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Tim Phillips on the 2018 Glasgow High School Track Season

We will very much miss our senior girls: Baylie Chappell, Kaylee King and Hannah Mickelson. Each in their own way, they’ve been tremendous leaders for us. For the rest of the girls, we know how the sting of fourth place feels and I hope it drives everyone to get out and compete in other sports and stay active in the off-season. We’ve got a lot of talent coming back, and very good freshman coming in next year, so I’m very excited to see what happens.

We’ll miss our senior boys too: Alex Fransen and Matt Reyling. I know track wasn’t their main thing, but appreciate the hard work they put in during the spring the past couple years. 

I’d like to thank all my fellow track coaches: Wade Nelson in the throws, Kirk Capdeville with the vault, Trint Gamas with the sprints and relays, Kayla Larson with high jump and relays, and Curt Wesen with the long and triple jump. Our volunteer coaches brought so much extra attention to detail our program needs with so many athletes, I am so thankful for them as well. Levi Sugg brought a lot of great technique to the shot and disc, Pat Menge helped to pick up things when Curt had to be gone, and Andrew McKean, Craig Overby and Jami Johnson all helped me out many times, doing everything from helping to shovel the track to being there for the distance runners when I couldn’t. 

Also, thank you to the administration, the Scottie Booster Club and the many helpers at our meets. It’s great to have so many of the team back from the past helping out in the present. You don’t know how much our athletes look up to you. And, thank you to the large contingency of fans. We were by far the biggest group at divisional and probably at state too. There were several groups of Scottie fans that didn’t have their own athletes competing - they just wanted to support our kids. 

Overall, this has been one of the most challenging and frustrating years, especially early on. But we’ve also made huge gains in the direction the program is going. The kids asked me on the way back home, what can we do to be better as a team next year. First, everyone needs to work on themselves. If you work hard in the classroom, that translates to hard work on the track. If you respect your parents, teachers and other adults, you’ll be easier to coach, and less time has to be wasted to get you to buy in. 

Physically, I think on an individual level, each one needs to stay active. If you make big gains in weight class during the school year, and don’t do anything in the summer, it’s gonna be gone by the fall. And, I always advise first to try other sports, especially as underclassmen. No matter what the sport, you’ll get experience in just being a competitor. And that’s very valuable. And, at the very least, if you work at it, you’ll get a conditioning program that will help you to force your body to do things it should be doing, but if left on our own, we won’t make it do.

From the team aspect, I hope everyone gives track and field a try, especially those coming in from junior high. There are very few people that won’t eventually contribute to a district, divisional or state trophy. It may take a few years. One of the biggest problems I think high school sports faces right now is impatience. So many think that they deserve the chance to be number one right away, yet so few are willing to put in the work to actually make that happen. I’ve had athletes get mad because they didn’t get the medal they wanted at state. And I’ve also had athletes that worked for four years just to get to state - and their celebrations were bigger than some state champs. 

The lessons we try to teach, and I think the other sports do as well, is that none of deserves to be handed much of anything. It should be considered a privilege to be part of a sport. And, unfortunately, just hard work doesn’t guarantee anything. It’s not fair, but that is the way life is. It’s not good or bad, it just is. 

Obviously, winning is one of my major goals, or I probably shouldn’t be coaching. But it’s not my only goal, nor is it the most important. To me, it’s who you become and what you become as an athlete. Are you the same person you were before practice, or before the season? Hopefully, most days you can say you’re a better person through the sweat and hard work than you were before the season began. Hopefully your stronger, humbler, more gracious and less judgmental after each goal missed and after each goal reached. 

I’ll finish with this: Just when I get down about losing out on a trophy for the school by two-thirds of a point, I look out and see 10 relay teams huddling together as one before their race. I see my distance runners, who’ve worked so long to be number one, just miss out, and then, before they even catch their breath, they congratulate the kid from the other school who just beat them. Seconds ago he was their competitor; now he’s their fellow warrior who survived a battle where nobody died. Or, it’s seeing a family from another school whose son did die, and they come to support his teammates, and they talk a long time with my son because he battled theirs and the two young men forged a bond and mutual respect that you just don’t get from anything else. 

None of those things came easy. None of them were easy. But those are the things that come from hard work and battle. Those are things that come from sports. 

 

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