How to get high school XC runners to run over the summer?

On our high school team, every year we get t-shirts based on the number of miles we have logged. We get nice looking cotton t-shirts for 100 and 250 miles and VERY cool nike dri-fit t-shirts for running 500 miles. The shirts say our school name across the top and in bold "100 mile club" and so on. The 100 and 250 are red and white for school colors and the 500 is gold. This gets everyone not only running but logging and tracking progress. Hope this helps.

Thanks, I appreciate the idea! The kids seem to like DRI-FIT/Underarmour stuff so maybe that's a good "carrot."

4:29miler wrote:

On our high school team, every year we get t-shirts based on the number of miles we have logged. We get nice looking cotton t-shirts for 100 and 250 miles and VERY cool nike dri-fit t-shirts for running 500 miles. The shirts say our school name across the top and in bold "100 mile club" and so on. The 100 and 250 are red and white for school colors and the 500 is gold. This gets everyone not only running but logging and tracking progress. Hope this helps.

Improving a program and getting students to 'care' is difficult. Having those around that are 'forced' to be around makes things even harder. 2 tips that have helped me -

#1 - Start small - don't expect kids to immediately start running 50 miles per week. Get them to run 30mn 3-4 times a week (or more or less depending on where you are starting) in the summer. Something is better than nothing. Then as they improve, usually motivation to do more improves and you can get closer to doing what you actually want.

#2 - During the season, especially if you have an assistant, I would divide up the team. Get those who do not want to be with the team away from those who do. Keep them separate as much as possible. Your assistant can deal with them and you can coach the ones who do care.

That is my 2 cents...

The kids that are on the team because they have to participate are write offs and you'll be lucky to get them to try during XC season so don't lose any sleep over those guys.

If you have 4 or 5 keeners and leaders you can hope that they will lead by example and inspire the borderline team members to run a bit in the summer but again these are teenagers and they will tune you out ina second if you start to nag.

Expecting kids to run in the heat of the summer depending on where you live is a losing battle. Encourage them to be active in the summer be it playing team sports, cycling and swimming, etc.

This is suppose to be fun coach and they are doing it for their own enjoyment and development NOT for yours!!

Perspective is needed here coach and I sense you have lost touch.

Thanks so much! I really appreciate the second point as it reinforces something that I've been trying to figure out logistically before meeting with our AD. He is a good guy, but we can not cut anyone. I would not cut for ability, but for non-compliance, and separation from the rest of the team seems a good route to go.

Nah, I've already had my high school and college careers and am now trying to give back. I do have higher expectations than absolute zero, though.My philosophy boils down in many ways to being thankful for one's blessings and if you do something doing it well. This is a private school and many things come pretty easily for a lot of these kids. Ideally I will help them to learn to work and to be a man. I had such positive experiences with great coaches that I want as many as possible to see what you can get out of XC.

Coach G wrote:

Expecting kids to run in the heat of the summer depending on where you live is a losing battle. Encourage them to be active in the summer be it playing team sports, cycling and swimming, etc.

This is suppose to be fun coach and they are doing it for their own enjoyment and development NOT for yours!!

Perspective is needed here coach and I sense you have lost touch.

Try to get your captains or top guys to make bonds with the other runners. Then have them run "captains practice" over the summer

How large is your team? Do they go to an all boys school or is it coed?

I have a girls team of 40 and I have 15-20 regulars that show up all summer. The boys team at our school has a similar attendance ratio.

There are several ways we do this.

First off you have to figure out what is motivating your athletes. For most it's not going to be the training even though it should be the obvious route to a great and successful season.

- For our athletes having dual practices where the boys and girls meet together yet have their own workout prescribed by the coaches helps a lot. It's a way for the boys and girls to mix it up with each other.

- Making some practices fun. 30 minutes of running then ultimate frisbee followed by a cookout. Yu would be surprised how hard the kids will go in the game. Ask parents to help with the cookout.

- We have a running art day with the girls. I buy a bunch of art supplies, and they gather things they see along their long run. They put it together at the end of the workout.

- When you name captains have them apply for the job and require them to have team building activities. Bowling, kayaking, pasta parties, pool parties...

- Don't hold practices in the same locations. Move it around a bit. They will get really bored of the same routes from the school.

- I reward our athletes with the highest attendance with the first invitational away trip for the season. It's a really fun trip we take that we stay overnight for.

During the season you really have to work at keeping the lazy kids away from your hard workers even if they have talent. The worst athlete is the one with a ton of talent that does fairly well in a race that is lazy in practice. That can really bring your whole team down.

You have to have high standards for lettering. It will drive you crazy to only require 20 minutes for lettering. Boys should have to run about 17:30 or whatever a reasonable time would be for a top team's varsity runner in your area. A girls team might be at 19:30. 20 minutes would be way too slow unless you run at altitude and all of your 5K races are uphill all the way!!!

(We also lettered the top seven runners in our last meet of the season...usually the section meet. If we won the conference meet everyone lettered!!! That was huge for us and the A.D. allowed it.)

A saying I heard that helped me is: If you get one, the next year you'll get two, the following year you'll get three. The mistake I made is going to the team with a push for summer miles. I would approach your top kid and ask him what his goals are. Hopefully he will be ambitious. If not go to the next kid and repeat until you get someone who has a desire to be good. Then explain the rational for summer and winter mileage!

That is on my mind right now but it seems that going individually would be best. Like a previous poster said on here, they are teenagers. They will do what is cool and you cannot tell them what to do. You have to use psychology. Be subtle.

What worked for my team is to have an old coach from the school come in and make a speech. In addition the baseball coach who had won our conference said they (the cc team) would win as well if they listened to me.

We had great parents who bought into what I was doing. It really is a community thing. Once you have those three or so kids who are serious they can add kids to the program. Let the kids be your best recruiter. The kids will be far better teachers to each other than the coach can ever hope to be!!!

I think it is important to talk to the team at times but it's the little individual contacts you make that really have impact. You can impact one of those kids who is not serious about running and change his life. You might not ever know how. Sometimes it might be as a runner or it might be in some other way.

That is real coaching.

Otter,

Thank you, lots of good ideas there, I especially like the ones regarding discerning motivation and the captains applying. It's an all boys school and a huge team. Still lots of worthwhile thoughts. Thanks again.

Otter:

Your last paragraph is interesting. How do you keep that kid away from the rest of the team? What have you done that works?

Right from Wrong,

Thanks for your fantastic post. I can tell there is a lot of experience talking there. I am a middle aged guy who came back to coaching precisely to positively impact lives. I am sure that you're right about kids being the best recruiters I can get.

We didn't have anyone run 17:30 this past season (only one under 18:00) so I'm a little wary of lowering the standard that much right off the bat (right now the standard is over 20 min.). I'm a student of the sport and understand training and the work the coach had them do last season was fine--there just wasn't a base there. I will consider it for the future, though. What these guys think is really fast isn't necessarily.

Step 1: Steal all their cell phones

Step 2: Put them in a pull cart

Step 3: Attach pull cart to rear bumper of your car

Step 4: Drive!

Be sure to drive on safe roads that are capable of handing the team-sized mob following your vehicle without endangering anyone.

Ha! Too close to the truth for comfort!

4 steps to success wrote:

Step 1: Steal all their cell phones

Step 2: Put them in a pull cart

Step 3: Attach pull cart to rear bumper of your car

Step 4: Drive!

Be sure to drive on safe roads that are capable of handing the team-sized mob following your vehicle without endangering anyone.

Thank you. The school I started at also had a high time standard. But it's still good to post something similar to that so they get an idea of what is expected. That is just one way to letter. My coach used a season average; if you were in the top seven average-wise you also could letter. So you can use that along with the season ending race to motivate them.

You can note that all of what is written for lettering can be changed under the discretion of the coach. It's rare but sometimes the parents will go to bat for the kid against your lettering process. Once the AD said, "you will letter this kid." I'm glad he did it in a letter!!!

It turned out that the kid made the criteria for a letter at the last meet. I'm not sure if I would have continued on as a coach if I'd had to go with the AD's recommendation.

I guess what I am saying is I would talk to the AD often and get on a good basis with him. That is one thing I did not do because I was intimidated. What happened later is the football coach hired his staff to help coach the track team.

They have not had a winning record in track since that day and it's been more than 25 years! However I was out as T&F distance coach despite great success with the CC program. This is actually quite common in one form or another. A friend of mine was transferred to the girls program after having a track season where he had 6 guys under 2 minutes in the 880!

Football is King, but I think if I had communicated I would still be coaching at that school today. (I wound up quitting coaching there after not being able to coach varsity track and field any more.)

I'm sorry that you are out of coaching. The pettiness involved in some of this stuff boggles the mind sometimes! Good advice re: the lettering process. Football is having a tough time getting enough boys out to field a team. Nobody wants their kid to get a concussion. However, I remember the days (20 years ago) when the whole school was pulled out of class to watch our football team play (lose) the district game.

This is horsesh!t. I get 45-60 kids out "in the heat of the summer," Monday through Saturday from mid-June through the official start of the season. Coaches expect athletes to be committed when the coach themselves are not. You show up one day per week? Find a new job. That wouldn't fly in any other walk of life.

Saline High School does a great job creating a culture where kids want to join the team, encourage other students to join, encourage winter and summer running. They have their team rules and requirements for lettering posted online. The coaches are active on social media for team events and accomplishments. Captains lead off season running sessions.

http://salinesports.org/boysxc/

http://www.girlsxc.salinesports.org/

The coaches at one top D1 team have the runners each write out their goals at the beginning of the season. They also ask them to write what they think they will do or are willing to do to reach that goal. The coaches review it and discuss with each athlete if the one can realistically lead to the other. They are process driven during the season. They focus on what went right in each race, what was learned, and what could be worked on at the next race. They avoid focusing on specific times and avoid focusing on negatives. They trust the process will get them to their goal.

If the high school runners do not have the desire to be the best they can be or do not enjoy running when training on their own then I am not sure how any coach get them to run in the off season. One high school coach I know could not even get his own children who were good runners to run consistently throughout the week during the off seasons. Another coach has 3 or 4 young sons who love to run. One was excited to tell me that their father allows them to run their first 5K at age 5. I asked one, probably 7 to 10 years old, how much he and his brothers ran during each week. He said they ran one day a week down their dirt road for a mile. Their father said they run around outside all the time while playing. I think his sons will still love to run when they reach high school and will want to put in the training year round. I think passing on the love of running and competing is more effective than requirements or nagging.

The state allows us one official practice per week. Not having official practice more often has nothing to do with how committed I am.

areelcoach wrote:

[quote]New Coach wrote:

I can meet for an official practice once per week during the summer.

This is horsesh!t. I get 45-60 kids out "in the heat of the summer," Monday through Saturday from mid-June through the official start of the season. Coaches expect athletes to be committed when the coach themselves are not. You show up one day per week? Find a new job. That wouldn't fly in any other walk of life.