[00:00:15] Speaker A: Hello. Welcome to the Roundhouse Podcast with Paul Sullentrop of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. Wichita State director of track and field Steve Rainbolt is with us along with Jason and Josh Parish. They are twin brothers who are totaling up significant accomplishments. And as sophomores at Wichita State, Josh won the 110 meter hurdles with a time of 13.56 in the American Athletic Conference championships last week in Charlotte. He also placed third in the long jump. Jason won the 400 hurdles. The time of 49.17 seconds. That was a meet record and it is the seventh fastest time in the nation.
Both of them ran on WSU's 400 meter relay team that placed second. Jason ran on the 1600 meter relay team that placed fourth. And they are both of those relays. Both of those relays are school record times right throughout the regular season.
No, correct me.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Oh, the 4x4. These guys were on a school record score by four. The 4x1. There has been a 3946, I believe, if I'm not mistaken.
And they're second right now.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Second in the 1600, first in the 400 meter relay team. All right, we're updated on that shocker. Men place second in the AAC meet. The women play sixth. Next up for track and field qualifiers, NCAA west preliminaries. That is at Texas A&M starting May 28th. Qualifiers from that meet advance to the NCAA championships in Oregon. That is June 11th through the 14th. Steve, let's start with the AAC meet. How close to expectations did your teams perform?
[00:01:49] Speaker B: I suppose that we got second place to South Florida by 18 points. So I believe the two guys sitting here with me would say we came 19 points from our target.
We certainly went down there wanting to win the meet and felt like we had the firepower to do it.
But the way track and field goes, every track meet that I've ever come back from, when someone has said, how'd the meet go?
Track and field is some good and some not so good, and we had some spectacular performances. And that's why when you asked me to give a recap of this meet, I suggested that we invite Josh and Jason because they had fabulous meets.
There's other situations around the world of track and field that didn't go great. Now, as a result, we lost to south Florida by 18 points, but boy, we had a great team. A couple of things that were meaningful to me was that we scored points in all but one event. There's 21 events in outdoor track and field, and we scored points in 20 of them.
We did not score in the open 400 meters and other than that, we scored in every event in track and field. That's impressive. That is an indicator of balance and depth. It's an indicator of a complete program.
All the event areas nicely represented. I'm really proud of the fact that we scored in all the events but one.
We believe that in my 25 years, and that's something I'm excited to mention, is that I just AM Finishing my 25th year at Wichita State and, and it's been wonderful and I'm really excited about, you know, being the track coach at wichita State for 25 years.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: But we're going to ask you to name the you're all 25 year team at the end of this podcast. I hope you're ready to. I hope you're ready to go every event, men's and women's, indoor and outdoor.
[00:03:40] Speaker B: That'll challenge me.
But anyway, we looked at it and we feel like there has been one time that we have scored in every event.
One time. And when we won the conference title two years ago, we scored in every event except two.
So this time we scored in every event except one. It was great. That's a positive. But we didn't win the championship. And certainly we consider ours, we consider Wichita State track and field a championship program and that's our target, is winning team titles. And the guys were all in, man, it was awesome. They were there with terrific spirit and terrific focus and a terrific sense of common mission. I mean, I couldn't be prouder of our team and of the guys on our team. But we did fall short. Now, I will say we fell 18 points short. And going into the meet it looked like that South Florida was probably about a 35 point point favorite. So we closed the gap on what was a projected, a projected score at the finish. But. But we didn't quite close it enough, obviously.
[00:04:48] Speaker A: Jason, Josh, you know, track is pretty transparent. You can follow along and know where people are expected to, you know, expected to score. How much are you paying attention to that during the meet?
[00:05:00] Speaker C: I'll say, like every race, every event that was going on, I was paying attention to while warming up. If I could, I'll check my phone, see how my other teams were doing and stuff. And I mean, everybody was competing hard trying to score and trying to win the championships.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: So, Josh, you're really locked in on the team standings. Jason, how about you? How much are you paying attention during the meet?
[00:05:22] Speaker D: Well, we have a coach, our coach wise, he Sends out like after every event, he sends out like how we did. So whoever scored in that event and then the current projections going into the final event. So yeah, I was paying attention to that every day.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I texted John Wise Saturday morning to get a, to get an idea about where, where Wichita State was. How, how much is that important to you or what's the fun balance between. I'm competing individually, but I'm also really locked in on the, on the team standings. Josh, go first. How do you kind of balance that percentage of enjoyment of track and field?
[00:05:58] Speaker C: I say, like, I try to do as best as I can for tell my teammates out, score as much points and then once I'm done, or like, if I have a little break, I'll try to go support my teammates so they can do as best as they can and score as many points in so we can go win the championship, basically.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: Jason, how about you? What's the balance between individual and celebrating the team accomplishments?
[00:06:23] Speaker D: Individual, you always will try to do as best as you can, but like being with all your track teammates for, you know, basically all four years, you want to see them also win. So just supporting them and then having a chance to win a team championship is just like a great feeling.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Steve, WSU swept the multis Destiny Masters. Won the heptathlon. Freshman. I'm gonna hopefully get his name right. Rickard Trogan Hayden. Yes.
Winning the decathlon Destiny. She's headed to the NCAA meet. 5715 points. She ranks 15th nationally. Finished 13th last season.
Tell us about Destiny, how she set up for Oregon.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: So Destiny was first team all American a year ago, indoors in the pentathlon event. And first team all American is certainly the target for Destiny. She has had a rough year this year compared to her junior year.
[00:07:17] Speaker D: There's.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: There's been areas that have just been a struggle for her, but she's a competitor and a tough girl and was able to battle hard enough to win the American Athletic Conference championship in the heptathlon with a nice score. It wasn't a huge score, but it was a nice score. But we are right now strategizing to help her regain her form in the 200 and the 100 meter hurdles in particular those two, and then even the high jump. The high jump last year it just seemed like going over 1 meter 80, which is 5 foot 11, was something that just happened. Meet in and meet out. And now it's more like 178 or 170, you know, 78 or 79 or even 77 or 75, which is more like 59 or 5 10.
And so she certainly is focused on trying to regain her form. If she does, then she'll be a girl that'll be competing for a top eight first team All American finish in Eugene.
[00:08:16] Speaker A: Jason, your second AAC championship meet outdoors, how's it different? How's it changed as a sophomore going back and going through that again?
[00:08:25] Speaker D: Well, it's kind of different because freshman year, I really didn't know what I was getting into. But, like, now I know the competition, the teams, and I just know, like, in order, what I need to do to win. So, like, I prepare myself a little different between my races because I did the same events I did last year. So, yeah, I just prepare myself different for this ASC championship.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Josh, how about you? How things change from freshman to sophomore year in a big meet like that?
[00:08:53] Speaker C: I say my mentality, like, I came in kind of, like, scared and timid, like, oh, there's all these good track athletes and running way faster time than me. So it kind of brought down my, like, my energy and, like, me as a going out and competing. But then I realized, like, if I really want it, I'll go do it. I'll go win it. And so coming into sophomore year, I started training harder, started focusing on and just trying just compete, basically just be myself, and started doing better.
[00:09:28] Speaker A: Steve, that's something you and I talked about yesterday when we were prepping for this is. Is these two and their desire to compete and work hard and not make excuses. Tell us about their, you know, about that mental side of things for the Parrish brothers.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: Well, there's a couple of things about that.
When you asked me to find an athlete, it occurred to me to invite Josh and Jason because I find it really unique and interesting and cool that they're twins brothers, and that they're on the same college track team and that each of them won a hurdle race at a. At a tough conference championship and that they're performing at such a high level.
Jason has the seventh fastest time in the nation in the 400 meter hurdles. And Josh was on Team USA last year in the under 20 world championships in the long jump event.
And his 13, I thought it was 55. 1356.
[00:10:28] Speaker C: 1356.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: His 1356 is one of the fastest times in our school history. Is it second all time? Second all time. He just passed Shannon Armstrong, who was a first team all American for us. And so these two guys are operating at an extremely high level, and I find it certainly Unique and really awesome that these two twin brothers, each one, you know, a hurdle race at the conference championship, and they paired up on the relays and all of that. But having said that, you asked about their competitiveness, these are two of the most competitive young men that I've ever had the opportunity to work with. They're just remarkable that way. And.
And people that haven't watched Jason Parrish run a 400 meter hurdle race need to. They need to watch that because it's a competitive, aggressive, visually interesting and meaningful intensity type of thing to watch. And it's awesome.
You know, as coaches get into coaching to watch young people do what Jason did in that 400 meter hurdle race. And.
And same thing, coaches like me get into coaching to watch guys like Josh Parish run down the Runway and long jump with huge explosive power.
And it's not always perfect. It is not always perfect. He fouls sometimes, and he fouled some huge jumps at this meet that certainly I think probably would have won the competition if he hadn't fouled.
And I wish he never fouled. But when he does, so impressed that.
[00:12:12] Speaker C: He.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: Grimaces and it's evident that he's frustrated with it. And then he goes right back and gets ready for the next attempt. And I admire that so much. I admire these guys putting any kind of a disappointment these two brothers putting any kind of a disappointment almost immediately behind him and looking forward to getting ready for the next thing. And I also really, really admire what a cool deal it is that they're brothers. I have found these two guys here. I'm bragging on them like crazy. I have found these two guys to be really competitive with each other and to the point of trash talking each other and having fun that way. And you can always tell that it's lighthearted and fun and they mean it and they intend to compete hard with one another.
But it's lighthearted and fun, and then one of them has big success.
And the genuine brotherly love is awesome. It's just awesome.
So I wanted to invite them for this because I felt like, hey, we had a lot of wonderful performances. I mean, we had a bunch of other champions.
But the fact that these guys are twin brothers was something that caused me to think, well, I need to invite Josh and Jason to talk about, you know, their experience at the conference championship. And I want to mention what a cool deal it is to have these twin brothers on our track team.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: Good instincts, Steve. Good. Good choice. Anytime anybody mentions trash talking, you've got to follow up on it.
Jason, how do you trash talk Josh and then Josh will give you a shot too?
[00:13:55] Speaker D: Well, usually when I work on high hurdles with Josh, I just say I'm gonna beat him every day in practice and stuff. Usually that's not how it goes. He usually gets me, but I still just talk crap on him and stuff just to make him work harder and stuff. Because I like, I know what he's capable of.
[00:14:15] Speaker C: I mean, yeah, same with me. Especially when we line up in the blogs and we're both side by side, each other.
I just started.
My mouth just started going.
He trying to make him off. Like his mind not there and stuff like that. But then once he get in the blocks, he does beat me sometimes, and I don't like that. But especially when he runs the 400 hurdles for practice and he's doing his rep. I'm like, you're slow. You're running slow. Run faster, run faster. And he's really not running slow. But I still gotta tell him so he doesn't get complacent. Right. Basically so he can keep running faster. He knows I know his potential. I know what he can. What he's capable of and how fast he can run and stuff like that.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: So is there trash talk that goes on between competitors from other schools? How common is that in track and.
[00:15:07] Speaker D: Field in A.C. i would say no, none. Not really that I heard of, but.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: Oh, I would say certainly in the world of track and field. I've been aware of it over the course of my career, but. But these guys would know better with regard to the sprints and hurdles and jumps at the AAC meet. If there's any of that going on, I don't hear it, but I've never heard it. I've heard guys tell me about it over the years. Coaches don't usually hear it.
[00:15:35] Speaker D: You know what I mean?
[00:15:36] Speaker B: So.
But. But I'm glad to hear him say that it's not too bad because that I don't find great, everybody just there just to compete.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, track and field generally has a pretty unified, friendly vibe.
[00:15:51] Speaker B: There's a good camaraderie among the track athletes.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: For sure. I would agree. So Steve has also opened up the door to all the twins family questions. Josh being twins, being on the same team with your twin, how's that influence your career?
[00:16:05] Speaker C: Oh, it.
[00:16:06] Speaker D: A lot.
[00:16:07] Speaker C: It helps me a lot. Actually pushes me to be better just having my twin here.
I know that I can compete hard and train hard with him and that he'll keep pushing me. And then just like my teammates Here, like, they're great that I could talk trash to them, too, and, like, my brother, and we can just go out there and compete hard.
[00:16:30] Speaker A: Jason, how about you? What's it like being a twin on the same track team?
[00:16:34] Speaker D: It's fun seeing a us both compete again like we were in high school, especially both relays.
And just, like, seeing his development throughout the years is just fun to see. And, like, I would say, like, seeing him work hard makes you want to work hard, and then, like, see him compete at the high level and, like, winning, and then you don't want to fall behind, so you want to win as well. It's just like, as a twin brother, you just, like. Like seeing that, and then you like competing.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Are people just endlessly curious about twins? Do you just get a lot of questions about the relationship and all of that?
[00:17:09] Speaker D: Yeah, usually.
Sometimes they call me Josh, but other than that, I would say we have another set of twins right on the team.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, we do.
Bo and Callie Kirschen.
[00:17:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: Now, that's a guy on the track team and a girl on the women's track team.
But, yeah, Bo and Callie Kirschen are twins.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: I'm sure people will be curious who's older. How did that all play out?
[00:17:37] Speaker D: So Josh is older by 15 minutes.
[00:17:39] Speaker A: 15 minutes? Yeah.
[00:17:40] Speaker D: I'm the youngest.
[00:17:41] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: And then you. Parrish family, very athletic family. Have an older brother who wrestled at Nebraska. Older brother, Jacob Parish, played defensive back at Kansas State. He was drafted in the third round by Tampa Bay, so. So growing up in that kind of family, Josh, how did that help get you guys to where you are?
[00:17:59] Speaker C: Oh, I mean, when we was younger, we all wrestled, and just how dad pushing us and just all the sports that we did when we was younger, it helped us to become who we are right now and helped us have a mindset of just going out there and competing, never giving up and stuff like that.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: Jason, how about you? How'd the brother dynamic work in the family?
[00:18:23] Speaker D: Well, I would say since we all wrestled, I think wrestler wrestling played a huge factor into us because, like, wrestling is a hard sport. You gotta, like, you gotta learn all these different techniques. You gotta cut weight and all this stuff. So I think that really helped us. And then, like, also us just pushing each other every day in, like, our different sports and just, like always just being around each other. We just. You just build, like, this type of competitiveness that you just lasts a lifetime.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: So, Jason, big PR on the 400 hurdles. A year ago, you ran 51, 21 in the AAC meet, and then you got that down to 49.17 last weekend. Did you have any hint that things were going to go right, that you were due for a big day?
[00:19:06] Speaker D: Well, yeah, during practice, we were doing some practice runs, like over 300 hurdles. And then like a four to five second break. And I run the last 100. I was like, the past two weeks I've been running around like 49.5, like around 49 made during practice. So I knew if I had a good day, I could run a 49 second race. And then prelims with AAC, I think I would have ran a 49 if I didn't jog the last like 35 meters. So I knew, like, obviously finals day, it was the chance.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: So, Josh, you would have watched your brother, you know, for the last however many years, could you tell things were moving in the right direction?
[00:19:50] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
I say during prelims, when I saw him get out already passing people off the like third hurdle, and I was like, yep, this is going good. And then I saw him slow down after the last hurdle because he didn't need to actually pick up speed. He didn't need to run a fast time. He just needed get qualified for finals. And so once I found, once finals hit, I was a little nervous. All our friends was nervous. But then he got out again like crazy. Yeah, like every hurdle catching, everybody catching a good UTSA dude.
And just coming off that 300, he kept pushing, wasn't stopping him. Like, yo, I didn't even. I wasn't aware once he finished, I was happy he won. I wasn't aware of the time. I was just running down there congratulating him down. Looked at the time, I was like, wow, it's a big, big pr.
[00:20:43] Speaker B: It's a big time.
That's a fast time. That's a really fast time.
So, I mean, I'm just interjecting here that 49.17 is a big time, fast time.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Steve, where do you see, where does the improvement come in that event?
[00:20:58] Speaker B: So that's a tough question. He's.
There's no doubt in my mind that he's. That. That Jason has matured athletically. And so he ran 46 second legs in the 4x4 indoors and has run some real fast 45 second leg outdoors on the school record 4x4. And so clearly he's developing as just a long sprinter. And then you build in the hurdles and the 400 hurdles have their own unique challenges compared to the 300 hurdles. He was a real good 300 hurdler in high school.
Josh was a real good 110 hurdler in high school. But Josh ran over 39 inch hurdles in high school and now it's 42 inch hurdles, a whole new set of challenges. Jason ran 300 hurdles in high school and now it's 400 hurdles. A whole new set of challenges.
So he's just gotten more accustomed to the race and that is important by itself. Just repetitions.
A guy becomes more smooth in his stride pattern. And I saw that in the race down there. Both races down there at Charlotte, I'm like, man, he's just blowing through hurdles like crazy. Whereas as a freshman there was more of encountering every hurdle and making his way through every hurdle. And he did good. Very good. 51, 20 something. That was very good as a freshman, but not the same at this meet. He was blowing through those hurdles, man, it was crazy good.
So very, very impressive. Another thing I want to mention for you to expand on, Paul, is that these two guys pretty much single handedly won the state championship in track and field for their high school and began developing something of a legend around the state of Kansas. Before we ever spoke to them, before we were even allowed to get in touch with them, we were hearing about, let's call it, the legend of the Parrish brothers. And it was truly an impressive deal for us to be off at the first round of the NCAA and for us to hear about these two twin brothers back here at state track kicking everybody's butt. And so it was an interesting deal for those guys to so successfully just put it on people at state track as high school athletes at Olathe West. I said that correctly, right?
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Olathe North.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: Oh my gosh, I feel bad that I messed that one up at Olathe North. I. We've got too many Olathe athletes on our team. I apologize. But anyway, truly special. You know, one of those years their major opponent was my high school Shawnee Machine. If I'm not mistaken, your junior year or something. Shawnee McNiece took second. And so I was also particularly aware of these guys kicking butt at the high school level. So this has been an incredible situation for me. A whole nother thing is that I have twins. You know, I've got twin daughters. And so for many reasons I have really enjoyed having these two young guys on our track team. It's wonderful.
[00:24:02] Speaker A: I'm glad you made the Olathe north mistake because it gets me off the hook for mixing up their names before we got started. So you've taken the heat off me. So, Steve, you talked about their competitive desire, their aggressiveness, their explosiveness, but in track, you know, you're talking about shaving off tenths of a second hundreds. Yeah. Describe how technically they've gotten better to really, you know, to make those kind of improvements in these events.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: So both of these guys have become much better hurdlers. The, the mechanics of hurdling is something that has to be mastered. And you know, I could, I could talk in detail about Josh and I work closely on his hurdling technique and it mostly has to do with angles with regard to his trail leg and his hips. And he and I have worked hard on it and he's made nice improvements.
Jason is a guy who, his hurdling has just become much more smooth and aggressive. I feel like his hurdling maybe has developed and improved more than Josh's in terms of where he was at initially and where he's come to. But his hurdling technique has gotten really great for a guy who's not that long legged. He's not a long legged guy.
So these two guys continue to develop, but there's a lot more development.
I think that it won't surprise me for Josh to go right on down into the low 13 second range. And it won't surprise me for Jason, especially now for him to go down into the 48s. If we'd have had this interview the week before the conference championship, I would have said it won't surprise me for, for him to go down to the 49s. But now you're at a 49.17.
So we have to say it's not going to surprise me for him to continue developing and make his way down into the 48s. You know, I meant we. You asked about and you mentioned how I have talked about their toughness. This is not just me saying, yeah, those guys are tough. You know, Josh is over there, he's walking around in a boot. He's got a boot on his foot because he's got an extremely sore heel and that us coaches are going well. I'm not even sure if Josh is going to be able to compete. And I will tell you that just the way it has gone so many times in the two years that we've had him on the team, I've gone along thinking, I think the guy's going to compete. I think he's going to compete because he's just a never say die guy. So then we get to the meet and I'm watching him warm up before, you know, he competed in the high jump event, and that was his idea. He's not a high jumper, but he saw that the high jump might be vulnerable to score some points. So in an effort to help the team, he suggests that we enter him in the high jump event.
And he's warming up, and I go over and I'm saying hello to him and chatting with him for just a minute, and I come to find out that he's got wisdom tooth pain. And I can tell from looking at him that he's, you know, just about hurting badly, like saliva. And maybe he's getting ready to drool. I don't even know. I mean, it was not comfortable. And I'm going, well, bud, are you gonna be okay? And he said, I'm cool. I'll be good. And I could just tell right this minute, this is the last I'm gonna hear this today. He's not gonna mention this again. And he didn't. He didn't mention it all day. And he was in immense wisdom tooth pain, you know what I mean? And heel pain.
These guys seem to just blow through challenges like that, seemingly without struggle. I mean, I know it's a struggle. I know it's a challenge, but I'm just telling you, they don't let anything stop them. And it's very impressive and admirable.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: Jason, describe your routine before you're getting ready for a race. What are you listening to? What are you thinking about? How do you get yourself ready to get out of those blocks?
[00:27:52] Speaker D: Well, so I usually.
I used to listen to music. I used to listen like Gunna or like Lil Baby, but over, like, the past, like, two months, I kind of stopped. I kind of just, like, you know, try to dial in and focus.
But, like, I started doing some, like, like, resistant bands training and then, like, some ankle mobility. I think that has really helped me. And it just always tried to stay on the same routine, like, every day, just so, like, your mind's ready. I think that's really helped.
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Josh, how about you? What's your routine?
[00:28:30] Speaker C: My routine, I listen to slow music. I like being calm and just relax, not being all hyped up and stuff. And also, like, I also talk to God a lot. And just in my mind, just speaking to him about what I want to do, I want to run, and just, like, I don't know, just being there and just being grateful that I can just run.
[00:28:56] Speaker A: Basically, being grateful is a good way to think about it. Wichita State director of track and field Steve Rainbolt and Twin brothers Josh and Jason Parish. They are getting ready for NCAA west preliminaries next week in College Station. Thank you very much for your.
[00:29:26] Speaker E: Hi, this is Rick Muema, president of Wichita State University.
Check out the latest episode of the Forward Together podcast. Each episode I sit down with different guests from Shocker Nation to celebrate the vision and mission of Wichita State University.
Listen wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:29:52] Speaker C: Foreign.
[00:29:57] Speaker F: Thank you for listening to the Roundhouse podcast courtesy of Wichita State University Strategic Communications. We encourage you to rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can find more roundhouse
[email protected] Bradshaw into Wingate.
[00:30:13] Speaker A: Wingate's going to dribble it a couple.
[00:30:15] Speaker F: Of times and throws it in the hands of Kuznar. Threw it away. Kuzner to Ryan Martin for the dunk. The Shockers are going to the Sweet 16.
It's all over. The Shockers up seven three seconds two. Jeopard by Smith is no good. Wichita State to the sweet 16.
