"You did a good job in your first competition of the season. The reason we run a scrimmage is so that you can feel what it is like to compete before we have our first meet every year. Now you should be able to ask yourself some questions and answer them. What will it take for me to race rather than run? What will it take for me to reach my goal time this season. (What is your goal?) What do I need to do in practice so that I'm no longer walking or jogging in meets? (Very few of you raced Friday. Many of you ran, some of you jogged and a few of you looked like you were on a walk through the park). Only you can answer the questions here and the scrimmage should have given you the experience to start finding those answers".
In our 2000 meter time trial and our scrimmage it became obvious that we were going to have an outstanding 1-2 punch on the girl's team with Alanna and Cassandra that was reinforced at our first meet, the Harrison Invitational when Cassandra was 12th and Alanna 13th where over there were over 100 runners. I was curious to see how Alanna would respond to getting beat by Cassandra and she responded like a champion. While Cassandra had an outstanding season as our #2 runner and was in the top 10 more often than not, she never beat Alanna again. Alanna's finishes the rest of the season were: 3-3-4-1-9-3-6-2-and 5th in region. Then she finished 19th at state, the highest a Sierra ever finished at State. It was a season only equaled by Kim Cain the school record holder's 1988 season. I of the things that I appreciated most about Alanna's season was her drive to remain the #1 runner on the team in spite of intense competition from Cassandra.
The second thing that came from those early results was twofold. First, Dale was ready to pick up right where he left off. He had been our top finisher in every meet the previous year and unless someone came out late that we knew nothing about he was going to be our top runner again; he finished 2nd at Harrison and the rest of the year he placed, 3-1-2-13-1-2-2-5-3-8-6 including region and state. The other obvious thing about our boys team is that there was no one who was going to run anywhere near Dale and therefore our pack running focus had to shift to 2-6 and 2-7 packs with Dale doing his thing.
Our two areas of emphasis after the meet were "comfort zone" and "race strategy". To many of you still insist upon running in the Comfort Zone, particularly the girls and some of the varsity boys. You've got to be willing to run through the pain and get a second wind. If you slow down every time you feel discomfort you'll never reach your potential. And. "Divide the race into manageable sections. Learn to pass aggressively and at the right times. Think the entire race, you can beat people by maintaining your FOCUS when they lose theirs".
After two more meets in which our girls were 2nd and 2nd and the boys 5th and 2nd we wanted them to start focusing on who their competition was if they hoped to once again return to state. "Our region is so tough this year that it's going to come down to who is healthy and who competes on the day of the Regional meet as far as who will qualify for state. Each of you need to set goals and challenge yourself starting right now. You cannot sit back and expect that someone else on your team is going to carry you to state. It will not happen. Ask someone about what happened to the girls 3 years ago when they missed state by 3 points".
The next meet Amanda, a freshman competed for the first time. She is a great example about what I mean by the importance of getting kids out. I was walking down the athletic hall when I heard a group of girls walking down another hall towards the exit. They were a group of freshmen and all looked like they should be doing sports. I knew that none of them were playing volleyball because I had been to some volleyball games so I called for them to wait. Long story short, I invited them all to come out for cross country and while Amanda is the only one who did, she brought others with her when track season came around. In her first meet she obviously ran open and she finished 2nd leading the open girls to the team title. She would bounce back and forth on varsity the rest of the season. Then three weeks later, her sister Alexis who I recruited with Amanda's help out of my history class, ran her first meet she was our top open runner and eventually finished the season as our #5 runner. We were fortunate to have Amanda for 4 years of cross country, 4 years of track and 4 years of swimming, a Hall of Fame career. Alexis also ran her senior year for us. My point is that it is never to late to give a kid an opportunity to join.
Our final meet of the season prior to region was the Rangeview Raider Invitational and it was a season highlight and the best example of the importance of teamwork the entire season. While both the teams finished 3rd overall their combined scores gave them the coed championship the highest award given at the meet. "What a great way to finish off the regular season!!! In the last meet of the season where the entire team will run together you pulled it together, competed together, and won the combined team championship!!! Fantastic!!! That was a great TEAM effort!!! Look at the time comparisons those of you who ran last year and I think you'll see that you did a great job. Last year you let the course and the weather (hot) beat you. This year you competed regardless of the conditions and it paid off in a team championship. Good job".
At regionals the next week I saw one of the best examples of leadership and teamwork I had ever seen. While the teams were warming up and just before the boy's race Alanna came to me and said, "Coach you've got to talk to Dale, he's freaking out". Those may not have been the exact words but it was pretty much what she said. I got ahold of Dale and he was really anxious. I explained to him that all he had to do was finish in the top 10 to qualify for state it didn't matter what anyone else did. When he started he went out too fast with a 5 minute first mile. Fortunately he settled in and was able to finish 8th place.
For the second year in a row the top six teams from the region were going to qualify for state if 12 teams had scoring teams. In addition to Dale qualifying by finishing 8th, Alanna 5th and Cassandra 10th would also have qualified individually, instead they were able to lead their team to a 4th place finish and a 3rd straight trip to the state meet.
So how did Dale respond to barely making it to state? He went to the state meet, ran the race of his life, broke Lashon's school record and finished 6th individually. It was one of the best individual accomplishments I ever saw from a Sierra athlete. And the girls? Alanna had the highest ever finish at state by a Sierra girl and Cassandra broke the sophomore record that had stood since 1984. Dale and Alanna had two of the most successful cross country histories at Sierra. I wonder what it could have been if she hadn't been a gymnast her freshman year and he hadn't played football for two years. The same could be said for Alexis who we didn't get until halfway through her junior year. Additionally Ramon had the 3rd best freshman time and the 2nd best sophomore time entering the season and didn't come out. Finally, Angel completed the season as the 2nd fastest freshman male in school history and then moved. What could have been? That's a question we didn't have the luxury of dwelling on at Sierra. We just had to work with the kids who were there each season.
It could be argued that the most important competitive opportunity of the season was the first scrimmage. The reason that I say this is because it is the first chance that many of the athletes get to run against someone in another uniform. Even though scores are not kept in a scrimmage it becomes pretty obvious how you stack up not just against your teammates but against athletes from other teams. This was definitely true in 1993. We had a lot of first year team members and it gave us a chance to see them in action. Just as an example we had 11 girls compete in the 200, 7 in the 1600. 2 4 x 1's, 2 4 x 8's and even 3 4 x 4's. Why is that significant? Because my belief has always been that you built a successful program by having sprinters who could move up to the 400 and distance runners who could run everything from the 800 to the 3200 and even come down to the 400 occasionally. We had 7 girls throw both the shot and the discus.
The second thing that was so important about the scrimmage is that it gave us a chance to see our weaknesses as coaches as far as having our athletes prepared for what the season expectations were. After the scrimmage I shared the following comments with the team.
"What do these results tell us? Basically they give us a starting point for the future. Who can run? Who can sprint? Who can hurdle? Who can jump? Who can throw? This is only part of the answer but it gives us a place to start. As I said on page 1 of this handout, go back and reread the material on meet etiquette! If you get yourself or a teammate disqualified because you don't do the right thing it will be tough to explain".
As I've shared before these are the same reasons that we always ran all of our kids in midweek league meets. These meets were competitive opportunities where we could move athletes around and get them to try different events. A key to our keeping athletes out for the team was providing them with these opportunities as part of the "team", not simply junior varsity backups. Prior to our first Tuesday meet after we had already run two invitationals this is what I said, "We'll have a Tuesday meet where we'll finally get a chance to get some of you in who haven't competed. We'll have a meet Wednesday that will be only for freshmen so we will try to get most of you in, depending on how much practice you've missed". It was important to let the kids know that there were going to be opportunities for their practice to pay off.
A final type of competition that we felt was important were relay meets where results were based by adding your top 4 field event efforts for an overall total that would determine places. These meets were great for trying someone in a new event and giving them an opportunity to be part of a successful event. For example in the Icicle Relays in '93 we needed a 4th shot putter to go with Melissa, Leilani and Donna so we used Judy a three sport athlete who was primarily a jumper. They won first place, set a new school record and Judy had the 3rd best throw of the 4 of them. This proved to be important as the season progressed.
There were two high schools in our district, Sierra and Harrison so when teams were competitive there was a lot of rivalry. Adding to this is that we had 3 middle schools that fed the high schools and one of them, Carmel split with some kids going to each depending on where they lived. This really fed rivalries when teams were competitive. As a matter of fact some of the programs at both of our schools were "bottom feeders" and their only win each year might be against the district rival. For that reason the rivalry in the kids minds wasn't always rational. That was certainly the case in girl's track this season. Harrison had a good sprinter who had competed against our outstanding freshman sprinter in club track so that rivalry carried over throughout a lot of the team. Unfortunately it affected some of our athletes in a negative way because they built Harrison up in their minds as real competition. The first two times this season that we met Harrison we were 1st with 78 points, Harrison 7th with 28 at Icicle and at Canon City we were 1st with 100 and Harrison 5th with 39. And they still talked about Harrison going into the Panther Relays hosted by Harrison. The outcome? We were 1st with 100 points again and Harrison was runner up but with only 46 points. In the newsletter I wrote, And yet you still insist on worrying about what they say and do". The rivalry obviously had more to do with just what happens on the track.
"One final comment about Harrison and then I don't want to hear any more about them. In 8 years Sierra has scored 839 points in District Championship meets and finished 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st, 1st, 2nd, 1st. Harrison has scored 300 and finished 8th, 6th, 7th, 6th, 9th, 7th, 6th, 6th. That's the end of that discussion. If they beat us in one event go beat them in another".
And when that District Championship meet rolled around everything I said held true to form. We won with 153 points a District record for points scored while Harrison had their best finish since Sierra was opened and placed 3rd with 71 points. And that was in spite of the fact that our top athlete in the 100, 200, 400 and LJ only finished the meet in the 100 and long jump which she won. She didn't compete in the finals of the 200 or 400 because of a hamstring that she had strained in cheerleader tryouts the week before. And her saga continued the next week at state where she placed 3rd in the long jump, false started in the 100 and got the medley relay team disqualified for a lane violation. The team still placed 12th at state.
And the throwers that I followed in the last post how did their seasons end? Melissa, Judy and Leilani were 1st, 3rd and 7th at district in the shot put with Melissa and Judy placing 2nd and 7th at state. In the discus Melissa, Leilani and Donna were 2nd, 3rd and 6th at district and at state Leilani and Melissa were 6th and 7th. Additionally Brent had a male thrower place 6th at state in the discus. He was continuing to prove what I believed when I hired him and asked him to coach throws. If you are a good coach and are willing to learn your events you can help kids be successful.
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