On this episode of the Samson Strength Coach Collective, we sit down with Kristen Flateau, Strength and Conditioning Coach at Edward Waters University. Kristen shares her path into the profession, the work of transforming a weight room with limited resources, and the mindset required to build a strong culture from the ground up.
The conversation explores how facility upgrades can change athlete perception, why relationship-building is one of the most important parts of coaching, and how consistency creates trust over time. Kristen also reflects on the realities of coaching at an HBCU, the challenges and opportunities across NCAA divisions, and the value of showing up for athletes every day regardless of their role on the team.
Key Takeaways
- Facility transformation does not always require a massive budget, but it does require creativity, persistence, and vision.
- Strength coaches play a unique role in athlete development because they often have the most consistent daily contact with athletes.
- Trust is built through steady presence, genuine care, and treating every athlete with the same level of respect.
- Culture in the weight room can shape how athletes view training, accountability, and their own development.
- Asking for resources and advocating for improvements is an important part of growing a program.
Quote
“Strength coaches, like you have to be the most consistent person in the athlete’s life.” — Kristen Flateau
Kristen Flateau:
strength coaches, like you have to be the most consistent person in the athlete’s life. You see them the most, you don’t control playing time. That’s what I love about my job the most is like, I can love on an athlete that’s a stud. I can love on an athlete who’s never had a minute of playing time. ⁓ They could be great in the weight room. They could be a giraffe in the weight room. ⁓ Have no body awareness, you know? And I think that’s the cool part about the job.
Samson:
What’s going on Sampson Strength Coach collective listeners on today’s episode, we have Kristen Fledo, okay, which is I just learned how to pronounce the last name correctly. So I’m glad we got it right. But you are a strength and conditioning coach. You know what? I’m going to stop this because I fucked up. I forgot to ask one more question.
Kristen Flateau:
This great.
Samson:
What job title would you like for me to introduce you to?
Kristen Flateau:
So my job title is strength and conditioning coach. No assistant, no head, no anything, ⁓ Edward Waters, University.
Samson:
straight at the condition coach. And what’s the school?
Edward Waters.
Okay, see? And then I literally was saying, I was like, I totally forgot that. So my apologies. Edward Waters University. Okay, awesome. All right, we’ll restart. Sorry, Dexter. All right. What’s going on, Samson Strength Coach Collective listeners? On today’s episode, we have Kristen Fledo, Strength and Conditioning Coach for Edward Waters University. Kristen, thank you so much for coming on. Well, I’m stoked to have you.
Kristen Flateau:
You know you’re good. Yes.
Thank you, thank you.
Samson:
I’ve been able to follow you on social media for a little bit. You know, so I’ve seen kind of some of the different things you post and I think we’re going to get along. So I’m excited for this podcast. Well, can you just kind of give me a breakdown of your background in strength and conditioning? What got you into strength and conditioning? Where you have been with your career and then what’s led you to Edward Waters?
Kristen Flateau:
Great, great, great, great.
Awesome, yeah. So I’m probably one of the few string coaches that did not play sports in college. Had the opportunity to play Division I softball and just didn’t, fell out of love with the sport a little bit. I got hurt my senior year high school. Had to play a different position and I was like, ah. I went from catching to playing second base. So being a part of every single play to then, ah, you’re just running around, you know, every once in a while you get the ball. Fell out of love with it and
The school that I was originally going to go to, ⁓ their exercise science program just wasn’t the greatest ⁓ in comparison to comparing to other programs. Knew I wanted to be something health and fitness. I remember going to my mom in high school and just crying and being like, I cannot do a nine to five. I hate dressing up. am not a, I’m forced to wear dresses whenever I have to.
And I just, I remember I was like, I don’t know what I want to do. So I went into college thinking physical therapy, cause that was the only other route or athletic training that I was like, okay, that’s the only other route that I really know of. Got to college, went to Gardner Webb University in North Carolina, and they have a phenomenal exercise science program. And they had a bridge program where I could do in five years an undergrad in exercise science and a master’s in shrink conditioning.
My summer before my senior year, so summer 2022, I did my internship at Yilong University. Never stepped foot in a college weight room before that time frame. Wasn’t even sure if I wanted to be a strength and conditioning coach. And man, I’ll have to give Coach DiMarco so much props because the grace and just information that they gave me, Coach DiMarco, Coach Jordan,
I mean, it was was astronomical. Like I learned so much, really fell in love with the career during that internship. And I was like, you know what this is, this is where I want to be. Left Elon through that internship, went and did a internship at Gardner Webb where I was a student at. just helping out and happened to work out to where I graduated with my undergrad in December. And then that January, our GA had left. He took a job over at Army and they were like, yeah,
Do you wanna be the GA? And I was like, well, of course. ⁓ So I was thrown right into it. ⁓ Only had probably six months of any type of coaching experience, not really any programming experience. And they’re like, yep, you have five teams of your own and assist with football. I was like, okay, sink or swim, got thrown into the deep end. ⁓ Probably drowned a couple times during that year where I was a GA. ⁓
But I’m extremely grateful. I worked with Dylan Horn, he’s now a Baylor. He was at ETSU, worked with Trey Lamb. So I got to see great football coaching, ⁓ worked with a bunch of different coaches. So getting that environment and that experience to start off my career was super, super beneficial in my opinion. Because it was like, okay, you don’t have a lot of equipment. Gardner Web’s not a big school, not a lot of resources in that environment.
And it was really like, they just wanted somebody to be there, coach them, love on them. And I was like, I can do that. I can, I love people, you I can do that. ⁓ Left Gardner Web in December of 2023 and started at Coastal in January of 2024. ⁓ Just happened to know, be in the right spot at the right time where the right people had the right connections. ⁓ Still kind of crazy that I ended up there right out of my masters. Like I was 22.
when I started working at Coastal. So again, just maybe like a year and a half of experience under my belt. And I’m like, wow, like, well, and I’m blessed with this opportunity, overwhelmed with this opportunity. Was at Coastal for about a year and a half and then left Coastal. Wanted to try out something different, wanted to try out private sector. So went back home to Florida and worked with D1 Training in Fort Myers.
and worked under three former NFL players like Jalen Watkins, Sammy Watkins, Trey Boston. ⁓ Great, great people. ⁓ And learned so much, because it’s such a different environment than the college setting. ⁓ I mean, you get to work with seven and up. Like I trained six-year-olds in one-on-one sessions. I trained a 66-year-old baseball player who he traveled the country, he was a pitcher, and all we did was shoulder care.
I worked with physical therapists. worked with, ⁓ he was a quarterback for the Florida Gators. And so he just did nothing but quarterback training and ⁓ throwing like with volleyball players and serving and spiking and stuff of that nature. And so learned a lot. was there for about 10 months and then just recently started at Edward Waters University ⁓ over Valentine’s Day weekend.
Samson:
⁓ my goodness, so you really just started there? Yeah. wow, that’s awesome. Okay, well there’s a lot of questions I have, but I mean, the last one I’m very curious about, how’s it going at Edward Waters?
Kristen Flateau:
Yes, yep, not even two months yet. A couple days over two months, yeah.
I love it. It’s, ⁓ I remember I did my interview back in December and I got off the interview. Mind you, it was like an hour long interview, ⁓ zoom call six people, ⁓ from all different areas, the business department, of course, like athletic director, sport coaches, athletic trainer. and I remember getting off that interview and I was like, wow, like that is a culture program that I want to be at. Like everybody just.
It was so casual, just like this, like a conversation, just getting to talk about like what I love, which is the athletes and kind of my experience, my background. And I was like, you know what, that’d be a great fit for me. Be closer to home, closer to parents. ⁓ And just the work-life balance is phenomenal. Phenomenal. ⁓ Weekends are pretty much free. ⁓ Like you go to sporting events, but I don’t consider that work.
To me, that’s like the best part of the job is, okay, I get to go and watch my athletes play. ⁓ Definitely is different though. It’s a D2 HBCU. So going from my last college job at Coastal to this is, it’s not necessarily a culture shock, but it definitely is like, wow, like I’m grateful for what I had at Coastal ⁓ and just the visions and desire to grow at Edward Waters. The other coworker that I have, Devin Moultrie, like he’s awesome.
And he was an intern at Colorado. So we’ve both come from big Do you want experience to coming here? And it’s like They don’t know how good they could be, you know And I feel like we’re in a position now where the athletic director pretty much is like this is your general layout I want you to have these two teams I want these to be your two teams other than that figure it out if you guys want to go have Z’s and go
You do strength days, you do speed days. If you want to completely split it, we’re the same job title. And they’ve really just given us a lot of flexibility to say, we don’t know how to run a strength conditioning department. You guys have that availability to kind of take over and show us what it really could be. And that’s been the most awesome thing is they’re so open to all of our suggestions. And it’s really just like,
going there with the mindset and showing them of like, listen, I want to be here. Like I care. I want to see this place be great. Like these are all these ideas that we have. Like this is the resources that we have. Let’s play around. Let’s rearrange some things and it could be this much better without spending any money. Now you give us a little bit of money, give us a little budget. It could be this. ⁓ And they’ve just been super open to it. So it’s been a phenomenal transition.
Samson:
That’s really cool. you know, one of the things that I really like about kind of having that availability to grow is you’ve got the background, right? Like you said, you’ve been at Coastal, you’ve been at Gardner Web, you’ve seen how it works at Elon, you have a lot of these different experiences. And I think a lot of strength coaches, when they hear something like D2, hear, okay, they’re not going to be invested in strength and conditioning, right? It’s going to be something where, okay, they’re going to probably hire a strength coach, but
they might not need to see the same amount of growth in that department as, you know, kind of like the stigma of like, okay, power for where they’re going to give you all the money and everything, which is, you know, just a blatant fallacy. It’s just not true. Right. And you’re living, breathing proof of that right now. But I think it’s cool that you can bring your experiences, go to this school and then bring these suggestions. And I like what you said too, cause there’s got to be a little bit of a realism there, right? We can find some ways to improve without money, you know, cause sometimes you’re just not going to get everything that you want from a money standpoint.
But there’s definitely going be ways if we give a little bit of money, we can keep improving it. ⁓ So I think that’s very cool that you get to have that experience, especially a little bit earlier on in your career. Sometimes people got to wait a while to kind of be called on for those ideas or that kind of creative thinking. What are some things? Can you give me any examples of some things you’ve done so far?
Kristen Flateau:
goodness. So it was funny. We hadn’t even started yet. So like our official start rate was February 16th, which is a Monday. And Coach Welcher, he calls me on Sunday, mind you. I’m at Miller’s Ale House with my parents eating dinner because I’m trying to move into my apartment and we’re taking a break eating. And he’s like, there’s Edward Waters. have a ⁓ part of their, they have two weight rooms.
So one of their weight rooms is the wellness center. That’s like our big weight room. That’s the fancy one that has the equipment and bands and all that stuff. And then we have one that’s connected to our basketball gym where like our basketball and volleyball games are. We call that the dungeon because it’s just strictly walls, dumbbells, barbells, plates, ⁓ metal plates, not a lot of bumper plates. Like it is old fashioned for sure. And he calls me and he’s like, hey, they have this basketball gym called JWJ.
The football coaches took me over there and they have three hammer rows and three GHRs just sitting in there. Are you cool if we move them over? And I’m like, wait, they weren’t being used? And he was like, no, like these have their wrappers on them. I was like, no, no, no, no, like bring those, bring those to the weight room. So, and it was simply just, nobody had done snooping. Nobody had the desire to be like, no, we’re going to get this done and we’re going to move these over.
They have three double-sided racks in the weight room. Two of the racks were up against a wall. So you only had access to four. So we completely rearranged the weight room. Now mind you, a lot of our teams are in season right now, just men’s volleyball, ⁓ basketball’s just got done, tennis, golf, all those teams are still playing right now. So they came in and they’re like, yo, what?
happens like this looks like a completely different weight room and they had a big cable machine stuck in the middle of the weight room. Dumbbells were in the middle of the weight room and just the layout was like almost like you go into a YMCA. Like that’s that kind of the layout of like it was not a college weight room. Now like you walk in and you’re like, okay, this looks kind of looks like a college weight room now. So I would say that was definitely the biggest thing is just like
going around snooping through different rooms and saying like, okay, like let’s bring this over. Let’s bring this over. Hey, assistant athletic director, we, if we provide the muscles, thank you Edward Waters football team and coaches. Can we bring this equipment over? And they’re like, yeah, just do it. And then I went through and I deep cleaned the other weight room. Cause there’s just plates everywhere.
Cause they hadn’t had strength coaches in about four to five months. So they were, they, it was the sport coaches and to be fair, like sport coaches, it’s not, you would hope that if they’re taking over the weight room that they would keep the weight room clean. But we both know that’s not how that works. ⁓ They care about their sport. They don’t care about how clean the weight room is. And the athletes, you know, if nobody’s going to enforce it, they’re not going to do it. ⁓ That’s human nature.
And so definitely coming in, we’ve changed a lot of policies. And like we just went to the athletic director and we’re like, hey, we could do a lot more if we had six trap bars. We could do a lot more if we had clips that go on every single bar. We could do a lot more if all of our bands weren’t broken. Every single band when we came in was broken and tied. And we had three foam pads. ⁓ So we did.
asked to spend some money. so, and that was the nice part of like, there was never, well, no, like you guys haven’t done anything yet. Like we came in and changed the weight room up and athletic director walked by and she was already like, wow, like you guys have turned this around already, you know? And so when we went, was, ⁓ she’s awesome. Ms. Connor, Ms. Connor’s great. And she’s ⁓ very blunt. And she’s like, y’all better not ask her anything.
She’s like, we’ve spent enough money on y’all right now and we are both very blunt, me and Coach Wilcher. And we were like, no, you’re just going to have to tell us no, because we’re still going to ask. we’re going to come back and like, we just asked for four new benches ⁓ yesterday. And she was like, y’all just spent like $3,000 and y’all are already asking for more. And we’re like, well, yeah, like, why not? The worst thing that can happen is you get told no. ⁓
And so that’s been awesome. It’s like going in and kind of already not even two months in being able to transform the environment to make it feel like a college weight room. And even the athletes see it too. And like the sport coaches, they come in and they’re like, wow, like you guys, and this is not to like toot our own horns by no means, but just use what we’ve seen. again, just use the resources that we have to make it even better.
you know, and just use our background and experience to say, like, this is what you guys have. This is how it was being used. Like, let’s use it this way and see how it goes. And just the support that we’ve gotten has been amazing.
Samson:
Well, you bring up a really good point at the end, Especially when new coaches are coming in, there’s a certain aspect of physical change as well. There’s going to be a lot of different philosophy and culture changes, but having a physical change is really important. And I think it shows a level of seriousness and a level of, I’m buying in, so you better buy in here as well. I think back to when I first came in to app, we have the, or the school and boom, as you mentioned pre-show instead of Appalachian State.
Kristen Flateau:
Yeah. yeah.
Yep, Skull and Boon, S-I-B.
Samson:
⁓ You know, we had ⁓ the weight room I work out of is the basketball weight room. So volleyball, meds, basketball, women’s basketball, and the golf straight out of here. And I remember first coming in here and it was like a bomb went off, right? Like I remember coming in on the interview and I didn’t really pay attention to it that much, right? You know, cause I was just like, Hey, you know, whatever. just want to make sure we got the equipment that we need and everything like that. And then I remember the first day I came in here, my,
she’s my wife now, but obviously at the time my girlfriend was staying back in Texas. And so I had kind of a three week period where I would just go in every day and I’d take a look around the weight room and I’d be like, what the hell are we doing here? On certain things, right? I remember there were signs that were like, if you yawn in the weight room, it’s 10 burpees. And that’s just like kind of the exact opposite of who I am. I’m not saying it’s wrong, but.
⁓ So it took the sides down and then it was cleaning everything up, making sure everything was kind of orderly and put back in place. And then one of the biggest things we did was ultimately change around the spacing a little bit. I’m a big on weight room space guy. I like as much space as possible. And so we put all the bikes up against the walls, shifted around some dumbbells and a lot of different things and it kind of cleared up the area a lot. And then we added in a fuel station. So there was no fuel station. There was nothing like that.
So we added in a fuel station that eventually added in a fridge, know, and got a lot of these different things going. And it’s funny because you’ll notice this after a couple of years at Edward Waters, you’ll see this, right? You’ll have some people come in and then they’ll kind of forget where it was, you know? And so like, I remember I didn’t restock the fuel station, you know, the night before one time. And one of our coaches comes in, he’s like, he’s like, what? No hard boiled eggs? We don’t have any of these here. And I was like, hey, man, I was like, remember two years ago, you were coming in, you never even came in here to grab snacks. All right. So.
Kristen Flateau:
Yeah. Yeah.
Samson:
Let’s not forget, but ⁓ let’s be aware of what the changes are like. But again, it’s cool. It’s really fun to have that ownership of that process and kind of change things around and make it what you want. It’s really exciting. And I like what you said too about, it’s a great lesson for everybody listening is, you have to ask your admin for things. And even if they say, don’t ask them, like you said, the worst they can say is no, right? And to me, if you don’t continually ask for these things, they’re gonna think it’s not that important.
Right, and so if you bring it up when you feel it’s like of the utmost importance at that time, and then you haven’t had conversations about these things previously, the admin are kind of gonna be like, well, this is the first I’m hearing about it, so is it really that important? Versus continually bringing it up, I always like to say, a no is a future yes, you just gotta keep on asking, right? So I think you got a great process building. What’s okay, so this is just kind of a fun little deal, right?
Kristen Flateau:
Yeah. Yeah.
Samson:
you have, know, in two years, where would you like your weight room to be? Are there any specific, you know, projects or any really cool things that you want to bring in?
Kristen Flateau:
goodness. So like I mentioned, we have two of those weight room areas. ⁓ One is in our basketball gym. The goal is because I’m obviously we’re on a podcast, you can’t tell I’m five to ⁓ not the biggest person in the world and our racks I can pull with one arm. ⁓ Like they in that weight room, they’re just so old. Our assistant athletic director, he’s also the head baseball coach. He was at Edward Waters played baseball there and
couple days and just working there. He’s like, yeah, ⁓ those benches and like dumbbells and barbells like those are the same ones that we had when I was here. ⁓ Reggie, I’m not calling you old, ⁓ but I’m just gonna let that be how it is. ⁓ He’s been coaching baseball a while. So I’ll leave that where it’s at. ⁓ But definitely like our plan is so we have a ⁓ fueling station that is also in that basketball gym.
Has not been really used in the last couple of months because there hasn’t been strength coaches hasn’t People that want to take it over and actually run it keep it maintained and stuff like that The hope is that eventually we can transform that dungeon weight room into a mobility stretching ⁓ Area where that’s gonna be your feel-good your recovery stuff and then you have your fueling station Because that’s where they have like their study halls and stuff of that nature
and then hopefully we can get to a point where the other weight room, we have some cheap, turf that’s kind of laid down. So our weight room that we use primarily was old cafeteria. So there’s like this room in the middle where they used to like distribute all the lunches and stuff like that. So the plan is hopefully that we can get more racks in that weight room. Cause that’s a good space. It’s about the size of the weight room that I had at Gardner Web.
⁓ truthfully. And so it’s like at Gardner Web, we had 12 racks. So it’s just a matter of like getting the unnecessary, like big, ⁓ box gym cable machines out of the way. Half of them are sticky. They don’t work anyways. and bringing in more racks, the wellness center gym is right outside of the football field. So really traditionally, like we have access to the turf field and so we don’t really need that turf space. So
Hopefully getting rid of that turf, putting in more racks to making it to where, you know, you can get bigger football groups training. You can get baseball team kind of flowing a little bit better. You can get your two smaller teams in their training. ⁓ That’s the goal. ⁓ I always have the phrase like Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour. You know, like I live off of that knowing like there, we have so much desire for change. ⁓ Obviously it’s not going to happen overnight, but.
we’re taking the steps, we’re taking the initiative to kind of be like, well, my coworker yesterday, we were even talking about changing the back room in the dungeon weight room to a women’s locker room area, because they have no locker room. And it’s like, okay, this is a, they’re in their fifth or sixth year as a program. ⁓ They’re getting into a conference soon. And so it’s like, think of how much better you could recruit.
you know, if you had a locker room space for the girls, and painting a picture for the athletic director of like, this is what it could be. You know, this is, think of how much more you could get if, you you brought in more athletes and stuff like that. So definitely just trying to admit as much change as we can, but understanding that as a strength conditioning staff, like we don’t have a budget.
you know, and building relationships with the head sport coaches and just saying like, listen, every team gives us like a couple hundred bucks, you know, think about how much more we could help your team. ⁓ And so we’re definitely trying to work some things out. Hopefully within the next two years, we’ll have a budget, be able to get that fueling station up and running again and get donors to kind of donate food and stuff like that. So definitely high expectations, but that’s
how I would prefer to be chief of the stars laying on the moon, you know?
Samson:
Yeah, absolutely. And again, I’m excited to kind of see the changes that you make over the years. It sounds like we’re going to have to do a follow-up episode in like three years. Well, if Samson is dumb enough to keep letting me host this podcast, ⁓ then I’ll check back in three years and we’ll kind of go through all the changes that you’ve made. Yeah. Well, what’s it like to be able to have another coach that you can collaborate with on these ideas? Because, know, a lot of times that
Kristen Flateau:
100 %
100%.
Samson:
You know, D division two, division three schools or might be, you know, one coach who’s kind of running everything. You know, even in my experience here, I was kind of given the homes weight room and it was like, all right, you do what you want. You know, like, and there was nobody who really also kind of had that ownership piece. How has it been to collaborate with somebody who also has the same vision as you?
Kristen Flateau:
It’s awesome. ⁓ Definitely going into this job, like him and I were both. ⁓ It was one of those things where we had followed each other on social media for a really long time. Just being strength coaches, you follow people and it was funny. I had posted like, I’m going to Edward Waters and he DMs me on Instagram. like, yo, I just accepted the other position. And it helps to know our athletic director and
Just athletic admin in general, were very transparent with us when we came in and it’s like, we’ve already invested a lot into these positions. ⁓ The previous positions had been a head strength coach and an assistant strength coach. And they just found that at that level, there was a lot of clashing, lot of butting heads and stuff like that. So me and him are same job title, same level and everything. ⁓ So there is no, ⁓
excuse me for saying this, but like pissing contest of like, well, it’s my way or the highway, or I have these teams, I’m head person. We collaborate really, really well. We interviewed, we’ve been told we’ve interviewed pretty much exactly the same of like, we just want to, we want to be here. ⁓ His family lives in Jacksonville. My family lives an hour away. ⁓ So we both had a desire to be there because it’s also at that level. ⁓ People have used it as like a stepping stone.
which no fault to them, but we have both been at that higher level and we want to be at the D2 level. And I think that’s been the best part is neither one of us is like, okay, well, I’m just going to use what we got and kind of just suck it up and deal with it. Like both of us have a desire to be like, no, like they have this, like let’s try this. ⁓ It’s been super awesome. I’ve definitely never had a… ⁓
close of a collaborative atmosphere as that before because it is just the two of us at coastal we had I believe like eight coaches ⁓ when I left so Just more heads more opinions It’s harder to kind of collaborate all together as a group like you all have the same intentions of mine in mind and same goals of like we just want to make athletes bigger faster stronger and the best that we can be and Here at this D2 level. It’s like well. It’s just the two of us like it’s too good
two of us against the world, you know, and let’s fight it together. And again, like it is nice that we’ve both been at a, he was at Colorado, I was at Coastal, like, so we’ve been at the big levels of like, and we’ve also been at the smaller D1 levels. ⁓ He’s been at other HBCU schools. And so it’s like, ⁓ he brings experience I don’t have. I bring private sector experience that he doesn’t have, you know, but yet we both.
have similar experiences to where it’s like we collaborate and can bring ideas of like, well, we don’t really need this, but think about if we used our funds in this way, know, of like spacing wise and just with the quality of our racks, I love TRX traps, but we have no place that they would be safely put up, you know? And so, and that was something like he, I live, breathe, by TRX. I love them.
And he was like, well, Kristen, like we don’t really have a place to put them. And I’m like, you’re right. Like I wasn’t even thinking about that. You know, like if I, if I’m doing an inverted row on a TRX, I’m a pull the rack over. You’re right. ⁓ and so that’s been nice of like, he’ll have an idea and I’ll kind of be like, okay, well, you know, what about this? And just being able to bounce ideas off of each other. It’s been great.
Samson:
Yeah, and I really like what you said too about, you you guys are kind of from a structural level on the same playing field, right? There’s no, you know, one’s the head and the other, you know, kind of has like, or some person has the final say, you know, it’s funny, we’re going through GA interviews right now and I’ve been the one kind of leading everything. And then we’ve done some interviews with multiple people and multiple strength coaches on staff. And, you know, I’ll say, I really liked this guy, right? You know, and then our, other two assistants are kind of like, you know, I don’t really know. And then they’re always like, well,
It’s your final say. And I’m like, no, I don’t, you know, like if two thirds of us don’t like the guy and I like the guy, then like, it’s obviously clearly not the right choice. Right. And so it can be interesting with that dynamic sometimes where, you know, one person’s kind of the director and the other person’s assistant director. Like, you know, they kind of feel like, can I really be a hundred percent honest? And it’s like, yes, like for me personally, I want to hear it. And I’ve been at other schools where they personally don’t want to hear it, but it makes it a lot more productive. And I think it makes it a lot more of fun working environment. So I’m glad to hear that.
Kristen Flateau:
100%.
Samson:
Yeah. Well, earlier you mentioned something that I was pretty profound, right? You were talking about your experience, you know, with starting off being a GA and they said that, you know, they just need somebody to be there for them and need somebody who loves them. Right. And you said that’s kind of your thing. Right. And you’re there to love people and you’re there to be there for people. And I think, you know, truly at the end of the day, that’s like 90 % of strength and conditioning, you know, and we can. And that’s why I like this podcast, because we talk a lot about
⁓ the art side and being there for people instead of just the science side. ⁓ What does that mean to you just to kind of be there for people and to just show up for these athletes? What does that mean?
Kristen Flateau:
So it really goes back to ⁓ when I was first starting as an intern at Gardner Web, the director of strength conditioning who he ended up leaving, Coach Whaley, ⁓ I literally only had like my initial like, yes, you can be an intern. ⁓ like two weeks before I was supposed to start my internship at Gardner Web, he ended up leaving and taking another job. But he said something to me and that was one of my only conversations with him ever.
And he was like, strength coaches, like you have to be the most consistent person in the athlete’s life. You see them the most, you don’t control playing time. That’s what I love about my job the most is like, I can love on an athlete that’s a stud. I can love on an athlete who’s never had a minute of playing time. ⁓ They could be great in the weight room. They could be a giraffe in the weight room. ⁓ Have no body awareness, you know? And I think that’s the cool part about the job. ⁓
And that really stuck with me is like, you got to go in and be a consistent person because head coach, let’s be real, isn’t always going to be consistent, especially now, transfer portal, NIL, things of that nature. they want the next best kid that’s going to benefit them. You know, our job is to love on them as they are now. How do I make you better now? Not, ⁓ well, you’re not benefiting me, so I’m not going to treat you well. I’m not saying that’s how it is, but let’s be real.
Sometimes that’s how it is. And just being that consistent person in their life and showing up as the same person every single day. Yeah, I’m a very relational person. That’s why I think ⁓ I fit better in the D2 sector and private sectors, because you can build those relationships a little bit more, because they aren’t the most talented ⁓ athletes in terms of they’re not
how do I word this? They are not the athletes that are big headed like, I’m making more money than you because I’m getting paid to be here. ⁓ They really just want you to show up for them. Like I will never forget my first weekend on the job working at Edward Waters and there was a softball game. Mind you, the softball field’s about 15 minutes away from campus. ⁓ And I drove to their softball game and
They saw me sitting on the bleachers and they were like, Coach K, Coach K, what are you doing? Coming to the dugout with us. And I’m like, okay. And so they come get me. go to the dugout and just everybody was like, thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much. And I’m like, what do you mean? Like, this is my job. Like I’m here to support you guys. Like I’m here to show up for y’all. And it was really eye-opening to me of like, wow, they’ve never had someone just show up, you know, and just be there and support them.
And, or if they had like, wasn’t consistent, you know? And just being able to, I’m a very relational person. ⁓ Coach Quinn at Coastal, he was my director. ⁓ As I did my exit interview, ⁓ he was like, empathy is your superpower. And I’ve taken that to heart, because I really do believe that that was the most true thing anybody has ever said to me. Almost to a fault of sometimes like sitting in those ⁓ football staff meetings.
and just hearing them talk about certain players, and you know, it’s like, dang, like I really love that kid. Like, he’s a great person, you know, he might not be a great football player, but he’s a great person, you know, and you could see how that affected me as a person. ⁓ And not necessarily as a coach, but as a person, like my heart just went out to them. ⁓ And so being at this level where it’s like, and I was even talking to two of the football players two days ago before they went to football practice.
And they were like, how do you, how does it feel to be a female strength coach? Like working here at HBCU, like D2, like you work with football, like how does it feel? it’s like, I just, bring a different energy. Like I, I, I’m not the type of person, I’m not gonna cuss at you, I’m not gonna call you out your name. ⁓ But now granted there’s a line where it’s like, if you’re doing something wrong, like I’m gonna call you out on it, but I am not gonna cuss you out, I’m not gonna get in your face, I’m not gonna.
point my finger and you like all that like that’s just not me as a person because if somebody were to do that to me I’d probably cry and I I know that and so I don’t dish it out because I know I can’t take it ⁓ and and they were just and I was looking at him I’m like listen I am a five-foot-two white female coming into this position and I know that I’ve never I know you know I’ve never played a snap of football in my life so if you’re doing something wrong and I come to you and I start
cussing at you and just being disrespectful. I’m like, you’re going to be disrespectful to me. I’m like, because who am I to come tell you all of this? Now, if I come at you in a polite way and be like, hey, bro, you know, you’re not supposed to do that. We do have a rule in the weight room. If you want it’s 10 pushups. We do have that rule. And I actually, oh, no, no, no, I love it. Because it’s funny because the athletes are like, why do we have to do this? Because that is something new that we brought in. And I was like, just because, you know.
Samson:
Sorry for bringing that up earlier.
Kristen Flateau:
And then I spiced it up and I was like, if I catch you again, it’s another five. So if I catch you twice in one section, then it’s 15. And they’ve gotten a lot better about it. ⁓ I tell them all the time, I’m like, it’s just body awareness. Where are going to yawn on the field? Like, you don’t want to yawn on the field, right? And so I’m like, listen, like there’s some guys that they’re hotheads and I know they are. And so I approached them a little differently of like, amen. Like almost make it a joke, like,
You tired? I know you just yawned. You know what you’re supposed to do when you yawn. ⁓ And it really is just about that relationship and the rapport aspect and especially coming in and not even being there two months. We came in at a really weird time, ⁓ pretty much like middle of a semester, middle of a school year. ⁓ And so it really is like, you got to build rapport and you got to build rapport fast because at the end of the day,
you’re losing time with the athletes. We had spring break, we had today off for Good Friday, we have Monday off. ⁓ We have those study days where we can’t do anything with the athletes and it’s all optional. And it’s like, we don’t have a lot of time to waste. You haven’t had a strength coach in four months. We’ve got to lift weights and we’ve got to lift it hard. And how do you go into that situation with no relationship and then demand the athletes to do that? Like you can’t.
⁓ and that’s one thing that, ⁓ when I was at Gardner web, coach Joe Ken, he came into our weight room one day and, he was telling me his son, Peter, when Peter started at, I think SMU, he just showed up to like swim practice one day and nobody had ever done that before. Nobody had just showed up and, and watched them practice. And, and that really stuck with me of like, you know what? It really isn’t about.
doing all these fancy things, the fancy equipment, like all of that. It’s just about keeping it simple and letting the athletes know like, I’m here for you. Like I keep snacks in my office. They know if my door is unlocked, if it’s open, you can come in and get some food. I got stuff to make peanut butter and jellies. I got plates and knives, like make yourself some food. ⁓ You need to sit down on my couch and talk like I’m here. ⁓ And just being that additional resource,
at this level especially, like you don’t have a lot of resources. your sport coach is trying to figure out, okay, how do I get an assistant coach? How do I bring in 10 more athletes? Like I have 12 soccer, 12 to 14 soccer players right now, cause some are dual sport athletes playing tennis and the president wants them to have 25, you know? And so it’s like, the sport coach is busy. She’s recruiting, she’s, ⁓
doing phone calls and stuff like that. it’s like those athletes need to feel like they have somebody they can go to outside of our poor one athletic trainer ⁓ who’s already swamped with all the athletes and stuff like that. And so ⁓ that’s where this level I think fits me perfectly. Cause it’s like, I can be that for them. ⁓ I can show up, I can be there. I can demand, you know, like, listen, in this one hour, we’re going to train really, really hard. After that, you can come to my office. We can, ⁓
Shoot the shit, you know, like we can do all that. in this one hour, like I need you to lock in. I need you to focus. We gotta get this done. And I think that it just stems with that respect thing, building rapport quick and just showing up. Just being there, letting them see you at the games, whether you know what’s going on at the game or not. I don’t really know what’s going on at tennis matches, but I’m gonna go, I’m gonna support men’s volleyball. I’ve never watched men’s volleyball before.
And let me tell you, it’s intense. And even the head coach was like, thank you so much for coming. And I’m like, of course, like this is my job. Like little Doshino, next semester I’m going to be like, yo, can I sit on your bench with you? Like, I’m tired of sitting on the bleachers. Like I want to, I want to be on the sidelines with you guys. And just them seeing how much the athletes and the, and the sport coaches seeing how much you want to be involved. think it just goes a long way.
Samson:
Yeah, I think you bring up a lot of really, really good points there. And I think one thing that you mentioned that’s really interesting is that the strength coaches kind of have a little bit of a different relationship because like you said, there’s no playing time. There’s no ⁓ talk about NIL. There’s none of this like, OK, if the conversation doesn’t go well, is it going to hurt basically how I am perceived or what my availability is going to look like on the field or on the court? ⁓ So it kind of.
breaks down this initial barrier and allows you to have a little bit deeper and a little bit of a stronger relationship. And that’s, agree. That’s why I love being a strength coach too. Cause the last thing I want to do is go recruiting and talk about money and talk about, you know, all this different stuff that I just have no interest in. know, instead it’s like these relationships that you mentioned building ⁓ are really fun. And I also liked the fact that you mentioned the respect piece too, right? Like, you know, I, I remember starting off in football ⁓ and you know,
Kristen Flateau:
Mm-hmm.
Samson:
I felt like I kind of had to fit in with how the coaching style was at the put a couple of places that I’ve been right where it was, you know, very in your face, very kind of militant style, very, you know, like it’s my way or the highway. And I remember like as an intern having to do this right. And I was like, I don’t know these guys like, know, like in, in they’re all bigger than me. They couldn’t care less, you know, the same with you. Like they know I played football in high school, but like there’s, there’s no meaningful, you know, stuff past high school. like,
you know, they couldn’t care less what I’m saying. And all of sudden now, like, they’re just gonna be like, that guy’s a jerk. Like, I don’t like hanging out. You know, I don’t want to listen to them, right? Versus if you come at the relationship with a certain level of respect, you know, like you said, some athletes are hotheads and you just got to know who you’re working with. You know, you can have much better conversations that are also productive, right? Where you can actually see results and you can see the change, which is kind of the whole point of strength and conditioning at the end of the day.
Kristen Flateau:
Yeah, I’m a firm believer of like, if you can’t get the athletes to buy in, you could have the best program in the nation. But if the athletes aren’t bought into it because they think you’re a jerk, you’re doing it all wrong. You’re not going to see any results and any growth and development from your phenomenal program because at the end of the day, they’re not going to care.
Samson:
1000 % and they couldn’t care less. I mean quite honestly, so yeah, it’s it’s a it’s very fun That’s why this job is fun because we just get to do the relationship building stuff, right? Then you get to watch people grow So and you know, I’ve got to imagine too with the the D2 level, you know, I don’t know I guess I’m curious about this like Is there a lot of talk about the transfer portal? Is there a lot of talk about kind of NIL or you know, is it a little bit more like how it was before the transfer portal where it’s kind of
Kristen Flateau:
100%.
Samson:
You know, if I’m coming here, I’m going to try to be here for four years.
Kristen Flateau:
I it hasn’t gotten too crazy at the D2 level yet. There’s definitely, ⁓ for example, basketball season just got over, so they’re going through exit meetings and stuff like that, and so people are leaving. ⁓ But there’s not the demand of, because at Coastal with our football team, because I assist with football, I was like, well, if you don’t pay me this, I’m going to leave because so-and-so is offering this.
They don’t have that there yet. It’s more of like, coach, I’m not playing. I want to play. I want to get film. ⁓ And I tell my athletes ⁓ at this level all the time, and I would tell my high school athletes this and my Juco athletes at D1 because I was contracted to train Florida Southwestern’s men’s women’s basketball team, which is a Juco down there. And I would tell them all the time, like, I want to see you go, D1. I want to see you grow. And I’m going to give you every single resource we can.
⁓ And again, I think they understand like at this level they don’t necessarily have the money to go and throw it around, know, and I hate to use the word bribe, but bribe players to stay, bribe players to come, you know, and it really is like, I love the game. Like I just want to play. ⁓ And then obviously like, coach, I’m not getting playing time. Like I’m not having fun. ⁓
That’s kind of the conversations I’ve heard now. Again, I’ve been here two months. So some of those conversations, I’m sure, have yet to be had. there’s definitely still one of our football players, he’s… ⁓ We know that FAU is trying to get him. We know that. We know that a lot of our guys, they’re big. They just didn’t really have film coming out of high school.
and they played a year, they got great film, but they stayed, you know? And so people are trying to recruit them away. And it’s more here about like, let’s build a great culture. I’m going to give you that playing time, you know? And then if you’re not happy, then we’ll have those discussions. But I definitely think it helps that the athletes kind of know, like, okay, they don’t have the resources to pay us thousands of dollars. ⁓
And it really is just about the love of the sport, kind of how it was before NIL and transfer portal and things of that nature.
Samson:
Yeah, you know, I bring it up just because of our conversation about those relationships, you know, and I’ve noticed that at our level, hurts those relationships, you know, because it’s tough. Like, you know, you can have, ⁓ you know, high quality relationships. There’s somebody who is transferring out for us, who’s awesome. And we spent three years together, which is way more than I thought I’d get with him, right. You know, but we were hoping for one more year. And, you know, it just, ⁓ it’s tough because you know, the money is always kind of in the back of their mind.
Kristen Flateau:
Mm.
Samson:
Right. And, ⁓ there’s so many lies too. It’s crazy. Right. Like lies amongst teammates about who’s getting paid what at every school that I’ve spoken with. Right. Like, you know, I mean, I could sit here and tell you, Hey, you know, app States paying me 500,000, you know, to be their strength coach. And, know, you could, it was that if you didn’t know the other salaries or other places, you’d be like, damn, Connor’s getting paid 500,000, you know, and it’s a complete lie. Like, you know, so there’s always kind of this in the back of the mind, like there’s this money aspect that I feel like kind of hurts.
Kristen Flateau:
yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Samson:
You know how deeply you can develop these relationships and then the athletes are pretty transient. You know, there’s not there was one player I’ve had in my time and app that I had for four years. And you know what’s funny is it worked out for him. He’s in the NBA now, right? And so like it’s it’s funny how that works because people sometimes think it’s the opposite way is moving as much as possible is what helps you. But sometimes staying and kind of being the guy at a specific place is what helps you too. But I was just curious about it, you know, because.
I’m a relationship-based coach as well and it can suck sometimes. So I’m glad to hear that your experience has been really positive at D2. That’s exciting for me. Again, this is something in a couple of years we’re gonna have to circle back and double check on this topic as well.
Kristen Flateau:
yeah.
Yeah,
yeah, 100%. And I’m sure like Edward Waters is growing tremendously. So Edward Waters was the Florida’s first HBCU. So it’s got rich, rich history. And I believe like the numbers like 130 % or something, something over 100%, but they’ve grown like 130 % within the last like two years. And so it is a growing program. Like we’re adding women’s flag football in the fall.
And so I’m sure that as the school continues to grow and things of that nature, it’s inevitable ⁓ with college athletics right now. But, they just transitioned to a D2 school not too long ago. They’ve only been D2 for about two years now because they were state school, they were college, JUCO kind of level. So it’s definitely, it’ll be interesting to see in three years where that is and stuff of that nature. I hope it’s not too far from where it is now.
But obviously, will check in at some point.
Samson:
Yeah, no doubt. again, like I said, we’ll circle back and we’ll see. We’ll catch up on all these updates. We’ll both have to listen to this episode again to remind ourselves of what was going on. Well, okay. Well, I’ve got one final question for you. What is your favorite ghost flavor? I’ve been seeing you drink your ghost. So I know there’s a lot of different ones. What’s your favorite one?
Kristen Flateau:
⁓
I so this one is the orange. I’m sipping on the orange cream one right now, but I Like we mentioned ⁓ before we started recording. I’ve got two cases from GNC of the peaches. I love the peaches ⁓ I’m hurt because I live right around the corner from a wall and wall has stopped carrying rains. Know and they replaced it with blooms which I’m a caffeine connoisseur. So like ⁓ if it’s caffeinated, I’ll probably drink it
Samson:
Yep.
Ugh.
Yeah.
Kristen Flateau:
⁓ But just something about the Reigns, like every once in a while, you just need that, like I’m about to like scratch my face off, you know, with so much caffeine running through my body. But no, the peach ghosts ⁓ are right now like my absolute favorite. ⁓ The orange cream’s a close second though.
Samson:
That’s a good pick. love the the peaches is my second. I go the Welch’s cranberry grape. That’s a good one. Yeah, that one. I get excited about that one now. So but it’s tough because we don’t have any while was which I’m you know, absolutely, you know, sad about because we grew I grew up, you know, and spent a lot of time in Philly. And I grew up in upstate New York. I don’t know why I said that. But I spent a lot of time in Philly. I went to school there and we had a ton of while was out there. We’ve got sheets out here and it’s just not the same for me.
Kristen Flateau:
That’s good. That’s a good one. That’s a good one.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a Sheetz.
Samson:
It’s kind of lame and everybody’s gonna tell you that Sheetz is better and I’m sure I’ll get some comments from the listeners that Sheetz is better and I don’t know what I’m talking about. Wawa is way better. And so ⁓ the gas station near us only carries like three flavors and then the Sheetz only carries like two. And so it’s kind of, it’s depressing. Exactly, exactly. And better sandwiches, the foods actually, we could go on for 50 minutes about this one. So I’m gonna stop myself there.
Kristen Flateau:
no, Sea Wawa has so much more. So much more.
yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Samson:
Well, Kristen, thank you so much for coming on. Seriously, it was a really fun episode and it was really great to hear about your experiences. ⁓ I know you said your Instagram name is complicated. We’ll find a way to put it in the show notes, but if anybody wants to reach out to you or kind of hear more about your experiences or question you about anything that they heard on the podcast, what would be the best way to do that?
Kristen Flateau:
Yeah, mean, my Instagram’s a great way. ⁓ My name, and this is the background to my Instagram name, My name, Kristen Flato. You can put numbers in my name. So, Chris, so it’s like K-R-I-S, and then the number 10, Kristen, and then FL8, ⁓ Flato. So, that’s the background to my Instagram name. ⁓ So, that’s a great place to reach out. ⁓
Obviously I’m on Edward Waters ⁓ Athletics website so they can email me there. ⁓ That’s kind of boring. ⁓ no, definitely Instagram. I’m on LinkedIn. Wherever you find me, you can reach out. I don’t mind sharing phone numbers or anything like that. Obviously I’m not gonna just blurt it out over the podcast. But no, ⁓ definitely feel free to reach out. I don’t know how much.
Samson:
Yeah.
Great call, great call. I respect that decision.
Kristen Flateau:
information, ⁓ quality information I could give, I love to talk, so I love to talk shop, love to meet new people, so feel free.
Samson:
I would disagree. think you could use some very high quality information. Like I said, it was a great episode. So I think you could certainly help out. Well, seriously, Kristen, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it.
Kristen Flateau:
Thank you.
No, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it.
Samson:
Absolutely.
