Interview -
Coach Evan Smith (Mountain View HS)
Successful CCS Coach talks about Cross Country Season
Doug Speck - Editor DyeStatCal
photos by Hank Lawson
Mountain View Girls Varsity - Great CCS Finals Division II MacQuitty
and Rowe
One of the impressive programs this
past fall was that of Mountain View HS in the Central Coast Section,
with Coaches Evan Smith and Adriel Rodriguez coaching the Girls
team, with five underclass athletes, to a CCS Title Division II
and sixth at the State Meet, and the Boys squad, with six underclassers,
to a third at the CCS Meet and fifteenth at the State competition. The
teams were led at State by junior Mary Reynolds, with an 18:33
at Woodward Park, with soph Garrett Rowe closing down a great fall
with a 15:41 at State after a classic Section Finals run at Crystal
Springs.
Coach Smith took some time to answer
some questions after the season has wound down, with his candid
answers giving us a good sense of what it was like in the trenches
with one of the state's fine improving programs that will certainly
be expected to draw more headlines in the next few seasons.
DyeStatCal - What are your general
thoughts as you look back on the season past and what your teams
accomplished, boys
and girls?
Coach Smith - Adriel
Rodriguez (the other coach) and I are very satisfied with how things
turned out for both the boys and the girls, and I'm pretty sure
the kids are satisfied as well. We didn't meet all of our
goals, but we got both teams to the state meet, and the girls picked
up the CCS title they wanted.
DSC - How did you think that the squads would do prior to the season,
and how far off of what you thought they could accomplish were
you?
CS - I had no
idea the boys would accomplish what they did. We lost our top 3
runners to graduation, so they started out the preseason ranked
22nd in the CCS, which I felt was a little low, but even I did
not realize how high they would rise. I knew Garrett Rowe
and Ian Myjer would improve (they are both sophomores who ran varsity
as freshmen last year) but not THAT much! My #3 runner (freshman
Parker Schuh) came completely out of the blue ... I coached both
of his older brothers, but Parker is definitely the most
talented of the three. My #4 runner sophomore Chris
Wells also came out of the blue ... he didn't run with
us freshman year, didn't run with us in the summer,
almost didn't even make my 48 person boys team, and
then just got faster and faster and faster as the
season went on. After those first 4 I have some very
dependable upper classmen, some of whom battled
sickness during the season, but it was basically those first 4
underclassman that completely changed the composition of our season
and what we were able to do.
On the girls side, it was much less surprising. The
girls we had were the same as last year, so I knew what they could
do. Division 2 in the CCS was much
stronger this year than in years past, so I was definitely worried
about our ability to return to the state meet, but it all worked
out OK.
DSC - Do you have your teams involved in any goal setting
individually, or as a group, during the season, or do you just
kind of let the results roll as they will? Explain--
CS - Mary Reynolds
(jr) and Tania Morimoto (sr) let me know during the summer that
they really wanted a CCS title. They were 3rd the previous year,
so it was a reasonable aspiration. We never sat down and
discussed it as a team, because so many things can go
wrong, but all of the girls are very driven, so I
don't really need to motivate them with goals. They
are always giving it their all all the time. Making sure
they don't do too much is my main job.
With the boys, I mentioned to them that I thought we
were underranked, and used that to motivate them. My
goal for them was to have a good showing at CCS in
2007, with the potential of them making it to the state meet in
2008, so we were one year early on that goal.
In general, I tell the team that my dream is 5 league
titles in one year (BV, GV, BJV, GJV, BFS), but we
still haven't done that. We had 2 in 2006 and 2 in 2007.
DSC - What is your personal background as a runner and teacher
that led to you being at Mountain View HS?
CS - I ran for
Jerry Whitaker at Foothill HS in Orange County. I did rowing
and cycling at UCLA, and then cycling when I got my teaching credential
at Cal Poly. I taught 4 years at Arroyo Grande HS, where I also
learned alot about how to coach track from the coaches there. I
taught one year in Germany at an international school, but I missed
my California
lifestyle, so I got the job at Mountain View and have
been there for the last 6 years. Samantha Read, who I
also learned a ton from, had to return to Canada with her family
2 years ago, so I took over the head coaching duties when she left.
DSC - What did you ask of your team members during the summer period
in the way of commitment to running
prior to this Fall season?
CS - I tell the
team that the two most important things that you must do to be
successful in cross country are July and August. We run as
a team together 4 days/week during the summer, and then they are
expected to do a 5th day on their own. They go on
vacation alot during the summer, and I encourage them
to keep running while they are gone. We have a camp
at Tahoe during the 2nd week in August, but we only
take 20 kids, so they know that if they want to go to
that camp they must be putting in decent summer
mileage. We also have a couple time trials toward the
end of the summer that we use to decide who makes the
team (with only 2 coaches, we have started making cuts
in order to keep our sanity). That decision alone I
believe has helped with the improvement of our team as a whole.
DSC - With the relative youth of your teams, six of seven
return for both your girls and boys varsities for
2008, and viewing the improvement of athletes such as
Garrett Rowe over the last year, what do you think it
is in your training that has helped the young group
you have improve so much? explain--
CS - I went to
an LA84 clinic last August at Mt. Sac where I listened to Bill
Gregg (Davis HS) talk about how he completely changed his program
after listening to Steve Chavez (Murrietta Valley) talk about the
Joe Vigil program that he has created there. Those are 2
very successful programs, so I incorporated some of
those things into my program. I just listened to
Steve Chavez yesterday, and I am going to do more than
just some of his things in the future. Adriel has
also had the kids doing alot of core work, which I
think has helped us tremendously. Also, listening to
the Ventura coach (I believe his name is Tyree Cruz,
but I'm not sure) gave me some good ideas that I
incorporated into our season. Besides the core work,
I would say the main thing that has helped us is the
uptempo work ... rather than just go out for a long
run, we had them run say a 20 minute portion of the
run uptempo, so that there was more quality mileage
than just mileage. And we did some 2 mile repeats instead
of just mile repeats, and we did some pure sprinting, all of which
came from Vigil through Chavez
and Gregg.
DSC - Were there general periods you divided up the fall
period of the season into training wise, with varying
emphasis during each? explain with maybe some discussion on how
your training philosophy has developed--
CS - I do understand
the periodization aspect of training, but I think I kind of blend
the borders of each period. So many things can happen to
a runner during the season (sickness, injury) that you obviously
go in with a plan but then you have to make adjustments for
individual kids as you go. It would take far too much space
to explain everything here, but I do what most
coaches do of trying to establish a base during the
summer and then working in the anaerobic work as the
season progresses. More volume early, more intensity
late, but still having volume toward the end (in other
words I don't let the mileage drop too much during the
post season) and still have intensity in the beginning (we didn't
do much uptempo during the summer, but we did do some).
DSC - The race between Philip MacQuitty and Garrett Rowe
in the CCS Finals appeared to be a real classic, with
the two sophs racing 15:26 and 15:27 (MacQuittty
winning) at Crystal Springs. During the season "heads-up" Philip
had Garrett's number comfortably (30
second win at Lowell Invite, nearly 30 second margin
at Stanford same race, etc.). What was the background to
the build-up to the CCS Finals, how you guys set that race up,
and explain how it went?
CS - 10 days before
CCS was our league finals, which was the first MacQuitty/Rowe dual,
which MacQuitty also won. As you mentioned, Garrett had not
been close to Phillip all year, so when Garrett asked me "What's
the race plan, coach?" I said "Don't even try to stay with
MacQuitty ... let him go ... I think you can run with
the Santa Clara guys" etc. Obviously, I didn't know
what I was talking about! I think in that particular
race, Phillip was confident that he would win, even
when they came FLYING down the finish straight neck
and neck. But Garrett hanging with him while other kids dropped
off gave Garrett the confidence he needed to run with him in the
future.
I did not give Garrett any particular advice going
into CCS. He pretty much has carte blanche to run the
way he thinks is best, because he has yet to make any
serious errors. In retrospect, I did tell the team to
go out conservatively so that they could all make a big push during
the last mile, and the Palo Alto coach also had a similar plan,
which might have led to the
following scenario:
At CCS, it was a fantastic race to watch, because
there was still a pack of about 10 guys together 2.5
miles into the race. It was like watching a cycling
race, in that guys were looking at each other to see
who would go first. I remember Garrett complaining after
the race that he could never see where Phillip was, so Phillip
probably smartly stayed at the back of
the pack the whole time, and then did just enough to win.
And I do want to mention the great TEAM race that St.
Francis ran. There were 5 teams with a real shot at
winning that race (in my opinion all five teams were
dead even), but St. Francis took control of that race
from the first mile and truly deserved the win. They ran
their guts out that day.
DSC - What is your involvement with the distance group
during the rest of the school year outside of
cross-country, and if you are involved in track, how is the winter
training period organized for your runners?
CS - I am the
head track coach. Last spring, Adriel was in
charge of the distance runners and did a fantastic
job. Adriel will do the same this year. My sprint
coach got a job that is going to prevent him from
coaching, so I will probably be the sprint coach,
which I have done before. At this point there is no
organized training going on for the distance runners.
We tell them to take 2 weeks off after cross country,
and then return to easy running. We encourage them to
lift weights and cross train. The really dedicated
kids are running on their own without me supervising
at all. Frankly, I need to rest during this time, as
track is such an all-consuming affair. Steve Chavez
made me feel a little guilty yesterday, as he has a
full-on winter program going, so I may do something
more next winter. I also have a huge portion of my team playing
soccer for the school, so those kids are getting some decent exercise
there.
DSC - What advice would you have for a beginning coach in a high
school program?
CS - Go to clinics. Be
passionate about your team's success ... your enthusiam will radiate
through the entire team. Listen to the kids ... have team
rules and stick to them, but in listening to the kids
realize that there is an exception to every rule. You
must be willing to be there during the summer ... they
will not run unless you are there with an organized
program. Run with the kids ... they will respect you
more. Be human in front of your kids ... admit your mistakes
to them and they will respect you even more.
Be patient ... success takes time.
Thanks Evan
Doug Speck
DyeStatCal
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