Transcript
With us on coach's corner, KWBG. We're going to talk some boom cross country today, Cass Warson joining us. And when I say cross country, we're going to talk about both because coach, I guess let's start with that because in the off season, I had an opportunity to also take the boys program along with the course, the girls program that you've been apart. And Cass, it sounded like something you were excited to do and did accept that. Yeah, I've had kind of already been thinking of that opportunity before it really even came into view knowing that coach Doyle was likely not going to be able to come back and coach cross country even if he was working at a different school. I just had to be ready for that opportunity and plan ahead as to how things were going to look for the season and just kind of trying to get the boys to understand the newness of what I've been doing with the girls, different coaching, different system and different expectations. And for the most part, I had a pretty good portion of the boys team during the summer come to the summer run. So that was kind of good to see, knowing that a few of them, if not a majority of them were going to be more ready for the season than maybe in years past if they didn't run during the summer. And then the girls have been kind of used to it the last three years, knowing kind of like what their expectations are. I did see pretty much the majority of the team at summer run. So I kind of know where they're all at physically. Well, and that had to be helpful to cast just talking about the boys program is that obviously there wasn't a ton of meets that you guys would go to that it wasn't a girl and boy meet. So that has to help a little bit because you have to be pretty darn familiar with most of your athletes, right? Yeah. And you know, like three years ago, I guess I never really thought about having the opportunity that I was going to be coaching cross country at the high school level until that opportunity came into view. And so three years ago, I never would have thought about the fact that I'd be coaching both boys and girls. So it is I mean, I do know the boys a little bit, but not as much as what I know the girls just because I've been with the girls the last three seasons. But having coached like Calvin and Pearson and Lincoln and track last spring, I kind of know them a little bit, a little bit more than some of the other boys. And so it's just kind of you could say like another first season when I started with the girls, like it's everything is fresh for both me and the boys. But some of the things that we've already done the girls kind of already know and maybe it takes away from a little bit of the excitement, a little bit of the, oh, what's what's going to go on here. But we did a we did a cross country camp with Madrid on Thursday and Woodward. And so that was something that we'd never done before. So that was something new for both teams. And that's something that I've tried to try to do this past week was try and incorporate something new, not just for the boys, but something for the girls too, that it's not just something, oh, we've done this the last three seasons, that this is kind of stale, but just something new that they can that they don't know what's going to happen. They don't know what it entails and that they can do something exciting together. And so I'm just like the first season with the girls, I had no idea what was going to happen. I have no idea what's going to happen with the boys this year. Is that exciting and terrifying at the same time, Cass?
Yes and no. One thing that, and I don't know whether the girls have kind of picked it up, but I like to know everything I possibly can. When it goes, when we go into a meet, I like to know, I like to know the layout of the course. I like to know whether it's flat or hilly. I like to know everything I can about the teams that are going to be there, who we can compete with, and just kind of have an idea of where we'll finish. And I had a pretty good idea of where we would finish in every meet we did last year with the girls coming up until districts because with injuries and health, districts drove me crazy because I had no idea what was going to happen. And so with the boys physically, just trying to coach them how to race and not exactly give up and not give all that push through the full 3.1 miles, it might be a learning process. And so I just have to also keep remembering it's not where we start, it's how we finish. So we've got like 10 weeks that we can learn this process of of this is how I should feel when we race and how and are we getting better as the season goes on? Are we able to push farther than we did two weeks ago in our race? Well, I'll tell you what, Cass, from from maybe a little uncertainty on the boys side of things to a girls program who has been obviously building since you took over. And I gotta imagine that that fun word expectations has to be a little high this season, doesn't it? Yeah, I'd say so. You know, we we finished the season ranked number nine in class 3A last year. We got as low as number six or we got as high as number six and as low as 16. But 16 was our first ranking after our first meet. We got ranked number six after our second meet. So but it was just kind of an honor to be recognized in that kind of capacity that we're we're kind of a threat in 3A and we just have to we just have to be able to stay healthy. I've got a couple athletes that one was out all of track season. So she's she's trying to get her body back into the use of running kind of going through some cap issues right now. I've got another who came off a very, very late soccer injury. And so she's kind of been out the majority of the summer. And so she's trying to get her leg back into the swing of things. But again, it's not where we started, how we finish. And that's just something I have to continue to remind myself is like we we can't be in peak mode going into our first or second meet. We got to we got to be able to be competitive till the very end. Cass, you have kind of a new wrinkle that was thrown in in the off season. And that was the potential inclusion of eighth graders this year. And obviously with, you know, right around 10 boys or so. And then you're looking at, you know, 11 or 12 girls. I mean, that's a potential for you to help the varsity team if you may need that here this season. Yeah. And when they made that, I know they were talking about making that a thing going into last year and it just never really formed. And then it was just something that I had forgotten about until going into, I think the end of spring that they were talking about eighth graders playing varsity sports. And I was like, you know, we've got the lowest number of any sports teams here at Boone. And last year we had eight girls, I had two girls that got injured and weren't able to run at conference. So I only fielded five. And so we were, we were really competitive last year up until that point. And the more numbers we can have on the team, the better off we'll be. Even if it's having 11 girls, I still can't field a full JV team. But the more, I mean, the more numbers we can get, the better off we'll be. If if one or two girls happen to get injured again, I can just supplement those two from JV. Um, same thing with varsity boys. I've got 12 boys, two eighth graders trying out. And we'll see, we'll see how they do come this Thursday when we do our time trials. Cass, as always, thank you so much for some time. Best of luck for that time trials coming up on Thursday and we'll talk to you again here in a couple of weeks. Sounds good. That's Cass Worcester again, joining us. Boon Cross Country here in coaches corner.
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