Track

TOG,

As you well know, speed is the top attraction of any scout at any level in this game! You have been around long enough to know too, that football speed and track speed is two different things. With that said, my opinion to your question about how REALLY much it matters (track success) is that it matters alot!!! Not for the fact of being fast, although that is what I like to call a nice fringe benefit, but for a more far reaching reason. That reason centers around the fact that success breeds success. I don't care if the kid is a tiddlywink winner, the simple fact alone that he beat everybody else in the event speaks volumnes to his self esteem! He has gained some notariety, he is having his moment in the sun, etc. and he really likes it! He is now prepared MENTALLY to go out and continue this winning thing in his next endeavor! If the next step is the football field, you are the winner along with the rest of the team!!! He has tasted the sweet nectar of winning and he will not soon return to his old ways. Marie antoinette said" Let them eat cake! I say: Let them compete and when they win at no matter what the sport may be, if he is going to play football for you, GO OUT OF YOUR WAY TO LET HIM KNOW THAT YOU ARE WELL AWARE OF HIS SUCCESS AT WHATEVER HE WON AT, AND THAT YOUR PROUD AS A PEACOCK OF HIS PERFORMANCE AND CAN'T WAIT TO GET HIM ON THE FIELD SO HE CAN HELP YOU AND THE TEAM CONTINUE HIS WINNING TRADITION!!! It has always worked swell for me, coach. Just my way, as always.

JC

Anything that develops a kid's drive to be his best and compete and win is good in my book. The mental aspect of it carries over into other sports and life. I could not agree more with coachjd about the footwork that track CAN develop. I say "can" b/c there are programs who have coaches that just say "run fast" or "jump high" but any coach with his salt can help develop better feet in the multi-sport athletes. Coachjd, you have a great advantage in my book b/c you are the track coach. Ours do not emphasize the wt room like they should, and therefore kids don't lift like they should durring track season.

Your schools must have quality track programs/coaches. At my present school (& most of my previous schools), practices are jokes - no structure, no discipline, no lifting, etc. I don't explicitly tell the kids not to run, but they are MUCH better off lifting than running track. Plus, we don't have a lifting period during school, so my players either lift after school - or they don't lift.

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Originally posted by: groundchuck
GoVertical--Yeah you know I have my sources in NW Illinois still. But seriously I went to school with a kid who was so fast our coach did not want to screw him up. He was winning races by outlandish margins so why fix what isn't broken. Basically he just told him to RUN FAST. Now he did coach his butt off with the him on the triple and long jumps which he also went to state in. But those are very technical events.
You know I did not know Eastland had track. When I was in school I do not think you guys had a track program.

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I don't know much about track, so when I was named the Jr High coach 4 years ago, I just went out and bought a bunch of videos.

Basically, we lift weights 2x a week and have 2 meets a week. Practices also include a lot of form running and running plyometric drills.

I essentially use track as a lead-in for summer football.