And Off They Go to College
by Steve McGill
One of the most difficult yet most rewarding things about coaching athletes at the high school level, like I do for the most part, is watching many of them develop into athletes who are prepared to compete at the collegiate level. It doesn’t matter if they go to a Division I, Division II, or Division III institution. The very fact that they’ll be furthering their track aspirations means that the time we spent together served to plant a seed that continues to grow. Recently, I’ve been in somewhat of a sentimental mood, as two athletes whom I’ve grown very close to (and both of whom are featured in another article in this month’s issue) just made their college decisions. Falon Spearman will be heading to Duke University next year in Durham, NC, and Malik Mixon will be heading to the University of Southern California. These two athletes both have lots of natural talent, an insatiable desire to constantly improve, an exceptional work ethic, and a very high IQ when it comes to hurdling and when it comes to life as a whole. I’m very happy for them both and very proud of them both. But man, I’m really gonna miss them.
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But getting past that, if someone were to ask me what I see the role of the high school coach being, I would list the following things:
Build a Relationship
For any athlete of any sport, the high school coach or the youth coach is the person through whom the athlete experiences the sport. Their attitude toward the sport itself is largely dependent on the relationship they have with the coach. An adversarial relationship or antagonistic relationship will lead to a negative experience that sours the athlete toward the sport. The way I’ve learned to look at it is, I’m coaching a person, not just an athlete. Track is a part of their lives, not the totality of their lives. They have family, friends, teachers, etc. who are all part of their lives as well. So, as their coach, I can best tap into athletes’ potential by getting to know them as people outside of the role they play in my life. Such relationships can happen in various places — on the practice track, chilling out at the end of a practice session, on rides to away meets, etc. Athletes who know you care about them as people and not just in terms of how well they perform will build a healthy relationship not only with you, but with the sport (and specifically, for our purposes, with the hurdles).
Instill a Love for the Sport
This goes hand in hand with relationship building. The easiest, most natural way to instill a love for the sport is to love the sport yourself. Speaking for myself, I like the sport of track and field but I love the hurdles. So I don’t have to do anything pretentious or make any extra efforts to pass on that love to my athletes. Whenever I’ve coached for school teams in the past, I always had a lot of kids who wanted to try the hurdles, many of whom I didn’t directly encourage to do so. We always had more hurdlers than other schools even though we were a small school. I remember one time when I was in college and one of my hurdler teammates passed by me as we were walking to our respective classes, and he said to me, “Steve, I was doing some trail leg drills yesterday in my room, my sh*t ‘bout to be thorough.” I laughed and told him I couldn’t wait to see it. That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about when I’m talking about a love for the sport. The both of us were getting amped up about some drills he did in his dorm room. Neither of us were among the best hurdlers in the nation, or even in the state, or even in our conference. Both of us were learning to deal with a whole lot of losing that we’d never had to experience in high school. It was our love for the event, our curiosity and enjoyment of discovering new ways to improve, that sustained us through the difficult times. As a high school coach, I know that the high school years will most likely be the end of my athletes being the best in all the land. In college, they’ll be starting from the bottom; the male hurdlers will have to adjust to the hurdles being three inches higher. Male and female will face on a regular basis the level of competition they only used to face maybe at the state meet and in the big national meets at the end of the year. So if they don’t have a love for the sport before they get to college, the increased level of competition alone can be enough to make some athletes lose their motivation.
Ingrain Efficient Technique
This is a big one. One thing I’ve learned from my athletes who have gone on to compete collegiately over the years is that college coaches either don’t have time or simply don’t spend a lot of time teaching technique. In college, with access to facilities and coaching staffs that can’t be matched by high schools or youth club teams, athletes are going to get faster and they’re going to get stronger, but, particularly when it comes to the hurdles, they might not necessarily get better. As we all know, for hurdlers who are already at an advanced stage of development, getting faster and stronger causes more problems than it solves. Hurdlers always have to adapt their rhythm to their speed, and always have to make minor technical adjustments as they get stronger. A hurdler who doesn’t have a strong foundation in hurdling mechanics prior to entering college will pretty much just have to continue to go with what he or she is already doing. But a hurdler with a strong foundation will know instinctively how to make the necessary adjustments so that the benefit of increased speed and strength will be maximized.
Say Goodbye When it’s Time to Say Goodbye…
This one is the hardest one of all. On more than one occasion I’ve wondered how far an athlete of mine and I could have gone together if we had been able to stay together beyond the high school years. Once they’ve graduated high school, my role shifts to that of mentor, supporter, etc. I’m not the focal point anymore. I’m not planning the workouts and designing the training program; someone else is. So if I try to cling to the past, and what we’ve had, so will the athlete. I remember one time about ten or twelve years ago, one of my athletes came home for holiday break in the winter after the first semester of his freshman year and wanted to experiment with 7-stepping. I was like, sure, why not? So we worked on it and he was able to do it and he went back to school excited about it. But his college coach squashed it immediately and made an announcement to the whole team that he didn’t want anybody going back to their high school coaches anymore. When the athlete told me his coach’s reaction, I was angry and resentful. But when I thought about it longer, I realized that I had been intruding on his space and undermining his authority, regardless of the fact that it hadn’t been my intention to do so. A hurdler can’t serve two masters; you can’t have one coach telling you one thing and another coach telling you another. So I had to let go.
…Because the Dogs are in the Yard
This is the most important lesson I’ve learned in regard to letting go. For every athlete who graduates, there’s another athlete who’s on the come-up. So, always, the mantra is, coach the athletes who are in front of you. Coach the athletes who are here with you now. Give them the best of who you are. Build relationships with them. Instill in them a love of the event. Teach them the elements of rhythm and technique. Until it’s time for them to go.
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