I look forward to sharing the rest of Alan's questions and my feedback in the coming days.

My background for anyone reading is that I was the head cross country coach and an assistant track coach at Lane Community College in Eugene, OR for just two years and just recently took at position as the “Associate Head Coach of Cross Country and Track and Field” (fancy way of saying head assistant) at Southern Oregon University.

Recruiting is the hardest and possibly most time consuming aspect of coaching I have discovered. It is a roller coaster ride in terms of the ups and downs that come when a coach's success is dependent on the decisions of 17 and 18 year old athletes. I've had athletes break my heart and I've already had athletes surprise me and make me extremely happy. It's difficult to go through the process and I'm learning more and more to try to take emotions out of the equation. This past year I would spend a night on the phone and be so frustrated and down, because it seemed like no one was expressing the interest I felt they should. There would be other nights I was dancing around my apartment on the phone, because athletes were committing left and right. That probably needs to change, but I'm passionate about what I do.

I love questions in the recruiting process, most of the time I'm asking the recruit more times than I should and possibly annoying them, “do you have any questions?!”.

That is probably the biggest mistake I feel athletes make is that they simply do not ask enough questions and they don't ask the right ones.

It's difficult sometimes as a coach to give answers to a question like number three, “what will the athletes progression of training volume will be?”. Jay pointed out that this is difficult, because it would be like trying to predict the future. However, I would still absolutely love if an athlete were to ask me this question, because it gives me an opportunity to show an athlete how smart I think I am, or well ha at least allow me to talk intelligently about how we would go about increasing their volume and yes, show examples of progression athletes I have coached have taken.

Question #2 is a MUST ask question. A coach must be able to show you what their PLAN is. You must have a plan. I know there are coaches at the college level that are doing as Jay said and “guessing” This last year if the recruit wished, I would hand them a copy of all the workouts we did during the 2008 cross country season. I made one home visit last year, which was my first ever. I simply did not have the time to conduct many home visits unfortunately without a staff of GA's and assistants to assist with well…everything. Anyway at this home visit I brought workouts plans, guidelines, basically a general structure of what my athletes were doing at the time. Unfortunately, that athlete decided not to attend Lane, where I was coaching at the time. He ended up going to a prominent division one school, BUT I would never hesitate to do that every time I felt an athlete wanted to see what we do. I would hope they all would.

The other questions in this first part are fantastic as well and I don't think an athlete could ask enough questions. I want this to repeat this again: COACHES should like recruits asking questions. It gives us an opportunity to talk about what we love and we want the athletes to know what they're getting into. Having an athlete show up, be unhappy, and in general not buy into what the team is doing can wreck the chemistry and no coach wants that to happen. That is why I have the philosophy of giving recruits all the information they want.

I know this is very long, but there are two areas I wanted to touch on before signing off. I feel another important question is: “How much will you tailor the training to my individual needs?”

This is so important, because there are simply programs out there that will not take the time to DEVELOP kids in my humble opinion. There are programs at the college level that will throw everyone into a system and hope that the 7-8 guys who emerge will kick some ass. An athlete needs to know what type of program they're getting into.

Every year I hear stories about athletes that ran 30 miles a week in high school, did not ask enough questions throughout the year and were expected to run a minimum of 60-70 miles a week their first fall of college. A majority of them end up getting hurt or running awful. THIS HAPPENS EVERY YEAR.

Coaches believe different things. I know some coaches that have the opinion athletes must be training at a certain volume to be able to be successful at certain levels. Therefore they will “give the athlete a chance” or “see what happens”, etc. There are also aspects of training intensities or other forms of stress that athletes might not be ready for that they encountering potentially too much early.

I personally believe that if a kid was successful off of 30 miles a week that the best interest of the athlete and the team is to DEVELOP that athlete. He kicked ass off of 30 mpw, so I would like to “take the next logical step” and start him off by running ha well probably 30-35-40 mpw ranges with the goal of maybe steadily increasing his mileage by 10 mpw per year for example. I have no formula for this, it is about how the individual athlete adapts to training. He may only get to 60 mpw as a senior, but he is running, potentially really well and he will have not quit after three stress fractures in three seasons. Maybe his volume will be higher than that. It's always a crapshoot, but I think evaluating where each athlete is coming from and what works best for him or her is always the way to go. Not all coaches will do this, find that out! I again coach at a small college, but we will have 37 cross-country athletes this fall.

The last point is RESEARCH kids. Look at how athletes have done at these schools, talk to athletes on the team, look and see how competitive this team is in its conference, its region, nationally. Just don't research athletics either, that is only one piece. An athlete must be comfortable with the school and environment they are living in. I have a good friend who went to Florida for college back in the 80's. He had to transfer to Lane in Eugene after one year, because he “melted”. Maybe you'd love that, but would freeze in Colorado. Just think about these things, VISIT the campus, look into what you might want to study and find out if you in fact have an idea what that plan requires.

This last year I was recruiting an athlete that wanted to be a veterinarian for example. She had determined that she needed to attend a school with an incredible vet school and was willing to pass on potential scholarship money because of this. I got on the phone and had conversations with deans of veterinary programs at the Universities she was interested in to determine what her options were. Of course, these were all graduate programs and her options for undergrad were very plentiful. I called the athlete back and I educated her on what steps she needed to take. What the people who would eventually determine her acceptance into these programs felt were most valuable as far as education and experience. She had simply not done the research.

Do the research, ask the tough questions, visit the school, take your time, and don't stress. You can always transfer!

Travis Floeck
Associate Head Cross County and Track and Field coach
Southern Oregon University
http://www.sou.edu