While I mentioned before that my only losing record in a team sport was my 30-31 record in basketball at Central Junior High in Lovington. If you look at just winning and losing from a team standpoint then my least successful coaching at Central would have been track. While I am one of those who think of track and field as a team sport I believe that you can be successful in the sport even as a coach by having success with individuals and relays.
Looking back at my records from the three years I coached at Central it was obvious where I placed the emphasis for my athletes. It wasn't on team wins and losses it was on individual and therefore team effort, improvement, willingness to work, willingness to compete where it could help the team as well as provide you with opportunities to improve, attitude, success in the classroom, goal setting. And if I look at my result sheets from 2005 almost 30 years later, the emphasis was still the same.
Here are some comments from my team newsletters from 1979:
"we still had many individual performances that promise some good things"
"you should all have serious goals now and be more willing to work hard in practice to achieve them"
"the type of attitude it's going to take for us to see improvement"
"we are displeased with the lack of toughness"
"best team effort......also pleased with the turnout and effort put out at Monday's workout"
"the most negative thing Saturday was some of the quitting that took place"
"Although our total points don't show it necessarily, this was by far the best total team performance of the year by both the 8th and 9th grade teams" - Border Conference Championship Meet 1979
In that final meet of the year, 15 of 19 8th graders and 10 of 17 9th graders had personal/season bests. That is how I determined success with track athletes.
Two things stand out from the 1980 result sheets that I handed out to my athletes; the first came from newsletter #1 and pretty much laid out my expectations for the individuals on the team:
"YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO YOURSELF AND THIS TEAM:
Your responsibility is to do each assignment at 100% of your capacity regardless of how you personally feel. The coaches have the responsibility of directing the team to its maximum potential. You have the responsibility to carry out all the assignments so the maximum potential of this team can be reached".
And the final comment on the final result sheet of the season after the Border Conference Championship:
"Again congratulations to those of you who had personal bests and to those who set and met goals. Remember, goals are made to be achieved, keep setting them and making them. Good luck in track and x-country next year".
I learned a lot about coaching track those three years at Central. Between my own experience running for Coach Clark in High School and even from Coach Ruh at Mt. SAC, a "Coaching Track and Field course my freshman year in college, reading many books and articles about track and working with Scottie Watkins the head coach in Lovington I had a good foundation to become the high school coach that I eventually became.
The results from 28 years of coaching track show that my basic philosophy of coaching track that was indicated in the 79 and 80 quotes, never changed. It was always about what could I do as a coach to help each individual become the best they could be and then to place those individuals where they could be most successful for himself as well as for the team. Future results will show that the system worked.
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