Track & Field State Championships 2026

Well, hello world. The state track and field championship. That's what this is about. My latest experience. You know, the more I do these podcast recording type things, the more it feels like this is just me doing a voice journal of my experience in life. Which that's what it is. But I wanted to tell this one because part of what I've noticed in trying to be somewhat introspective on just experiences and changes in life is how much easier this experience was. And I should qualify what I mean by easier. How much less stressful or anxious or nervous, stressed I was compared to the previous two years as the head coach of the team. And I got a good little love to one of my assistant coaches, his name is Jerry Price, who's been a head coach before, who's very familiar with this experience. And he said something to me after my first year of track. And I was a little just disappointed in how the season went. And he said, "You know coach, you have the season that you want, the season that you plan for, and the season that you have." And that was very enlightening because I spend a lot of time thinking about the plan. What we're going to do, how we're going to practice, the meats we're going to go to, the growth of the kids. If everybody comes out, this is what we could do. These would be the relays. These would be where we would get points. And then you have the season that you want, which is after you start the year, and you start to see what you have, and you start to refine those plans a bit. And things start to change. You have numerous variables that are out of your control. And then you progress through the year, you finish it up, and then you kind of look back and you have the season that you have. If I'm quantitating the season and qualifying the season, I would say it's the best one that I've had as the head coach. We put more kids into events, or I should say we had more events, individual events, that we were represented in in the state championship. We had our first all-state girls athlete since I've been the coach. We had more girls in the state championship than we did men for the first time. All of those are definite improvements. The team seems to be. I shouldn't say seems to be. The team is. is more in line with the culture that I'm trying to create. It felt much more like a family. And it's interesting, because when I say you have the season that you plan, you want, and you have. there are so many different competing interests for these young people. And I coach you to school where academics is without a doubt the number one priority for the overwhelming majority of the students. Which, at the end of the day, considering 99% of them that might be a high number. At least 95% of them are not going to participate in athletics and college. It's probably 95%. But anyway, that's important. And they really take it seriously, and these kids want to be the very best that they can be when it comes to their growth intellectually. There's also a lot of other activities that they do. Theater, speech and debate, science and Olympiad, other sports. They want to have a life outside of school. Maybe they have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or some sort of other interest. I repeat the message over and over again. And I do believe this. And I don't know if I believe this at first, is that all I'm trying to do is create the most quality human being I can create that will be able to navigate through life. As useful and helpful and fulfilled as possible. Kind, compassionate, caring, empathetic, hardworking, determined, courageous. And what I noticed about this personal experience was I really wasn't stressed. And I really wasn't anxious and I really wasn't nervous. I want these kids to do the very best. I want the team to be the very best. But I can honestly, factually state that I do not believe that my worth or value as a coach is determined by how successful we are on the track or the field. I don't believe it. As a matter of fact, how I truly have changed to learn to judge myself and to evaluate myself is what types of relationships do I have with these young people going forward? Do they reach out to me after they've graduated? Do they ask to come be involved in the program? Do they invite me to a graduation party? The things that identify me more is someone that they trust and believe in and value unless about how many all-state runners that I have. Do I want to win without a doubt? Do I want to win a state championship? Oh, it would be incredible. It would be a thrilling experience. But then it's over. Those are just an event. It's just a point in time. When in how I view it is I love and what I've come to really value is the process. Is the journey, is the path that meanders and changes from the first day of the season, maybe even before the season, to the last day of the season? That growth, that excitement, and seeing someone do something they didn't know they could do. I want to talk about a feeling of satisfaction. I'll give you one little anecdote. We had a triple jumper. Start the season as a sprinter, primarily as a sprinter. She came out for the team because some of her friends were on the team and she wanted to be with her friends. And her friends told her that it was fun. A fun thing to do. They didn't tell her it's so hard and terrible and you're going to know they said it's fun. You should come out. We'll have a good time. She came out and she was a sprinter. No more than a month before the state championship. Mind you, she had never triple jumped in her life. She came down to the jumping area and started working with one of our coaches, Coach Mandy Stockman. And in a very short period of time, she took to the technical aspects of the event. Did she have a lot of natural ability? Absolutely. But she also had the ability to be coached and to take feedback, hear it, and then do it. And over the next month, she made it all the way to the final nine, the last three jumps of the state championship with a shot. at being all state. She tied for eighth and the tiebreaker was that the other jumpers second longest jump was two and a quarter inches longer than her. And she ended up taking ninth one spot out of all state position. And for about twelve hours I thought about it that whole experience. And what keep can't coming back to my head over and over again was how incredible that four weeks that five weeks of her growth really was. Her willingness to try something new, her dedication to getting better, meeting her family, coming to know more about her sharing conversations, watching her jump, seeing the emotion when she gets a new personal record and then a new personal record. And then another personal record just keeps going farther and farther culminating in being one of the final nine at the state championship. It was nothing short of memorable. I'll remember it. But I wasn't upset about it. I wasn't upset that she didn't finish eighth. I wasn't disappointed. I wasn't sad. I wasn't any of those things. And that's not how I used to respond to those moments. I would dwell on them. I would think about all the things I could have done differently or she could have done differently or the tea coaches could have done differently all of that. But there was a couple of reasons I think that I didn't. One, it doesn't matter. It really like those things can't be changed. So beating myself up or anyone else beating themselves up about what we did or didn't do. Why would you want to regret the past? Doesn't make any sense. What I can do is take the things that we learn and put them into practice next time. It'll make me a better coach. It'll make her a better jumper. That experience will make every one of us better. And in some cases, probably even better than we would have been had she finished eighth. That's where I've landed on it. I got to experience this young man that I've come to know very well. And I quite frankly, I love the young man. He's a wonderful human being. A little challenging at times. But he ran the 3,200 meters. It's the third year in a row we've made it to the state championship. And he also finished ninth by 900s of a second behind eighth place running a 927, which was the fastest time, ninth place time of any class of all time in the state of Missouri. That time would have got him in the top eight every other year. Not this year. Quality competition. It's very high. He ran the exact race he wanted to run to a T. He did all the things he wanted to do. And you know what he did? He ran a school record nine, nine minutes and 27 seconds. The fastest time he'd ever ran in the history of our school. The last time he'll ever run a 3,200 meters in high school. Think about that. If that's not poetic. If that's not a great story to tell. If that's not working diligently every day over a long period of time. I heard this the other day and I'm going to say it. I think this works well. The analogy is a carrot. You know a lot of what long distance running is is growing a carrot. It's underground. You can't see it. You have to trust that watering, fertilizing, picking weeds, tending to it, doing all the things around that that carrot is growing strong under the ground. But if you pull it too quickly to check to see how it's growing, you waste it. It doesn't work. It's not as good as it could be. But if you trust that you've done all of the things you're supposed to do, that you have seen carrots grow correctly when you did all these things before. When you trust that what you're building and what you're growing is building it is growing. When it comes time to harvest, the carrot's going to be fantastic. When it came time for Henry to harvest his 3,200 meters, it was the best harvest he ever had. That was so incredible to watch. And then lastly we had a young woman who was a junior who ran the mile. And she did finish eighth. She ran a 14-second personal record in the most pressure-filled race of the year for her. The only thing I said to her beforehand was as a runner, as a competitor, I from experience, one of the things I know and believe is that when I finish any kind of competition or race and I feel like I had something left and I didn't give it everything that I had, that is when I dwell on it. That is when I have a regret. That is when I look back and think what if. But when I completely empty the tank and finish it just exhausted, it doesn't matter what the outcome is. It doesn't because that experience that I've gained is worth it. And I can sit in serenity and peace of mind knowing that I have. If she would have had one more meter to run, she would have gotten past. She gave it every single thing that she had and did the very best she's ever done. A lot of different versions of this story. A lot of different ways and journeys to navigate with these young people in a sport like track and field. The understanding gained from this year has been worth every single minute. Missouri Class III track and field state championships. It's in the bag, baby. It's in the bag. Peace.