Reflecting back on the last two articles, I realize I may have left one of the most important things I’ve learned over the past 25 years out of my musings. I spoke about proper preparation, in training both the mind and the body, along with how to build championship character in the preparation and opportunity to win. This is all very important but only gets you part way. Over the last few years I’ve also learned that it’s important to teach your athletes that all of it, the training, the racing, the winning, is not very important in the long run.
Now that might sound counterintuitive to a championship program, how do you go about winning championships without valuing winning, but that’s not really what it’s all about. Let’s face it, if we only got into the sport to win, there wouldn’t be very many athletes competing, and history shows us otherwise. More important than winning, is teaching your athletes that what they do, cross country, and all the training, bus rides, and competitions, are worth it regardless.
This past year was a special one for me as a coach, specifically with regard to the girls team. We finished up the year in 2022 as D3 runner up, and the ninth best team at Meet of Champions. We were losing one athlete to graduation, our #6, and were in the best position on paper to win in 2023. We had two of the best girls in the division, along with five seniors that had been running together for at least six years, with a couple having run together since second grade. We were definitely in the driver’s seat.
But with expectation comes pressure. The athletes were aware of it since they walked off the dias at D3s with the runner up plaque. They knew what they wanted, what they needed to do to be in a position to get it, and 365 days to stew on it before the opportunity got there.
And I got a glimpse into the season on the first day of practice. Super hot, we got going with our traditional 10 lap time trial, where every three minutes the athletes would switch from running quickly to recovery and back until they had ten laps in the books. Emma, one of our seniors, was tracking down our top boys over the second half and nearly beat the field. Our other seniors were in hot pursuit, showing that they understood the summer running assignment. They were where they were supposed to be. Which can be a scary thing.
Becka and I were impressed by what we saw, able to compare year to year, and the girls were prepped. Recognizing the position we were in, we understood our job was as stewards of these girls’ season more than it was director. We made a plan early on to keep things light and focus on what they were doing and accomplishing, but not on the elephant in the room, winning the whole thing. Truth be told, we really didn’t bring the championship up.
But we did stress the importance of learning through racing. The girls were in a position, that in the majority of the season’s races they were the overwhelming favorite. But rather than pump them up to go out and destroy the competition, we stressed the importance of learning to race, tackling difficult courses, racing for place not time, and learning to ride the edge, taking risks but learning where the boundaries are.
We also wanted to make sure it was fun. My 2006 girls team was a similar makeup, knowing they were in contention, yet were very business-like. Becka was a part of that team and she knew she wanted things to be different for these girls. While winning the championship was great, there wasn’t a lot of fun during the season. We wanted it to be different.
So I adopted a plan to lighten the race day expectations by dressing in theme. Early in the season Skye had convinced the girls squad to take on “spirit week” during the second week of the season. One day was fluorescent day, another cowboy day, and so on. I vowed to dress up on race day, hoping to show that we could still go out and do good things without making winning the only goal.
And the girls dug it. I bought a Grateful Dead shirt, a Nordic rune shirt, had my Hawaiian shirt and even busted out the Christmas Snoop Dogg “Shizzle my Chrismizzle” shirt during the season to keep things light. To show that while it was a race, that’s all it was. Their parents would still love them regardless of outcome and the world would go on. The coup de gras however was the blue and gold Snooperbowl outfit worn at Monadnock’s Moonlight Madness meet under the lights. Skye posted it to InstaGram and Snoop himself liked the post. Hard to get much lighter than that.
Heading into the championships we kept the talk light, reminding them the job was simple: go out and run to your best. It didn’t help that Hopkinton got this hot shot freshman that was tearing things up consequently closing the gap we had on paper at the beginning of the season in a big way.
But to be honest, it didn’t change a thing. At the senior dinner, where we gathered for pasta and speeches from the seniors on what being a part of the team has meant I stayed away from race day expectations. We had been going over the plan all season long and there was nothing left to say. I made sure there were lots of smiles and good vibes for the last few practices. Race day was shaping up to be hot, but there was no benefit in perseverating on it.
We lucked out as well as the girls had decided to wear Chickenlegs shorts as part of their uniform for the State Championships. We knew they would be good coming into the season, and in an effort to make them easy to pick out, we planned to do something different with the uniform. Being red, white and blue meant we blended in with all the other red and blue teams. Picking the “Lightning McQueen” version of their shorts, which happened to match up well with an older version of the uniform was the plan.
In doing so, ordering the shorts, the girls came along a poster contest aimed at high school cross country. Take a picture with your team in Chickenleg shorts, enter it in the contest and win a poster and some discounts if your picture was chosen. They picked two winners, our girls and a team from Alabama. Once we unveiled the shorts for competition we were known as the team with Chickenleg shorts so mission accomplished.
So for the State Championships I had gone onto Amazon and located rooster themed bowling shirts, and just before race start while the girls were on warmup, we broke them out. I’m not sure of the effect on the girls but our spectators understood and loved it. Here the girls were looking to put a cap on a long cross country career and their coaches were dressed as if they were headed to a Kentucky fried bowling contest. We certainly didn’t add any pressure to how the girls already felt.
And the race was tough. The girls got out good, probably too good for the conditions, and were in the driver’s seat right away. Hopkinton was doing a good job stalking us, with Maddy Lane way out front, and Shaylee Murdough moving through the field and splitting up our pack. More concerning was Elizabeth Trafton having a fantastic race, splitting our # 2 and # 3 which we hadn’t expected. It was going to come down to the girls digging in, digging deep, not giving up, and running to the best of their ability.
And that’s what happened. While we weren’t as up front as we wanted, with no one in the top five, our scoring five all finished in the top 26, scoring 78 to Hopkinton’s 91. There was a lot of emotion when the girls found out their hard work had paid off, but it was a quiet satisfaction versus an overabundance of joy. Not the business-like season of 2006, but recognition of a job well done.
While this all worked out, it hasn’t always. In 2015 I had a boys team that was in the driver’s seat, pretty green but very capable. We were in it for sure, but simply couldn’t get it done as we lost to Kearsarge by one point. Back then I didn’t know how to channel their anticipation and there were a lot of sad faces that day.
Three seasons later, the freshmen that were green in 2015 were my senior captains in 2018, where we were looking to repeat. Behind in the scoring with 400 meters to go, I leaned in to our #3 and #4 guys and let them know we simply were not winning with less than 90 seconds left to run. Understanding that it was now time to do what they had been training for all season, Dakota got up on his toes, and made the necessary pass that brought us another championship.
In the ensuing interview, team captain Logan shouted out Campbell, the team we beat by two points, for making them earn it. Three years before I had to remind the guys to shake the hands of the Kearsarge team and this year they embraced them as they came off the stage. The running and racing is important, but it’s not the only thing that’s important. Hard fought battles are worth it regardless of which side you come out on. Recognizing the value in understanding that is worth its weight in gold as a coach. I’ve made sure to add that concept, to stress it as most important to each season since 2015.
Athletes don’t naturally recognize that value on their own. Society teaches us that winning is the ultimate measure, that the value is whether you’ve beaten everyone else. How fast did you run? What place did you come in? Did you win? But the real value is in the journey. And if that journey is fun, adds value to your days at practice, and gives you the opportunity to really perform your best, that is the real benefit of sport. And the most important.
I’ll see you out there.
