43. Brooke Rasnick

Brooke Rasnick has quickly become the go to for college recruiting in the pole vault.  She has honed her knowledge and skill over 10+ years  in the college coaching game to bring you a killer episode full of tips and tricks to get you where you need to be in college.  Thank you so much Brooke for coming on the pod!!!

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Transcript

Jake Winder: (00:00)
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the One More Jump podcast by Rise Pole Vault. Today's episode of the podcast is brought to you by U c s Spirit. We're very thankful for u c s and their support of the podcast. More on that later on in the episode. So today we have Brooke Rasnick on the podcast. I've been wanting to have Brooke in for a long time to be able to talk about, you know, a whole bunch of stuff, but mainly her expertise in college recruiting. Uh, I think her and I have been talking for a while back and forth about various things, and I thought she would be an awesome guest on the podcast to help out those people who are curious about pole vaulting in college. You know, different things like how high do you gotta jump? Or, you know, how do you talk to coaches or how do you get coaches to find you?

Jake Winder: (00:52)
All of these different random things that go into the process of college recruiting, which can be extremely overwhelming at times. Um, and Brooke is becoming kind of like an expert on this topic, or she is an expert on this topic, and she's starting to develop some, uh, content around the college recruiting process and her business. And yeah, I just thought it would be a really, really cool episode for all different people, people who are looking to get recruited, even college coaches. This is a good episode for them too. And, you know, people who are maybe last minute, like, oh my gosh, I don't know what I'm gonna do. I don't have a college yet, and I'm a senior, and there's one week of the season left that's not that great of a position to be in. But, um, as she says later on in the episode, Gabby Leone, same thing with her.

Jake Winder: (01:50)
Didn't have a spot on any, or I don't know, it was, she explains the situation in the episode, but she, you know, connected with Gabby at, I think it was New Balance Nationals after her senior year of high school. So there's hope, hang in there. Um, yeah, so Brooke was a collegiate coach at, uh, university of Louisville for I think it was like 12 years. So she's got over a decade of experience in college recruiting and the processes and everything that you would need to know about this. So hope you guys enjoy this episode with Brooke Rasnick.

Brooke Rasnick: (02:42)
Rasnick,

Jake Winder: (02:42)
I'm pronounce right, right.

Brooke Rasnick: (02:45)
Yep.

Jake Winder: (02:46)
Rasnick. So, um, thank you so much for taking the time outta your day and being able to come here. I wanted to talk to you because you're like quickly becoming the go-to, um, like kind of recruiting guru in pole vaulting. Uh, and, and I, I know you do other events too, but, um, you know, I'm just familiar with the pole vaulting side of things, so, uh, I just wanted to get into that. But, uh, first I'll let you kind of introduce yourself and kind of give us a background of who you are and how you, you know, kind of got mixed up into all of this.

Brooke Rasnick: (03:23)
Yeah, yeah. No, I'm excited to, excited to be here. You're doing some, some great things for the Vault community, that's for sure. Um, thank you. So, so, yeah, so I was a, I was a college coach for 13 years and, um, at the last nine years I was at the University of Louisville. And, um, I've, I've always coached the pole vault, pole vault and the bolt ties. And, um, it just got to a point, you know, in our lives we have three little boys. Our oldest is five, and my husband runs his own business. And just kind of got to a, a breaking point of this might be, might need to take a new path in life outside of college coaching, uh, where the travel's pretty extensive in the, in the, the time that you're spending working and on the phone with recruits.

Jake Winder: (04:00)
This episode of The One More Jump podcast is brought to you by U c s spirit. From the beginning u c s spirit's goal has been to produce the highest performing vaulting pole in the world, being vaulters themselves. They know the unforgettable feeling of jumping a new PR or hitting the perfect movement in a jump, and want to bring that feeling to as many vaulters as possible, trust the brand that has been chosen to set every women's and men's pole vault world record since the company's inception in 1987. That's pretty insane. I also will mention that we got a brand new set of poles for Luke. He jumped five 80 on him, and the transition from pole to pole is seamless, and that is super, super important whenever you're building a pole series, and especially as you start to advance as a pole vault, that transition from pole to pole just becomes more important, the better you get. And ucs does an incredible job of that. Alright, right back to the episode.

Brooke Rasnick: (04:58)
So, um, for sure

Jake Winder: (04:59)
Decided, I totally understand that , my dad was a college coach. Um, so it's like you got two options. Either you're gonna leave the kids behind or you're gonna drag 'em with. And at the division one level, I don't know if like the dragging 'em with is kind of, uh, an option.

Brooke Rasnick: (05:17)
Yeah, yeah. It, my, you know, my boss was great about that. And when you have one kid, it's easy to drag him along, you know, then you have three , it's like a ball game, so. Right, right. Um, and you know, and I've had family and friends that were great and would meet me at meets and help take care of 'em or my husband could come, but, um, it just got, you know, tougher and tougher. The, the more they, they, these kids kept coming.

Jake Winder: (05:39)
So you got out at like a really good time at like your kid's age. First of all, three kids under five. That's legit. Like, that's really legit. That's your wild,

Brooke Rasnick: (05:51)
My my, uh, appreciation for parents has, uh, you know, expanded greatly. Yeah.

Jake Winder: (05:58)
Is what we're doing. I've got two, I've got two, um, one is eight and one is six. And, uh, yeah, that's, that's really, and you were, and you were coaching at Louisville during that whole time that you were like having these kids. Yep.

Brooke Rasnick: (06:15)
Yep. So

Jake Winder: (06:16)
That's a really impressive, yeah. So it

Brooke Rasnick: (06:18)
Was, it was wild. I had some awesome athletes, awesome staff that, that made it possible to do it as long as I did, that's

Jake Winder: (06:24)
For sure. Yeah. Yeah. So I kind of interrupted you, um, back to, so you're at Louisville for, you said 13 or you're nine years coach? Yeah,

Brooke Rasnick: (06:32)
Yeah.

Jake Winder: (06:33)
For 13 years years.

Brooke Rasnick: (06:35)
Okay. And, uh, and when I deci when I decided to step away, I didn't, I didn't really know what I was gonna do. You know, I knew we were in a, a spot if I wanted to stay home, I could do that. Um, I wasn't sure, you know, I've, I've been a coach my whole working career basically. Um, but uh, so I just kind of stepped away and wanted to take a little bit of time to process, um, what was next. And, uh, the first week that I quit, I had probably five families reach out to me wanting recruiting advice. And I already knew that that space just wasn't really filled with really good information and, and the realities what goes on in our sport and every sport's so different, um, but like having those families reach out, you know, kind of intrigued me of like, maybe I could, maybe I could do this, you know, and I, I pondered it for a little bit and then, you know, everyone's advice was to not jump in anything too quickly.

Brooke Rasnick: (07:24)
So I kind of set it aside for a while and then, um, interviewed for some other jobs and nothing just seemed very, you know, interesting or as exciting or, or doable, you know, even with, you know, trying to, trying to be around my family more. Um, and so, so yeah, so at some point I decided, you know what, let's hop into this and see what I can make of it and, and how I can help. And, um, it's been a great experience. I've learned a ton trying to run my own business and yeah. Um, I feel like I've been helping families along the way. Um, so it's been, you know, kind of a, a great opportunity to, you know, help, help ex you know, use, use the knowledge I have, you know, for these families going through the process right now, so.

Jake Winder: (08:07)
Right, right. Yeah, and I definitely want to dive into that more in depth, like your business and like what you're doing and things like that. Um, first of all, let's jump back to like, how did you, were you a I don't, I don't under, I don't know anything about like your background prior to your coaching. So were you a vault or would you, did you, you know, how did you get involved Yes.

Brooke Rasnick: (08:28)
In that? Yeah, so I was a multi-sport athlete in high school. I started track my junior year, you know, outdoors, indoors. I was from Kansas, so indoors really wasn't a thing back then. Um, and luckily got recruited Wichita State and pole vaulted there. I jumped 11 feet in high school, jumped 13, nine, and changed by the time I was done in college. Wow. So, um, it was a fun college experience, you know, um, to be able to get better. But I, I probably pole vaulted for five months of my life before I went to, to college. Um, and,

Jake Winder: (08:56)
Uh, that was like early on too in, in women's pole vault thing.

Brooke Rasnick: (09:01)
Yeah. Yeah. So the, my freshman year of high school was the first year it was an event for girls in the state of Kansas, so. Wow,

Jake Winder: (09:08)
That's really cool that you were able to like be a part of that.

Brooke Rasnick: (09:12)
So, yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of, kind of wild and, um, I kind, I, I have an education degree, so I, I knew I wanted to stay involved in sports at, to some capacity and I thought, well, if I teach, I can coach and I got a math education degree cuz everybody said I could get a job, even though I don't really like math, but I could do it, you know, so . Um, but after I graduated college, I wanted to keep training and I thought I wanted to be a college coach. I had a great college experience and, um, luckily Jenny Ashcroft was out at University of Oregon. She recruited me, Wichita State, then she left and she allowed me to come volunteer coach, um, on their staff and train with Melissa Gurgle, who, you know, and, uh, yeah, yeah. And a couple other, other athletes. And, um, so that kind of got my foot in the door with coaching and that's kind of how I kind of got my path started that way. So. Wow.

Jake Winder: (10:03)
Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah, I, I just like over like, since I started really getting into, you know, our, our business at Rise, like, uh, I just hear Jenny's name pop up all over the place now. Like, it's just like, yeah, Jenny Ashcroft, Jenny Ashcroft over here, Jenny Ashcroft over there. I'm like, holy cow man. She's, uh, she's really helped out a lot of people, seems like.

Brooke Rasnick: (10:26)
Yeah, no, she's, she's my greatest mentor. Absolutely. You know? Yeah. Um, so she recruited me and coached me for two years in college, and I gotta spend the year throughout Oregon and she's been, you know, uh, there every step of the way for me, you know, like, like she has for so many of her former athletes and current athletes. So

Jake Winder: (10:43)
How far has women's vaulting come since you started, you know, like your freshman year of high school?

Brooke Rasnick: (10:50)
Yeah, no, it's been, uh, I mean, it's been a huge transformation, you know, since it's such a new sport. And, um, you know, I jumped, I jumped 13 nine in college and I think that year I was 10th in the country with that ranking, you know, in

Jake Winder: (11:04)
The country as a whole, not just,

Brooke Rasnick: (11:06)
Yeah. And, and then NCAA division one, you know, and now, right. I mean, that doesn't even make the indoor national meet by, you know, six inches probably. You know, it's probably, I don't know, 35th or something in the country. So it's just, you know, the depth is this great, there's so many great female athletes doing the sport now. Right. Um, and there are so many great high school coaches that are developing these kids, you know, so much earlier and all, you know, the club system has expanded and just provided so many opportunities for these athletes they wouldn't have had otherwise.

Jake Winder: (11:36)
Right, right. Yeah, that's, uh, it's, it's really has become something that's really, really cool. And I've told this story on the podcast before, but, um, you know, the guys out there need to understand that at least in Illinois, women's pole vaulting saved Illinois, like vaulting in Illinois, they were gonna cancel it. Like my, I forget it was right before I went into my freshman year. So I started pole vaulting in eighth grade, like my eighth grade summer going into my freshman year. And, um, I remember my dad being like, you know, there's been some like, serious injuries that have happened and, you know, and it was like a string of them. There was like, maybe like a string of three, like really like kind of catastrophic industry in injuries in the pole vault. And then they were kind of just like, you know what, we're just probably going to ask this thing, you know, like we're, we're just not gonna have it in Iowa.

Jake Winder: (12:35)
Like, they don't have it in high school anymore. And, and in Illinois they were like, yeah, we're gonna be done with it. And then the ladies went to bat and just went crazy on everybody and just made things happen. And then all of a sudden, boom, it's like, no, we just got this. We're having a lot of people really enjoy pole vaulting and you're not taking this away from us. So I, we owe a lot to, in Illinois specifically, like we owe a lot to, uh, you know, women's pole vaulting. Um, and it's just really cool. I love talking to like, people like you and, and Stacy Trula and like those like kind of founding people who were there at like, the beginning of it all. It's really wild. It's just, it's crazy to think that in our lifetime there was no women's pole vaulting. Right. Yeah. That's why like, in my head I'm just like, like, I mean, we've got, I I think it's probably, like right now it's probably like 60 40 at rise, 60% women and like 40% men. And it's just so crazy to me that just in like the nineties was just like, never existed. Right.

Brooke Rasnick: (13:49)
Yeah.

Jake Winder: (13:49)
So weird. So weird. Yeah. Ugh. But anyway, um, yeah. So, so you pole vaulted in college and then where was your first like, job? Like what did you, what was your path outside of college?

Brooke Rasnick: (14:01)
Yeah, so I, I volunteered for that year at the University of Oregon. Um, and then I got hired at Kent State, which is in northeast Ohio in the Mac. And, um, I got hired to be the director of ops and help the head coach with the pole vault and the multi, and I was there for about two weeks and the head coach said, yeah, I think you're ready to take the pollers over. So I'm like, awesome. So, um, so it was a crazy year cause I was doing all the administrative things, most of the administrative things for the program and coaching, you know, full-time. And so it was wild. But, um, it was a great experience. I learned a ton, um, um, in it. And I was there for three years. Um, and really, you know, Louisville tried to hire Jenny Ashcroft first and she wasn't interested in the job and but recommended me and got me basically the opportunity at Louisville. And so, um, we were just move about to move into the acc. So it was a great career move. Um, it was a little bit closer to family for me. And, um, so, so yeah, it was awesome.

Jake Winder: (14:57)
Have you ever faced any challenges being like a female coach, coaching males? Like does that ever come up or?

Brooke Rasnick: (15:05)
Yeah, yeah. No, I, you know, I, it's funny cause I've had people like tell me that there were gonna be challenges, you know? Um, like it's gonna be different. Recruiting guys will be recruiting women, you know, and, and it was more of a challenge to me and, you know, and I felt like, you know, athletes are individuals, right? And so, um, just depending on who they were, it's how I could connect with them. And I grew up a huge tomboy. I played literal league football, I wrestled, I did all, you know, I grew up in a man's world, you know, and coaching is a man's world, right? Yeah. And so that was just comfort. That was my comfort zone, you know? And so, so I don't know, there's probably some kids that I called that didn't want a female coach, and I don't even know about it.

Brooke Rasnick: (15:48)
You know, I've d I've called a female and she didn't wanna have a female coach, right? She eventually ended up competing for me, you know, and she was glad it worked out that way, and it was, uh, you know, a good experience for her. Um, but, but I think that's the, you know, that's the challenge is, um, you know, trying to get more representation that way in, um, in our sport. And it's tough because, you know, in the college ranks, it's just hard, you know, it's hard for, it's hard for parents to do it, you know, it's hard for parents to, to, to be a college coach. And, um, you know, I ask, I ask people all the time, you know, like, tell me a, tell me a college coach that's a, a great coach, a great recruiter, a great parent, and a great spouse, right?

Brooke Rasnick: (16:30)
And it, it, and normally, normally the, the room just goes silent, you know? And because it's hard, it's, it's tough. Something normally has to give. And so, um, you know, and, and obviously, you know, there's the reality sometimes of the, the female has more, some more of those responsibilities or their partners making more money in their career, you know, so you sacrifice what you're doing. And a lot of time in the coaching world, you have to jump around, you know, from city to city and move your family around to, to move up. And, um, so there's just, you know, a lot of challenges that way. But, um,

Jake Winder: (17:02)
Yeah, I can see as this conversation's going on that there's like a lot of things that, uh, there's a lot of touchy subjects that could potentially come up. So if you ever feel like, uh, like, I don't want to mess with that, just let me know. Yeah. , um, you know, like, just like one of them, I'm just, you know, gonna say it, like, I've heard some pretty tough statistics on like the divorce rate, uh, in collegian coaching. Yeah. And that's, it's just something to think about. Like, it's, it's just like, it's not, I'm not saying that like, you know, you should, nobody should be, we need collegiate coaches, we need people out there that are gonna be able to do this, and can it be done? Can, could you, do you think it's possible to do those things that you said?

Brooke Rasnick: (17:50)
I think in this, the, the way that things are structured, I think it's really hard to do it at the division one level.

Jake Winder: (17:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (17:58)
You know, I think, you know, a lot determined is determined by your administration. If you're an assistant coach, what your head coach, how your head coach operates. Like, I was fortunate, I had a head coach that was super supportive of me being a mom and having a family. And if he wouldn't have been, I probably would've quit five years ago. Right. You know, he allowed me to do it as long as I was able to, and, and we could have made it work. It's just, you know, like after Covid too, like the childcare, you know, system just got blown up. And it's expensive. I mean, childcare is so expensive. We, I mean, I'm gonna tell you how many thousands and thousands of dollars

Jake Winder: (18:32)
We spent. No, I know. I was golfing with one of my friends in California a few weeks ago, and we were talking about that, and he, he lives, uh, outside of LA and, and he was, he was telling me how much he spends on childcare and, and it's like, more than his rent. And I was like, and I mean, rent out there is, you know, thousands and thousands of hours. Yeah. And I was like, that's insane. And he, you know, we were talking and he was just like, you know what, man? Because I was like, are you gonna have another kid? Like, cuz you know, you seem like a really good dad, and, and you know, you and your wife are are, you know, seem really happy with this first kid. And he was like, to be honest with you, like, it's just a financial thing right now.

Jake Winder: (19:13)
Do we want another kid? Yeah, we want another kid, but I don't think we can afford to put another kid in childcare. Right. And that's where it's like, there's, there's definitely probably a very big disconnect with like, the pay a, as an assistant pole ball coach or assistant jumps coach at a college, and like, okay, like, you guys are gonna pay me this much, but my expenses to do this job are really, really high. Right. It's like, is there like a childcare credit that you guys could offer me? Or like, something like that. Yeah, yeah. You know, is that what you guys did? Did you guys just have to do like childcare in the beginning?

Brooke Rasnick: (19:53)
Yeah, we basically had someone come to our house to, because we just needed that help, you know, and our schedules were always, you know, shifting and changing and getting them picked up on time from daycare was hard. And, and we don't have, we have zero family in this area too. So that's another aspect that's really hard as a college coach, you gotta move around the country, you know? So you're in a place where you don't have that support, um, the grandparents,

Jake Winder: (20:16)
Why do you have to move around the country? I'm just curious. I, I don't know.

Brooke Rasnick: (20:20)
Because typically, um, you know, typically how it works, you know, maybe you start at a mid-major school, like the normal process and, and that may, this may shift now with all these new rules with volunteer coaches can now get paid at, at the, I don't know if you knew that they can have 12 paid coaches now. That's

Jake Winder: (20:37)
Really weird that, so, so it's not a volunteer anymore then? If it's a, well,

Brooke Rasnick: (20:41)
Yeah, you can have a volunteer, but a, a track program can pay 12 coaches now. It used to be six if it was combined, they just changed it like it's starting this summer.

Jake Winder: (20:51)
Wow.

Brooke Rasnick: (20:52)
Now are they gonna spend the money to do it? I don't, I, you know, some programs will, but, you know, or expand their staff. But, but so normally, kinda like my path was normal. Like, I went and volunteered at a Power five high level program for a year, and then I got an opportunity to coach at the mid-major school, uh, mid-major school as a direct, I mean, and I got hired as a

Jake Winder: (21:11)
Director. What's a mid major school? Sorry, I am, you're educating me on all this. What's a mid-major school? Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (21:16)
Yeah. So, so your Power five, it's, it's a non-Power five division one. So, you know, the, the Big 12, the PAC 12, the s e C, the A, ACC C, um, I'm missing one, the Big 10. Those are like the Power five conferences. Okay. So a mid-major would be a division one school that's not in one of those conferences, which is typically not funded at as, as high of a level as the Power five schools. Right. They don't have the Gotcha. All money, you know, basketball money coming in. Similarly, there's exem, you know, exceptions to everything. But, um, so getting an entry level job at a mid-major school was kind of where you would go next. And I was fortunate that I had an easy, I had a pretty easy path, you know, and part of that was being a female, you know, they wanted a female on their staff to have someone represent the women in their program. Um, and so, so yeah. So, you know, but if I wasn't gonna stay at Kent State, like they weren't gonna be able to pay me enough to stay there long term. Right. Because if I wanna have kids and I'm making $25,000 a year, like that pays for half my childcare. You know what I mean? So, right,

Jake Winder: (22:22)
Right. Yeah. This big discrepancy

Brooke Rasnick: (22:24)
There. Yeah. In order to increase your salary. And, you know, then you move to, I was lucky to move to a school that was going into the Power five, you know, so I was able to increase my salary and make this a sustainable career. Um, because being a a mid-major assistant coach typically isn't a long-term sustainable thing because you're not making that much money at it. Um, so you have to adjust, you know, at some point, um, which you could, you know, eventually become the head coach or something, but they're, you know, they're the amount of money they have for salaries, it's just, it is what it is too. So

Jake Winder: (22:56)
Wouldn't wouldn't you think that with that system, that it would just always be a revolving door then at every school? Basically? Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (23:08)
Yeah. That's what it is, you know, in a lot of ways. Why,

Jake Winder: (23:11)
But like, but that doesn't make any sense from like a and, and like a long, long-term perspective.

Brooke Rasnick: (23:16)
Right? Right. Yeah. It just depends on what the school values, you know, what they're trying to,

Jake Winder: (23:21)
Like, like a long-term perspective would be like, okay, we're going to hire Brooke, um, with the hopes that she's going to stay with us for the long haul. And if she stays with us for the long haul, she's gonna understand more about how our system operates. She's going to, you know, be able to be, be able to tell recruits like, Hey, I'm consistently gonna be here. You can count on me. Like, I'm going to, you know, always be here. I just like, from a business perspective, it just seems like, why would you just, like, why wouldn't you try to nail down a good coach and just, you know, yeah, yeah. Really try to nail 'em down.

Brooke Rasnick: (24:01)
Yeah. I think it comes down to budgets and then what, what does that value of that program actually bring into the athletic department? Does the athletic department really care about performance or do they care about, you know, what a higher GPA for the athletic department? Or having more women's numbers with Title ix or bringing diversity to the athletic department with track and field, you know, and there's some athletic departments where those are their main values, right. Which a lot, all those things are valuable. Right. But they're gonna place that above performance sometimes, you know, and so, um, that's why a lot of those, you know, a lot of those positions too are graduate assistant positions. So, you know, in two years that coach is gone, um, but they just don't have the funding. This

Jake Winder: (24:46)
Is, there's a lot of layers to this, right?

Brooke Rasnick: (24:48)
Yeah. , they don't have the funding to, to pay him more, you know? Um,

Jake Winder: (24:52)
Right. Right. So you get to this mid-major school and you get there and you kind of receive a, this is a, uh, out of the ordinary position because your coach is very, you know, accommodating to your sort of situation. Is that kind of accurate?

Brooke Rasnick: (25:18)
At the mid major or at Louisville?

Jake Winder: (25:20)
Louisville. Louisville. Oh, Louisville is not a mid-major. They're a Power five. Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (25:25)
Yeah.

Jake Winder: (25:25)
They're Power five. Mid major was Ken State.

Brooke Rasnick: (25:27)
Yeah. Mid major was Kent State. Gotcha. And then I got hired at Louisville and at Ken State, I was a young single person, and I could work 80, 90 hours a week, you know? Right.

Jake Winder: (25:35)
During

Brooke Rasnick: (25:35)
That time in my life, you know, like I knew that even if I stayed single, like it wasn't something that was sustainable for me because it was just so much work to do everything right. That you have to do. Cause the, the support staff isn't there normally. You know, where you go to a, you know, a Power five school, there's way more support staff around you. You know, you might have a director of ops or a director of operations and an assistant director of operations, or you have a strength staff or a nutrition staff, academic advisors, you know, just like more resources to do the things that, as a coach now I don't have to worry about as much.

Jake Winder: (26:09)
Right. So, right. What does somebody have to do to, um, so I, I'm seeing, uh, in my head I see it as like, kind of like a single person's game like that, that climb. Like, it just seems like it would work really well for somebody who's just graduated college single. I'm just ready to just, I wanna fly all over the place. I want to, you know, do whatever. But then there just seems like they're just, it's kind of like a means to an end if you want to settle down and have a family, which I would say that probably the majority of everyone has that in the back of their head, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Um, now what, what does somebody, what does a coach need to do at one of those schools, those Power five schools to regardless of family and, and all of those other things, like what does somebody need to do to maintain their job?

Brooke Rasnick: (27:08)
Yeah, I think, you know, it's different based on who your boss is, what your administration cares about, what conference you're in. You know, some of it's super cutthroat, you know, um, but you know, it depends on what the program values, right? If they're gonna value having a good team performance at the conference meet, then you better have production relative to what's, how much scholarship money you have in your event area. That's typically kind of how you're evaluated. Um, if that program really wants national level athletes and performance is there, then you've gotta bring those athletes in and develop 'em and, um, have them perform at that level. Um, but outside of that, I mean, performance is a big part of it, but there's so much that goes into the dynamic of a staff, right? And how that those coaches have to work together and fall underneath this umbrella that the head coach puts in place. You know? And so you have to learn how to operate underneath that. And if there's some coaches that have good results, but they can op, they don't know how to operate underneath that umbrella, and then sometimes they are told to move on, right. Because it just doesn't, it's not a good fit, you know, for the head coach's perspective. Um,

Jake Winder: (28:14)
Are they just all trying to go for that head coach job, though? Like, I'm just, I'm wondering, I'm wondering like, are people just like trying to take each other's jobs constantly? No.

Brooke Rasnick: (28:23)
No. Cause I'll tell you what, probably the best job is being an assistant coach at a Power five school, really? Because you have all these support system around you, you're getting paid decent. An assistant coach at a Power five school now is getting paid pretty well, right? And you don't have nearly the headaches a head coach deals with head coaches are like getting crushed right now. I feel like with the amount of excess responsibility that's put on their plate that they have to manage. Um, so they're, most of us like, would have the ability to go be a head coach if we wanted to. And a lot of us are like, I don't know if I want that gig. I dunno if it pays enough to be worth it, you

Jake Winder: (28:59)
Know? How much is, how much more does a, a head coach make? Like, on average? Do you, would you say You don't have to say a, a specific number? Yeah,

Brooke Rasnick: (29:05)
No, I don't know. I would say like, uh, yeah, I'm, I'm probably gonna butcher it, but I don't, probably an extra 50 to $80,000 a head coach would make, depending on where you're at. Some schools it could be a couple hundred thousand dollars more than an

Jake Winder: (29:22)
Assistant. But you're saying the workload, it's just like 200% more?

Brooke Rasnick: (29:29)
Probably. Yeah. I mean, and it depends on how good your head coach is at delegating responsibilities and how good their staff is. Right. You know, like you could have a great associate head coach that manages some of those things that takes it off your plate, um, right. But now, you know, so much of it gets put on the head coach's play, and in the, at the power five level assistant coaches, like, they wanna just coach and recruit. You know, that's, that's how you're evaluating me on my performance. So then let me focus on those two things. I don't wanna be the home meet manager. I don't want to, you know, book hotel rooms. Like, let me do what you hired me to, you know, let me hire me to do what I'm, you know, how I can keep my job is by performance. Right? And so, you know, so less and less is, you know, given to those assistant coaches to go and do those other things, which is great for the athletes, you know, but then some of that puts more on the head coach or, um, so it, it's a tough, it's a tough gig, man.

Brooke Rasnick: (30:20)
I've got a lot of empathy for head coaches that are managing it. You gotta manage a staff, you know, and you have all these different event groups that are pulling at you that in every, every track team has different needs, right? The sprint group wants this, the jumps group wants this, the pull group needs this, you know, the distance crew, you know, needs a whole nother deal, you know? So, um, you know, you're bucketed Yeah.

Jake Winder: (30:41)
I've always, I've always said that like, it's just like head coach. Like I would never want that job, like specifically track and field though, just because there's so many different events. Like if you're the head golf coach, it's like, you know, maybe you got a swing coach and maybe you got a putting coach, or you know, whatever . Yeah. Yeah. But like in track and field, there's so many events, and so many of those events have different, like we were talking about this yesterday on the podcast, is, uh, the different cultures inside of a track and field team, like, like pole vaulters have their kind of own niche and like their own kind of culture inside of that big umbrella of the track team. And then the distance runners, you know, have their kind of culture inside of, and so it's like you're, you're dealing with just a million different people, a million different events and different attitudes and, and then the staff, you know, and all of that stuff. And then all the administrative work. It would be, it's like, like running a company, you know? So like you're running a company and a pretty large company at that, you know?

Brooke Rasnick: (31:53)
Yeah, yeah. No, there's a lot of people, you know, counting on you. And, um, and a lot of times I think coaches get put in that role and they don't have the training in management, you know, um, right. Because they typically, they've been a really successful assistant coach when they've been able to just focus on recruiting and coaching their event group. Now they're put into a head coaching role, and they may not have the tools, you know, that, that then that makes it even more stressful. Right. Um, right. And you're getting pulled all these different directions. So,

Jake Winder: (32:22)
Um, you had mentioned something a little bit ago. So we were talking about this the other day just in conversation. And, um, I was talking with one of our, our coaches at Rise, and, and we were talking about how there's differences between the ways that teams are structured and like their goals as well. Like, so a co a, a, a school that's gonna be more like conference focused is gonna have to be like deeper. Like they're gonna have to have a deep roster and they're gonna have to pick up points just kind of everywhere. Um, where like a national focus group is, they don't need that much depth. They need just a higher quality of fewer people. Um, how, what would you say the majority of programs are? Are they more conference focused or national focused?

Brooke Rasnick: (33:24)
The, the majority are more conference focused. You know, because you've got 330, if you're looking at the division one level, you're, you got 330 teams around there, vine, if they're all vying for the national title, right. Like, that's just unrealistic. Right? Right. So if, you know, you don't have the resources to compete against those national level teams, you're gonna be focused on your conference. Hmm. You know, um, and so, so the majority are gonna be conference focused. And now these, these conferences at the Power five level have expanded so much. You know, the a ACC C has 15 teams, like, wow, that's a lot of teams, that's a lot of scholarship money between 15 teams in these events, you know? So typically you've gotta be at least a, a NCAA preliminary qualifier to score points at the conference meet.

Jake Winder: (34:13)
Right.

Brooke Rasnick: (34:14)
But Right. But the tough thing about nationals is you could go to the national meet, you get ninth place, you're ninth best kid in the country. Well, you just scored zero points for your team. Yeah. So in the team race, you didn't do anything. Right. Right, right.

Jake Winder: (34:28)
So

Brooke Rasnick: (34:28)
It's super elite, you know, to be able to, but you know, like you said, you'd have three studs, like absolute studs on your team, and you can go make a heck of a run, you know? Yeah.

Jake Winder: (34:39)
And that's what people don't understand is that, uh, like w we were talking about it like how, uh, my brother Luke and, uh, one of his teammates in high school, um, I mean, they probably just got completely murdered at the conference, meet, like their team, but then they almost, I think they got second estate with two people, , you know? Right. Because it only took, you know, Luke won his event, and then his name was Kamari, I forget his last name was Kamari Jackson, maybe it's a really good, uh, athlete, um, you know, won the 100 and the 200 and maybe something else. And, uh, and that's the thing is, is, and at, at, uh, north Central College where we, I went to school, we lost the conference championship, but then crushed everybody at nationals. So it's like two different focuses, you know, as, as a program. And, and yeah, I was just, I've just always been interested, like, what, what it is that, you know, the majority of people are focused on, it sounds like the conference championship. So that means you are going to need more numbers and more depth, um, and picking

Brooke Rasnick: (35:50)
Up points

Jake Winder: (35:51)
Here and there.

Brooke Rasnick: (35:52)
Yeah. For the most part, you know, but some of those are still, it's really challenging to score in some of these conferences in those events too. You know, you only score eight at a conference meet. Right, right. You know, go look at the s e c hundred, you know, , it's like, it's brutal, right? Yeah. Um, so, you know, so, but yeah. But you normally are gonna cover more of the areas and you're gonna care about depth, you know, uh, more so, but, um, so, so yeah, that's, and that's like in the recruiting process is, you know, trying to help these athletes understand you have to know what these programs value and understand what they value. Then you have a better idea where you fit into that. You know. So what

Jake Winder: (36:33)
Kind of questions would somebody ask a coach to understand, you know, those sorts of values and things like that?

Brooke Rasnick: (36:41)
Yeah, I think you can ask direct questions in the sense of like, what, you know, what's your team, what are your goals for the team and the program? You know? Right. Is it, is it nationals? Is it conference? Like, what's your, what's your goal? What are your goals for CrossCountry? You know? Mm. Um, for example, like I just went and bought all of Wake Forest pulp poles this fall, so they just decided they have some limitations on what they think they can do and what they care about, and they really care about, especially men's CrossCountry, you know, they wanna go in a men's cross country title, so they're not gonna put emphasis on some of most events outside of that.

Jake Winder: (37:19)
Right.

Brooke Rasnick: (37:20)
You know? Right. Um, and you know, they have a really good throws coach and he's got really good men's throwers, you know, but one of my former athletes, she coaches the, you know, the sprints, the multi and the jumps, and she ha she's been told you're not gonna have any men in these event areas. Wow. Cause we wanna put our,

Jake Winder: (37:35)
Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (37:36)
You know,

Jake Winder: (37:37)
That's fascinating to people who are being recruited too, because they, you, you could grow up and just be like, I'm just gonna throw this out there, just a random school. So like, you could be like, oh man, I've always wanted, uh, well, can you give me a school that like, doesn't really like, a bit like a Power five school that doesn't really focus on the vault? Do you know of any I was gonna say North Carolina, but I'm pretty sure they have.

Brooke Rasnick: (38:01)
Yeah, they, yeah. No, no. They focus on the vault. Um, Boston College.

Jake Winder: (38:05)
Boston College. Okay. So it's like, I've grown up, I've always, like, I grew up with Boston College hat, Boston College jerseys, you know, posters on my wall and, and I become a pole vaulter and I want a pole vault. And then you grow up and, and you're like, I'm gonna pole vault at Boston College. And then you get to like your junior year and you've jumped really high. And then all of a sudden, you know, you're like, why, I wonder why Boston College isn't reaching out to me. And then you, and then you send 'em an email and they're like, yeah, we don't really, we don't really focus on the vault, so you're gonna have to go somewhere else. So like, that is very confusing to people who don't, who don't take, you know, courses like your course or, you know, like, and don't educate themselves on this because they don't realize that just because it's a school and maybe even they have a pole vault pit in pole vault poles, they, they may not be interested in recruiting any pole vaulters no matter how high you jump, you know?

Brooke Rasnick: (39:09)
Yeah. No, and I, I say that all the time. Being, being a pole vaulter, volter going through the recruiting process is different than probably any other event area, uh, because it's way more narrow in what schools actually care about the pole volt, you know, and going to a place where you can get better. Right. Like, no one wants to go to college and not get better. And, and some, it's like there's a lot of high school coaches that are significantly better coaches than college pole vault coaches. I mean, there's some great high school coaches, you know, in great situations. And I, you know, I said that in my pole vault recruiting seminar is like, some of you guys are gonna go to college, most of you, and it's probably gonna be a worse situation with facilities and access to poles and coaching availability than what it's gonna be in college, because

Jake Winder: (39:55)
They don't think that could be true, though, there that couldn't be true because it's college.

Brooke Rasnick: (40:00)
Right? Right. Yeah. And that's just the reality, right? Because, you know, you're a pole volt coach, but maybe you coach the long jump in the triple jump in the multi ties too. So when you're outta meet, guess what you're doing? You're running around. You might have missed that jump or you missed the warmup or you, you know what I mean? And, and, and now like before, like if you had a, a program with both genders, you could have six paid coaches, you know, now that's expanded, but I don't know if how much money they're gonna give to have those salaried positions. But, um, but that's just the reality of it. You know, they don't, most programs aren't gonna ha have the Virginia Tech model where Bob Phillips coaches the Pole Walters and the Decathletes in the pole vault. That's all he does, you know? That's right. And so it's a huge advantage for them. You know, you have this amazing coach and he has all the time in the world to spend with you. And he's, I'm over there, I mean, running back and forth from home. Cause Wil he's sitting there in his chair, you know,

Jake Winder: (40:50)
, you know,

Brooke Rasnick: (40:52)
I'm sweating, you know, and he's, you know, and he's got a crew of elites volunteering for him that are helping him too, you know, and so there's differences that way, you know, so

Jake Winder: (41:01)
Yeah. That, that is, that, that's a really, really good point. And that's what we, we, you know, sometimes, you know, it can come off as arrogant, I guess, if I tell, uh, you know, somebody who's vaulting at Rise, like, Hey, you know, there's a chance that you could go, I just want you to know there's a chance you could go to college and, and it's not going to be, you know, a two pit facility with, you know, all the poles lined up on the wall that you could ever want . And like, and then five coaches just sitting around all day talking about how they can get you better. It's probably not gonna be that, you know? Right. So I just want you to be aware of that. But they, what, what the majority of people think is like, it, it has to be better.

Jake Winder: (41:49)
I'm going to a division one. I did it, I made it out. I'm going D one, I made it and it's gonna be a better situation. And then they get there and they're like, what the heck is this? And this, this big idea that was propped up and, and, and kind of sold to them as they were a kid that yeah, if you are gonna get a D one scholarship and it's gonna be awesome and you know, you're gonna do all of the travel of the country and vault really high. And that's a lot of times that can be very false. And, and I'm happy that you brought that up and it, it is a kind of a hard situation to talk about. Cause we don't, you don't, we're not trying to knock division one pole vaulting or pole vaulting in college in general, because there's incredible places. Like my, my dad coached at North Central College for 30 years. I mean, he is this Bob Phillips situation. It's just, you are the head pole vault coach, period. That's it. Mm-hmm. , you know? Right. And obviously that situation's gonna be great, you know? Right. Yeah. Um, but that's just not the case. So like what percentage would you say of the college programs out there have a Bob Phillips situation?

Brooke Rasnick: (43:04)
Ooh, man, I don't, I don't know all the situations, you know, I'm learning more as I'm doing this, but

Jake Winder: (43:11)
From what you've heard,

Brooke Rasnick: (43:12)
I would say maybe 15 all divisions, all associations. Yeah. Something like that, you know?

Jake Winder: (43:22)
And why did he, why did, why do you think he, is it just because of his like career and what he's done? I wonder why, like

Brooke Rasnick: (43:29)
Why they've created that dynamic? Yeah.

Jake Winder: (43:31)
Well

Brooke Rasnick: (43:32)
I could, I could get some of this wrong. Um, but my, my, uh, understanding is that when he started there, he was a, he's a professor. I don't know if he still is. Okay. But he taught, he was a teacher, so I think he started as a part-time coach. Right. So he is part-time. So he is doing these events, right. He was doing that event. Um, and I think it's expanded to where I, I think he might be just a full-time coach. I don't know if he teaches anymore. I'm not sure. Um, but I think that's kind of how it played. Any, he was having so much success, right. And he could get all these recruits to come and, you know, a lot of recruits to come and not have to have that much scholarship money in some scenarios that it was a huge win for the program to do it that way.

Brooke Rasnick: (44:13)
Right. And then you split the other events up between the other coaches, you know? Right. Um, and so, so I think that's kind of how that transpired. And, um, and I think it's, you know, it's, it's interesting. It just depends on what the dynamics are. Like as a, as a pole vault coach, I knew like, we kinda get pigeonholed sometimes. Like you're a, you're a pole vault coach, like you don't know how to coach other events. Like, so when I started my career, I was really aware of that. So I was trying to make sure I didn't come off as just a pole vault coach, you know. And so when I was at Kent State, I was able to be with the multi-event athletes and helped them and kind of grew my responsibilities with them as I was there. And then when, when I got to Louisville, I coached the multis as well.

Brooke Rasnick: (44:56)
Um, and so I was like uber aware that, that my main background was in pole vault, but I didn't wanna be known as just a pole vault coach, you know? Right. Um, but now, whatever, as my successes last year, now I'm back to being a Pole bowl coach, you know, , even though I had more all Americans in the multis, you know, but that's just kind of how, you know, this event kind of sucks you in. So, so college coaches are, try because most head coaches don't wanna hire just a pole bowl coach cause they have 20 other events to cover.

Jake Winder: (45:24)
Right, right.

Brooke Rasnick: (45:25)
You know, so it's just this, you know, interesting dynamic of resources is what it comes down to. Um,

Jake Winder: (45:32)
Yeah. And it that that, I fall into that category all the time too because we've, we've wanted to start a, uh, a performance, um, you know, performance classes at our facility. We've wanted to do that now for, I mean, that was one of the main reasons why we actually moved into this bigger facility was because I wanted that 75 meter sprint track in the middle and, and the big weight room and, and to be able to, um, offer, you know, performance training, you know, speed training, strength training, things like that. And that is a common misconception I think that it's like, well, you know how to pole vault, you know how to coach the pole vault, but you don't really come on, you, you don't really know how to coach speed or you don't know how to coach power or anything like that. Dude, I know more about that than I do about pole vaulting .

Jake Winder: (46:23)
Okay. , I've done more studying on that topic. I mean, way more study on that topic than I have pole vault coaching and instruction. And I think that that is the same thing with the majority of the great pole vaulting coaches in the country. I, I talk with, you know, with Brad Walker a lot and the amount of performance stuff that he knows outside of pole vaulting, I mean, is incredible. Like Jeff Cooper's another one who I bounce ideas off of. He, he understands performance really, really well. And so that's like really annoying that they, that that kind of stigma comes with it is, it's like you don't think that we have to sprint down the runway, like Right. The number one factor that is gonna cause us to pull vault higher is power and speed, like mm-hmm. . So you wouldn't think that we would know anything about that, you know? Right. It's just annoying. It's just a lack of knowledge of the people who, you know, kind of put us into that category, you know? Right,

Brooke Rasnick: (47:27)
Right. And I think too, it's like if to be a really good pole vault coach, it takes significantly more time as a coach than most of the other minutes. Right? Yeah. Right. So you see like, man, this coach has spent this much time on this pole vault session, you know, like this kid just pu vaulted for almost two hours. You know, like my high jump session was 30 minutes. Well, yeah. Cuz you can't take that many jumps in the high jump , you know what I mean, as a pole vaulter, whatever. Right, right. Like, so, so I think some of those, you know, not understanding the big picture can kind of creep in, uh, to kids' minds and coaches' minds as well, so.

Jake Winder: (48:02)
Right, right. Yeah. And that's what we've, we've run into is it's just been like, man, like it would be fun. We would really enjoy, like, hey, let's get some, you know, football players in here to work on speed and let's get some, you know, whatever players, you know, other sports that require speed, which is every sport. Um, and let's, let's work with them, but it's gonna, we're gonna run into the problem of them being like, I'm not going to go to a pole vault training center to learn about how to sprint. You know, I'm gonna go to some like strip mall place. Right,

Brooke Rasnick: (48:38)
Right.

Jake Winder: (48:39)
And jump on boxes. The string

Brooke Rasnick: (48:40)
Coach

Jake Winder: (48:41)
. Yeah, exactly. Not saying that they don't know,

Brooke Rasnick: (48:44)
There's great street coaches out there that know speed, but there's

Jake Winder: (48:46)
Lot. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. There's, I mean, there's people who specialize in that are, are incredible as well. But, um, so back to like the recruiting side of things. What could an athlete do to help mitigate the problem of going and committing to a school and their coach leaving after their freshman year?

Brooke Rasnick: (49:12)
Yeah. Yeah. That's a

Jake Winder: (49:13)
Hard question. No,

Brooke Rasnick: (49:14)
That's a tough one. I, I asked on Twitter the other day, um, how many people were recruited and coached their whole college career by the same coach? And it was basically a , you know, I think there's like 200 responses, something like that. And Right. 50% did and 50% didn't. Um, so I think that's just, that's a reality, you know? And, um, and I think it's hard to, to know what that looks like. I think the, you know, if you, if your coach is a graduate assistant, they're probably not gonna be there , you know, for, you know, they could be trying to get them a full-time position, but all right. So, you know, that's probably not gonna be long-term. Um, well,

Jake Winder: (49:54)
So maybe you could ask them that. Yeah. Like, is there, is there anything that's going, like, cuz a graduate assistant does a lot of recruiting, right?

Brooke Rasnick: (50:02)
Typically.

Jake Winder: (50:02)
Yeah, typically. Yeah. So, you know, you could ask them like, Hey, are do you have any intentions or is there a path for you to continue to stay at this school?

Brooke Rasnick: (50:11)
Right. Yep. Yep. And and the reality is, is like coaches are gonna tell you they're trying to stay. I mean, that's, they're not gonna tell you the truth even if they're applying for jobs at the moment, you know? Right. Um, you know, the kids that I were at Louisville when I stepped away, they had no idea I was gonna leave. You know, and I had kids ask me in the recruiting process, like, Hey, you know, and I'm like, I'm not planning to leave Louisville, you know, my husband has a business here. If I'm gonna be coaching, like this is, you know, probably where I'm gonna be coaching at. It'd take a lot for me to leave. I didn't know that there's a chance I was just gonna step away. It would get to that point, you know. Um, but I also would tell them in the recruiting process is, we've done such a good job with this event area that it's gonna be valued.

Brooke Rasnick: (50:53)
If I'm your coach or not, you're gonna be put in a situation where you can be successful. And I think that's where, you know, co like recruits have to kind of figure out what's kind of the history, been, what's their pulse selection? Like, what's, you know what I mean? Is this, is this something that the program is gonna continue to value regardless? And I think you asked the head coach that, not just the event coach, Hey, like, let's say so-and-so decide, like gets a better job offer and they need to do that for their family. What are you gonna do with this event area? Are you gonna continue to invest in it? Is this something, you know,

Jake Winder: (51:26)
That's a great question.

Brooke Rasnick: (51:28)
And, you know, and, and, and they could blow smoke, but, but when push comes to shove, and if that assistant coach leaves and they're, they say they're not gonna hire a poll coach, you can say, Hey, I asked, I, we talked about this in my recruiting process, coach. You know? Right. Like, what's your, what's your plan?

Jake Winder: (51:43)
Well, and at the end of the day, like, it, it does have to fall back on you're, you're eventually gonna have to trust somebody with where you go. You know, like if the head, let's say the head coach responds with like, yeah. Like, if they were to leave, you know, yeah. We're gonna, we would try and everything we could to get the best possible pull out coach that we possibly could. Okay. Now, you can't do anything if they're gonna go back on their word. You know, like if they're gonna go, if they're gonna go back on their word, then there's really nothing you can do about that. But you can kind of just say like, Hey, you kind of gave me your word that you were gonna do this. Are you gonna, you're gonna go back on it now? Like, right. And then as a human being, that head coach would be left with the decision, like, am I okay with going back on my word here? Or should I honor what I told that person? You know? Or

Brooke Rasnick: (52:36)
If they aren't, you know, if they've made the decisions best for the program to move a different direction, then yeah. That head coach may be more likely to help that kid find a new school. Right. And help them in the That's a great point.

Jake Winder: (52:48)
You know? Yeah. You just need to look for good people.

Brooke Rasnick: (52:50)
Right, right. You know,

Jake Winder: (52:52)
Try to find good people. That's what I would think. Yeah. But, uh, um,

Brooke Rasnick: (52:56)
So, but no, that's a tough one because that's just, you know, that's just the reality of what goes on. And, and I think you have to somewhat, I don't wanna say expect it, but just know that that's a real reality no matter where you go. You know, at some point, Bob Phillips, we've been talking about him, he's gonna retire at some point. I don't know when that's gonna happen. Yeah. You know, but I guarantee you the athletes that are gonna be on his team aren't hoping it happens when they're there. You know, , but it's going to, to somebody. Right. Right.

Jake Winder: (53:23)
Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (53:24)
So what are they get, you know, what's gonna happen? You know? And I think they probably feel like if he moves on, they're gonna do their best, you know, to keep that rolling. But, you know, who knows? Or the head coach leaves and the whole program gets, you know, shifted what their focus is.

Jake Winder: (53:38)
How often does that happen? How often does a new head coach come in and just be like, hi guys, it's been, you know, nice to meet everybody. Uh, you pack up your stuff, you guys are outta here.

Brooke Rasnick: (53:50)
Yeah. I, I would say that's where it happens at the hot mo more high caliber programs, you know? Okay. Um, and that's the, that's what kids have to know. They're getting themselves into, you know, when you're going to big time s e c school or a major player at the national level, it's gonna be more cutthroat. Right. That head coach might be making $400,000 a year. Right. So he's gonna do everything he can to keep his job. And if the administration said, we need to do this, so not they're gonna do that. Right. Or they've gotta get results now for his contractor, her contract to get extended. And so they're gonna push kids out. And that happens. I mean, and I don't know how often it happens. I, you know, I don't know the ins and outs of every program, but I've seen it with my own eyes. You know, I've hear stories from athletes that, that happen to them at the school that they were, I mean, I just heard a story about this yesterday, you know, at a different, you know, program in the s e c where kids got cut in the middle of their season for no reason other than they just don't want 'em to come back.

Jake Winder: (54:50)
Hold on. The kids got cut.

Brooke Rasnick: (54:52)
Yep.

Jake Winder: (54:55)
Whoa. I was talking about coaches, but yeah. So that, that can happen too.

Brooke Rasnick: (55:00)
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're saying, how often does a head coach get let go?

Jake Winder: (55:04)
How often does, like, if a, if a head coach, if a head coach, let's say a head coach gets fired and replaced with a new head coach, how often is it just a clean sweep of the whole coaching staff?

Brooke Rasnick: (55:17)
Yeah. The, the majority of the time,

Jake Winder: (55:20)
Majority of the time. That is what happens. Head coach kind of just comes as a package with his As or his or her assistant coaches. Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (55:27)
Yeah. And maybe, maybe one, maybe one or two stay, you know, um, but it normally is like a clean, clean sweep.

Jake Winder: (55:36)
Okay. But then you brought up the topic of, I see. I didn't even know that that was even a possibility. Yeah. That kids can get shut down too,

Brooke Rasnick: (55:47)
Right? Yeah. They, they can't take their scholarship money if they're, if they have an agreement. Right. If they have a four year agreement, they can't take the scholarship money, but they can cut 'em from the team and give 'em their scholarship money for the rest of the year. And then that kids, they don't wanna stay. Right. They wanna compete. Oh,

Jake Winder: (56:02)
That's very cutthroat. I did not realize that. Holy cow. Yeah. You know, that really just, you know, I'm, again, I don't want to, I don't want to seem like, you know, we're hating on these big schools, cuz I really am not. I think it's incredible. I think they do incredible things and man, how cool would that be to be at the top of your game at a Power five school crushing it, you know? Mm-hmm. . But you gotta ask yourself when you're a senior in high school before you make that commitment, like, what is the likelihood of that? Like, is the, like, like what is the likelihood of that? Like, if you're like Armando Lanis who's jumping six meters, you know, 6 0 5 , you know, it, then you know, you're probably gonna crush it. You know, you're gonna, you're gonna do a good job. Um, or like a Chris Nelson, you know, those types of people.

Jake Winder: (56:59)
Yeah. It probably will work out for them. But you really gotta think about that. You really gotta think is, am I willing to risk, you know, what happens if I get injured? You know, like, which is a real possibility. Like, what happens if I get injured? Like, what, what's going to happen to my scholarship? Like, am I going to get, well, your scholarship, you're saying stays intact, but am is there a possibility that I could get cut from the team? Seems like the higher you go up in the ranks that that could become more a possibility.

Brooke Rasnick: (57:35)
Yeah. And there's gr I mean, and I, and I say that and I'm gonna, you know, circle around of there's great coaches at all level, like great people. Right? Absolutely. And I think a, a key for recruits is you have to talk to the athletes that are in the program mm-hmm. that have graduated from the program because they're gonna tell you the truth, more of the truth, right. The college coaches are gonna, you know, they're, they're gonna get to all the good stuff, you know? Um, they're not gonna tell you all the, all the challenges that are going on, but the kids normally will, you know, and, and now with social media, you know, you can get a in, in touch with a college and athlete super easy. And normally they're there willing to help you. Um, and so I think that's a big, you know, a big factor of really getting to understand the dynamics and, and college coaches will give you athletes to call. Like, Hey, you wanna talk to some of the athletes on the team? Hey, you should reach out to so and so and so and so. Well they're giving you the athletes that they have the best relationship with, right? Absolutely.

Jake Winder: (58:35)
Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (58:35)
So you need to go on, on TERs and Miles split and see which kid came in and didn't get better. I'm gonna call them. What's their experience really like. Right? Which kid hasn't competed for this whole outdoor season? Cuz they're probably hurt. What's it like when you're hurt in this program? Wow. You

Jake Winder: (58:51)
Know, I don't want, I, I feel bad cuz you're like giving away some really good secrets here. And I want people to, you know, go to your seminars and stuff, but I mean, thi all like, this is a really, that's a really great idea. I had never considered that. I had never thought about that. But reaching out to other athletes that have been on the team, but you can't always just read five star reviews. You gotta read the one star reviews too, you know? Right. And see what happened. Like, so it might be advantageous for you. Yeah. Should you talk to the ones that the coach, you know, advises you to talk to? Absolutely. Yeah. Talk with 'em, stay with 'em on your recruiting visit, do whatever you need to do, but maybe see if you can find a disgruntled athlete. Like, uh, what

Brooke Rasnick: (59:34)
Yeah. Yeah. And the tough thing is there's gonna be athletes that are disgruntled unreasonably. Right? Right. They had a bad experience, but they, they're not gonna tell you that they weren't showing up to practice or they were failing their classes or they didn't, you know what I mean? They didn't go to the training room ever. They, you know, so you have to understand that there's gonna be some of that as well, which makes it even more convoluted. Um, but I think the, the more athletes you can speak to of, you know, what's the situation like, what are these people like that I'm about to, you know, hand a lot of important decisions in my life over to, right. Um, how are they gonna treat me?

Jake Winder: (01:00:11)
Yeah. Yeah. So you gotta, yeah, you gotta, I mean, you kind of gotta read as many reviews as you have want. You know, you gotta read the three star reviews too, you

Brooke Rasnick: (01:00:19)
Know? Yeah. I joked around that I was gonna, I was gonna create a rate my professor for college coaches, you know, um, and, and one of my friends said, one of my colleagues was like, if you do that, every coach in America's gonna hate you. . I was like, all Yeah. Yeah.

Jake Winder: (01:00:34)
But that's, that's what I like about what you're doing is like, you're not, you're not, you're just being honest about what's going on. Like, it's, it's not like you're, you're, you're not coming at this like, you know, you, you know, you should, you know, never do this or, you know, these people are, are bad people or whatever. Like you're, you're coming at this and just saying like, Hey, this is an, this is honestly what happens coming from a person who's been there, who's done all of the different things that you could probably possibly think of. Like, I've been there, I've done it, and I can help you with this. Now a college coach, you know, you know, may maybe they would listen to certain parts of this podcast and they might say like, ah, that's bs like that, you know, they didn't talk about this or they didn't talk about that. Okay, that's fine. But you gotta realize that if you do, if, if Brooke does her job with her business and, and a athlete comes to you with a large body of knowledge of what their commitment comes with mm-hmm. , they're going to be way more likely to be a positive member of your team.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:01:53)
Right.

Jake Winder: (01:01:54)
Opposed to somebody who comes in, has no idea what the hell they're doing, and then gets into a program that is not a good fit for them, that's bad for the coach, that's bad for the athlete, that's bad for everybody. So just educate 'em up front, tell 'em the good things about it, tell 'em the bad things about it, have them make their choice, and then it's going to help everybody in the end. We all have to, we have to be able to have just like, like uncomfortable conversations.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:02:22)
Right. You have

Jake Winder: (01:02:23)
To be able to do it.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:02:24)
And I feel like I'm in the most unique position to do that. Right. Like, because I, you know, I've, I've just been in it and, and recruiting changes so much over time. So I'm, I'm fresh out, right? Like I understand what the landscape is right now and I'm not these high school athletes coach. Right. If I'm their coach, like, I'm trying to encourage them, Hey man, shoot for the stars, you know, in a lot of ways, right? I don't wanna, I don't wanna be the one that goes and tells them they're not D one caliber. You know, like it's not fun, you know, like now you gotta speak, you know, realities to your athlete. But I don't wanna be the one that tells 'em that. But for me, I'm in this role where I can be real, Hey, this is how this program's gonna value you.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:03:07)
Mm-hmm. , you know, and this is where you're at. And I don't know if they're gonna give you a walk on spot or not, or no. If you, you know, if you can only pay $20,000 out of pocket, this is way outside your range cuz they're not gonna come with that type of athletic scholarship, you know? Right. Right. Or, hey, this is how you need to address this coach with what your strengths are and what you can bring to the table for them to even get it free to get a foot in the door to start a conversation. Because if you approach that wrong, that door might be shut before you even have a chance. Right. Right. Cause you just don't wanna understand the landscape and what they care about, you know? So a lot of what I've done is even just help kids write their first email to coaches Right.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:03:45)
And craft it in a way that makes the kid sound really reasonable about where they're at. And you know, and that's what college coaches want, right? We want regional reasonable kids. We don't want a kid to tell us, you know, they've got Olympic dreams and they're the 300 Beths boy volter in their class. Right? Like, that's great, but let's not talk about that like that you're not even close to that. Right. Right. Let's talk about being, you know, the 200th Beths kid in your class, your class , you know? Yeah. Let's do that next. Right. Yeah. And for sure, you know, just like understanding how we perceive those things. Cause if we have kids that we recruit that have these like super high expectations for themselves, and we don't, they're not even close to that. Like, they're gonna come in and be disappointed. They think that my coaching is gonna, you know, be this unbelievable change in who they are as an athlete and I'm gonna help 'em get better, but I'm not a miracle work worker either, you know, and Right. Um, so I don't want them to have these, you know, if they come in with unreal, this realistic expectations, it's not gonna be a good dynamic.

Jake Winder: (01:04:43)
Right. Right. So, uh, you, you've probably answered this question a million times. Um, but what, what is, what are the different calibers? Like what, what, what would an athlete need to be able to do to be able to go and pole vault at let's say a Power five conference school?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:05:07)
Yeah, yeah. No, that's a good question. Um, on the men's side, I mean, yeah, for one, there's different levels even in the Power five level. Right. You know, um, but, um, to get scholarship money, you're probably looking at the, you know, as a junior probably 16 foot range to start with, you know, but there's gonna be Power five schools that's gonna ask that kid to walk on mm-hmm. . Okay. Um, you know, if you jump 17 feet as a junior, you're gonna have some schools that give you, um, a big scholarship and there's just some schools that are gonna give you 15%.

Jake Winder: (01:05:46)
Right. You know, what's a big scholarship for a pole vault?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:05:51)
Um, I'll say, well, I, I, I, I don't, I

Jake Winder: (01:05:57)
Know it's all relative. Like, I'm

Brooke Rasnick: (01:05:58)
Too new to this, you know, to where it's too fresh where I'm gonna talk about kids and people are gonna know who they are. So I don't wanna do that to the kid, you know? Yeah. Um, but, um, you know, I've recruited, I've recruited a kid that's an Olympian now and we offered him 90%. There's probably 85%.

Jake Winder: (01:06:15)
Okay. You know,

Brooke Rasnick: (01:06:16)
Um,

Jake Winder: (01:06:16)
So it's not outta the question to get into the, you know, 70 to 90. Yeah. It's

Brooke Rasnick: (01:06:23)
Possible, especially on the women's side. You have more scholarship money on the women's side. At the D one level, you have 18 women's and 12.6 men. But, but really every kid that's going through this recruiting process, coaches are trying to put together a whole package, including academics, need-based aid, you know, any other merit type scholarships. Um, because even if the kid is worth a full scholarship, let's say, but they can get 30% cover in academics, that's what we want. Cuz now it only costs us 70%, but it's the same amount of money in that kid's pocket. You know? So the academic piece is really important. You know, understanding like where you can get good need based aid from is important.

Jake Winder: (01:06:59)
What's need based aid

Brooke Rasnick: (01:07:01)
Based on your, your family's finances, you know, so you fill out the FAFSA or every college has like a cost calculator we can put in your, your parents' financial financials and then it'll kind of give you an idea, Hey, this is the range of what need-based aid you'd get at this school in schools, like private schools with big endowments normally get out, give out a lot of need-based aid, um, or a state school with a small endowment. You know, it may just be the FAFSA money or Pell grant type thing. So every school, yeah.

Jake Winder: (01:07:32)
So, so yeah. So back to, so like, uh, uh, a junior, a male that's a junior would, you know, you need to be probably pole vaulting 16 feet as a junior to be able to really start, you know, to kind of expect, like, I I should be able to get a little something. Is that true?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:07:53)
Yeah. For a Power five school. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know, now if the kids jump 15 eight and he's six five and he is only been pole bolt for a year, and that kid may get an offer. Right. So there's all these other intangible things that go into it as well, but, um, yeah. But normally it's, now it's about that range. Um, okay. And

Jake Winder: (01:08:13)
Then what about on the women? Oh,

Brooke Rasnick: (01:08:14)
Go ahead. Yeah, on the women's, yeah, on the women's side, uh, it's such a variety now, but you know, to get a big scholarship it's gonna be around 13, nine, you know, 14 feet type range. Right. And, um, to get indie scholarship money outta Power five School, it's gonna probably gonna be 13 feet, somewhere in there around

Jake Winder: (01:08:34)
13. Okay. So like 13 and 16 as a junior. I think that's a, that's an important piece too, is to kind of consider the, the age. Um, that was what my dad, whenever I was going through all of this, that's what my dad had always said. He was like, dude, we, we need to do this junior year indoors, and, and because we were in Illinois, so we never knew what we were gonna get outside mm-hmm. . So he, like, from when I started Pole vaulting, he was like, you need to jump 16 plus your junior year indoors so that we can put ourselves in a good position for you to get recruited or, or whatever. And um, and that's what we always, we always tried to do. Uh, it is very unfortunate whenever you have, you know, like a senior that PRS by like two feet at the state meet, you know, in, at the end of May.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:09:33)
Yeah.

Jake Winder: (01:09:34)
And it's like, what? I don't get anything. Is that like, what, what do you, what would you tell a kid in that situation?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:09:41)
Yeah, I think that it's, you know, right now it's a challenge because the transfer portal has impacted offers to high school athletes because now we can go get a proven college athlete out of the portal. Um, and there's a lot of kids sitting in the portal not having a place to go, you know, and Right. And then these covid extra, this extra year of eligibility has made the depth significant, you know, I mean, not what'd it take to get to the indoor international meet this year? Was it 18 feet or something? You know? Yeah. Um, when I was in college, I think it was like 17 four got in one year to indoors. Right? Yeah. So, um, so that's impacted things. But I, but there are schools that they're, you know, they're waiting on, or they have money available at the end of, you know, your senior year and you, um, go and jump higher.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:10:27)
Then there's opportunities. Um, but it's just hard cause you just never know where school's gonna be with their scholarship money. And it's just, it varies by if that other recruit committed or not . Right. Little, you know, there's just so many factors or maybe one of their kids late when in the transfer portal, so now they have money that opens up mm-hmm. . Um, so I mean, Mo typically if I'm recruiting a kid that's jumped, let's say jump 15 six a boy that's jumped 15 six their junior year of high school, and the finances are important to them, um, I normally encourage that kid and they wanna go to a D one school. I normally encourage that kid to wait in, jump higher their senior year, early their senior year, and then they'd normally have more doors open for 'em. Now with the transfer portal stuff, I don't know if that's real anymore, but normally when you jump 15 six, you might get some small offers to mid-major school or, you know, division two school. But it's like, is it worth taking that thousand dollars in books or is it worth waiting and seeing if I can go jump, you know, I know I've got an enemy to go jump 16 six or whatever. Right. And they go do that. Now you're gonna get $5,000 to come to Louisville or something, you know? Right, right. Um, but it's just, it's a toss, toss up, you know, you just don't know every program's gonna be different and what they value and then they're gonna be different spots of what they have available.

Jake Winder: (01:11:44)
Right, right. Yeah. Cuz that's, I I've always just kind of wondered, you know, what availability would there be for somebody who, you know, pops at the very tail end of their senior year? Um, you know, it's very, you know, it's advisable to do that junior year, you know. Yeah. Obviously. But

Brooke Rasnick: (01:12:05)
I'll tell you what, I'll tell you this. I didn't even know who Gabby Leon was until after she graduated high school or senior year, and she was competing at the New Balance meet.

Jake Winder: (01:12:14)
Really? Mm-hmm. . Whoa. Well, that changes stuff. Great. For the people who don't know, uh, can you please explain who she is?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:12:23)
Yeah, so Gabby was just the, the national, uh, champion last year outdoors. And she made the US team compete at the World Championships, made the final, finished 12th, had a really great college career, um, but capped it off with a, with a title, national title, which was, which is awesome. Um, and she's from Michigan. And I went to go recruit at the New Balance meet, like I typically did. It was 105 degrees out. I was sitting there with my seven month, you know, pregnant belly, basically wondering, what the heck am I doing with my life with my first kid

Jake Winder: (01:12:55)
?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:12:56)
And I see this kid run down the runway, warm up for the pole vault, and I'm like, dang. Like, that girl can move, you know? And I don't know who she is, you know, she just has like a tank top on, you know, you know, those new balance meets, like they're not, a lot of times they're not in uniforms. And my sprint coach is sitting next to me and I watched her come down the runway again, and I was like, I'll tell you what, I was like, I don't know who that kid is, but she's gonna kick everyone else's here in two years. Like,

Jake Winder: (01:13:21)
Really?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:13:22)
Really? I was like, yeah. And, and I turn and I figure out who she is finally. And her team was sitting behind me and I kind of turned back and asked the kids like, Hey, you know, where's, where's Gabriela going next year? And they're like, oh, she's going to, so-and-so school said, oh, okay. You know, and, um, and then her high school coach comes up and starts talking to me, and I didn't realize I didn't totally make the connection. Her high school coach puts on the Grand Haven Beach Vault, so I'd been there to recruit Yeah. David

Jake Winder: (01:13:50)
Ion. Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:13:52)
And so, you know, I said, man, that Gabriela, she's a stud. Like, she's gonna be good. You know, they told me she's going to such a school. And he was like, well, she hasn't, she's not really decided yet. Right. I was like, really? I was like, yeah. Um, so I, you know, I keep watching her and, um, she didn't jump very well at the meat. Sh I think she got like 13th or something, you know, and she didn't really, she was not very good technically at all as a pole Walter, but she just kind of had that dynamic, you know, movement down the runway. That was impressive. And, um, and I, and I watched how she handled the meat. Right. I watched how she didn't perform well, you could tell she was frustrated, like she really cared, but she wasn't like pouting, she wasn't crying.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:14:35)
She's handled herself like with this emotional intelligence, you know, that I was impressed with. And so, and she had the long jump the next day, you know, and she had just jumped like 18 nine or something, or maybe it was 19 seven or I, I don't know what it, she jumped far the week before. She had this big long jump pop at the end of her senior year, and she barely long jumped at all. Yeah. So I come back the next day and watch her long jump and she won the, you know, un, I don't know what they called it, new Balance, the unseated or the Emerging Elite Long Jump. Right. And I remember being under the bleachers talking about my head coach of like, Hey man, I've got this kid and she's a stud. Like, do we have any scholarship money left? And I put him on the phone with the sprints coach that saw her too, , you know, someone else for proof.

Jake Winder: (01:15:17)
Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:15:18)
And, uh, and we brought her on campus, I don't know, a week later. And we had a good, you know, we had a good conversation at the meet. And, uh, she came on campus a week later and luckily my head coach liked her just as much as I did, and she came to Louisville. So, so that's, you know, that's a rare story, but, you know, it's one way she didn't, you know, she thought she was going to a school and they kind of pulled her off her is what happened. Like they had this offer for her. She, another puer took it before her, so she was sitting there Oh. Barely anything, you know? And so, so luckily for me, she was available and, and you know, and I think it kind of worked out for her as well. And she came to Louisville and was a great situation.

Jake Winder: (01:15:57)
That's incredible. Yeah. That's a, I mean, that's a very encouraging story to anybody out there that is, uh, you know, having, having that moment where they're like, I'm a senior and I am officially switching on the panic button, , and I , I could break out in tears at any moment. . Um, great. There still is hope, you know, so just keep, keep what, what, what would, like, what would be be a piece of advice for you to tell somebody in that situation? Like, Hey man, you've got, I mean, what is today, April 26th? Okay, so you've got one month left of your high school season.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:16:36)
Yeah.

Jake Winder: (01:16:37)
You're a good vaulter. You've got the skills your coaches have been telling you, you've got the skills. Um, but there's no, there hasn't been that, that big pop yet. What would you tell that vaulter to do in this situation?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:16:53)
Yeah, yeah. So I would, if there's schools that they're interested in that they haven't reached out to, cuz they, a lot of these kids are thinking, these college coaches are just gonna reach out to them, right? We have this, you know, glorious understanding of recruiting and that's just not the reality in our sport. So many kids get recruited because the kid reached out to the coach first. Um, so I would have a well-crafted email, simple email and a, you know, a couple clips of them pole vaulting and send it out to coaches like, Hey, I'm still unc uncommitted, you know, this is where I'm at. And say, I'm gonna, you know, like, do you have any roster spots available or are you still looking for Pu vaulters and I'm gonna keep you posted on my progress over the next six weeks of my season, you know, and

Jake Winder: (01:17:37)
Right. And then what, how long, how long should they wait for a response before they chirp 'em again and hit hit 'em back

Brooke Rasnick: (01:17:49)
At this time of year? I'd wait a week, a week, you know. Okay. I'd wait maybe a week and say, Hey, I just wanna make sure you got my email. They don't respond because coaches are busy, man. They're right in the middle of their season. Right. You know, um, so they could easily miss it. Right. We normally don't miss the really good recruits that email us. Right. Like Right. But those Teener kids, we can like, uh, like maybe they would be a good developmental athlete to have, but they get busy or they don't quite know how to respond well. Right. Um, and, and so I think, I think that's also important for kids to know how to ask like a, a question that's easy for a coach to answer, right? Like, I get emails from kids that would say, can you tell me more about your program? Like, what does that even

Jake Winder: (01:18:30)
Mean , you know,

Brooke Rasnick: (01:18:31)
Like, you have the internet, right? Like, what do you know about my program? You know what I mean? Like, yeah, you want me to write a look like how do you want me to respond to that? Right? Like, and I get, I, they just don't get it. Right? But if they respond with, Hey, do you think there's any chance that I'd have an opportunity on your team? Right. You know, say, Hey, like, this is what you need to do, or, you know, um, you know, whatever. It gives me like an opportunity to, to answer that direct question in a simple way is way better than like leaving it way open-ended or, um, and if, you know, you're at a point where you're not getting a lot of love from that level of colleges, like, don't, you know, like if you ask about scholarships right away, that's like, and you're a developmental athlete, you know, maybe it's easier us to say, Hey, you're not gonna have any scholarship money, you know, and I get at the end of this when you're crunched for time, like the quicker you gotta have that conversation. But I'd probably wait for the second email, you know, like, Hey, you know, would I have any opportunities on your team if they say, Hey, yeah, we see you as a possibility, you know, or keep me posted on your progress. And then you can come back and say, Hey, like, what, what do I need to do to earn any type of scholarship money?

Jake Winder: (01:19:36)
Right? Right.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:19:36)
Because so many kids are uninformed, right? They think that anybody that signs with the school is getting a full scholarship, they just don't know any better. And so, you know, us being able to navigate that quickly, but we also don't want you to just choose a school based on money too.

Jake Winder: (01:19:51)
Yeah, absolutely. And then how long would somebody need to be ghosted for you to just move on? Like how, how many like,

Brooke Rasnick: (01:20:01)
Yeah, I think two

Jake Winder: (01:20:02)
Weeks, three weeks?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:20:03)
Yeah. I mean, I think if there's two me, you've sent two messages and they haven't responded, I think it's, you move on, you know, now if you make this big breakthrough performance and it's a school you really want to go to, then you fill 'em in, Hey, I just wanna let you know, I jumped a foot higher or six inches higher, or whatever, you know? Right. And, and maybe that coach's scenario change, right? They had kids hop in the portal, um, or kid got hurt and they're gonna medical dq and now there's more possibilities. And, and I wouldn't, like, if ki if coaches don't respond to you as you're developing, it doesn't mean that you're, they're just an a-hole, right? Like they are getting email after email. Oh, yeah. You know, for sure. And so, so like sometimes kids are like, they didn't respond then, so I'm not gonna email 'em now, which is fine. Like, that's your choice, right? Like, if that's what you value. Um, but I wouldn't think, I don't, don't let it think you think that they don't value who you are. It's just, you know, sometimes we get busy.

Jake Winder: (01:20:58)
So yeah, you could totally, uh, you know, get your feelings hurt. Right. And you need to be careful with like, they're not trying to hurt your feelings. It's just, you know, it is, it is what it is. You know, there'll be people, you know, sometimes that will reach out to us and be like, Hey, you know, like, I want to, I want to coach at Rise. And, um, and they, you know, have never coached, or they, they've never, and, and it's just like, I'm not, you're not trying to be rude, you know, you're, I'm not, you're not trying to be rude. It just doesn't fit, you know, it just doesn't fit. Like I, you know, they're not going to, there's a certain level that you have to, as a coach probably. You have to just, you know, say like, I, I kind of can't answer questions from people below. Maybe a certain point or something like that. Yeah. And it's not anything personal, it's just, it is what it is. Actually, that's a good question. How, how many, like, how many questions, how many questions like that come in like to your inbox whenever you're a big coach like that?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:22:10)
Like getting like from recruits? Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:22:13)
Ooh, I just, it depends on the time of the year and I don't know, I mean, I bet there's probably some coaches out there that get five emails a day, you know, from recruiters. Um, and maybe more probably head coach gets more, you know, certain event. Like, I didn't cover very many events. I cover the poll at the multi, so it's two events, you know, but I'd still get, if, if so-and-so coach didn't respond, that's on our staff, then they, they would message me or send me a message DM on Twitter, like, Hey, I'm trying to get ahold of so-and-so, you know. Um, but so I think, you know, I think it just totally depends on the coach's scenario. And I think high school coaches get upset with college coaches not responding. You know, they get high school coaches get upset with college coaches not talking to the high school coach in the recruiting process.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:22:58)
And I don't think college coaches do it intentionally, you know? And it's not like we don't value what you have to say, but I'll say that most of those conversations are the same for us, especially if it's a high, like, at the actual high school coach, right? Because that kid might have been the best kid they've coached in the last decade, right? So in their mind it's like the best, you know, and they're in, they're, uh, 12 foot female p they're jumping with eight foot girls, right? So they just look like a complete rockstar, you know? And they are in that setting, you know? Um Right. But for us, like that's, they're not, they're still not quite there yet, you know? Um, and they're all, you know, so it's interesting, I'm trying to help like, navigate that a little bit for coaches to kind of have empathy. Cause it's like, we don't, like I quit my job cause I feel like I didn't have enough time to do it Well, you know? Right. Like, I didn't feel like I could recruit as well as I wanted to, and I just, I just had national champion recruiting was gonna get way easier. Right. Um, right.

Jake Winder: (01:23:56)
Yeah, that's a good point.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:23:57)
You know, so just like even talking to kids and then having the time to talk to coaches and the parents, and it's just a lot, you know. Um, so, um, so in my, you know, my suggestion to the high school coaches is like, don't hesitate to reach out to the college coach. Hey, I, you know, I heard so-and-so's you called them, or they've tried to reach out to you, I'd love to go to bat forum. 'em, you know, or they're, this is how I view them, you know, and, and that matters. Or, Hey, I'd love to love to chat about 'em. Um, and Right. So like, don't, don't feel like there's just like this wall that you can't breach on your side.

Jake Winder: (01:24:30)
Yeah. And there's, there's, there's definitely like, you know, if, because we deal with that same thing too, where, you know, some coaches will reach out to us, like I've talked with Jenny, uh, a lot over the last couple years about different, uh, people and, and things like that. And, and other college coaches will reach out to, to Luke or, or some of our other staff and ask like, Hey, what about this person or that person? But I don't really get my feelings hurt if a college coach doesn't reach out to me. Yeah. Because at the end of the day, that's a decision between the college coach and that person and their family like that. That's kind of like their decision to make and their Yeah. You know, if the college coach needs some context, then they might reach out to the high school coach or, uh, the club coach or whatever. But if they don't, it's, it's really between them. Like that's a transaction between those two that, that I don't really have anything to do with, you know, I try to get 'em prepared, as prepared as possible and then, you know, let them on their way, you know? Right.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:25:38)
Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, you know, I, I mean, I've had high school coaches sit in kind of uninvited to home visits, you know, and, you know, and it's really, to me, a little bit of a red flag, you know? And I, and I know that they're there to help, but one of the biggest things we're trying to evaluate with high school athletes, especially pole vaulters, how are they gonna transition from their high school coach to me? Hmm. Are they gonna buy into what I'm doing? Are they gonna listen to what our, you know, what we're trying to get them to do? Right. And if you feel, or you've seen, I mean, there's some clubs I didn't recruit from really, to be honest. Yeah. Because the track record of how they transitioned well wasn't very good.

Jake Winder: (01:26:19)
Right.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:26:20)
And so that's

Jake Winder: (01:26:21)
Really good. That's a good point. And I want to mention this before I forget, club coaches, high school coaches, everybody hear this. Um, it is very important that you do not try to sell an athlete to a college. You are going to do them a very large disservice if you try to sell an athlete to a college. I forget who I was talking to the other day. Joe Davis from Clemson. I was talking to him and he had called me and we had just been chatting and I said, you know, as a college coach, you have to watch out too, because high school coaches and club coaches, they do have incentive probably more. So club coaches have an incentive to get those kids to your school because, you know, I want to be able to have a Clemson Penant on my wall at my gym. You know, and it's like, okay, well, hey, I might, I might tell you every good thing about this athlete, you know, but I might leave out some of the details that could be, you know, really informative to that college coach.

Jake Winder: (01:27:39)
And it's really important that we're all honest with each other about everything. Um, and whenever I, I, you know, I tell my staff at Rise, if a college coach reaches out to you, you just need to be honest there. It's just be honest with them. And if it's the right thing that is meant to happen, then it will happen. But what we don't want is we don't wanna sh sell these athletes to these different schools. Like this athlete, they're on time, they can vault high. They're, I don't know what their, you know, speed is, but it's fast. You know, like, like, you know, like those types of things. They cleared a 14 foot bungee, you know, in, in practice the other day. You know, those sorts of things. Like really trying to sell the athlete really, really hard. Um, you need to be careful because if that athlete goes to that school and they blow up Yes. Who that's a reflection of, that's a reflection of your gym or your club or your high school program. And then the next time that, that college coach, exactly like you said, the next time that they go and they're like, Hey, I heard so and so jumped really high out of this club. It's like, cool

Brooke Rasnick: (01:28:54)
. Right.

Jake Winder: (01:28:55)
, I don't want anything to do with it because you might have been sold a bill of goods, you know? And, and that's what we wanna make sure that we're just honest and it's not, it's not like I'm calling and like trying to, uh, downtalk the athlete. Yeah. You know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, in the end, if I tell the truth about the athlete, it's the same thing that you, we were talking about earlier with your situation. If I tell the truth about the athlete, they have a much higher likelihood of being successful at whatever program they get into, and that's all we want. Yes. All of us want that.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:29:32)
And some of this isn't even just coaches blown smoke. Some of us just how these co how coaches operate with their athletes. Right. So if I have high school coaches that call me and all they do is talk trash on other coaches in their area or other clubs, right. What are they gonna do the first time their athlete hits a bump in the road in my program, .

Jake Winder: (01:29:55)
Right.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:29:56)
Like, they're gonna come after me. Yeah, right. You know, so, and, and they've been feeding all that junk to their athletes that this guy, and, and I get it, there's not, there's some really not good pole bowl coaches out there. Like I understand that. And there's some that know that they're not good, and there's some that don't know they're not good. But the more you get into this head, the head of these athletes, that this is the only way you can do something, the harder that transition's gonna be to college. Right. So the coaches that operate that way of like, you know, no, you can't do this day before you evolve, that's wrong. No, you can't jump more than three days a week or what, you know, or you gotta jump five days a week or whatever that is that they're saying, you have to do this to be good.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:30:38)
I'm like, I don't want, you know, I need a kid that has an open mind that is able to handle adjustments because we don't have the luxury, most of the time, most programs on the luxury of having an indoor facility that they can access any day of the week mm-hmm. . Right? Right. I mean, we just build a new indoor track at Louisville and it was awesome. It's a great situation, but we don't only have access to it for three months outta the year. So in Nov early November when it's raining out, like, I gotta make adjustments to our week, you know, and I'm gonna make those adjustments to, to make the most out of it. But they've gotta understand that there's just so many different ways to do things Well, you know, and we're going to make, you know, do whatever we can to make this fit. Or maybe we travel, you know, for whatever reason the head coach buys flights and we fly in and we get in really late Friday night and we gotta jump early Saturday morning. I don't want those people to think they can't do that, you

Jake Winder: (01:31:34)
Know? Right. Well, it's a different thing. It's a different thing. Like how many times do people get on a plane to go jump at rice? Not very many. You know, like, right, right. So it's like, it's a totally different thing. Like that's what I was tr trying to explain earlier is like, don't expect to leave here and get the same thing. It's not gonna be the same thing. 100%. It's going to be very different. It's going to be significantly different. You know, not in a bad way, it's just going to be different in a way that's probably gonna take you a little bit of a time to adjust to. Right. Um, and there was one more thing that you had mentioned too about, uh, whenever, you know, the athlete shows up their freshman year and, and then they, you know, maybe they're having some issues.

Jake Winder: (01:32:17)
All right? This is another thing to all the coaches out there that own gyms or clubs or, or high school coaches, they're gonna call you. Those athletes are for sure, they're gonna call you. You can't, you can't stop that from happening. You were one of their mentors. You helped them to grow into this person that they, you know, have become. So obviously Yeah. I want people to email me and text me and call me and, and tell me like, Hey, I'm, you know, I'm having this, this issue. Don't talk smack about the college coach. What are you doing? Like what is that gonna accomplish? That's not going to accomplish anything. That athlete is there. Right. And they're gonna remain there. Right. So talking smack about a situation that they can't control is going to be do nobody any good now? Is it difficult? Sometimes yes. Because sometimes I'll get calls that are like, Hey, we're running like repeat 400 s and then pole vault it. Okay. Yeah. That one's a harder one to, you gotta kind of skate around that conversation, but you gotta skate around it because the athlete can't do anything about it. You know? And if they start coming at you, where should, should I transfer? Should I do that? Stay outta that conversation. Stay out of it. Yeah. Just, yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:33:33)
Stay out of it. Well, and that's like, like your point of like, that's why the athlete needs to know to have those conversations before they get there. Hey, what's a training week look like in the fall? Can you send me something your kids did last fall? Right. You, that's a

Jake Winder: (01:33:48)
Great question too. Holy cow.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:33:49)
Like, what does that look like? Because I think a lot of polet co you know, like they don't, you know, they sometimes they have this old school mentality of training and you know, and they do that and they're, Hey, let's run ten two hundred s on Monday, then we're gonna pole bolt Tuesday. Mm-hmm. like, dude, you can't do that with a pole vaulter. You know? Right. Yeah. Maybe the long jumper can come do some short popups, you know, after running hard, which I still don't recommend. Right, right. . But you still get something done technically. Like you can't do that with a pole vaulter on the runway. Right. That's when run through, stop, you know. Exactly.

Jake Winder: (01:34:21)
Yeah. Injuries, everything.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:34:24)
Yeah. So, you know, so that's the, you know, like that's hopefully, hopefully weeding some of those things out and the recruiting process is, you know, is valuable. But, you know, maybe they go there and they've vetted all that, then a new coach comes in and that's what their approach is, you know, then you gotta figure out how to navigate that. Um, yeah,

Jake Winder: (01:34:38)
Regardless it's gonna be a difficult transition. I will say that my freshman year I went to University of Alabama, um, just for reference, I went on a 60% scholarship. I had jumped 16 seven as a junior in high school. Mm-hmm. . So just for the people out there, just as a reference,

Brooke Rasnick: (01:34:56)
How many years ago was that?

Jake Winder: (01:34:59)
Uh, that was 2007.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:35:01)
Okay. Yeah.

Jake Winder: (01:35:03)
Is it better or worse now?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:35:05)
Uh, it's probably a worse offer. Well, it's significantly worse offer now at Alabama. But that, uh, you know, cuz it's just gotten better. Right. The high school kids are better than it's ever been.

Jake Winder: (01:35:13)
Right. Right. Right. Um, yeah. So I went there and I just, you know, it was just, it was a huge culture shock going from Chicago to, you know, Tuscaloosa, that was a giant culture shock. Um, but, you know, it just didn't end well for me. And I don't know, I I think about it often if there was something that I could have done differently during the recruiting process to kind of mitigate that risk of, of that happening. And I, I've never been able to come up with anything if I would've had a service like yours that I could have just like called and just been like, Hey, what are the things that I need to ask somebody? Do I, and you would've said, you need to ask them about polls. You need to ask them about training. You need to ask them about, you know, what their facilities are like. You need to check the weather and not just assume that Alabama's warm all the time. It snowed one time when I was down there. Right. And I was like, this is ridiculous. So anyway, so about your service, why would somebody choose your service over, um, first of all, what's the name of your service? Just so everybody knows

Brooke Rasnick: (01:36:30)
Elevate Athletic recruiting,

Jake Winder: (01:36:32)
Elevate Athletic Recruiting. Uh, she's got a nice website. I've been to it. Um, I've taken, I've purchased her seminar and it's really, really good. Lots of really valuable information in there. Um, but why would somebody choose this over something like a, uh, what's that one called? Nasca or NC

Brooke Rasnick: (01:36:52)
Ncsa. Yeah,

Jake Winder: (01:36:53)
Nnc. S a

Brooke Rasnick: (01:36:54)
Yeah. Um, no, that's a great question. Um, for one, like there aren't very many that are track and field specific. Like nnc. S a is gonna cover every sport and you can purchase a recruiting coach, you know, that you have access to. Rarely do those recruiting co coaches even understand track and field, you know, let alone a pole vault, you know, since we're on a Pole Vault podcast. Right. So, um, and I don't, I don't think they provide, I mean, they definitely don't provide anything like I do with the education seminars. Um, that's specific to our sport, you know, and specific to our event, um, I've put together a, a pole vault specific, the one that you, you know, you listen to, um, that's, there's no, there's nothing out there like it, you know mm-hmm. . Um, so, um, getting that, that understanding for someone that's been in it as a, as a college coach, I think is, you know, really valuable to get you to think about things that maybe you didn't even know you, you needed to know.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:37:50)
Um, and I think N C S A provides some value in the sense they're, they're help you sort through schools easier. Right. You can look at admission standards and the cost and things that way. I don't have, I don't have a breakdown that way. I don't provide a data, I'm not a database service where I'm gonna have a list of athletes that coaches can come look at if they're interested in recruiting them. Um, I'm more of the, like, I'm gonna empower you and equip you with the knowledge you need to go make really good decisions. Yeah. Um, and trying to do that in a cost effective way by providing seminars. And I just did one, um, this Sunday night about the financial side of college and how scholarships work and the timeline and the questions they need to ask and can you negotiate? And you know, what, what all goes into that? And they're, no one's gonna give them that type of information, especially specific to our sport, um, that I know of that's out there doing this.

Jake Winder: (01:38:45)
No, no, no, no. Nobody, nobody is, it's, it's good.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:38:48)
So, so yeah. So that's kind of, you know, and, and I, I do provide like one-on-one consulting and I, I have, you know, um, a decent amount of families that will reach out or they, you know, kind of, they get stuck like, Hey, this college coach said this, or I'm kind of between, they're on these things down. Can you help us navigate this? Or, um, how do we get started? And uh, and you know, cause everybody's super unique, you know, every track and field program is unique and what they can offer and what they can't and every individual athlete and family is gonna be different in what their, what they value and what their needs are, um, in their experience. So, um, so I do, I do do one-on-one consulting as well, um, with families. But, um, my, my long-term vision is to create enough content where less fam families need that. You know, I'm just trying to build that content up and I don't have it all yet, you know, completed, but

Jake Winder: (01:39:38)
Right, right. Yeah. And that's like something that I, I, I got an email the other day from you and, and I, and it was like, Hey, here's this, uh, you know, here's the seminar and you can purchase it here. And I went and I purchased, it was really easy. Um, and then I just, I was intending to just like, kind of just like browse through it, you know? No, no offense. I, and I, and then I like turned it on and I was just like, whoa, this is actually, this is pretty valuable. And it was very cost effective, like the one that I purchased, I don't know what your situation is now, but like, I was like the, the, for the amount of money, you know, that that would be saved and the amount of hassle and headaches, uh, and questions that would be answered.

Jake Winder: (01:40:27)
Like, it, it's like a no-brainer to me, um, to do something like this. I think that if you're listening to this and you have any questions about it, I think that you really need to at least visit the website and just like, check it out and see what's going on. Because, you know, like Brook said, there's nothing really specifically for pole vaulting. And I will say this about N C S A, um, I created a fake account with N C S A like two years ago. Mm-hmm. , uh, under the account named Michael Jordan . And, and, and I still get emails from colleges trying to recruit Michael Jordan, who was a 15 foot pole vaulter in Illinois. And it just, to me, it's just two different things. It's just, is N C S A, like, it's gonna be a much bigger, like, broader, um, thing. It's going to be, you know, like blanket emails and, and like, you know, stuff like that, which I think is valuable.

Jake Winder: (01:41:41)
And there are coaches that utilize that service and do a really good job, uh, with it. But what you're offering is more of a specific niche product. And I would say the majority, the overwhelming majority of athletes that we have that are recruited, it's done in more of a, um, personal kind of way. And it's like what you're talking about, athlete reaches out to coach, coach gets the email, coach responds to athlete, they start the conversation, coach brings athlete on a recruiting visit and you know, then that happens. You know, so it's, I think that what you're offering creates more of a genuine relationship with the people that are being, that are, uh, recruiting and being recruited. Um, I think it creates more of a genuine relationship with them. And I think that the coaches, uh, will in the end respect that and kind of value that a little bit more, um, yeah. Than the whole blanket email type thing. Yeah.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:42:55)
Yeah. And I think, you know, and as a recruiting coach, if I got an email from a kid through a service a, you know, a database service like N C S A, my first response is, well, they probably sent this email to a hundred coaches. So are they really that interested in my school? Um, where if the kids sends me an individual email from their email account, not through a service, then I know they actually put the time in and maybe it's, they copy and pasted it and changed the name or whatever. But I value that more cuz I'm always trying to figure out how, what's the percent chance this kid's gonna come to school where I'm at. And the more effort the kid puts into the recruiting process, the better I feel about that. So I don't, I don't wanna spend a ton of time chasing kids that aren't interested in my school.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:43:38)
Um, right. And so I think that's the, the value. Um, but I think if, if there's an athlete that they just want an opportunity anywhere in the country or they need the best financial package Yeah. Anywhere in the history, like N C S A, that's gonna get your name out there, you know, um, but I think in the PU vault world, it's hard because there's just not that many programs that are actually gonna value it. Um, so I don't know in the PU vault world how much it actually puts you in a position where you can go somewhere and get better.

Jake Winder: (01:44:07)
So are you offering, like we, we did a service, uh, a few, a couple years ago, um, with Rise, and the disconnect was that I was kind of trying to empower the athletes and provide a resource for them to use. Um, and then I was afraid that it was gonna morph into the athletes paying me, um, to like, sell them to like colleges. So like, whenever an athlete contacts you, like, are you like getting on the phone and like dialing up like every single person that, you know, to try to get this kid recruited?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:44:52)
Yeah, no, I, I, I am doing like some of that of like getting an understanding of like, Hey, are you, would you guys be interested in this kid? You know? Right. I never tell a family recruit like, I'm gonna help place you in a school. Like, that's really not what I wanna do. Um, but some of that is, especially in other event areas, like I'm learning through those conversations, right? Like, right, hey, there's a 300 lawyer that's from this time. Like, hey, what, what does she need to do in her junior year for you to, you know, to give her scholarship money or, you know, and, and understanding that. Um, but most of the time it's me helping the athlete understand how to communicate with that coach, you know? Um, because that's

Jake Winder: (01:45:31)
More powerful, right? It's more powerful to like, kinda hear that from the athlete.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:45:35)
Exactly. Like, I don't want, you know, now I have friends, like Right, I have friends in the business and they're gonna be more direct with me. Like, I get more, more direct answers than a recruit does, you know? Mm-hmm. , and, and I can, they can do it quickly, right? Like, right, okay, with this kid, would you be interested this kid as a walk-on, what's their s a t score? This, uh, it's not good enough. No. Okay. Moving on. Hey, that you need to take that school off your list. You know what I mean? That's,

Jake Winder: (01:46:00)
That's great. That's, you know, that's not very, that's very valuable too. It saves people a lot of the time.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:46:05)
But a lot of that, a lot of those conversations are me just learning than me really like, you know, advocating for these athletes because I don't wanna be just like you, I don't know these kids very well, right? Like, I can be really impressed with how they operate with me or with their family, um, but I'm not there at their training sessions. I'm not there, you know, seeing how they interact with their teammates or their coaches. Um, right. So I'm more of, you know, sometimes I'll help get information in front of a coach or, you know, I've done some with like transfer portal kids, you know, helping them navigate that. Like, should I go on the transfer portal or not? Um, and just giving them perspective on what schools would, you know, have interest at their price point. Um, but, but yeah, no, I'm, I'm, I'm not, I don't wanna be in the game of placing athletes, you know? Yeah. I wanna be in the game of giving you as much information as you need and helping you navigate those, those challenging decisions, um, as I ca you know, as I can. So

Jake Winder: (01:47:07)
That's awesome. I love it. Um, before we get off here, uh, at the end of every podcast that we do with a new guest, we usually go through three, um, exercises, uh, or training, you know, pieces that they would use exclusively, um, to better themselves. But for you, I'm going to ask you, if you were to pick three things for somebody to go do tomorrow or today, uh, to give themselves the best chance of being recruited at the school that they want to go to, what would those three things be?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:47:42)
Yeah, um, that's good. I think putting together a, a well crafted email, you know, and obviously depends on where they're at in their timeline. Right. You know, um, they're a junior, right? Or Go ahead.

Jake Winder: (01:47:56)
I, I was gonna say, uh, I actually, can we push this a little bit? Like, just like one more question and then we'll go into that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because okay, so, so that was one thing on my thing, like a timeline. Just a quick timeline. Like freshman year, what's a freshman doing? What's a sophomore doing? What's a junior or senior?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:48:12)
Yeah. Quickly. A freshman. Don't worry about recruiting, right? Enjoy your sport. If this is something you enjoy, like put yourself in position to, to do it. Like you don't need to specialize. Um, have fun with it, right? And take care of school. That's the one thing that you have to do is you got your grades, your GPA starts your fall of your freshman year. So do a good job in school, cuz that matters your sophomore year. Um, put yourself in a position to further expand your knowledge of the sport and have opportunities to grow, you know, as a pole Walter. Um, and then tell your circle of people, your mentors that you wanna be a college athlete, right? Because those are the people that are gonna help guide you and make sure you have what you need to continue to progress while you're doing well in school as well.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:48:58)
Um, right. Your junior year, you gotta perform well for most people. That's, you know, if you want scholarship money, the junior year is the most important year, just like everybody tells you and you need to take an s a t or a c t that year. Um, and the junior year is when you need to start reaching out to college coaches and letting them know that you're interested in their school and understanding what competitive level that, um, that you're at. Okay. And you're still young so that it can grow, but just get know where you're, where you're sitting. And then your senior year is typically when, if you're, if you're at a, a decent level, you're gonna start visiting those schools on official visits in the fall. And, you know, then those schools would give you scholarship offers surrounding those official visits. And, uh, if you're at a place that it works financially and it's a fit with everything else and you'd commit and, you know, sign your paperwork in November, if that, that's not your scenario, then that kind of continues through your senior year and you continue to reach out to coaches and communicate and continue to improve your performance and open up more doors to eventually you find the, the best situation.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:50:04)
That's awesome. So that's typically how the, how the timeline goes. So if you have more details, I I sell that for like 12 bucks on my website, so

Jake Winder: (01:50:12)
Yeah. Yeah. That's real. But that's

Brooke Rasnick: (01:50:15)
A nutshell,

Jake Winder: (01:50:16)
You know, that sort of stuff really is invaluable. Um, okay, so back to the three things. What was the first thing well-crafted email?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:50:24)
Yes. Like have, depending

Jake Winder: (01:50:26)
On what time, let's say you're a junior.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:50:28)
Yeah. So if you're, if you're a junior, then you need to put together a, a well-crafted simple email. And I have a free video on my website on how to do that. I have an even like an example email. Um, they don't want five pages of your life story, right? They want the stats, you know, maybe something that connects you to that school and maybe something that's gonna show them that you have more potential than somebody else. Um, so I, I would, I would do that if you're a junior, I would prioritize performances, right? We understand that a lot of these cold weather states kind of get screwed during the outdoor season, right? You're going to meets it's 35 degrees out, you're gutting it out for your team, right? Plan on going to compete in the summertime when the weather's nice. If you have the means to do that, that's really important, right?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:51:11)
If your club can host meets in July indoors, and it's gonna be a great situation for those kids to improve their marks and their legal marks there. There's a lot of value in that. Um, and, and I would say three is just continuing to prioritize your academics and taking the s a t and a A t because that's part of like the package financially that's gonna be put together. And, and there's a lot of value in taking those classes that's gonna help you score better because it's a competitive test. So it's not just based on how you score, it's how you score compared to everyone else in the country that takes it. Um, right. And a lot of those kids are taking these, you know, these courses to help 'em prepare on how to take the test. So yeah, I think those three things are, are really valuable to do your junior year to set you up, you know, headed into the, the fall of your senior year.

Jake Winder: (01:51:57)
Okay. So number one, well crafted email number two, perform number three, make sure you're doing well on the A C T S A T,

Brooke Rasnick: (01:52:07)
Right? And your, and your GPAs, you know, GPAs good. Your all you're gonna do with, you know, good performance academically is open up more doors.

Jake Winder: (01:52:15)
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Brooke, I can't thank you enough. Um, please tell everybody all of the different avenues that they can find you, um, your business and all of that. Yeah,

Brooke Rasnick: (01:52:29)
Yeah. So, um, I, I try to put a lot of content out. Um, I have a Twitter at it's at at Coach dmo, that's my maiden name. Um, but I had too many followers to switch it at that point. So I try to put a lot of content on, on, uh, on Twitter. I have, um, my Instagram at Brooke Rasnick, um, where I try to put, you know, content out as well or you can follow me there. And then I have my website, elevate athletic recruiting.com and you can kind of get more of my story and, and what the different services that are available. Another thing I'll do too is, is clubs will have me speak to their entire club, right? A club can purchase a seminar and then they'll tell me what topics they want me to talk on and then, you know, we can do it virtually and parents can log in, kids can log in and be able to, you know, educate everybody from that, from that club or that team, um, as well. So

Jake Winder: (01:53:21)
That's what's up. I like that. Uh, when would you advise a club owner to do something like that?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:53:30)
Yeah, yeah. No, . Um, I mean, I think a lot depends on like what your, you know, the fall, your dynamic is. Um, the fall could be good time. Even the summer. I mean, I don't know when you're, you know, when do you have your biggest influx of athletes normally the winner?

Jake Winder: (01:53:46)
Uh, it's, well, I mean, it, it just depends. It's, it's kind of it. The fall, actually the fall Act fall's pretty good because we host a good amount of, uh, uh, indoor, indoor meets. It kind of just sticks around at a, you know, it fluctuates not that much, like, it's kinda a little bit at a time. But, um, I would say though that the cool thing about, you know, having, um, social media is that you don't have to come and you don't have to be a member at Rise to come to a seminar. Yeah. You know, you just come to the seminar, you know, like, like, so you could come to do it and uh, you know, and even if they weren't a member at Rise, they could come in and, and you know, be able to do those things. That's what we really want to do, is we want to, you know, provide something that everybody can be a part of and not everybody wants to pull vault with us, so it's, uh, it is what it is, but they might want to come in and watch you and listen to your, your talk and Yeah.

Jake Winder: (01:54:52)
And

Brooke Rasnick: (01:54:52)
Become more, yeah, no, I don't, I don't think there's really any bad time of year cuz recruiting for college coaches happens year round. There's really no ending point, you know? Um, it's

Jake Winder: (01:55:01)
Really a year round thing. Like there's like, is there any break at all?

Brooke Rasnick: (01:55:05)
Hmm. The biggest break normally is after the signing period and then we're waiting for kids to compete during the indoor season to see who improves.

Jake Winder: (01:55:13)
And the signing period starts

Brooke Rasnick: (01:55:15)
In November, normally middle beginning of November. And that it's ongoing, the signing period's ongoing in track and field. Right. Um, so that's probably the biggest kind of like role of like, okay, we've got these kids committed or we don't and but the kids that we want are committed somewhere else, so we gotta wait and see who kind of pops in January. Yeah. They're in the senior year.

Jake Winder: (01:55:36)
I just feel like the fall might be nice because the juniors are gonna start to go on those visits. The seniors are starting to panic a little bit, you know, like Yeah. And freak out. Yeah. You know, and, and I don't know, I just feel like I've, in my head I've always just thought of the fall might be a good time to do it. Yeah, no, I think

Brooke Rasnick: (01:55:54)
That could be, that could be great. I've had some clubs reach out to come, you know, have me come and do a camp and then speak on recruiting while I'm there and do some different stuff that way too. Um, so I think it would get some different, you know, creative things going on. So, um, let's

Jake Winder: (01:56:08)
Do it. Let's get it going. But yeah, no, I love it.

Brooke Rasnick: (01:56:11)
Um, thanks a lot man. I, you know, I appreciate all you're doing for the Pole Vault community, so it's been awesome.

Jake Winder: (01:56:16)
Yeah. Yeah. Well I appreciate your time. Uh, that was longer than I had, uh, expected, so thank you so much for taking that amount of time out of your day. Um, but it's gonna be very valuable for everyone. So thanks again and this is the one more jump podcast. See you guys later.