Coaches’ Blog

Okay, so I’ve dropped the ball with this blog lately.  Actually, that’s putting it nicely. I’m more like the quarterback who dropped the ball, kept kicking it as he tried to pick it up, and then eventually kicked it out of the endzone for a safety.  Well maybe I’m not that bad, but I’m somewhere in between

So I know that I’ve been out of contact for three weeks or so and we would all hope that I’d have some golden nugget of truth to share after such a long hiatus.  Sadly, this is not the case; however, I did have one thought yesterday that I’d like to share.

My dentist reads my blog. 

Sorry, Doc, don’t mean to put you on the spot, but now you’ve made the big-time.  No, really, she’s read my blog.  At first, I didn’t know what to make of it.  Should I be honored or weirded out?   As I reflected on it, I realized that it was a great thing and that I had too few relationships like that in my life

So I’m only 29-years-old and, in my eyes, that is too young to start a sentence with “back in the good old days.”  That being said, back in the good old days…you knew people.  You knew your barber, your dentist, your doctor, your grocer, mechanic, plumber, everyone.  You probably never invited your barber over for Sunday dinner, but when you went in for a trim he knew you.  You were more than just a head of hair that needed cutting.  Or a cavity that needed filling.  The conversation would pick up right where it left of, almost as if it was only a day that had passed and not 3-6 months. 

My dentist takes a vested interested in my life that happens outside my molars and bicuspids.  It’s a refreshing change of gears.  But most importantly it is a great reminder for me.  This is a skill that is crucial for coaches to have, foster, and continually develop.  Athletes are more than PR’s, more than a pair of legs that run around the track.  It sounds stupid, but athletes are people too.  They have a life outside the two hours they are at practice and that matters even more. 

I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes I get caught up in all the action of practice and all the chaos of putting on a meet and this fact gets lost in the shuffle.  But that makes it even more important to keep an eye on it.  My biggest problem is that I absolutely hate small talk.  I adore conversations with substance, but sometimes I think I’m allergic to the small stuff.

Long story short, sometimes I think I need to be more like my dentist. 

I don’t know how many people out there have ever said that sentence, but thanks for filling the cavity, Doc.    

Last year marked the start of a new Tufts Track and Field tradition.  It was the 1st Annual Alumni Invitational where the programs alumni return to challenge the current athletes to a dual meet.  Being the first meeting of the two squads, we had light numbers on the alumni side.  As a result, we decided to split the current athletes into two squads, making it a trimeet. 

To add a little twist to the meet, the coaches had a Fantasy Tufts Track & Field draft to establish the teams.  Indicitive of how well the coaches knew their athletes, the 1st Annual Alumni Invite was actually the closest meet of the year.  Coming down to the final event, the long jump, the meet was exciting from start to finish.  In the end, Tufts beat Tufts by one point.  

Then freshmen, Jerzy EG makes a move on National Qualifiers Adam Sharp and Brian McNamara as well as All Americans Rod Hemingway and Dave Sorensen

As the years move on, I’m sure that the Alumni Team will grow to numbers that will be able to rival the current athletes.  How do I know this?  I know this because we’ve seen it happen with the TUXC Alumni 5k.  The first year of the XC Alumni Run, Connie Putnam (former head coach of TUXC) had to rally hard to find 5 Alumni to field a full team.  Now, we’re scared about running out of food at the BBQ after the run because we usually have 100+ alumni show up.  

Last year’s Alumni Invite showcased the return of many Tufts powerhouse athletes.  Matt Lacey, Jason Galvin, Brian McNamara, Adam, Sharp, Rod Hemingway, Aaron Kaye to name a few.  McNamara and Lacey would each win their respective events walking away with meet records.  

There is no way to know if the Alumni Invitational will be as close as it was last year, but regardless, it should be a great time and it should be a very enjoyable Saturday.  Recent Alums like Dave Sorensen, Jeremy Arak, Fred Jones amongst others have already thrown down the gauntlet in their respective events.  Maybe we’ll enter a Coaches’ Team this year.  My hamstrings start to tighten up just by writing that.  

McCleary, Bardin, Barron, Acholonu, and Donadt in the 55mH at last year's Alumni Invitational

Wow, it’s finals week already.  That came up pretty quick.  I imagine it felt even quicker to the athletes though.  Another semester in the bank.  To be honest, I was even surprised to see that it had already been a week since I posted on this blog.  

We’ve had a great break up dinner at my apartment for the 2008 cross country team.  It may not be a mansion, but it’s always a great time to have the whole team over to my apartment for some good food, Wii, and running talk.  Thanks to Marion for allowing me to invite 30 college guys over for some grub.  Not many coaches’ ‘wives’ would let that fly.  But she’s the a great chef and host.  

Good luck on your finals this week and next guys.  I’ve set the bar high for this year’s team GPA and I expect you all to follow through.  You’ve hit every mark so far, don’t let up now.

What a year for New England Track and Field.  As a region, we easily had our most successful XC season in recent years.  When you couple that with so many great senior who graduated last spring, I look forward to seeing who emerges as this year’s elite athletes.  On the team front, it looks to be as exciting as always.  Williams College welcomes back Fletcher Brooks to the helm of the Eph Team and are a perennial power in the region.  MIT made a great run last year with a young squad.  With another year of growth and some more experience, they should be a force as well.  Mix in teams like Coast Guard, Springfield, Bates, Trinity and a number of other spoilers it should be an great year.  Oh, and we’ll do what we can to put Tufts in the mix too. 

That being said, we say goodbye to a slew of great New England talents.  So many national caliber athletes left the region last year – 

National Champions – Eddie Bynum, Noah Gauthier, Jon Garcia

All Americans – Dan Marcy, Dave Sorensen, Andrew Arons, Matt Anderson, Nate Krah, Jimmy Butcher, Sam Grover

National Qualifiers – Keith Drake, Jeremy Arak, Curtis Wheeler, Nick Wheeler, Mike Miller, Joe Brown, Chris Hunt, Derek Engelking, John Miley, Nate Scott (non-existent Pent)

I’m probably missing many.  I’m sorry if I missed someone, but this was just off the top of my head.  

We do this every year.  That is, graduate a number of great and decorated athletes.  In other words, that means that there is another crop of great, decorated-to-be athletes coming up through the pipeline.  Who will it be?  Whose going to make the breakthrough to the next level?  Who sees themselves competing against the best that the nation has to offer?  Whose competitive seasons will be a couple weeks longer?  I can’t wait to find out.

We already have the ‘fat’ gene and the ‘crazy’ gene so should we really be surprised that someone just discovered the ‘athletic’ gene?  Yes, we’re back on genetics.  Why not?  It was an enjoyable discussion.  Except now we’re not playing hypotheticals.  The question is, would you get your kids tested?  If you could know, at birth, if you’re child was prone to be an Olympic 10k runner or a long jumper would you take advantage of that edge?  

In one of Fred’s earlier posts he said:

My next and final point to the first question is early childhood development and environmental circumstances of children. Although I have no scientific evidence, I believe a child’s athletic ability is highly correlated with events in infancy and from ages 3-10.

To be honest, I still agree with Fred; however, does each person have a predetermined spectrum of athleticism.  One set genetically?  I don’t know.  I don’t know if we ever will.  The scariest part of all this is highlighted in the NY Times article when they bring up this discovery’s similarity with eugenics.  Sure, we all think of Hitler and the Nazi’s when we think of eugenics and human evolution.  Sadly though, Sweden used eugenics up until 1975-6, more than 30 years after world war II.  They used forced sterilization of over 60,000 women to help evolve a better Sweden.  

Courtesy of NYTimes.com

Back on topic…We’re already seeing the death of the multi sport athlete.  Children are being forced into specialized training at a younger and younger age.  Soccer leagues for 4-year-olds and so many other examples.  The odd thing is that athletes like Deon Sanders and Bo Jackson are coveted as the best of the best.  Steve Nash is highlighted for his expert soccer skills in addition to his basketball abilities.  

Why do we praise this versatility, yet train it out of our children.  I’ve found that some of the best athletes that I’ve ever worked with didn’t even do an organized, team sport until much later in life.  Things were kept very raw and unorganized.  Playing outside, climbing, running, jumping.  The most organized activity would be gymnastics or tumbling.  

Also, how many choices are we really taking away from our children.  I think we actually need to take another step back.  We’re now talking about whether or not we should force our children into one sport over another and have completely ignored the discussion about whether we should force our children into sports.  Couldn’t a jumper also be a ballet dancer?  Couldn’t a power and speed sprinter be a breakdancer?  Who are we to decide these things for our children?  

I guess that is a pretty ignorant statement.  It is the parents job to decide what they feel is best for their children.  Religion. Food. Morals. Everything.  But is there a difference between morals and hobbies?  Yeah, I plan on doing everything in my power to make sure that my child isn’t a liar, cheat, or thief.  But I think he could be a great musician or artist if he wants to be.  He doesn’t have to be a hurdler.  (Did anyone notice that I seem to have already decided to have a boy.  I figure by then, I should be able to genetically alter the gender.  I mean, why not?)

It looks to be an even more exciting year than ever in New England track.  It has been 16 years since Tufts University has gone into a winter season as the defending champion.  The real question is – Does that change anything?  I would like to say “no” but it would be one of the more naive statements that I’ve ever made.  We go into every season with one goal in mind, that goal hasn’t changed.

Do everything it takes to make this team reach its full potential.

Sure, winning a New England title may fall in the spectrum of this team’s potential.  However, to say that we are going to measure our success by our finish at NE’s isn’t too smart.  It means that the success of our team is dependent on things outside our control – mainly, other teams’ performances.  All we can do is take care of our business, our races, our performances.  If we do that, then we should be in a good spot to come out on top.  If we don’t, so be it.  I’ll tip my hat to another team, especially if they were able to take our best punches and stay standing.     

Alright, so if we have the same goal going into every season, then what has changed from last year to this year.  I’ll tell you…complacency.  You’d be surprised exactly how hungry a team can be after 16 years of famine.  Will that hunger still be there?  Any ten-year-old who’s played ‘King of the Hill’ will tell you that any fool can get to the top of the hill, it takes a real fighter to stay on top.  That’s where you really separate the wheat from the chaff.

There is no way to know who will let off the gas pedal now that they have one title in the bag.  I hope that the answer is no one, but complacency is a subtle beast.  It’s one that sneaks up on you and erodes at you piecemeal.  You always make the big choices correclty.  Those are the easy ones.  

The question lies in the little choices.  Ultimately, this sport is about the cumulative effect of those little choices.  That is where the threat of complacency hides.  New goals, new challenges, fresh eyes and new fire – that’s what’s needed.  Where will it come from?  Coaches, captains, freshmen, teammates?  

In reality, the gauntlet got thrown down on March 1st, 2008, the day after Tufts came away with the trophy. Who will step up to pick it up and accept the challenge?    

When a great team loses through complacency, it will constantly search for new and more intricate explanations to explain away defeat – Pat Riley

Trust me, there is so much in this world that I am thankful for.  But right now, at this moment in time, I’m simply thankful for the existence of Thanksgiving.  Really for a number of reasons.  I haven’t seen my family in ages.  I haven’t had a chance to watch Thursday football in longer.  But on the Track/XC front (which is why most of you read this), I haven’t had a chance to switch gears yet.  XC has ended, but I can’t let it go just yet.  

XC and Track are very different beasts.  The past 3 weeks that we’ve overlapped, I’ve always maintained a huge focus on XC.  The indoor guys understand that all too well.  Championship XC far outweighs indoor track in November.  The same way Championship Indoor outweighs spring lax or tennis when they start up.  Needless to say, yesterday marked our first day with no XC practice – 179 days till 2009 XC and counting.  See you on March 24th for the kick off of the next round.

See.  You can obviously see that I still have XC at the front of my mind.  It’s difficult not to.  It’s just so easy to immediately shift your eyes from 2008 XC to 2009 XC – especially when you have 23 of 25 and your top 10 returning next year.  Welcoming back a healthy Greg Pallotta and a new crop of freshmen there are so many questions about next year’s team.  “Will we be stronger?” is one question that isn’t there.  It’s a given. 

Listen to me.  I sit here and talk like XC gets put on hold for 6 months and we don’t do anything with our distance runners until March 24th.  I can’t think of better ways to prep for next fall than with two great track seasons.  How many guys break 9:00, 8:50, 8:40?  15:30, 15:15, 15:00, 14:30?  4:20, 4:15?  So many possibilities.  Who is going to be the big surprise in the 2nd semester?  

The biggest hurdle is one that every program in the nation fights to get over.  Namely, how do we incorporate the power/speed guys into the tight family that is TUXC?  How do we build the bridges that makes TUTF the same close group?  Sadly, if that hasn’t been done already, then it is going to be tough now.  Personally, I love sitting at XC Nationals and having our top 5k runner getting a good luck phone call from one of our decathletes.  I think it’s great that our national qualifying 400 hurdler lives with our steeplechasers and 800 runners.  Our HJ school record holder still lives with our 600m school record holder even years after graduation.  The bridges are there year round because they have to be.  

Tufts makes it so much easier to build and maintain these connections than any other New England school I’ve seen.  It’s odd, but we’re brought closer together because we have more differences.  That may not make too much sense on the surface, but I’ll clarify.  At most small, New England schools everyone is the same.  There is much more uniformity across the student body.  That is what draws each student to that school.  They feel comfortable there because most people think and act like them.  But when you make a team out of a student body with few differences, then those small differences that they do have get magnified to a great degree.  In other words, the different mindset between a sprinter, thrower, and distance runner get exacerbated and become a more difficult void to cross.  

At Tufts, there is much more diversity.  Most importantly, diversity of thought.  Some sprinters are engineers, some are scientists, others IR majors.  Some dance in shows, sing in a cappella groups and gospel choir, or play in a band.  The same is true for the XC guys and throwers.  The increased amount of differences between each individual training group helps to bring the whole group together.  Sprinters can share sprinting, but engineers share engineering.  All our differences just gives us more avenues to build bridges to other groups.  It’s one of my favorite aspects that Tufts has to offer.  

Finally, but most importantly, Happy Thanksgiving to all.  I hope that you all have so much to be thankful for.  I know that I do.

I’m sorry that it has taken me so long to get another rambling up on the blog since regionals this past weekend.  We are amidst some of my favorite weeks of the entire school year.  For these two weeks each season, the indoor and cross country seasons overlap.  Sure, that means that there is a fair amount of chaos around the office, but sometimes chaos brings out the best in us.

In reality, saying that indoor and XC overlap is a bit of a simplification.  We have athletes peaking for XC nationals with other cross country guys finishing up their transition from XC and starting up indoor.  Throwers, jumpers, hurdlers, sprinters are now able to get the coaching presence that they’ve earned over a great fall of strength and conditioning work.  Sometimes it feels like we’re coaching 10 different teams.  Luckily we have 11 different coaches to handle the workload.  In my first year at Tufts, we had a coaching staff of three.  Count ’em, three.  Rod and I would be working hard with XC getting them ready for the national championships which would leave the lone wolf, Ed, holding down the fort at the track.  Since it was his first year at Tufts, this was quite the learning curve for all.  

Just three short years later, I get to the indoor track after a great XC practice and there are already 8 coaches working with the team and Dan (our strength coach) waiting in the weight room for them.  I can’t even begin to express the stress relief that they all bring to me.  Thanks guys. 

It has really given me a lot of time to process this year’s XC season without having to immediately switch gears to indoor track.  I will definitely hold off on finalizing any thoughts about this year’s campaign until after this weekend’s NCAA race.  As a preview, I am proud with how we raced and our drive to actualize our full potential.  I do think that there a few small changes that we can make to see some nice growth.  The key isn’t to change too much.  How can you make 2-3% of changes and see 10-15% of growth?  That’s the question of the day…

It really is moments exactly like this that makes my job so amazing.  We are now less than 12 hours until the gun for the New England Championships.  So many questions.  So many unknowns.  So many variables.  So much fun.  How many people really get the opportunities to do something like this in their life.  And on a semi-regular basis.  

The sad thing is that most people in this position still forget to enjoy it.  We bust our but for months and years on end and then sometimes forget to actually enjoy it.  How can this not be fun?  Sadly, success is all to often determined by the outcome of the race, not by how the race is run and what you learn from it. That’s sad because when you do that, you don’t know whether you can enjoy yourself until everything is over.  By then, it’s way to late, the moment has passed.  

I encourage you to have fun, enjoy what your doing, live in the present.  You only get one chance to do what you’re doing right now at this moment.  You only get one chance to run in this meet, on this day, with this team.  Enjoy yourself.  Because, really, why do this if you don’t enjoy yourself when your doing it.  So regardless, tomorrow’s going to be a lot of fun for me.  Why?  Because we’re going to do everything in our power to extend our season.  It may happen.  It may not.  But we’re going to do what we can.  And that’s all anyone can ask.

Saturday marked the passing of another NESCAC XC meet.  I’d have to say that this was one of the best in recent years.  The course was in great condition thanks to the work of the Pineland Farms staff and the Bates coaches.  Thank you all.  But the rarest of things happened…we had amazing weather for the NESCAC Championships. 

2007 – Williams College – Cold, driving rain

2006 – Connecticut College – Hurricane w/ 50-60mph gusts and a flesh-eating swamp

2005 – Wesleyan University – Sloppy, muddy, rainy, cold

It really is amazing though because even in 05, 06, and 07, it was still an unbelievably enjoyable meet.  When you take away the horrendous, life-altering weather then it just becomes a great experience.  The NESCAC Conference as a whole simply does it right.  It is the epitome of healthy competition.  Everyone is out there running their best and trying to do everything in their power to make sure that their team comes out on top, but when all is said and done and everyone has crossed the line, it is a completely different story.  

There is a great aura of sportsmanship in the NESCAC Conference that is unlike any other that I’ve experienced or heard about.  Athletes truly respect one another.  The competition gets put to rest after the game, meet, or race is finished.  Now don’t get me wrong, it will ramp up to full force again the next weekend.  But for a brief moment, everyone in the conference tips their hats to one another and congratulates each other on a job well done.  

I think it starts at the top.  I have yet to meet a NESCAC coach, in any sport, at any school, who I have been anything less than utterly impressed with.  When schools are able to bring in people who truly understand and believe in the foundational goals of the conference then those personalities and perspectives trickle down to everyone involved.  

I’m glad that Tufts has the honor of hosting the NESCAC Tournament for both Field Hockey and Volleyball this fall.  I expect the competition to be fierce and the admiration to equal the competition.  There are four NESCAC field hockey teams ranked in the top 8 of the nation, three men’s XC teams ranked nationally, and five women’s XC teams.  NESCAC is easily one of the most competitive DIII athletic conferences in the nation, if not the most.  

With all that competition, it could be very easy for there to exist a great deal of hatred and ire across the lines.  The fact that the conference is so competitive and still maintains its ideals and down-to-earth outlook is even more impressive.  I really can’t see myself ever coaching anywhere outside of NESCAC.  Not only is it the best in sports, but it represents the best in sports as well.