Coaches Corner for August 19th-Kelley Grothus, Madrid Cross Country

with the sun coaches corner KWB G gonna talk some cross country as a matter head coach Kelly growth is joining us the tigers in full swing obviously and get ready for well they'll be on the for real here but before we know it i guess and Kelly that the main thing i always bring up with my cross country coaches is off season if you didn't have a great off season it can make things difficult for the season so what do you see in the off season now from the groups you know we had pretty small gathering throughout the summer smaller than usual but the kids that were there were working very very hard and i know that the kids who were not there it was for vacations or work or or different reasons and they were just working hard at a different time so we've been really happy to see the whole team back together this week um and just working hard and we can tell they are improved over last year their attitudes are great um it's it's wonderful to have everybody together um they worked hard over the summer and i hope we'll see some evidence of that in our first meet next week well Kelly we're going to start on the girl's side of things and there's some obvious strength when you look at your upper classmen boy if there's a season to lean on upper classmen that seems like matter of girls across country this is going to be that year isn't it it is we have five senior girls um three who have run in the state track meet for three years one who has run in the state track meet for two years and one who is brand new she hasn't run cross country before elissa sonnenfeld who is run track for the tigers um and played volleyball up till now so she is bringing just such a great attitude and work ethic to our team uh it takes a lot of bravery to switch sports senior year and even though she doesn't have the experience of running cross country that in itself is going to be a great example that our younger athletes can look up to Kelly with these girls i mean we've had success as you talked about track wise obviously big time success cross country wise as well goals i mean is this something that they're shooting for the moon right now have you guys talked about goals maybe yet we actually haven't we've just been getting together as a team um working on building up our capacity and we do individual um conferences sessions with each of the kids where they get five minutes of all the coaches attention just coaches and them because it's a big team and and throughout the season um they don't always get um one on one attention or four on one attention so we will talk about individual plans goals if they have them but we we have talked with the team about you know and we set a goal whether it's for the practice for the workout for the season for our careers we have to have a plan that backs them up we need to have a process that supports that goal and maybe beyond a goal uh a mission like what is our purpose here and if we have a great purpose or mission and if we have a process really the goal is going to take care of itself so we're trying to steer the kids more towards thinking about those things rather than i want this time and this place or to be ahead of this person um what is the bigger picture behind it that will enable you to achieve that goal as a team um no we we haven't sat down to talk it's a very different dynamic as i said we have a new senior girl we have um two other girls who are out for cross country for the first time they've run track before but it's previously played volleyball um and two that are new to our high school team so that is just a different dynamic and we really want to see how things shake out before we put um uh an end goal on the whole season so we typically do talk about that in the preseason what are our academic goals our team building goals and our performance goals and it's something we'll address um we also have a new assistant coach so there's just a lot of newness going on with our team and i want to give that a little bit of time still while we're all building up that team before we set specific goals kelly you like routines and schedules what about all this newness how's house coach dealing with that so far you know it it works great the beginning of the year we we have a lot of energy and a lot more time without school in the summer to get some of these things planned so knowing that we were going to have these changes and um and and different things for our season than than what we're used to um it's fine we go with it and have plenty of time to be prepared we had a great team camp um the kids have been really flexible with changing in schedule and making sure we can do what's working for um everybody because we have so many people who support our team um from our senior signing last night to our weight room program at school we want to make sure kids have every opportunity to be successful and sometimes have to be flexible with that and um i try to model that for the team that we do have routines we know what works but we can still always be flexible in them and try to find what might work better and be willing to give that a try to well kelly on the girl side of things you obviously just mentioned all the seniors boys side of things maybe not the number of seniors but our numbers i think are pretty good sitting right now with 12 uh tell me about the boys program a little bit kelly and about you know them coming into this fall yeah we have one senior taylor berberick and he will lead the tigers very well he had a great summer we're pretty young or we'll see some people who maybe are you know juniors but didn't have the opportunity to contribute at the varsity level in the past um really stepping up i've seen great leadership from our aid and even firmstone and aid and tidus just work really hard they make sure to include and find opportunities to elevate their teammates and help other people see the potential in themselves too um and that's something they just do naturally it's not something we've sat down and talked about and said we expect um but you get a lot of kids in cross country who are great leaders and sometimes need to find a balance between um you know leading and following you've got to find the your role as a follower too but with that leadership potential they make great contributors and great teammates we really are one team we don't separate out boys and girls we don't separate out junior high and high school they all run together learn from each other um and and see themselves as one team too so when we step on the line they're separated out boys and girls um but on a day-to-day basis their friends with each other they rely on each other they run with each other um and it's just a great team atmosphere kelly i know you obviously always look forward to i know the kids do too to the matter to invite that'll be coming up uh on september the third and i was just kind of looking at this schedule it kind of reminds me of last year's schedule did i miss something anything get added or removed that that was a little bit different from last year you know i think the only things that are different are we are not doing a scrimmage it just didn't work in our schedule and we're going to do a hard workout that day instead and and that's what we need right now and we are going to take our junior high team to the gilbert invitational at iowa state in early september we added them in so that's the only change it worked great we try to just compete once a week um and get the best out of that try to get around to some different locations where we may be see teams that we aren't going to see throughout the season much but might end up at a state qualifying meet with and also race against some bigger schools so we've got to have competition for um those leaders we've got two senior girls who have been madeline growth has been on the all state team for three years hand a brain horse for two um they've been on top placing teams at the state meet and we need to get them some competition um that's really going to push them and challenge them and prepare them for the state meet so we'll go to ballard and the gilbert invitational at iowa state where we see some of those bigger schools and and that's really key to us too that we want to make sure we have the right opportunities for our team this year the right opportunities where the same meets that we were at last year so we'll keep our schedule and um look forward to seeing the tigers competing starting next week already at um the southeast valley invitational yeah really quick kelly is always thank you so much for some time best luck as you get ready for next week and we'll talk to you in a couple of weeks yep thank you ryan kelly growth is again joining us matter across country here in coaches corner