Obviously it's much easier to do with a private school.
That said, you can interest young women in a large suburban public HS to join a successful team and be cool and get honor grades. It helps to have a bellweather who's a local celeb getting lot's of pub.
This gets mom's interested who want to see their daughters be cool and get honor grades, so they start their kid doing mileage in 7-8th. I'm thinking of three such programs all quite well-to-do districts.
How has no one mentioned demographics yet??
If you coaching at a school in an affluent community with a ton of middle to upper class white kids, many of whom have parents that run you are in a much better position than a school with fewer of the previously mentioned affluent white kids.
C'mon look at the vast majority of the top programs in the country the vast majority are large suburban predominantly white schools.
Golly Gee Willikers!!! wrote:
Now why didn't I think of that?
In areas where the depth of quality is much better than you describe, it's not as easy as you might think.
Wow you are a tough guy!
If I ever got into coaching I would look for large schools with a diverse student body. Get the football players/black kids to sprint, jump, and throw. Get the upper middle class white kids to run distance. Large school=more kids=depth.
At schools with "diverse" populations, everyone knows there is athletic talent as a result of simple genetics. The trick is getting that talent on the track. I cannot even remember how many times black kids from the ghetto schools in my city would run ridiculously fast as a freshman or sophomore only to quit after 1 or 2 years of the sport for whatever reason.
Don't try to establish a dynasty. Just coach the kids you get. The kids who got cut from other sports generally aren't athletic enough to become great runners anyway. To be a great distance runner, you have to be a fast enough sprinter to be able to make the soccer team.
CoachProject wrote:
I've always been a firm believer that (to a degree) in every high school exists a state championship capable team if you look hard enough and take the right approach to coaching them. Basically, with the right coaching you can make any place great.
What I'm curious to see is: let's assume this is all true. How would YOU go about building a dynasty program out of a school that has never had success? Assume here that you are a new coach. What would be your principles?
Also, feel free to dispute this. I'm not saying this is true to the letter, but I think believing the talent is out there in each high school is an optimistic approach that sets the right mindset for taking over a program.
I absolutely believe this can be done. But, is totally about the coaching.
The ability to motivate, and proper training techniques.
You have to be passionate about the sport and learn everything you can about both of these areas (books, talking to other successful coaches etc.
My kids school routinely went to state for 25 years under one coach. That coach left 14 years ago and they havn't been back once as a team under his replacement. And only an occasional individual.
Its not that the school all of a sudden didn't have any capable individuals. It's that the coach doesn't have the drive to achieve what you're looking for.
Don't tell me these small towns that send teams to State year after year just happen to have all of the good athletes live there.
Guppy wrote:Honestly I think coaching high school kids to success is about the easiest thing in life.
Before I actually started coaching, I thought it was a lot easier than it was. My biggest mistake in regards to my preconceived notions of coaching was thinking that kids were going to be as motivated as me to be great runners. That is not the case. Many times some of my best athletes are the ones who struggle with motivation, and kids have so many distractions now it is easy to move on from running if you aren't successful immediately. Believe it or not, it is sometimes difficult to explain to parents that showing up to 5 practices a week and then a race on Saturday is a necessity to succeed. Many times the younger athletes are used to being on club teams that practiced 2-3 times a week.
Developing a dynasty is most likely a tremendous feat, but I can tell you just developing a state championship caliber team requires a lot of extra hours of work. If you aren't willing to put in 20+ hours a week coaching, it will be hard to win state. At some schools, it will most likely require 30+ hours of work, and remember this is all for little to no pay. Between coaching, meetings, fundraising, parent conferences, and recruiting the hallways, you are putting in a lot of work.
well first you don't ditch a team because you have a wife that demands that of you because she runs your life for first second you need to be credible preferably you must have a background in running for example being really fast and people will listen to you because you've been there, don't be a lame coach like one I know that went to Villanova for 2 years then transfers to Arkansas and thinks he was all American because his team did all the work, again I emphasize you need to be a good coach because I knew a coach once who was named Coach Todd in General he was a good for nothing but yeah.
AXC wrote:
How has no one mentioned demographics yet??
If you coaching at a school in an affluent community with a ton of middle to upper class white kids, many of whom have parents that run you are in a much better position than a school with fewer of the previously mentioned affluent white kids.
C'mon look at the vast majority of the top programs in the country the vast majority are large suburban predominantly white schools.
Watch Mt. Sac sometime or other big meets in the SW or on the West Coast and get back to us.
bump