Blogs : NCAA Division III Blog

Interviews: Scott Bradley of Wheaton (IL)

 (Photo courtesy of the Wheaton College athletics website)

Coach Bradley is in his fifth season as the head coach of the men's and women's cross country teams.  He was named the USTFCCCA NCAA Division III Women's Track and Field "Coach of the Year" after leading the program to its first ever CCIW Outdoor Track and Field Championship.  Last year at the 2005 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships the men's team finished 13th overall. The women's cross country team placed 7th overall at the 2005 NCAA Division III Midwest Cross Country Regional.  This past weekend at the CCIW Cross Country Championships the men's team finished 3rd and the women's team finished 2nd overall.  The men's cross country team is currently ranked 12th in the Week 5 Division III National Poll while the women's team is ranked 33rd.

By: Derick Lawrence (10/20/2006)

What made you want to become a collegiate cross country coach and what steps did you take in achieving this goal?

Growing up I had always had a passion for the sport of Track & Field and for running in general, but I had never considered coaching until my senior year of college.  Injuries seriously limited my ability to compete effectively to the point where I went to my coach, Don Church, and told him I needed to step away from the team.  By the end of our conversation he convinced me to stay with the team and help him coach.  To make a long story short I became our men’s sprint coach before the end of that year.  I loved it and was encouraged by other athletes and Coach Church to consider coaching as a career.   At the end of the year an official, though not full–time, position came open at Wheaton.  Even though I had never been a distance runner I began coaching both cross country and track at that time.  I have always had a serious passion for understanding training philosophy and those first 5 years or so I devoured everything I could read on the subject, talked to many coaches, and systematically observed what happened to the athletes that I was coaching as well as those in other programs.   In summary, I guess coaching kind of found me and then I embraced it with all I had.  If I had never been injured I am sure that I never would have considered doing this.   I am sure that God had a lot to do with that.

The 2006 cross country season marks your 5^th season as the head coach of the men’s and women’s cross country teams at Wheaton College (IL).  Could you tell us a little bit about your coaching history prior to being named the head coach (experiences, what you learned, etc.)?

Outside of a year at the University of Illinois when I completed an internship as part of a master’s program, I have only coached at Wheaton.  I was an assistant coach from 1986 to 1995 at which point a stepped out of coaching for several years.  I had young family and coaching was not feasible financially or pragmatically during this phase in my life.   During this time I worked as an accountant, a far different job than coaching, but a job I mostly enjoyed nonetheless.   When I had the chance to come back to coaching first as the head track coach, 2000, then as both track and cross country, 2002, I jumped at it. 

You graduated from Wheaton College in 1986.  Could you tell us a little bit about your collegiate experience (most memorable moments, etc.) ?

There is not much to talk about athletically.  I was a descent athlete who was injury prone and didn’t know when to back down from hard training.  As a result I spent much of my time injured or competing below my ability level.  This certainly has had a strong influence on my coaching philosophy.  Keeping an athlete healthy over a period of time will usually lead to some level of success even if the athlete is under trained.  Also, the way Coach Church treated me has hopefully had a strong influence on how I coach.  He was great at showing how much he cared about me as a person whether I performed well or not.  He wanted his athletes to grow as people not just as athletes.  I try to coach with those same values, but I realize that I am not always successful.

Tell us about winning the 2006 National Women’s Track and Field Coach of the Year award.

I want to be very clear in saying that this award was directly the result of our great assistant coaches and our outstanding student-athletes that God blessed us with.  Personally, it was probably one of the easiest seasons I have ever coached because everyone around me did their job so well.  Track is such a diverse sport that it requires the expertise of many coaches to develop a strong team.  My assistants provided great technical guidance in their event areas, they were great mentors for our athletes, and they provided personality gifts to our team which I don’t have.  As I mentioned earlier, we have many very dedicated athletes on our team which makes coaching them a lot of fun.  Any success that we had last year can be directly traced to our quality assistants and outstanding student-athletes.   They make my job very manageable and enjoyable.

Would you briefly describe your program's training philosophy (volume, intensity, frequency, etc.)? 

I am a big believer in individualization, gradual progression, long-term development, and aerobic development.  My overriding principle is the idea that not everyone is going to adapt to the same training stimulus so our program is certainly not a one size fits all approach.   If I am going to error I will try to error by under training someone rather than over training them.  I do not emphasize anaerobic development unless I discover that an individual is not running well without it.  Our weekly mileage will range from 40-90 for the men and 20-65 for the women.  We typically run workouts or race only two times a week.  Outside of that, we run what I call aerobic development runs, running in a zone anywhere from 1-3 minutes slower than 5k race pace.  I encourage my athletes to spend a considerable amount of time in the slower half of their zone and to run comfortably (this is probably the hardest thing to get my athletes to do, especially my men), but I do give them freedom on most days.  Running comfortably does not always equate to running slowly, but often it does.  I rarely use the term “recovery run” because I believe that there is real aerobic benefit to running at any speed within the zone.  Most of our athletes run long, 20-25% of their weekly mileage once a week.  Our workouts emphasize lactate threshold and critical velocity work.  Most of our athletes will only run Vo2max work for only 4-5 weeks, although we have some who will do so for longer and some who never do any at all.  I try to set up my schedule so that we race or time trial every other week.  I am a firm believer that most runners only have 3-4 high level efforts in them for a particular season.  But there needs to be some balance between not using those efforts up early in the season and giving the athletes opportunity to run well enough to have develop confidence heading into the championship season.  I am not sure that I have struck that balance well this year.  We will typically reduce our mileage every 4^th or 5^th week by 20-40% but will not perform a major taper at the end of the season.  My ability to individualize is highly dependant on the athlete’s willingness to communicate with me and their willingness to subject themselves to some educated trial and error.  I never promise an athlete that I will get their training plan totally correct, but I do promise them that I will work hard to make it better every season they are in the program.   As with any program, our success is highly dependant on the athletes’ willingness to buy into the philosophy of the program.    

Who has influenced you the most in your coaching?

Don Church – taught me about Godly character and valuing the whole person, Daniels –  taught me the science behind the coaching and simplified a subject which many make complex, Lydiard -  taught me the importance of aerobic development and the pitfalls of excessive anaerobic training, Bowerman – he opened my eyes to the fact that not all athletes adapt to the same things, so go ahead and try something outside the norm when the norm doesn’t work, Tom Schwartz “Tinman”- Tom and I cut our teeth together as young coaches and came to many of the same conclusions though observation and practical experience, he has since far exceeded my scientific and pragmatic knowledge, Al Carius – he taught me a great deal as I have observed his great program over the years, probably the greatest coaching advice I ever got came from Al my second year of coaching when he told me, “everyone wants to make it so complicated, but at some point early in my career I figured out that the guy who puts one foot in front of the other more times than the next guy has a pretty good chance of winning”, Scott Wilson (Anderson)/ Jeff Stiles(WashU)/Greg Huffaker (Illinois Wesleyan) – we have traded ideas and confided in each other consistently over the last several year, they not only help me make coaching decisions they are my friends who help me through the discouraging days and keep me focused on things far more important than winning

All the athletes that I have ever coached – most of what I know in the area of individualization came from observing and learning from them.

Countless other coaches from whom I have gleaned knowledge over the years, very little if any of my philosophy originated from me.

Could you give us an example of a typical microcycle in your training program from September to mid-October of a cross country season?

M – Long Aerobic Development Run of about 20% of weekly mileage

T – Aerobic Development Run of about 10-15 % of weekly mileage

W – Workout – Lactate threshold or Critical Velocity or Vo2Max focused

TH - Aerobic Development Run of about 10-15 % of weekly mileage

F – Race or a long tempo run with pace progressing from high end aerobic to lactate threshold

S -  Aerobic Development Run of about 10-15 % of weekly mileage

SU – off

Out runners will add a second daily run to hit their target mileage levels if needed.  Usually I suggest not going above 65/week for the men and 55/week for women on singles.

Could you tell us about your team this cross country season (returning upperclassmen, incoming freshmen, how your season has been going so far, upcoming meets, etc.)?

This has been a great team to coach.  We have a lot of motivated and fun people and it is a privilege to work with them.  I would rather not single out individuals during cross country because it is such a team sport.  But I would say that we have received great leadership from our captains and from David Walford, my assistant coach.   We are looking forward to the end of the season with conference, regionals and hopefully nationals coming up.  It is just a lot of fun to run those races and we hope to compete well and get better each time out.

Is there any running related training material (books, scientific journal articles, etc.) that you commonly refer to throughout a cross country season?

I refer to many of Daniels’ formulas as well as many of Tom Schwartz’s formulas on a somewhat regular basis although I am not locked into them.

What are your thoughts about the new qualifying procedures for the 2006 NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships?

Personally, I think that the best teams and athletes should be at a national meet.  While no system is perfect, I think this system has a chance to accomplish getting most of the top 20-25 teams to the meet if the committee truly rewards quality and not regional representation.  I think that the system already has the regional representation taken care by automatically including 2 from every region.  It will be interesting to see if the next best 16 schools (I realize that this will be subject to debate) are included or if the regions will all receive a similar number of teams.  I would also like to see the regional cap be raised beyond 5, because, as I have already said, let’s get the best teams to the meet.

What are 2 key workouts that you incorporate into the peaking period of a cross country season?

I don’t really have a key workout.  My objective at this point in the season is to maintain the aerobic engines that the athletes have so diligently trained, while keeping their legs fresh.  So we will not taper for long periods of time, but we will cut back on taxing workouts, i.e. no VO2max work.

I do like to have our athletes run a short time trial, usually 3200, before our championship races to acclimate them to a faster pace and a more intense effort.

What concepts do you believe are necessary for success of a collegiate distance runner? 

Motivation and the ability to have a long term perspective is the number one ingredient for success in distance running.  Obviously to be great a runner must possess a certain level of talent, but these character traits are usually can take a runner a long way.  I also think that it is important that a runner develops a lifestyle conducive with running success.  Consistent sleep, healthy diet, and managing outside stress play a big role in the runner’s athletic development.

For those that are aspiring to become a collegiate cross country coach, what would be the best piece of advice you would give them?

Learn anything you can from anybody.  Don’t be afraid to ask questions, most people enjoy sharing what they know.  Coach within your personality – don’t try to be someone that your are not.  Athletes will respond well to you if you care about them and work hard to help them become better, even if you don’t have the charisma of an Al Carius or a Bill Bowerman.   If you do become a head coach, do everything you can to surround yourself with good people, they will make you better and make you look good.  Also, admit when you are wrong or just don’t know an answer.

Thanks to Coach Bradley for a great interview.

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