Coaching opens your eyes to all sorts of things that the rest of life doesn't show you.
What follows aren't the only things I've learned in 11 years of coaching. In the final analysis, they may not even be the 11 most important things I've learned in coaching. But they are important to me where I am now. I hope you enjoy the thoughts.
1. Programs that rise rapidly tend to do so under new coaching. This has been proven true repeatedly during my 11 years of coaching cross country. Think of Thompson Valley (Matt Norton), Battle Mountain (Rob Parrish), Salida (Kenny Wilcox), Mountain Vista (Jonathan Dalby), Frontier Academy (Brett Shanklin), Mountain View (Kyle Chandler), Nederland (Sabrina Robinson), Dakota Ridge (Mike Callor), and the list goes on and on. With the possible exception of Nederland, I think each of these programs rose under coaches in their first head coaching assignment. I don't mean to say experience is nothing, but coaching experience is sometimes overrated. Some people were born to coach distance runners.
2. Programs tend to trend off slowly under established coaching. I'm acutely aware of this in my own coaching experience. It's easy to be fresh and excited about every little triumph your first two or three years of coaching. Summoning that same excitement six or eight years later can take a major effort if you haven't found a way to keep it fresh. I constantly remind myself these days to try to look at things through the kids' eyes. None of it is old for them. That makes it so much easier. Few things sneak up on you as rapidly as complacency. I will know it's time to quit coaching when a league championship no longer stirs my soul enough to make me lose a little sleep.
3. The best coaches work extremely hard. It almost doesn't matter what you work extremely hard at, so long as it's something that's important to the athletes on your team (as opposed to something that's important to your athletic director or principal--not that you shouldn't work hard at these, too, just that these things don't pay the same dividends with the kids). It seems to be more the example of hard work than the actual work done. Hard work is inspiring. You know this because you know how inspired you are as a coach when you see it in an athlete. Whenever I see a hard-working coach, I see kids paying attention and following.
4. It's more difficult to carry over momentum from year to year with boys than it is with girls. To a large extent, you have to win the boys over each year. Girls have a better memory. Sorry guys, it's true, but I am learning to embrace the process of winning you over each year.
5. It's worth it to go to a small meet now and then. For me, I prefer a small school meet, not just a small meet. Nine straight weeks of high-intensity meets is too much. It's amazing how much differently people interact at small school meets. Okay, so you'll probably write your name and school on an address label, slap it on your singlet, and run, but it's a great way to do things once a season or so. Even though we're 3A, we've more or less grown accustomed to running the big school meets. But we put the Salida Invitational into our schedule this year. The people were wonderful. The place was wonderful. The experience was wonderful. There was no trading of elbows the first 200 meters. It was fun! Shoot me an e-mail if you need a suggestion or two for a meet to try in your neck of the woods.
6. More state championships are lost in September than won in October. It's easy to beat yourself up and wear yourself down chasing places and times in September. I see it happen to individuals and I see it happen to teams every year.
7. Athletes who find the race director after a meet and express their appreciation should be elevated to cross country sainthood. I can't begin to express how much those words of appreciation mean to me following a meet. For those of you who haven't done it, hosting a meet is a major ordeal. A little appreciation goes a long way. I'm going to make this a greater point of focus with our own team.
8. There may be no hole on your team more difficult to fill than the hole created by the graduation of a girl who functioned as team "mom." Individuals who do this well (and it is a gift) are far more rare than gifted runners. We've had lots of excellent team leadership in my 11 years at TCA, but we've had two team "moms." They've left an incredible legacy of caring and doing things right.
9. We coaches worry far too much about giving a key athlete a day off from practice. I've learned that when the real warriors on a team ask for a day off, it's usually a day or three past the time to start listening to that request. Give them the day off their feet--put them on a bike if it makes sense--and be done worrying about the training they're missing. Be much more concerned about what happens next if you don't give them the day off. Do a brief cost-benefit analysis and come face-to-face with the downside of not giving them the day off.
10. A team backpack trip during the summer is a great way to find out who the real warriors on your team are going to be. I have yet to find the kid who was a great backpacker and was not also a great personality to have on the team. Plus, the trip is a great time of team bonding. We're all a little more real when we leave technology behind for a couple of days. Those who embrace the experience are exactly the same athletes who will embrace the second-to-last interval in a set. Sleeping on the ground ceased being fun about 20 years ago, but there are good reasons why the backpack trip is an essential element of TCA cross country.
11. Winning is great fun, but not nearly the only fun to be had in cross country. And a happy team wins more often than a team merely resigned to the ordeals of training.