Coach Julie Heyde: MIT's Triple Crown

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It's easier to beat your personal best when you feel your personal best. Use those codes head over to bombas.com, pick up some performance, running socks on the cheap and thank us later. You wouldn't train in old sneakers, but for some reason you people are putting your feet into old socks. You can stop at today. There you have it. Thanks, Bombas for supporting this week's episodes. Enjoy those codes, enjoy those socks, back to the show. [MUSIC] Hey everybody, welcome back to D3 Glory Days. Another great episode for you. Before we get started, a massive thank you to Bombas for supporting D3 Glory Days this month. You heard from Noah on how to get your socks. Now you're going to hear from me that they are amazing. I ran a marathon on them last month. No blisters, so go get up here today. Use the codes in our show notes. Make sure you're on us on social media at D3 Glory Days. Subscribe to the newsletter. We're going to have some fun things over the summer to keep you entertained. Make sure you're subscribed to that. Also leave a rating or review wherever you're listening. We really appreciate it. Today's guest is the director of Track and Field and Cross Country at MIT, Coach Julie Heidi. Heidi led MIT to a triple crown this year and talks about what went into winning all three national titles to become the first women's program in D3 history to complete that feat. Simply incredible. She fills us in and why she left her own mother Boston College to come coach at MIT. Heidi, what goes into the culture and ensuring that every student has a great experience. We also talked about the mentality of having a triple crown looming over you and how the staff handled that quote unquote pressure. Heidi also became the third woman ever to lead a program to a national indoor title and it's the sixth woman outdoors. So we talk about women in coaching and why there needs to be more women in coaching and how meaningful it was for her to be part of such an elusive club. It's always great to hear from coaches and peel back the curtain and understand why programs are so good. You can definitely hear Coach Heidi's passion and enthusiasm for the sport and it goes a long way to seeing how great MIT has been. Hope you enjoy this one. I know we did. Until next time, he years to the glory days. All right, welcome back to D3 glory days. Fresh off the national meet. Fresh off a triple crown the first ever on the women's side in D3, the director of track and field and cross country coach Julie Heidi coach Heidi. Welcome to D3. Glorious. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. This is great. Yeah, so excited to talk to you, especially given the history around MIT's program this year, just a historical year in general. But I guess we'll start with the day itself, the national championships. You all were coming in preceded based on entries, number one team in the country. From a coach's perspective, how much are you looking into that versus like we know we have to actually execute on the weekend? We're not really looking into the ranking all that much going into it because we know it's based on certain people in multiple different events and we're making our own choices as to where people would fit best. And the rankings were great. I think we loved them this year because it especially indoor fed the fuel a little bit like we got everybody went week after week after week and I think just being able to acknowledge it is really helpful. But outdoor we didn't pay attention to it at all because there's so much going on. Outdoor track where in so many different places and different people are doing different things and meets have 35 degrees and rain and wind or it's just not really the same. It's not as measurable I think in outdoor track, especially until the last week. Once everybody hits that final qualifier, you could look at the last rankings and be like, okay, well, it's nice, but there's just so many different people in different places. Relays could be totally different and we didn't actually pay attention to that in outdoor which was different than indoor and cross country. We didn't talk to the team about the rankings at all. We knew what people had and we knew what it looked like and to the major competitors were and what their kind of highest point options were. We had our own spreadsheets and our own score kind of projections which we didn't see. Of course you guys did. Yeah, exactly. It wouldn't be on my team if we didn't, right? Yeah. Some students had their own, they had their own going on for sure. Yeah, so we didn't pay a lot attention to the rankings and that one. We knew we had to show up in outdoor track. There's just so many different variables. And outdoor track is the end of a very long competitive year, especially for distance runners who have gone through three national championships. How did you feel about the physical and mental health of your squad going in? Well, I actually felt really good about it. We made some decisions this year in favor of more recovery and we kind of built that in a lot and I tend to do that in general with training but focusing a lot on it for the students and realizing where we were at certain times and people have asked me about why we didn't go to any D3s. We knew early on once it was decided that it was at Coast Guard that it would have been three weekends in a row for us, regardless of whether we had chosen the Williams Fire Meet or the All New England's that it would have been back to back Friday and Saturday, two hours and a bus out, two hours and a bus back, back to back to back to back to back to back. It just would have been a lot on our students and it's in the timeframe where they can't miss a lot of class. They're in the major part of their wrap up before finals, which is much harder to miss for them than actual finals. So for us, we knew that that would just be a big ask for the students and we would be spending them just a little much too early. We made some of those decisions early on in favor of recovery and even if it's backing off training and backing off certain racing situations, we did that knowing that they'd feel better later on. So I jumped the gun in terms of the first question through it right at you in terms of this and that. But how did you celebrate? How did you recover? It's June 5th. So we're what two weeks removed basically from the national. What did you do to just unwind and celebrate in the triple crown? Well, it took a couple of days to feel like I recovered. I felt like that Monday was brutal. I think in the middle of the day, I was like, oh gosh, I got to take a nap. I can't. And I wanted to spend time with my family and my children and have some fun time with them and everybody else kind of needed to do their own thing. But the end of the following week, so Friday, last Friday, we all went out to dinner the staff. We all went to dinner and just enjoyed each other and spent time with one another and kind of relived some of the fun parts of it and talked about some of the stuff that, you know, with Track and Field, there's so much happening all at one time that you didn't actually even get to play out too, too much. But there's not actually a lot of downtime afterward. We're going to do some real celebration, I think, with our returning seniors who are part of that team next year because they finished and they had graduation. So we hadn't graduated yet before the National Meet, so we came back. They had graduation the following Friday. We had a reception for student athletes who had previously graduated who were on their alumni weekends. So that was kind of fun to be able to do that. And our women came by. The senior women came by and signed the trophy. So that was actually really cool. They signed the bottom of the trophy when we were having this alum celebration. So it was nice that people got to meet, you know, people who were on the winning four by four in Alexis. And it was really, it was, that was a lot of fun. So that was a celebration that we didn't quite plan on but it worked out. You mentioned kind of that debrief with the staff after and sharing some of those memorable moments. What was one moment you shared that you were there for? And maybe what's a moment that you heard one of your staff recount that you kind of weren't there for? So I think, for the most part, I think that I saw as much as I could, and I was running around having it at the indoor track and also outdoor with the weather for vault and high jump being inside. There was a lot of running. One of the moments I think it was, I mean, it was, I think each day has kind of its moments. But when you watched, I watched the women's 1500 where the second heat of the prelims on the first day where Jillian and Christina made it through without major challenges and they looked really fantastic. They looked good. I was like, okay, this is, this is where I felt like we're waiting for that. Like, okay, like we're on the right footing because it was horrible weather. Our throwers were walking through, you know, ankle deep water and mud. So there were challenges. But, or, I don't know. earlier that day, within the same, like 45 minutes, running back and forth from the throws, that embal one of our seniors. So it was all a lot about the seniors. I think just really did a lot that we knew they could do, but you're not just straight counting on. And so when the seniors were like, oh yeah, this is great, no problem. Like em through an unbelievable throw, Christine and Jillian go through the 1500. So I was there for those. And I think that's sort of the kind of the tone setter for me was that first day, but really a major, major one for me, I think there's two in my mind. I missed the first throw of the shot put when Alexis theoretically won the competition on our first throw. It was a 15 meter throw. And I was there for the 1656 throw and was excited for it. It was so happy, you know, we knew at that point that she had won the competition. And it was a school record, it was a great throw. And then someone pulls up everyone saying, what's the national record? What's the national record? And I hadn't even really looked at it. And then Elaine, who's our gentleman throw her, pulls it up on her phone and knew it was 1677. And when she threw that next throw, we almost couldn't tell, we couldn't see. There were no lines in the sector and there's so many people blocking it that you were like, oh, that felt good. I just don't know if it was better than the first one. And then you realize what it was and kind of the reaction to that. That was a moment for me, definitely. And then the women's 400 on Saturday when Marina was third. So I think that that was a really impressive another senior, really, really stepping up, not even paying attention or thinking about seeds going in or times going in, but just knowing, I was gonna go out there and just gonna crush this final. And I know how hard she's worked over the last four years and she's certainly been a staple for the MIT program in the long sprints, but that was a spectacular performance. So that was a big one for me. And I think for what the staff kind of shared, I think we were more about Derek fortunately, thank goodness on Friday, Thursday was in the facility when Crystal was hit in the head with the lacrosse ball. Some of the other coaches didn't know that had happened 'cause the women's 10K was happening and Todd was like, what, wait, we all were like, I'm sorry, what happened? So it was sort of things like that and then just the process you had to go through there, just there's so many things. And it was just really fun there's a lot of things. I feel like that for me and great. And I think the winning with the four by four was also a pretty incredible, pretty incredible moment. - I feel like you did a great job of kind of summarizing what the director of Track and Field kind of does are going all over the place. You know, looking at your background, you were a multi-athlete, but then also have experienced coaching, which seems like literally every single event in Track and Field. I guess right now, where is your focus? Are you playing like the director like at a symphony and making sure everything is working well or do you have an event group? Like what does your day to day look like? - Kind of both. I do have an event group. I coach the long sprint. So I coach the two four and the four eight group. So pretty much the four eight folks that don't really extend beyond that and the two four people that are not running like 60 hundred and not doing true. So occasionally actually some of them are pretty good 100 meter runners, but really focusing in that kind of crossover, two four four eight. So kind of two events within one. And I decided coming in two years ago after talking with the staff and realizing people's strengths and excitement and aptitudes, that would also kind of in my wheelhouse too. I really love that training group. And it would also be manageable in the sense that I can plan that training and coach that training while also on Tuesdays go to the javelin because javelin goes for an hour prior to our training sessions and be there if in a meet, you know, high jumps happening in one place and long jumps happening in another place. So, you know, kind of supporting the staff in the sense that I have coached a lot of the events and have seen a lot of the events that if necessary, I mean, our staffs unbelievable, they don't really need me to do that, but have been there. And that's really just, I got lucky with the people that I've worked with before that have let me kind of put my hand in everything and learn a lot. So that's my event group, but I do do a lot kind of touching base on all the different places. - Yeah, maybe this is like a good time to really define what the role of director even means, you know, outside from the hands-on coaching, what are your kind of general umbrella of responsibilities? - Pretty much overseeing everything that happens with the program. I mean, Riley's the cross-country head coach, so he was responsible for all the training, for sure, of all the athletes there and planning all the competition. So Riley has all of that. I'm there, I kind of put myself in a supporter role in that sense that we bounce things off of each other and we talk a lot about would this be best? What do you think? I'm sure that I know what's happening with every single individual athlete, but all the time as much as possible. So, and I think logistically, I'm there, especially in cross-country, it's planning for groups of people going in the same place at the same time, but kind of bouncing ideas off Riley as to what would be best and where we could do things. And overall, all the coaches do their own recruiting of event groups, but I'm in charge of making sure that we're, you know, I know who everybody's recruiting, making sure they are, they're very good, kind of targeting and identifying people who may be a good fit, may not be a good fit, but overall the touching base on the recruiting part of it probably once a week as a full staff is what we do in terms of recruiting, who's recruiting who and where and how it's going and what we need. Really the overall operations of the program is the biggest piece of it, meeting with individual students and having meetings on campus, whether it's with your administrators or folks and facilities and kind of all the different pieces that kind of go to making sure a whole program is running and I think it's hard to kind of list them all booking hotels, booking flights, booking all that kind of stuff. So I do all of that for indoor track and outdoor track. Riley does do the hotels and the flights for cross-country, but we that's sort of where we divide that line and the logistical itinerary when we're going anywhere, where we're going anybody, assigning people to do meals and things like that, but I pretty much have been charged of the overall, this is where we're going and this is what we're doing. And they say track and field coaches don't have a lot to do on a day-to-day basis. Yeah, that's it. People say that aren't track and field coaches. Yeah. Before we kind of hit the other two stars of this triple crown, you came from Boston College where you graduated. So you are an implant, right? Is that the right word for division three? Same with Riley. He wasn't a D3 athlete. What, obviously, MIT is a world-renowned institution in of itself. But it seemed like you were ingrained in the BC community. You still live in Boston now, obviously. But what made MIT the move for you and leaving your alma mater? Yeah. MIT had such a history, I think, in foundation of a full and well-rounded track and field and cross-country program. And that's really what I loved. That they were doing it at the highest level at division three. I'd seen them around the Boston area for previous 12 years and even as an athlete before that. They have their whole team. They have vault. They have all of the throws. They had all of the jumps and sprints in every event group. And it's quite impressive the fact that they have built this program. I mean, a lot of it is a credit to the coaches that came before. They've created and built this whole program and the student-- the culture around wanting to be part of that program and support each other. I mean, whether they're long distance runners or revolters or throwers, they're knowing what each other is doing. And I think that that's a big piece of what drew me to MIT is that they did have a very robust track and field program. And I didn't see that a lot in a successful way at division one. I'd never competed in division three and I'd never coached in division three. It'd only been division one. And it's obviously different-- there's just a vast variety in what you're going to get at different division one schools based on their school, based on their conference, based on what everybody wants to do. And I think that that's kind of the beauty of sport that it's all going to look a little bit different. But I loved what MIT had going for it and the fact that it could do that on a full-scale track and field program. I feel like I have conversations with athletes often who are kind of weighing what division they want to go after in college and athletes who are maybe on the cusp of D1, but would be a real difference in the maker in D3. And sometimes it's like, yeah, you can go D1, or you can compete for a national championship in D3. And so when you were considering a job switch, was there an allure to being a part of a nationally competitive program? I think in some ways, maybe. I think part of me was more worried about what it would look like if I felt like the students would have as much level of commitment. And without having been at division three, I find that that's 100% the case. That their level of commitment is exactly the same. If not more so, depending on who they are, for whatever reason. And even in recruiting when I was at division one, I mean, there's good fit for everybody. You need to find the school. It's going to fit you because if you're going to struggle or be unhappy academically or culturally, then athletically, you're also going to have the same sort of issue. And I think that MIT students and what MIT has is that if you want to go to MIT, you really want to go to MIT. So you're there, you're bought in, you know what kind of education you're getting, and you are thriving with that, even if it's challenging. And I think that that's where the track and field and the athletics piece of it comes in. That they're so excited about what they're doing. And they feel very challenged in that way that they can challenge themselves and athletics. So I think going-- it wasn't as much of a going from a division one to a division three model, because track and field is very similar regardless of the division. And that's what I've told people for. years. I mean, you're not going to, whether at when I was coaching high school, making their decision between Division 1 or Division 3, you're not going to work any less hard if it's important to you. You're really in track and field, not going to spend drastically more or less time doing it. It takes a certain amount of time to do a 45-minute run and it's still going to take a certain amount of time to do a 45-minute run if you're doing that faster or slower. And I think the challenge with the Division 3 model is probably more about the school itself, but MIT really does support athletics in the sense that, you know, we're all at the same time frame, same block of time that they're not having to schedule their classes to meet with athletics. So you're not worried about that piece of it. Whereas at Division 1, you did. So there were certain majors that they couldn't take. And that's not the case at MIT. And I think I loved, yeah, it's just very different. What majors can't you take? Well, there's it depends on. So in track and field, when I was at BC, nursing majors is a big piece of it. There's four colleges and nursing students generally have their major classes from 9 to 12 in the morning. And they have a clinical once a week. Teaching students have their practicums once a week. And then when they go on their full-time student teaching, it's five days a week for an entire semester. So there's a lot of sports that say you can't do that. Fortunately, we were in a sport where we could. You know, we didn't we didn't not allow that. And we planned our schedules. That was the other side of Division 1 that was helpful. You could ask the students to block their schedule at a certain time. And they would do that. But at MIT, you don't have to you don't have to do that. You don't have to worry about students missing practice. You don't have to worry about them not taking a major that they want to take for athletics. You know, having been in recruiting and individually athletes have been around different programs and different schools and different conferences specifically have more weight in terms of how they can get their athletes into the school. Sounds like MIT is one where they have to get in themselves like and you can't throw around track and field across country, which I think makes yes, MIT is a world around institution, but makes even more impressive when you give the fact that other schools can get people in can kind of talk about that realm of it like you're a great institution, but you don't have any say in who gets there. Correct. That is really challenging. That's the biggest piece of it that you could have people with like really fantastic criteria and they seem to meet whatever it looks like a normal profile of a student getting into MIT and you can't get a yes or a no until the day that they get a yes or a no. You can get a looks good, continue recruiting this person or you can get a lot of nose. You can get a lot of this is just not going to work. It's not going to work and you tell students that and you're used to that at kind of any school when I was at Boston College they would say yeah this isn't good. This is not going to work. So you get used to saying things like that, but it's the not knowing and not being able to say yes or no to somebody who's really academically qualified and then they just either get in or they don't and you feel like you're trying to figure it out like my whole first year I was like wait, why did this person get in and this person didn't? You can give your support which I know goes goes a long way what we write for the students and giving our we call it its input. It's not influence and that's how I try to to portray it to the students is that we are able to give our support but supporting it unlike every single other division three school I've spoken with and pretty much every division one school doesn't make your application go from here to here. It's just more information. It's input. It's not influence. So I think for us that's that's the hard part but by doing that well we do lose a lot of people after the early early process if they're wait listed if they're if they're if they're denied then they're moving on but if they're wait listed the hardest part is that they had to go through that whole waiting the first time without knowing that they just don't some of them don't want to do it again that waiting it out is just not for them so they they kind of go on to another school who has ED 2 or they go to someplace else and equally good academic school but they're not willing to wait because of that though I do think that this process self-selects for people who are willing to go through that and willing to put themselves in that I just don't know I don't know what the outcome is going to be but I'm going to put everything in and I think if you translate that to an athletics environment you willing to put in all the training willing to put an absolutely everything but you just don't know what the outcome is going to be at the end unless you give it your all so it does self-select for a team that has a culture that's really fantastic it must be an especially exciting day when you start seeing admissions roll in and you can start being like oh great you know this person that we were really excited about actually got in I mean do you guys have like a group chat or something where you guys are just like trading names we found out for the regular decision process the first day of the indoor national championships so I got the email that had both cross-country and track and field and Riley got the cross-country one and so I forwarded it to Todd and Derek and Liam and I said when you get a minute you feel like it just check your email so we're all at the meet and you're like okay I'm certainly going to check this email like I actually I have to look at it you almost like want to do it but then you're like I got to focus on coach in the team so we did end up spending a decent amount of time and we sort of have plans in place at a time you send some some text messages to the students we can't contact them until after the time we know that they will have been told by the school that says you know there's usually like six o'clock at night on a Friday so you're like congratulations we're so excited to have you we're with the National Meet let's talk Monday country so um or or you you have some some text messages or phone calls that are just like I'm sorry this didn't work out we wish you the best of luck so you kind of have a game plan ahead of time and some form emails and and text ready to go for those folks that didn't unfortunately make it in um but yeah it's nice to see and you're like there's always those that you're like whoa this is great this person got into that's it fires you up a little bit so look at your event score sheet you scored nine different events getting points from sprints distance into the field yep can you speak to just how well rounded your program is and how hard though to it is to have a balanced program like that it's it's really hard to do that and I think this year's women's team was really special the the senior group was really excellent and they were so I think strong in so many different areas and they're depending on each other and I think that that kind of is what characterized the outdream meet for me is that the points that we earned didn't come from exactly the places that we thought that they were going to come from um and everybody we didn't talk about who was expected to score a certain amount of points in a certain place I mean it wouldn't have necessarily been the right thing to do it either puts too much pressure on certain people for certain reasons but I think when when you see that you know it was kind of an off day for Alexis in the first day with the with the discus but another senior senior stepped up that overall that's that's a success for Alexis for what she had to do because it wasn't a great day and what M was able to do so each different event I think and as we went through there were people there in every event that we had where we knew that they could step up and they just didn't even question it it's hard to go into meets where there's so much variability whether it's weather or I mean pole vault is such a variable event we had different people score indoor than outdoor I mean Haley scored indoor and Caitlin scored outdoor and so I think for us it's like when you have two people there that can actually do it you're like great I'd love it for both of you to do it but if somebody if somebody steps up I think for us that's kind of what happened in outdoor track for me was that things changed a little bit like each event and then you saw what everybody felt like they were capable of and they they just didn't turn back they were like yeah all right we need more points here I'm just going to do it and we didn't even have to verbalize that like we knew it and they knew it and we saw where the points were and they knew after the first two days based on the points tables what we had left and we knew what everybody else had and some of them wanted to know going into the last couple of events how much we needed and how much they could get and some didn't want to and so they they would ask us or they wouldn't and so for me that was kind of the beauty of it it went with who they who they were but then the four by four at the end you know two of them knew they only needed you only needed third and the other two were like I don't care we're just going to go in wind like that's kind of their mindset so that was that was pretty cool the triple crown is a great talking point and you kind of talked about you know maybe avoiding putting unnecessary pressure on athletes who didn't want that kind of pressure as a coaching staff when you're looking at the third leg of the triple crown heading into the meat did were you guys thinking about it at all and was there a little bit of pressure in the back of your mind thinking about it I wouldn't call it pressure I think it's sort of we actually at the end of last year and going into this year cross country notwithstanding we actually thought we had a better shot as an outdoor team than an indoor team so we spent a lot of time talking about what we could do outdoor and what we felt like we could do outdoor before the indoor season and then once you get into the indoor season and you see who's running well and how things are going we're like okay I mean were there always discussions about focusing a little more on outdoor track than indoor track early on yes until we saw what people were doing and we're like okay well we're just going to go we're going all in on both of these like all in we've got a chance to do it and I think a lot of the discussions that we're leading up to the indoor season really help us for the outdoor season for preparation and race planning and kind of the competitions that we were going to do and what we're going to focus on always best-light plans doesn't always happen that way but we didn't put any pressure on ourselves for the triple crown I didn't necessarily think about it too too much because we knew it was more about like we wanted it we really wanted it but did we think that it was likely we wanted to find ourselves in the driver's seat at some point and we just hadn't gotten there yet until the the last chance meet and I think we just kept going through the whole year thinking we had a little more to do we got a little more to do like we needed a little a qualifier or a boost here a boost there like until we got to So basically those last two weeks and we saw some of the performances and just the attitude of the students and there was almost like a weight lifted once you get toward the end of the academic year that they feel so much different and we knew we were going to get there. We didn't put pressure on ourselves in order to do that because that would have then translated to something that we couldn't control because everything had already been done. And we already had all these conversations that we just got to go through it and be as supportive as we can of the athletes. And I think personally I was kind of preparing for both in my mind. I was preparing for what happens if we win, how can we win, but I was also prepared for knowing that second and third would have been truly great performances. Seconds still would have been the best that the team had ever done. Third, last year tied for the best that they'd ever done before that so you can't go into a championship meet thinking that anything would have been failure in that sense and that's kind of how we phrased it a lot in terms of when we were trying for it and acknowledging it indoor that outdoor we were like, all right, we're just going to talk about it. Like we could do it. It's possibility. Let's acknowledge it. It's out there. If we want to do it great and we're going to try for it, but if we don't do it, it's not a failure. So that's kind of how we approached it. You know, I think coaches always like to be confident in their athletes and know everything is going to go well. In the back of your mind, given how many DQs there were in the meet, how nervous were you of like, if they get DQ'd, and wash you what has to get seconds like something like that. Something like that. Like do you do the doomsday scenario in your head before? Are you just completely. I try not to. Yeah, I try not to because how could you ward against it besides having just practiced all of the right things to do anyway? And we actually walked through, you know, we walked through the handoff zones. We didn't do it at speed the day before Thursday because I didn't want. We were, we were, we would have been too much that day. I just wanted one didn't want them in their spikes didn't want them going that fast. We walked through it, we talked about it. And I think we don't overly do the what happens, but they know you drop a baton, pick it up. You keep going. You always stand still. You always move forward and you always move inside. You don't, you can't move outside. So we talk about like the things to do, like you can't belabor that with them. In my mind, I was a little like I wasn't worried about a DQ. I was worried about not even worried. I like them to get out really, really well. I want them to get out front. There's fewer variables if you're out in the front three of the race versus the back of the race. There's just fewer things to happen. So after I saw Olivia run that well and Shrey in third, I was like, okay, as soon as I saw that, I felt a little bit better. Obviously, the start gives you, makes you a little nervous, that first handoff, it's less of an issue because you're right in those lanes, but I wanted us to be in a, in a good position. I knew we only needed to be six, but nobody wants to run in that sixth, seventh position. I'd have to worry about the whole race. So no, I try not to. And I think even watching the 5,000 meters that the event before, I wasn't all that nervous or worried after I had seen the way that Marina had run earlier in the day and after I could tell the attitude of the others, they were just ready to go. So it was like, all right, we just got to get it going. I get more anxious to like just get it going. Like, this is sort of the analogy that I told people when you're looking at three meets, like cross country, you're so hyped up and you're super nervous and it's five in the morning, you're ready to go and you just can't think about anything else. But then it's over. It's a 20 minute race and it's over. Indoor track is two straight days of like every different event, keeps going and there's pluses and minuses and we were pretty much on a high most of the time through indoor tracks. It was going so well. And outdoor track is three days and it felt like a slow roll into it that like the events are so spread apart and they're far from each other and the weather was crappy and you're like, okay, and you just kind of want to get it going that it took a lot, I think, to just handle my own emotions and that's why I didn't go with the doomsday at all. Because I knew that would just introduce another level that just wasn't necessary. You seem to have a really keen sense of how to read athletes and treat athletes and how to approach meets really analytically. How has that since developed over your coaching career? Have you always kind of felt like you have disability or has it been a learning process? It's definitely been a learning process but I think it's been informed by a lot of really other great coaches that I have worked with and I kind of see how they interact with students. But getting to know people and getting to know students, I've always loved working with students. I was an educator as well growing up through college and I felt like working on student outcomes and knowing what students want for themselves and their goals and kind of truly feeding off that versus making it about me and making what my goals are. Of course, I'd love to win a national championship but I also want to learn a lot about who they are and what they think they're capable of. So I think some of it was a little bit innate. I started coaching when I was still in high school but so much of it is learned and being able to work with people. I mean, I worked with the coaches at NC State who were just phenomenal and unbelievable Lori and Raleigh and Chris and it was great to work with them and Randy gave me the ability to do everything at BC and show me everything and let me do it and let me make the mistakes, let me do the learning and really be completely involved with the students. But that's just sort of, I think, part of what I love about the coaching and then part of what I was allowed to do, which was very lucky. You have someone like Alexis who is a D3 all-time great athlete. You mentioned, you know, not getting off to a start that maybe she was hoping for, given the weather. Watching their competition was like, I don't even know how they measured the discus honestly because sometimes it just skidded and there was like, how is that? Regardless. She didn't get the start that she was hoping for. How do you coach someone like that who is very good? I'm sure she can get out of her own head but how do you make sure she does and kind of goes to her next event because she had next event for her day? Yeah, you don't over talk. You don't over talk it and I think it's acknowledging like, okay, that wasn't what you wanted and she was just trying to keep it trying to get it in the sector and it was, she couldn't get it in the sector and it was not where she wanted it to be. But it's a different event and she has just a great sense of calm about her and I think her demeanor going into the next day, you almost knew you didn't have to say anything. She was focused, she was ready to go. We talked a little bit about it at breakfast that morning that you think about it almost like you approach a multi when you're coaching a multi-ven athlete. You get a set amount of time to think about what just happened whether it was good or bad. If you're in a multi, you get five minutes. After the hurdles, whether it was good or bad, then you have to focus on the high jump. So sort of talking about that, like acknowledging, yep, it might not be what you want but you did what you needed to do and next, let's go on. You can always go back and think about that later but kind of focus. You don't really have to do that for her but just acknowledging that, yeah, we get it, you want to do better but let's go today. And shot put being that day was a really helpful day because she's been so comfortable and so confident in the shot put this year that that was a really good event to have it go. And I know she was a little worried because the discus bothered her shoulder, decent amount throwing in that weather, bothered her. She couldn't quite get it to what she wanted to. She was worried a little bit but then she threw her warm up throws and shot put and she was fine. So that was kind of like a, oh, okay, yeah, I'm good. And then you know I'm saying anything, it's like just good. I'm always curious about like institutional support of D3 sports programs like when Stu and I were in college, whenever we managed a little bit of success, we had like, if the newspaper wrote like a line about it, we were stoked and that's all we ever heard about it. MIT is an institution that has a lot to celebrate across the board. What's it like on campus and amongst your peers at MIT? What's the general enthusiasm around the cross country and track and field programs? Well, it was, it was great. It was fantastic. I mean, starting going backwards with cross country when we won, I mean, the reach out and support from our colleagues within the department was really exciting and then outside of the department too. I mean, the first women's national title at MIT got a lot of attention for sure. I got a lot of reach out. The president's office and within the general community of MIT, it was fantastic. It was really, really great. And I think the city of Boston does a really great job with that too. I mean, it was in the Boston Globe. So it's a fun city to be in for this kind of thing that it was in the same article, Women's Cross Country from MIT wins a Division III national title and Grand Blanks wins the national title for Harvard. So I think it was, it was a pretty cool scenario for us. And then in indoor track, our sports information director, he's new with MIT this year. He just did an unbelievable job with the social media coverage. He was there, able to put clips up immediately. And so we got a lot of traction there. A lot of people were able to see it. And our students, one of our students, they couldn't see the field events. Like a lot of our home, people at home couldn't see field events. So he would like take videos, like on his phone, video, like every event that, like every time Jackson jumped, every time Nani jumped and send it to our, our jumpers who were kind of watching together back on campus, which was really, really special to be able to do that. And it was always an hour, an hour is doing that on day two. So that was really special. And I think everybody, it's hard because you get toward the end of the year and everybody's a little tired just in general, because it's an academic year. Indoor track, we won. And it was such a huge swell and excitement like, holy smokes. You actually did it again, because the acknowledgement of it being such a different sport for cross country was certainly there. It's a different team. It's a different sport. And then swimming won. So that was kind of fun, like together us and swimming. You know, this swim coach is really well, Meg's fantastic. And so being able to kind of be excited about that with them and we're, you know, planning the banners and we're making them look the same and trying to order them. them together and what's your team doing? Are you guys going to do this or that? And we got to go with with swimming to the Red Sox game for one of our acts it was Alexis and one of their swimmers Kate to throw out their first pitch together. So that part of it was really fun. You almost feel like you're just going going going and track and field it like part of me was like oh swimming gets to celebrate this but we've got another whole season to go. But that's just a personal thing. So I think everybody did occasionally be like oh so you're just going to do it again. You're just going to do it again. So it was almost like is that a joke or is that for real? But it was one of those it was certainly acknowledging like you guys did so well. Like we're really proud of you. We're really happy. So that was nice. How does MIT never win a women's national title and then this year you all win four. Like collectively. Yeah, it's crazy. I mean the group of people that are there and the athletes for sure are really really fantastic. And I think the each group I mean it's hard to say just kind of the swell and the support women's athletics has changed and is continuing to change. And I think we're kind of writing that that on the way up in general that the visibility and the accomplishments on all levels and the division three level on the women's side is getting drastically better. So I think that if you're trying to look at comparison between men's and women's division one division three there's always been really significantly high level division one and I mean sorry division three male runners for sure. Granted depth of teams looks a little bit different. But at the same time the women have looked a little bit different and that's not the case anymore. I feel like now you're trying to set your sights and your bars so high and that's where the women are. They're like yeah it doesn't really it almost in my mind didn't feel any different than division one to tell you the truth. It really didn't and the women are are accomplishing at such a high level that it kind of feeds off itself. Granted this this support and this structure was put in place years and years and years ago when I wasn't even at MIT to be able to have women's sports at the level that we have them and continue to grow them in a situation that's different from division one there's no athletic scholarship. So school like MIT is even even more challenging sometimes for getting the teams that that you want to have out there. But a sport like ours allows people to grow and develop and similar to swimming that you don't have to put a field on the team and have people ready for it day one. You can have you know go through a couple cycles and then grow that. So it's I'm not quite sure how this was the ground swell because I wasn't there five or six years ago but it definitely started five or six years ago. There's no question. Yeah I mean along these lines I think I caught you and do a little bit off guard during the LG post game show when I when I asked if when I asked if you got if you were aware that this was probably I put an asterix next to it the first triple crown on the women's side ever and it didn't sound like you were sure in the moment either but obviously it's been confirmed now and when when that sunk in like not only did you get the first championship but now the first triple crown on the women's side ever in D3 history. Yeah speak to that. That was pretty cool. I think it's it's hard to put into words like because it doesn't feel like it's in the rear view mirror by any means like you don't feel like you're just looking back on something that was an accomplishment and that you're done with because you're with all these people moving forward. You're you're with them and you're in keep coaching them to continue to do great things but it's like wow like okay it's it takes a little while to sink in it feels it feels really good but obviously we owe it to to the coaches that came before us and I owe it to the coaches that are currently there to be able to do what they're doing at the level that they're doing it all the time. So I think it's a true celebration of kind of team in general because you can't do this in track and field and cross country without a true team you can't do it without a cross country coach and a cross country team that focuses on what needs to be done in that season and then in track and field the coaches that need to do what they're doing and then you know people who will oversee that and people can support that with what you're doing. I mean we are fortunate in the sense that we're in Boston that we we don't have to miss a lot of class during the indoor season we don't have to travel far distances so we we use that for sure we don't have to get on a bus for three hours for a competition on a Friday so we certainly maximize what we can do in Boston in you know in that entire season you know there's really no reason for us to go any place else Boston has some of the best competition and best tracks for sure and and using that I think for for helping the students the students love being in environments and this is a track and field setup right now that not everybody understands maybe even not some administrators but it doesn't matter division one two or three when you go to a meet you're just racing people who are who are in the heat with you you're competing with people in the fight with you and I think that truly is to our advantage however long ago that truly made a big change in track and field has drastically benefited benefited division three for sure and for us for you personally I think we also touch on this at the LG post game show no free ads thanks LG but indoors you were you became the third woman ever to lead an indoor team to a program I didn't have the facts with me at the time but you become the sixth woman outdoor it's a lead team the fourth to do it outright because there was two ties actually so the fourth to do it outright so there's some facts for you but you know we talked about the lack of women in coaching and how there needs to be more women in coaching and that the whole rhetoric but for you personally you know starting it with indoor has been the third ever woman leader program like did you kind of take that to heart and like how historical that is for D3 yeah definitely I I felt that certainly and I felt that personally I felt that with my friends and colleagues who are also female coaches or or not coaches that they know they know that that's such a big deal being able to do that and I'm it's it's definitely a hard fought scenario because you're in situations until you get to the point that I'm in and then I'm fortunate to be in where the administrators I work with trust me and the administrators I work with how confidence in what I can do and same with the coaches that I work with and that's not always the case that's not the case at every place you go that's not the case every situation I've ever been in and I've been very lucky that you know with Randy and Laurie and Raleigh everything was really fantastic and I felt extremely supported but you don't always feel that way and when you get to go do something that you really really want to do and you're just so happy when the student outcomes are mirror exactly what you know you can do I think for me it didn't necessarily feel historic it just felt validating it felt like absolutely I can do this like I know that I can and I've believed in myself and I've had enough people believe in me that I got lucky enough to be there we definitely need more women in coaching they bring so much to the table men bring wonderful things to the table too and women bring different things and different is not worse and it's not better I think different is important because I love when our students get coaching cues that they heard from another coach that resonates a little bit better or I say something they're like oh do you mean this and absolutely that's what I mean and the more input that's all done professionally and in a positive way is a good thing that people shouldn't be afraid or worried about being women being kind of the head coaches and the ones in charge and this kind of feels validating in that sense to me really it seems like in coaching especially there's there's a lot of job changes and people jumping around and so as the director of a program and a program with this much success is there like ever a piece of you that's worried that your your coaches resumes are getting so good that you're gonna run the risk of losing good people I'm not worried that their resumes are getting so good because they yeah and I want them to continue to get better and better and yeah they I get calls about about those coaches and I think that that's a great thing that they are sought for and sought after absolutely I think it's fantastic because I don't want them to have to have careers where they jump around I want them to be able to be in places that they feel valued and that they are able to do what they want to do and if MIT is the place I'm gonna do absolutely everything I can do to make sure that they are they feel valued there and that they get to do what they want to do however being sought out for the quality of the coaching that they're doing is really important and they need to hear it even if it doesn't mean that they're choosing to go anywhere and even if it does you know everybody's gonna have different different needs and I think that all of the people that I work with are putting or coaching for the right reasons and so the decisions that they end up making hopefully will be the right reasons for them and for for their families or their friends and I think their their life I'm not I don't ever want to lose any of them we'll put that straight out there I want to keep every single one of them and I want to keep them as long as humanly possible they're fantastic even Liam this is his first year coaching vault he's an MIT grad so being an MIT grad bringing that to the table was really exceptional Riley is experienced beyond his years Derek is extraordinarily experienced Todd is a fantastic fantastic throws coach he's been an MIT longer than any of us so I think that everybody brings a different piece to the table that we make a great team right now I don't want anybody to go but if they do I'm still happy that they're getting the recognition that they deserve it's a great answer there are many young coaches out there specifically women young coaches who are trying to rise the ranks or it's tough out there what advice you know would you have for them and I don't want that to be like what advice you have for women because it's like we're just guys but like I guess it is tough like what is vice to have for them. Well, I think some of the things that are most important is when you're looking at a job to be able to evaluate it, don't be afraid to evaluate it for how it fits into your life. It seems counter to, like, just take any job, take any job and start any place. I'm not trying to say be selective early on. That's probably job maybe one or two or three, but have a good checklist as to what a place has that meets what you need. And that's ultimately going to, I think, set the foundation for people in general to be able to move up and to move on and asking the, like, what does success in my role look like right now? What does success in my role look like one year from now? What does it look like five years from now? So if you're going to find out, if you're working at a department where all they want you to do is be the person who carries the water jugs, well, if you have to ask that question early on and then don't take that job. Finds one that says, you know what, success will be, if you coach five athletes now and you're recruiting eight athletes and you get a bigger event group, if that's what, if that's what it means. So whatever, whatever the answer needs to be, somehow figure out what that kind of checklist will be, be able to ask those questions, be able to kind of evaluate the school for how athletics fits into the school, because I've always felt like that that's kind of where it needs to start, where, where does the school you're going place athletics? Because if it's not where you think it's going to be, you're just going to get frustrated. If it's exactly where you think it's going to be, whether it's at the top or the bottom of student experience, then at least you know, at least you have that information. And so those obviously are applicable to men or to women, but there are just so few women like you're going to go onto a staff on a track and field program very likely that doesn't have another woman on it. Most of the time that happens. That doesn't mean you need to find only other women to be allies, but you need to find people that you trust and people that you that value you and that will continue to help raise you up men and women. And I think men can do a great job of making sure that there are women who are in coaching and stay in coaching too. On a theme of kind of like where do we go from here, right? You have a lot of success and then the challenge is not, the challenge is now to replicate success, right? And how is that psychologically different from trying to get to the mountaintop in the first place? Yeah, because you always are going to feel like, okay, how do I replace this? How do I figure out the 25 points that graduated and make sure we have that many more coming in? And I don't think it's that linear. I think that evaluating each year based on where you are, especially for us, because we can't be that specific in recruiting. We're recruiting all of our event areas and you may get four in the event group you want. You might get zero. You might, you know, so whether or not you're building rebuilding a four by four or rebuilding a DMR, things like that. It's a little bit different. We always want to make sure we're doing those things. But for us evaluating where we actually are and what our strengths are to help program the training to develop. And I think that we're in a good position to allow people, especially even using the indoor season for experience and opportunity. So that's really where most of it comes from. A lot of people go, go the route now of just so few competitions. They, you know, limit their competition schedule. And I actually would argue to go the other way. Like we don't need to have everybody compete all the time for sure. Each event group would do that. And you're certainly not going to run people, whether it's a 5K, you know, not the same thing as you would with with a developing shop putter. But you need to throw the shop put if you're going to get better at throwing shop put. So giving people the opportunity to compete when they need to and making sure that we have those opportunities on our calendar. That we're training in that way that we're focusing on developing skills and developing foundations that we can build from. So people certainly need to come in with the with a requisite level of ability and at least accomplishment at some point. But we really are developmental at our core, which I love for sure. I mean, it doesn't matter whether it's developmental from, you know, you come in at 57, 40 meter runner and you ended up 54 or it's that's great. But if you come in at a 60 point, 40 meter runner and you finish at 56, great. Most developmental as well. So I think for us, we're really trying to be able to do that. Annually that everybody is getting better than they started and making sure that it's what they want, you know, that they're kind of gauging. All right. Where are you focused on? What are you excited about that they have a voice in this as well? I don't want this to be like a large and broad answer. But to your point of developmental, you know, looking at the results last year from a program, you know, cross country, I believe it was like either just outside the top 10 or maybe 9th. And then you were 5th and then 3rd. If I remember correctly there. Yes. First first first first. Like massive jumps across the board. I guess maybe from 3rd to 1st. That big. But what were some things or what were some key stats or key things that helped you all get to that triple crown? Consistency themes. Yeah. Consistency is one for sure. No question. Our cross country team only had one person that left our 11th place team that so we ran almost the same people. We added some people into it, but the experience and consistency that they had looking at what pre-nationals field and national field was, you then go into a year where not only were they just very fit, they weren't surprised. They knew exactly what it looked like. So we certainly could have been first. We could have been 2nd or 3rd. But the confidence built throughout the year because of consistency and so much of it was just being able to race together as a group and train together. And so that that went so well with cross country because of the experience that they had. And then for track and field, I think for us it was just the I mean metrics and data are very helpful when when they help you realize that you're not very far away that when you're looking at small point gains and small you know distance or time improvements lead to huge gains that they realize that what we had on paper only needed to be just slightly better and more consistent. So more consistent they got and the more opportunities they got to be better. And I think being 5th just off the podium and then being 3rd and just a half a point from 2nd, it actually left a little bit out there to be desired to tell you the truth. If we had won any of them last year, and we weren't the team to do it, it wouldn't have had the same field this year. And going into it cross country we thought that we were good and that just built and built and built. And so that was a lot of the discussion around being being that good and what it meant to feel like you were running with a target on your back. We didn't actually use those words but once you get you know all the way through the season and they're as strong as they are and people are realizing that yeah maybe you're a real contender. For us that was comfort. You know the comfort in the data, the comfort in the race result and the more you did it, the just the better it got. So I think consistency and actual numbers. I mean it's hard to argue when you go into a national championship and we never would have said this ahead of time and she is I'm sure I said it to herself but it's hard to count on Alexis for 20 points. But that's very stable points going in to an indoor national meet totally differently out to our national meet. But indoor with the weight throw she'd been so incredible in the shop but she was so strong that it does feel like those were fairly consistent. So once we knew where we were working from everybody else, I mean we knew we wanted to try to win the DMR. We knew that we had lots of people to do all of those different things. So once you realize that those are big numbers out there it feels really good that even if you're a point or two or a couple seconds shy of what you wanted it's still successful. As we move towards wrapping up here is there anything stew and I have missed or any points you want to make that we haven't gotten to? I mean I don't I don't think so except for giving credit obviously to the coaches and to the students. They were already here and the seniors played such a significant role. This class is going to be very, very sorely missed. They made such an impact. But I think that their impact and this is where our team hopefully will be strong in the future is that they've paid it to the younger students and that they've learned from them and that they want to continue to do all of those things. So I've just really enjoyed this year was for me kind of really special. You're first year you're barely able to keep your head above water with everything else that you need to do in a new new job. Really even just you don't know what paperwork you have to fill out. You don't know where to get your keys. You don't know where to park. So things like that just take a little while to get used to that this year was able to start kind of on a different foot and a place where I felt much more comfortable. And I think that I feel very happy to have been welcomed at a place like MIT by administrators and by coaches and by the student athletes. That was almost felt instantaneous. And so that made a big, big deal and a big difference for me. And obviously I think it's hard missing your family and missing your children so much when you're gone. And that's a big piece of why I think a lot of women aren't able to stay in coaching. But fortunately I've got the support system at home with my husband and my parents don't live far from here. And my kids, my little guy says that he's going to be faster than MIT kids. He's three. There we go. So he tells me that now. So I think when you realize that when you have something, you know, student outcomes, whether it's winning a national title or being 10th or 20th or the end of the year and it goes really well, you kind of realize why you're doing it. And I feel very, very thankful. Well coach, how do you thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us after an incredible, incredible calendar year. Hopefully you get some time off now and can relax and put your feet up. We'll do. I definitely will. Thank you guys so much. And I really appreciate all the coverage that you're doing. This is fantastic. I love it. I love it. The media and the photos and the interviews. It's been really great. Thank you. Thank you. A big thanks to Coach Heidi for coming on the podcast today. Shortly after the triple crown, it was great to learn more about her background, MIT, and everything that goes into it. Make sure you are using codes to get some great bombas socks. Until next time, here's the glory days. (upbeat music)