Should High School Cross Country Coaches Run with the Team?

Flagpole wrote:

Stravybeans wrote:

Believe it or not, kids are capable of having a positive running experience alongside their coaches. I think your mindset says a lot more about you as a coach than anything.

Only because human beings are adaptive. It is selfish for a coach to run with his team, and the negatives of so doing FAR outweigh even the rationalized positives. The ONLY reason for a coach to run with his team (other than something untoward) is to get their own run in. It's not right.

I quoted Flagpoles last post because he seems to think, "The ONLY reason for a coach to run with his team (other than something untoward) is to get their own run in. It's not right."

Yes, it's true, it's bad to have an untoward coach running with kids. "Stranger Danger" anyone? So these pervs. need to be kicked to the curb.

However, it has been testified to on this here running/arguing web site by a bazillion coaches that getting their own run in was the furthest thing from their mind (as was the untoward coach stuff) when running along with their charges.

In my area of north central Illinois everybody runs together. There are many, many small farm towns out here and anyone who runs knows everyone who runs. We'd feel, well I'm not sure how we'd feel if we were forced not to run with whom ever we wanted to run with. But we don't need any out of state busy bodies telling us how to coach runners.

I realize you're enjoying trolling this thread. However, I have to ask: are you now or have you ever actually coached a team? At what point did you realize that you're totally and unequivocally unsuited to being a real coach?

I shouldn't be, but I must say I'm surprised by the vitriol on this thread directed towards high school coaches that run with their teams. I have been coaching high school cross country and track for about 6 years now and I make it a point to try to run with the team as much as possible on easy runs and long runs. As others have said, I bounce from group to group so it's almost a bit of a fartlek for me. I think of it as helpful for getting to see how the team functions on an easy run, if people are pace-pushing, etc.

Why a coach running with the team would be seen as some type of moral deficiency is strange to me. As a collegiate and high school runner, our coaches always ran with us and I've been around enough programs to know it's a common practice. I think Letsrun (or the Letsrun trolls) tend to view all high school coaches as pederasts who are looking to prey on young people, so there's something off to them about an older dude running with high schoolers. It's unfortunate that is the perception.

What's worse? A coach who runs with their team, or a coach that it too close-minded to accept other examples of success?

Flagpole wrote:

I won't go on and on about this

After stating you won't go on and on about this I'm pretty sure I would struggle to count high enough to get to the number of posts you have written on this thread lol(I did only get through pages 1 to 3 and some of 8 and 9) Doesn't it get exhausting to have to be right all the time? Well done on keeping the thread going for 9+ pages though I'm sure the brojos are happy so that's good.

I don't think your 0 years of coaching experience is going to change anyone's mind but you are certainly entitled to your opinion. Its odd that you completely discount what anyone else says in opposition to you(I agree for instance that the vast majority of hard workouts there is little reason for the coach to be running. I also agree that you should not do every run with them as they do need space some days but rotating groups solves this). It seems like a wierd topic to be so hostile about but hey you got me to respond so well done. Although I promise I will not be getting into a long debate about it haha.

If I didn't run with them at some point I would definitely get yelled at and questioned on why I hadn't gone with a certain group for a while(that would be from the older people telling me I was slipping and getting old-which I am lol). Maybe that means they are sucking up as someone said but that seems comically unlikely on our team. Also I definitely don't like telling anyone to do anything I'm not willing to do myself at least some of the time- in hard workouts someone needs to do the timing and observing obv- but it's kind of hard to observe on a distance run if you are sitting on the track playing with yourself waiting for the people to come back(to me that seems like a SERIOUS waste of coaching pay) Anyway I won't go on and on about this(too late) but why not start coaching and helping people rather than just pontificating on an internet message board.

I like the way you talk.

Stravybeans wrote:

What's worse? A coach who runs with their team, or a coach that it too close-minded to accept other examples of success?

What?

Really liked what you had to say here. A measured response for sure. Hurting with the kids while supervising has been such a pleasure. If your intent is to train wholeheartedly to help them, you aren't going to hurt them at all.

This whole thread is absurd.

Where I coach our school policy is that during practice athletes have to be supervised at all times. We have 1 coach for each gender. So guess what, coaches are going to be running, biking or driving with all kids. When runs are long and kids spread out we use volunteers to cover everyone. It's just the right thing to do, plus it's a policy so we have no choice.

I have no idea if the kids hate it but I do know Loren often than not that on weekends and during off seasons kids will text me to run with them. Yes kids text me, something else that isn't wrong in 2017 because it is an acceptable form of communication.

Where we coach we try to have a tradition and make our athletes better people on top of just better runners. Usually we are the only influence like that these kids have as teachers don't have time and a lot of parents aren't great. I've had girls who I have talked through serious issues with on runs. This has greatly benefited these kids and helped them stay down a good path and avoid drugs/alcohol. Who knows, maybe they hated running with me at the time but now 3-6 years out of school and they all have gone out of their way to thank me and that they appreciated the time I spent trying to help them and that it made a difference.

But I guess just letting them be on their own and not having a relationship with them is what I should be doing because I'm a coach. Get real. You people are crazy.

Indoor? wrote:

I have no idea if the kids hate it but I do know Loren often than not that on weekends and during off seasons kids will text me to run with them. Yes kids text me, something else that isn't wrong in 2017 because it is an acceptable form of communication.

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing in response to the whole "the kids hate it even if they're too polite to say it" argument. I volunteer coached when I was in college, and I ran with the kids. The three or four fastest kids on the team ended up being the group I ran with most often because they were doing higher mileage than the rest of the team. Those kids would regularly ask me to run with them on weekends and over the summer. Hell, we still run together 10 years later when we happen to be back in town.

You are wrong, and I am right. You should never run with your athletes.

Of course, I'm not being serious, but that's what you can expect for an answer. I think it just seems like most of the thread is against coaches running with their athletes because there are a few here that are super passionate about the topic, think this is a black&white situation, and they reply to everyone who says otherwise.

The majority here definitely agrees that it is a grey area topic. Sometimes it's ok, sometimes it's not ok. But hey, we're all wrong.

To be fair, this thread is talking about the high school level. I'm with you though. If a high school runner doesn't like a coach running with him or her, that probably just means that the runner doesn't like the coach in general, not all the extra crap that's not that big of a deal (like getting team bonding time during runs - there's plenty of time for that elsewhere).

I actually just had a recruit visit a few weeks ago that talked very very highly of a coach that ran almost every step with him for a season. Of course, he was probably just telling me that to be polite to me, right?

So... this dude runs with his female athletes, and they text him when they want to run with him outside of practice and on weekends. He listens to them complain about their problems.

Are you sure you're a coach and not a boyfriend?

I can see some of your points, but can also say that I never would have gotten into coaching if it wasn't for running with the kids. I ran in college, but when I got out of undergrad started substitute teaching in my old district and working on a teaching credential. When one of my former teammates' brother found out I was back in town, he asked me to pace him through some offseason workouts. I hadn't really been running much, but what he was doing wasn't all that fast, so I figured I could help him out a few times, and so I did. He told his teammates that I was helping him and some of the other kids started to come to those workouts and I was trying to help pace workouts for 5 or 6 kids. When the head coach found out, he asked me if I wanted to keep that role for the season. It was fun, so I did. I wasn't training to race and generally, the workouts that we were doing were the only runs I was going on during the week. If they had been fast, I don't think I would have enjoyed it. I was always pretty good at running a very consistent pace, so if a kid needed to run a 5:20 mile, he could count on me hitting 80's with very little variation from lap to lap. Not great for all times of the season, but in the preseason and early part of the official season, I think I was pretty useful to them.

12 years later, I am the head coach of the team and don't run with them as much (a few workouts per season). But at certain times, athletes have asked me to hire coaches who would be able to run with them. I recently hired a female assistant coach so that the girls had a coach to run with...at the request of a large contingent of female athletes. The coach has other coaching responsibilities and doesn't run with them every day, but I looked because the kids asked. So I know that all of the kids don't hate it.

Unlike most of the comments here, I actually think I run the hard workouts with the kids more than the easy runs. We have too many groups out running and we need someone at home base for those. Many times it is jumping into the last couple of reps with a struggling athlete who might otherwise give up. Usually not a whole workout. The kid I might jump in with could be a boy or a girl and a fast or a slow kid. Generally not the fastest kid because I can't run with them any more. I just try to gauge where my presence for a short period of time can be useful and then disappear. Another example is that right now my boys' team is young and talented and often overrun their tempo runs. So earlier this summer I ran the first two miles with them and told them that they were not allowed to pass me. At two miles I let them go. 11:45 chomping at the bit behind coach (I guarantee they didn't like that), and it allowed them to come back in 11:30 for the second 2 miles. Without it, they probably run 11:15 and then fall apart. There may be a time and a place for that lesson to happen, but that wasn't the day for it.

Our coach ran with us for four years, including workouts, he was just one of the guys. It allowed the team to have its own leadership, we went from not making league to a 10th place finish at state in just three years, despite losing two of our top five to moving away. Really depends on your captain's maturity and the ability to have leaders in the JV group

You must have terrible relationships in your life if you think that only intimate ones are the kind that can discuss problems or serious issues. It's possible to be a coach, teacher, mentor to kids and help them out without it being creepy, obviously the first step is to not be a creep. And there are for sure topics that are off limits and anything serious needs to be passed on to the school counselor.

The problem with Flagpole's argument, and with a lot of arguments about what's appropriate, is that it's culturally dependent, and therefore circular. What's "creepy" or too intimate depends mostly on what's considered normal in the relevant community. It varies by geography and era. In my dad's era, coaches used the same locker room and shower as their athletes, which would probably get you arrested today. So this is really an empirical question, as a lot of people have pointed out. We'd have to do some polling to get a better idea of the answer. If the options were, "yes," "no," and "it depends," I suspect the latter would be far and away the leading response. But I'm just guessing, and so is Flagpole.

One thing that indicates to me that Flagpole's guess is probably not reliable is that he thinks it's obvious that team sport coaches don't play with their athletes. In my experience, it's rare that they DON'T play with their athletes, assuming they're capable. That's especially the case for assistant coaches, who are often hired specifically for that purpose. In high school, my assistant soccer coaches were pro players, and they were involved in almost every scrimmage, unless we were playing 11 v. 11 and specifically trying to set up our lineup for an upcoming game.

Flag, I am a little behind.

Clarify something for me: are you against coaches specifically RUNNING with the team? As in, would you be ok with a coach on a bike bouncing among different groups?

Or, do you think the coach needs to be fairly invisible during practice?

Thanks.

thejeff wrote:

Flag, I am a little behind.

Clarify something for me: are you against coaches specifically RUNNING with the team? As in, would you be ok with a coach on a bike bouncing among different groups?

Or, do you think the coach needs to be fairly invisible during practice?

Thanks.

Yeah, they don't need to be running with the team. As you can't run with the team and "supervise" everyone anyway, that's just a rationalization for running with the team. Being on a bike is ok, but even there, it's just not necessary for normal runs. Doesn't make you a better coach to do that. The coaching comes from designing the schedule with the right mix of distance runs and workouts, talking about all the little things like proper shoes and frequent new shoes and rest and diet and hydration, etc. Then, provide encouragement especially after runs and workouts and races of course too.

Being on a bike is better than running with the team for 3 main reasons:

1) You aren't showing them how great of a runner you are - "Don't need no has-been messing in my corner."

2) You aren't being selfish by getting a run in (and yes it is selfish).

3) When on a bike, and "bouncing among different groups", you aren't harshing the good time of the high school runners for too long whereas with running, it is likely you'd be with a group for an extended period of time or even the whole time...and that's lame.

Best bet...make clear the expectations of the runners and the consequences of them not meeting expectations, and let them go for their run.