Hey fellas,
So, here's the deal: The coach of our High School's Cross Country Jogging team had to resign without notice a couple weeks ago, so our AD asked me to take over. I’m by no means new to coaching, but I’m new to running, and a couple of my kids told me to try this site for some pointers.
Little background on me -- was asst. coach for our football team for 7 yrs. -- I left that position when our head coach was replaced -- didn't like the new guy, but that's neither here nor there. Point is, I've had a LOTTA experience molding young men into high performing citizens and atheletes.
Having problems with these kids though, hope some of you guys could help me out.
Little background on the kids. They won conference last year, so they got big heads - they think their hot sh*t (pardon the french). But understand, these guys aren't atheletes -- they're the kids who were too skinny for football, and couldn't make the soccer team, and so are the kids their competing against, so winning conference in cross country doesn't impress me, and I've told them as much. I timed them all in the 40 on the first day, and reshuffled the starters (top 7) based on the results, but trust me, NONE of their times were anything to write home about.
I let them know how lucky they are to have a coach from a revenue sport working with them, and I've put together a training schedule for them and asked them to "buy in" to the program I’d designed for them. I've let them know that, if they're willing to commit, to lay it all on the line, there's no reason we can't turn them into atheletes, which means, given the kinds of kids they're competing against, we should have no problem winning not just conference, but states.
But, and if you have a teenager, you know this, these kids think they know everything. So they immediately start questioning me, insisting they know better than a guy who was putting on the pads and helmet as a two time varsity letterman before any of them were even born.
Here’s the deal, and I apologize for how long this post is: When these guys race, it’s about 3 miles. Some of them want to run 10 or 12 miles a day!
I tell them, look troops, you already know how to run far, now we gotta teach you how to run fast. So I got them doing wind-sprints and hitting the weights (if you don’t think upper body strength helps your speed, look it up, it’s true).
They tell me “that’s not the way our last coach did it, we’ll peke too early, we should be running, not lifting, wah wah wah.” Never seen such a group of crybabies in all my years, but I guess that’s what I get for coaching a minor sport.
So here’s my question. I know how to develop speed. I used to coach corners (cornerbacks). If you know anything about football, you know that corners have to be fast. Several of my guys were all-conference. One got a full ride to a school that moved up to division 1 a year after he graduated. For those of you who aren’t familiar with college ball, division 1 is the same division that teams like Texas, Florida, USC and (former NCAA basketball champion) Duke play in. This is the bigtime, people. One of my guys played there, because of my coaching. I know how to coach speed.
So how do I get these kids to buy in to what I'm doing and commit to winning? Have any of you done what it takes to be the best? If so, maybe you can write something here that I can show them, so they can see I know what I’m talking about. If you’ve been in the Olympics, please mention that too, so they’ll pay attention.
Thanks in advance, guys!
Coach B