Episode 10-Love and Hate

The host of the podcast discusses the love-hate relationship that coaches have with club sports and other sports that conflict with their own teams. They share personal experiences and examples of how these conflicts can affect coaching and athlete performance. The host also highlights the importance of high school athletes participating in multiple sports and how it can improve their overall athleticism. They express frustration with football coaches who don't encourage their players to participate in track and field, despite the benefits it can provide. The host concludes by emphasizing the advantages of track and field training for football performance. Hey, welcome back coaches to the Gotcha Coach podcast, a podcast about coaching for coaches and hosted by a real coach. I am your host, Coach Rick, and I want to welcome you to episode 10, entitled Love and Hate, a track coach's relationship with other sports. But first, I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas, no matter what holiday you celebrate, and that you got to spend some time with your family and loved ones. I know I did, and I am refreshed and ready to go into 2024. So what do I mean by a love-hate relationship? Webster's Dictionary describes it as a quote, strong feelings of both love and hatred for someone or something. Sounds simple, right? It can be, but it can also be the bane of a coach's existence and a continuous thorn in a coach's career. During my early coaching career, the onset of club sports, you know, teams that are created in what used to be referred to as the old off-season and made up of the best athletes weren't really a thing. So there were no conflicts. As this idea became a bigger thing, you know, the club sports, it created headaches for coaches and parents alike. Many of those headaches were centered around things like which practice to attend, or which game to go to and skip the other team practice, or making a choice of which competition to go to when both happened at the same time. Many times, it was the club team that would win out because much of the time, it was money that was spent by the parent in order to belong to the club team. Here's an example. A Little League baseball player plays AYSO soccer in the fall and Little League baseball in the spring, but they were chosen to participate on a club soccer team that plays during the spring as well. And in order to do so, the parents had to put out money for uniforms, travel expenses, and sometimes, yes, even a coach's salary. Now there's a Saturday Little League game at 10 a.m. and a club soccer game that starts at noon, but is 45 miles away. You see, that's the other thing about club sports. They travel. This puts the parents in a situation and a decision that has to be made. Does Little Johnny play baseball and leave the game and his team after two innings in order to get to the soccer game? Or does he not play baseball at all? Or does he play the entire baseball game and show up late for soccer? Or you get the picture. As a coach of both sports, but never coaching club soccer because of the conflict, you have to look at the situation from a coach's point of view. Too many times, Little Johnny's parents either forget to tell the coach about these conflicts or choose to let the coach know the day before or the day of the non-club contest. And if you're like me, you take your game plan and wad it up and throw it in the garbage because now you either have to adjust beforehand or, too many times, do it on the fly. I've had similar situations occur with my athletes doing middle school basketball and pop corner football at the same time, and my high school track athletes in club soccer and club basketball at the same time. As a coach, it's difficult to make plans as to how your in-season school program can grow and prosper when you don't know who's available. I've had club soccer players tell me the night before a meet that they couldn't run the next day because they have a soccer match. This happens after they and their parents signed off on my track team rules about notifying me two weeks prior to a meet if they were not going to be able to attend and getting the track meet schedule at least a month before the club soccer schedule was handed out. Here's another aspect of this that needs to be considered. Injury. How many times has one of my seasons come crashing down around me as one of my better track athletes comes to practice on crutches or in a cast because they were injured the night before or over the weekend while competing in a club soccer match? Let's just say it happens way too often. Here's another scenario. Many refer to track and field as an individual sport and not a team sport like baseball, football, or basketball. But team titles at invitationals or league finals are won by the cumulative points attained by those individuals in their events. Take the relays as an example. You have your four best athletes that you work on handoffs on a regular basis. You go to a meet and have some issues with those handoffs. That's normal. So, you meet with your foursome after the race and discuss what happened and how we can improve before the next invitational the following Saturday. Oops, two of your four runners sheepishly tell you that they can't run next weekend because of a club soccer tournament. You ask them why they didn't tell you this conflict, and in their best teenage response, they tell you, uh, I forgot, sorry, coach. Now I have long been an advocate of high school athletes competing in multiple sports, but only as it pertains to while they are competing in those sports as a representative of their school. I mean, why aren't these athletes being true to your school? Now that's a reference from a Beach Boys song from 1963 when they said, I got a letterman sweater with a letter in front. I got for football and track. I'm proud to wear it now. Yeah, that's my attempt at kind of singing the Beach Boys song. But anyway, it goes on to say, so be true to your school now. Just like you would to your girl or guy. Be true to your school now and let your colors fly. Anyway, apparently this kind of loyalty has been lost over the 60 years since the song was released. And don't any of you comment on my singing. I did the best I could. So while I have been adversely affected by spring club soccer, for years it used to be a school spring sport for girls in California, which meant that many of my best athletes were non-entities as far as the track team was concerned. So I was still fighting the spring club soccer scene after California changed it to a winter sport. But the biggest bugaboo that I had to deal with while coaching high school track and field was the issue with the king of high school sports, football. And this is where the true meaning of a love-hate relationship rears its ugly head. Now I played football in high school back in the late 60s as a wide receiver and an occasional defensive end. I was all of 165 pounds, but was fast. So I went out for the track team in my junior year and decided that I liked track better than football and chose to not play football during my senior year and concentrate on track, which worked out very well for me as I set the team, excuse me, then the school record for the 100-yard dash and was part of the school record 440-yard relay and was named team captain. As I began and grew my high school track and field coaching in South Lake Tahoe over the years, I would often go to high school football and basketball games searching for talent. Notice that I said football and basketball and not soccer or wrestling, or you see where I'm going? Football games for speed and strength and basketball for jumping abilities and quickness. That's what I was looking for. When I coached at good old South Tahoe High School, there was a high school football coach, Coach Joe Sellers, at Worcester High School in Reno, Nevada, that I admired a great deal. Why? Well, it was simple. He got it. He told his football players that they really should go out for the track team in the spring and work on their speed development, agility, and quickness. Wow! Imagine that! Speed development, agility, and quickness. Now why would a football coach want this from his players? Simple. They go hand in hand with what players in key positions need to have if they are to be successful on the gridiron. I was and still am an advocate that offensive and defensive linemen can do all of the weightlifting in the offseason to put on increased muscle mass, but what good does it do if they can't move that mass on the football field? So having those linemen compete in the throwing events during the spring and running an occasional weight man's 100 meters, their foot speed, as well as agility, is only going to improve. And I don't think I need to even discuss the advantages that exist for running backs, wide receivers, linebackers, and defensive backs that compete as sprinters or hurdlers on the track team in the spring. Or do I? Nah, I'm thinking that my listeners can see the correlation and advantages between the two sports. But unfortunately, not all football coaches have the same foresight that Coach Sellers had. And it was that foresight that propelled his football program to multiple Nevada State 4A championships and the Worcester track and field team to dominate the sprints, hurdles, and throwing events in multiple northern Nevada 4A regional track and field championships. Believe me when I say that these guys were not only good, but they were highly admired. It was extremely discouraging to me that more football coaches in northern Nevada, including the one at my school at the time, couldn't see this success and encouraged their players to do the same. All over the country, college football coaches are recruiting track and field athletes into their football programs. Why? Well, as one online blogger called The Athlete Maker said, quote, running track won't just help you run a faster 40 or help with recruiting, but it will make you an all-around better athlete, improving your on-field football performance in three ways. You'll find your fastest running form, you'll find a better burst, and you'll get more speed with less effort, unquote. I mean, think about this statement for just a minute. Who knows more about the ins and outs of speed than a sprint coach? Techniques to maximize your speed is what track and field sprint coaches teach, and refining your technique on the track is a great way to make your running form seem second nature. So when game day comes on the football field, you'll be running faster without even thinking about it. Additionally, that burst that football players need getting off the line of scrimmage is the same that sprinters must have when coming out of the starting blocks. Both require the athlete to generate speed and power from a dead stop. And last, sprint coaches will teach you how to run fast while relaxing your body and exert the minimal amount of force in order to attain top speed, meaning that not only will you be running faster, but you won't be exhausted after one play in football. East Kentwood track and field coach Dave Emiot, who led his Falcons to seven Michigan State championships between 2009 and 2019, had this to say in a 2019 interview with Michigan Live. We're all about the power and explosiveness, not just focusing on speed. He also said, for the throwers, they're focusing on power from the bottom of their toes to their fingertips, and that's a huge benefit when they get back on the football field. In the world of college football, the 300-pound lineman is the norm. And what separates the difference-makers from the rest of the crowd is their ability to move that size. From Jim Thorpe, who back in the early 20th century won gold medals in the Olympics and played pro football and baseball, to Bullet Bob Hayes, who won Olympic gold in 64, and then spent 11 years as a wide receiver with the Dallas Cowboys, and is the only athlete in history to have won Olympic gold and a Super Bowl ring. The two sports have complemented each other. In today's NFL, the league is plastered with outstanding athletes that excelled on the track in either high school, college, or both. Some of these more notable athletes are Marquise Goodwin, wide receiver with the Cleveland Browns who won seven Texas state titles in high school, and had a best 100-meter time of 10.24, and set the national high school record in the long jump with a leap of 26 feet 10 inches, and earned a spot on the 2012 U.S. Olympic team after winning the U.S. championship in the long jump while attending the University of Texas. Tyreek Hill, wide receiver with the Miami Dolphins, was Track and Field News High School Athlete of the Year in 2012, with personal best times in the 100 of 10.19 and the 200 in 20.14. Devon Allen, wide receiver with the Philadelphia Eagles, was an NCAA champion while attending the University of Oregon in the 110-meter hurdles, and competed in two Olympics in 2016 and 2021, and his high hurdle PR of 12.84 ranks as the third fastest of all time. And then there's my personal favorite, my favorite running back in all the NFL, Christian McCaffrey of the San Francisco 49ers, who attended Valor Christian High School in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, and played both sports. But I think you'll admit that he's done a pretty dog good job at the NFL level. Pretty simple stuff, right? So why is there such a love-hate relationship between most high school football and track coaches? Well, there's the whole conflict during spring when track is at its peak and football is starting their spring practices. This causes time conflicts between the sports, and each team's coach feels that the athlete belongs to them and pressures the athlete to make a decision. Now I remember sitting in the bleachers during seventh period PE class, also known as football PE, while I was coaching in Lincoln. I remember watching a man in charge of class, a non-teacher mind you, that was running the class through all kinds of really difficult agility and speed drills. He was a personal trainer that had a reputation for whipping other local programs into winners, and apparently had a pro football background. He was relentless in his attitude and had no tolerance for mediocrity. I would watch the boys on my track team come out to practice some 30 minutes later and attempt to go through my workouts and fail miserably. Some had injuries that would keep them from even attempting my workouts, but I had just watched them gutting it out in their PE class. So one day I asked one of my runners why they busted their butts in PE, but didn't give me the same effort. His answer was horrifying. He said, quote, if we don't give our all in PE class, we won't see the playing field in football in the fall. Another reason for this, football makes money for the school, the track doesn't. Successful football programs get amazing community support and backing. Everyone in the city can't wait to go to the Friday night home game, and it's a big thing in the community. While hardly anyone is waiting with bated breath to go to the home track meet. Successful football players that go all the way to the NFL make multiple times more money annually than track athletes see in their entire career. The minimum NFL salary in 2023 is $750,000, while track athletes struggle to earn between $50,000 and $75,000 a year. It's very tough to fight those kinds of inequities. Finally, I think it could be as simple as a lack of communication or misinformation that's going out. Now, if you're a football coach listening to this, or know of one, please don't think that these opinions pertain to all football coaches. Some football coaches, especially if they're older, still live in that football all the time scenario, where if you're not dedicating all your time to football, you must not really want to play. This doesn't necessarily have to be the attitude of the head coach, but may be the thought process of an assistant or position coach who has influence over the high school athlete. Many of these coaches came from a Pop Warner or other local feeder program where junior athletes learn the game, and it's important, as young as six or seven years old, and long to play on those Friday nights in front of 1,500 people screaming their heads off. These coaches can set the tone years prior to the athlete arriving at the high school level. If a community doesn't have a feeder program for track and field, well, track and field athletes are being left behind. For me, this love-hate relationship with football was one of the most frustrating that I ever experienced over my career, and wound up having a distinct and sad impact on my decision to leave the profession. I don't, unfortunately, have the answer for those of you new coaches listening to this, but I'm hoping and praying that I planted some seeds for you to ponder and work on, and perhaps one of you can find the answer to fixing this problem. I hope that you've enjoyed listening to this podcast series and are learning some things that I wish I had known prior to entering this career. That's the whole purpose of the series, teaching new coaches the things they need to hear and know. Don't forget, you can reach out to me with comments or questions at coachrickb53 at gmail.com, and tell your friends that they can listen to the show on Spotify, Amazon, Google, iHeart Radio, and other places. Now this will be the last podcast for 2023, and I want to wish all my listeners a very safe and sane New Year's Eve celebration and a very prosperous 2024. On a special note, I'm hoping to have a very special first episode for the new year for all of you. I'm working on a show that will have questions and answers for my family members, including my wife of 44 years, that I coached over my career so that you can hear some of the up and downs of coaching family members and what it does to them and their relationship with you. Now, wish me luck because some of them are scared of the microphone, while some are tentative about giving answers to the tough questions that I've asked them to chime in on. As I told them, I hope and expect them to give honest responses, and not responses that make me look good or responses that they think I want to hear. I want answers that will help you, my listeners, in your journey, and if there were hiccups that I made along the way and caused pain to my family, you need to hear about it in hopes that you don't make the same mistakes. Make sense? I hope so. Until then, take care, be safe, laugh a lot, and above all, tell someone that you love them. I'll talk to you soon.