The Thrill of Coaching
by Steve McGill

When I think of my life as a coach, specifically as a hurdles coach, I realize that it’s my best life, that it’s the part of my life where I am most myself. This past week my school was on spring break, which meant a week of not teaching English classes, a week away from the routine of the school day, a week to recalibrate before the final stretch of the school year begins. In my week away from my usual life and my identity as a classroom teacher, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect, and a lot of time to coach. The coaching was so enjoyable, so thrilling, so exhilarating, so fulfilling, that I find myself dreading the return of measuring time by the length of class periods, the length of planning periods, and the length of meetings. 

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One the first weekend of my break, I worked with Peyton Milleson for two days — Peyton is a high school hurdler from West Virginia who has attended two of my hurdling academies and seeks to continue to refine his skills. Two days later, on a Tuesday, I worked with a female collegiate hurdler who was looking to address her issues of hitting hurdles and of slowing down late in races. On Friday, I worked with a girl on my school team who is new to the hurdles but is a solid sprinter, as I’m helping her improve in the 300m hurdles after she ran her first race in that event the previous Friday. 

Then on Saturday morning, I ran a mini-camp for a group of hurdlers at a local high school. There were about eight of them, all of them at varying levels of ability, but all of them eager to get better and soak in the knowledge I was presenting them. We had scheduled to meet for 2-½ hours, but it ended up being closer to 3-½ as time flew past. Later that evening I worked with a high school junior named Olivia who attends a nearby school, as I’ve been meeting her regularly on Saturdays for the past five or six weeks. Olivia is a five-stepper learning to four-step. In the 300 hurdles she is a 21-stepper learning to 19-step. Her personal bests are in the range of 20.0 and 57.0. But she’s one of my favorite people to coach. Because she puts in the work. She faces her fears. I said to her in our most recent session, “Every rep is an adventure to the unknown,” underscoring the fact that as we try to move beyond who we are and have yet to find solid ground on who we are still in the process of becoming, there’s always the feeling that there is risk involved. It’s safer to stick with what you’ve been doing, but you don’t get faster staying with what you’ve been doing. That’s what I told her. 

Meanwhile, Janie Coble, who ran for my school for two years and is now a college freshman, came during the morning session on Saturday and got a workout in out of the blocks over 4-5 hurdles. And last Saturday, after working with Peyton and Raelle Brown (one of my regulars), I worked with two athletes from a school about 90 minutes away. And like the kid in the mini-camp, these two athletes were soaking up the knowledge and asking great questions. 

So, I had a busy week off! But it didn’t feel busy the way my school life feels busy. I didn’t create any to-do lists to check off tasks I needed to complete. I wasn’t dealing with grade grubbing nor apathy. I wasn’t worrying about students using ChatGPT to write their essays or overhearing student gossip or faculty complaints. In these coaching sessions, I was in a space where I felt free to be me, an expanded, unfiltered, non-watered-down version of myself. I remember joking to one of my students a few weeks ago. I said to her, “Do you know what I do for a living?” She answered, confused that I asked the question, “Teach English.” I responded, “No, I tell people they can go to the bathroom.” Because that’s all I get all day — “Mr. McGill, can I go to the bathroom?” “Mr. McGill, can I go fill up my water bottle?” “Mr. McGill, can I go get something from my locker?” After a while it’s like yeah, just go. Wherever you need to go, just go. And stay a while.

But on the track there’s none of that. On the track, the audience is engaged, locked in, willing to put in the work without seeking to cut corners. In that realm, we can build relationships, we can journey toward excellence together.

Coaching for the school track is not the same. It’s enjoyable, but it’s different. Kids often bring the distractions and dramas of the school day with them to the track. Kids miss practice that, for me, seem foolish and ridiculous, or, at best, indications that they’re not really all-in on this sport. I have a theory that I’ve talked about before — no matter the size of the team, only 15% of the athletes are gonna be all-in, another 15% will do what they’re asked to do and are good teammates, then the rest of the 70% are out there just to be out there. That’s the biggest issue with coaching a school team — you gotta deal with that 70% to get to the 15% that is all-in. You find yourself frustrated with the fact that you can’t give your full attention to the kids who deserve it. And the top 15% doesn’t consist of the best athletes necessarily, but the ones who put in the work regardless of their talent level. So, to state it plainly, I did not miss coaching the school team for a week. Part of it is me. While I appreciate all the events, the hurdles are my passion. Whereas some hurdle coaches will be adamant in stating that they are not just hurdle coaches but track coaches, I have to take a look at myself and acknowledge, I’m a hurdle coach. I can coach other events, and I’ve had success coaching other events, but nothing else in the sport, or in life, captures my imagination like the hurdles do.

One of my mantras that I’ve said a lot to the hurdlers who’ve come to me over the past two weeks is, “Once you get it you got it.” What that means is, when you’re learning something new, it’s gonna take a while before you can execute it properly, and to then ingrain it as a part of your own style. At first, “right” will feel “wrong” because “wrong” still feels “right.” Untraining the body out of the old muscle memory and into the new muscle memory takes time. To execute a marching popover rep over just one hurdle efficiently takes multiple reps if you’re not used to pushing off the back leg with force. But once you get it, you got it, meaning once you do it once, you’ll be able to do it over and over again because now you know how it’s supposed to feel. 

And that’s where the joy lies, for me as a coach — in seeing someone get it. I’ll shout a “Let’s go!” after a properly executed popover rep over a track bag. As I’ve told every athlete I’ve coached over the past 10 days or so, I don’t get frustrated. The reason I don’t is because I know we’re gonna figure it out. Whatever the issue is we’re addressing, we’re gonna figure it out. Whether it’s hitting hurdles, spending too much time in the air, landing flat-footed, etc. Doesn’t matter what the issue is, we’re gonna troubleshoot it until we figure out what the right cue is. We’ll keep repeating that cue every rep. And once things click into place, we’re good. Once we get it, we got it. There’s no reason to fear reverting back to old habits, because you know what to do now, you know what to cue now.

So yeah, I had a great spring break. 

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