I Coach: What's your superpower?

The Coach's Cup

“If you want to run fast, run alone. If you want to run far, run together.” - an African proverb

In my career arc as the pastor of a small church, I've worn a lot of hats. It comes with the territory. From time to time when I am asked by some telemarketer if I am the senior pastor I quickly respond, “If you mean I am the only pastor – yes.” Over twenty-four years of ministry, at times I have also been the main Worship Leader, the Youth Pastor, the Executive Pastor and if need be – like this month, for example – I also sweep out the place. Every guy or gal who's ever been assigned to a small fellowship knows what I'm talking about. You do what needs to be done.

Members of the 2015 Team

For the last eight years, one of the hats I have been blessed to wear has been “coach” of the Chetek-Weyerhaeuser High School Cross Country team. Since 2008 from mid-August to late-October I have had the opportunity to hang around some wonderful young people every afternoon between 3:30-5:30 p.m. Cross Country is one of those sports that most people really don't get. For one thing, it's scored backwards where the goal is like golf - to get as low a score as possible. For another, unlike football or basketball we have a clock that simply runs. No timeouts or substitutions. And finally, it's a sport that most people associate with discipline. There's a reason why an old saying in Cross is “Our sport is your team's punishment”. If Coach Knickerbocker, our Varsity football coach, doesn't think his boys are giving enough effort in practice, what does he do? Send them out on a run (in pads, no less!) It doesn't work that way in Cross Country.

So in a small town like Chetek, where football (for the guys) and volleball (for the girls) rules, a kid who comes out for Cross automatically goes against the sub-culture he's a part of. I mean, who after all, just “runs for fun”? But Cross Country kids embrace this and wear it as a badge of honor. And because of these factors, the 18-22 kids who come out every season feel very much a part of a fraternity of brothers and sisters connected together by sweat, tears, a little blood and the joy of running. In fact, the phrase that most of them use to describe their experience is “being a part of a family” and as their coach I am the head of that tribe.

Winning Timm's Hill in 2012 will be a special memory

In high school, my goal was to be a State champion wrestler and I found Cross Country by accident. My first year in Cross I viewed it as a means to an end, primarily to get in shape for wrestling. Instead, I found a sport I loved and an environment I thrived in. Looking back, I don't have a lot of fond memories from my wrestling days and the closest I ever got to State was the year I worked the tournament as a student volunteer. But I have a plethora of moments that I hang on to and retrieve from time to time of those three seasons I was a member of the Madison LaFollette Cross Country team - mostly of my teammates and some of the crazy stunts we pulled and especially of our coach, Tom Sisulak.

Who will ever forget the 2009 "snow" run?

About a dozen years ago there was a United Methodist minister in a neighboring community whom I knew that I learned coached their high school Cross Country team as well. Finding that out was like a seed being planted in my heart: perhaps I could do that too one day. Four years later that seed bore fruit when the position opened up here and I began my tenure as Chetek's (later Chetek-Weyerhaeuser's) Cross Country coach.

"It's not good to be dumb" (thus saith Alex)

Like the kids I coach, I have been a work in progress. I've had my own learning curve to traverse. Along the way, however, I've made a few discoveries the main one being that coaching is a lot like pastor-ing: you come alongside someone intent on learning a craft, give them some basic tools to be successful and then as they meet challenges encourage them to persist and not give up. I am certain that my calling as a pastor makes me a better coach because a pastor always has to hold on to the big picture: we don't want people to just thrive in the short term; rather, we want them to be successful over the long haul as they are intent on following Christ.

Ostrich races, of course

A fellow Cross Country coach in our conference who also coaches track once said to me, “I coach track because it needs to be done but Cross Country is what makes me come alive.” Me too, Coach O. Me too. As much as I love this sport, however, I am very cognizant of the fact that it is just a means by which I may contribute to the nurturing and development of some wonderful human beings. Because that it is my primary goal – not winning a championship, for example, just for the sake of bragging rights – intuitively over the years I have added certain “traditions” to our season among them the “Stud Muffin-of-the-Week” award, “the Monday Minute” and “the Circle”, an activity that puts a capstone on our season.

The original Stud Muffin

In 2011, at the Bloomer Invitational, a senior who by his own admission “hated running” accidentally ran an extra loop in the 5K race and remarkably did not come in last. As he put it, “Who knew you could get lost running in a circle?” By my estimate he ran an extra 1000 meters that afternoon but to still not be the last man in is noteworthy. The next day I showed up with a chocolate-chocolate chip muffin from Kwik Trip and the tradition began. Every week of the season since, “stud muffins” (or muffinettes) have been given out for efforts that go above and beyond the pale. The kids are free to nominate someone they feel is deserving and aspire to do something that is stud muffin-worthy whether on the course (like achieving a long sought after goal) or off it. A simple bakery item has become now a coveted mark of character.

The 2011 Season was also the season I began what I refer to as my “Monday Minute”, motivational and reflective talks meant to speak encouragement into my runners' lives. Some time they consist of stories I find on the internet. At others, they are talks addressing certain character issues in life like practicing thankfulness or the necessity of persistence. Of course, they are always longer than a minute but on those days where time is pressing and I have to punt to share it on another day the kids always notice it and want to know when they're gonna get their “Monday Minute.”

Eric with the "sharing chicken" 

At the close of the 2010 season, my son's senior year, I decided to have the kids circle up during the last week of practice. The Sectional race was a day away and the likelihood was this was our last time to be together. If this had been a religious setting, I would have asked the kids to “pronounce a blessing” on one another. But since it was Cross Country practice we went around the circle and I asked them to say some positive and uplifting things about each other. Despite the fact that we were right outside the gym where volleyball practice was going on and we were continually being interrupted by people walking through, the kids took to it right away. The following year, I moved that practice to the sanctuary of Refuge and ever since “the Circle of Encouragement” - or, as one of my guys calls it, “the Fellowship of the Ring” - is one of the most looked forward to practices of the entire season. It's in that circle that we affirm one another, build each other up, and reflect on the true strengths of a person that is so much more than how fast someone is or how much hardware they collect over the course of a given season.

Another season is now in the books. It was a great one. The kids bonded well, made a lot of memories and one of our own made it to “the Big Dance” - the State Cross Country meet in Wisconsin Rapids. But more importantly, these kids epitimized sportsmanship throughout the season. At the end of a very challenging race on Spooner's grueling course, spontaneously some of the kids formed a cheer line on the other side of the finish line and began to cheer the remaining runners in. The official in charge of the meet, an old salt who has been ref-ing for years, was sincerely moved by that demonstration of sportsmanship and shot off a letter to the WIAA, the governing board of high school athletics in our state. Here's what he wrote:

At the Spooner Cross Country Invitation, I noticed and was deeply impressed by the 10 or so runners, both boys and girls from Chetek-Weyerhaeuser, that were at the end of the chute shouting encouragement to all the runners finishing the race. Most impressive were the facts that they not only continued to cheer encouragement for all runners, but in particular they stayed right to the end of the race to encourage a special needs runner with Autism from Hayward. And to see how that cheering picked up the pace of that Hayward Austistic runner finishing the race just made your heart melt. This runner was finishing well behind everyone else and to see the Chetek-Weyerhaeuser runners cheering him on simply took your breath away. NEVER before have I seen such a genuine exhibition of sportsmanship at a cross country event before. These kids deserve to be recognized for their sincere effort to encourage the best performance from all runners, not just the select few in the top ten.

The cheer line

This is why I coach. In my eight seasons so far, we've picked up a few trophies, won the home meet a couple of times, sent four kids to State and had a handful of all conference runners but all that pales to the real work of building people. Before they know it, they'll be “big” people, working somewhere, settling down, and starting a family of their own. As they're heading there I'm grateful for the chance to help them on their journey as well as plant seeds for the Kingdom of God.  

These guys rock