Warwick Valley boys co-head coach Mike Potter has guided athletes since becoming a volunteer coach in 1999. He graduated himself from Warwick Valley in 1997. Potter’s squad is currently ranked sixth in the state overall and second in Class AA.
ArmoryTrack.com had an opportunity to grab Potter as the first high school coach featured in this edition of Coaches Corner.
AT: Briefly describe your coaching philosophy.
MP: I've learned from Coach (Tim) St.Lawrence over the years that it is far more important to coach better people before better athletes. We try to teach our athletes to do the right thing at all times and to the small things extraordinarily. Say please and thank you, hug your parents, work hard in school, pick up a piece of garbage that is in front of you and the list goes on.
As far as the physical, I like to take things slow with our younger runners unless they are standouts that are capable of handling a heavier workload. Joe Newton at York HS has his freshman run one mile a day for the first week of practice and sends them home. I wouldn’t say we go that far at all, but we do want our younger athletes to remain interested in the sport because they are the future. Once an athlete decides to make a full-time commitment to distance running the right way, we take it from there and sometimes you see this over night but it usually occurs over the summer time. We want to prepare our athletes for careers beyond high school so we do not rush the process. We never ask our athletes to do anything more then we feel they are capable of doing.
I'm a very honest coach, if I know an athlete is not training or racing up to his potential I will let them know about it. I'm hard on my athletes but that is only because I want them to do the very best that they can do with what they've got.
AT: What’s one of your staple workouts and why do you do it?
MP: I had to call up some of my alumni and current athletes to answer this one because I like to change things up quite a bit in training. Variety gets results! But as I made the calls they all laughed and said "C'mon coach 30-45min at 6:00 pace on the track". In cross country a lot of times we use Jack Daniels as a reference and this workout, if you are familiar with it, is about Zone 1.5. (Jack Daniels’ Zone Chart refers to the level of intensity of a workout for runners based on their performance level. For a link to the chart click here.)
I like to do this workout during the track season about once per week. I've always felt it was a good distance and pace that allowed me to evaluate our top runners’ fitness levels and see where we needed to make adjustments. Another workout during the track season that the athletes love is 25x200 meters, starting at mid-track (in 28-29 seconds) with a jog recovery across the 50 yard line (approx 45 seconds). I will allow them to go faster on the last five or so. This, of course, is done in late season when the legs can handle such a load and is done about once a track season. As a school that prides itself on the 4x800 relay, I like this workout because the feedback is great. Athletes love the rhythm of it and feeling of accomplishment. Confidence is key. If an athlete starts to struggle in workouts I do not hesitate to pull them from a repeat or cut the distance on them.
AT: How do you decide your race schedule?
MP: We have a commitment to our league which has us scheduled for four dual meets, a Divisional championship, and County Championship. A high school cross country schedule has a lot of races in it -- too many if you ask me -- and at Warwick we love to train. Preparing a racing schedule really varies from year to year based on the athletes we have during that particular season. For example, during the 2007 State Championship Season we had a JV squad that was extremely solid and that gave us the ability to hold out our top seven in most league commitments and continue to train. It also helped foster the development of the 8th-14th guy on the team as they now became important pieces to the success of our program.
They were expected to step up in and with a little success great things can happen. Where if we were to run our top seven in every dual meet those athletes may never get such an opportunity.
Another factor that goes into deciding a racing schedule is the location of the state championship. It does not always play into our favor, but we do like to have the ability to race over the NYSPHSAA Championship course to get our athletes familiar with it. It is also good from a coaching standpoint to get a layout of the terrain as that becomes a factor in laying down a training scheme. In recent years, with the addition of NTN (now NXN) and format changes we realize that we can only ask our athletes to go "to the well" so many times and the end of November is a long ways away.
AT: What would you say your biggest challenge is as a head coach?
MP: Let me start by saying that during the cross country season at Warwick, Coach Tim St. Lawrence and I work together as head coaches sharing responsibilities. Coach Saint has been at Warwick for 35 years; was my coach in high school and I could not have asked for a better mentor.
Coach Saint is one of the greatest men you will ever meet as many of you can attest to. He has also just been awarded the prestigious Frank McGuire Award which he will receive on November 5th at the New York Athletic Club in Manhattan. I would say that one of the biggest challenges as a head coach is to get a team to unite as one. I have coached many cross country teams and track relays that have been more talented than the next but could not for some reason or another put it together certain seasons or on the big day when it mattered.
Coach Saint and I do our best to bond teammates together but it cannot be forced. We talk about trusting each other, running for each other, and never giving up on one another everyday but if the "love" if you will, is not there, team chemistry can suffer. I've always found that the strongest teams have been those who are like family. They grew up together. They hang out on weekends They would give blood for each other. Once you find a group of guys that will do anything for each other, watch out!
AT: Graduation has changed the look of your squad. How is the dynamic different with this group and David DeWan and Tim Luthin leading the pack?
MP: We took a huge loss losing 6 of our top 7 and 11 of 14 from last season’s squad. A lot of people have written "The Purple Wave" off this year and this is perfectly fine with us because it does not change how we go about our business. Tim Luthin has some big-time racing experience as he competed as a freshman last year at NTN, and Dave Dewan, only in his second cross country season (former soccer player) has emerged to become our #1 guy. These two runners are nothing short of tremendous!
Our team has faced some adversity this season and it is because of their leadership qualities and work ethic that our team has only gotten stronger. Tim and Dave come to practice every day ready to work. When someone is not doing the right thing, these two captains will speak with their teammates in a manner that is embraced. They organize pasta parties, send out motivational e-mails and get teammates together for weekend runs. This is their team, they take ownership and pride in it. Coach St.Lawrence and I only assist in steering the ship, if you will. Tim and Dave took this leadership responsibility and have not looked back. They are loyal to their teammates, and their teammates know they can trust them to take them to new heights. We could not be prouder to coach this group.
AT: Your team had a great performance at Manhattan. Talk about that race and the outlook for the remainder of the season.
MP: Going into Manhattan our squad was coming off a great race at Sunken Meadow State Park and a dual meet against Monroe-Woodbury. To be honest with you they ran better than I expected and about five seconds faster per-guy than I thought they would as we had a very hard training week (We averaged 13:26.58). We knew we were going to be tested against a well-coached North Rockland and they also averaged 6 seconds faster than us per guy the week prior at the Meadow, so having them in our race at Manhattan gave us something to shoot for.
We were happy with our decision to not even ask to be accepted into the Eastern States Race since we are taking this season in little steps. We took a close second place to Westchester Henderson, Pa and North Rockland was third so we achieved our goal for that week. As far as the remainder of the season goes, we like to worry about just "today" only. And tomorrow is a new day and we worry about tomorrow when it comes. We do not want to get ahead of ourselves.
Tomorrow is a long hill day and we want to make it the best long hill day that we possibly can. Our team is starting to believe in training, and they are stringing some solid workouts together. It took some time, as it should in a young team but like I said it is a day-by-day process. Alice Morse Earle once said, "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift that's why they call it the present". We just want to keep opening our presents.