Conner Freeland, Vice President of Municipal Sales at O2X Human Performance, joins the Samson Strength Coach Collective to discuss how relationships have defined every stage of his career—from the weight room to business leadership. A career-altering back injury redirected his focus to coaching, sparking a passion for helping others move, perform, and recover. Conner reflects on developing athlete buy-in, teaching recovery in tactical populations, and how mentorship and servant leadership continue to guide his approach to building people and programs.
Key Takeaways
- A major injury led Conner to discover his passion for coaching.
- Recovery and simplicity often create the greatest progress.
- Buy-in starts with authenticity, humility, and consistency.
- Servant leadership connects coaching and business development.
- Mentorship and curiosity fuel long-term professional growth.
- Tactical coaching requires empathy, recovery education, and adaptability.
- Great leaders build people through relationships, not authority.
- Leaving every role or program better than you found it defines success.
Quote
“OK, now what do I do? I need to rehab. I need to like… get back to be able to just squat and move again, like what do I do? And it was kind of going through that rehab process with the ATs, the PTs, the docs, strength coaches—getting that one-on-one attention. It was really cool to see that you can make substantial progress even from an injury, to get back to moving well. That became an avenue for me to stay in sports and provide value to others the same way others had poured into me.”
— Conner Freeland
Spotify • YouTube • Apple Podcast
Never Miss An Episode Join Our Newsletter
Conner Freeland:
OK, now what do I do? I need to rehab. I need to like…
get back to be able to just squat and move again, like what do do? And it was kind of going through that rehab process with the ATs, the PTs, the docs, strength coaches, like getting that position and kind of having that one-on-one attention. It was really cool to see like, oh, like you can make substantial progress even from an injury to get back to be able to move well and just the way it happened. And then that being a potential avenue for me to still stay in sports till be able to, you know.
provide some kind of value to people that I also received myself just, you know, pouring into each other’s cups.
Samson:
What’s going on Sampson Strength Coach Collective listeners on today’s episode and I want to point this out to recording this at 10 a.m. On October 10th So of a 10 10 10 series ⁓ is Connor Freeland Unfortunately Connor does not spell his name the right way spells with an E but Connor Thank you so much for coming on the show,
Conner Freeland:
Connor with the know I appreciate you as well man and looking forward to sitting down having this conversation with you and connecting.
Samson:
Absolutely. I appreciate you making very clear that it’s with an O because of the O supremacy. But it was funny, the first time we had a phone call, I think that was the first question we asked each other was, do you spell it? Because people just need to know this about each other if you’re ⁓ fellow Connors, for sure.
Conner Freeland:
It’s a small community and you definitely got to establish dominance early. see as you’re trying to put that O above the E, but it’s okay. Okay, we’ll figure it out.
Samson:
And you know, we’re actually having a war of facial hair as well here. I’m rocking a pretty solid beard I’d like to say, but you’ve got a full-blown cookie duster mustache. That thing is not nasty, man. I love it.
Conner Freeland:
Did I, when I got to DC fire, they, had a goatee and it probably wasn’t a good goatee either. ⁓ I think our CEO was like, did you eat a squirrel or something? Like what happened? What’s on your face? ⁓ but, one of the captains there was like, Hey, if you’re going to do any training with us, you have to shave. And he put his hand on my face. It was like everything from here down. I was like, okay. And so I, that night, like I don’t FaceTime with my future wife, then a girlfriend. And I was like, Hey, I’m going to have to like shave this. Like, do you want to be part of it?
And I initially left a really, really mean Fu Manchu and she was like, absolutely not. Like there’s no way. I was like, okay. So, and then the mustache has stuck ever since. And, you know, it’s just my, my first piece of stolen valor as a fake firefighter and strength coach. So that’s part of it, man. Yeah. So I’ve just kept it ever since.
Samson:
Hahaha
I love how he put his hands on your face. I’d be like, I’m highly uncomfortable, but I’ll do what you’re asking me to do right now. There’s no doubt. Well, can you just give us your background? mean, obviously we spoke about this on the phone and a little bit pre-show, but I think you have a very unique experience and you can really give a lot of insight to our listeners. Just speak about your background and strength conditioning and then what’s led to your current position as well.
Conner Freeland:
Absolutely. Great. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, so I started out as a strength and conditioning coach in my alma mater actually. And that was as I transferred out from my first school. So I started out at Christopher Newport University playing football there, got hurt actually in the weight room, which was a big factor in me becoming a strength coach. Decided to transfer out, go back home to Longwood University, which was about 20 minutes from where I grew up in Keysville, Virginia. And through there, ⁓ I wanted to…
get my education, get a degree to become a strength coach later on. And I had time now, ⁓ kind of in the afternoons to coach. And so ⁓ my dad was actually the head football coach and did some of the strength conditioning for the small high school that I grew up in. So my mom was like, yeah, you should definitely go help your dad coach. you know, I’m whatever, a sophomore, junior in college, just trying to be a strength coach and maybe do football. I’m not sure. I’m not going to follow my dad’s footsteps. It’s crazy.
And so, ⁓ you know, I was like, I guess I can go help out. And so after school, I would drive 20 minutes down to the high school and kind of just help out in the weight room, trying to figure out or put some of the pieces I had learned from being an athlete and some of the things I’m learning in class actually into practice and seeing if it works and kind of just like throwing stuff at a wall and hoping it sticks. And so I did that for the three years that I was there really two and a half and
loved it. Like didn’t think I would, but there wasn’t a lot of support and help at a very small rural high school in the middle of nowhere. mean, the whole county itself doesn’t have but one stoplight and they just got it. So it’s very small. So there wasn’t a lot of good principles or practices at the time. And I was like, I think I can, I think I can kind of do this, man. Like this would be cool to do. Like I’m glad I’m getting some experience now. So I got that early experience.
Combine that with some internships at Elkin Sports Performance and then at Longwood itself, working with a slew of different sports. And then once I graduated, I’d already had some experience. I had three years of coaching in high school while I was in college, doing football and just coaching multiple sports and multiple internships. And I felt like I had a good amount of experience. I was getting close to the peak of Mount Stupid where I thought I knew everything. And so I end up
taking a GA position or what I thought was a GA position at the University of Charleston in West Virginia. And so I’m like, what if 22, 23, I get there thinking that I’m going to push papers, learn from the guy that’s there, hopefully have some good sports. You know, I should have football. I’m going to be helping with the football straight conditioning program, but then primarily I’m there to coach DBs. Like I am a football coach there. And I get there and like, Hey man, you know, we’re really excited for you to start running the program.
I’m yeah, I’m excited. who can I help with what I says with like, no, you’re you’re in charge of the football program. I was like, OK, yeah, cool. Like I thought so. Like I’m excited about it. And like I am panicking at this point because now I’m responsible for football. I thought it was a G.A. I am now in charge. And then I also have to still coach football as well. So like like I said, 22, 23 now, you know, being in charge.
Uh, that first year was just keeping my head above water, like just trying to do what I could to build a good program. And then as the years went more sports sports will reach out and say, Hey, can you help with this? Can you help with testing? Can you help with the valuations? And like, it became an actual strength addition program, but that was wildly difficult. And we’ll talk about that later on. And then finally like COVID hit, we didn’t know if we would have jobs. And so, uh, I left Charleston to do something else. And then O2X just was kind of there.
Costa Telegatus, one of my good buddies, and I’m sure plenty of people would know that name. He reached out and said, hey, I got this company named O2X that wants to kind of run this program at DC Fire at EMS in our nation’s capital. You’re interested? Absolutely. Sign me up. I know nothing about fire, but that sounds like a sick job. I wanted to get in the talk with him. So take that job, work there for four years as a program manager and strength coach, building the program.
which is very unique and then ⁓ a kind of transition into the role I’ve been in now for last year, which is ⁓ the title is assistant vice president, which sounds super fancy, ⁓ but it’s just ⁓ a county executive for business development on this side ⁓ and then some client management and some mentorship as well. So I would say it’s 80, 90 % business development with 10 % of, you know, trying to mentor the guys on site. How do I help them the best? How do I be a servant leader to them?
So it’s drastically different than being a coach. You know, I went from being on the floor for whatever, eight years or so transitioning into more program management. And then finally now completely off, not in strength conditioning and just using what I’ve learned as a coach for the last decade and putting that into now building programs for other first responder communities. So really the job is to build health and wellness programs or enhance what they currently have.
drastically different, like I said, but it’s been really, really cool to do trying to find solutions for people that have these issues.
Samson:
Well, I mean, there’s a lot I want to dive into there, obviously, especially the GA position. But I do want to first start with your injury. You mentioned that you had an injury within the weight room that really helped inspire you to be a strength coach. What was that injury and what was the process that really translated into becoming a strength coach?
Conner Freeland:
Yeah. So, a lot of it, think was poor movement patterns. I, looking back, like I definitely did not move well. was a slab of meat, like didn’t care to have mobility, just wanted to be big, strong. was an inside outside linebacker and you know, my, my favorite thing to, you know, train should have been just, you know, power jumps and whatever. I just wanted to be as thick as humanly possible. And like, I mean, the, the more like
Isometric neck exercises I could do. wanted to have just like the Trevor Schiehsley and I who also worked with the Turks joke, just like Big 10 Western Pennsylvania linebacker neck, man. Like if you, don’t know a guy who has a thick neck that isn’t strong and like that mattered greatly. Right. So I didn’t move well at all. and it definitely affected my performance as an athlete and just like as someone in weight room and was also trying to prove too much as a young freshman. And it was like our first spring.
we were maxing on squat and I had already had multiple back issues from multiple strains, potential herniations, bulging discs. And I wasn’t as coachable as I probably could have been. ⁓ Warmed up way too fast and it was like somebody hit me in the low back with a sledgehammer on one of my warm-up sets and I just dropped everything, went straight to the floor and got ⁓ up.
my strength glitch at the time, pick me up by my belt, I feel like that’s what I remember. And I think he had a little bit of room in between and still pick me up. He was like, your belt’s way too loose, get out of my weight room. I crawled out essentially with the help of two other guys, go to the AT room and long story short, to shorten it, I kind of had a choice of getting surgery and having some complications with that or just not playing again.
And so it was multiple herniated discs. identified some spondy in there as well. So I was going to have some troubles later on. And so was like, don’t think I can do this. It’s a tough decision to make. I said, I had grown up in a football household. My dad’s a coach, my uncle’s a coach. All my brothers played. how am I not going to get to my junior, senior year to play ball? This is insane. then to me, was like, OK, now what do I do? I need to rehab. I need to like…
get back to be able to just squat and move again, like what do do? And it was kind of going through that rehab process with the ATs, the PTs, the docs, strength coaches, like getting that position and kind of having that one-on-one attention. It was really cool to see like, oh, like you can make substantial progress even from an injury to get back to be able to move well and just the way it happened. And then that being a potential avenue for me to still stay in sports till be able to, you know.
provide some kind of value to people that I also received myself just, you know, pouring into each other’s cups. And I was like, I think I’d want to do what these guys do. ⁓ And a lot of the coaches I had younger have been mentors and still are to me. And so I think that was a massive piece too. So from rehab on my own, seeing that individual has attention, feeling them pour into my cup, and then also having ⁓ just a lot of mentors as a kid that ⁓ were just so impactful to me. I was like, I want to be that same person for others.
And I think that was the aha moment, the, like this is probably what you should be doing. And so that was what made me look at to, you know, I’ll do it however I can pass his internships. I want to go be a GA. I want to go be a QC. I want to go work for free, whatever it is. And it might as well have been, I think the first, you know, year I made like $9,000 or something. was like giddy, you know, just happy to have a role and do a thousand different jobs at once. So that was, that was kind of where that came from.
Samson:
Yeah, well, first of all, I’m so glad you didn’t get the back surgery, man. Like it’s one of those things where I’ve always talked about it. I’ve heard it from somewhere. And I think a lot of people say the same sentiment is like the rule of threes, right? Like 33 % of the time, it’ll help you feel better. 33 % of the time, everything’s going to remain the same and you had an unnecessary surgery. And then 33 % of the time, your back is going to be worse off. And I had a very, very similar experience up, you know, growing up, I was middle linebacker, exact same thing. Like you mentioned, like I saw pumping iron one time and I was like, boom.
That’s what I want to do. was like, and everybody’s like, well, how about, you know, any type of athletic performance? And I’m like, God, no. I was like, I’m going to go hit, I got to go hit Arnold’s program. That’s like four by 50 on curls again, please. You know, and then of course I was so overtrained. mean, I front squatted every day for over a year. Like, so, I mean, like, seriously, I was by far overtrained and I remember I did a very, very similar injury to my back and I was given the same decision. Um, and they basically, the, how they put it to me, I wasn’t in collegiate athletics at the time. was just.
powerlifting and they just said, you know, you’ll never be able to pick anything up over 50 pounds again. You know, and I was like, this, that sounds like bullshit. Like, I don’t like, what are we talking about? And so ⁓ being able to meet a PT in college who was, I mean, fantastic to work with. And he really helped me get back and understand that there’s a realm of physical rehab that can really help you without going the surgical route. Cause surgeons love to cut people open.
I mean, that’s their favorite thing. So if they have the opportunity to do it, they’re probably going to push for it. And so I’m glad to hear it because ultimately it’s a very similar story to mine. And at the end of the day, it makes a big difference. But that culture is very prevalent, especially with young football players, with young people trying to prove themselves. I did as a freshman on the powerlifting team. I sprained my ankle and I was out for like three weeks. I played pickup basketball like a dumb ass.
And so I went to go pull on the bar. was like, I can still do my back. So was like, this feels good. You know, so I tried to go, I tried to do 585 deadlift after like three weeks of not lifting at all and destroyed my back. So culture is very, very prevalent. know, did you, have you seen the same thing on the tactical side? You know, of younger guys who have some experience with weightlifting are really trying to prove themselves and can kind of ignore basic principles or is it kind of isolated to college athletics that you really see that a lot.
Conner Freeland:
I think you definitely see in the tactical realm and it’s just so vast and it varies greatly in terms of whether you’re talking about a fire department or a law enforcement agency, military. mean, you have a massive group and it’s just a very unique demographic because you can have an 18 year old kid fresh out of high school. It’s his first job he’s ever had who maybe is a freak athlete.
And that transitions over, translates over very well. Like he’s got good work ethic. He moves well, like, you know, great effort, like wants to learn, is coachable, obviously moves. I all these things like help him in whatever role that is. But then you will also have somebody joining the tactical realm or in the tactical realm that is, you know, in their late thirties, maybe never moved well, never really had to move, but so well for their job. And they’re just trying to stay in shape just to play with their kids at home. Like it’s just, it’s so different.
the people that you work with and those, those people might be on the same group. You know, they might be in the same firehouse. It might be on the same unit. So I think it varies greatly, but, um, I, the thing that they need to focus on more than everything is recovery, uh, because the culture of tactical for years has always been, we’re going to smoke them until we establish discipline and integrity and all the intangibles that come with the job. But, um, you know, if, you’re,
If you’re working so hard that you’re crushing these kids that again might not be good athletes. And so that volume that they’re putting on their body is just, you know, leading to over training or stressors that they can’t control. so for us teaching recovery is paramount in how they even get through an academy or an evaluation or an evolution of something. So you have some people that want to test that like, and they’ll argue from a cultural standpoint, it’s like, Hey, I’ve been doing this job for 20 years. Like I don’t need to do X, Y, and Z.
because I can still do what need to do on the fire truck. I can think of so many people right now that have that similar mentality of, I’m going to be a big bad dude. I want to be the badass on the job. so they don’t care about recovery because it’s soft, or they don’t care about sleep or water because it’s like, don’t need that. Give me a Miller Light and 12 wings and I’m good, dude. I can get the job again. But the more and more that you start to show others,
or the right guys, like the heavy hitters, that it does matter, then they start to realize, okay, I can still do the job, and maybe that part’s not changing, but the effects after I do the job aren’t as harsh. DC is special. When I was working there, they worked 24 and they were off for 72, which is probably one of the best shifts that you can have and shift work, is you work on a Monday, you don’t work again until Friday. So you can do the job on Monday and get your ass kicked.
and run 20 plus times a night or, you know, for that 24 hours and maybe you get a fire, maybe you don’t, but just that strain and stress on your body, right? If you had to turn around and do it again on Wednesday, some of those guys might not be able to. They absolutely would have to have those three days off to get back on the truck or the rig and do it again on Friday. Not everybody has that luck. There’s a lot of 24 48s. There’s a lot of really weird shifts out there. So you might be able to do the job, but you got to be able to recover. And so I think that’s that’s important to teach them.
especially the hard chargers that think they can get out and do it time and time and again, but that truly can’t. They really need to learn how to do that. So that’s a big part of the job is also just teaching those guys simple things. ⁓ It’s what’s the minimal effective dose? And you’re not training for peak performance, you’re training for optimal performance. And so that doesn’t look like crushing your body every single day. That looks like being very smart with your training, be very smart with your recovery modalities. ⁓
you knowing what a macronutrient is, like you don’t need to dive into dietetics, like just find protein, drink more water, understand what carbs do for you, and you’re gonna help yourself. So it’s simple stuff like that, even like, you know, sleep, mindset and environment. I mean, if you can teach a guy that ⁓ blue light matters and you can’t doom scroll for hours before you go to bed and hope that you get a good four hours of quality sleep and ⁓ you know, you can’t.
⁓ hammer 12 beers in the night and like, sleep as good as I ever have after doing that. Like, yeah, you think so, but like you get zero rim sleep and that’s why you feel like trash the next day. Like those, those things, ⁓ are important. And so, ⁓ I think simplicity at this level is good. You don’t have to train the hell out of somebody, ⁓ to make sure that they’re doing their job because your support, you’re not teaching them to do the job. So you’re trying to make sure that they have a great career.
career of longevity, if they’re putting 20 to 25 years in, they should get 20 to 25 years out on the other side. And that matters a lot. And that has nothing to do with being a hard charger for 20 years. That’s got a lot more to do on the other side of training.
Samson:
You mentioned something about the struggle of trying to get people to buy in and this is kind of a thing that I’ve a common theme I’ve seen with tactical strength coaches is they mentioned a lot like in college. It’s very easy to get people to buy in because there’s no choice, right? Like they have a guaranteed they have to be with me ⁓ and they have to do what I say or else they’re going to have to go run sprints or whatever. If the NCAA is listening, maybe clean the weight room, whatever it may be. But at the end of the day.
Conner Freeland:
Thank
Samson:
you know, there’s this inherent like this is your strength coach. You have to listen to him. You have to do what he says. ⁓ whereas on the tactical side, there’s really not that, you know, inherent piece when you first come in, how did you develop buy-in with your guys? How did you get them to believe in the things you’re saying? And was it just seeing the positive effects of just try it one time or, ⁓ was it trying to go for the big guys who would, everybody else would listen to what were your kind of main strategies?
Conner Freeland:
That’s a great question. So I think it varies. I can come up with a couple different examples, I think that would be good. Like at Charleston, we’re a Division II program in the state capital of West Virginia. And so we have some resources. don’t, again, it’s Division II. We have a small weight room, 10 racks, mostly free weights. And we have to be able to train 120 guys to be competitive and be healthy and all the above.
So when you’re 22 or 23, you look young, you sound young, you probably say things you might not should say, and you’re still trying to figure out how to motivate and instill the discipline integrity we talked about earlier of like these men that some of them are a couple years younger than you, some of them are the same age as you. Like dude, D2 stands for second chances, baby. And I mean, you got plenty of guys to transfer in there that are your age.
You can’t be fake, I think is like the first lesson I learned early on is like, you have to be a real dude and you have to be authentic. ⁓ And that authenticity shines through literally anything else that you can portray as a coach is being genuine, caring about your players and acting on that. Like you can’t just talk about it. You have to be about it and you can’t have fake juice. And that is huge. mean, I think everybody can remember whether it’s a tee ball coach or even a college coach potentially that just like,
was a big rah rah, clapper, loud for no reason, but like never really coached. And there’s a big difference in trying to get in a room and motivate people and just being loud ⁓ versus being an educator. And, you know, when you kind of have both and you’re, you know, you’re trying to motivate guys, you’re bringing juice in the room and try to stay positive, not happy-go-lucky positive, but just having a positive, optimistic outlook that, we’re going to have a good day. We got to get after it. Like,
There needs to be effort. Here’s why. What’s your purpose? Like constantly bringing that stuff into the room, I think is important, but also ⁓ being real with the men or women. If you have women’s sports as well is going to go a lot longer and it’s going to pay more dividends than having the perfect program. So I think trying to build relationships early matters more than anything. So, you know, as you’re walking around the room and again, it’s a small room, ⁓ you know, constantly coaching.
constantly queuing, trying to find things with movement patterns or just exercises that are gonna really benefit that person and explaining why it’s gonna matter. Hey, this is why you need to get your head above your, you know, this is why you need your elbow right beside your ear for this overhead press and here’s why. Like the way it’s gonna go straight through your body here versus there and like this is what it could impact. So you’re providing some educational context but you’re also showing that athlete that like, I’m watching you, you matter, I’m trying to improve you for these reasons and here’s why.
And if you do that over and over and over in different mediums, I think you end up having early buy in there. it’s like, hey, this guy or this girl sounds like they know what they’re talking about. They seem to be here for us. They’re always early. They have a plan. They’re prepared. It seems to matter to them. And so maybe it should matter to me. And you do that time and time and again, and there’s consistency with that.
I think that’s how you establish that buy-in. So that helped me a lot as a young coach was like, you know, not trying to be a 30 year old guy that knew everything. ⁓ Telling them if I didn’t know something, guys, I don’t know it, but we’re going to figure it out together. ⁓ You know, not lying through your teeth, I think, think it mattered greatly. And that, that really helped me establish a good reputation early on as a coach, even across the community there at Charleston, just like, this guy really cares. He wants to be here.
And I’m pretty upfront with them early that the weight room or sport in general is just a vehicle for you to be a better person later on in life. And that’s my ultimate goal. talking about accountability and discipline and saying the little things matter and then backing that up. Being a man that actually stood on that. If you need to have the two and a halfs in a specific place, by God put the Cheerios back. They better be there where I asked. Or if we’re going to have clips on the bar today for some reason, we’re putting clips on the bar.
It matters. If not, everyone’s going to pay for it. Like I think when you have the ability to have some autonomy in your room, when you have that kind of power and you get to run your own program, I think that also was massive because what I believed went in that room outside of what some of the head coaches wanted, but I still had as much autonomy as I needed to get the job done. So ⁓ if I wanted to stop the whole thing and go do something different, we stopped and learned some hard lessons. ⁓ so I think being who you are,
not being fake, like showing people that you care on a daily and hourly and by the minute basis is a way to build buy-in. And I kind of use that same thought process with DC Fire because when I got there, I knew nothing about fire. I got made this show time and time again. Like day one, I had a guy from O2X who was like, we’re looking over at a site, we’re at Frederick County Fire, which is where one of the first onsite specialist programs was for O2X.
And I was kind of explaining that I didn’t know anything I need to learn. And I said, OK, so that’s a fire truck. And the boss was like, no, that’s a fire engine. I said, OK, so that’s a fire engine. He’s like, no, that’s a tiller. I was like, OK, so that’s a truck. He’s like, yeah, it’s also a truck. It’s like, do you know? And we kept going on. And he was like, dude, I don’t know, man. You might not be good for this. And jokingly, he was like, you’re going to have to learn a lot. But it took forever to learn that. I also went in.
to that job, explain to people, guys, I’m not a firefighter. I don’t know what you do, but I want to know what you do. I want to learn the job so that way I can train you better. So I can find programs that fit what your demands are. So I can understand the issues and the concerns, whether they are individual or organizational that I can benefit and provide solutions for. So learning the job was massive. And so the way I built by in there was still taking the same authentic approach and being a guy.
Being a dude, walking in the room, wanting to have genuine relationships, asking people about who they were, where their backgrounds are, what makes them tick, but also just learning the job mattered greatly. And so for me to do that, it was a lot of ride alongs, getting in the back of an engine or a truck and just seeing what their daily operation looked like. Getting there really early and seeing what a daily check looked like and how many things they have to get done in the morning before potentially a run goes off. Or maybe the tones go off and it’s…
you know, 830, they just got there an hour and a half, two hours ago, and now they have to go do a job. Like, ⁓ it’s stressful and you don’t get it until you do it. And so, you know, putting the gear on and doing training with the guys is and was still one of the best ways to get by. And because you get to learn the job firsthand, you get your ass kicked a little bit with the guys and there’s something about, you know, shared torment. But then also they see you doing the best you can to learn the job without doing it.
And you do that over and over and over and it’s going to provide massive, massive impact for you and the organization. So I did that the first six months as much as I could. You know, if, somebody was doing some training, I would just ask, Hey, do you mind if I try or, that’s why did you guys force a door that way? I don’t get it. And you have enough educators around you that they get excited to share and they go, Oh, well, you know, this is why you use a Hallen bar and hear the different ends to it. And this is why we would use it in these certain circumstances. And so you learn that you go, Hey, do you mind if I try and.
you look like an idiot and they laugh at you. then sometimes you’re good at it. Sometimes you’re not, but it shows that you’re invested. And I think that’s, that’s no matter what, whether it’s, whether it’s college sports, whether it’s tactical, if you can show your population that you’re invested, then they’re going to care a little bit more. And as the cliche goes, you know, nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care. But that I think is drastically true among the tactical population. ⁓ you can be a smart student in the room, but like,
If you’re not someone that’s going to be genuine and care and want to provide some servant leadership to your population, then you’re going to struggle mightily. So creating buy-in, I think is huge. And there’s a lot of ways to skin a cat, but I think people know people and you got to have that genuine connection.
Samson:
I think you bring up one of the best and most underrated points, which is just asking questions. ⁓ When I first started working with volleyball, football was easy for me because I played football. ⁓ Basketball was tough. I’ve been terrible at basketball. I’m a disgrace to the game. But ultimately, there was a lot of lessons learned along the way. And so I had volleyball for the first time this year. And there’s nothing I could do to go back and.
become a volleyball player again. You know, like there’s no, can’t rewind the clock when I’m five and go up to my mom and dad and say, I really want to play volleyball, know, like, so I can really understand it. Like, and so I think a lot of younger coaches get concerned or, or have a fear of working with sports they’re not familiar with, ⁓ which is understandable because there is some immediate buy-in, right? If somebody can look up your stats, like just the other day in our basketball group chat, they sent a highlight video of one of our assistant coaches, ⁓ dunking in a game at Clemson.
Right? Like he was a really good basketball player. So there’s buy into those things. but at the same time, it’s not this insurmountable task, right? And so you can go in and if you simply ask questions and like you said, if you’re not afraid to make a fool of yourself, it really breaks down a lot of these barriers. And so with volleyball, was like, what, you know, I’m like, what the hell is side out me? Like I keep hearing that at the games. Like, what does that mean? You know, like, cause I can’t see a consistency among it. And then they explained it to me, right. ⁓ or I’ll ask them about different offensive sets. Cause I’ve got no clue. I had no clue you run plays in volleyball.
Like obviously it makes sense, right? But at the same time, I kind of thought it was everything was on the fly, you know, so being able to have those conversations really opened the door for them to see that, you know, you can be humble, you can, you can have a little bit of humility to you. And then it opens up a two way street too, right? Because now it’s all of sudden they’re more willing to take feedback from you because you’re not somebody who’s just going to go in and pretend and, you know, try to like, I love the term you used earlier, right? Like the stolen valor, right? You’re not going to go in with a mustache and, you know, try to just look around and say things incorrectly.
because you’re just trying to be the guy who already knows everything. So I think the humility aspect is huge and I appreciate you bringing up the questions aspect of it. Obviously I can tell that some of this stuff was learned from experience. You mentioned being 20, 22, 23, whatever it may be and trying to figure out these initial lessons. What was that experience becoming a GA and then finding out you’re really the head strength coach?
Conner Freeland:
Yeah, was, I mean, life changing for sure in every shape and form. It was tough to really expect one thing and then show up literally day one and say, you’re going to be doing something not different, but you’re going to have a little bit more on your plate than you expected. ⁓ And it was also tough because I think I’d grown up in a way that
Samson:
Yeah, great way to put it.
Conner Freeland:
seeing guys have mentors and leaders in their life and they helped them a lot. And I didn’t have that now. So that was another piece of the puzzle. I think that was really difficult was, I didn’t have somebody to really, least on site, to go back and forth with questions. And that, from the teams I’ve worked in has been, mean, one of the biggest facets of any team or program that has made a group or a client successful is like being able to bounce ideas back and forth and having a sound board that
sounding weird that you can just, hey, is this stupid or is this good? Like, what do you think? So a lot of that had to be ⁓ outsourced, if you will, to like other people, guys that just met and like, you know, I’m reaching out to like college buddies who were trying to do the same thing I’m doing. And I’m trying to reach out to guys at other teams in the conference who have had some programs and there’s only a handful. Like there’s not a bunch of them out in these conference at the time. ⁓ So I’m reaching out to them like.
not knowing like, this okay if I reach out to a competitor? Like, hey, what do you guys do? I’d love to learn, but I think probably for me it was probably like, hey, I don’t know what I’m doing guys, can you help me? And it probably didn’t come off great, but I was just trying to find people to reach out to to have an ear and listen. And so sometimes it was older guys in the generation. mean,
Like Mike Kent was one for me who’s super helpful. ⁓ You know, my dad had worked with him in the past years and years ago and he’s like, I think I know a guy he’s older. Like, ⁓ I think he’s good. He’s been around a ton of places though. He should be able to help you. And so I called Mike and he’s a guy who’s done this for almost 30 years. And I’m like, this guy is going to help me. and he just gave me everything he had. sent, he sent me manuals of stuff. Like, I mean, he sent me as much information as I could possibly have and
⁓ Even just that stuff. I was like, okay, this is good and he’s helping me but I said I’ll have him on site but I think taking that and then also make again my own was was good for me as a young coach because I’ve and I’m lucky I did it because I feel like a lot of guys if if I gave them Yeah, or if anybody gave them a program, right? They might look at it and just go this is a great program Let’s run it for our population. Like this is great if it worked for
LSU football, by God, it’s got to work for DC Fire, right? And, you know, nine times out of 10, that might not be the case, right? Like it might be good for a couple of people, but I think taking what you can learn from others and then modifying it and manipulating it so that it fits your population or fits the season of whatever your athletes are in, or if it’s the demand that you’re trying to impose there, then I think that’s good. I think that’s helpful is not just completely stealing something, but obviously success leaves clues.
find what those things are and then mold them to fit what your system or your format is, is good. And honestly, I learned that quickly from Mike because I think he even said it like, hey, I’m gonna send you this. But like with all due respect, and it was one of the Florida manuals, he’s like, our guys and your guys are not the same. Like how much I can throw at these guys and how much you can throw at your guys aren’t it. And I’m like, yeah, like I’m thinking of like my five nine 250 pound fullback from West Virginia who’s like,
You know, he’s probably not the six four freak of nature they have, you know. So taking that and realizing, okay, I have this, I still have a lot of work to do to build this program, ⁓ but I can make it my own is helpful. So that was tough. Was just trying to come up with ideas and things that were going to work for the population and reaching out to people who I didn’t really have a good connection with or good relationship with and humbly asking for feedback and advice.
And then that was really, think, one of the things that kept me in the strength world was people, the good ones, good coaches were like, yeah, I’ll share anything with you. Knowing that you’re going to have to tailor it yourself. you can be as good of a, know, you can have the best program in world, but if you’re not a good coach, it doesn’t matter. And then explaining that to me, like, Hey, bud, I’m going to send you this, but if you don’t run it the right way or run it like yours, it’s not going to matter. Like you can, you know, you got to be able to run peanut butter and jelly really, really well. and then, you know, sell peanut butter and jelly. So.
That was tough to learn. Having limited resources early on was tough because I’m expecting all these different pieces of equipment to use. I made the joke, I think, to Lima, like, dude, I didn’t know what velocity-based training was until I left Charleston. I was like, we’re never going to use it. There’s no technology now we have to do this stuff. It just doesn’t exist for us. So that was drastically difficult. And then just the schedule itself was wild.
You know, we played some Thursday night games, which was really cool. Like, you know, you think you’re going to start coaching on Saturdays and all your games are Saturday and now the sun’s out. That’s not as cool as Friday night lights, but play some Thursday night games, play some Saturday night games. And, ⁓ you know, you play Thursday, let’s say you’re four hours away. You’re taking a bus back. You get home at 1am or 2am. And then like the development lift is at 5.30 and like, you just gotta hope you sleep on the bus.
Like have everything prepared and all the other coaches are like, all right, we’ll see you guys at the 9 a.m. or 10 a.m. staff meeting. We’ll sleep in a little bit. It’s like the one strength guy on staff is like getting up, running the development group and still having to break down film and still recruit. I mean, doing that, like it teaches you so much like D3, D2, small ball guys like who you’re washing clothes, you’re
recruiting, you’re traveling around to sit in people’s living rooms to explain why they should go to their program. You’re building out practice plans, breaking down film, plus running whatever extra job you have. It might be the director of operations. It might be the strength guy. Like it’s just nonstop all the time. And that was a big shift for me was like, you’re up before the sun’s up. You’re going to bed well after it’s gone down. And I think that’s a part of strength conditioning that
If you can stay with it and do it and live it, then you’re going to be built for this type of industry for most jobs. But it was, it was a very hard thing to get used to and still be good at the job as well. So that was wildly difficult, but I honestly to God would not change it because of the autonomy piece and being able to do whatever I wanted to, however I wanted to for the most part, and just learn by failure. And, you know, I would say we filled a ton.
⁓ I failed a ton as a coach early and still do. ⁓ but being able to learn from those mistakes and build upon them, and to still be able to run the program and like, no, Hey, we’re learning. getting better was awesome. Like, you know, we saw the first two, ⁓ NFL draft picks for the whole conference come out of Charleston while we were there. We had guys break 12 different records while we were there, like all time records in the weight room. Like it was really cool to see that stuff.
but it took a very long time and a lot of trial and error to get to that position where we felt like we had built a really good program, tons of strong guys ⁓ and having success on and off the field. ⁓ It was cool, ⁓ you know, I don’t know if it happens if I’m there and there’s another guy potentially and it’s like maybe only get two years to be the head coach, but like having five solid years, like I left being like, this is a program that’s established. feel good about leaving this. Like I feel like I left it better than I found it. And ⁓
I hope that they can carry this on for a while. And they have, like it’s cool to go back now and see like they have a staff, they always have a full-time strength condition coach, which they didn’t before I got there. so like, you know, hopefully part of that legacy was built at last and that program continues to get better, which I think is the ultimate goal for wherever you work, just leave it a little bit better than you found it. So a lot of lessons learned, man, but ⁓ it was a really cool experience.
Samson:
I really appreciate you talking about kind of the grind aspect of it. think. I you know it’s it’s one of those things you kind of have to teeter and you have to total line a little bit with it because ultimately you know it’s not everlasting right? You can’t do that for 30 years. At some point you want to have a family when have kids and you don’t need to be washing clothes and missing your kids. Dance recital right? But at the same time I feel like there’s been a lot of advice for younger strength coaches that goes a little too far to the opposite side of saying.
you know, avoid these jobs, don’t do this, you know, I think everybody needs that experience for two to three years, right? Because like, now if somebody asked me to do something, I’m like, yeah, sure. Like, who cares, right? You know, like, I have to take over snacks when we travel on the road, like, who cares? I’ve done way worse. Like, at the end of the day, like, it’s pretty sweet that I’ve only got three teams right now. And ⁓ there’s not, you know, this fear of like, well, I don’t literally have the time to do it. I’ve always got time now. So I think understanding
that you’ve been through worse, you’ve been through something that was really challenging and you were able to leave it better than you found it, ⁓ ends up making everything you do in the future a lot easier to encounter.
Conner Freeland:
⁓ like couldn’t agree more. I think that work ethic is built. Like you don’t just wake up and have it. Like, I mean, it’s, it’s built from years and years and years of like, you know, the callous work ethic and, ⁓ that, like you said, pays dividends because in most of the jobs within Tap Cool, it’s like you work your 40 hours and you don’t work anymore because we’re not going to bill you. And like, there’s some standards there to it. ⁓ whereas on the flip side of collegiate and sports, it’s like, you’re going to work as long as you possibly have to. And here’s why.
And so you get this completely different perspective of what a really hard day looks like versus your normal 40 hours a week job. And you also find out how to prioritize, I think. It’s weird. It’s a combination of prioritizing, but then also being able to work on the fly. You have to constantly be balancing things because you wake up and you have 20 things on your to-do list.
And then you get coaches that tell you, no, we’re going to change this today. Like, we’re actually not going to have a lift at two. We’re going to actually push it to 230. cool with that? It’s like that 30 minutes changed the entire rest of my day because of that. But you have to work with it because that’s what you have on your plate. So being able to just constantly function and change that, think, is a really good trait of a coach where if you can work on the fly and you can be relatively creative or innovative with how you make adjustments, I think you’re going to be a really good coach because you’re good at like going with the flow.
adapting as you need to, but then still knowing that you need to get a specific result at the end of the day or the week or the month of the season. And if you can have success and all that stuff’s getting thrown at your way and you can still be good at your job, be good away from your job as a person, I think you’re on the right track. I think that’s probably a good place, but not always do you get that thrown at you if you have like just your standard, you know, hey, 40 hours a week type of job. Sometimes you do, it depends on what group you’re with.
work with, but for sure in collegiate and sports, like there’s a lot of moving parts and variables that occur. But I think the same, honestly, I don’t have to this out loud. Um, the same can be said for sure with tactical, like we always compared our recruit Academy schedule to that of basketball, where let’s say you got three to four sessions that week and you’re going to be training them. You know exactly what you’re going to do. And even at the beginning of the season, you put down your entire plan. You go, all right.
Here’s this big packet. Here’s what we’re going to do the whole season. We’ve got the whole thing planned out for the most part. And then at the end of season, you go, all right, we ran 19 % of what we started with at the beginning of the season. That’s great, man. That’s super good. I love that for us. The same is said with tactical. Like we would wake up and the lifts plan, we’re good, we’re ready to go. And then something happens. We’re like, hey, we’re going to change this. We’re going to make a pivot because we have to get this training done specifically today. It’s like, OK, we’ll adjust. And then you move on, you change your plan.
or the recruits got in trouble because they didn’t do something specific and they got absolutely smoked in the tower. And so now their legs are shot, they’re overly fatigued and you’re supposed to hit your best of three at max is tomorrow front squat. It’s like, well, maybe we don’t do that now because our goal is to keep everybody’s healthiest possible and member retention is what we’re looking for. So now we can’t do that. So now we’ve got to adjust and push that out. So I would say take that,
in the same light, it’s very, very similar where if you can work with those changes, you’ll be good at either one. And I think that’s why I think that’s why it matters is to be able to have multiple things on the plate and still be good.
Samson:
Yeah, I think with the whole world of strength and conditioning, ⁓ if you’re not able to adjust on the fly, you’re just going to become unnecessarily frustrated. Like you’re just going to be mad all the time because if you put all this time into this plan and then you treat it as your baby and well, things can’t change, then I mean, the environment that we’re in is not going to change. You have to be the one who’s going to change. I mean, this is the reality of situation. So you’re going to be unnecessarily mad all the time.
You know, we got, mean, like the perfect example is yesterday, our coach two weeks ago told me, hey, on Thursday, you know, our lifts, you have to be like 15 minutes. I’m like, great, that’s fine, whatever, right? And then I got five minutes. So I literally, we literally did like an arm pump real quick and then left. ⁓ And then this yesterday, he came up to me and was like, ⁓ I promise you, we’re going to be done in time. You’ll have 20 minutes today. And I’m like, perfect coach, for sure not. And by the end of like the meeting we had at the end of practice and everything, I didn’t get to lift them at all.
You know, so it’s one of those things where this is going to happen continuously. So I can either get really mad about it and be frustrated about it, or you can just let it roll off your back and, ⁓ you know, continue on because at the end of the day, it’s not going to help you last in strength and conditioning. One thing I’m very curious about is you’ve mentioned switching into a role that’s more business development. You know, what are some things that you miss being about? Sorry. What are some things you miss about being out on the floor? And then what are some things that, you know, you’re okay with leaving behind?
Conner Freeland:
Yeah. mean, the biggest thing about being on the floor is like the people and the connection with your athletes. And that’s always hard to replace because, you know, it’s a different feeling ⁓ being out there, even from, you know, collegiate to tactical, like collegiate. can have a room full of just, ⁓ you know, guys who really want to get after it and are moving heavyweight and like, you know, you’ve got a great playlist going. I’m a big music guy, so I got to have some good music going, man. Like every day is going to be a week and. ⁓
Third every Thursday we played return to the Mac is the first song that ever played every Thursday for throwback Thursday every single one my athletes are gonna know that but I think having that juice and like being excited and there’s a lot of like fire in the room is one thing then you get a tactical and you have a little bit of that sometimes but it’s more it’s a different level a different feeling of training but
whether it’s the juice in the room and having that feeling of a Big Mac’s day or just having a good group in the room, like they care about being better. Maybe they’re trying to pass a squad test and they’re very intentional with their training and they want to be there and they want to lift hard, but maybe it doesn’t feel the same. You’re still having so many really good conversations and connections during each one of those days and those lifts. And that’s hard to replace. It’s like the genuine care for others and trying to make them better at their sport or their job.
And now you don’t have that, right? So you go through this like identity, ⁓ not crisis, but like you question about who am I now? ⁓ Because you work so long, so hard, your career is your life. And you know, the title coach is an earned title that you can’t find anywhere else. It’s made with respect and love and it should be. ⁓ And like, you know, being called coach is just as good as a doctor being called, you know, Dr. Smith.
I mean, like, hey, this guy is a doctor. You need to call him a doctor. To me, I view it the exact same way. Being called coach is one of the best feelings because it should hold a lot of weight and a lot of value. And so that’s difficult to leave behind because, like, hey, you’re not a coach. You’re a person. So I had to really figure out, aside from the job thing, who am I outside of coaching? Who am I outside of my career? And it was incredibly healthy, I will say that, like physically and mentally.
really digging in and having some hard conversations with yourself. like, hey, ⁓ if you introduce yourself and they go, hey, that’s cool. Who are you? What do you do? You shouldn’t start it with just like, I do this for a job. It should be more centered around who are you outside of work. And sometimes that is difficult to come to grips with. But it made me a better person because what I was able to do was, and this came from talking to a lot of guys, lot of close friends in the industry is like, ⁓
not only who are you outside of the job, but like what traits can you pull from coaching or who you are and bring them into what you do as a career. it hit on some of the same things we’ve already discussed, which is like that servant leadership mentality, having an unparalleled work ethic that you can bring over to the side, being intellectually curious and trying to figure out like how certain systems, maybe even business development can work with O2X and like what we’re trying to do with creating solutions for the tech population.
And just that also, that genuine interest in people and building connections, like real authentic connections. And so taking all those lessons learned as a coach and now putting them into the business world, like you can still see some success and some things starting to click now, even a year in ⁓ when it takes a little bit longer. ⁓ You know, it wasn’t like this early massive boom. ⁓ But as the months kind of start to stack up, you can see like some of the early conversations coming to fruition.
because those real connections and authentic relationships now are starting to pay a little bit more dividend. And I think that matters greatly as it does with coaching or business. Like people can read through bullshit and nobody likes that. And like if you’re doing too much or you’re not doing enough, the same way as a coach, if you’re hovering constantly and you’re annoying the hell out of your guys, like they’re not gonna wanna talk to you. If you’re not doing enough and you’re the coach that…
just wants to hang out on the iPod and pick the next good song and clap and lean up against the ⁓ GHD, like, cool, like you’re probably not gonna be worth the shit either. So it’s that really good happy medium of being observant enough to coach and cue, give people space that needs space, give those that attention that need to be built up and being able to read the room. And the same is said on this side. It’s like, if I’m trying to get ahold of somebody,
and I’m hammering them constantly. And now I’m a, you know, a telemarketer that I’m just trying to get some on the phone. Like that’s pretty damn annoying. ⁓ if I call them once every six months, it’s like, you know, how are they really invested or interested in like being a partner with us? Maybe, maybe not, but you know, if, if I’m providing value in some way with each conversation and it’s asking them, you know, let’s say hypothetically fire department AI call, you know,
how do you guys currently operate? What are some of the occupational health concerns that you have? And I listen and I take in what they say, provide some solution and then have continuous impactful feedback and follow up. Now we’re going, we’re now we’re getting somewhere because now I’m a resource to them and there hasn’t been any transaction yet. Like maybe they haven’t actually invested in what O2X does or what any tactical population does, but I care about them. I’m reaching out if something happens in their area. Hey, I saw this happen. Like, are you guys all okay? Like,
what went on here, ⁓ being in the know of what’s going on with their department. ⁓ And even sometimes providing some feedback there. I talked to a group that was somewhat interested in coming on and having us embed a full-time specialist, kind of like I was at DC, but just kind of kept tiptoeing around. And I kept trying to reach out to this guy specifically about the job. ⁓ Like, hey, what’s…
what’s going on here with this? I saw this in the news like, or, we’re working with somebody near you guys. Maybe this will provide some interest for them. And then it just clicked like this dude was a massive sports fan. And so I just started talking sports with the guy and like I’d hit him up when a good game happened. Like, oh, I saw the score, man. Like that’s, that’s awesome, dude. Like that’s, know, where are you guys there? hear that you guys always work at the Bill’s stadium. I was like, oh, like such a sick game. Like, were you guys working?
Since then, all we talk about is Bill’s Mafia, dude. mean, just smashing tables and crushing beers. And at some point in time, when they do need something for health and wellness, whether it’s training education or embedding that full-time person, or maybe it’s a customized program specific to no one else but them, we hopefully will be front of mind. I will be front of mind because I’m building a connection. Maybe it’s not specifically geared towards the job. It already has been. We’ve gotten all that stuff knocked out, but like…
I’m still, I found a way to at least keep the connection warm enough where if they need something, we’re here. I’m not bugging him about something he don’t want to talk about, but I’m still at least touching, getting enough touch points where when it happens, hopefully, you know, he reaches out. So that’s been cool. And trying to like find again, the traits from strength conditioning and bring them over here. Unique, but, ⁓ but, but definitely I think useful. it’s, it’s been a weird transition, a very weird transition. Like ⁓ it’s a remote job.
Like this is the office, you know? I just moved, so everything’s everywhere. Hopefully you can’t see that. You see like little corner of a thing I’m gonna hang up at some point, I love that, it’s not the blank white wall is what I’m going for here. So, setting up an office is weird. I’ve never had an office. Like even when I got to DC, you know, we were all collectively like in a trailer in the first month, I just ate lunch in my car, because I didn’t know where to go. You know, they didn’t have a direct.
Samson:
Looks very organized on my end.
Conner Freeland:
specific place for me to go. And so like, it’s just a completely different world where you’re used to having a team and interacting with people on a daily basis and, you know, getting your caffeine in early because you’re going to have conversations as soon as you step foot in the weight room or at your facility or whatever. And now it’s, it’s a complete one 80 of like just being disciplined yourself and doing the work and still completely autonomous. But like you set the direction you set the tone of the day.
⁓ Just for you, know nobody else and so working as a coach I felt like I worked for others and constantly was trying to pour into other people and live that servant leadership life or leader life and now it’s completely different, know, I’m now trying to Convince other people when I reach out to them about business development that like I can help them and I’ve helped others and we can help you and so you’re you’re Having to break down that barrier initially and then you get right back to what you know building relationships. So it’s
different.
Samson:
Yeah, I mean, it’s got to be such an interesting transition, I’m sure, especially the working from home piece. know, OK, so my final question for you, you are working remote, you are at home. Do you still start every Thursday with Return of the Max?
Conner Freeland:
I mean, I am now. ⁓ That’s a great question. I’ve really fallen off of who I am, Connor. I gotta get back. ⁓
Samson:
You
said not a crisis, but this seems like a crisis if you’re not starting the day with return of the Mac on Thursday.
Conner Freeland:
I’m
gonna have to. Yeah, there are a couple things I still do like the coffee ritual is the thing. I’m completely addicted to that. like, I mean, it’s got to be straight diesel. Good stuff. But yeah, I’m gonna have to bring that back. I still have players now that like some of them would do it in their locker room. And guys like, what is this? like, shut up. You don’t understand. Like this is tradition. Like, and it’s good. It’s good that that exists or it’ll pop up on their Spotify and I’ll just get random screenshots of return to the Mac.
And I love it, dude. Like, absolutely love it. But I’m gonna bring that back now, next Thursday. It’s gonna happen. I’ll send you a message about it.
Samson:
Please do, please. And also it’s just so funny because I love that song and actually fought tooth and nail to get that on our wedding playlist. So I’m glad that you have the same appreciation.
Conner Freeland:
Come on, man.
I’m glad. I’m glad you fought for it.
Samson:
Well, Connor, thank you so much for coming on the show, man. Seriously, I really appreciate it. And I think you gave us a lot of really good insight. You know, if somebody wants to follow you or get in contact with you potentially about some services O2X provides, what would be the best way to do that?
Conner Freeland:
Yeah. So just first name at O2X.com. So it’s the correct spelling of Connor. It’s C-O-N-E-R at O2X.com. And then socialism, pretty easy to find LinkedIn. on there. Reach out. However, I’m always willing to talk to young coaches just about the role, what we do. And then same thing with tactical population. Anybody that’s interested in O2X, we’d be more than happy to talk to them and just connect with anyone, I love networking. I love meeting new people. And so yeah, feel free to reach out whenever.
Samson:
Yeah, hope you understand that I have the final say in this, so I may have to edit out the wrong Connor, or ⁓ ultimately, what I’m going to title the episode is the wrong way to spell Connor. That’s what we’ll go with. Well, thank you, Connor. I really appreciate you,
Conner Freeland:
Yeah, man. Appreciate you see it.
