Friday, August 01, 2014

10 Facts About Successful Coaches


Anonymous said...

They left out:

11. Have the most talent (that individual champion would be good with our without you).

12. Have the biggest pool of thus talent (bigger schools, bigger teams, bigger depth)

13. School culture. (You school has it or it doesn't)

14. Demographic. (More affluent school districts and affluent areas in America are generally better at xc).

Jason Lewis said...

Generally speaking I agree with your added points of what makes a coach successful. It is possible to create a great program though, even if at a smaller poorer school. McFarland high school is the primary example of this. I competed against these guys in high school, and later many of them were my teammates when we ran together in junior college. Coach White made this program what it was and what it still is to this day; against all odds a great program that continually puts out great teams.

Jason Lewis said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Jason Lewis said...

I forgot to put this, but here is an article talking about the program in case you're unfamiliar with them.

Nils said...

I'm curious about the schools in the "far North" like Arcata, McKinleyville, Ukiah etc that field some pretty good teams; I wonder if the combination of challenging terrain, LOTS of outdoor access, and something about the culture makes XC attractive to enough kids to make for some good teams- plus, do they attract good coaches for some particular reason?

Jason Lewis said...

From my experience it's definitely about creating a school culture up here more than the terrain or anything like that. Arcata has been good for a long time and everyone who runs for that program loves James Washington, so year in and year out they always attract lots of kids from the school to come out. They do run the hills a bunch and James always seems to have them ready when it matters.

At McKinleyville it's definitely much less popular amongst the school's general population add compared to Arcata, but with our recent successes it has become more and more attractive of an option. For us it's been a long process. It has been a matter of getting some numbers and establishing a culture of family, consistency, competitiveness, and hard work yet still managing to have fun. Luckily for us the team has bought in and we look to be headed in the right direction.

I can't really speak to any other teams but from coaching at McKinleyville and knowing the Arcata program fairly well these have been observations.

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