KYtrackXC.com Coaches Corner by Mark Rowe
Dave Carter
Assisant Coach St.Xavier High School
Co-Meet Director Kentucky Dream Mile
MR: What is your background in track and field?
DC:I grew up in Youngstown, OH, a very blue-collar city and our running program reflected it. We had a former football coach as our XC and track coach and we ran 60-70 mile weeks at 6:00 to 6:15 pace every day. It didn’t matter if you were a freshman who’d never run or a State Champion, same workout. Coach Wayne King was 6’ 4” and 250-275 lbs., corporal punishment hadn’t been outlawed in schools yet, so no one argued with him too much. Might be why we had only eight guys on our team and in four and a half years only two of us ever missed more than a day or two for an injury or sickness. In 1975, five of us finished in the top 19 at State and we won our school’s only State Championship in 115 years. Incredibly, the next year we had three finishes in the top five and only finished fourth. Not much depth.
In track, I long jumped, ran the mile, the 880 and the 4 x 440 (in that order) in every meet, but the District and State Meets, for four years. I also played basketball and started at guard my junior and senior years.
I was really burned out from the non-stop mileage and intensity at the end of high school, but accepted a partial scholarship to run at Akron. Unfortunately, by the time the first fall rolled around my heart just wasn’t in it anymore and I completely stopped running. Looking back I regret that, but I honestly wasn’t in a place mentally where I was going to succeed. I was in a hurry to graduate, get a job and grow up. Young and foolish!
MR: How long have you been coaching? Any previous stops prior to St. X?
DC: I hadn’t really thought about it much until now, but over 10 years. Wow! In 2000, at the urging of our oldest son, Brian, my wife, Annie and I started the XC program at Liberty Elementary in Oldham County. We were fortunate to attract many talented kids those first few years, won both the boys and girls inaugural elementary state XC championships in 2001 and really started a solid distance running foundation in our part of the community. Actually, the youngest members of that first group are graduating high school this year.
In 2004, we moved on to coaching the boys and girls Track and XC programs at North Oldham Middle. I could write all day about this group of kids and parents. Looking back, what we accomplished together over those three years was amazing and would be hard to match.
I had resigned myself back to the sidelines as Austin entered St. X in 2007, but after only a year away he encouraged me to come back and coach at X. Coach Medley welcomed me to join the staff and it’s been another tremendous three years. I plan on staying as long as they want me or feel I’m being helpful.
MR: What’s been your most memorable moment in coaching and why?
DC:Every time a kid seeks me out to share a personal triumph is a memorable moment and continually reminds me why I love coaching. Whether it was Ashley Adams winning her first race as a third grader in 2001 at Pendleton County; Laura Bland running across the field at Ballard, because she finally broke 70 in the 400 or Thomas Cave breaking 2:00 in the 800 for the first time just last Monday, that moment of accomplishment is what it’s all about. Being a part of that is special and you never forget those moments.
MR: Who is the best athlete you have ever coached? Why? Doesn’t necessarily have to be a past State Champion.
DC: Hands down, it’s Paul Althoff and running wasn’t even his primary sport. It was soccer and he’s a starter at Bellarmine today. I coached him from 5th through 8th grade. Paul did every drill, every workout, ran every race to perfection and most times after playing 2-3+ hours of soccer first! He was the epitome of a leader by example and never complained about anything. Just ask Austin Carter, Nathan Yates, Colin Grandon, Taylor Sanders, Jeremy Rice or anyone else who ran with him. I think they’ll all tell you with conviction, Paul set the bar high at North Oldham and these guys all followed in his footsteps.
Paul didn’t run XC or track for the next three years, then came back his senior year and ran 2:01 in the 800, probably on less than 20 miles a week! Just for fun, he also became the kicker on the football team and kicked a 50-yard field goal.
If you coach track at Bellarmine and are reading this now, you’d be crazy not to track him down.
MR: Talk about the Dream Mile a little bit. The inaugural event last year was a great success. What brought the event about and what direction do you plan to go with it from here?
DC: It all started with the idea of possibly bringing Bobby Curtis back to St. X to attempt to go sub-four in Kentucky. We actually discussed it with Bobby and while it initially seemed that logistically it might work from a scheduling standpoint, bringing in the kind of field Bobby felt it would take was going to be financially limiting and/or risky. Coach Medley then shifted the idea to our state’s best high school runners and it took off from there. It seems to have quickly become the focal point on everyone’s schedule we envisioned it could. We’ve also gotten tremendous support from all of the local running stores and the media coverage has been outstanding. It should be even bigger and better than last year.
From a direction standpoint, I believe we were lucky and got it pretty close to right from the start last year. We’ve had a lot of suggestions to add events, but we’ve resisted and currently have no plans to change the format whatsoever at this time.
I feel it is an event that will bring further light, both regionally and nationally, that Kentucky is becoming a real player in distance running. We aren’t just a state with a couple of decent runners every few years. We have several college prospects every year and Kentucky’s a great place to find solid, hard working, legitimate runners. On the flip side, events like these also keep our great track athletes in track and hopefully not even considering migrating away to lacrosse, rugby, bowling or whatever comes next.
KYtrackXC.com Coaches Corner by Mark Rowe
Dave Carter