Commitment from Coaches
Welcome to Wheeler Cross Country. This year promises to be an exciting one for you and your child. This handbook is designed to help you with any questions or concerns you may have about Cross Country.
Runners will have the opportunity to learn the important life skills of wise time management, leadership, and teamwork while improving their fitness and self-confidence. Such life skills contribute positively to a person’s performance on the playing field, in school, and life beyond the classroom. Acquisition of these skills requires discipline, conditioning, and commitment. It is not a sport for those that like “instant gratification”. Instead, it rewards hard work, patience, and the ability to know that you are working towards something that will make the effort worthwhile later.
Our program has a schedule that includes competition in a variety of invitational and championship meets. As coaches, we will work to ensure that each runner achieves his or her personal goals as we prepare the team for the championship meets. Our training philosophy is tailored toward developing an individual runner’s strengths, with an emphasis on total fitness and efficiency. The goal of the coaching staff is to guide each member of the team to achieve his or her very best. We will work to create and maintain a supportive environment for the runners both academically and athletically.
This sport can be intimidating at first, but the best advice is to give it time. There are countless stories of runners who showed up to their first practice and quickly decided they did not like it, only to do a 180 and decide that they loved it after the first race. There is something about knowing that if you do the work, you are almost guaranteed to improve.