Season 2 Episode 7
Ben Binversie:
00:02
(singing) When Will and Evelyn Freeman set out for ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ in 1980, they had never been to Iowa or heard of ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½. 40 years later, they’ve found a home and impacted generations of ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ runners. (singing) This is All Things ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½. I’m your host, Ben Binversie. On today’s show, we talk with Will and Evelyn Freeman, longtime ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ track and cross country coaches as they enter their last season of coaching before retiring.
Ben Binversie:
00:44
They reflect on what ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ has meant to them and share memories from years of coaching, mentoring, and learning. That’s coming up next after I remind you that the information and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely those of the individuals involved and do not represent the views of ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ College.
Ben Binversie:
01:03
An era is coming to a close in ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ athletics with the retirement of Will and Evelyn Freeman. They’ve coached at the college since 1980. Will leads the men’s teams while Evelyn coaches the women’s teams. Together they’ve led the Pioneers to over 50 Midwest Conference championships but those numbers don’t really do them justice. They like to win, sure. But they’re focused on a much more holistic picture of success. One that’s earned them generations of devoted student-athletes and alums.
Ben Binversie:
01:37
Evelyn was born in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Will is from Lexington, Kentucky. They first met at a track meet in Ontario.
Evelyn Freeman:
01:46
I was a high jumper, Will was a pole vaulter. A month later, I went down with my team to the University of Florida where Will was living and training and he asked me out on a date. I said yes and the rest is history.
Will Freeman:
02:08
We were freshly married after spending a year in Toronto training and competing and while she was finishing her second degree at the University of Toronto, and so we ended up going to Florida on our honeymoon without any job in the future. I was pretty concerned and while we were on the trip, I find out that Indiana University where I had applied for graduate school and had not been accepted into the program had called and an opening had not only occurred in the program but an assistantship as well.
Will Freeman:
02:48
So, obviously, we took that, drove back to Bloomington, Indiana, and that was it. I mean, we started with nothing and I spent a year there in an accelerated master’s program in biomechanics. I was working with Dr. John Cooper who was sort of the premier kinesiologist nationwide at the time, and so I so happy to be working with him and got the degree and we, it was like the Olympic trials in 1980, turning in my master’s thesis, and driving to ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ all within days. It was just that quick that we came to ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ not knowing what to expect, having never been to Iowa and having never heard of ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ College.
Evelyn Freeman:
03:37
We weren’t exactly looking for coaching jobs once he was finished his degree but one of his classmates had noticed a position in the Chronicle of Higher Education that was advertised where they were looking for a married couple to replace a married couple to coach track and field at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ College in Iowa, and neither of us had heard of ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ College.
Evelyn Freeman:
04:01
As a Canadian, I barely knew where Iowa was. Anyway, we decided, "Let’s apply for the job." We did our phone interview and they flew us down and it was quite the interview process. Our very first interview here at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ was with the student-athletes, the track and field athletes in a classroom in the old PEC, and we got out of that meeting thinking we just blew it because every time they asked us a question and we answered, there was no response back from them. There was no smile, there was no nodding, there was no frowning, there was nothing. So, we didn’t know how we did but, apparently, it all worked out.
Ben Binversie:
04:53
Yeah. That’s interesting. Coming to Iowa without any conception of what you’re kind of getting into. What are each of your coaching philosophies and how have they maybe changed since you first started at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ and adapted?
Will Freeman:
05:09
Well, they’ve certainly changed at least for me. When I came in it was as you might expect, I was really good at this one thing in track and field, didn’t really know about the rest of it so didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself and a lot of coaching is sort of fake it till you make it kind of thing like anything else. You just got to plunge ahead and hope you learn by doing.
Will Freeman:
05:35
For me, it was just the only thing I knew was the way I was trained and coached and at the D1 level. That’s a very different philosophy than here at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ and it took quite a bit of time for me to recognize that and change. I mean, it was going to have to be either change or leave kind of thing and I was right on the cusp of leaving. I had made the decision that four years into it that I’ve just, this is not the place for us and was talked into staying by John Fitch who you know was a very important person in our life personally and professionally.
Will Freeman:
06:14
I’m glad we stayed. I mean, this place has taught me so much. I’ve been like the ultimate student at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½. For 40 years, we’ve been learning and learning not just about the place but also about ourselves and how we fit into this place. I think the philosophy has clearly moved to an athletes-centered model where our job is to meet the needs of the athlete. That’s what it is. That’s what coaches do and because every athlete is different and at a different place on the continuum you have to adjust to their particular needs.
Will Freeman:
06:50
Now, try balancing that individual focus with trying to put together a team focus where you’re, there’s a common kind of drive to a given goal and that is not an easy thing to do, to meet the individual need and also focus on the team thing as John Fitch told me, he said, "If you can coach here, you can coach anywhere because this is a very difficult place to find that balance." Fortunately, over time and through experience, I think we found it. We hope so.
Evelyn Freeman:
07:22
The experience was a little bit different for me because the programs that I was with in Canada even though they were very high level there was more focus on the growth of the individual outside of just being a good athlete, and so when we first came as Will said, we were very much nurtured and mentored by the veteran coaches here at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ specifically, Ray Obermiller, the swim coach who had been here for a number of years and who was also the cross-country coach and also John Fitch the athletic director and there were many times where he would sit us down and talk to us about what was really important.
Evelyn Freeman:
08:12
We learned not only from the mentors but from our own athletes that what is really important is that we want to provide as many growth opportunities for our student-athletes as possible. We want them to not only grow as athletes but as strong independent people, grow in confidence, grow in sportsmanship and teamwork and learn a lot of the tools along the way to help them be confident leaders beyond ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½.
Evelyn Freeman:
08:50
That has been our main focus. We also have a very collaborative program just because, we’re the coaches doesn’t mean it’s our way or the highway. We always ask our athletes to keep the communication process open between us so that they can help us be their best coach individually and as a team. It just seems to work out really well that way.
Ben Binversie:
09:27
Yeah. I was at the alumni reception, it struck me that you really had an impact in more than just, yes, you’ve been, you’ve had a successful program obviously and lots of championships and that’s great, but talking to a lot of the alumni what stuck with them was really the growth that they saw in themselves as individuals, not just in the realm of track and field but as a person.
Evelyn Freeman:
09:54
Yeah. It really struck us. A few of our captains had communicated with the alums and invited them to write us a letter and they presented it to us at the luncheon in a mailbox, and so we’ve been starting to go through some of these letters. There’s a whole lot of them. Personally, I can’t really read more than three letters at a time because it’s very emotional.
Evelyn Freeman:
10:27
What strikes me so far from these letters is that none of them talk about, "Well, we won conference or we went to Nationals or I was all-conference," athletic achievements and success. It’s more about like you said, the growth that they had along the way.
Evelyn Freeman:
10:51
For example, this week and the next few weeks, I’ve been focusing some of our training time, our practice time on our mental training and our mental skills and tools and the way we think and our choice of thoughts during the day, not just during practice and how we can be proactive in how we think and how that can affect our success, not just on the athletic field but in the classroom and in life, and in those letters, there were so many of those little tools and stories and practices that we had used 10, 20 years ago that they remembered and appreciated and still use now.
Evelyn Freeman:
11:42
That’s just so reinforcing to us to know that what we’re doing matters, not just now but beyond ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½.
Ben Binversie:
11:53
Yeah.
Will Freeman:
11:54
Yeah. We’re in the business of athletics and we don’t unappreciate success. I mean, we love, we prefer to win. We’ve certainly won some conference championships but that is secondary. I mean, it’s… I don’t even know the number. I mean, it’s just not that important to me. Most of those trophies are locked up in a room in the Bear somewhere.
Will Freeman:
12:22
Again, at the moment, when you’re 18 years old to 21 years old, that’s very important because you’re immersed in it, you’ve committed a big portion of your life to it collectively with your teammates, and so that is a very powerful experience but I can tell you having been one of those athletes and having had success as an athlete as time goes on, you begin to see how little that really matters.
Will Freeman:
12:48
It was fun at the moment, it was developmental at the moment but it was about you taking charge of your own life and that’s the sort of the key premise I think in our program is this focus on moving from dependency to independency. I think they bought in. I mean, they love that here. They want to be the individual and think for themselves and so to craft a program where you actually build that in and yet still can achieve something athletically, it’s just been a joy. I mean, I am so glad we chose to stay.
Ben Binversie:
13:23
Yeah. Running sports perhaps more than a lot of other sports, there is such a big emphasis on individual growth but the camaraderie that they felt as a team was surprising to me. I’ve never been on a cross or track team so it’s hard for me to imagine what that would be like but it sounded even better than the teams that I have been on where it is maybe more like a team sport generally like conceived as.
Evelyn Freeman:
13:52
Well, it’s a little easier with cross-country because you’re all doing the same thing at the same time in the same place. It’s a little more difficult to achieve during track and field where it’s like a 10-ring circus or you got your throwers over here and your jumpers over there and your sprinters over here and your distance runners are running away, and so that takes a little bit more work and we rely on our leaders, our team captains to try to nurture that team camaraderie.
Will Freeman:
14:22
Yeah. There’s no question, track is more challenging. I mean, the different event groups or there’s different science and biomechanics behind each event. Distance running is a cyclic activity. If you have good posture and you do it and do a lot of it over time progressively, you’re going to get better. With the field events and the hurdling, it’s different.
Will Freeman:
14:44
I mean, you have to approach it differently. It’s a different mentality that you’re dealing with, with fast-twitch athletes versus slow-twitch, but we always look forward to it. I mean, track and field, we get through cross-country season and we move into track and, of course, that’s our sport, track and field, and so we always love finishing the year with that and by the time we get to the summer, we’re pretty much done. I mean, it’s a year of non-stop coaching and-
Evelyn Freeman:
15:13
We don’t have an off-season. In fact, we overlap cross-country and track so, yeah. We appreciate our summers.
Will Freeman:
15:24
Come late August and here comes the cross-country team back in town. We are excited and ready to go.
Ben Binversie:
15:28
Itching to go.
Will Freeman:
15:28
Yeah.
Evelyn Freeman:
15:29
They are too.
Ben Binversie:
15:31
So, at a school like ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, I’m sure you’re acutely aware and you were probably aware when you started that the term student-athlete student comes first, and I know coaches here take that very seriously. For both of you, how did you and how do you approach coaching in maybe a more holistic way because of that?
Will Freeman:
15:50
Well, I think that’s the right word, holistic. It’s always a balance. I mean, wellness is balance and to keep people operating at their optimal level, whether it’s academically or athletically, you’re always balancing the two. The bottom line is they’re paying a lot of money to come here for the education and granted, we feel like our classroom as it is, is different than most classrooms, but it’s five days a week, sometimes six days a week if we’re competing and it’s valuable.
Will Freeman:
16:24
But at the same time, I always know why they’re here. I tell them that all the time. We know why you’re here so if you have to miss a practice or you’re late because of a lab, it’s just the nature of the place and we’ll work around it. You have to do that and we figured that out early on. We knew what we were into after… After the first semester, my first thought was, "Wow. This is not the University of Florida."
Evelyn Freeman:
16:50
Yeah. It’s difficult sometimes and challenging but that’s where the individual coaching comes in because you have to have some empathy for people who are sick or who have an injury or who have a presentation to make and have to miss practice, and so you just kind of figure out how to make it work, but at the same time, you have, your team commitment plan in order. That has been discussed and shared and agreed upon that we are committed to our team and our training and each other and we’re going to try to fulfill that commitment as best we can at a place like ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½.
Ben Binversie:
17:37
So when you reflect on your almost 40 years here now, are there any memories that particularly stand out whether from the athletic side or just more of a connecting with students side?
Will Freeman:
17:50
When I took over cross-country, I had been coaching, assistant coaching football for four years and a little bit of a fish out of water there and yet I moved into cross-country, John Fitch had recommended that for continuity between track and cross that maybe the same coach ought to do both and it made sense. But talk about a fish out of water. I mean, I knew nothing about distance running. I ran 125 feet down the runway and that was it.
Will Freeman:
18:22
I had to hurry and read and learn and reach out to people, and so that first year, I had not recruited anybody. I was dealing with the students that came back and we were, I think we were fourth or fifth at the conference meet and the following year with my first incoming group, we moved up to second. They had not won the conference.
Will Freeman:
18:47
This was 1986. They had not won since 1969. The third year, I felt like, "My gosh. I think we may have a team that could win this thing." The meet was at the University of Chicago who was in the conference at the time, and George Drake was the president and that team from 1960 was invited to come to Chicago to the meet and they did. They flew into the meet. George was there, of course.
Will Freeman:
19:16
I’m thinking, "Oh, my god. The pressure is on. If we don’t win this thing, these guys are back from, and it’s been 26 years." They did win the meet and that’s when I first felt like we can be successful here, one thing. That was one thing. The second thing was how much this meant to those, the team that I was coaching. That they could do it in front of these alums but also they were just giddy with excitement.
Will Freeman:
19:47
That’s when I knew, "Okay. We’re developing something here in the team, the team aspect that may be able to carry us forward." Of course, being the self-downer I was, I asked Evelyn, I said, "Do you think we could win this thing again next year?" It was like I couldn’t even for five minutes enjoy the win when I was worried about the future.
Will Freeman:
20:10
That’s changed over time as I’ve learned to accept that, "Hey, I think I can coach." But that was a real highlight. I mean, that’s when I turned the corner and said, "You know what? I think we can succeed here at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½." At least, me.
Ben Binversie:
20:25
Another thing with that story is kind of the connection between your runners from year-to-year. Obviously, the runners from 1960 were not coached by you, but you know there is a sense of shared experience between runners from the ‘80s and the current students now.
Will Freeman:
20:42
Well, it’s funny. The Friday night before that race, we kind of, the runners go to bed and the former runners, from the ‘60s, we went downstairs at the hotel and had a drink at the bar and they were just telling me stories like how important the team was and how much they respected each other and felt obligated to each other to do the training for each other.
Will Freeman:
21:04
I mean, all those things that you hope you have in a team program, they were telling me. I was learning from those guys. I was new to this. It was just a joyful experience and having George Drake there who basically hired us to experience that was really special.
Ben Binversie:
21:22
Yeah.
Will Freeman:
21:23
Yeah. There were many more to follow.
Evelyn Freeman:
21:28
We have so many stories that Will and I are actually thinking about writing a book because they’re funny stories, embarrassing stories, memorable stories, stories of success and there’s just a ton of stories so we’ve been starting to jot them down so we don’t forget when the time comes when we have time to write.
Evelyn Freeman:
21:52
Probably, athletically, the most memorable and successful year was cross-country 2006. The spring before that season, we always have a cross-country meeting just before the summer break and there was a general hum about we’re so excited about next season because we really feel like we can do something special next season.
Evelyn Freeman:
22:27
A lot of times some of the women are afraid to even think that big and it was really exciting to see that they were starting to think that big, not putting themselves up for failure or unreasonable expectations, but I’m so excited. That hum of excitement kept on going the entire season. It was a special group of women that were very committed to their training, very committed to each other, would talk every now and then about their goals for the end of the season and we ended up winning conference handily.
Evelyn Freeman:
23:15
We head up to St. Olaf for the regional qualifying meet to try to qualify for Nationals in a snowstorm. Even George Drake went up to the meet to watch us and we get to run seven runners at the qualifying regional meet. Six out of the seven placed in the top 35. The top 35 are all region. I remember the seventh person coming in shortly thereafter looking for more people in disbelief that all seven had finished in the top 35 in the region, which is traditionally a very strong region.
Evelyn Freeman:
24:01
I kept looking for more people. Anyway, we ended up winning the regional meet pretty handily, and then going to our first National meet as a team, we had taken a number of individuals in the past but we went to Nationals, that was another interesting experience because it was in Ohio at the heart of America Park, which is a flat pancake course. It had rained for weeks there, so the entire course was a mud pit.
Evelyn Freeman:
24:33
There were parts of the men’s course that were underwater, there were some pumps out in the course. We had talked about how are we going to handle this running in the mud, what size spikes should we use, those kind of things. We ended up placing seventh at Nationals. The best National finish of any team at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ College, even now.
Evelyn Freeman:
25:01
Sarah Spencer placed third in the meet. A number of them were All-Americans and it was amazing. A funny little ending of this story is that we had brought big football bags with us for our year, and they were just covered in mud. Our shoes were just covered in mud. We threw all those spikes into a garbage bag and threw them into the football travel bag and at the airport, we were so overweight because we were carrying so much mud with us back to ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½.
Will Freeman:
25:41
Gladly paid the extra money for that.
Evelyn Freeman:
25:43
Yeah.
Will Freeman:
25:44
We had a really cool thing happen. It’s interesting that our conference meet this fall is at Knox and back in 20… I think it was ‘08, we ran at Knox, the conference meet. The guys had come up to me but we had a really good team. They came up to me and said, "Hey, coach, would you get one of these purple Roo kangaroo tattoos and, because we’re getting them, you know, on our thighs?"
Will Freeman:
26:15
"Guys, I’m too old for a tattoo." "Well, what if we win the conference, would you…" I go, "Guys, you better win the conference. You’re the best team by far." "Well, what if we win the regional, the NCAA regional?" I’m, "Wow. You know, honestly, I think you’re top-ranked in the region. I think that’s going to happen." "Well, what if we perfect score the conference meet, something never been done?" That’s first, second, third, fourth, fifth, perfect score.
Will Freeman:
26:44
It just doesn’t happen at championship level. It doesn’t happen. You could do it in a dual meet with an out man team or something, but you don’t do that at the championship level. There’s too many good runners out there. I thought, "You know what? If this motivates them to run really well at conference, why not? Okay. I’m in."
Will Freeman:
27:02
At the meet, they came through the mile, we had like seven guys in the top nine and I’m going, "Oh, my god, you know, are they going to do this?" Well, they came through four miles… I was at four and a half miles, so half mile to the finish line, here they come. One, two, three, four, and then our fifth guy was side by side with a St. Norbert guy, and I just remember yelling at him, "Go for it. You got this." Because I knew he was fast and the St. Norbert coach was running alongside his guys screaming at him. "Don’t you dare let them perfect score us."
Will Freeman:
27:39
Of course, as history shows, he did. Our guy did get the fifth spot, and so I’m hoping they’ll forget about the tattoo thing. At the awards banquet that year they usually give us something or give money to something that we’re-
Evelyn Freeman:
27:58
A charity.
Will Freeman:
27:58
… interested in, a charity and which was always nice. They said, "So, here’s your gift." What it was was a prepaid tattoo for the tattoo parlor downtown. "And coach, they’re waiting for us now so we’re taking you downtown." Sure enough, I got the tattoo. I really felt like part of the team that, "You know what? I’m pleased to be a part of this." So many guys in the history of this program now sport these purple kangaroo tattoos on their thigh.
Evelyn Freeman:
28:32
What was really special too was that they valued it so much that they had their one through five medals framed and they gave it to Will. He’s got it sitting in his office.
Will Freeman:
28:44
Yeah. It’s right next to my door so people see it when they come and visit, prospective students and I tell them. I said, "You know, this is what people are capable of when you do it collectively." There’s their picture that they’ve signed and underneath the picture in the frame is the five medals side-by-side and it just brings a tear to my eye because it showed me that, and they told me this that it’s never about the medals. We don’t need to keep these medals. They’ll end up in a drawer somewhere lost, but to show you how important this experience was to us, we want you to have this.
Will Freeman:
29:20
So, every time I see that, every time I leave the office, I look at that picture thinking, "This is what they’re capable of. If you have the situation right, you just never know."
Evelyn Freeman:
29:33
The top runner that year was Henry Reich and they went to Nationals as a team. But Henry Reich had an interview, his final interview for the Rhodes scholarship. The same day as the National meet. That was a tough one for him. He didn’t know what to do because, I mean, Rhodes scholarship, final interview, that’s amazing, what an opportunity.
Evelyn Freeman:
30:03
Henry talked to Will and he talked to George Drake who had been a Rhodes scholar as well, and we had told him, everyone had told him, "This is your decision because this is a fantastic opportunity and we certainly won’t hold it against you if you decide to go to this interview." Do you want to finish the story?
Will Freeman:
30:25
Yeah. What happened, like his parents and his coach were pushing him to do the interview, this was… You just don’t get this. This is a, and he was like if there’s ever been a candidate that get a Rhodes scholarship, it was this guy.
Evelyn Freeman:
30:39
Oh, he was amazing.
Will Freeman:
30:41
He was amazing. He ended up making the decision, and then sending an email to the team and myself why he chose to go to the National meet and not go to the interview. Basically, it was something to the effect… I just tear up every time I think about it, that how much this team meant to him, and that a Rhodes scholarship was not going to define him, but his experience with these other runners would define him and that he didn’t want to give up the chance to run with them one more time.
Will Freeman:
31:12
It was just a remarkable thing. Now, of course, he’s ultra-successful as the guy who’s behind MinutePhysics and anyone that gets online and looks up MinutePhysics that’s Henry Reich and he’s like a rock star internationally, and it just goes to show you, you never know the direction you’re going to go in life and ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ prepares you whatever that direction will be. He’s a very special guy.
Ben Binversie:
31:40
I know Will, you’re big on journeys and the concept of journeys. I’m wondering what this journey of being at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ for the past, almost 40 years has meant to both of you and when you reflect on your time here, what stands out and why have you ended up planting such deep roots here and sticking around for so long?
Will Freeman:
32:05
Yeah. That’s a good way to put it. I mean, we do have roots here now. We raised our children here. We have had success as coaches. The job has regardless of the athletic director and there’s been several for us, we’ve always had the freedom to run our program the way we think it needs to be run. We’ve been able to do things outside of our work with the athletes like writing books and traveling and doing things that are important to my growth, my journey.
Will Freeman:
32:37
I’m not sure that would have been that way anywhere else. ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ is just a unique environment and for the students, of course, but also for us as faculty members. It’s remarkable to just talk with my fellow colleagues and faculty from across campus at the coffee shop and realize, "Man, this is like a who’s who of very special talented people." It’s like a, I just tried to be a sponge and take it all in and learn from different people and it really has been a great journey, life journey for us and it’s not over yet.
Will Freeman:
33:17
We’ve got things planned for the future for other writing experiences and walk the Camino next summer in Spain-
Ben Binversie:
33:24
Nice.
Will Freeman:
33:24
… which has been a, always been a bucket list thing for me and I could see something coming out of that in terms of a writing project too, so the plan is to do that with Kesho Scott. She and I taught a course together in American Studies about life journeys and so it continues. The journey continues and we may not be coaching but we’ll be teaching and doing other things that we’re excited about.
Ben Binversie:
33:52
Yeah.
Evelyn Freeman:
33:53
ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ has provided an opportunity and actually pushed me out of my comfort zone of being very quiet and shy and I’ve needed to be pushed out of that comfort zone where I’m not afraid anymore to speak in front of a large group of people. I feel like I have a lot to share and ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ very much promotes creativity of thought and ideas.
Evelyn Freeman:
34:32
I mean, you yourself have started this podcast and they have encouraged you that way. We are creative people and ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ College doesn’t very often say no to new ideas. That’s another thing that we very much appreciate their support when we have a new idea. As Will said when we’re, when we go on to senior faculty status, we want to create new opportunities for growth and learning, not just for our student-athletes but for the community and for ourselves because we’ve had the opportunity to grow and much of that has been from learning from our student-athletes and our students in class.
Evelyn Freeman:
35:27
No matter how old we are, we continue to grow. We’ll be having more time to attend concerts and talks and things like that where we just have not had much opportunity to do that. That will be a nice little transition as well.
Will Freeman:
35:44
As I reflect on how we have changed over the years, we found our voice eventually. Evelyn clearly has found her voice, and she really was introverted early on and so it’s kind of been amazing to watch her develop. For me, it was more, I had a voice, sometimes I’ve voiced too much, and as time went on, I sort of learned when to say something and that maybe less is more and that another way of finding my voice was through writing, writing projects, and still feel like that ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ has allowed me to do that and I found this other passion for writing that I feel like I can help teach people that way, even beyond my coaching years.
Will Freeman:
36:41
It’s exciting. I mean, where we are in our journey is we’re still growing and that’s what’s cool about this.
Ben Binversie:
36:49
Yeah. That’s a great way to look at it. This is not the end but just a transition, a turn, making a turn on the road of your lives so even though you’ll be done coaching after this year, at least, formally, it’s safe to say your impact will be felt for generations to come here at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ and throughout the world as all of the ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ians disperse.
Ben Binversie:
37:12
Thank you both for your dedication to ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ and the many students who’ve come through campus and thanks for taking the time to talk about it.
Evelyn Freeman:
37:20
Our pleasure.
Will Freeman:
37:20
Yes. It has been our pleasure.
Ben Binversie:
37:23
Will and Evelyn Freeman are coming up on almost 40 years of coaching here at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½. After this season, they’ll transition to senior faculty status. In September, a bunch of alumni came back to ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ for a retirement reception for Will and Ev. I talked with some of the alums and current runners about what Will and Ev had meant to them.
Terran Mott '20:
37:41
They literally see us as their children. They designed their house to accommodate teams of people. They really prioritize making sure that people learned how to be brave and disciplined and strong together and supportive and this program has helped me learn those lessons at ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ more so than it helped me learn how to be a runner I am a pretty mediocre runner but it’s like that’s their priority and they’re very successful at helping people grow and that’s why they have had such a big impact here.
Josh Jensen '19:
38:12
Will and Ev are the type of people that you never forget. Their personalities and the way they impact your life and the way you approach everything beyond running is just kind of something that always sticks in the back of your mind.
Tori LaVerdiere '20:
38:35
Will and Ev showed like two really different ways of coaching a team and they did it together, which is really interesting, right? They’re a married couple, and so they’re a pair, coaching our two separate teams and we interact with running in different ways, but also as a cohesive unit, and so, well, the men might show up in like fancy new uniforms every year. The women have our chocolate milk in the locker room every single Friday after a hard workout.
Tori:
39:01
Then, Ev is like, she’s so meticulous, right? Same thing every year and you always know what’s coming, Affirmation Week, and Ev shows up at practice with a smiley face printed on a piece of paper. It’s just like, "Its Affirmation Week. Time to affirm yourself." Those things, they’re small in the action but really long-term and your memory of them long-time, running jokes and things like that that kind of created team culture.
Ben Binversie:
39:29
Yeah.
Emma Luhmann '19:
39:29
That is cool but I think that Will and Ev talked about an athlete-centered model and program and I think that it’s not just talk. I know that that’s true for them and I always felt like an individual to them. I think that’s big. They have these big teams, they have how many, they’ve seen how many athletes go through the program but I think they know each person very well as an individual, which is, that’s big, and it says a lot about them.
Sophie Neems '16:
39:52
The community of the team is what matters the most. It’s so much more than running and I think being on the team really taught me how to be a woman and helped me discover and determine what kind of woman I wanted to be so from the physical strength of pushing through really hard workouts to everybody is beautiful, and we would shower together and you see like, we all look really differently and we’re all able to do this sport together was really empowering as a 17-year-old, to tea parties, to real talk on runs, to everybody like going to a team meeting and everybody’s voice matters whether you’re a first-year who started two weeks ago or you’re a senior who’s about to graduate, that was really empowering also, and all of those things coming together to mean like this is who I want to be and it really helped me to define who I was and who I wanted to be.
Sophie:
40:46
I think what Evelyn is really good at is seeing what other people’s talents are, and then creating an environment in which they can fulfill that strength to the best of their ability. There was very much a culture of you do you so she accepted us for who we were and saw the value in diversity on the team, and I am not a fast runner, but self-dubbed captain of enthusiasm. There was a place for me on the team.
Sophie:
41:17
I think coming from high school where the top seven were on varsity and they ran one race, and then everybody ran a different race. There was definitely a divide between the fast people and the not as fast people, and being on the team where we all ran the same races, we were all part of the same team, our practices were the same and Ev treated us the same, whether you were winning the race or not, I think really made a big impact on team culture.
Sophie:
41:40
All of the people who have ever run for them are still on our team and all of the people that are going to run after us are still on our team and that made it a lot easier to graduate I think because it’s like once you’re a beast you’re always beast. Once you run for ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, you always run for ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½, and feeling a part of that is really special.
Ben Binversie:
41:57
Thanks to all the students and alums who shared their stories with me. During my time as a student, the only interaction I had with the Freeman’s was sharing the fieldhouse during baseball season. Their runners would sprint perilously around the gym while we hurled balls around. There were more than a few close calls and it was a tenuous partnership at best, but now I’ve gotten to know them a little bit both through these interviews and also by getting to know some of their current and former student-athletes, and those conversations have left me with a really strong sense that they’ve been a vital part of so many ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ians experiences.
Ben Binversie:
42:31
So, I’m happy I got a little peek inside their world. I think we could all use a little coaching from the Freeman’s at some point in our lives. Also, big thanks to the runners who invited me to join them for a liberating run in the cornfield that weekend. Thanks for letting me join the team even if it was only for an hour.
Ben Binversie:
42:49
On next week’s episode, I’ll talk with Anya Grundmann from the class of 1989. She’s the senior vice president for programming and audience development at NPR, which is a fancy way of saying she’s a big deal. Tiny desk, podcasts, you name it, she’s got her hands on it. We’ll talk about how she fell in love with public radio, her passion for music, and the spaces in between. That’s next time on All Things ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½.
Ben Binversie:
43:15
Music for today’s show comes from Brett Newski and Podington Bear. I’m your host, Ben Binversie. Stay weird, ÌìÃÀ´«Ã½ians.