Coach Positive: Emphasize the things athletes are doing right when teaching a skill event. Telling an athlete to not do something over and over will only reinforce the incorrect learning.
Flexibility: As you all know, with the weather we have in Colorado Springs, we've got to be very flexible with our workouts. Always have an alternative indoor workout planned. Another area where we'll have to be very conscious of flexibility is due to the large number of athletes who'll be working out at the same time. Make sure the athletes are all aware of the importance of being aware of everything going on around them. Please constantly remind the athletes that when an athlete behind them yells, "track", they need to get off the track immediately.
Records: Many of our athletes will only be successful by improving from week to week and may never be overly successful in a meet situation. If you're not timing and measuring in practice and recording those results, they'll never see progress and will get discouraged. If you don't have the time to measure or time yourself, get enough managers to do it. I want copies of all practices and results at least once a week. Probably every Monday from the previous week if that works for you. Obviously you won't measure and time the athletes specific event each time but there are many options and they can all help the athlete become successful. If you would like suggestions, let me know.
Keep Kids Out: I know you all agree with me but I want to say this anyway, every athlete is important, keep them out. It's up to each of us to help each athlete have a positive experience. After all, we're the people that encouraged them to come out.
Practice Routine: Every day we will warm up with two laps and stretch as a team. After the first week or two depending on how far we get and how fast, we'll break into our own events for the rest of the warm up. I use 10 x 100 with a jog back and incorporate sprint form drills. This gives the athlete over a mile of additional warm up and gives you a chance to monitor form running etc. It works for me.
Fun: Fun is a priority. One of the athletes who runs track and cross country both for me made it clear that she really enjoys cross country more than track and fun is the reason. In all honesty, she was right. I made the mistake in the past of letting one or more negative athletes ruin the fun for all of us. Let's make an effort to not allow that this year. We all deserve to have fun.
Group Gripes: Unless it's something that the whole group needs to hear about, I prefer not to have any general group gripe sessions, deal with the individual or individuals involved.
Document: If there is any problem that could lead to dismissal from the team or any other action that could require parental or administrative involvement, document it as it occurs, don't try to recreate the incident later. In addition, document any injuries. We're not a medical staff, we can't be sure how serious an injury is. Also, if there is an injury that requires medical attention fill out an accident report for Debbie in the office.
Check Areas Daily: Make sure you do a thorough check of your area daily. Be sure the pits, runways, throwing rings, etc. are safe. Your managers can help here but the ultimate responsibility is yours.
And there was more. It was very important that we be on the same page as a staff if we were going to be successful. Two way, ongoing communication was critical.
After the '94 cross country scrimmage with Ponderosa it seemed like a good time to revisit how cross country was scored and the importance of things like pack times and finishing an entire race. Little did I know when I wrote this newsletter entry how prophetic it would be in regards to the girls team chances to return to the state meet.
"Scoring: FYI in cross country, low score wins. This is because they add up the places of the top 5 finishers for each team. What does that mean? It means that every runner needs to not only finish finish as high as possible so they score as few points as possible but also to beat as many people on other teams as possible to run their scores up. For example, at the mile on Saturday, Sierra was running 1-4-7-8-9-(29 total) and 10. Ponderosa was 2-3-5-6-11-(27 total). At that point they were only ahead of us by 2 points. The final places were Sierra 3-6-8-9-10-(36 total) and Ponderosa 1-2-4-5-7-(19 total). We had almost double their score. What does this mean? They're in better condition than we are. There is only one way to change this. Don't loaf in practice. You have to get to the point where you can race for 3.1 miles not just 1 mile".
Here is a brief overview of why this turned out to be prophetic. The past few seasons there were as many as six teams qualifying for state from our region and this year we were not only changing regions but only four teams would qualify. We knew which teams were going to be capable of keeping us from qualifying if we didn't perform and even our best performance might not be enough. At our first meet we got beat by Liberty one of the teams we had to beat, they had 151 to our 259. 108 points is a lot to overcome.
The next time we saw them was at the Air Academy Invitational and we were beaten 163 - 228. (65 points). We were also beaten by Rampart 108, Air Academy 179 and Lewis Palmer 199 from our region. Between Harrison and Air Academy the girls gained confidence by winning Pueblo County, Cheyenne Mountain and Falcon invitationals. At Cheyenne Mountain we beat Lewis Palmer 53 - 60 and at Falcon we beat Liberty 60 - 67. At the next meet, the Coronado meet once again Liberty wasn't there and we finished 5th. Two other teams from our region were there Rampart 2nd and Lewis Palmer 3rd. It continued to be obvious that we were going to have to beat one of the top four teams to qualify. At this point I handed out a "mid-season summary" for the kids with all of their performances and asked them to fill out a multi-page questionnaire and do an honest assessment of their season up to that point as well as what their goals, individual and team were for the remainder of the season.
Our next meet was interesting only because it showed that we were gaining respect in the cross country community. The meet was the Pueblo Invitational and was a two division meet. "That's the first time we've run Division I at Pueblo in 11 years. Why were we moved to Division I? Because we've earned the respect to be there. Ladies you finished 7th in a field of 21 teams. You were the 1st 4A team. I'm proud of your finish". Lewis Palmer won Division II.
At the Rampart Invitational Rampart 34 and Lewis Palmer 90 were 1st and 2nd, we were 4th with 127 and Air Academy 6th 164 and Liberty 9th 247. Both AA and Liberty were notorious for not always running their best team in every meet. While that might have worked for them in their programs because of the large teams they had I always ran my top seven in every meet unless they were injured or ill. Even though the coaches knew that Liberty did this we didn't say anything about it to the girls because they were feeling more confident about competing with them.
We next ran at the Pikes Peak Invitational and AA continued playing with their roster and finished 11th with 362 points. Lewis Palmer was 5th 214, Sierra 8th 293 and Liberty 9th 297. We also had a roster change in that Susan a young lady who transferred to Sierra from the Netherlands had enough practices to run her first meet. She finished 18th in the open division and earned a spot on the varsity for the next meet. At the final meet before Region Susan maintained her spot in the top seven so she would be running varsity at Region. We were the only team from our Region at Rangeview.
We made it to state for the 5th year in a row. The scores were as follows; Rampart 41, Air Academy 66, Lewis Palmer 81 and SIERRA 105. Liberty also scored 105 points but we got the qualifying spot because our 6th runner (Susan 37th) beat their 6th runner (50th). Susan was our 5th runner at the state meet. We were fortunate to have a strong 1-2 with Cassandra and Amanda but it was the work of the other girls 3 through about 9 that made it possible for us to become a state qualifying team.
And how did the school administration view this accomplishment? Go back and look at the send off for the 1990 cross country team and compare it to this picture.
The '95 track season was the last year that my staff included Brent, Ron, Kelly and Dennis and we also had Gayle Hinrichs that year. It was an efficient staff and with such a short season it was very important to be so. After the first week I wrote this in the coaches handout: "Good first week. I think we're right where we want to be. Some of you may be feeling a little restless because the weather is so good and we're not divided into groups yet. For the record, we didn't break into groups until next week last year either and we didn't even do the 200 time trial until next Monday and the 600 next Wednesday. We'll plan to do the 600 Monday. I'm sure they'll complain and swear they are not ready but we can get it over with while the weather is still good. Then if possible I want to do make yp with those who missed the 200 and the two jump tests. After Monday I don't want to test again until we absolutely have to".
Because we had such a good staff with Brent - throws, Ron - Distance, Dennis - Jumps, Kelly - Hurdles, Gayle - where needed and myself - sprints and relays we had a very well balanced track team, a real key to success. It gave the girls confidence to know that if someone messed up in one area someone else would pick up the points somewhere else. We finished 1st or 2nd in every meet in '95 including winning the regional championship for the 4th year in a row. While we only won 4 events at region we scored in all 18 events. This was also the first year that we moved our focus beyond the region to the state meet.
"In New Mexico our first goal was to win the District Championship but it was also our goal to win the State Championship. At Sierra it has always been our goal to win the District - Regional Championship but that's where it ends. It can't end there any longer. We have never been in a better position to win state than we are right now. It's going to take each of you getting focused on that goal right now, today, this morning and being willing to do what is necessary".
We didn't win state but we did have our best performance in the state meet up to that point. We finished 6th. "In 11 years Sierra has won a total of 64 medals at the state meet. This year you won 17 and that represents 27% of all state medals in school history. In the first 10 years of Sierra history the girls track teams had placed in a total of 20 events at state. This year you placed in 7 events".
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| 1995 GIRL'S TRACK |
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