After coaching cross country for seven years in Lovington I was disappointed when I got my first teaching job in Colorado Springs at a middle school and there were no coaching openings for cross country at either of the two district high schools. I checked the classified ads every day hoping that some school somewhere would advertise for a coach and I would be able to work it into my teaching schedule. Ironically a coaching position did come open but it wasn't at a high school it was at one of the local colleges, UCCS, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. I called, applied and was hired as the women's coach. There were times that I worked with the men as well if their coach had schedule conflicts.
The team was not a "varsity" team because the school didn't have varsity sports yet; it was officially recognized as a "club" team. The school at the time was primarily a commuter college so most team members were students who also held full time jobs in the community. To say that organized team practices were minimal to nonexistent would be an understatement. The bulk of the "real" coaching took place on meet days and even then I was never sure how many athletes would be able to make the commitment to show up for a meet and miss an opportunity to work.
If there is any doubt that I coached simply for the love of coaching look at these two pay stubs for the two seasons I coached at UCCS.
 |
| For the Love of Coaching |
While we were a club team we ran against varsity teams from colleges and universities from Colorado, New Mexico and Kansas. As a matter of fact, one of my athletes from Lovington, Kelly Young, was running at Garden City Community College and ran against us at the Air Force Academy Invitational. She stayed with my family while she was in Colorado Springs.
Without a doubt a highlight for the team was when the women won the University of Southern Colorado Invitational. There were a total of 8 teams competing. Additionally we had two individuals finish 1st and 4th. I'm not saying it was a surprise but another college from Colorado Springs made a point of mentioning that we were a "club" team when they called the results into the paper.
 |
| UCCS Cross Country |
The funniest memory I have of coaching the team was when happened in September 1985 at the Adams State Invitational Anyone who knows anything about collegiate cross country knows that Adams State is one of the premier programs in the nation year after year. At the time their men's coach and the meet director was Coach Dr. Joe Vigil, a legendary coach, especially in his own mind. As a matter of fact, Coach Vigil was my lead instructor when I took the TAC Level Two Coaching Certification course at the Olympic Training Center.
Anyway, we only had 4 men's runners show up to make the trip for the meet. Because it was a club team and I was taking a graduate course I was actually eligible to compete. I borrowed a pair of flowered shorts from one runner and a tee shirt from Aruba from another so that I could run; fortunately I had my running shoes on. I wasn't crazy about running but figured we could have a scoring team if I was the 5th runner, I actually turned out to be 4th on our team. Here's where what I always refer to as the "class" of Coach Vigil came out. He came up to me after the race where I had finished 72nd of 74 runners and began to chew me out about my lack of respect for the meet because I didn't have an official uniform. I'm laughing as I write this because he was so ridiculous. For the record we were last of the scoring teams so isn't as if we impacted the meet. The final irony is that Coach Vigil had each of his athletes accompanied and paced throughout the race by another athlete on a bike; a blatant violation of the rules.
 |
| Coach Spell also coached track in 1987 |
No comments:
Post a Comment