Hey everyone, let me first introduce myself, I’m Dr. Brian Damhoff, assistant cross country coach at Plainfield North High School. I’m in my first season of ever coaching high school cross country although I’m not new to the sport by any means. My background is in jumps, I’m the jumps coach at Plainfield North, I was a college jumper at Lewis University and I still compete for fun. I’ve coached high school track and field for five seasons now, one at Plainfield North, three at Parkway West in Ballwin, MO and one at Fulton High School in Fulton, IL. I’ve also volunteer coached at Lewis University with their track and field and cross country programs the past three years. And now, I’m entering the high school cross country realm and I’m very excited to get the season going!
My main role on the team is to oversee the general strength (GS) along with dynamic warm-ups/cooldowns that we do. I also am a chiropractor by trade, I run Elite Performance Institute in Naperville, so injury prevention and the management of injuries is another very important role that I play. As a first year coach, I’m still figuring out the dynamics of the program but what I have figured out is that we are very much so an emerging program. Head coach Andy Derks has done a great job of taking the program to a different level and in the coming years, I think you will see his hard work pay off in large dividends. Coach Derks has assembled a “dream team” staff by recruiting myself and Eric Ott, owner of Geneva Running Company, to join forces with him to create a staff that has all the bases covered.
Coaching these athletes has been a dream so far. They are a great group of hardworking kids and they want to take this program to the next level more than any other group I’ve ever worked with. What more could you ask for? One of the themes we preached as a coaching staff all summer long was consistency because that’s what it takes to really improve in this sport. And, they did a great job of being consistent all summer long putting in the miles and doing great work with my GS. Now the time is here and all the work we’ve put in we get to show off. This week we will be running in the EIU Showdown on Monday and then getting back to the grind.
I’m excited to get this season going and to see where it takes us. I consider our team to be underdogs and I like that role. We have the talent to go as far as we want and I think the athletes are slowly but surely believing in that. And, that is our first step to getting us where we want to go. I’ll be blogging all season long so be sure to check back in to see how our season is going.
Thanks for reading!
Dr. Brian Damhoff DC MS ART
Elite Performance Institute
1112 S Washington St Suite 114A
Naperville, IL 60540
331-472-4326 www.elite-performance-