Is there a divide between distance and sprints?
I recently spoke to my colleague Coach Pat Wilson who coaches sprints and jumps at Hinsdale Central about a fiery subject. The ITCCCA Hall of Fame coach and me have a good but sometimes volatile relationship. Coach Wilson was the head coach one time in the program's history as well as top boss for the then track club CASA. Coach Wilson recently went on a tirade against distance running and its so-called appetite for distance only events. The eye opener was the post that she put on her Face Book Page (read below):
"Track and Field is not just a distance sport!!! It consists of mostly sprint events and power events. There are four distance events here since distance runners also have the sport of cross country. Please you distance coaches stop this crusade to separate the Track Season into Distance Carnivals. Keep Track Meets together and guess what folks build powerful teams. Not just distance teams or sprint teams but teams!!"
At first I chuckled when I read the comment. It initially sounded like a bitter old school coach who is as far from open minded to distance running as Chicago is to London. But then I noticed that she had more than a handful of likes regarding the message. I picked up the phone and we immediately began to discuss the matter. I listened intently as Coach Wilson explained what she meant. "In no way am I attacking the kids here," she said. "I just think teams should stick together and all runners should compete in the same meet." Coach Wilson believes that teams who sends individuals or a star individual to one of these festivals disrespect the integrity of the high school season. I respectively disagreed with her in that I feel if a coach has an opportunity for his/her athlete to run at Arcadia, Distance Night In Palatine, Batavia Distance Madness, or any other competition. I don't believe athletes should be alienated from the team for the entire season though. A select few meets of exposure if the athlete meets requirements is perfectly fine. My final message to Coach Wilson is that we are in a new age and we are going to see more "distance festivals" as time goes on.