Dr. Brian Damhoff Blog Speaks: Creating A Culture

When I took the position of jumps coach at Plainfield North last year, one of the top items on my agenda were to help create a culture that would be conducive to track and field success.

 

I was pleasantly surprised to find that head track and field coach Tony Holler had already done a great job creating an amazing culture. I had no clue who Holler was prior to taking the job at Plainfield North, but he certainly has influenced myself greatly as a coach. In fact, if it weren’t for Holler and his influence, I wouldn’t be writing this very blog.

 

Every single meet, he takes a ton of great photos, writes an awesome article highlighting the good and the bad (almost always within 24 hours of a meet being done) and has every record/stat available online for all the athletes. That goes a long ways towards building a successful program and culture! When I took the position of assistant cross country coach, again, creating a culture was one of my top priorities. I will admit as the jumps coach I had not paid attention a whole lot to the distance side of things during the track and field season. If I had, I would have seen that distance coach Andy Derks was doing his own fantastic job at creating the culture at Plainfield North.

 

At Plainfield North, we are serious about everything we do, but we also like to have fun. One of the ways we have fun is a prediction mile the day before a meet. Everyone predicts what they will run in a mile and then we’ll have a category such as the closest overall and the closest sophomore to their predicted time that win. For winning, you get to select an article of clothing from head coach Andy Derks plethora of running clothes from the past. Nothing like getting a 1998 Florida State relays shirt! We also give awards to our athletes for every meet recognizing the performance of the meet, the PR of the meet, the F/S competitor and the varsity competitor. 

 

The competitor award goes to someone who does something special during the meet. For instance, at conference, our F/S competitor award went to Gabe Nkpe who the night before became so sick to his stomach that he didn’t think he’d be even able to attend the meet let alone run. He came back the next day and slammed the door as our 5 man running a great race. The winners get certificates along with having their certificates displayed in a case in the hallway of the school for all to see.

 

Another big part of our culture is our training log. When you coach a big group of kids, it can be hard to keep track of how everyone performs during a practice. I think with any type of training, it is important to dictate it as much individually as you can. I especially am always interested in the athlete’s individual thoughts and the training log provides the perfect opportunity to get those. It also helps us to keep track of aches and pains and taking steps to make sure that they don’t progress into something requiring time off and a loss of aerobic fitness. The training log also adds accountability to our athletes. 

 

At one point this year, a few of our athletes admitted to walking when they were supposed to be running during a workout. Without the training log, this may have escaped our knowledge as coaches. We were able to handle the situation appropriately and I think the athletes learned a lot from their mistake. It is also neat to go back in time and see what kind of pace athletes ran their workouts at earlier in the year compared to what they’re at now. The improvement is always eye opening and that’s an awesome thing to see as a coach or an athlete!

 

Our culture extends beyond our athletes as well. I don’t know how it was in the past with it being my first year but I think you’d be hard pressed to find parents who are more involved in the program than ours. Not only do our parents attend races and cheer for our athletes but they go above and beyond.

 

One of the ways they go above and beyond is pasta parties every Friday night! I can’t even imagine the work that goes into hosting a pasta party for 40 hungry athletes from cleaning to cooking to serving and then cleaning again. Pasta parties are a great chance for team bonding and our team has absolutely grown closer as a result of them. I have to give a special shout out to some special parents of ours, Walker and Janet Wells, who are two of the most caring, kind and giving individuals that I’ve ever met. At conference this past weekend, they were the masterminds behind an amazing spread of food for our athletes, coaches, parents and even the bus driver after the race. We had pulled pork, ham, cheese potatoes, cowboy beans, fruit, chips, cookies and drinks. We all ate like kings! I can’t say thank you enough to our wonderful parents, thanks for everything you do! You help make our program a better program and are a big part of our culture that we’re building.

 

The Plainfield North parent boosters cook and serve up the goodies for the post-race (Andy Derks photo)