High School Runners: Humor Me With Your "Crazy Coach" Stories

I know that there are better stories out there but I felt like sharing anyways.

I have since graduated, but during my junior year I pulled out my new XC spikes before our first race of the season. An assistant coach standing nearby asked me if I had broken in my new spikes yet. I told him, "Yes I did my strides in them yesterday." He proceeded to inform me that my spikes weren't broken in yet until I had ran atleast 100 miles in them. I said ok and walked away knowing that I'd be lucky to get over 50 miles out of my 4.0 ounce spikes.

Senior year of High school at one of our team's main invites of the year I ran 15:35 for 5k (solid PR). Coach then has me throw on trainers and run in the open heat immediately after my invite section. I run 16:4X. After the open heat he tells me that the next day I should go out and do a moderate uptempo 10 miles. Obviously, in hindsight, it was absolutely moronic to have me run the open race and do 10 miles at an up temp effort. That was the beginning of the end of my season. Those two days put me in too big of a hole to get out of the rest of the season and I ended up running very sub-par the rest of the way. Same thing happened in track my senior year.

My cross country coach had us start doing squats and deadlifts partway through September the day after meets.

Who was my coach? Alan Webb

Have a head track coach who tries to turn EVERY SINGLE DISTANCE RUNNER on the team into a 400m runner. My fav quote from him: "The king of the 400 is the king of the mile" Luckily, we have a pretty good distance coach as our assistant coach, and he manages to keep the psycho away from us and our workouts. When asst coach tore his acl and had to go to PT though... sprinting wkouts for several weeks for the distance crew.

Current xc coaches are about as hobbyjoggerish as they come, both women, obsessed with yoga and [gags] pilotes. In order to prepare for a hilly course, their best plan is to do hill repeats the day before. I do real practices on the weekends and after the weird wkouts coach has us do. Best piece of race advice from them? "Be the bunny: go out really hard"

So glad to have LR and a history of better coaches to get me through these trying times.

This story is from the 70s, so you know you'll need a seatbelt while reading it.

We had this older coach, maybe 40s, and after track practice when we hit the showers, he'd join us. It gets better. He was also gifted in terms of his anatomy, which I think was a big reason why he'd hit the showers with us, a bunch of 15-16 yr olds with their little turtles hiding in their respective shells. He'd do all kinds of crazy $hit in that shower though. One time, he stood in the middle of the shower area gyrating his hips, trying to make his johnson do circles in the air. He'd do that while making sounds intended to be circus music. On one occasion, he put soap suds on the end of that thing and did his little circles routine until the suds were all gone.

Another time coach snuck up behind this one freshman in the shower. The kid didn't see him because his head/face was under the shower water. The coach kind of squatted down, because the kid was shorter, and started swinging his johnson into the kid's buttcrack. The kid laughed when he realized what was going on, but then quit the team within the next couple days.

He'd also wear these tiny 70s shorts whenever he ran with us, and one time, when we all sat down to stretch, his nads were basically hanging out of the shorts. We all noticed and finally, one of the older guys finally said something to him. Coach just laughed and said he knew but sometimes needed to "air out the boys when they get too sweaty". He sat there like that for another 5 minutes before he popped them back into place.

Looking back, I'm a bit shocked that he never got in trouble, but he was actually a pretty nice guy, so that probably helped.

I lol'd at both these quotes. Gold. You've got to love real life people where you have to ask, are they trolling?

I think all these examples go with my own experience with coaches - the best thing runners can do is to take each one with a grain of initiative. If we have to occasionally roll our eyes and do our own training or take a rest then so be it. Be the bunny.

I've shared this story here before, but I'll throw it out there again because it's that weird.

It was raining pretty hard, and our xc team was inside the gym waiting for our coach to show up. We thought for sure practice would be cancelled, and we were confused when coach walked in with a little hand basket full of bottles. He informs everyone that he's brought in baby oil, and that we should take off our shirts and lather up. His reasoning? The baby oil would repel the water. So me, in my infinite maturity, squirted the baby oil on people in a, umm, not so mature manner. After lubing up, we proceeded outside for our run.

Coach was later fired for entering runners under the wrong names. It wasn't until a year or two later did I realize how jacked up that whole situation was.

coach gave me dope

My HS coach was very good, very accomplished, won a few state titles, sent numerous kids on to college, always had a competitive program. When it came to XC he was 10% dialed in, in fact possibly his biggest weakness was that he tended to "over coach".

The girls coach was a different story. It was a revolving door of teachers taking the job for that extra coaching bump. The girls coaches were folks that I can't believe ever took the time to enter 1 road race much less devote any time to knowing anything about the sport, or activity of running. (A devoted hobbyjogger would have been a HUGE improvement.)

Before a meet we'd be on the bus, our coach would give each us detailed instructions about the course, what teams were there, and what runner each of us should shoot for etc.. then the girls coach would stand up and say

"Girls my advice to you: Run fast!" and that was it.

BurningDinosaurBones wrote:

then the girls coach would stand up and say

"Girls my advice to you: Run fast!" and that was it.

My daughter's first year coach, asked the team captain's what should she say to the team for her pre-race advice...completely clueless.

I had just purchased a pair of fancy new racing flats. I told my coach I wanted to wear them instead of spikes. He threw a fit and said that if I would lose 1 sec per lap due to traction, and that's 8 seconds I can't make up and that if I did wear the flats he would suspend me from running in the next meet.

I wore his freakin' spikes.

That should be 100% dialed in...

When I was a Frosh my HS Coach was in his last year of teaching sat in a chair next to the indoor track reading a newspaper or book. He never looked at the athletes. He posted workouts on the bulletin board same with meet assignments ,relay orders etc. and basically never said an unprovoked sentence.

Kept a stub out cigar between his teeth (unlit but still smelly) to add to the disengagement.

We had a temporary coach for a few months that would make us take ice baths immediately before our hardest speed workouts. He said it stopped the inflammation before it ever happened. The mid-90s were just a horrible time for most HS runners.

I think I just tore a hamstring while reading that.

My high school swim coach was one of the two worst coaches I have ever seen. She was good with the theory, training and all that. But her my-way-or-the-highway attitude was awful. I asked her if she was going to a local swim clinic. She looked at me with disgust and said, "I don't need to go to clinics." She was very quick to point out when you were wrong, but barely mentioned what you did right. Every time she was interviewed, her first words about an athlete would be, "I told him to..." It was always what SHE did, what SHE said, how SHE helped. Focus always on her.

Somehow, she got tons of glowing articles written about her, and most of the parents treated her like she was some sort of national treasure.

The most horrifying thing on this thread is the spelling and grammar.

Had an MRI for a suspected stress fracture before the results were in coach told me that I could train through the pain and be better off than resting.

Diagnosis was a complete fracture can you imagine what would have happened if I would have listened to the coach??

Can you say........Lawsuit!!!

Turned out he hated doctors and thought of himself as a medical expert because he coached for 20 years.

Coach was fired shortly after for giving medical advice when he was not qualified and for pressuring athletes to train while injured.

Coach told me to do a long run THE VERY DAY AFTER THE RACE!