Several XC Firsts - 1990 - 1991

The 1990 cross country season was a season of firsts and the firsts actually started that summer. I received a phone call asking if we were interested in participating in a Torch Run relay from the Pikes Peak Summit down the Pikes Peak Highway to open the Colorado State Games. I agreed to do it and was able to recruit three of our athletes and Coach Payton. We were put with a few other people for our leg including a friend that I had worked with in the private sector when I first moved to Colorado Springs. It was a fun team bonding experience that would have been fun if even more of our athletes had been available. Coach Payton and I were talking just the other day and the memory that stands out the most for both of us was how much uphill there was running down the highway.

After a successful 1989 cross country season we came into 1990 feeling that we had the potential to be even better. Obviously at the beginning of the season we didn't know how good we would be. In the season preview newsletter that I gave the team I said the following about our goals, "Both team and individual goals will be reevaluated throughout the season from week to week and meet to meet. You should have short range and long range goals, not just for the season but for your running career. You should also set goals for the classroom and your personal and family life. These goals will give you direction. They will help put you on track to be successful and keep you there.
     Our initial team goal is simple and realistic; to improve over last years performance. With the right ATTITUDES and the willingness to put in the WORK necessary, that initial goal will be reached and that goal will set the tone for establishing all other team and individual goals".

Looking at the team picture you can see that one obvious potential roadblock to us accomplishing much was with the girl's team where we had only seven total runners. We had to get through the season avoiding injuries and hoping everyone stayed healthy and they did most of the season. It definitely kept my anxiety up the entire season.
And looking ahead didn't do anything to build confidence for future success, 4 of the 7 girls were seniors including Janie and Laura who would finish the season as our first two female four year letter winners while on the boys team Gary became our second male four year letter winner.

The Air Academy Invitational was a significant event for us because it was the first meet that Lashon had enough practices to be eligible to compete. I decided to run him in the open division because he hadn't earned his spot on the varsity yet. The meet was a good test for both teams because the course was challenging with a really tough hill at 2 miles as well as good competition. 

"It isn't easy to pick out the highlights of this meet, all you have to do is look to see who came to compete. The girl's team did an outstanding job finishing 3rd in the 23 team field. They were only 5 points behind Coronado for 2nd and beat top teams like Doherty, Cheyenne Mountain, Lewis Palmer and Air Academy. Great job ladies! Again, just use this meet as a stepping stone to reaching your goals. The other highlight was Lashon's 2nd place finish in the open division. Based on his time and effort it will be the last time he runs in an open race this season. Good job Lashon!

The girls were again led by strong performances by Shay (10th) and Janie (15th). Alanna is finally realizing her potential and was a strong 3rd runner for Sierra (26th), followed closely by Mary (31st). Debbie completed the scoring for Sierra in 46th and Laura was right behind her in 48th. Nicole ran well and finished 67th in a field of over 100 runners.

The Varsity boys were led by Alwyn who moved from 43rd at the 2 mile to finish a respectable 29th. If the rest of the varsity had moved up in the 3rd mile the way that he did, they would have been very competitive. As it is, finishing 9th and ahead of Harrison is nothing to be ashamed of but it certainly isn't anything to be overly proud of or satisfied with either. As I told you after the meet, just talking about going to state won't get it done. If some of you aren't going to be willing to start running past the hurt and competing your season will end with a 4th or 5th place finish at District. Each of you needs to start remembering, "IF IT IS TO BE, IT IS UP TO ME"! No one else is going to do the job for you and carry the load.

A few of you were very upset with your performance, all you need to do is think back to your lack of effort in Thursday's practice and you'll have your explanation".

After his introduction at Air Academy Lashon finished in the top 10 in all but one meet the remainder of the season, including 7th at State. Hard to believe that we didn't get him out until his senior year there's no telling how good he might have been. He joined the Navy after graduation and sadly lost his life in an automobile accident while stationed in Japan. 

The headline for the Regional newsletter read:

"CONGRATULATIONS REGIONAL CHAMPIONS AND REGIONAL RUNNER UP!!!!!"

Fantastic job ladies and gentlemen. When we got a ways into the season I started telling you both teams had a chance to qualify for state this year with work and desire. I hope now you all believe me. As you all know already, Friday saw quite a few firsts in Sierra history. First Regional Championship Cross Country team, first Regional Runner Up Cross Country team, first time to qualify a Girl's Cross Country team to state, first time to qualify a Boy's Cross Country team to state and first time to qualify both teams to state. It's what we worked all season for. All of you that have been involved know that it has not been easy, hopefully you also all know that it was worth it.

The job is not done now. Now it is up to each of you to go to the state meet and compete. No one is to go up there just to run or you'll be embarrassed. Finish the job you've started. We'll talk as the week goes on about some goals. Good luck!!!"

The administration, staff and students did something they had never done before by turning out to honor the cross country teams with a send off to the state meet. (It was something they would never do again). It was exciting for the kids and certainly a positive memory.

The state meet brought mixed results. The girls did a remarkable job finishing 4th place just 13 points shy of 3rd. They really stepped up to the challenge of competing on the big stage. With the exception of Lashon who was 7th the same can't be said for the boys and they knew it. The important thing was that we now had experience running at the state level. 

"Outstanding job ladies!!! Just like it said in the newspaper, the highest you had ever finished in District before was 4th and this year, your first at state, you placed 4th. Great effort, now let's make it a goal to get back there next year.

Guys, I'm not going to soft peddle it. With the obvious exception of Lashon your efforts were nonexistent. It was obvious by your actions and comments in Denver that you had your minds made up in advance that you couldn't compete at the state level. Those of you coming back I hope after running that you realize that you could have done better and that you can compete on that level. Believing is the first step". 

The future? We had the freshman record holder for the boys team. Unfortunately he moved to Kentucky the week after Regionals and didn't even compete in the state meet. The next year he sent me a picture of him placing 7th in the Kentucky state meet. We had the number two freshman boy all time who was our 3rd boy at the state meet but he only ran one more year. We had the 3rd best freshman girl in school history, she was our second girl at the state meet but moved to Denver between cross country and track her sophomore year. It would be an understatement to say that it was tough as a coach to make any plans from one season to the next let alone from one year to the next but we made the best of it.

I started the year talking about goals and in the final newsletter I revisited the subject for the final time that season.

GOALS: Without them, we're going nowhere!!

In 1987 when I became cross country coach at Sierra I set some goals for myself as a coach. They were as follows:
1. A scoring team the first year. We have met it every year.
2. Top half of the District/Region by the 3rd year. Met. Second year with the girls and it took until the 4th year with the boys but we improved steadily.
3. Qualify for state by the 5th year. Met by both teams in the 4th year.

After dealing with all of the "social turmoil" during the 1990 season we might have expected a better start to the '91 season since so many of the girls were returning. We couldn't have been more wrong! In the pre meet handout that I gave the girls for the Rampart scrimmage I wrote this. 

"In an earlier handout I emphasized the importance of  CONDUCTING YOURSELF LIKE A LADY AT ALL TIMES. Since that handout, we've had some of you suspended for fighting, placed in in-house suspension, I've caught you arguing or having an attitude with adults and other students. Let me make it clear how all of the coaches feel, WE'D RATHER LOSE WITH LADIES AND PEOPLE WHO WANT TO BE AROUND THAN WIN WITH PEOPLE THAT DON'T KNOW HOW TO ACT. The choice is yours, act like a lady at all times or find somewhere else to hang around after school".

While everything didn't change immediately and while there were still some problem individuals throughout the season there was immediate and ongoing improvement. We were seeing a lot of positive change.

Despite not defending our Regional Championship for the 4th year in a row, we were 2nd to Pueblo County a well coached, well balanced and deep team 141 - 119, we still felt that our season was successful for many reasons. My final newsletter summarized the season. 

"I wanted to wait and write this final newsletter when the season was over and then send it to you at home so that maybe you'd take a few minutes to read it more carefully than usual. I don't know how each of you perceive our season or your season in terms of success or failure but I'd like to share with you my perceptions.

We started the season with basically a young and inexperienced track team. I had a coaches meeting early in the season and told the coaches that basically if we were going to have any success this year we were going to have to do some serious coaching. I hope you recognize and appreciate the job your event coaches did. Had it not been for their efforts and the willingness of most of you to do what they asked we would not have had nearly the success that we had. We will continue to be a good track team because of them and because of you.

Just for the record, how successful were we? We won the D&B Invitational and the Bulldog Invitational with only freshmen and sophomores. We won every Tuesday League meet and won them by wide margins. We finished 2nd at the Panther Relays, the Icicle Invitational at Rampart and the Glenn Peterson Invitational. We finished 3rd at the Cherry Creek Relays and the Wasson Invitational.

We had those successes in spite of many people quitting who could have contributed to our success. In spite of the policy of no pass - no play hanging over your head. And in spite of the fact that many of you had personal problems, health and otherwise to overcome throughout the season. We had those successes because you were a team.

You weren't a team from day one by any means. You were a group of individuals and cliques that eventually grew into a very close and supporting team. We're proud of you for that.

Continuing with your success. You were Regional (District) Runner Up and scored more points than any other Sierra team ever has at the District meet. And finally, you went to state and competed hard and represented Sierra in a classy way as you've done all year. People looking for team points at state would consider our trip a failure. I couldn't disagree more. We set personal bests and ran in the finals of the 4 x 100 and 4 x 200; Antinett was a finalist in the 200 and missed the finals by one place in the 100; Marcia had a lifetime best in the 100 hurdles; Shay had a lifetime best in the 1600 and Toi made the finals in the triple jump. Judi, Sandy and Melissa also competed well. You were certainly not failures".

State Meet Dinner at Casa Bonita

Transient Athletes - 1989 - 1990

One of the hardest things to get used to at Sierra was something I had very little experience with in Lovington and that is "transient" athletes. In Colorado Springs it wasn't simply dealing with losing athletes who had competed for us at Sierra. It was losing them to another school in town and then having to compete against them and watch them be successful for other teams. While I always supported and continued to want my former athletes to be successful it was hard to digest when that success came against our present athletes. It was hard dealing with the "what might have beens" and believe me over 20 years there were many many of them. 

Clockwise from top left. #1 One of top sprinters losing to a girl who had run for us the year before and transferred to a school just a few miles from us and in our region. #2 Visiting with one of our former athletes who ran one year for us and then her family moved and she attended and ran for another school in our region. #3 Even though I started coaching the second year that Sierra was open I never met this young lady. She was a regional champion for Sierra her freshman year and then moved to a school further north in the city and competed against us for the next three years. #4 This young lady was an outstanding sprinter for us as a freshman and moved the next year to another local school . #5 Both of these ladies ran on our State Championship 4x800 relay team, a team that had 2 freshmen, a sophomore and a junior so we were excited looking ahead. Three of the team members also ran cross country. When school began the next year one of them had moved to Denver and two withdrew and went to a charter school that made them false promises. The one girl who did remain became senior class president. #6 This young lady came to us in 1990 and ran track her junior year. She set school records in the 1600 and 3200 that still stand today in 2016. 

That is only a small sample of the athletes that we lost during the 20 years that I coached at Sierra.

Just as the 1988 season was a breakthrough year for the girl's cross country team, 1989 became that breakthrough year for our boy's program. This, in spite of the fact that one of our top five runners decided to play tennis as a senior and another varsity runner moved. Our boys team started breaking into the top tier at most local meets and they won both the varsity and open divisions at Falcon and at Fountain Fort Carson. The importance here is that we were fielding two complete teams consistently for the first time. My comment after the Falcon meet was, Great job!!!! Our J.V. is showing the potential to be an even better team than our varsity was only two years ago".

Coach Spell and me talking to the varsity girls and JV boys premeet

 It seemed that the more success we had the more stress was ratcheted up, for coaches in particular. An example of things that led to the stress took place at the Pikes Peak Invitational midseason. This meet was always one of the most competitive of the season and it was run on the most challenging course we would race on during the regular season. While we still were't competitive at a meet this size with this level of competition we were showing progress and gaining respect from other coaches and teams. Here were the comments from our newsletter before I even gave out individual results:

"Before I give you your individual results I feel I need to address an issue for what better be the final time. HORSEPLAY: It's got to stop. I would have thought that after Steve was lost for the meet because of playing street football that I wouldn't have to say any more. I was wrong. While Coach Spell and I were waiting for Larry to get the results Friday (and a good job he's doing for us), I turned around just in time to see Steve kick Gary in the right knee because, 'he pulled my hair'. That kick could have put Gary out for the rest of the season or a lot worse. With a maximum of three weeks left in the season I would hope you can use some good judgement and even more important use good judgement when some of your teammates fail to. Don't throw away everything you've worked for".

There were certainly more positives than negatives throughout the season with the increased number of boys being one of the highlights. The numbers were still low for the girls but the girls that we had worked hard and showed promise. I summarized the boy's season after the regional meet this way, "We lose 3 fine seniors, Steve, Gerald and Eddie and unfortunately another very good runner, David who is moving after the season. On the positive side, we have some very good runners back with varsity experience and we have some of the finest junior varsity runners that we've ever had back. You can continue what we've built the past 3 years".

And to the girl's team I wrote: "I think your slogan should be, 'the best is yet to come'. With only one of our top 7 runners graduating and four of you running your senior year next year, the only thing that can stand between you and a great season next year is if you are unwilling to put in the time and work it takes to be the best you can be". At the time I wrote that I had no idea how prophetic it would turn out to be for many years to come. By the way, keeping with the theme of never knowing who you would have to work with from one season to the next on 3 of the 4 seniors decided to run their senior year, one chose to sit out and not do anything in the fall. 

Another milestone that was accomplished this season was when Gerald Romero became the first four year letter winner in cross country. And Gerald is still one of the top Master's runners in Colorado over 25 years later.

The 1990 track season came close to being my final track season at Sierra. We had more personality problems, primadonnas, trouble makes, big egos and on and on than I had ever encountered as a head coach before. This despite the fact that we were a very good team competitively. We won 7 of the 10 varsity meets that season and were 2nd, 2nd and 3rd in the other three. There was so much interpersonal nonsense and turmoil though that the winning didn't make it all better. I'm going to quote quite a bit from newsletters here so you can get a sense of what I'm talking about.

First, some background on why I had such high expectations for the way that our athletes conducted themselves everywhere they were; school, community, bus, meets, and so on. We were located in the south end of the Springs in a high minority, high transience, low socio-economic area and I didn't want our athletes to act in a way that gave the bigots ammunition to roll their eyes and say, "what do you expect from them". What we wanted was that when people thought about Sierra athletes was that win or lose they were first and foremost a classy group of young ladies and young men.

And the nonsense started early. After our first competition this is what I wrote after congratulating them on their second place finish to a very fine Rampart team. "I hope I never have to come on a team bus after a good performance like that again, and only talk about the negatives. If that's all there is to it you might as well stop competing and I'll stop coaching. I don't want to have to bring those negatives up again. All the trophies and medals in the world are meaningless if you're not a nice person and some of you, many of you, need to take a long hard look at the way you've been acting. This is the first time in 14 years that I've started talking seriously about getting out of coaching".

It would have been nice if the team meeting and newsletter comments would have put an end to the negativity that was like a cancer on the team. The newsletter comments from just three weeks later make it clear that wasn't the case.

"If I had written this right after the Cheyenne Mountain meet I'd have had nothing but positive things to say. Unfortunately for all of us, it's 3 days, 2 meets and a practice later and you've managed to offset all the positives with negatives, a subject you'll already have heard plenty about before you read this.

First let me comment on the C.M. meet. You did a wonderful job, with few exceptions participating in your events and doing them well under very adverse weather conditions. You realized then that regardless of the weather you still had to do your best. Some of you got beat by some people you probably shouldn't get beat by and instead of making excuses or complaining you talked about getting them next time at District. Those are the things that make championship teams.

Unfortunately as you have so often done the past few track seasons, you then came back the next day, and in spite of the fact that you won, you had a lousy meet overall. We told you specifically to take two laps and stretch as a team on the infield and you didn't do it. We told you the restrooms were outside and yet some of you prima donnas had to go into the building and show yourselves off. You don't go into other schools unless you're invited and you weren't. You'd better remember that Saturday at Harrison. The building is off limits.

Then yesterday at practice the same group of people who apparently think they're stars and don't have to do what the rest of the team does decided that they'd do their warmup 7th hour without a coach around. You didn't even think you had to get permission to do so. WRONG! Most of you have proven that you can't be trusted to warm up or cool down properly without us standing there watching you and you expect us to let you do things on your own. You haven't done anything to earn that trust.

Then at yesterday's meet we have a relay team run the sorriest race in school history and they want to start some stuff with somebody because they commented on how slow they were running. The reality is ladies, if you'd been doing more than jogging you wouldn't have heard them.

I could go on and on but I don't intend to. As I said, you'll hear most of this in a team meeting today. (And more). I meant everything I said in today's meeting. It's sad that we can't enjoy the winning we've been doing because the negatives so far outweigh the positives so far this season.

If anyone disagrees with anything I've said here, see me, I'll be glad to discuss it with you. Now I'll give you the results from the past 3 meets."

The meeting I made reference to was very intense. Basically I said everything I have just shared and much more. I didn't want to go into some of the negatives in the newsletter because we shared those with many people outside the program and a lot of it needed to be dealt with within the team only, including my decision to quit coaching at the end of the season because I just didn't feel that I was making an impression in their lives the way that I needed to. It was emotional and the next day I got called into the APs office because he wanted to know why so many of the girls were walking down the hall to practice yesterday crying and acting like someone had died. I shared what I felt he had to know and left it there. He didn't need to know specifics about individual athletes.

After the next meet I wrote, "There's not one of you that can say this wasn't the most enjoyable meet we've had in at least two years. The reason? There are several. You showed that you were a team and cared about one another. You showed that you truly did enjoy track and accepted every challenge that was thrown at you. And most important, you had fun!!! That's what it's all about."

We finished the season winning 3 meets and finishing 2nd in one and 3rd in another, then we won our 3rd Regional Championship in a row. 

Did the meeting have an impact? I think it did for the remainder of that season for sure. In a future post I'm going to share something written from a girl who was just a freshman on that team. She doesn't appear in either of the celebration pictures above because at District all she did was high jump and she didn't even clear opening height. She didn't want to be included in the celebration even though the others tried to include her. 

Building a Successful Track Program - 1988 - 1989

For the same class at New Mexico Junior College that I wrote my coaching philosophy in I also wrote a paper called, "Social and Psychological Influences on Sports Performance". I got an 'A' on the paper but more important to me at the time were the instructors comments. She wrote, Dana; This is a very well written coaching philosophy! I hope that you continue to coach women athletes as our profession needs people like you desperately." I did continue and you will see in this blog that I did so through the spring season of 2005. 

For the final section of the paper I wrote about, "Nine things I feel are necessary building blocks for a successful track program"! This is part of what I wrote. The first four elements deal specifically with the head coach, his philosophy, his administrative abilities and his ability to work and learn. The head coach should be responsible for overseeing the entire program, therefore; responsible ultimately for its' success or failure". 

First, the coach must believe in what he or she is doing.
Second,...is totally dependant upon the first. A coach must know what he is doing.
The third element important for the head coach is that he be eclectic in his coaching style.
The final element that applies specifically to the head coach is organization.

Next I talked about five additional elements necessary for a program to be successful.

The first has to do with assistant coaches. Assistants can go a long way towards making or breaking a track program. (In a future post I will focus specifically on assistant coaches that I was fortunate enough to work with). 

The second of the five elements is recruiting. A successful coach will actively work to draw as many athletes as possible into the program. Once they are in the program, the successful coach will see to it that each athlete has a place to participate and makes the athlete feel that he or she is a vital part of the program. The coach who sells his athletes on his track and field program will be a successful coach, while the coach who makes the mistake of sitting back and waiting for athletes to come to him, will not. This goes back again to the coach who really believes in his program.

Third, to be a successful track program will have as many of its athletes as possible in an off season program.

The fourth element is loyalty. It is necessary throughout the total program. The athletes must be loyal to themselves, their coaches and each other. The coaches must in turn be loyal to each other, their athletes and the program. Without loyalty, a program cannot succeed.

The final element is tradition. Obviously you can't have it until some time has passed and you've developed a program but once you have it, it will help keep your program snowballing and the program will actually feed itself".

While I said that building a tradition takes time, I came into the Sierra Track program in only its second season and immediately started building and selling a tradition based on the success that the team had in it's inaugural 1985 season.

Using these nine elements as the foundation we were able to have varying degrees of success in the track and field, cross country and swimming programs that I coached in during my 20 years at Sierra from 1986 - 2005.

When I came back for the 1988 cross country season I had several advantages over my first season. I was teaching at Sierra now so I had much more interaction with the student body. I had 6 returning boys and 6 returning girls from the previous season and I was also the head girl's track coach now. I started several new things in 1988 that I feel were helpful in strengthening interest in the program and I was still doing two of the three my final season in 2004. 

The first thing that I added to the program was setting up a scrimmage with a team that was not one we usually saw during the season. The scrimmage gave the kids a chance to experience a competitive situation before their first actual meet. In that first scrimmage our girls easily won finishing 1-3-4-5-6-9 and while the boys didn't win out top three felt good about finishing 5-7-8. Only two of our girls and none of the boys had ever finished in the top 10 in any kind of cross country competition before. 

The second thing I incorporated was a 2000 meter (5 lap) time trial on the track. We did this early and again the reason was that I wanted our athletes to feel what it felt like to compete. The fact that it was on the track made it less likely that an athlete would drop out or not try. I started a top 10 list that first year and it became a top 25 list during my tenure at Sierra. So right from the start, the kids had a goal to shoot for and it helped them to be serious about their effort. 

The third thing was in addition to pre and post meet result sheets that I gave the team before and after every meet I wrote a multi page midseason report with team and individual statistics for the season to that point. All of these things served the same purpose, goal setting and motivation.

'88 was a much better season for both teams but particularly the girls. Our goals in '87 were to just have a scoring team every meet and beat at least one other scoring team at each meet. In '88 we wanted to improve individually and be more competitive as a team. The highlight for the boy's team came at the Falcon Invitational where they finished 3rd in the varsity race but also won the open division. They brought home the first boy's cross country team trophy in school history. Our top runner Steve Frandsen finished top 10 individually in Falcon and at Liberty. And Gerald Romero continued to be an example that our program was working by improving his time again at the Pikes Peak Invitational. His times 9th - 22:12, 10th - 20:30 and 11th - 18:49. 

The girl's team took major steps toward becoming a more competitive program. Our top girls started the season by winning the scrimmage and ended it by being only the second cross country state qualifier in school history. She was 11th in our first meet and that was the last time she finished out of the top 10 until the state meet. She also established our school record that is still the school record to this day (2015). The girls were 3rd as a team in each of their first two meets then won the Cheyenne Mountain Invitational the first cross country invitational win in school history. They were runner up in each of the next six meets and looked like they were going to have a chance to go from just wanting to score in 1987 to being state qualifiers in 1988. 

Sadly the top 3 teams from our Region qualified for state and we finished 4th, 3 points out of 3rd place. Equally unfortunate is that our only senior finished 8th at Region and the top 7 individuals qualified for the state meet. Here is the account that I wrote after the meet:

"Ladies what can I say? Our season ended one week short (3 points short) of our team goal that we set early in the season. But I can tell you with all sincerity, it was through no fault of your own. Lewis Palmer was improving all season and we talked about that possibility before the meet. I honestly believe that had we arrived at the meet in time to jog and walk the course as we always do and had we had time to warm up the way you always do, you would have made up those 3 points. I honestly believe you ran as well or maybe even better than you should have under the circumstances and I'm as proud of you as any team I've ever coached. Don't think for one minute that anything any of you did cost us that trip to state. You did the best you could, each of you know it and I know it and that's all that matters. Thank you for a wonderful season that will be capped off by Kim representing you at the State meet on Saturday. You have started something in the past two seasons that can continue to improve and be the type of program you'll always be  proud to have been associated with as I am proud to have been associated with each of you.

What now? First you put Friday's disappointment behind you and think of all the positives that have come out of this season both as a team and individually; you put 7 trophies in the trophy case and every member of the team ran lifetime bests during the season. There were no trophies before this year and a lifetime best is the most you can hope for in any season. Then we have to look ahead to next year and decide what we have to do to continue being the type of quality program you've become.

Next Year: Although we only lose Fatima to graduation, 3 of our top 9 runners are moving this semester. We'll certainly miss Fatima, Kim, Cindy and LaTisha. At least we'll have Fatima for Track season". (Kim moved to PA, Cindy to the north part of Colorado Springs into a different school district and LaTisha whose father was army, to Texas where she wound up being a state medalist in the 800 meters).

So what happened? Why were we late to the meet? Why do I think we could have defeated Lewis Palmer? Our bus driver was a truck driver that did deliveries throughout the school district. He decided that it was more important to finish his deliveries than pick us up on time. It was my policy then and still my personal policy when racing now to be at a meet an hour before the start. This gave us enough time to stretch, warm up, jog and scout the course, use the restroom, have a team briefing and so on. Dale (I remember his name 27 years later) got us to the meet 15 minutes before the start and the girl's race was first. Talk about disrupting the important routine we had established. 

What compounded the problem is that the officials had changed the course at Pueblo City Park Golf Course from the course we had run earlier in the season. The girls thought the finish line was a couple of hundred yards short of where it actually was so when they started their finishing kick and came over the small hill expecting the finish it wasn't there. We lost by 3 points to Lewis Palmer and 4 of our girls were passed by Lewis Palmer athletes in the space between where they thought the finish was and where it actually was. Good for them, not so good for us. 

It was a tough way to end an outstanding season.

Fatima at a winter race between seasons

Fatima years after she graduated at the state XC meet in Denver

Kim at the 1988 State Meet - She still holds the school record in XC

Coach Spell - Kim - Coach Anstey
State Championship - 1988 Pueblo, Colorado

1989 Track

1989 Track

The 1989 track season was unique in that we started out by going to Adams State College in Alamosa to compete in an indoor meet. It was our first and would be our only indoor meet in all the years that I coached at Sierra. While they didn't keep team scores we had some very good individual and relay performances and it provided a new experience for the girls. It was basically like racing on a rubberized gym floor.

Once again we won all of our midweek triangle and quad meets and our underclassmen did well at the Pueblo Freshman meet and both D&B meets where they finished 2nd in both to the Rye varsity team. Again the importance of these meets was the opportunity to find talent. Competition usually brought out the best in our kids and we would often see things in the small school varsity meets that would never show up in practice. 

With one exception we were 1st or 2nd in all of out varsity invitationals. The only exception was Canon City where we finished 4th of 18 teams the week before our Regional Championship meet. In the Canon City newsletter this is what I had to say: "There's not a lot to say about this meet. As I already told you. aside from Cassandra, Fatima, Janie and Olivia, there was a lot to be desired from your performances. We already discussed it on the bus so no more needs to be said. Everyone's entitled to a bad meet and now we've had ours. As I said, the good news is that despite a less than good effort we still beat all of the teams in our District and most of you beat everyone in the District in your events.

Of the four girls who had a good meet three were distance runners who only scored 7 points between them but they all ran good times. The fourth was the young lady who moved from a sprinter to throwing after her freshman year and in this meet she set both school and meet records in the discus and finished 2nd in the shot put accounting for 18 of our 46 points.

We got it back together the next week and won our District Championship by 24 points over the runner up team. 105 - 84. Cassandra won and set District records in the shot put and discus and Michelle another senior who I said to remember when she was a freshman ran the leadoff leg on the 4 x 100 relay that we won, set a District record and qualified for state in. They were both 4 year letter winners and emblematic of the kind of athletes who stuck with the program and helped us be a successful, tradition rich program. 

Coach Clark's Influence - 1987 - 1988

It would be impossible to write about my career as a coach without taking the time to talk about the influence of my high school coach on my life in general and more specifically on my coaching philosophy. I began running for Coach Marshall Clark at Los Altos High School in Hacienda Heights, California as a skinny little freshman in 1962. I honestly can't say why I joined cross country in the first place but it is not an overstatement to say that running for Coach Clark changed my life. I had never been a runner prior to starting at Los Altos and I certainly didn't become one right away. As a matter of fact, I was one of the slowest runners on the team. In our first meet, a triangular with Pioneer and Long Beach Wilson I was the next to last runner on our team 26th of 27 Los Altos runners. While this could have been discouraging and probably was more than I remember, Coach focused on improvement and compared our times from our first time trial to our first meet results and showed that in just a few days I had improved by 29 seconds. 

I stayed around the bottom of the team most of the season and then at a meet with Baldwin Park we ran our slower runners against the varsity and junior varsity teams from Bishop Amat High School.  I was on the junior varsity team of course but it was a high point of my season at that point. We won the JV race and I was one of the five scoring runners for our team. In the newsletter Coach wrote, "Showing indications of future promise were Ruben Chavez (3rd), Dave Oden (4th), Jack Phethean (5th), Dana Anstey (6th), Cliff Coffey (9th) and Bob Miko (10th). The fact that he was once again emphasizing improvement as well as potential for the guys on the lowest tier of the team made a big impact on me that always stuck with me and was reflected in the newsletters that I wrote for my teams throughout my career.

The other thing that I learned from Coach that year and carried throughout my career was the importance of the total team. After the Mt. San Antonio College Invitational this is what Coach wrote; "Los Altos runners led by Bruce Geddes (9:02) posted outstanding times and personal bests right down the line. Los Altos HS was one of the top teams of the meet as team victories were recorded in varsity and novice competition. Freshmen runners did well and placed 4th in a team of fourteen teams in their race." About the freshman team he continued, "All six LA runners can be proud of their improvement".  My takeaway here is once again his focus on improvement as well as team performance.

My philosophy of everyone regardless of talent having an opportunity to letter was also learned from Coach. My freshmen year I didn't earn a frosh soph letter in cross country or a C team letter in track and I was one of very few team members who could make that claim. Ironically what I did win was Most Inspirational Runner on the Frosh Soph cross country team and that was an award voted on by my teammates. (I would win it my sophomore year as well). They recognized the fact that despite the fact that I had very little natural ability I worked hard and always did my best. 

Now I don't know if I had anything to do with Coach changing his letter policy but I like to think that I was because of my work ethic and the respect I had from my teammates for that work ethic. The point is that after my freshman year I never again saw Coach not letter someone who did their best all season no matter their talent level. That is the philosophy that I carried throughout my entire coaching career. My athletes could earn points for practice, performance, academics and equally important they could lose points for poor classroom performance. The focus was on effort over talent and academics.

By the time I graduated I had the 5th fastest time on the cross country team when the season ended and lettered varsity in both cross country and track. It took me four years to earn those varsity letters but our program offered Frosh-Soph, Junior Varsity and Varsity in cross country and C, B and Varsity in track so I always lettered after my freshman year. My final dual track meet my senior year I won my event and as a team we won varsity and cee divisions and tied for first in the bee division. Coach wrote the following summary; "We had one of our finest team performances of the year. It has been a hard year, injuries, facility problems, etc., but the key factor was that the team as a whole didn't give up when it looked like it was all over two weeks ago. To the entire team, it was a job well done". He made sure that we knew we had a lot to be proud of.

I graduated in 1966 and Coach left Los Altos to move to northern California after just one more year to become the cross country coach at Stanford University. during his 5 decade career he also coached at Seaside High School for a year, San Jose State University until the disbanded the program in 1988, the University of Montana from 1978 - 1980 and the last 10 years of his career at Saratoga High School. It was the Saratoga girl's cross country team he was training with when on September 30, 2002 he collapsed and died instantly. The following was written in a biography provided by his son Richard: "Despite his credentials, Coach Clark as he was widely known by his athletes will perhaps best be remembered for his selfless & indiscriminate dedication to the men and women, boys and girls he coached over five decades, and from his colleagues for his unwavering passion and loyalty to the sport(s).

Former Stanford Head Track and 1968 U.S. Olympic Coach said of Clark, He tried to build men and not just champions. As a result everyone was better for having him as a mentor...He made a difference in everyone's lives who knew him."

Coach and I kept in touch through letters and sharing each other's result sheets up until the time that he died. His death hit me hard and I will be forever grateful for his mentorship and influence on my life.

I was pleasantly surprised when doing research for this post to come across a book written by one of his former Stanford athletes, Jock: A Memoir of the Counterculture, who dedicated the book to Coach. His dedication read; "FOR COACH MARSHALL CLARK '...who gave us the bit, then handed us the reins...' In the first few pages he talked about Coach's first meeting with the team. 

"With these formalities out of the way, Coach cut to the chase: 'Most of you have done good work this summer in preparation for the season, and I want us to continue that. I also want all of us to think about Arthur Lydiard's maxim, 'Train, don't Strain'. This doesn't mean we won't train hard, because we will, but we're also going to stay relaxed and run within ourselves,' he went on, in an unhurried manner that seemed native to him. 'We'll put in enough miles, at quick enough tempos, for this approach to pay off in time. We'll have harder days and we'll have easier days, but the key to everything will be patience and consistency. If each of you follows through and does the workouts, I think we could find ourselves - you could find yourself - running faster than you ever thought possible.'

I was very fortunate to have known Coach Marshall Clark!

1987 was my final year coaching the UCCS cross country teams and it was also my first year as the head cross country coach at Sierra High School. the 1988 track season was also the year that I was hired as the head girl's track coach at Sierra. It was a tough year simply because it was my first year running both Sierra programs, as I said I was still doing the UCCS program and I was still teaching at Carmel Middle School. I was taking over a cross country program that had struggled to even have enough athletes to field a scoring team, particularly on the girls side. There had been one girl who qualified to attend the state meet but she was no longer running. And here I was, not even in the building to recruit for the program. To call it a challenge would be an understatement. My goals that first season were very conservative but still challenging based on the the school's short three year cross country history. The first goal was to field a scoring team and we did that at every meet that year in both divisions.

The fact that it takes 5 athletes finishing to have a scoring team shows how challenging this goal was for us. We were a small team particularly the girls. Of the 19 kids on the team only one had run cross country before and that was sophomore Gerald Romero a young man I had taught at Carmel in the 8th grade. Since we had enough to know we could score going into the first meet we made our goal a little more challenging for the team, we said we wanted to, "Team at least beat somebody and as an individual, do your best even it was just finishing your first meet". We accomplished the team goals by finishing 10th of 11 in girls and 15th of 17 in boys and the individual goal by having everyone finish. Not exactly world beaters but it was a good first step. 

We ended the season with the girl's team beating more and more teams as the season went on and finishing 7th of 12 at the Metro League meet and and all of the girls improving and becoming more competitive. The boy's team didn't fare as well finishing 12th of 12 at League but individually showing improvement throughout the season. For example Gerald, our only returner, who had run 22:12 at the Pikes Peak Invitational the previous year as a freshman was only our 4th runner that day and ran 20:30. Improvement was happening.

That was in 1987 and now in 2015 I am still in touch with Gerald weekly and I go back to Colorado to run a race with him at least once a year. I stay in frequent contact with Rashaan Davis one of the best stories to come from our program, who is himself a teacher and coach today. From those humble beginnings they and a female teammate, Fatima Curley are all members of the Sierra High School Athletic Hall of Fame. 

Rashaan Davis  - Team Captain 1987 XC

One of the biggest challenges for me as the head track coach was the same as it was for cross country and that was teaching at a different school than I coached at. An advantage I had was that one of my assistant coaches was a well liked PE teacher, Shirley Diggs who was also the head Volleyball coach. It also helped that the returning athletes knew me from my two prior years as an assistant and they were instrumental in encouraging other girls to come out for the team. 

It was an easier transition than cross country had been because of my working in the program for two previous years and the fact that I wasn't simultaneously coaching at the college. Another advantage was that we had a successful history to build from. Our first three years we had finished 2nd - 1st - 2nd in the League Championship meet. 

We had four midweek league triangular meets and won 3 of them finishing 2nd in the other. Many of the coaches didn't put any emphasis on these meets but I always did because I considered them the best opportunity to do several things. Get more athletes an opportunity to compete, have athletes try competing in events they might not normally do and most important, get a good hard competitive effort that in my opinion you couldn't duplicate in a practice. So our midweek meets were always one of our hard workout days. 

I also started getting our team entered in small school meets that provided varsity competitive opportunities for our freshmen and sophomores that they wouldn't get otherwise and that really paid of with quality depth in our program. That first year we entered two small school meets at Colorado D & B and won them both. We really found some talent because of those opportunities.

Additionally we won the 20 team Canon City Invitational and we won the 12 team Region with 112 points, Rampart was 2nd with 109. Remember the girl who I said was a sprinter as a freshman who we convinced to become a thrower after preseason testing? She won the District championship in the discus as a junior this year. 

This was also the year when I made it clear numerous times that while they could always challenge for spots in individual events if they felt that they could beat someone on the team, all relay decisions were and always would be mine. This idea will be revisited in future posts.  

It was a good start to my years as head coach at Sierra High School. 

Coaching Philosophy - 1986 - 1987

In the early 1980s I took a coaching class at New Mexico Junior College. It was "Scientific Foundations of Coaching" and was taught by a the women's basketball coach at the college. One of the first assignments we were given was to write a coaching philosophy. I was reading that philosophy paper as I was researching for this blog and it amazes me how little my philosophy changed throughout my career. Here word for word is that paper:

It has been said by many people in many different ways that, 'there is no better laboratory for the lessons of life than the world of athletics'. Because of this, I think that we as coaches should do all that we can to see that the maximum number of young people are given the opportunity to participate. In order to do this, we must actively recruit athletes by encouraging them to be a part of a program, if not yours, then someone elses. Time and time again, I've heard coaches say, "I'm not begging them to come out, if they don't want to play that's their problem". I don't think it's 'begging', I think that it's a prerequisite of good coaching.

The success or failure of any program depends upon the athletes you have to work with, so obviously the more you have in the program the greater the potential for success. Also, the more athletes in your program, the more opportunities for you to influence the lives of young people. For these reasons, I feel that all coaches are negligent if they do not actively seek to involve as many people as possible.

Once you get the athletes into your program it is essential that they have goals. It is a responsibility of the coach to help each athlete set goals that will help keep the athlete always looking ahead for further progress.

An athlete must have both short range and long range goals. The goals an athlete sets should be challenging and yet realistic. Setting goals that there is no chance of reaching can be self-defeating; therefore goals should follow a step by step progression. As an athlete meets or exceeds goals, new ones should be set. An athlete without goals can be likened to a ship without a rudder, both have nothing controlling their direction.

"Set a goal -- then get rid of those things in your life which keep you from attaining that goal". Joe Newton

I feel that every athlete in a program should have the opportunity to succeed and this is always possible in the sports of track and field and cross country. By using time or distance goals every athlete can be and will be successful regardless of whether they finish first or last in competition.

"Understand that only one runner comes in first, but every runner is a winner if he (she) has done his (her) best". Newton

"Without personal motivation, it is impossible to make the sacrifices and apply the dedication needed to become a champion performer". Newton

It is a responsibility of the coach to be a motivator. With so many things competing for an athlete's time, a coach who cannot motivate will not get the commitment for excellence from his athletes.

There are as many ways to motivate as there are athletes and coaches. It is my opinion that encouragement and emphasis on the positive is the best way. Newsletters, slogans, inspirational readings and talks are all helpful. Knowing each athlete personally and caring about them as a person away from the field, not just on it, is important if you are going to have the type of relationship that allows you to be a successful motivator.

Olympian Carol Lewis signing autographs after talking with our team.

To be truly successful as a motivator, a coach must have a relationship with his athletes that is based on mutual respect. If it is obvious to athletes that the coach cares for and respects them, they will learn to share the same feelings for the coach. This give and take atmosphere promotes a total commitment and dedication to the program from both coach and athlete.

By total commitment, I feel that to be a successful coach you must be willing to give extra time as necessary to help your athletes and your program. I also feel that a successful coach must be very organized so that available time is not wasted. To avoid wasting the time of athletes and coaches, and make the maximum use of available time, a coach should always know well in advance what he hopes to accomplish in practice and how he intends to do it. This does not mean that it cannot be changed, a coach must be flexible enough to know when factors indicate that a change in plans is necessary.

The coach should care enough about the athlete to instill lifetime values into his athletes and reinforce them whenever possible. He should expect his athletes to be good students, by this I mean do their best, and display exemplary conduct at all times. His athletes should understand that they are in the public eye and everything they do will reflect upon not only themselves but their family, their team, their school and their community. 'No price is too high to pay for a good reputation'.

When violations of rules occur, the athlete should know that she will be dealt with fairly and consistently but that unacceptable behavior will not be tolerated. No athlete is bigger than the total program. Rules should be kept to a minimum and be enforceable. A bunch of petty, nitpicking rules will only serve as a wedge between the coach and his team.

A factor which a coach has no control over which will have a great deal of control over him and his program is luck, both good and bad. The successful coach will be prepared to take advantage of good luck and flexible enough to deal with bad luck if it occurs. As a general rule where luck is concerned  however, the coach would be wise to remember the old saying, 'the harder I work, the luckier I get'.

Some other sayings about luck that I feel are significant are: "Good luck is a lazy man's estimate of a worker's success", Anon. "Behind bad luck comes good luck" Gypsy Proverb. And finally, "Luck is when preparation meets opportunity".

Winning, in many people's eyes is the bottom line in sports. Whether you believe that or not, if you get athletes into your program, help them set goals and be successful, motivate them, show them respect and teach them values they can use throughout life, and be prepared to deal with 'luck' good or bad, the winning will take care of itself.

Looking back 36 years later I'm amazed at how the philosophy that I initially wrote to fulfill a class assignment stayed with me through my entire coaching career. Hopefully that will be evident as I continue looking at my twenty years of coaching in Colorado.

For the 1986 fall season I was still coaching cross country at UCCS because there was still no opening at either of our district high schools. While I enjoyed coaching there college coaching was not something I wanted to do long term. 

'86 was also the first time I attended a high school meet in the Springs because I wanted to support the Sierra team since I was coaching track there and one of Sierra's runners was a young man I had taught in middle school who I had encouraged to run cross country in high school. He made it clear that he was a soccer player and baseball player and wouldn't run but since their was no fall soccer in the district at that time his mother told him that he had to do a sport and he chose cross country. He is still a top masters runner in Colorado today. I came away from the meet more determined than ever to someday coach cross country at Sierra. The most respectful thing I can say is that the team was not competitive. 

For the 1987 spring season I was hired as a paid assistant for the girl's team after only one year as a volunteer. That made me even more determined to eventually get into the high school as a teacher as well as a coach. Two things that stand out to me as I look through handouts from that '87 season are the importance of having depth in a program as opposed to having just one or two 'superstars' and the importance of getting athletes into events where they can be successful.

Three athletes in particular come to mind. The first was a good sprinter who we converted to a very good hurdler so she was winning events in hurdles and relays when she wouldn't have even beaten her own teammates in open sprint events. The second was a girl who as a freshman insisted that she was a sprinter and we were able to convince her to become a thrower where she was very successful particularly in the discus where she through her personal best at the District Championship. The final girl was a decent sprinter who very seldom placed unless it was in junior varsity meets but we kept finding places for her to run and she ran her personal best in the 100 meters at District. While she didn't make the finals the fact that she was able to be involved was enough to make her feel like part of the team.

We were once again beaten by Rampart in the District meet higher and closer than our prior performances indicated we would. The actual District scores were Rampart 101, Sierra 89, Coronado 60, Widefield 52, Wasson 48, Doherty 48, Harrison 42, Mitchell 39, Cheyenne Mountain 24, Air Academy 20 and Palmer 4.

Based on everyone's season bests entering the meet, the score was projected as: Rampart 102, Coronado 70 and Sierra 66. And if the meet had been scored after the prelims it would have been: Rampart 90, Widefield 66 and Sierra 62. Our athletes certainly rose to the challenge when the finals were contested.

An Intentional Coach - 1985 - 1986

When I completed my blog, www.anaccidentalcoach.blogspot.com I knew that I was going to write at least one more blog about my years as a coach in Colorado Springs, Colorado from 1985 - 2005. One of the questions I've been struggling with since I ended the previous blog was, "How do I cover 20 years in a manageable way?" Trying to answer that question has led to a good case of writer's block and a lot of time thinking with no specific answers. I finally decided that I would try to write it from a yearly perspective and hope that it is more manageable that way.

The difference between being an "accidental" coach and an "intentional coach is the fact that I knew when I left Lovington, New Mexico after eight years coaching there that no matter what I would coach again when I went to work in Colorado Springs. And as soon as I started applying for teaching positions I made it clear that I was available to coach and while my preferences were track and cross country, I would coach whatever I had to in order to get my foot in the door so to speak.

When we first arrived in the Springs I put my application in at all of the school districts in town, and there are many. Additionally I applied at all of the small towns in the area. My interview for Hanover actually took place at the Village Inn on Academy Blvd which was also where teachers met and parked to take the staff bus from the Springs to Hanover and back daily as a perk of the job. I was offered a position teaching junior and senior high school, it was six or seven classes including shop. Additionally I would be coaching volleyball, wrestling and junior and senior high school track. I wanted to teach and coach so I agreed to the job but had to wait to be approved at the next school board meeting.

The same day that I was supposed to attend the meeting to be introduced I was interviewed for and offered a job teaching 8th grade U.S, History, Enrichment Reading and P.E. at a middle school, Carmel, in Harrison School District 2 on the south end of Colorado Springs. While there was no coaching I was told that I would be able to start some intramural programs and that I could possibly coach at one of the two district high schools if something opened up. I called Hanover and declined the job before the meeting and accepted the Carmel Middle School job.

A week or two after I was hired and before the job actually started, Sierra High School in the district advertised an opening for a social studies teacher in addition to a tennis coach. I went to visit the Principal and he informed me that we couldn't just do a simple transfer we would have to go through the whole hiring process again and the closing date passed the previous day. They hired a teacher who had taught in a private school in Denver and who had no coaching experience. The reason that I mention her lack of coaching experience is because she never coached one day the entire time that she worked in our district or after she moved years later to a neighboring district. As a matter of fact she was a member of a small group of teachers who were more anti than pro where the value of athletics were concerned. But it worked for her, she got the teaching job and I stayed with the middle school position.

Both high schools already had cross country coaches and no openings so I had to make the best of coaching intramural volleyball and teaching one PE class. That changed when I saw an ad in the want ads of one of the Colorado Springs newspapers, they had two dailies then, for an assistant cross country coach at UCCS, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. I had to apply, interview, go through the background check with references and all the other steps you would expect for any job and I was offered the job. I would be an assistant with the men's program and head coach of the women's program. And I would get to do this for the sum of $100.00. That's not a typo!

If being willing to work for that "salary" wasn't proof that I wanted to coach then I will never convince you.

So my first paid coaching experience as in "intentional" coach in Colorado Springs was as a manager more than an actual coach. Our teams were club teams as opposed to Intercollegiate despite the fact that all of the teams on our schedule were varsity or sub varsity teams from other colleges in Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas. I say manager because I coordinated travel for meets and "suggested" workout guidelines. Our athletes had various amounts of experience and all were employed full time in addition to going to school so the idea of a set practice time when we could all get together was out of the question. The only time we really felt like a team was when we were at a meet. And we never knew who would be running until the cars left the parking lot.

I coached at UCCS for three seasons, 1985, 1986 and 1987. The third year was a challenge to schedule simply traveling to meets with the team. The reason for the more challenging schedule is that by the 1987 season I was also the head cross country coach at Sierra High School, something that I will talk more about when I get to the 87-88 coaching year.

Here is a summary that I wrote earlier about my three years coaching at UCCS. It has been edited some for this post.  "I checked the classified ads every day hoping that some school somewhere would advertise for a coach and I would be able to work it into my teaching schedule. Ironically a coaching position did come open but it wasn't at a high school it was at one of the local colleges, UCCS, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. I called, applied and was hired as the women's coach. There were times that I worked with the men as well if their coach had schedule conflicts which he did more often than not.


While we were a club team we ran against varsity teams from colleges and universities from Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas. As a matter of fact, one of my athletes from Lovington, New Mexico, was running at Garden City Community College in Kansas and she raced against us at the Air Force Academy Invitational. She stayed with my family while she was in Colorado Springs. Without a doubt a highlight for the team was when the women won the University of Southern Colorado Invitational in Pueblo. There were a total of eight teams competing. Additionally we had two individuals who finished 1st and 4th. Not everyone appreciated a "club" team winning and Colorado College made sure that they told the paper we were a club team when they called the results of the meet into the newspaper.

The funniest memory I have of coaching the team was what happened in September 1985, my first year with the team. We traveled to Alamosa to compete in the Adams State Invitational. Anyone who knows about collegiate cross country for the past several decades knows that Adams State is one of the premier programs in the nation, year after year. At the time their men's coach and the meet director was Dr. Joe Vigil a legendary coach who is still coaching Olympian Brenda Martinez and others. I had met Coach Vigil when he was my TAC Level Two Coaching certification instructor at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.

We only had four men show up for the meet but because I was taking a graduate course at the time at UCCS and because we were a club sport I was actually eligible to compete. I borrowed a pair of flowered running shorts that one of the guys had in his car trunk and a tee shirt that said Aruba across the front from another so that I could run; fortunately I had my running shoes on. I wasn't crazy about running but I wanted to give the team an opportunity to have a score. I actually wound up being the fourth runner on our team and finished 72nd of 74. Here's where the "funny" part comes in and as a result here's also where I started questioning the "class" of Coach Vigil.

He came to me after the race and began to chew me out about my lack of respect for the meet because I raced without an official uniform. I'm laughing again as I write this because he was so ridiculous. I can honestly say that I laughed in the face of an Olympic Coach. For the record we were last of the scoring teams so it isn't as if I impacted the outcome of the meet I simply gave our team the chance to have a team score. The final irony is that Coach Vigil had each of his athletes accompanied and paced throughout the race by another athlete on a bike, a blatant violation of the rules."

That's a brief summary of my three years coaching at UCCS. It was a good experience and was another tool in my coaching resume toolkit.

That spring an opening to coach boys track opened at Sierra High School and I applied as soon as I saw the post. I had an interview with the head coach Brent Garretson. I went into the interview feeling very confident and our interview went very well and did nothing to reduce my confidence. Brent and I had very similar philosophies about track and field and the importance of the 400 meters as the heart of a successful team. A couple of days later I had to call back to find out that the job had been given to another teacher in the building, Greg Marinski. I then asked Brent if he would be interested in having me as a volunteer coach. I was determined to coach track somewhere. He told me sure if I wanted to but didn't show much interest.

The next day I thought about it and was pretty pissed really about his lack of interest in my coaching even as a volunteer so I asked around and got the name of the head girl's coach, Gary Montel. That night I got his number from the staff directory, called and explained who I was, what my experience was and asked if he would be interested in letting me be a volunteer coach with his program. He said yes, I called Brent and told him that I would be working with the girl's team instead and that is how I got my foot in the door at Sierra High School, as a volunteer.

It turned out to be the right decision as Gary let me do more than just stand around and watch. I worked mostly with the distance girls and that was fine because of all my prior experience coaching cross country as well as my own experience as a distance runner.

I continued to believe in the importance of newsletters for keeping athletes informed and provided the Sierra girls with a newsletter prior to our first meet. I didn't know at the time how prophetic I was when I wrote, "Although Sierra High School is only in its second year, we have already started a strong track tradition". I then provided a brief summary of the success from the 1985 season including the fact that they finished 2nd in the Metro League (Region) Championship and that they were only 5 points behind the winner, Rampart. Those 5 points became a coaching point all season.

In the newsletter I talked about the importance of time and hard work to be successful and then talked about how to be a winner. "There are many ways to be a winner in track and field, finishing first in an event or meet is only one of them. You can be a winner simply by doing your best everyday in practice and meets. You can be a winner and see it in your improved performances. You can be a winner by being a team person, encouraging and helping your teammates. Most important, you can be a winner simply by finishing what you start. Don't be a quitter!!!!"

We had good and bad performances individually and as a team during the 1986 season and we had athletes that would help me learn and reinforce lessons that would be helpful for the twenty years that I coached the girl's team at Sierra. One very important lesson that I learned was that you could never count on an athlete the next year based on what she did the current year. Another was the importance of getting athletes to believe in you enough to allow you to get them into the events where they have the best chance of being successful. Another that I knew but had reinforced was that an athlete is often happier sitting the bench in a team sport than having to perform with no place to hide.

We had a young lady who had been League Champion in the 800 meters as a freshman and she finished 7th in the same event her sophomore year. Her junior year she joined the newly established soccer team and her senior year she played tennis. We had twins who were both promising distance runners as freshmen who didn't come out the next year because they wanted to play soccer. The girl who was the State Champion in the 300 hurdles as a sophomore at different school in town had been League Champion as a freshman at Sierra the previous year. There are other examples but I think you get the point.

My first year coaching track at Sierra ended well. Remember I said that the 5 points we lost by to Rampart in 1985 was a coaching point of emphasis all season? We won the first League/District Championship in any sport in school history that spring and did it by beating Rampart by 4 1/2 points!