The Gift of Coaching
BY JACK HEATH
Weâre following in your footsteps.
Cause thatâs where your footsteps go.
–Ian Hunter
âFollowing in Your Footstepsâ
No book came closer to describing what it\’s like to coach a small high school cross-country team while not teaching in the school than Marc Bloom\’s God on the Starting Line.
Still, as I finished his thoroughly enjoyable book I could not help but think there was something missing. It occurred to me exactly what it was as I stopped to pick up a stray safety pin on the grass at a cross-country meet a few days later. Only a long-term cross-country coach would stop to pick up a stray safety pin on the grass. They know they\’ll need the pin for race numbers eventually, while other coaches and runners probably never even notice the pins.
Marc only coached for a couple of years. He overcame obstacles,had great success, and moved on, doing a great job of capturing the experience in his book.
However, one thing I had learned from my coach, Browning Ross, is you have to be there for the long haul–a coach must stay through the (mostly) lean and sometimes boom years. But keep coaching no matter what, because you never know.
I was in my last year of college at Rowan (then Glassboro State) finishing up my last season of cross-country as captain of the team when Browning asked me if I\’d like to help him coach at Gloucester Catholic, my alma mater, where he had coached me. No thanks! I said. I just want to run; I can\’t see high school kids listening to me anyway, so I\’d rather just concentrate on my own running. Browning nodded in what I thought was agreement. I\’ll swing by at 3 tomorrow to get you for practice. read more
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