DyeStatCal California Boys Coach of the Week 9/30-10/04/02
Kevin Smith (Oak Park)

Photo Oak Park HS CC

Wow, since its start in the mid-1980's in a small area off of Agoura, Oak Park HS has built a tradition of excellence in Cross-Country and Track and Field under Coach Kevin Smith and his staff. They have won two consecutive Southern Section Boys Divisional Titles, and were the 2001 State Girls Champ at their level. Kevin readily defers credit for success for the fall team to J.J. Castner, a former star runner at the school, who he shares coaching duties with. We are sure the reaction of the team at Oak Park is, wait a minute, we are pretty darn good as a girls' team also, which they certainly are, and that is the area that it turns out Coach Smith has his focus on, while Castner focuses currently on the Boys, but with two super highly ranked teams and a recent tradition of success at a level as high as any team in the state at any level, we wanted to honor Coach Kevin Smith as our DyeStateCal Boys Coach of the Week for overall successes in recent times. We remember when Kevin was a star on Coach Jim Smith's Agoura HS teams in the mid-1970's, and one of our favorite running pictures is of him racing through Bubbling Springs Park in Port Hueneme against my Hueneme HS team of 1975 that sits on my wall. Anyway, super job, and keep up the great work Kevin. Below he speaks of a carefully thought out plan for preparing his athletes that has worked in recent years at an unparalleled level!!!

Doug Speck - DyeStatCal

"Doug, as I answer these questions, the honor needs to be shared. J.J. Castner, the co-head coach, and I jointly coach the team. My name is on all documents only because of seniority. It is truely a mutual effort though my focus tends to be the girls and J.J. guides the boys' program.

1) Describe briefly your season thus far in 2002 Cross-Country--

Thus far, we have limited our efforts with the focus being on the Stanford meet. In our other meets, we focused on putting athletes in a position to play a key role on that team. Pre-season is a time we teach and discount race performance.

2) How did preparation go during the summer?

Summer training is the foundation of our season. We are a low mileage program and consistancy of training over a long period of time is critical. We start with "Spring Training" in late May and have our athletes continue running until we met with them in mid-July. Around 100 runners trained on a daily basis. The highlight of our summer program is one week in Mammoth. Keynote speakers Deena Drossin and Ken Reeves were inspirational in their messages to the athletes.

3) How did you work the troops different this summer than maybe in the past?

Our training plan has remained the same for the last 3-4 years. Monday, a 2-6 mile run on trails in a local park. Tuesday, either sub-pace 800's or 20-50 min. run in the hills. Wednesday, we run long. Varsity athletes worked their way from 40 min. to 70 minutes by summer's end. Thursday, we run pace miles or do a 2-4 mile tempo effort. For us, pace is the training pace we expect them to always train at. For our varsity boys, that's between 6:00-6:15, and the varsity girls run between 7:00-7:15. We built up from 2 pace miles to 5 pace miles with one minute "recovery". Friday was designated "Fun Day". We played games for one hour. We finished with core strength training. Saturday was another long run day that typically included surges.

4) What has influenced any changes you may have done in your training with your athletes recently over the last few months or so?

Really over the last three years we have minimized racing to concentrate on training. This allows us to "rest" athletes when they are sick, fatigued from training, or have minor injuries. With the training base we build, we feel we have the luxury to rest athletes.

Additionally, I have a coaching staff of 8. This gives us the latitude to modify workouts, supervise athletes on exercise bikes, pool train etc..

5) You seem to be very careful in limiting top efforts by your runners in some recent years - background to that decision and how it has worked?

We have been very pleased with our limited racing calendar. We gear up for 2-3 early season meets before we head into league finals. League finals, C.I.F. Finals and State are a grueling grind. We believe in conserving the emotional energy and continue building our race/training base.

The philosophical change came from J.J.'s collegiate experiences at UC. San Diego and at Arkansas. Furthermore, the coaching wisdom of John Wooden, Jon McDonald, Jack Daniels, Jack Ferrell and Ken Reeves have been greatly influential in our evolution

6) How does the rest of the season look for the Boys and the Girls?

We are still in that developmental stage. Stanford confirmed we have the pieces and the chemistry to compete. Now our job is to shift the design of our training to prepare for the race intensity needed to compete at the highest level. This shift always occurs after Stanford. Our next major effort won't be until Ventura County Championships (November 1) or Tri-Valley League Finals (November 5)

7) What advice would you have for a beginning coach?

Have a coaching and educational philosophy. Set goals. Publish them. Sell them to your community. Make your program the centerpiece of the school's athletic community. There are hundreds of students on every campus looking for an opportunity to be part of something. My goal is 10% of the school runs cross country and 20% competes in track.

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Thanks Kevin - Doug Speck DyeStatCal

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