Blogs : NCAA Division III Blog

Interviews: George Suitor of Trinity College (CT)

(Photo courtesy of the Trinity College athletics website)

Coach Suitor is in his 15^th season as head coach of the men’s and women’s cross country programs at Trinity College (CT).  Last year at the 2005 NCAA Division III Cross Country New England Region the men’s team finished 10^th and the women’s team finished 19^th overall.  At the 2002 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships Ryan Bak became Trinity’s first Men’s Cross Country Champion when he won in a course record time of 25:01.1.  A year later at the 2003 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships the women’s team finished as the National Runners-Up.  This past weekend at the NESCAC Championships the men’s team finished 4^th overall while the women placed 11^th.

By: Derick Lawrence (10/26/2006)

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

My decision to be a coach was made back in High School. I had a rough time growing up through Middle School and my High School years. I was fortunate to love the sports that I played growing up and my coaches during those years were a stabilizing influence on me. Sports allowed me to experience success and be surrounded by positive people. My teammates were always my best friends and were people that I trusted the most.  I was fortunate to have Bill Kelleher as my High School track coach because he was such a positive influence on my life. He opened my eyes and showed me that I could go on and get a college degree. Bill went on to be a successful Head Track and Field Coach at University of Connecticut for many years. Bill is still an influence on my life because he is our assistant Track coach here at Trinity where he works with our jumpers and multi-event athletes. He is now 74 and still has the burning desire to coach.

After graduating from college, I started teaching in a middle school in Manchester, Connecticut and started one of the first middle school cross-country teams in Connecticut. I also coached basketball and track for two years in that middle school. In my third year, the high school cross country coach retired and I took over. We ended up winning the Connecticut state title a few years later. At about that same time, I became the assistant Track coach before moving on and taking over the entire High School program. I became a true student of Track and Cross Country because I had the responsibility of coaching all events in track and field.  When I started I only had the experience of being a 400/800 runner and my one year attempt at Cross Country was frustrating because I was the world’s worst distance runner. But, by running cross-country for that first year I gained a lot of respect for my distance runners because of the amount of work that they put in.  I proceeded to attend as many clinics as I could and was always asking questions of the more experienced coaches in our area.  I still enjoy going to clinics, and I am always trying to pick up one or two things that can help my team.  

You are in your 15^th season as the head coach of the men’s and women’s cross-country teams at Trinity College (CT).  Could you tell us a little bit about your coaching history prior to arriving at Trinity College (most memorable moments, what you gained from this experience, etc.)?

I was the part time Head Coach at Trinity for Cross Country, Indoor and Outdoor Track for 10 years before my job became full time position. Before that, I was Head Coach of Cross Country, Indoor and Outdoor track at Manchester High School, Manchester, CT. I have so many great memories of my High School teams and athletes. I had some great teams and some great individual athletes.  As a high school coach, I was put in a position where I could help kids become better athletes and better people. I think that some of the best work that I did was helping athletes develop discipline and helping them with serious problems off the track.

High School coaching is one of the toughest things that you can do. You are usually understaffed and overwhelmed with the workload that you have to put in. I still consider myself a high school coach who is fortunate to be able to coach at the College Level.  I am a firm believer of giving back to your sport in some way and that’s why I help run a number of high school meets in Connecticut. I am proud of some of the meets that I helped start and that are still going strong. Dick Brimley and Bill Baron, two High School coaches at East Hartford High School, and I started the Wickham Park Invitational, which is now one of the largest high school cross country meets in New England. We ran this meet a few weeks back and around 2,800 kids ended up running in the meet. I am also proud of getting the High School State Cross Country meets moved to Wickham Park years ago. I helped design the boy’s 5,000 meter course, which, in my opinion, is one of the more challenging courses in New England. We continue to work on the course and with the help of the Manchester Thanksgiving Road Race Committee, we have received funds to redo some of the trails and get the course entirely on grass or trails. At some point, I would like to put in a bid for the NCAA Div. III Championships because I would like to see the championship on a more challenging course.  We also started two High School track meets, which are still going strong, one of which brings in around 60 teams from the New England area.

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

Our philosophy is that consistent work over a long period of time will get you the results that you want. I would like our freshman to average around 55 miles a week and add around 15% every year to their weekly mileage. This is not a set in stone because every athlete comes from a different mileage base coming in from High School.

In regards to our training program, it is based off where we are located and our facilities. We are located in the city so at least 2 times a week we go off campus to get our runs in. We train at many different places; Wickham Park, West Hartford Reservoir, 2 different bike trails, Northwest Park, and numerous runs in isolated areas in the suburbs of Hartford. As for training, I used parts of what I did in High School and some things that we developed because of our location.  I use Jack Daniels VDOT information for many of our workouts.  A typical week would look like

Sunday – Distance run on their own 6 to 12 miles, women 5 to 10 miles

Monday – Our long run off campus 8 to 15 miles, women 6 to 13 miles

Tuesday – Our hard day – Long Intervals 1600 repeats, or 1200 repeats or 1000 repeats run on our grass fields on campus

Could also be a 5 mile threshold run on a flat rural road off campus.

Wednesday – Could be a recovery distance day, 6 to 12 miles, women 5 to 10 miles

Could also be a rep day or cruise interval, which I consider a half a hard day

Thurs – Distance day at a moderate pace, Men 8 to 12, Women 6 to 10

Friday – Decent mileage if not a important race

-         Important race Men 4 to 7 miles, Women 3 to 6 miles

Saturday – Race day

I try to be flexible in my workouts based on different factors such as:  how our kids look in practice, the weather, if sickness is affecting campus, what is the academic workload at the time and what our last race performance was like.  It is not uncommon for me to have a certain type of workout or distance plan in the morning and then change it two or three times during the day.  I like to change our meet schedule around every few years because I look at what type of course the NCAA championship, regional meet and our league championship will be held on. This also plays into the thought process for what type of workouts we will be doing.

West Hartford Reservoir

(Photo courtesy of Kim Knox for About.com)

Who has influenced you the most in your coaching?

As I said earlier, my high school coach Bill Kelleher was the person that had the most influence on me. I could not have had a better high school coach. He had all the touches that a great coach has. He was a tremendous motivator, a strict disciplinarian, and an extremely competitive person. Yet at the same time, he truly cared about his athletes as people. He taught that there was a right way to win and right way to lose. He held us to high standards and, as his athletes; we always tried to reach those standards. I was also lucky to have great little league and midget football coaches who were great individuals who were very competitive but always kept things in their proper perspective.

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.)?

Our men’s team is very young with Sophomores Hunter Norte and Sam Moorhead as our 1^st and 2^nd runner. Our Captain senior Nate Gravel and Junior Matt Anderson our change places at the 3^rd and 4^th spot. We have two freshmen Ryan Lane and Matt Dennis fighting for the 5^th position and then Sophomore Steve Sullivan and junior Tim Scarella working to make there way into the varsity. Anderson and Moorhead are middle distance runners who have both run in the 1:52 in 800 splits in relays. They have been working very hard at helping our team over the 5-mile distances. We have run well this season but Moorhead sprained an ankle so he hasn’t raced in a couple of weeks, but he is ready for the Championship season. The New England Championships are wide-open and will be a dogfight with 5 or 6 teams that could be champions.

Our women’s team has worked very hard this season and is trying to peak at the championship part of the season. Junior Mandy Williams is our #1 runner and Sophomore Allie Lemire is number 2 with juniors  Meghan Apfelbaum, Cristina Wheeler-Castillo, Caroline Brown, and then freshman Honako Justice, Kate Barton, and Giselle Harrington making up the rest of the varsity. Our team was dealt a severe blow last year when our best runner, All-American Kristina Miner was struck by a car just before Christmas last year on a training run. She had serious injuries including two broken legs, a broken collarbone and a severe head trauma. She is lucky to be alive, but amazingly, she is back in serious training for either this spring or next year.

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

I do go back and look at Jack Daniels book from time to time. Usually during the season I don’t have time to catch up on my reading, so I use winter break and the summer to catch up on reading technical information.

I also spend a great deal of time thinking about how we are running and if we need to change things during the year. The one thing that is a problem for a coach is what happens after practice. Many of our athletes do not get enough sleep and rest during the season. The academic load that many of our athletes face in Div. III is tremendous. Also, colleges in general are disease factories and we are always faced with the latest sickness going through campus. If there was one thing I could hope to control for my athletes, it’s that they would get enough rest. Freshmen especially have a hard time adjusting to their class load, living in a dorm, running on a lack of sleep and dealing with the social aspects of college. Male freshman also have to deal with the adjustment to the 5 mile racing distance. So, over the course of the season, there are a number of variables that I take into consideration when looking at the training for my athletes.

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

          To be honest with you, I hate it. I thought that the old method was the fairest way to do it. When you went to NCAA Championship, you were not only running for your team but also running for your region to protect or add to the number of teams that were going to go the next year.  The proposal that was brought up, and that most of the coaches in the country wanted, was based on the amount of participation in your region. I thought that this was a fair way to make selections. The one thing I did not want to happen was to allow politics to be involved in the process.  I know the committee will do a good job on the selection process this year but I am sure when it is all said and done that some teams will be left off and think that they should have gone.  I liked knowing what we had to do in the regional meet and knowing the selection process was cut and dry.

Do you use different techniques when coaching men and women (motivation, leadership, etc.)?

I think that you must coach men and women differently. When I started coaching women, my wife told me that I needed to readjust my thinking. I am an old school type of coach. She told me that my value system and what I thought was important would not be the same as many of my women athletes. I would like to think that I have changed my coaching style in a more positive way when I coach the women on my team. I tend to be brutally honest when discussing races. So I now wait a few days before I discuss something that I am unhappy with.  Our workouts for the men and women are basically the same. The women may run less total miles but our interval work is always basically the same, maybe the women run one less interval but the rest and the workout are the usually very close.

What aspects of coaching do you feel are the most rewarding?

I gain the most satisfaction watching someone put in the work over the 4 years and getting the results and success they deserve. Some of the most satisfying coaching that I have done is watching someone with not a tremendous amount of talent go way beyond what they or I, as a coach, imagined. The world is not a fair place and sometimes athletes do not reach the goals that want, due to many reasons, injuries, illness, etc. This is part of the real world. I believe that how you handle setbacks and failures will ultimately determine how successful you will be later on in life. Some of the athletes that I have coached in thirty + years of coaching never reached their athletic goals but became very successful in life. They never gave up despite setbacks, and the lessons they learned during those difficult times paid off for them later in life.

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

Ryan Bak

(Photo courtesy of Karen Roy)

Collegiate runners must realize that being really successful takes a tremendous amount of work over a long period of time.  There are no shortcuts and they will have to deal with setbacks. It is part of running and, more importantly, a part of life. Also, they need to realize that their success is 90% them and 10 % their coach. They need to trust their coach and just run. One of the biggest problems is that athletes worry about how they look and have a fear of failure when they race. They must learn to enjoy racing and challenging yourself.  A prime example for us was Ryan Bak, who ran 4:01 in the mile and was the NCAA Cross Country Champion his senior year; he loved to compete and was not afraid to fail. Every race that he ran he tried to get something out of.  You need to develop a little edge to your racing and your attitude. It is hard to coach toughness but you can develop it over time. Realize that you will only be in your top competitive age for a few years, learn to enjoy competing and make the most of it while you can.

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

Realize that you will never get rich. That you will put in countless hours of practice and countless hours at meets. Don’t be afraid to start at any level, middle school if you have too. When you start, you must be willing to coach any event. You can become a student of the sport and the events that you are working with.  If you have a chance to be an assistant, try to pick a positive program with a great coach. When I became a Head Coach in High School, I never had a problem getting assistant coaches. I was always on the lookout for people who really enjoyed working with kids and were not afraid to work.  A few of my assistants never did track or cross country as athletes but were great with kids and willing to learn. Don’t be afraid to laugh and make practice fun with your athletes at certain times.  Watch older coaches and don’t be afraid to ask their advice. Most will go out of there way to help you. Be persistent in your pursuit of goals and realize that it will take you many years to get the job that you want. If I had just graduated from College, I would coach at the High School level for a year of two before I applied for a graduate assistantship in college. By doing that you will find out if you really want to pursue coaching in college.  I have a graduate assistant and I look for someone who has been out of school for a short period of time. Getting a Head Coaching job in College is something that will take a long time and you will need to make sacrifices in order to obtain that position.  With this said, I feel that I am one of the luckiest people in the world to be working with intelligent, hard-working student-athletes. I would not change any of my coaching experiences that I had from middle school to college. Teaching and coaching is a rewarding career. You will never become financial wealthy but you will be rich in the people that you meet and friends that you make. I truly love what I do and I sincerely doubt most of people in the world can make that statement.

Thanks to Coach Suitor for a great interview.