Nike ID Contest Winners - Mt. Gleason
Middle School
Follow up to August Nike LA Region Office
Coaches Clinic
By Doug Speck - Editor DyeStatCal
photos by Vida Rabizadeh
photos of the Nov 14th Award Winners at Mt. Gleason MS (Sunland)
You may remember from our summary
of the great ‘Nike Coaches’ Clinic’ in
early August that a contest would be held to see which of California’s
teams could put together the most shoe designs at NikeID.com. Nike
promised a pizza feed out at the school site for the winners, with
kind of a surprising result as a middle school came out the winners!
NikeID.com Site
It turns out that one of those ‘Pied Pipers’ of
running, teacher Craig Moss, from Mt. Gleason Middle School in
Sunland (located northwest of Glendale as a part of the Los Angeles
School District) has developed a running program at the school
site that has literally hundreds of students involved. As
Craig indicates in the interview questions below, he was a football
player who wanted to lose some weight and fell in love with running. His
personal participation in the 2003 LA Marathon led to interest
by enough students that a training group was formed, with a yearly
build-up and the participation of the youngsters in the
March event of over 26 miles. An amazing 131 students from
the school finished last year’s
LA Marathon XXI, and it
is hoped that over 150 from the school will cover the distance
this year.
Coach Moss obviously succeeds in keeping it fun and
interesting for the student/athletes involved, but the group enjoys
a challenge, with the recent shoe design challenge not the first
contest won by his enterprising program, as in the below interview
he indicates their previous successes in a Nike Essay contest
and ‘Kids
Fitness Challenge.’
Nike materials plus explanation of the Nike+ system
Vida Rabizadeh from Nike’s LA Region Office
brought the Nike+ Mobile Truck and gear out to Mt. Gleason in mid-November
for a gathering of the couple hundred runners involved in the winning
program there. Forty runners that day were able to try the
Nike+ system for their run that day after a demo that showed them
the unique tie in of Nike+ shoes and the ipod sports kit that adds
so much to the training experience. The visual workout information,
blending of workouts to music, and voice feedback along the way
is always a hit with anyone who comes in contact with Nike+.
A workout by the squad the day of the Nike gathering was followed
by pizza, snacks, a couple of short movies about the Nike+ system,
and a challenge to the school to have 1000 students sign up for
Nikeplus.com accounts to work with.
Student comments usually centered around, “Where can I buy
this? I have to have it! This is so cool, I never knew
about this before today!”
With general fitness in our society such a huge issue
for young people as crowded and complicated as life is for them
in these times, it was really inspirational to learn about the
running program for the hundreds of students at Mt.
Gleason, Coach Moss, and their successes in so many areas.
Coach Moss was good enough to answer some questions about himself
and his fine program that follows:
1) So how did the get together with the Nike rep go after you
guys won the contest for shoe designs?
The get-together was a great event for our team. They (Nike) paid
for pizza, cookies, pretzels, and Gatorade for our entire team 150+ runners
to enjoy after a short, easy practice. They also brought enough Nike
shoes, IPods, and the Nike+ systems for every runner who wanted to borrow one
for the practice could. Finally, they showed a brief video on the Nike+
system and had giveaways. Overall, the kids loved it and are extremely
interested in the Nike+ system.
2) I was kind of surprised that a middle school would win a contest
that Nike would have involving shoe designs, but understand running
is a big activity at Mount Gleason Middle School. Could
you give us a bit of background about your self and the running
program at your facility?
I was an extremely overweight kid who lost weight as a young adult through
running and thus fell in love with running. A few years ago we joined
Students Run LA, a program offered to Los Angeles Unified Schools that increases
student’s self-esteem and academics through marathon training. We
started with 23 kids finishing the LA marathon in March of 2004. Since
then our numbers have increased each year. 63 in 2005, 107 in 2006, 131
in 2007, and this year we are looking at over 150 middle school kids finishing
the LA marathon. Along the way we race all distances from 5K’s
to the marathon and this year we even tried a triathlon which was a huge success. Our
favorite race distance is the 10K and our favorite race is the Nike Women’s ½ marathon
in San Francisco which Nike has paid for us to go to the last 2 years in a
row, including bus transportation, entrance fees, and accommodations. We
even volunteer at a few races and triathlons each year to give back.
I guess our success can be attributed to my dedication to my team
(I haven’t missed a practice in 4 plus years including summers)
and my passion for running. The kids pick up on my passion
the first day the sign-up and it lasts all season
3) How did you gain the students' interest in the shoe design contest,
and roughly how many took part?
The shoe contest was easy. Our team is highly competitive and wants
to win at everything. We won a Nike essay contest one year, The Kids
Fitness challenge twice out of 3 years (second the other time), and always
have the most participants at any race. So for them it was a matter of
team pride and not wanting to lose. In fact I told them they were in
second place by over 70 shoes with one week to go and that night they ID’ed
over 100 shoes.
I don’t know the final number but it was well over 300. It
may even have been in the 500 range.
4) With physical fitness of our nation's youth a huge issue of
concern, what is the magic that you think you have been able to
find in your situation to have these young people be so active?
Like I touched on earlier, since I Iost weight and am so passionate about
physical fitness the kids pick up on it quickly. Plus I try to make it
fun as often as possible by always joking with them when I run next to them
and goof around on the bus rides and at races.
5) Are there any follow-up activities that you have planned with
Nike representatives after your mid-November get together at your
school?
They wanted to see if we could get as many students to sign-up for their
own Nike ID account. For those that signed up they would receive
a free Nike backpack. We already have over 200 ID’s done in less
than a week. Other than that, we don’t have anything planned until
The Nike Run Hit Remix in September.
Congratulations Coach Moss and group
- Best of Luck in the future
Doug Speck
DyeStatCal.com
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