A Science Guy’s Almanac. Year 2. November 7, 2016
Coaching Memories (continued) - Track & Field – Boy’s Track
My second, and last, track coaching assignment working with the distance runners. I am not a distance runner. I have never been a distance runner. I never wanted to be a distance runner. Now, thanks to my spinal fusion and more recent laminectomy, I will never be a distance runner.
The good news was: Distance runners love to run.
The boy distance runners weren’t all that interested in my coaching. My memories of them are only two.
1. Once a week, we ran quarter mile sprints. Sweetwater Springs Blvd, the street on which Monte Vista High is located, is sloped as it passes the front of the school and the track/football field stadium.
- Take a look at the map. Near the top on the right side, you will see a street named Loma Lane. That’s a driveway to an elementary school. It’s also directly across to the entrance to Monte Vista’s parking lot. At the bottom, you will see a large field with softball/baseball diamonds on it. The distance from the bottom edge of those ball fields—the lowest elevation point in front of the school—and Loma Lane—the highest elevation we are concerned with—is 0.25 miles.
- All the distance runners trotted down to the end of the ball diamonds. I went with them. One of the other coaches dropped his arm while blowing his whistle, and the runners sprinted uphill to school entrance. I sprinted with them. Back in the mid-1970s, I was still young and in reasonable shape. I could keep up with all the girls and some of the guys on that sprint.
- The runners trotted back down the hill. I waited at the top.
- The other coach dropped his arm while blowing his whistle, and the runners sprinted uphill to school entrance again. I trotted back down the hill with them.
- The other coach dropped his arm while blowing his whistle, and the runners sprinted uphill to school entrance a third time. Once again, I ran with them. Since this was my second sprint and the runners’ third sprint, I could keep my pace from the first sprint.
- We always ran six of the quarter mile hill sprints. I always ran three of those. By the sixth sprint the runners ran—my third sprint—I looked pretty fast. I’m pretty sure the runners knew I was “cheating,” but I think they appreciated my efforts.
2. The CIF 4 X 440 Relay. The shortest “distance” race was the 440-yard “dash.” It was described to me as the hardest of the track events because you have to run as fast as you can for one-quarter mile. I believe that. Oh, back in the 70s, track and field in the USA still measured in yards. Now, all events are measured in metric units.
- We had one STUD 440 runner. When he ran his head never bobbed up or down. One of the other coaches pointed that out. I held a 3x5 card up in front of my eyes with the top of the card aligned with the top of our runner’s head. I watched him run. I never saw anything but his hair above the card. But, I digress.
- We also had two pretty good 440-yard runners.
- The title of this section is the 4 X 440. If you’re counting runners along with me, or even if you’re not counting, we’re at three.
- Our 4th 440 runner was a determined young man who’s running style is best described as whirling dervish—about as opposite of our STUD as you could be.
- I have no memory of any of his races until we qualified for the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) San Diego Section’s finals. We qualified by finishing winning our league championship in the event. All I remember about going to the CIF meet is that we weren’t given a chance to do anything but finish the race.
- We decided to use our STUD on the anchor leg as we had all year. We had one of our pretty good runners run the first leg and the other run the third leg. That left leg #2 for the dervish.
- Our lead runner did well. He finished in the top five.
- Dervish took the baton and started running. I’m sure that several members of the audience were afraid he’d collapse before he finished his leg. He didn’t collapse until after he’d handed off the baton. In fact, he’d maintained our position as the #5 team. The third leg runner dropped us back one place. When the STUD took the baton, we were in a distant 6th place, out of medal contention.
- STUD did his thing. He passed the runner in fifth place and probably would have caught the 4th place runner if the leg had been 450-yards long. We medaled. I was fired-up.
- It was emotional to see the relay team support dervish after the event. He’d given his all—and they knew it.
“My” girl runners were more tolerant of my coaching deficiencies. More on what is sometimes known as the distaff side of my track coaching in the next Almanac blog.
Next Almanac: Coaching memories continued – Track & Field – Girl’s Track
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