Dr. Brian Damhoff Blog Speaks: Amped For Track and Field!

February 28th is a date I have circled about 12 times on my calendar, our first track and field meet of the season. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas! In the fall, I worked with the distance kids as the cross country assistant at Plainfield North High School, now I've made the transition over to my more natural realm of sprinting and jumping (I was a collegiate jumper and still long jump competitively). I'm officially the jumps coach and this will be my second year working with the sprinters/jumpers at Plainfield North. I'm also keeping up with our distance runners to the best of my ability. Now don't get me wrong, I love cross country, but my heart really beats for jumping and sprinting. When I applied for the jumps coaching position at Plainfield North I had zero intentions of ever coaching distance guys. In fact, I took the coach Tony Holler approach last track season and would go eat during the 3200. This year, I think I'll go hungry at the meets. I am, however, very glad that I'm working with the distance guys and I think it's good to have two guys with different areas of expertise between myself and distance coach Andy Derks overseeing the cross country program.

Speaking of coach Holler, he came to watch our cross country sectional this year. I joked with him that the key to fitting in as a coach at a cross country meet for sprint guys like us is to wear tighter pants. All jokes aside, I am blessed to work with coach Holler. He is an outstanding example of not just a good coach but a great coach. He is never content with what he knows and always seeking more knowledge. He does a great job promoting our beautiful sport. He goes above and beyond his role as head track and field coach and is a great example of an outstanding human being. I am proud to coach alongside him and hope that one day I can have half the legacy that he has. When I was with him at the ITCCCA coaching convention a couple weeks ago, you would have thought he was the president. We couldn't walk more than 10 feet at a time without someone coming up to him and shaking his hand and talking. He is well deserving of his hall of fame accolade and I hope he continues to coach at Plainfield North for years to come.

In regard to coach Holler's speed training, I can speak from personal experience as to how effective it is. I run most of the workouts with our athletes and this year my times have dropped down lower than I could have ever imagined last year or at the beginning of this year. I've progressively gotten faster in a linear way and I expect myself to continue to get faster. That's not supposed to happen when you're 29 years OLD. I imagine if I had started with this type of speed training as a freshman in high school that I would have been a lot faster than I ever was in my track and field career. Speed training isn't just for sprinters either. I firmly believe that speed training is super important for distance runners and this year, our distance guys are doing more speed training than they ever have. The results of this will pay large dividends come track season.

When it comes to the jumps, I share a similar philosophy to Lake Park jumps coach Tom Kaberna who I've had the pleasure of listening to at a couple of coaching clinics. I believe in spending the majority of our practice time on acceleration/sprint mechanics and just a few simple jumping drills. My long jumpers only do 2 drills but you better believe we do those drills darn good. If you want to jump farther, you need to get faster, it's as simple as that. I video everything and put it into slow motion. There is no better tool as a coach than video. I could describe something a thousand different ways but if I just show the athlete the video without even talking, that will do more good than what I say. My athletes know the jumps as well as I do. I always tell my athletes that my goal for them is to know everything that I know.

This track and field season can't come soon enough for me. I have a great group of jumpers especially on the freshman-sophomore level. Last year I was handed a great talent in Manny Bofah who has now graduated. Manny had a larger than life personality and if you ever saw him, you would have never guessed he was a high jumper and a good one at that. He was built like a middle linebacker but cleared 6'7 at state to take 7th place overall and earn his spot on the podium with a medal. This year, I have a couple jumpers with what I call outside shots at state. However, I want nothing than to go to the state meet to coach my jumpers so I'm going to do everything in my power to get these kids to the “promised land". I hope you all are as excited as I am for this track and field season to get started. Good luck to all the coaches and athletes as we prepare to showcase this beautiful sport this season!