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All Harrison Track and Field athletes are expected to:

  • perform in the classroom and exhibit good behavior in school
  • be committed to the track and field team (Committment involves being at all practices, meets, and team functions)
  • be dedicated to improving personal and team performances
  • set high goals and expectations for themselves and understand that it will take hard work to achieve them
  • be on time and prepared for practices and meets
  • put forth their best effort in practices and meets - don't be happy to just be there - come out to compete and do your very best!
  • show positive support to all teammates
  • exhibit good sportsmanship to all coaches, competitors, and officials

GOALS FOR THE SEASON
Our goals for this year’s teams include:
1) Working hard and putting forth maximum effort. This should be the most important goal for each and every athlete.  If this is accomplished everything else will take care of itself.
2) Having athlete’s improve their personal bests. Your goal should always be to improve on how you did previously.
3) Winning the Harrison Invitational.
4) Winning the FAVC Relays and FAVC League Meet.
5) Placing individuals at the District, Regional, and State Meets and in the process scoring well as a team at these meets.
6) Developing a winning attitude and work ethic that will carry over to future teams.

Coach Menze's Manifesto
Track & Field has been a special sport to me ever since I participated in it during my junior high and high school days.  It provided me with some of my most memorable high school moments and even though I was a very average athlete it gave me a chance to compete and succeed. I've loved it ever since.  When I was given the head coach's job at Harrison, I was excited to get back in the sport after a long break but found out quickly that I had a lot to learn about coaching it.  Since that time, I have learned a great deal about the ins and out of a sport that seems simple from the outside.  "You just tell them all to run fast and turn left right?"  Not quite.  There's 17 different events, each with its own set of challenges.  And there's so much that goes into each event.  I've found that there is always more to learn and no matter how good of a training plan you think you have, it always needs to be tweaked here and there. There's an art to it.  My coaches and I have spent a good deal of time over the past years going to coaches clinics and reading books on the sport in order to provide our athletes with the best training possible.  I feel that with coaching you can't get comfortable and feel like you know everything.  There's always more to learn.

I've always felt that track is a very unique sport.  It's one of the few where you mainly compete as an individual but you score in meets as a team. Also, there's  no place to hide out on the track.  There's no bench, no left fullback, or right field.  There's no teammates that can cover for you. It's you, on the track, one on one against your competitors, against the stopwatch, or against the tape measure.  And if you haven't put the time in during practice to make yourself better it will show.  But if you have, everyone will notice and know that you've put in a lot of hard work.  Your results are only limited by the investment of time, effort, and dedication that you put into the sport.  That's one of  the things that I love about the sport.  I also feel that because of the incredible self discipline and sacrifice that is involved in the sport that track is a great way for someone to find out what kind of person they are.  Will they have the courage to push themselves to that place where their body is telling them not to go?  Will they be able to rise up and face a challenge?  It is a place that someone can develop skills that they can use for the rest of their lives.  I once had a student tell me that "I learned so much about myself this year".  As a teacher and coach, that meant a lot to me.  

During my time as coach, I've come to believe in several key principles about track.  I believe that nearly all who participate in this sport are able to achieve successful results as long as they are willing to work for it. Now I do think that success is measured at different levels.  For some, success might be qualification for the state meet or a state championship.  For others it is simply establishing a new personal best in an event.  In either case, it is a success.  Part of allowing this to happen is placing athletes in situations that are going to allow them to excel, build confidence in themselves, and develop into an athlete.  This can be something as simple as making sure that they are in the event that is right for them but it also involves making sure that the athlete is given the best opportunities.  This is one reason why we are always examining new training methods and traveling to as many big meets as we can.  

As the head coach for the Harrison Track & Field team my goals are numerous.  First, I want to create an atmosphere where all student/athletes will feel like they belong, that they are part of a team, and that they can succeed.  Secondly, I want my athletes to develop a strong work ethic.  They need to know that they will have to work their hardest in order to be their best.  They should also realize that myself and the rest of the coaching staff will demand and expect their best effort. Really, I feel that this is the most important aspect of track & field (and anything else that you chose to do for that matter).  If you know that you've done your best and tried your hardest, what more could you ask for?  I want all of my athletes to set high goals and strive to be the best that they can possibly be.  If they fail to reach those goals, I want them to be able to examine why they did not succeed and develop and implement a plan to fix what went wrong.  I once read a quote from Chad Johnson where he said something like "I want to be the best receiver in the NFL.  What's the point of even trying if you aren't going out there to be the greatest?"  

Another important goal is seeing improvement in an athlete's performance.  I want to have them achieve personal bests in their events every time they go onto the track.  The aforementioned work ethic will take care of that.  Obviously as a coach, you want to win so a big goal is to have athletes win races and field events which in turn leads to winning meets.  Without a doubt, our biggest meet of the year is our league meet (Fort Ancient Valley Conference).  So it goes without saying that one of our highest priorities is winning that meet.  Also high on the list of goals is that we look to place as many athletes as possible in the District, Regional, and State meets.  If you can have individuals place here, you can do quite well as a team.  From that point, I want to build a team that will have a winning tradition year after year.  Finally, I want to put a team on the track that Harrison High School and the Harrison community can be proud of in terms of what they achieve and how they carry themselves.