Why Being There Matters
by Steve McGill
In another article in this month’s issue, entitled “The Thrill of Coaching,” I talk about how enriching it was for me to work with multiple hurdlers over the past ten days or so, all of whom came to each session with a great attitude that lifted my spirits and brought out the best in me as a coach. Those experiences were so enjoyable that they had me questioning the value of my daily life as a high school English teacher, as I couldn’t help but think about what it would be like to coach hungry hurdlers as my main source of income, as it is already my main source of fulfillment.
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In my private coaching, I’ve been traveling here there and everywhere locally in the range of where I live in Mooresville, NC. One girl I coach, Raelle Brown, attends a school about 30 minutes north of where I live, and her coach lets us use their track. So, many of my sessions are there. Another girl I coach, Olivia, attends a school about 30 minutes south of where I live, so I’ll drive there to work with her. My school team practices at a school about 8 minutes from work, and sometimes I’ll invite outside athletes to meet me there. I have five yellow practice hurdles that I keep in the backseat of my car at all times. Their lowest height is 21 inches, and they raise up to 36 inches. And since the majority of hurdlers I coach are girls, my set of practice hurdles serves me well, even when I’m at school that grants me access to their hurdles. Often, I need to have athletes do certain drills at heights below the lowest height of 30 inches of regulation hurdles. In my younger days as a coach, when I was still forming my identity as a coach, my mantra was “Go where the hurdles take you,” which was a way of saying “Follow your bliss,” or “Follow the path of least resistance.” Now, my mantra is, “Wherever you go, bring the hurdles with you,” which is another way of saying the same thing. But this newer mantra specifically means that I shouldn’t seek to plant myself in a place that I know I can always use to train athletes, but that I should instead seek to coach whomever, wherever, as I am needed, as I am called upon.
One conclusion that I’ve come to in my three decades of coaching hurdlers is that being there matters. While I’ve had success helping athletes and coaches who send me videos to critique, who ask me for advice about drills to do, workouts to do, etc., the amount of help I can give is inherently limited by the fact that I’m not there on the track with you when you’re training. My personal experience has been that I’m always seeing things in person that I didn’t see on video; I’m always making mini-adaptations or major adaptations to training sessions during the session based on how things are going, what I’m seeing, and the feedback I’m receiving from the athlete in regard to what they’re feeling. If you’re from out of town and we get together for even just one 2-hour session in person, we can get more accomplished in those two hours than we could from weeks or even months of going back and forth online.
The reason is simple: when coach and athlete are on the track together, I as coach can give immediate feedback. Also, I can hear the cadence, which is providing me with information. I can see a lazy trail leg and troubleshoot as to what is causing it to be too flat, too wide, or too slow. And we can address it there on the spot. The athlete doesn’t have to go through a whole workout of making the same mistake and then being forced to wait until the next workout, after receiving feedback from me online or via text or phone call, to attempt to address the issue based on my feedback. Many athletes aren’t able to feel when they’re doing things efficiently vs. when they’re doing them inefficiently. They can’t tell, on their own, the difference between a bad rep and a good rep. So if I’m not right there with them, they’re just guessing, not knowing if they’re improving or going backwards.
To me, the magic happens in the moment. The “aha!” moments occur for the athlete when the coach is there providing guidance. I’ll never forget, when I was a young coach, when Jean Poquette — Renaldo Nehemiah’s high school coach — told me to never let a hurdler hurdle if I’m not present to watch them. Formerly South Carolina head coach Curtis Frye said something similar at a coaching clinic of his that I attended back in 2004: “Don’t tell hurdlers to ‘go hurdle” and leave them off by themselves.” So what is this “magic” I’m talking about? It’s pretty simple. The magic is the moment when a breakthrough occurs — when after several reps that aren’t quite right, or aren’t right at all, a rep occurs where the body movements fall in place, the four limbs are working together as a harmonious unit, and the timing is on point. The magic is the moment when “right” actually feels “right,” and the clouds of doubt depart from the hurdler’s mind. We’re talking about something different here than running personal bests or making it to the podium. We’re talking about learning how to hurdle. We’re talking about fitting your improved power and speed into a new, unfamiliar, scarier rhythm. We’re talking about completing the process of understanding a new concept intellectually to being able to execute it physically. In that sense, the coach plays the role of Morpheus in The Matrix, or Yoda in Star Wars. The coach is the sensei who guides the athlete to greatness, to fulfillment of their potential.
Four of the athletes that I coached last week traveled from out of town. Three of them I had never coached before. All of them left armed with more knowledge, with a greater awareness of their mistakes and how to correct their mistakes, and with a greater confidence that they could retain what they had learned and continue to build on it.
So, while I will never deny anyone who asks me for tips online, and will always provide suggestions to the best of my ability, I will always also invite them to come see more for a one-on-one session or two, because I know, in person, which gives us the ability to form a genuine relationship, we will make the magic happen.
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