Summer program building at Jefferson Academy

For the vast majority of cross country programs in Colorado, and especially those who have ambitions of being competitive, summer training has become a necessity. For me, the process began six years ago coaching at the high school I attended. 

 

Some things that first summer went well, and some of them went not so well.

 

I don't know why a group of teenagers would fight me about meeting me at six in the morning at a middle school halfway across town. Sheesh. kids these days…. 

 

I only lasted a year at that first school before being hired to coach and teach at Jefferson Academy. I have tried a LOT of things over the years to work on this within the teams that I have coached. Here is the short list of things I have found successful. I will spare you from my long list of failures.

 

Start Planning Things Early

 

The process for planning the cross country season begins roughly between spring break and the state track meet when I start to look at the calendar for June and July. 

Usually I have a good idea by then of what the team leadership is going to look like for the following season. I will invite the returning upperclassmen to come and have lunch in my classroom. At this point I usually have a good idea, if not a fixed date, for when out-of-town camps will happen and when we are going to officially start training. It is important to me that my team leadership sets their calendars to be there for the first week and any camps.

 

At this point I will usually also ask for feedback regarding t-shirt design. Sadly, I learned the hard way that just because it gets printed does not mean it is going to get worn. Jefferson Academy Boosters has a tradition of printing t-shirts for teams that qualify for State. One year I got really excited about tuxedo t-shirts and had some JA-themed tuxedo shirts printed up to celebrate qualifying for state. While I loved it, I imagine that right now one of those shirts is being used to wax someone’s car or line an old birdcage. 

 

I never saw any of them again after I handed them out.

 

This is also the time of year that I do the most recruiting for the team from within our school. JA does not have a middle school team and historically we have been mostly a basketball school. Most of the kids coming through the JA system have never thought of themselves as runners before I talk to them about the possibility. 

 

I will start identifying possible athletes as early as I can and, as soon as CHSAA will allow me, I will start talking to kids about running. There are a lot of different ways to go about this. Besides word of mouth and middle school gym teachers, I have found the most effective tool for recruiting new athletes is a hand-written letter mailed to the athlete’s home. I imagine that many of these letters end up in the trash, but a few of them have ended up on refrigerators and in scrap books. 

 

I will also mail letters to returning athletes to let them know when summer is starting as well as our teams goals for the year. I also like to send off a letter to alumni and recent graduates to wish them well in college. In the age of endless phone staring, you would not believe the response that taking a couple of minutes to write someone a letter gets. The investment in time and team money is minimal.

 

Day 1

 

I will be the first to admit (and my wife the second) that I get unreasonably excited about the first day of summer training. I will usually get there about 30 minutes early that day so that I can:

 

1) Calm down, it is just the first run of the season.

2) Welcome any new runners.

3) Answer as many questions as possible from athletes or parents.

4) Make sure that I write down the name of everybody who is there that day so I can double check this against my list of people I talked to in the spring.

5) Put on my other shoe since I forgot... you know... from being excited.

6) Introduce captains to the team

 

As much as possible athletes should feel like they are showing up to something that is big and important and that they are valued part of what is happening. I want them to feel that they are joining not just a team, but a program. Something that they are going to want to be a part of for the foreseeable future. Something that is not just for a summer or a season, but year round, even beyond high school. 

 

JAXC has a standing open door policy to all alumni to come and train with the team during the summer. CHSAA does not allow this during the season. A recently graduated athlete headed off to join their college team in the near future who makes conversation with a new-to-running 10th grader is an excellent asset to any program.

 

Before the end of the first week

 

I always order summer training tank tops with a cool logo and we hand them out to athletes as quickly as I can. As long as they are not tuxedo tank tops, these become coveted items around the school and help to get athletes excited about summer training.

 

Make sure to learn as many athletes’ names by the end of the first week as possible. Running is an easy thing to become disenfranchised with quickly. An athlete is a lot more likely to leave a program when they do not feel like anyone will notice.

 

Collect contact info for as many of your athletes as possible. I use a three dollar app on my iPhone called "Grouptext" that allows me to text hundreds of people in less than 30 seconds. This is an excellent way to communicate with everyone on your team quickly and efficiently. 

 

There is a high value on team accountability and sharing the workload at JA. If someone disappears from practice, it can be for a variety of reasons. I appreciate being aware of when athletes are on vacation or at doctors’ appointments or in line for One Direction tickets. This does not consume a whole lot of my time, so it is worth it to make sure than I can stay easily in contact with everyone. 

 

The downside of this is that I am now well versed on One Direction and why someone would need to miss practice to get in line for tickets. I realize that there is some risk in having my personal cell phone number out in the community, but in 12 years of coaching I have had zero instances of this being abused. 

 

An athlete having my phone number is an act of trust between the two of us, and I make sure they understand that responsibility when they receive it.

 

As the summer progresses

 

A couple of years ago, Tim Hays, the women's basketball coach at Colorado Christian University, spoke at an FCA Coaches Group about team culture. He offered up this gem about the athletic experience, "Playing time for all athletes is not an equal-opportunity endeavor, but a relationship is." 

 

Often times I get too caught up in trying to bring home plaques and forget that one of the best things about high school sports is the opportunity to foster relationships. 

The coaching staff does about 90% of the long runs with the team and about 70% of the speed work with the team. When we are out on long runs we use the time to cultivate friendships between athletes. This is especially important for newer freshman and sophomores who don't yet know anyone. 

 

Once while running along with a group of silent, mouth-breathing freshman boys I simply asked, "So which is worse, Call Me Maybe or Rebecca Black?" 9th grade boys have a deep passion for arguing about such things. I said nothing else for the next seven miles and listened to them debate.

 

Speed workouts are also an excellent opportunity to share the workload and suffer together. I would like to think that I can always keep up with the boys "A" team so that is where I will start the workout. Often times I start here and, as age and Twizzlers catch up to me, I work my way down to the girls "C" Team.

 

It is especially important to the boys on the team that I run speed workouts with them. At some point I will have to abandon this and jump on a bicycle or golf cart, but, if the coaches' race is any indication, I have little excuse to quit speed workouts and distance runs until I am in my 80s. 

 

It is also worth adding that as the season gets closer I step back from doing this to make sure the workout is functioning smoothly.

 

Let them suffer

 

A few years ago I was fearful to allow teams to suffer too much during the summer. Worried about losing athletes to mental weakness, I kept mileage way too low and even went so far as to have practice in the evenings for fear of kids quitting. 

 

As our team progressed I realized how ridiculous this was. As I upped the mileage and moved practice back to the morning I realized something. The suffering was a good thing. No, a great thing! The suffering created a wonderful, inseparable bond between the athletes. 

 

There is something about burning through 12x400 under the June sun or a 10-mile-Monday in mid-August that produces exactly what we would like in our teams in terms of buy-in and closeness. I have found that as we have increased the intensity of our summer training, the exact same number of athletes have left the team as when we were running 20 miles a week and munching popsicles.

 

The other big thing that goes along with suffering is that, unless there is dangerous weather, I never cancel practice. If I cannot be there and my assistant cannot be there, I will find someone from the school community or an adult-age alumni to run practice for me for a couple of days. I strongly believe that, once a strong summer routine is established, one of the worst things we can do is interrupt that. This allows us head coach types to occasionally plan silly things like family vacations, doctor appointments, and how I am going to finally find One Direction tickets.

 

Speaking of Popsicles...

 

I do think that it is really important to mix in some random and some planned group fun for the team. Twice a summer I turn practice over to the captains and let them go do something fun. They have to get the activity preapproved with me, but it is always a surprise to all but the captains on the team what they are doing that day. I will let nervous parents know as well if they would like to know. 

 

Examples of captains days have included going swimming, getting slurpees, and running to kids houses to eat frozen fruit snacks. We are fortunate to coach a sport where drinking a Slurpee is potentially the greatest reward known to teen. 

 

The leash with this is extremely tight. The athletes know that if anyone does anything stupid on a captain’s run they will be gone forever. To date we have had zero instances of bad behavior as nobody wants to ruin this for the team.

 

Get the heck out of Dodge

 

Colorado is way too interesting a state to just run from the front of your high school every day. While JA is perfectly situated for XC by being located directly on the Big Dry Creek Trail in Westminster, a half-mile from the Standley Lake open space, even that gets boring. We schedule three or four practices a summer at another trailhead in the area just to keep things fresh.

 

I am also a strong advocate for doing some kind of overnight camp at some point during the summer. We have done one or two a summer every year for the last four years. We like to mix it up and plan new stuff every year. 

 

There is nothing that can replace the bonding experience of taking a bunch of kids out in to the wilderness to make a team out of 'em. To date, we have taken dozens of kids out of their parents’ house for the first time, up their first 14er, tent camping for the first time, and created a vast wealth of fun memories that have deepened the team bond and gotten them into killer shape.

 

I am not going to pretend like I have it all figured out, but I can say five years into my coaching experience at Jefferson Academy many of these things have produced a wonderfully rich running community in our school where there previously was none. 

 

Plus now I know all about a group of supremely talented British teenagers. So I have that have that going for me.