he did a lot of, I spent a lot of time with him, even outside of the track season, going to, you know, the Boone running club needs to watch and throw, or USATF stated aims. Gonna miss him. And then you think about Dorian and what he did for our distance last year when Louise took around the hurdles, which is to get that little stress fracture, but he's cleared to run a 200, and Dorian closed in and getting a second place and guaranteeing a spot for those guys, and they were so static. And you just, I have a picture of them holding Dorian up on their shoulders. Those are the things you think about. And then AJ Braddock, you know, the kid, the kid is a hard worker. I mean, you see him wrestling. He's a qualifying wrestler, and wrestlers are great 800 milers. It does their endurance. I'm gonna miss his leadership. I mean, he was a kid that, it's kid for like, I don't feel like doing it. AJ would be like, you gotta put in the work, even if you don't wanna do it, because that's when it matters. Because if you put in the work now, when you don't feel like doing it, it's gonna help you when you actually have to do the work. And besides the effort and the PRs that AJ did for us, it was the leadership, right? The things that you don't see, the intangibles. And the kid just was too, like, mentally focused all the time. And I know Don Lester, retired coach Lester, but he would say the same thing about AJ. He and AJ are pretty close too. So, and you just, you go through all those kids and you look back and you go, I remember when they were in eighth grade, or I remember when they were freshmen, and you just, they were part of the track family. And I'm gonna miss them, and I'm gonna miss their leadership. But what's exciting is they sometimes come back and they go, hey, track was awesome. Besides going to state or all the PRs, it was the fact I was part of something that was big to me, and I appreciate that. And I liked that those guys make the best guest teachers too, because they come back and talk to the kids. And then, like, Jaden Clark, you know, Jaden, the last time I saw Jaden was in eighth grade. He did our, the end of the year, middle school pentathlon. And then he never came out for track. And then he came out of senior year, and now he's gonna run track in the southeastern community college, right? And Jaden, he was, several times in a year, I put him in six events, because he could do everything you asked him to do. And then Chad's like, hey, you know you haven't six events, and I'm like, oh gosh. And I have to use the control and fine teacher to see where I had him, because he could long jump, he could high jump, he could hurl, he could do long sprint, he could do short sprint. He's just a kid that, he was the jack of all trades, jack of all trades, a master of nothing, right? Cause he could just do it off. Mr. Dodie always says that here at school. Jack of all trades, master, nothing. I'm gonna miss him because he was a kid that he was just so versatile, he could put him in anything if he needed him. And that was that senior class. And we're gonna we thank them for their efforts and their time and their commitment. And we always say, you're part of the track family, come back and visit us. Well, and I think something else, and Tony and I were just kind of visiting some, about some things off air. And Tony was talking about, let's look back 10 years in the past. And heck, I'm just gonna look back at what these seniors, where they came, where the program was, and where it is now. Tony, what do they always say? Leave it in a better place than what you found it. I absolutely believe this senior class did that. Yeah, and I admit over the years, we haven't had the four by, we haven't had a four by eight hundred. And these guys have really changed that race. I mean, I even have like Maddox McIntyre, he's ran a couple four by eight. He probably wouldn't have done that if we didn't have the guys to compete with him. And those guys have really changed our four by eight. And even on the throwing side, I'm getting more throwers. I first started, or first took over, there was maybe, you can count them on your hands, how many throwers we've had. And now we have double that on both sides, boys and girls. I'm getting more throwers, I'm getting more event specific kids versus just winners or whatever. So those guys have really changed that because kids see that and go, oh, wow, Adrian just ran a two oh seven split. I want to be part of something like that. I want to be part of that four by eight. You know, you look at Austin Felder as a freshman, you know, breaking five minutes in the mile and running a sub two 10, 800, what? I mean, it's just, it's a culture. You know, you and I talked about culture off the air. We want to develop a winning culture. And what does that look like? It's effort, it's not, it's we over me. It's not just about me, it's about us. And what can we do? And that's what these guys have done. And they're a really good example of that. And I want to thank them because they've helped build our team, you know, being 50 plus kids, you know, pushing each other in practice. I mean, our four by eight ran what, 832? I mean, when I first started, I couldn't even, couldn't even get under nine. So... And some of these didn't even have four by eight. In some of these, we didn't have four by eight. We had to have open and like, in the rest of us had that problem a couple of years ago, right? They had to open, they had to have a lot of open weights. And now they're getting back up there. So it's a culture thing. You have a winning culture, it attracts, it attracts, it attracts kids, right? It attracts kids that want to be part of something big and, and it's, and they're not selfish, they want to be part of the team. And that's, and that's what those guys have done for us. So I, I thank them for that. Well, Coach Ford, we'll let you go. I just want to give you guys a shout out. Boon Running Club had the, had a home meet here a couple of weeks ago. Tony, I thought it was fantastic. It was neat to see all the athletes out there. I just want to tip my cap to you guys. I thought that was a great meet. And I'm looking forward to seeing if you try to build it and make it even a little bit bigger next season. Yeah. And I, I got to obviously thank like Mr. Pudetti and Lori Woodruff and Chris Mann for running the camera upstairs and Tim and IG department. I mean, I couldn't have done it without them. Our families that are part of the BRC and from the BRCers. I could have done it without their, their volunteerism and even some of like the track dads helping out in the long jump hit our high school kids who would check in. I mean, I couldn't, I can't do this by myself and especially our coaches, you know, coach Wunderley did any Wunderley's part of our program now. And he's obviously one of our middle school coaches. He's got daughters that are running. Obviously coach Wharton, coach Tassel, coach Klein. I mean, it's funny, our high school staff is also kind of our boot running club staff. And it's kind of nice because we get to see the progression and the growth over time. And that's the best part about coaching. Sometimes it's not always about the state championships, but it's about the growth that the kids go through because that's, that's life, right? And a lot of that mirrors risk, you know, going through stuff that might be hard, but you still do it anyway and you improve. But I mean, we took on just over a hundred kids, a hundred athletes and we got it done in three and a half hours. And that was, that was awesome. We had a lot of records set for our club that I got to compile. But yeah, it's first year, you know, we kind of learned a lot of things. Second year, we improved a lot. Like we have, we have live events timing, Ryan. That's the first time we've ever had it in our- Big deal. In our history. It is a big deal because people want to know like, we live in a culture where people want instant results, right? They want to know what, what happened. So instead of having people say, what, what if I'm only on or how did my kid do? I said, hey, here's the leak, pull it up. There it is. And it worked and it was great. And we're running club partnered with Boone High School. So now that they can use it as well. So we're kind of partnering with them. So it's been great. This is, that is like, yeah, go for it. Try it out. So it's great. Chris, Chris figured it out right away. Are you surprised? Nope, no surprise. He knows, he knows all that stuff because he does it in swimming. So you couldn't do it without him. And he's always, I'm like, hey, can I use you for this meeting? He goes, oh, absolutely. I'll be there. So you can't, you can't run a meet without a village. And I had a village that day. I mean, that's people step up. We were kind of short at the last minute and people stepped up. So I, I'm extremely grateful because you know what? It's not for me. It's for our kids, right? It's for our kids. And we have even some ugly kids that are part of the team. And it, it just moved counting general just steps up and I couldn't do it alone. So there you go. I'm, I'm giving credit or credit. Well, it was an awesome day for sure. Hey, I forgot about you and I got to thank you for being the announcer because you can't, you can't run a meet without having an out to do the first call, second call, third call and a lot of the stuff. You've been on the fly. And it, and I felt like it was like already planned, but it wasn't planned. It was all up to the minute changes. And you, you did it so great, right? We're, you're like the Mike J at Boone County. And the people who know who Mike J is, he's the voice of the three relays and he is the voice of state track. But we have Mike J, except if you run, run once Boone County. I got to get that check. I got to get that check in the mail really quick. That is for sure. Uh, Tony, thank you so much. Fantastic season. It was, it's always great talking track with you. One, two, always appreciate all the results from you. They're always there waiting for me the next morning. I know they're late nights, but I always appreciate those. And I can't wait for 2027 because there's something about coming out of winter. And I know that it's time for track season. I get pumped. I get excited. And so I can't wait for next year, but thanks again for a great 2026. Hey, Ryan, I, I appreciate you and all the interviews and just trying to help me about all the great things that are happening. You know, and I try to do more of that. I wish, I wish people would see the way I see things and be like, wow, these kids are, these kids are phenomenal. And they're in their, in their booths. And people got to remember that there are great things here in Boone. And if people have solutions about Boone, come talk to me because I'm an outsider and I get to see a lot of cool stuff. So if they ever want to talk about Boone County athletics, they can talk to me. Tony Cosantino again, joining us Boone Boys track here on coaches corner.
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