Dan O'Brien & Spencer Tatum - Legacy Sports & Performance Training at Scale

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Sure. Spencer Tatum, founder of THP and president and oversees all performance. Uh I got my degree in Excess Physiology, I was a college athlete, um, played D1 football at Ohio University, and but originally from Lacka, Louisiana, and it was you know, used for my vertical to overcome my challenges of dyslexia and discrapia and the pathway, you know, had some success. There's this little injury bug that kept named every nine contact injuries that no one could explain. So ever since then we've just been on a search of like, okay, why is that what's going on? Like, because according to the NSCA model or you know, the textbook model that shouldn't have happened resulted from you know, hit all the markets you wanted. And you know, no one could really explain why this is happening. So he was able to have some really great connections and get a meeting, you know, a great guy like Dana Brian, and you'll learn and listen to some of the great things that he's done and and you know all and how everything has worked, um and how we've we've connected and we've got this dynamic project going on in legacy sports. We're building the largest sports park in the United States, and Dan's been a part of it for 30 years, and you know, it's just been an honor and blessing to be a part of it.

Yeah, right on. Well, thank you for that, Spencer. That was great. Uh now, Dan, I have I grew up a child of the 90s. Um, I remember you well, and I know you are uh no um, you know, you're you're not a novice when it comes to being interviewed for sure. You could probably done like thousands and thousands of interviews. So it's great to have you on the show. And for maybe people who aren't familiar with your background and the indicathlete gold medalists and just this the way you went about it from '92 hitting that major, you know, uh, you know, I'll let you describe it, but and then 96 seeing great success. It's uh it was inspirational as a young athlete to to watch you go. So yeah, give us your background and your words, and then uh yeah, we'll go from there, man.

Well, thanks for having me, first of all. And um, you know, Spencer, it's good to see you. I know we see each other quite a bit every day, but uh always in person, rarely on the screens like this. So uh I grew up in Southern Oregon. Uh my first introduction to sports was little league baseball. You know, when I was in the fourth grade, my dad got me a mitt and a ball, and away I went. And um, you know, I I tell people, especially my track and field story, that the first race I ever ran, I I won. I just uh in the fifth grade, I entered a cross-country meet and just took off and lost the first fluffer. And I just remember the thrill of competing, the thrill of, you know, uh just racing to get to the front and kind of outlasting everybody. And um, as a kid growing up, I just you know, I was I was a poor, I was a poor student, I was a bad reader, but man, I was good at sports, and I was always the fastest kid in school. And I took a lot of pride in that just because I wasn't good at a lot of other things. And it really, sports really uh helped me uh create and you know, kind of find my own identity. Um, as an athlete growing up, all I ever wanted to do was just be good enough to play. And when I was good enough to play, all I wanted to do was start. You know, I wasn't the kind of kid who, you know, in the sixth grade said, you know, I'm gonna go play in the NFL or anything. I just I just wanted to wear the varsity uniform. And so my progression in sports was always just a little step at a time. And I and I kind of make a joke, but I think my mom made a deal with um with the with the athletic gods that just said, don't give him anything until he's worked for it, because everything to me, everything came to me really slowly. It was a real slow process to get a little bit better and uh grind it out just a little bit longer. But I was fortunate enough to go to the University of Idaho and get connected with a great guy and by the name of Mike Keller, even though I had some struggles at in college, you know, academically and and just socially and kind of lost my way in college. I was I was able to uh get some great guidance from Coach Mike Keller who convinced me that I could be an Olympian. And these kinds of people are really hard to find. Certainly there was nobody telling me that when I was growing up, but um he convinced me with uh you know dedication and hard work that I was gonna, you know, that I could get a shot at going to the Olympic Games. And, you know, as I got a little bit older, I understood how important it was for me to surround myself with people that shared the same vision and goals. And and I was, you know, I grew up in when I got the sport of track and field, it was it was a natural progression of me. I played football in high school and basketball as well. I think I could have played college football, but track and field just came so naturally. Um but as I as I you know made the transition from college trying to go to the Olympic Games, I started to add pieces to my team. And one individual that I added to my team was Rick Sloan. He was a 1968 Olympic uh Olympic athlete in the decathlon. He's from Southern California, but he was the head coach at Washington State University at the time. And as soon as he came on board, um it changed everything for me. I was a good athlete in college, um, but it was only uh a year or two post-collegiate that I was a great athlete. And I think I owe that a lot to my coaches. Um, but I had a lot of success early on. I got uh second place at the Goodwill Games in 1990, which was really my first big international competition. I always trailed Dave Johnson the first couple of years of my career, and Dave and I would go on to do Dan and Dave commercials in 1992. But having Dave there, somebody who I was chasing, somebody who I was trying to, you know, emulate and be like, was really important for me. Um but I uh managed to win a world championship in 1991, and that was uh just a huge breakthrough for me. I broke the American record, Bruce Jenner's longstanding American record, and had the highest, you know, highest, highest score in the world that that you know, that that the world had seen probably in the last five or six seasons. And I was all set up to go to the Olympic Games in Barcelona. And um, we I was so set up that uh Reebok sponsored both Dave Johnson and I. We did a series of commercials, we became commercial stars overnight, and um I proceeded to go to the Olympic trials, not make the Olympic team, and I had to miss out on the Barcelona, Barcelona Olympics. And you know, I think at the time when you know, when people look at it, they they're you know, they they they look at it as as a as a huge failure, as a as a big tragedy. But as an athlete, you know, you're every bit as prepared to fail as you are to succeed. And, you know, I I did a lot of losing uh growing up, you know, whether it was little league baseball or high school football or basketball, even track and field, you know, I I I took uh I took the losses as well as I took the wins. And so I had to recover from that and I managed to uh then string together probably four of the most successful uh you know decathlon years in the history of track and field. I won world championships in 93, 95, Goodwill Games in 94, uh broke the American record two more times, and and it all kind of led me indoor world records in both the five events, seven event. Um that loss, though, in 92, I just think uh, you know, just took me to another level. And I think more than anything, it made me a more responsible athlete. You know, up until that point, I did what my coaches told me to do. But after I, after I lost, after I lost and didn't make that Olympic team, I took it upon myself to just challenge myself, but but have a higher expectation than those people around me. And uh I just I just became a much better athlete and I was ready for the rain and the wind and anything that uh snow might along. And and I just was so driven going into the 96 Olympics. I just there was there was nothing for me in '96 except for the Olympic goal. And so, you know, in a nutshell, that's that's uh kind of my athletic story. Um, there were you know lots of other little stories in there, but you know, I love sports. I fell in love with the Olympics when I was a kid. When I saw that 1980 Olympic hockey team, I always I always said to myself, it's like, if I got a chance to wear that USA uniform, um, it would it would be a dream come true. And and I got that opportunity. And I'll never forget, you know, putting on my first USA uniform and certainly uh certainly wearing the USA uniform at the Olympics was very, very special.

Right on, man. What a badass story. So one of the questions I I want to go back to because I'm curious about it when 91, 92, when they started the Dan Dave campaigns, I I remember that distinctly. Um what was it like being? I mean, track and field is not as compared to the big four, right? Bat football, basketball, baseball, hockey. It's not, it's not a well-known sport. But all of a sudden you went from you got thrust into the public eye and you became literally a household name, right? What was that transition? And then, you know, then you subs subsequently, you know, kind of stayed in the limelight for for a while after that. But what was that point in life like? Like, were you just shocked that people knew you when you walked around, you're in the supermarket or whatever? Like, how did you transition into that?

Well, it was it was shocking, like you like you, like you just said, um, uh nothing could have prepared me for what I was going to see and really go through. Um, you know, Reebok came to Dave and I one day and just said, hey, look, we've got this idea. We're gonna take two unknown guys in an unknown event and uh and present them to the United States and try to get into a market, a new, a new shoe market that we're not very familiar with. And so Reebok was uh they built uh cross-training shoes. And Rebok was basically known at that time for you know casual shoes, um, uh, you know, just a little bit of athletic shoes, but they wanted to break into the running in the training market, and they used Dan and Dave to do that. And, you know, when they originally brought it to us, Dave and I thought, you guys are crazy. You know, first of all, neither one of us had made the Olympic team. And then uh secondly, it's like, who cares about the decathlon? You know, when you go to when you were competing in a decathlon, you know, at 9 a.m. at the US Championships, you know, you're lucky if there were 50 people watching you. It was everybody's family uh that just showed up, your girlfriend and uh some family members. Um, but all of a sudden, you know, the Dan and Dave commercials come out, and it was everybody in the town of Moscow, Idaho, where I was living, they knew me, but now they knew where I lived and they knew everything about me. But, you know, people around the people around the country uh, you know, really uh really got to know us as well. And I make a joke, you know, I talk to some young track and field athletes and I tell them, you know, we sat courtside at the Lakers games, um, you know, we signed autographs at Dick Sporting Goods for hours. We were so famous, we were on the Arsinio Hall show. Yeah, kids look at me like, who's Arsenio Hall? Right. And it's like, man, he was big back in the day. You know, that's huge. But it was, it was, it was shocking. Uh, and I think what you what we I think what we experienced was what Michael Jordan and Bo Jackson got to experience on a regular basis. And I thought to myself, it's like, you know, wow, this is what it's like for an NFL star, this is what it's like for an NBA star. And um, you know, there were some adjustments to be made, certainly. But uh, I think I think one thing that, you know, one thing that was really clear through it all was um, you know, no matter what happens around you, you still got to train, you still got to put that time in and you got to be prepared uh for for your moment. And I almost look at that time in our lives like Dave and I were like the first reality stars because what we were doing was was real, you know, and and I think it's like yeah, that thing would still be alive today if social media were uh if social media were going at the time.

Yeah. And it must have put so much pressure on you too. Like you said, you hadn't even officially made the Olympics yet, right? And they're they're propping up the stars. I mean, there was there had to be a ton of expectation there for you.

There, there were. Um, but you know, I think the expectation for me and um when I say us and we as my team, it's just like, you know, our our expectation is to win the Olympic gold medal. Um, and I don't know if there's a higher expectation than that. You know, I didn't, I there was rarely ever a day when I thought, you know, I got to get out here and train because I'm in these commercials. No, you know, I was out there grinding it out and training because man, I'm trying to, I'm trying to win a gold medal. I'm trying to follow in the footsteps of, you know, Bruce Jenner and Bill Toomey and Bob Matthias and guys like that. So I don't ever think that the pressure was that that that commercial put more pressure on me um than I put on myself. Maybe at the Olympic trials on my third attempt, you know, I felt some pressure, but you don't ever expect to be there in that moment, um, up for your third attempt at your opening height than they in the Olympic trials. Yeah.

Well, you know, um, I I want to make sure we get into what uh what you guys are doing now with the new project. And this is kind of a fun question, maybe we can segue in. Uh, but this is like a conversation I'll have with some buddies over a beer. Like out of all sports, right? All events, who produces the best athletes? I think the decathlon. I think all around, like the best athlete has to be the decathlon, right? I mean, look at everything that you do. I mean, maybe can you just quickly list all 10 things that you guys do? Because it's amazing. And I don't even know how you would have time in the day to train for all those things.

Well, it takes a it takes a clever person who's done it before. And I had a coach who was a decathlete, so we understood the training for it, but the decathlon's uh 10 events over two days, uh, the 100 meters long jump, shot put high jump in the 400 meters on day one, and then you know, come back, you're a little sore, tired. Yeah, I bet 110 meter high hurdles, discus pole ball javelin in the 1500. Um, and it certainly I can remember, you know, doing the decathlon in in high school. It wasn't my first choice, it wasn't my favorite choice. If I would have had the career that I really wanted, it would have been, you know, I want to be like Carl Lewis, I want to run 100 meters and long jump and be in the glamour events. But the decathlon was one of those events that just kept presenting itself. And I was a good hurdler, I was a good long jumper, but I wasn't the best in the US. I wasn't world class at that time, but the decathlon just kept presenting itself. And uh I challenged myself against you know some of the some of the other standards. I remember Flojo ran 1046, and I said, you know, for me to be a great decathlete, I gotta at least run faster than Flojo. And the next year I I absolutely did. So um, you know, it is uh it is it is a tough event. And I always look at the decathles, and there have been a number of decathletes who I think would, you know, we get the title of the world's greatest athlete because of Jim Thorpe back in the 1912 Olympics. But Michael Smith from Canada, who was a guy who I competed against, said it better than anybody. He said, you know, to be a great athlete, um, to be the best, you have to be the best runner, jumper, and thrower. And essentially that describes a decahlete. And so, you know, you might you might say that there's some defensive backs or some. Some guys in the NBA who are who are the best athletes in the world, but to to run, jump, and throw better than anybody else in the world allows you to call yourself the world's greatest athlete. Yeah.

Yeah, I love it. What do you think?

I mean, that's I mean, if you really think about it, I mean, one Dan's times right, we're almost there to compete in the best of the world in those events, right? Especially the hurdles and the 400 and long jump. I mean, like they were stellar, right? I mean, 10-3? I mean, come on. Um, that's by the way, that's accurate laser track. So that means it's like 10-1 hand time, 10 10, 10 flat. So on that, but I mean it's like if you really think about it, it's like it's the risk of CrossFit games before the CrossFit games are even there, you know. I mean, it was, you know, really who is the fittest and most well-rounded person that can move in 3D and not just in a sagittal plane.

Yeah, right. Totally. Yeah, I I agree. I I still think it is. And I was gonna bring up the uh, you know, the the how you can compare it to the CrossFit games. That's exactly what they claim. And I and even I'm a long-standing CrossFit guy, right? I've been doing it for a long time. I started, you know, back in 2008 when they came out of the games are like the fittest on earth. I was like, ah, I got a question. I'm like, I kind of think decathletes are probably the fittest people. Um, I mean, just like doing the mile at the end of those two days. Uh doing a mile for time makes me want to vomit, right? And having to do that after nine events where you're just completely exhausted, I just the pain tolerance to be able to push through that. Um, is I mean, okay, yeah. Let me just ask you about that mile. Like when here comes an end of the event, right? You're gonna you're on your 10th event in the decathlon and you just gotta balls out run a mile, right? Obviously to your particular strategy because you know to run a mile. But man, what are you are you thinking like, just get me through this, or this is my shot, or am after this, I'm gonna just sit in a hot tub for four days? Like, what are you what's going on in your head?

Well, by the time you get to the 1500 meters, the start line, you're happy that you're that far. You're happy that you got through the nine events and you've made it through two days of competition, and you're kind of excited to get to the line so you can finish this thing. But that 1500 is something you start thinking about two days, three days before. It's like, oh, here it comes. It's at the end because it is difficult. It's physically challenging. You know you're going to be exhausted. It takes place late at night during a major championship. I I ran all my in at nighttime, you know, in major championships, but it was something that I wasn't good at. And it was, it was my least favorite event, even though I grew up running cross-country. I started track and field and distance running. Um, the 1500 was just, you know, I just my VO2 max was just not as good as a lot of other guys. And it's an event that a lot of coaches just think your general training can take care of it. But for me to be good at the distance running, I needed to really put a focus on it, concentrate on it. And that was just to be an average decahlete. A lot of people give me a hard time because they think I just kind of, you know, uh moderately ran hard in the 1500 meters, but I had my moments, you know, I had to run a good 1500 meters to break the world record. I had to run a great 1500 meters to win my second world title. I had to run a solid 1500 meters to bring home the Olympic gold. I ran better long distance races indoors. I ran 240 for the thousand meters indoors in a pentathlon and a heptathlon. And, you know, that was when I really trained throughout the winter. But no, the 1500 meters is so it's is no fun. But not only that, there's a a comparison embarrassment model as well, because you see the world-class guys go 335, 336, and then all of a sudden the decathletes go out and they run five minutes, and it looks like we're jogging. And people just like, oh come on, you can run faster than that. Yeah, I challenge a lot of anybody, go out and try to run a five-minute mile and just even you know, try to start off at the pace of a five-minute mile, you'll understand how fast it really is.

Yeah, it's fast. I mean, I my fastest, I checked off the sub-six mile like seven years ago. I'm like, okay, that's it. That's all I need for the rest of my life. I'm good. And that was, I felt like I was flying, right? In that time. And that is these times are so fast, it's ridiculous. Wow, man. Wow. Okay. Well, let's let's get into what you guys are doing now. So you guys are working on this tremendous project, right? In the in the Arizona Phoenix, Scottsdale area. Um, let's get into that. First of all, I guess how did you guys team up to start working on this project? What's the origin story of it?

Well, I'll I'll kind of kind of set it up. Um, you know, the the Legacy Sports Park, which is newly named uh Bell Bank Park, is located in East Mesa. We're just right across uh Ellsworth Road, which is one of the busiest roads in the state of Arizona um from Mesa Gateway Airport. So it's it's east east mesa. And I remember when I first moved to the Valley 20 years ago, you know, uh there was nothing out there. You know, Queen Creek wasn't out there and Mesa didn't go that far east. But uh I connected, I I moved uh I moved to the Valley in about uh in 1998, uh moved here full-time, 2000. Uh I connected with uh Randy Miller. Uh Randy J. Miller was a uh was just a sports dad. He had a he had a he had a son who played baseball, he had a son who played basketball, and they were they were elite players, they played on club teams, and I trained both of his sons. I did speed training with them, and I got to know Randy pretty well. And Randy came to me one day and said, Man, I got this idea, you know, about I want to build this 50-acre sports park and you know, I want to put baseball and soccer. And and at the time I remember being here in the valley that there just wasn't enough fields. There wasn't enough field space for kids to play soccer. There was, you know, high schools were leasing out their leasing out their fields to uh to club teams. And so the idea, you know, uh made sense to me. And so I just I worked with Randy and his team. We came up with some ideas. We had athletes like Matt Williams, and I remember uh Brandy Chastain were you know was were in on it, and then you know, three or four years would cycle through, and those athletes would be out, and you know, we bring new athletes in, Eddie Johnson, and and we wanted to plug a professional athlete in with each sport, but over the years, the idea just grew and grew and grew. And Disney had started and had a had a really had really uh created a great model uh on the East Coast, and we wanted something on the West Coast, and we tried for years to get it funded. It wasn't until 2018, uh, excuse me, 2019, that we were able to fund the sports park. Um, and we had it funded, we had the land, and so we broke ground about a year and a half ago. We looked uh, we looked to open Bellbank Park in January, and through all of the planning, uh I knew that um this park needed performance training, and that performance training could be the hub in the middle of all these different sports. So I wanted to train all those soccer players, all those baseball players, basketball, volleyball. And uh I, you know, I always had an idea who I wanted to be my strength and conditioning coach. It was a guy that I worked with here. Um, but it just so happened that I wasn't able to work with him and I was fortuitous enough to be introduced to Spencer. And I'm really glad that it turned out this way because um, you know, my uh my my last partner in the performance area, he was a fantastic coach. But now I meet Spencer, who's not only a fantastic, who's not only a fantastic professor, but he's a great businessman. He has one of the most comprehensive performance programs that I've seen anywhere in the country. And I've been in some of the best, you know, college weight rooms, professional weight rooms, and you know, seen a lot of seen a lot of areas and and gyms and and performance programs uh around the country. So that's he and I got connected. I'm gonna say we've probably been working together for six or seven months, which just isn't long enough to put a project like this together. But he and his team have managed to do a really great job. And I and I feel grateful that uh that uh he's he's partnered, THP has partnered with uh with Legacy and Bell Bank Park to be our performance directors.

Right on. Kudos to you, Spencer, man. Um what uh so tell me what what is the project? What is the vision? I mean, you alluded to a lot of it, Dan, but what you know, um this this is from what I understand, it's gonna be one of the biggest collective sports facilities in the country, right? I mean, it's it's a huge endeavor. So maybe Spencer, you can walk us through the vision of this thing now.

Well, I mean, it's really off Randy's dream. Um, on what he saw was he saw this big need in the in the market of one, uh, you know, these kids are going to all these games and events, and then like game ends, and now what do you do? Like there's the the parents don't know where to go, they don't have experience, like and the other side of it was that it was just all about facilities. It wasn't really about the kid, it wasn't about the athlete, it wasn't about them. And so, you know, the Millers and Dan and you know, we all had in the THP, we had the same vision was really create this dynamic experience, and and that's in the whole thing. It's like we want to it's the largest sports park, it's 320 acres big. I think Dan uh Dan, correct me if I'm wrong, but it's gonna be five million people there per year visiting and 30,000 per weekend. I mean, it's gonna be incredible. Everything from you know, soccer field, stadium, baseball, basketball, volleyball, pickleball, training, golf simulators, performance center, it's it's insane, but it's all gonna work in unison. The one great thing they've done is that they brought on a guy, Rodney Reese, who's the former GM of the wide world of sports, to help orchestrate this orchestra. So it's gonna be pretty dynamic. And what we're trying to do, and and and Dan and I, when we got together, we started talking was no one's really done a performance model on scale, right? It's been a lot of run people to the gaunton or just you know, run them through spinning jodi cone drills or ladders, but no one's really developed an athlete. And I always remember asking what did he really want to do, and he wanted to rebuild a a decalete in his garage, like in his where he can tune them up and and fine-tune. And I I think that's one of the goals we really want to do is have that along with having this the youth development model done right here in the United States.

Yeah, awesome. So it's it's a it's a huge complex, right? I mean, you like you said, 320 acres. Um I would imagine it's gonna be one of the more advanced as well. Uh, give us some insights into not just from the you know traditional sports facilities of having the fields and the weight rooms and things like that, but what are you guys looking at to make this thing um you know more more cutting edge and and being uh, I guess, a uh a beacon of of what is possible.

Well, let me let me I'll just I'll just run us, you know, run you through the diff the different areas and then I'll and then I'll let Spencer talk about some of the some of the things we're doing in the performance center. But 320 acres, all right. So we've got 24 soccer fields, um, we've got 41 pickleball courts, and it's it's amazing. USA pickleball approached us and said, you know, we said, hey, we want to do some pickleball courts, and they said, we need we need you to do more than that. We want to host the U.S. championships at your facility in two years' time, three years' time. So we built a lot of pickleball courts, and we've got a dozen, uh we've got a dozen uh staying volleyball courts outside. We've only got eight baseball fields, eight baseball, softball fields. And people say, well, why don't you have more? I think we need more, but there are a lot of baseball fields here in this here in Arizona. That's one sport that you know kids do play 360, 365 days out of the year. But we've got almost a million square feet of indoor court space. And that's volleyball, basketball, futsal. And then in the uh in the areas that Spencer and I work in together, we got 50,000 square feet of performance, uh, medical and general fitness. And uh uh, you know, I think some of the some of the interesting things that you're gonna see at the at Legacy Sports Park, Bellbank Park is every field is gonna have um is gonna have live streaming capabilities. So we have grandma and grandpa are in Indiana and they want to watch little Joey uh play a baseball game or a soccer game, they'll be able to uh they'll be able to uh live stream that game from wherever that. And that was one of the things that really caught my eye when I first went to the wide world of sports at uh ESPN at Disney World was I'm sitting in a restaurant and a team comes in and they say, Hey, can you give us a replay on field 11? And they could sit there and have they could watch their little baseball game or whatever it was. And so that was something we wanted to do here, but also some of the latest technology in scoreboards and wayfinders, um, uh things like that, and how we just keep people up to date. You'll be able to, you'll be able to be sitting at a volleyball game, order a soda on your phone, boom, somebody can bring it. You know, you can either go pick it up or somebody will bring it to you. So just a lot of just I think uh uh conveniences. But what we've allowed, uh what we've really built here is given people the ability to play multiple games and not leave the facility. So so many times on a soccer weekend, you got a soccer tournament, you got a you got a game in the morning, you got a game in the afternoon. What do you do in that two, three hour period in between? Now you have a place to go eat, you got a place to relax, you got a place where you can send the kiddos to just uh you know go to the esports gaming area and and you know, or video arcade and and you know, uh rip off some of that that steam in between games, but also now where can I go take care of my body? Where can I go do recovery? And so it it's it's one-stop shop, everything under one roof, and and that was really the vision of legacy. In the performance center, though, you know, um uh my original idea was to, you know, run this performance center like a college weight room. And it wasn't shortly after I met Spencer that I realized, well, that's the wrong vision. And he's put together, uh he's put together a vision that I think is is really cutting edge and different than anything else out there.

Yeah, yeah. And I presume that's what we alluded to pre-recording of the talent identification versus the development model. Do you want to give us give us uh the background on that, Spencer? I'd love to hear more about it.

Yeah, I mean, what we really look at is is is it needs to align with the athlete, right? You know, we're we're strong believers in optimizing human performance in life and sport, and that has to be the way the world we're living in, and especially COVID and the accelerator, like you can no longer just have a nice facility. You can no longer just have nice, it can't be you can't have a bike and a treadmill and shiny weights and call that performance facility, right? It has to be connected, it has to be an experience that want to give them. That's one of the things that we really focused on, and Dan and I really aligned on was it has to be experiencing the developmental side. So we're talking about under the age of 13. If you look at the long like our whole system, one of our codes and our coding system is long-term Flight Development uh model for Bali, um, the Canadians and the Russians have done it for years. Um, but we put that into our system. And so, you know, we we put together, you know, in the beginning is teach them how to train, how to squat, how to use their body, how to create body awareness, how to skip, how to hop, and make that game based. And then as they develop, make it into learn to train, then train to train, then train to compete. Now we're in the high school level. Now we get into the town identification model that then we can start saying, okay, now let's see, like, where do you rank, where do you sit, you know, to get to where you want to go and align that. And they've doing the same thing with the fitness side. The fitness side, you know, really bridging that gap between medical and health, and health and performance, and health and medical and and and performance strength. So it all has to work together in one cohesive model from you know, having the client understand where they're at, what do they need to be doing, what is their pathway and using technology, but it has to work. And Eric, you and I have talked about this a lot, is that it has to work and it has to have a great user experience. And the three three things that we focus on has to be mobile, it has to be individualized, and it has to be instant. Those three things that we always look at in our technology thing, like, and does it work and is the science aligned? And that's one of the things we really focus on is to create this unique uniting experience you can have to work out in the best place you can be, and that's in the palm of your hand.

Yeah. So maybe um to to dive into that a little bit deeper, Spencer, is like when you look at you know, talent identification versus development model, how's it been done traditionally? And where do you think that is flawed?

Well, if you go back to the 70s, it was done right. You know, we we played a lot of sports, we climbed trees, we rode bikes. I mean, um we created games outside, played home run derby over the house. You know, that that was developmental, right? And now we've gotten into it because the Tiger Woods generation and the tiger parents and the specialization and tennis and golf, all those individual sports have really corrupted that, that we specialize so young and so early that we reduce resiliency and sustainability. And they're only good at one thing, and they when that doesn't work, then they're done. That's why you have this high injury rate, right? It's one of the things that causes injury is repetitive patterns done over and over again. And so being able to create that variation developmental model and really working them, you know, just like a martial arts approach, like striking with an object, without an object, um, you know, getting on and off the ground, you know, like a get up, but making it all into where it's a game based and there's incentive and markers to show we're developing, but we're not trying to ring and score and we're just trying to show like if we're really focused on participation. What if you think about this? Let's just say the sport of soccer, you know, if you can't dribble, you're probably gonna quit the sport. You can't run linear, you're probably gonna quit the sport. If you can't change directions, you're probably gonna quit the sport. If you can't kick, you're probably gonna put the sport. So let's do those basics as well. And then we can start talking about how far, how fast, or you know, what's the power output, what's their VO2, or you know, the the technical skill size. So that's the development of model. And then the performance, now we're really gonna focus on where the links are missing, and then how can we boost the system?

Yeah. Have you guys, I presume you guys are familiar with uh David Epstein's book Range. Have you guys read that one? I mean, Dan, you may even be in the book, I don't know, but it's like like I think about that.

They did talk about Federer, Federal, veteran tiger, right?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and Wayne Gretzky and all these people who, you know, had this wide range of athletics, and they're all, you know, like what I found was interesting too, similar to like Dan's story, was that um kind of slow to learn, right? Like, like it just it it seems that would be as common as like you know, Wayne Gretzky played a ton of stuff. I don't think he really got like committed to hockey until like maybe his late teens or early 20s, even. And then obviously we know how that story ended, right? And there's there's so many different ones. Go ahead.

Yeah, this wide range of neuro learning, right? So it was just it was it just wasn't just that in that technical skill set, right? So he knew how to create rotational power, he knew how to create a lactic power and all the things we talk about from a physiological standpoint. He just hadn't really done it specifically for the sport of hockey, and that's the same thing with Roger Federer, right? Same thing. Yep.

Yeah. I mean, I ever remember um, so I had the the people from brand X method who are, you know, on a similar mission with with today's youth. It's like, hey, let's not gener, let's not get sport specific too early. It's it's at a detriment to our youth. Um, but one thing I'm like, I don't know if I can say this anymore, but the like the game butts up, right? I used to play the game butts up against the boards, a tennis ball. All you have was like three kids, a tennis ball, and that was it. And I think about all the things I learned from that game, like quickness to speed to one-handed throwing and agility and you know, competitiveness and all these things um that I got from a single game that wasn't organized. There was no organized, there was no parents, there was no anything, it was just unsupervised fun that probably taught me more about athletics than you know, most of the things that were in a structured environment. Um, so there's there's a lot to be learned from there. And I, you know, anecdotally, I was on one of the last days of the ski season last year. I was on a trailer with a couple of 13-year-old kids, right? Boys, and they were talking about what they had planned for the spring and summer. And I was like, these kids are leaving the house at six and not getting back till seven. I was like, that is in its full, you know, like that wasn't my me at 13 or 14. I was like, you know, had four hours of maybe structured stuff. And then I was just kind of screwing off with my friends and doing whatever, right? And that seems to be something else where anyway, I know this is a little bit of a tangent, but I'm curious to get your guys' thoughts on, you know, how how is what else can we be doing, right, for the youth to make them just more resilient and more successful really in sport down the road?

Well, I, you know, just we talk about the old model, and and I, you know, I come from that old model. And, you know, one thing that I just encounter over and over again. And so when I first moved to Arizona, I I had a uh I had a uh a John Frapeier acceleration program. And I don't know if you remember who John Frapeier was, but it was Frappier Acceleration, he's a guy from uh in North Dakota. Um, but he um developed his high-speed training program on these big treadmills, and the treadmills could go up to 30 miles an hour. And I love the training, uh, I just uh the elevation up, elevation down, and the they provide you with the whole workout manual and everything. And um, I started, I started training, you know, just people. And I got so many parents that would walk through the door and say, look, my son is 12, he's a great baseball player, but he just isn't a very good runner. And to start teaching somebody running at the age of 12 is difficult because they've been playing sports for four years already. That's the first thing we should be teaching our kids how to do. You know, I remember doing a track camp one time when I was in in France, and there were third graders and second graders that knew how to hurdle correctly. And that just blew my mind. It's like, oh my gosh, you know, they're so far ahead of us developmentally. Um, so you know, I think what happens in this country is we teach our kids how to shoot a basketball and play, throw a football and you know, uh play these other sports, hit a baseball, pitch a baseball without teaching them. The fundamentals of athletics, the fundamentals of development. And I like, you know, that's one of the things that I really appreciated about Spencer is you know, his model creates that up front. We're gonna we're gonna get you to understand movement, and then you and then you bring it over to the fitness side as well. So, you know, I I you know you talk about the old model, man. That that you know, the old model, uh, you know, if we want our kids to last in the sport, if we want our kids to be as good as quote our parents as we want them to be, um, you know, we need to kind of go away from that specialization just a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you you see it, you see it with Dan, right? Like he was numb in the world. I'm kind of everyone in the world golfer named John Rom, who we work with, who grew up in a developmental model, right? Like he played golf two times a week, 30 minutes growing up. And with and the only other time he really played golf after that was on the weekends was he had to drive two hours to go play on a Saturday and drive back. When he played soccer, he played highlight, he played he was a he was a kayaker. Um he did all these other different sports. And that's why, like, when you have a guy like Dan, you have a guy like John, you have a guy like Wayne Gretzky or Frederick, right? Their ability to learn technical skills is they can learn so fast because they have this neurodevelopment that if they only learn one pattern, one how to do rotational pattern, like in a golf swing or a hockey slap shot or a tennis, then when you ask them to hit it from different slots at different angles, they struggle, right? That's why you see a guy like Tyler Murray, right now, who's 5'8 playing for the Cardinals, tearing up the NFL, because he can hit his arm slot in all kinds of different angles and maneuver his body and and hit this different thing. Same Patrick Mahomes. Like, there's a slow developer, a guy who was unknown with the Texas Tech. Now he's the best quarterback and highest pick, highest paid person in the National Football League, right? Yeah, yeah.

You know, it brings me back to, and I have to give him credit. Uh Bill Thompson was my age group swimming coach at a Santa Clara swim club when I was growing up. And he hit me with this one line that stuck to me. I was probably like nine, right? And I remember I was talking to him, like, well, I'm thinking about starting water polo, right? Because that's the sport that I played for 20-something years. But he's like, Eric, you know, there's there's swimmers and then there's athletes that swim. And then he like kind of broke that down, what that meant, you know, basically it was encouraging me to go do a bunch of stuff, right? And become an athlete. And if I come back to swimming and I enjoy it, then I'm, you know, I have that background. Now, what to me was shocking there was you get an insert, there's there's football players, and then there's athletes who play football, right? Patrick Mahomes and Kyler Murray. They're just that's the sport they picked. And I think what we want is probably development more of general athletics, right? Is that what we're shooting for here?

Correct. Yeah, general athletics, and then then we get the specialization, right? Like that that's what we look at. And and I think one of the things that we're also trying to do is be able to prove that through a systematic approach and using technology to help quantify our decision-making process and be able to visually show people because that's one thing we've seen. Once we once we take in this concept or these ideas, and whether we talked about it, we drew it on the whiteboard or whatever, but once you show them in a data visualization and be able to capture that effectively and efficiently and show them key performance markers that you're doing, just like you'd run a business, then they they'd be like, I got it. Right. And you have to not only educate the athlete, but you have to educate the parent and you have to educate the coaches because a lot of times we see these coaches, they think they need to crush, kill die, and they didn't crush kill die, they didn't get better. I'm like, well, what's the intent? Let's go back to that. Like, what are you trying to accomplish? What do you want to know? What do you want to measure? What do you want to get better at? If it is, then that's not it. Or let's measure it, let's see. Let's use your method, let's use my method, let's see who wins.

Yeah, right on. I love it. Well, I I I know um you guys are busy guys. I want to respect your time. So I just want to make sure we get a couple minutes, kind of describe. Let's see, today's recording day is October 26, uh, 2021. It's 2021, right? Is that the year we're in? I feel like it's been a little long.

So you got it. This this morning I was right 19.

So all my checks, yeah. Uh when is this thing gonna open? And then second question is you know, from you know, a spirit of collaboration, people listen to this podcast. There's a lot of people who are in the fitness and um and uh performance industries who you know may want to get involved or help or in some way. So when is this in when is this thing opening? And what do you guys need right now?

Well, we're we're opening after the first of the year. We've got a grand opening scheduled for January 7th, but we do have events that are going to be starting in December. We have soccer tournaments, pickleball tournaments. So even before maybe everything is completely done in the interiors, we're gonna be playing sports on the outside of this. And so just just uh, you know, first first quarter, January uh 2022, Legacy Sports Park, Bell Bank Park will be uh will be open for business. Awesome.

Awesome. And I think what we I think what we need is we're we're trying to find great people, right? Because we know we can find great people and people who want to grow, want to develop, and want to be a part of a team that we can innovate and and really deliver a unique experience. I don't think the world has seen before. So if those people are out there and they're looking to be a part of a get in on a ground level and be a part of something really innovative and be around a dynamic team, then hit us up. We'll we're looking for you. Awesome.

Well, you guys, thank you, uh Spencer. Thanks for coming back on. Dan O'Brien, man, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Uh, I could ask you questions all day, um, but I have to keep this under an hour. So um yeah. Awesome. Well, hey, you guys, um, thank you so much. That's a wrap. Uh oh, one last question is if people want to get a hold of you guys or you want to send them somewhere online, where where are you sending them?

Uh people people can find us, uh people can find me on the on the legacy and legacy sportsusa.com website, or they can email me directly, danob at legacy sportsusa.com and spencer.

You can find us uh there are thp.fit and my email is spencer at thp.fit, and so is our Instagram. So if you want to find out some some stuff about thp, you can check us on IG at thp.fit and we're always posted and we have a full content strategy and we got some other interesting products coming on, Eric. Hang tight.

I will. You you and I talk frequently enough, so uh I'll keep updated, that's for sure. Awesome. Well, you guys, that's wrap. Ladies and gentlemen, Spencer Tatum, Dan O'Brien, thank you for coming on. Thank you. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This was your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minutes. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it. iTunes, Spotify, Catbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it and we want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more, get in touch with me, simply go to the featureoffitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the feature of fitness. Have a great day.