On Coaches and Coaching

I just read a good article on the USA Triathlon website called "What Makes a Good Coach?" and it brought to mind my own internal struggles on the subject and all that I've heard from others in their experiences. My fear of the high cost and of trusting someone with my race season has basically "ended up" in me self-coaching - for better or (many times) worse - throughout more than 20 years of marathoning and triathloning. I think the main issues are: (1) I have extremely high standards and (2) I am very stubborn (which, I admit, usually leads to overtraining).

But.. you see, in high school, I had the best coach an athlete could ask for. His name was John Klarman and he was my track coach. He had also been a football coach in the 60s and 70s. And he taught geometry at O.H. Platt High School in Meriden, CT.

In the USAT article, the author says "Coaches wear many hats. They're leaders, motivators, teachers, psychologists, and cheerleaders." If this is true, then Mr. Klarman was the quintessential coach. In two years, he led a bunch of nobodies - girls who had never run, never thrown a shot-put, never jumped over a bar - to a 10-0 win record. And can you imagine what he had to cope with while doing this? Yes. High. School. Girls. Ages 14-18. They scream. They cry. They have "boy-problems." He had to be a dad, a teacher, a counselor, a conflict-manager, a psycher-upper, a meet organizer. And yes, sometimes even a running partner. All while managing a math classroom as well.

And I owe him pretty much full credit for who I am as an athlete today.

Thus, every time I think of hiring a coach.. this is what they have to measure up to. A man who was able to singularly motivate every girl on that team to achieve greatness - both individually AND as a team. For me personally, he did it with logic. He removed the emotion from my running and put things in perspective - which was not an easy task. If you read this blog you probably already know that I have some major anxiety issues when it comes to competing.

Mr. Klarman wasn't a "yay-rah-rah" type either. He was always calm, collected, and on top of things. One year, we won three meets on our performance in the final event - the 4x400m relay (talk about stress - should I mention I ran the anchor leg of this relay?). At a different track meet that year, the other coach wanted to run the relay before the finish of the high jump. From what I remember, his team had a great high-jumper, and, he wanted the score to be dependent on the event they'd win. Reluctantly, we gave in. But to the other team's dismay, not only did we win the relay, we also won the high-jump - and thus, the meet. It wasn't because we had better jumpers. It was because we were able to rise to the occasion under an amazing coach.