Blanco's Amigo wrote:
El Jefe wrote:
Now for some more useful stuff. Does anyone know how Coach White trained these kids to so much success? Methods, philosophy, training loads?
Easy, he told them if they ever wanted to leave that place they had to run faster.
Actually, they ran high mileage for back then, 50-60 a week. Plus they ran 800m repeat hills often. But the kids were doing another 4-6 hours of manual labor a day, kind of a cross training.
I coach in a small Central Valley town about 3 hours north of McFarland. We are not as poor (a little over 50% of our kids qualify for free lunch and breakfast. I'm sure the percentage is much higher in McFarland) and have had far fewer tragedies, but a lot of the movie still rang true. I've had a chance to meet Coach White a couple of times. The first time was during the 2003 season, White's last and the inspiration for this article
https://www.si.com/high-school/2015/02/16/si-vault-running-their-lives-mcfarland-usa-movie-gary-smithMy team was pretty good that year. We thought we might get on the podium at the state meet (bombed and finished 10th). When I met Coach White at the Clovis Invitational, both of our teams were out warming up and we talked for a little bit. He was really friendly. Maybe he knew Hughson was a small agricultural community like McFarland and felt some kinship. Maybe he was just a friendly guy. He had a small dog in a big fight mentality. Pointing out some of the competition that we'd be running against: bigger, taller, more mature looking kids from larger schools. Then said something about our kids just having big hearts and big lungs. We were 6th that day and I think his team was maybe 3rd.
I met him a few more times over the years. The most recent time was just after the Division 4 race at the 2015 state meet. My kids had been watching the trailer for McFarland (which was still a couple of months away from release). My #1 boy (from a poor, Mexican family) was totally jacked to see the movie. He was the only one of my runners who had made state that year. My boys team had made the trip to watch our #1 guy race. They were out on their cool down. My wife and son were 50 yards away tossing a frisbee and I was doing my normal, "the season's over, I'm exhausted" zombie walk. I saw coach White walking toward me and said hello. He came right over and struck up a conversation.
That year, McFarland had also had only 1 boy qualify for the state meet (the first time in the history of the CA state meet without a McFarland team) and White, long retired, was there supporting the one boy who had qualified as an individual. McFarland had been "promoted" by their section from Division 4 to Division 1 because of their success at the section level throughout the years (every time you win 3 section titles in a row, you get bumped up a division). Coach White was pretty upset that his boys had to race against kids from schools 3-4 times their size in order to reach the state meet. McFarland had actually hired lawyers to try and get moved back down to their proper division. (The rule was put in place because there are a handfull of small, private schools who "give scholarships" to kids in one sport (basketball, for example) and end up creating regional all star teams and dominating the lower divisions, McFarland does not fall into that category, though). After complaining for a while how they'd been lumped in with the private schools for "promotion", White turned and looked at me and said, "they could have made it anyway" (They'd been 4th in their section and the top 3 qualified for state). "they just didn't run enough". I asked him, "how much do you think they should be running?". He paused, cool and laconic like a later day Clint Eastwood, squinted into the distance, then turned to me and said, "about 80".
That is the extent of my knowledge of the training of the McFarland boys team.
My wife and son eventually came over and started talking to him as well. She asked, "are you the guy that they made that movie about"? We then proceeded to talk about the movie and what was "Hollywood" and what was real. When my team came back from the cool down, my #1 boy was speechless to actually meet the Coach White. Coach was very interested in my boy's training and experience and was very encouraging to him to continue his running and to have a great track season.
A couple of things I've gleaned over the years about what is true and what is false from the movie.
Patently false:
Thomas Valles won the individual title in 1987.
Coach White came to McFarland in 1987 after being fired from a teaching gig in Idaho.
Coach White started the team in 1987 (he started it in 1980).
The Diaz parents discouraged their kids from running
Somewhat true:
Thomas Valles was sitting on that bridge in the middle of the night. He claims he wasn't thinking about jumping.
There are some hilly courses that we run (Mt. SAC), but nothing like depicted in the movie. The Central Section qualifying course is the same as the state meet course, as the state meet is run in Fresno, which is in the Central Section of CIF.
True enough:
McFarland won the D3 state title in 1987
Many poor kids in the valley (white or brown) often times have not left their own towns and have never seen places like the ocean or Yosemite National Park (despite it being a 2-3 hour drive to those places).
Coach White did help out some of the families during harvest time.
McFarland did go on to win 9 titles in 14 years.
It's hot as hell in the south end of the valley during the summers and fall.
Coincidentally, McFarland has ALWAYS been poor. Like pockets around where I live, before the town was predominantly brown, it was predominantly Okie. If you don't know that term, read the Grapes of Wrath. As the poor white Okies got a little wealth in their families, they moved out of McFarland and were replaced by poor brown Mexicans.