It was a regular Friday afternoon in summer; I was at my internship helping elect a new congresswoman in my district when I received a call from my college coach. This in and of it self was not unusual, I usually would receive one or two calls a summer from my coach checking in on me and getting an update on my training. This call, however, was different. As quickly became apparent to me, this was a call to say goodbye.
Coach Helen Leman-Winters, my coach of the last three years at the University of San Francisco was leaving to take a position with the University of Oregon and was calling to personally deliver the news. It was a very emotional conversation. Over the three years I'd know her I'd come to admire Coach Helen a great deal and it felt like a punch to the gut to hear that she was leaving, especially after a few other loses on our team barley a week prior. In reflecting on the news, it got me thinking about just what sort of an impact a coach can have on an athlete's life.
A coach is many things to the athletes under their tutelage; they can be trainer, teacher, parent, counselor, mentor, friend, drill sergeant, life advisor, medic, and motivational speaker, all sometimes in the course of a single day. As any athlete will tell you, a coach is someone with power far beyond what their position might indicate to an outside observer. I've written previously about just how much power sports has over the minds of its participant, particularly at more elite levels where a single competition or workout can make a break a person's mental well being. Coaches know this and a good coach knows how to use it to bring out the best in their athletes; to use the good performances to motivate and the bad to learn from. Talent alone can only take an athlete so far; it takes a coach to get the real potential out.
When I started running at Canyon High School as a freshman I was pretty unremarkable, it wasn't until the end of my track season that I started showing any potential for running. I was lucky that the coaches at Canyon were very experienced with bringing the best out in runners. Under their guidance I began to put myself together as a runner, learning the ins and outs of races, figuring out what training style works best for me, and building my mental toughness. I owe a lot to Dave Delong, Paul Broneer, George Velarde, and all the other excellent coaching staff at Canyon for helping to make me the runner I am today.
However, it was not until college that I would truly reach the next level of running and truly see what I was capable of both physically and mentally.
When you become a freshman in college athletics it's a lot like becoming a high school freshman all over again, you become the low man on the totem pole and have to relearn how to do almost everything under a new system and a new coach. I am under no illusions that I was all that impressive at the start of my freshman cross-country season largely because I had no idea what I was doing and I think because Coach Helen had no idea quite how to handle the disconnect between how I practiced and how I raced. But I stuck with it and gradually started to figure what was going on, and she started to figure out what to do with me (mileage, lots of mileage). It also didn't take long for me to start liking Helen, some of the other guys on the team at the time were rather put off by her no nonsense style, but I responded well to it, it was much like how the coaches back at Canyon interacted with us.
Sophomore year things started out on a much better foot; I finally got the hang of running at a Division 1 school, the coaches had figured out the best training for each of us on the team, and we had started to realize just how good we could be if we set our minds to it. Throughout this time my respect for Helen grew and I came to admire her more and more. I came to admire her ability to take charge in any situation particularly in the face of catastrophe as a certain disastrous trip to Indiana demonstrated. I also admired her honesty, she never sugarcoated things and always gave the honest answer, and while it could be a bit hard to hear at times, it was always what you needed. That being said, she could be counted on to motivate you even in the face of a bad race. I remember after one disappointing 5k I raced I was feeling really down about it until Helen came and talked to me. She managed to turn around my view on the race and put me in much better spirits.
This respect and trust in her leadership reached its zenith in my last (unknown at the time) race with her my junior year. It was the last race of the year for me, a 10k in Portland. It was a race in which I had to put almost total trust in my coaches to get a good outcome. And so I did, listening to every instruction they gave, moving up when they said to move and staying put when they said to stay put. And it worked out beautifully. I walked away from that race with an almost 30 second PR (personal record to you non running types) and a keen excitement for next season.
I really can't fault Helen for leaving; after all there is really no more prestigious position in the world of NCAA running than coaching at the University of Oregon, and she has her family and career to think about not just her athletes. Still though, it's going to be weird not having her at practices, workouts, and races. It's going to take some adjustment to get used to not having her around.
It doesn't matter the sport, the school, or the talent of the athlete a good coach can make a world of difference in their life. I know that much of what I have achieved in athletics is because I have had the good fortune to have such good coaches. I'm extremely grateful to every coach I've had and what they've given me, but I'm especially grateful to Coach Helen.
