DyeStatCal Girls
Coaching Staff of the Week
Saugus HS
Christian Standley
Rene Paragas
Cal Linam

     
photos by Don McLean
Cal Linam - Christian Standley - Rene Paragas - Saugus HS

Week of 9/25-29, 2006
California

It has sure been a great start to the 2006 Fall Cross Country season, with one of the teams that has been adding powerfully to the headlines is the Girls' group from Saugus HS.  Led by top returnee senior Shannon Murakami, the Centurions had a super early season run at Seaside, then blasted the all-time course record run at the Woodbridge Invite on that magical evening, racing 87:09 (an unreal 17:25 average for their top five)!  Shannon Murakami led at 16:51, with sister Amber 17:00, Katherine Dunn 17:19, Brianna Juaregui 17:36, and Keri Molt 18:17!!  Shannon is the only senior for a squad that has to be considered among the nation's best. 

Coach Christian Standley insisted that the three coaches in the program worked as one staff and asked his fellow mentors, Rene Paragas, who is actually the co-coach this year, and Cal Linham, to add their answers to our questions as we honored them as our DyeStatCal Coaches of the Week on the Girls' side. 

Congrats - good luck
Doug Speck
DyeStatCal.com

1) What is your personal background in sports as you grew up?

Coach Standley: I ran the 100, 200, relays, and long jumped for Saugus High School. I was also a three-year letterman at tailback and safety on the football team.

Coach Paragas: I played Baseball, Soccer and didn't start running until I was sophomore.

Coach Linam: I was into all the major sports. My dad coached my YMCA team, so I played football, basketball and baseball. When he gave up smoking and took up running, my brother and I followed him everywhere and ran three marathons with him, including Mission Bay, LA and Palos Verdes.

2) What do you think influenced you to go into teaching/coaching?

Coach Standley: I was inspired by, what else, the great teachers and coaches that I had in high school. Bill Van Duzee was my track coach. He knew everything: pole vault, the jumps, sprints, hurdles, you name it.

Coach Paragas: Dave Klinger who was my track, cross-country and 11th grade U.S. History teacher at Hart and inspired me to get into teaching.

Coach Linam: Without a doubt it was my wife. I married my coach’s daughter (Holly Kemp), who was getting her teaching credential to work in elementary schools. I was a sports writer in college, and a sports editor at the Burbank Leader, but she convinced my to get a teaching credential so we could have our summers off with our eventual children.

3) Super job the first couple of big meets so far this Fall (Seaside and Woodbridge). What kind of sacrifices did your varsity squad make during the summer to step it up to the level that they have?

Coach Standley: Believe it or not a majority of our girls went through their very first summer of training this year. They had so much fun, I don’t know if they considered it a sacrifice. Although a couple of our girls are multisport athletes and they definitely struggle to divide time between running, soccer, basketball, and softball.

Coach Paragas: Two things: 1) Only three of our returning girls had ever trained in the summer before. This summer we had all of them put in a solid base. 2) The girls increased mileage and made an effort to include double runs 3 days a week.

Coach Linam: Coaches Paragas, Standley and I agreed we needed to up the mileage from previous seasons. We knew we had a ton of talent, but we also knew it was time to up the ante if we were to compete on the national level. We kept a close eye for minor soreness and injury, and we’ve been very fortunate, as it has come to pay us back big time. We probably upped the mileage from 50-60 a week to 70-80 or more.

4) What kind of an organized program for workouts did you have this summer?

We met every morning at 6:45. On Saturdays, Coach Paragas would meet the team at 7 A.M. and they usually went for longer runs or 8-10 steady states. We also took the team to Big Bear, for a week’s training at altitude, along with having several Friday beach trips to Oxnard and Ventura to have fun and beat the heat.

5) What are some of the personality characteristics of the varsity girls group this year that makes them special?

Coach Standley: They are made up of diverse personalities. Obviously the one thing that they all have in common is that they are highly self-motivated. Of course they need encouragement here and there, but thus far we haven’t had to give them any big pep talks or call special meetings to get them focused on the task at hand.

6) What do you see as the big challenges on and off the course facing the squad between now and November?

Coach Standley: Our number one goal is to keep them healthy.  Last year we lost our #5 runner to a freak pumpkin carving accident, so we are definitely going to keep the knives away from her this year!

7) Would you share briefly the workout the varsity squad did the Monday before the Woodbridge Meet?

Coach Standley: The girls ran 3x2400 on our home course at Central Park. Each repetition is broken up into three 800-meter stages. The first starts out at an easy pace, the second is a race pace, the last 800 is all out to the finish line. In between, they got water and jogged easy about 400 meters back to the starting point.

8) What most basic advice would you have to a first year cross-country coach at the high school level?

Coach Standley: Keep it fun.