How would you go about building a new HS dynasty?

This is referring to XC/track distance, by the way.

1. Get LOTS of kids to come out. Cuts from soccer/basketball/football/lacrosse, kids from other sports trying to stay in shape, random kids needing an extracurricular, etc. You'll find the diamonds in the rough. More kids = more chances of having better athletes and a better team. Rarely do you find good runners who started running competitively when they were little kids. They get it from other sports.
2. Have success with a few kids, or take full advantage of a talented stud or two to build the program and attract attention. Success will breed success. The more kids see someone doing big things, the more kids will be motivated to do it themselves. They will want to work towards running on the varsity. This is probably the toughest, you probably need some luck here.
3. Going along with #2, develop a winning, hard work mentality in the program. This could take a few years, but expecting to win is key. Kids will be motivated more once the culture of the team is changed. Hard work, perseverance, dedication, and other traits needed for distance running are useful in other aspects of life. Use the program to teach these lessons to the kids. It's not just a boot camp where you run kids to death.

This guy got it pretty much right.

Establish a standard and runners will, over time, strive to achieve it.

In HS, I was a mid 16s guy, and the rest of the top 7 was usually around 17:30-18:30. Not a good coach. More about having fun, not training smart, content with finishing mid pack.

Several years later, new coach who I've gotten to know. Very good and smart. This year, top 7 under 16:40, and 15 under 18:15. Now the attitude is that these guys know they have to get under 17 I get their letter and so they train according to that level.

And yes, it will take time and luck with some talented guys, but generally, decent talent with hard work and smart coaching will get them to that point. And 100% yes, you must get a big team to give you more chances. Hen I was on that team, I was 1 of about 17, now they have 35-40 consistently.

You have to make it fun but create a culture where the kids respect and trust that you'll get them to run fast.

In terms of an actual training perspective, in my opinion you have to work with kids from day 1 on developing a great aerobic background. That's what's gonna set them up to make big improvements. Consistent mileage (35,45,55,65 as they progress), consistent long runs and tempo runs.

In addition to the good ideas above, I would try to develop, or work with someone, to develop youth running opportunities. They don't necessarily have to be highly competitive, but just having maybe a 3-meet youth cross country series and some all-comers track meets for youth in the spring helps get kids exposed to the sport. You can do a lot in a four year high school career, but it's harder to have a HS dynasty without at least some kind of foundation at the pre-high school level.

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CoachProject wrote:

This is referring to XC/track distance, by the way.

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Perhaps a league or regional championship but not a state title, at least here in CA. There's way too much talent out there to think every school has the ability to win.

If you want to build a dynasty you need the right school fit for the coach, a sports culture and community support. The coach needs to build these first and foremost.

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former coach wrote:

1. Get LOTS of kids to come out. Cuts from soccer/basketball/football/lacrosse, kids from other sports trying to stay in shape, random kids needing an extracurricular, etc. You'll find the diamonds in the rough. More kids = more chances of having better athletes and a better team. Rarely do you find good runners who started running competitively when they were little kids. They get it from other sports.
2. Have success with a few kids, or take full advantage of a talented stud or two to build the program and attract attention. Success will breed success. The more kids see someone doing big things, the more kids will be motivated to do it themselves. They will want to work towards running on the varsity. This is probably the toughest, you probably need some luck here.
3. Going along with #2, develop a winning, hard work mentality in the program. This could take a few years, but expecting to win is key. Kids will be motivated more once the culture of the team is changed. Hard work, perseverance, dedication, and other traits needed for distance running are useful in other aspects of life. Use the program to teach these lessons to the kids. It's not just a boot camp where you run kids to death.

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You have a lot of great ideas here already, and I'd like to add that you need to get into the Junior/Middle School(s) that feed your High School! Don't neglect what you have coming to you in 1-2 years. This will help you sustain numbers and success.

Make sure you at least get a general invitation letter out to ALL your 8th graders that will be coming in, and for those that were actually on the cross/track team, maybe take a trip over to one of their practices to introduce yourself and if you have time write them a special letter to let them know that you are looking forward to coaching them in high school.

Don't neglect any small or private schools in the area, sometimes these schools have a ton of cross country type kids that want to be a part of something as they transition to a public school(if not attending another private high school).

Maybe if you host a big home invitational, consider adding a Junior High division. It's a great way to scout talent and offer a competition opportunity that can sometimes be lacking at that level.

One last idea on the training front for your feeder school(s). If you think coaches at the high school level are at times not as up to speed as they could be, then the middle/junior high schools have an even bigger need for any kind of help when it comes to having the kids do meaningful training. Many times it is just a teacher out there doing it out of the goodness of their heart and they have no clue about organizing a practice. What I did was talk to them and offer a complete training calendar with a full season of organized training, and I let them decide how much they would use. Over the years some of the coaches used all of it, some very little if they had already had an idea in their head of what they wanted to do. Either way, you get an athlete on campus that has an idea about what is expected at an organized practice, i.e. not 45 minutes of frisbee before mom or dad picks them up. Good Luck!

To the Animal Within,

That is the exact opposite mentality it takes to win a state title. That is an excuse. My teams have won multiple state championships in California. When I took over, that was the general consensus in this area..."try to win league." When I said we were going to win state, they all laughed at me. Nobody laughs at me now.

Winning the California State Championship takes a coach that understands the sacrifices he/she will have to make to get the kids to that level, and the time it takes for the kids to get to that level. I will concede that with state it also takes a little bit of luck. Any school in California that has a population of over 100 kids has a potential state championship team on campus. The question is do they have a state championship coach on campus?

As far as building a dynasty (a term we actually use in our program a lot), here are some things you need to consider:

1. What is your end goal? Winning League, County, Section, State, or National Titles?

2. What is your team culture & how will you implement it?

3. How many hours a day are you willing to sacrifice from your job, family, hobbies, sleep, etc. to make it happen.

If you as a coach are willing to set really high goals in these 3 questions and execute them well you will be very successful. Long term you will probably have a dynasty.

Good luck

Treat it like football. Yell a lot. Treat everyone by how hard they work, not how good they are.

I know some coaches who have coached Olympians but never won a state Championship in California. I know some excellent dedicated coaches that have never taken a team to the State Meet. My guess is you are at a school that was under performing and has a good community and sports culture.

Not many have won man championships so we can go down a list and guess who you are. I don't see one team on that list that has won multiple titles that comes from what you describe. Not to mention, if everyone has a state champion team who is second place?

The fact is there is NOT a state championship team at every school. There is such a thing as talent, genetics and other factors. If you have no students over 5 feet are you going to win the basketball championship even if the Zen master Phil Jackson is the coach?

As was said, you can be good. Very good. But a State Championship in California is not possible for EVERY school.

Also of note, what is described here is generally a big no-no. Visiting junior high meets and talking to the kids is a great way to be fired, just ask Jim O'Brian.

Go to a school with greater than 2000 kids.
Hire Jim O'Brien.

it's all about recruiting

get the football and basketball kids to sprint/jump/throw

recruit from soccer to add to your distance pool...tell kids to convince their friends to come out. Incentivize recruiting, if you recruited a kid to come out for the team, my HS coach would credit that towards earning a varsity letter.

For whatever reason, there are always athletic kids that don't play sports, ask around for the talented athletes.
My senior year of HS my coach finally convinced this one kid who was known as very athletic to come out for track, his first sport ever. He normally couldn't participate in sports, his family was poor and he couldn't get a ride to/from practices. My coach got another kid to give him rides and he ran 10.9 for the 100m as a sophomore. Going the extra mile will help your program and build an inclusive reputation.

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The Schnide wrote:


Also of note, what is described here is generally a big no-no. Visiting junior high meets and talking to the kids is a great way to be fired, just ask Jim O'Brian.

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To the Schnide,

I'm not sure if you are saying I'm making it up or not, but we have won multiple state titles at our school under my direction. In California.

Being able to coach an Olympian does not mean you can coach a team. Winning state is difficult, but doable if you are willing to build a team that can achieve it. It takes time.

I do believe that pretty much any school has a state championship level team on their campus. For most of us they are busy doing something else. How much better would anyone's cross country team be if you had all of the soccer players at your school? All of the basketball players? etc. They are on the campus, can you get them out for cross country?

If you can show me a high school with a population of over 100 with not one student over 5 feet then I will completely agree with your assertion that they couldn't win a state championship. Athletes like Spud Webb have proved the doubters wrong before.

We are in a good community, but there were California State Championship teams this year that were from rough areas.

Simple Formula

1. Be someone who kids and respect and/or like.
2. Be willing to put in a ton of unpaid hours to supervise training in the offseason.

End of Thread.

What I think a great help is that at our school our high school program is integrated with the middle school, meaning the middle schoolers are on the same team and run in the same meets. They go to the same school. It develops experience in these younger runners and gives them role models to look up too. I think this is one of the main reasons, being a school of only 600 we are able to compete and win against the monster schools in our county and state. So to your point i think it is very beneficial to get involved with middle schoolers and get them involved in your program early.

in addition to recruiting, alot of it is personality and how you go about coaching...harder to narrow down the specifics on this one but you will know a coach that has "it"

kids will work their butt off for a coach that demands hard work and excellence but will at the same time make the experience rewarding and fun. this goes a long way towards building a tradition. my HS track coach was also the football coach, and he coached track like football. He was energetic and was known for profanity-laced pump up speeches for anything from practices to dual meets to the state tournament

Cultivate a good feedback loop for yourself, networking with coaches in your region or at conferences, etc. Many of the comments productively focus on recruiting good athletes, developing them, and ultimately creating a "culture of excellence." As Nick Saban says, success is all in "the Process." Moreover, I agree that most high schools have an enormous quantity of untapped potential.

But central to all of that progress is you. You have to see yourself as a work in progress. And you're a long-term project to boot, so be patient and humble, and embody the values you want to see in your athletes. I read somewhere that Bill Aris spent 9 years as an assistant coach at Manlius before actually becoming the XC/track head coach -- and he spent much of that time closely studying different coaches, philosophies, sports psychology, etc. And I suspect that like most master coaches, he continues to hone his craft.

Simply put, to build your dynasty, you have to become a master coach.