A Thursday Conversation with Coach Jesse Griffin of Lee’s Summit West
Chris Ammen
The Lee’s Summit West Girl’s team instills fear in the competition wherever they race. Their early season wins at the Bob Craddock Invitational and the Missouri University XC Challenge secured them a ranking of #3 in the Midwest and #30 in the country by DyeStat. Last season, Coach Griffin led his girls to the Class 4 state crown beating Jefferson City by a jaw-dropping margin of 133-69. They will be a team to watch with teams such as Kickapoo and Eureka making Class 4 anything but a given for Lee’s Summit West.
Behind every good team is a good coach, and so I caught up with Coach Griffin this week to learn a bit about the magic behind Lee’s Summit West.
Why do you love coaching?
I have the opportunity on a daily basis to be around young people that I can help get better at running and as individuals. They, in return, complete my existence as an educator and coach. I will never make a million dollars as a coach but I could care less. I will always have the memories and experiences that are priceless. I remember coming back from the state cross-country meet in 1999 and it was dark when we finally got back to Raytown South High School. My girls had just won the state team championship. Not too many people are waiting for a cross-country team even after winning state, but there was one person there that has had a huge influence on me. The legendary Raytown South basketball coach Bud Lathrop was the first person I saw when we stepped of the bus and he said one thing to me that will stick with me forever. He said, “Congratulations, make sure you tell your girls that there is no amount of money in the world that can buy the feeling you have when you see all your hard work pay off.” I still tell my girls at Lees Summit West exactly that thought. What a great profession!
What makes coaching at Lee's Summit West great?
My girls at Lees Summit West are unquestionably solid people. They simply possess a lot of great qualities that transcend their daily lives into their lives as runners. When I encounter them on a daily basis there is always a push for excellence in whatever they are doing. Many times I have to tell them they can not do more running or they have to shut a workout down because they have such a great work ethic and equate hard work with getting better. Following a legend like Dave Denny in a well-established program is not the easiest situation to step into. The girls at Lees Summit West accepted me with open arms and immediately believed in what we are doing and the rest is history. My girls at Lees Summit West work extremely hard and are probably the most humble group of athletes I have ever been around. I commented to one of my assistant coaches last year that if you just showed up at one of our practices you would never know they had won a state championship. This makes Lees Summit West a great place to coach.
Tell me about the most memorable runner you have ever coached. What made them stand out from the rest?
I have been so fortunate to be around so many quality athletes with my time at Raytown South, Lees Summit North and now at Lees Summit West. I could literally write a book if I included every single athlete. I am going to include two athletes that have made a huge impact for me as a coach. The first girl is one that nobody outside of Coach Nunn at Raytown South and a few of the girls on my 1999 state championship team will remember. Her name was Ashley Anderson and I recruited her from the track team (200 and 400 sprinter). Ashley never achieved an all-state honor and did not run any spectacular times but was a great competitor. I only had eight girls out for cross-country in 1999 at Raytown South and they all had the same qualities as my girls at LSW with a great work ethic. Ashley was consistently my 6th or 7th runner all season and never a scorer. Ashley did work hard in practice and always listened to what I told her to do despite being a bit out of her element running 5K. At the state cross-country championship that year it was extremely hot with temps nearing 90 degrees. My number one girl was in third place at the bottom of fire station hill and went down due to dehydration. Ashley ended up being my 5th runner that day scoring for the first time of the season. This allowed us to still win the state meet. She told me after the race that she remembers me telling the team no matter what you see happening and what is going on to finish the race to the best of your ability. She indicated that when she saw our number one runner on the ground that she picked up the pace and ran even harder. We won the meet over a good Helias team by 7 points despite our number one runner failing to finish the race.
The other girl is currently running for me at LSW and her name is Alex Moase. Alex is a junior on my team and never broke 6:00 in the 1600 in middle school. She is what I describe as one of the hardest working athletes I have ever been around. Our girl’s team in track had many good 3200-meter runners last spring and thus some of them had to meet the district time standard to run at the district track championship. Alex took this as a challenge and ended up running 11:23 in the spring and securing a spot at the district meet. She ended up 5th at sectionals and nearly made the state track meet. Alex is an exceptional individual. Day in and day out she consistently strives for excellence in the classroom and as a runner. She is what I stand for as a coach and when I was an athlete competing. I am excited to see how well she will do this year with her confidence level getting better and better each day.
Both of these two young ladies possessed great perseverance and were not scared to step out of their comfort zones in high-pressure situations.
Who are some of your coaching influences?
I have had the opportunity to be around many brilliant coaches that are a heck of a lot smarter than me and I try to gain small amounts of knowledge from them about what makes them successful. One thing I have found is those coaches are all experts at getting their athletes recovered from hard workouts and from competition. Dave Denny (currently at Shawnee Mission South) is a master at getting athletes to produce in big competitions and it is because of what he does along the way (in season and off season) in terms of recovery. I have talked with him numerous times about situations he dealt with while coaching Joe Falcon, Matt Tegenkamp, Amy Wiseman and many other elite runners. Those great runners did not just step on the track and run at a high level without many things being done over the years that Coach Denny put in place. Tim Schwegler (Truman State University) also does a great job of individualizing workouts and not throwing a kid into a situation where they will not be able to recover. Both Dave and Tim look at the big picture and have a goal on how much they are able to have an athlete do their first year and what they want them to be able to do when they are four years older and beyond. There are many other coaches I could mention here and they all have that quality in common.
What are some of your training philosophies?
I approach training as looking at what each individual can handle. I really don’t care how many miles an athlete is running per week, rather what are they doing to structure those miles based on their running age (how many years they have been running). I have girls on my team that run varsity right now that do 30-35 miles a week and some that have gone over 50 miles a week which is a huge range to monitor. Depending on what we are trying to accomplish, each of my girls take a day off completely either once a week or once every other week. It is important to know that they are progressing from year to year and from season to season in workload. I always ask the question, is what we are doing getting them recovered and helping them reach their potential as a runner? I structure workouts in a way that we hit all the major energy systems in a 10-14 day cycle. Recovery between workouts and after meets is vital for my girls to stay healthy and be able to run the best they can at the end of the season. I think as a coach you have to be flexible and be able to comfortably change workouts right up to the time they are getting ready to run based on observations and feedback from your athletes. There have literally been times we have warmed-up and I have looked at all of them and ended up doing another recovery day because I would not get what I wanted out of them that day.
Summer training is absolutely essential for distance runners to reach their potential. Although we will do a road race here or there most of our summer is nice easy mileage. I have even extended our base training this year into the first two weeks of the season and it seems to be paying off big time. Everyone must remember we are running 5000 meters and there is a huge aerobic component to this race distance. The harder workouts later in the season will show much more return if an athlete has an efficient aerobic system, which comes from summer base training. If there is a possibility to doing the same thing in the winter with base training then you can make some really big gains.
What are some of the most important things a runner can do to improve their running when they are not running?
I constantly remind my girls to live the running lifestyle. Every one of them carries a water bottle with them at all times. Most of them are very disciplined about getting their sleep and doing the small things. I have found that many injuries and sickness can be traced back to not getting enough sleep. The weekends are the worst as a coach because athletes tend to get out of there daily routine. They stay up late on Saturday and do not drink enough water on Sunday and then Monday and Tuesday are used to get back into that normal routine. My girls at Lees Summit West have become much better at keeping their weekly routine the whole week (including Sunday) and then we come back on Monday we are able get things accomplished without issue. A good breakfast is very important every day. We do ice baths at least once a week and sometimes twice if needed. The bottom line if you want to separate from someone of the same ability level in competitions it takes a lot of discipline every single day of the week.
What is your most memorable moment from your coaching career at Lee's Summit West?
Last November when things really came together in Jefferson City and we won our second state championship in a row has to be my most memorable experience thus far. I know I inherited a great group of young ladies from Coach Denny and it was my responsibility to keep them going in the right direction. I was so glad to see the continued improvement throughout the season and then for them to take it up another notch in a high-pressure situation was a great moment for me. To actually see all the hard work paying off for these young ladies is a great feeling.
There is always that intangible element in the best runners...the love for the sport. How do you instill that in your runners?
I think you set a good example as a coach day in and day out. I love being at practice and going to meets and my girls know that when they see me every day. When they have a stable environment and get the idea that they can expect to see improvement from working consistently the light switch goes on most of the time. I don’t care how busy it gets during track season I do my best to make it to every single competition if possible. I remember last year I went to a track meet five separate days in a week and I was very tired by the end of the week. The younger girls work their rear ends off for me and I am there to watch them improve. This tends to start the process and they in turn get more motivated to continue to strive for excellence. When you get the majority of your athletes where they can see improvement then the program takes on a sense of excellence and kind of feeds on itself. As for the elite athlete, I think there is an innate quality that sometimes sets them apart from everyone else.
What is the hardest workout you have ever taken your team through?
This is a very debatable question. If you ask my girls they will each probably tell you a different workout then I think is the toughest. We do some workouts that are very difficult but I try to put each athlete in a situation in which they can be successful during those tough workouts and get them recovered. The one that stands out is what we call the “Titan” workout and this consists of running an 800 on the track at a pace in which you would start a 5K. Then we will step onto a grass course and run a 2-mile tempo and then return back to the track and finish with an all-out 800. Recovery between each segment is between 60 seconds and 2 minutes depending on how spread out the girls become. This workout simulates what happens in the race but allows them to run just a bit faster then normal at the end of their race.
If you could give one piece of advice to a new runner, what would it be?
Make sure you are doing the sport of running for yourself and it should be fun. Do not go out and try to do something (too many miles, etc) that you are not ready to do. Listen to your coaches and understand they have your best interest in mind. Running is one of the few sports that you get to compete the whole time and not worry about playing time. You never get pulled out of a competition while it is going on by your coach. Everyone competes for the entire competition. Finally, learn as much as you can about the sport and why you are doing the types of workouts that you are doing. Above all else, once again, make sure you are having fun.
Thank you for your time Coach Griffin. Good luck as you and your team look to defend your Class 4 title this year!