July 24, 2019

With Team Steve Speed & Hurdle Camp #6 being a little more than two months away, I wanted to write a post that explains my whole philosophy behind why I do these camps, and why I find them very gratifying.

As an English teacher, one thing I always tell my students who see themselves as different or weird is, “Hey, everybody’s weird in their own way. Be weird in your way.” One way in which I’m weird as a track coach is that I really, really don’t like hoarding “secrets” that are accessible only to the athletes whom I coach. Throughout my career, I’ve always been willing to help athletes from opposing schools or clubs, and have had them come and practice with kids that I coach regularly. My attitude has always been, if you have the sincere desire to get better and to do the necessary work required to get better, and you come to me seeking assistance on your quest, and I have the knowledge and wherewithal to help you, then I have an obligation to use my gifts in such a way that you are able to enhance yours. read more

July 17, 2019

When the school year ended this past May, I was planning on setting up a whole bunch of interviews and conducting them throughout June and July, so that I’d be in position to start the first draft of the book by August or September.  But I got a call from my brother during exam period informing me that my mom was in the hospital again, and that “it’s not looking good.” A week later, on June 3^rd, she was gone.

I drove to Delaware from my home in North Carolina, spent the week up there with my siblings. Since coming home, I’ve been writing a lot of poetry—most of it related to my mom—but haven’t been working on the biography very much at all. Indeed, I kind of checked out from my life for a while—stayed away from coaching for about a month as well. I loved my mom dearly, as did all three of my siblings, and the loss of her really tore us apart. I found the grief to be tremendous, almost unbearable. Even though I knew she had lived a full life, that she died knowing that all of us loved her, and that she had died peacefully, none of that could help me deal with the fact that I really, really missed her. read more

March 27, 2019

In my three days in Maryland at the home of Renaldo Nehemiah to begin work on a biography of him, I kept a journal of my thoughts at the beginning of each day. My notes are below.

***

March 25, 2019 (morning)

I was 14 years old when Renaldo Nehemiah became the first hurdler ever to break the 13.00 barrier in the 110m high hurdles. I didn’t see the race when it happened, as I didn’t follow track closely at the time. Not until the following year – my sophomore year of high school – did I start hurdling, and I saw the race on tape when my coach showed it to me one day. I was so in awe that I fell in love with the hurdles instantly. Now here I am at the age of 52, about to board a plane to meet Mr. Nehemiah himself in our beginning stages of collaborating on a book about his life.

I’ve never met Nehemiah in person. I never watched him run in person. In the second year of my website’s existence (2005), I interviewed him for a profile piece I wrote on him. Prior to that profile piece, I had written one on his high school coach, Jean Poquette, who shortly after contacted Renaldo for me, and the connection was made. That interview was a whole lot of fun to conduct, and the subsequent article – some 5,000 words long – turned out really well. I often found myself involuntarily thinking that it was the best writing I had ever done, even though at the time I had let any aspirations of pursuing a professional writing career fade into the background of my mind. read more

July 31, 2018

Trusting the Athlete

For coaches, the temptation to be too hands-on on race day is very real. It’s a temptation I’ve learned to avoid over the years. At USATF Junior Olympic Nationals this past weekend in Greensboro, NC, a younger coach asked me if, after all these years, I still get nervous when my athletes compete. I laughed and answered “I sure do. The day I no longer get nervous prior to an athlete’s big race is the day I need to stop coaching.” But at the same time, I don’t want to pass on any nervous energy to my athlete. I want my athlete to know that I care, that I’m in it to win it as much as he or she is, but I don’t want him or her feeling that I doubt his or her abilities to come through on the big stage. I want to exude confidence, and I want that confidence to be real.

At this year’s nationals, I had four hurdlers competing – all of whom I coach privately. And because so much of coaching is about relationship building, a coach’s emotional investment in an athlete’s success can be very intense. The more we get to know these athletes as people, and the more we find ourselves growing as individuals as a result of our relationships with our athletes, the more we care about them, and the more we want to see them succeed. read more

July 20, 2018

Hello hurdle coaches everywhere!

Coach Hector Cotto and I are pleased to announce that we will be conductiong our first-ever Team Steve Hurdle Coaches’ Clinic this coming fall.

It will take place at the same place as our first two camps for athletes – the JDL Fast Track in Winston Salem, NC, on Saturday October 13, from 9am – 4pm. At the coaches’ clinic, I will be giving hurdle coaches the opportunity to learn the methods I’ve used in coaching some of the best hurdlers to come out of the state of North Carolina over the past 20 years or so, including current 100h world record Keni Harrison. For more details and to register for the clinic, follow this link at Coach Cotto’s sprinthurdles website: https://go.sprinthurdles.com/team-steve-speed-hurdle-camp.

My goal for this clinic is for coaches to be able to coach these methods to their athletes – methods that I am convinced will lead to consistent success and significant improvement regardless of the athlete’s talent level. The concept is simple: the less effort you can put into getting over the hurdles, the more effort you can put into getting down the track. At the clinic, I will be breaking down the ways I use to make hurdling easy and efficient for the athlete. read more

July 19, 2018

Time for an Update!

It’s been a while since I’ve written a blog post, so it’s time for an update. Since my last post, I’ve done a third Team Steve Speed & Hurdle Camp. This one – the third one – took place on the weekend of June 9-10 at Woodlawn School in Mooresville, NC. While we didn’t have as many athletes as we did at the first two camps, the quality of the work was at an all-time high. Despite the 90-degree temperatures, we were able to pack a lot of drilling, block work, and long-hurdle work into those days. Thanks to coaches Hector Cotto, Kevin  Howell, and Garrison Rountree for their invaluable assistance and instruction. There are plenty of photos from the camp, which can be found here on the hurdlesfirst facebook page.

Meanwhile, I’ve been coaching all summer long, and have four hurdlers who will be competing at the USAT Junior Olympic Nationals, which will take place less than two hours from where I live, at NC A&T University in Greensboro, NC. If you’ll be there, I’ll see you there. read more

April 2, 2018

Team Steve Hurdle Camp II Was a Huge Success

Back in November my coaching team and I conducted our first Team Steve Speed & Hurdle Camp at the JDL Fast Track in Winston Salem, NC. This past weekend, we did our second one, at the same venue. Though we didn’t have as many athletes this time around, mainly due to it being Easter Weekend and also due to meets being held this past weekend, the 32 athletes who did come were an absolute joy to work with, and they came away from the camp having learned a lot by facing every challenge that we presented to them.

Of the 32 campers, we had athletes come from eleven states, including North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Tennessee, South Carolina, Alabama, Michigan, New Jersey, West Virginia, Georgia, and Texas. Oh yeah bruh, they come from far and wide to train with Team Steve! In the two days, we packed in a lot of training. We worked on block starts with no hurdles, block starts with hurdles, technical drills, strength Exercises, rhythm development drills, alternating lead leg drills, curve hurdling drills, sprint mechanics drills, and I’m probably forgetting one or two drills. read more

November 19, 2017

Well it’s been a week since the inaugural Team Steve Speed & Hurdle Camp concluded, and because of a busy work week and overall exhaustion, I am finally getting around to putting together some thoughts as I look back on the camp.

First off, the camp was a huge success, and I would go so far as to say that it was one of the most fulfilling, gratifying experiences of my life. With a total of 47 campers converging on the JDL Fast Track in Winston Salem NC, we had plenty of campers from in-state and from nearby South Carolina, but we also had campers come from far-away states like Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, Illinois, and Colorado. What I most enjoyed was watching the campers interact with each other, learn from each other, grow together, and bond with each other. Despite the fact that the campers might have known no one, or just a few people, prior to coming to the camp, they left having made many friends and feeling like part of a family.

Campers receive final instructions before preparing to get to work.

I want to thank everyone who made this happen, as there is no way I could have done it on my own. First I want to thank Craig Longhurst and his staff at JDL Fast Track for hosting the event and accommodating all of our needs. read more

August 6, 2017

As some of you already know, I will be conducting the Team Steve Sprint & Hurdle Camp for athletes of all ages on November 11-12 of this year at the JDL Fast Track indoor facility in Winston Salem, NC.

I am very excited to be conducting this camp, as it will provide me with an opportunity to teach to a large group the style of hurdling that I have taught to individual hurdlers that I have coached over the past 23 years.

I am excited to have the camp in November because that will give athletes and coaches who attend the camp the time they need to incorporate the lessons they learn into their training sessions well ahead of the peak phase of the outdoor season.

I am excited to have the camp at the JDL Fast Track because weather will not be an issue, the track features a fast mondo surface, and we will have access to all the equipment we need (hurdles and starting blocks) for a large camp. Also, we will have enough space to spread things out and keep things moving so that athletes aren’t spending a lot of time waiting and watching other athletes. read more

July 16, 2017

Last week I spent three days working with a high school girl who ran 16.5 as a freshman, taking nine steps to the first hurdle and four steps between the rest of the way. Without much coaching, she dropped from the 19’s at the beginning of the outdoor season all the way down to the mid-16’s on sheer will, determination and athleticism. When her grandfather first drove her down from Maryland to North Carolina last month to train with me, we spent almost all of our time breaking down her form and rebuilding it.

Mainly, we worked on fixing her habit of swinging the lead leg from the hip instead of driving with the knee. We also addressed the habit of her arms crossing her body, and her foot-strikes landing on her heels instead of on the balls of her feet.

She came back for another set of sessions last week, and in our first session, we picked up where we left off before speeding things up in later sessions. The video embedded in this post comes from a few reps in that first session, in which I had her do the cycle drill. The hurdles were set at 30 inches, spaced 18 feet apart. read more