How to tell your hs “track coach” you are training with a real track coach

She doesn’t have to tell him anything.

and honestly, what’s wrong about this if the private coach is supplementing the training she’s getting from the school coach?

“Hey sally, what’s the secret to all your improvement lately?”

“Well coach idiot, I’ve been training some on my own too.”

Not the whole truth, but it’s not a lie. And it sounds like the school coach wouldn’t have the wit to ask this; or rather, HAS the wit to let it slide and take the credit for an overachiever on the team.

Also, what do you mean ‘every event gets coached the same’ exactly? We could open a whole new can of worms here on how there is a training g philosophy that almost completely fits the 800 to the 5000; all distance training is mostly the same, etc.

jacks21 wrote:

We have a personal track coach that is extremely good. They know their stuff. This is the first year for our kid to do hs track. The hs coach knows very little about how to really train for each distance. Every athlete he “coaches” does the same thing. How does my kid tactfully tell him she has been training with a real coach in the off season?

You sound like you are the worst kind of parent.

I agree with the guy that said the only thing the coach could do wrong is volume. On what track team does everyone do the same thing? Some kids run faster, move up to varsity sooner etc.

For quality , the alleged expert coached kid is going to run reps faster , jog recoveries instead of walk and things like that. If it's not enough do more.

Not enough mileage do more.

Are you saying your high school hired a fake coach?

Don’t go with a private coach.

Don’t be a private coach to anyone else.

Certainly don’t pay anyone any $.

/thread

is it real or is it memorex? wrote:

Are you saying your high school hired a fake coach?

Yeah and my kid's new coach is great. His name is Salberto Alazar.

I'm a high school coach. I also have been a private coach. I have had several state champions (male and female) I also coach adults (6 women who will run in the Marathon Trials qualified with me as their coach).

Here's how I have handled and currently handle private coaching.

Don't ever lie to your coach. I truly believe the lessons and habits taught in high school are groundwork for adult life. Be up front with your coach, tell him/her the truth and come up with an agreement so that both parties can be flexible. When I was the private coach I wanted buy in from the "real" coach. We didn't always get buy in. Some coaches are territorial and protective of "their" kids, I get it. I will tel you this much, the coaches that were agreeable to this, worked hard with me and that kid, and those kids ran great. The coaches that were not agreeable, those kids didn't do well. It can create tension on the team and with the coaches. If the coach reluctantly agreed, I alway was the one who was flexible with my workouts. However, more recently I have simply just stopped being a private coach. The high school coaches just don't want to go along with it and it's not worth the headache the kids (and I) have to put up with.

As a current high school coach, I actually am flexible. I currently have a young man who is pretty talented. He is a freshman, he has been working with a private coach for a couple years and I know this coach very well. I have no problem with my runner going to him for his group runs/workouts. The coach and I talk all the time about how to help this young man be successful. Neither one of us is looking for credit for this kids success, we want this kid to succeed.

"coach I've been working with a coach who makes me lots of promises and has me do speed work at the wrong time in the year, I feel super fit right now and in march I'll be running my best. By may I will be useless from all this speed work and will assume it is your coaching. Next year I will do something similar while claiming a few different college coaches are talking with me. And by senior year I will think I'm the greatest runner in the state, but I'll implode from the illusions my private coach put in my head and the pressure from my parents." That should work, they can read it off their phone!

Very few programs are going to allow a student athlete to regularly miss practice and still participate in a meet. This plan sounds like an excellent way to get dismissed from the team. Additionally, some states may have rules limiting the amount of private coaching an athlete may receive in season. Here's a radical idea. Respectfully tell your school coach the truth. Present your running goals to him and ask for help to achieve them.

The radical idea is respectfully tell your school coach the truth and pursue private coaching irrespective of how it is received. If they try to ban you from participating in meets, go to the Athletic Director and complain. If they continue to block you from your right to participate in the meet as a high school athlete, go to the board of education, superintendent and local body overseeing state high school athletics. Welcome.

sustainable earth wrote:

The radical idea is respectfully tell your school coach the truth and pursue private coaching irrespective of how it is received. If they try to ban you from participating in meets, go to the Athletic Director and complain. If they continue to block you from your right to participate in the meet as a high school athlete, go to the board of education, superintendent and local body overseeing state high school athletics. Welcome.

That's pretty laughable. I can only speak for my area, but where I coach as well as the other schools in our league, if a kid doesnt follow the simple guideline of "show up every day and work hard," no amount of complaining will get them back that "right" to compete in high school athletics.

Btw, the word you were looking for was "privilege," that is the word used by every single athletic director I have ever talked to.

I ran with a club team in high school during the summers and indoors (which was coached by a coach at one of the rival high schools) and for my school team during cross country and outdoor track. The contrast between the coaches was stark as were the results. During indoors I would run as fast as I would during outdoors (doing solo runs off of workouts the club coach would write me) as the club coach had a much better approach to training (more mileage and more hills) versus the school coach who had us doing fairly basic track workouts. The issue is that a lot of school track coaches do not know how to coach talent. I saw the same thing when my kids started running this year. The club coach for summer track had a decent idea how to train them. The school cross country coach was completely clueless. I trained them for a couple of weeks for the state indoor meet and they ran great off of little training. It should not be assumed that your school coach has a clue or a plan. It would likely be better to run workouts from his club coach independently if he is self motivated enough to train solo.

if the team has an attendance policy, the coach will follow it and the ad will support it. If you are hoping to circumvent a system put in place for everybody else on the team, you better be damn good.

Have some real integrity/balls and quit the team he's coaching.

How do you tell a kid's parents that their child is not nearly as talented as they think he is?

BINGO!

High schools have virtually no standards or credentialing process for track and XC coaches. Schools with tradition or deep pockets will have better coaching. Most public institutions are a crapshoot. Often times, the "coach" is a teacher that jog/walked a five hour marathon last summer or some assistant football coach looking for more stipend money . This is why parents have sought my services. They want their child to develop their talents, not just languish under a professional cat herder.

Think about this in a different light. Your kid's math teacher isn't actually teaching. He just gives out long homework assignments and your student has to just figure algebra out using the textbook. You complain to the principal but she says, "Mr. Smith is a beloved member of our faculty. Do you have a degree in education? Perhaps your child needs more self-motivation?"

Would you...

1. Let your kid struggle their way to a barely passing grade?

2. Get them a tutor that will actually teach them algebra?

3. Transfer them to a better school, possibly an expensive private school if they have spaces available?

4. Confront Mr. Smith about his "teaching style" and hope that he doesn't fail your kid?

I'm not super comfortable with deception but, I have also seen school coaches get very defensive, ego bruised, and threatening when the parent or athlete has taken the high road. They don't care about the athlete nor wish to benefit from my work. In one circumstance, I offered to give the coach a copy of my plan to administer but he chose personal ego and "team dynamics" over sound training principles. Any guess as to how his distance squad performed on a diet of 6 x 400 with five minutes rest between reps, burpees, and 45 minute ultimate frisbee workouts instead of sustained runs?

The future of a talented young athlete and, by extension, US distance running shouldn't be determined by their neighborhood school, their parent's ability to pay private tuition or move to a better district, or the hope that the school coach isn't clueless, feckless, and lazy.

Alternately, you could just show up for practice every day just like all of the other athletes, thus saving yourself the trouble of tilting at windmills. Is there a set mark at a particular distance that exempts an athlete from following team rules, or is it entirely at the discretion of a private "coach" who likely has no concept of the realities of running a high school team?