Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Catching up with Chico State coach, Gary Towne...

Update on Gary Towne. He's being inducted into the Chico State Hall of Fame on Saturday as an honorary inductee.
About Towne: Coach to enter Wildcat Hall of Fame

Today we chat with one of the most successful coaches (regardless of divisions) in California, Chico St. coach, Gary Towne (pictured in the picture to the right). You can now count on Chico St. to be a national contender every season at the Division II level. You can see their spectacular numbers below as well as Gary's analysis of his top pupil, former San Ramon Valley runner, Scott Bauhs (pictured to the left). Gary also offers his advice on what it takes to be successful at the high school level for runners and coaches.


1) How did you get your start in the sports of cross country and track and field?
I started running when I was in the 8th grade as a sprinter. It was really nothing serious, just a few track meets in the area where I grew up.



2) Where did you go to high school and college and what were some of your highlights during your time competing for those school teams?
I went to high school in Corning, CA in the Northern end of the Sacramento Valley (only 40 min from Chico). I went to Corning High and enjoyed being part of a school that had a lot of spirit and pride in the athletic programs. I was very much an average high school runner as I only ran 5:03 and 10:51 PR’s for the 1600 and 3200m distances. I decided to go to a local community college (Shasta) in Redding, CA, and had no intention of running at Shasta. I secretly hoped to run there but would have never gone out for the team because I thought I wasn’t fast enough to make their team. Thankfully their coach (Gary Lewis-who’s since moved up to President of Shasta College) spotted me finishing a run on campus and talked me into coming out for their team. That moment changed the direction of my life. I was still an average runner through college, only getting my PR's down to 16:25 and 34:25 for the 5k and 10k events (after transferring to Chico State). Thankfully I’ve kept running beyond college and have lowered those PR’s to 15:20 and 31:40. The process of taking myself from a 16:25 guy out of college and eventually running the same pace for a 1/2 marathon after college, was invaluable to me as a coach because it’s helped me understand what it takes to develop and how important it is to look at the big picture (long term development).


3) When did you first get interested in coaching?
My Community College coaches really turned me onto the possibility of coaching. I’m not sure exactly how, but I really grew to love running while I was at Shasta, and from that point on I liked the idea of helping others become faster, and even the prospect of recruiting. I helped our coaches at Shasta as I was able with recruiting even while I was an athlete there.

4) What schools did you coach at before you finally settled in Chico St.?
Chico is the only school that I have coached at. When I graduated from Chico I took a semester off and tried to figure out what direction I wanted to take with teaching and coaching. Basically, I had the option of going into the credentials program and pursuing a HS teaching and coaching position, or I could stick with the school for another few years and go for a masters degree so that I could coach at the college level. I decided on the latter and thankfully our coach at Chico State Jean Murphy Atkins allowed me to help her as a volunteer assistant. I worked under Jean for about three years while I finished my master's work and thesis. Just as I was finishing this our men’s team qualified for the NCAA championships in cross country for the first time in 21 years. We finished 10th in the nation with a nonscholarship squad. The next year our head coach decided not to return and waited to tell our administration so that they would have to hire me as her replacement. At least for a year. She told them that she would return in a year most likely, but she told me secretly that she had no intention of returning. Basically, this bought me two years as a head coach at CSUC. I took FULL advantage of these two years and in our second year, our women qualified for the NCAA championships for the first time in the history of the program. This helped me secure the job and I’ve been here ever since.

5) What coaches have been mentors to you when you first started coaching? Now?
I learned a lot from Jean Murphy Atkins (the coach I assisted) but most of this learning had to do with learning how to treat athletes fairly and also the nuts and bolts of coaching as a profession. Jean included me and allowed me to have a hand in everything except writing workouts while I was her assistant. I can’t say that I’ve had a coach who I studied under who taught me the secrets of training or anything like that. I would say that there are plenty of coaches who I’ve studied through reading their books and articles online that have definitely influenced my knowledge of training and how to implement it. Some of those coaches are: Jack Daniels, Joe Vigil, Joe Rubio, and a few others.

6) What was the state of the program when you first became head coach?
This is a great question. I think that when most people talk about the success of our program, they probably feel like we’ve been doing great things for years and years, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. While I was on the team in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90’s we were really pretty bad. I mean I was a 16:25 guy and was our #5 runner at our conference meet my senior year of cross country. Our success has been a real building process and a LOT of different people have put their two cents into the mix to make us who we are today. Early on it was the 10 min two milers and the 12:00-12:30 gals who carried our team to initial success, and eventually, we qualified a few teams to NCAA championships and got the ball rolling. In 1999 (my fourth year coaching) we took a nonscholarship team (we were a nonscholarship program until the Spring of 2000) to the NCAA championships and finished 6th overall. That stands as a day that helped change the course of distance running at Chico State. Because of that performance, we landed several solid HS recruits and by 2000, both squads qualified for the NCAA meet together for the first time and each finished in the Top-10. Since 2000 the two squads have finished each year at the NCAA Championships together and most have resulted in Top-10 finishes. We’re extremely proud of the tradition that we’ve built in these years but it wasn’t all that long ago that we didn’t even talk about the NCAA meet because it just wasn’t a relevant topic.

7) What changes did you make that you feel have been critical for the success of the program?
I think just establishing a tradition of success and emphasizing the type of work and dedication that is required to achieve that level of performance as a team. Early on success was placing among the top 3 in the conference, and then trying to qualify for the NCAA championships. Then we qualified for the NCAA meet and we finished 18th out of 18 teams. We went back to the drawing board and qualified again the next year and beat a team.. That was progress. At first, there were seasons and years where I wondered if we would ever become a good team on the NCAA level, and then things just started clicking and as the athletes felt more confident in themselves and about what we were doing, we continued to move forward. The funny thing is that everyone who has been a part of our program has had a part in this process. Each person had a role in the success that we’re having today, because if it weren’t for their efforts, and commitment and achievements we wouldn’t have landed the recruits that we have and we wouldn’t have this established tradition that we have now. I feel very much like we spent a lot of time and energy getting a giant ball rolling and now it’s moving at a good pace, and it’s my job to make sure that it continues to stay on course.


8) What are some of the advantages of the training area around your school?
Wow, Chico is an amazing place to live as a distance runner. I know this because I still run 80 mile weeks and I absolutely love the running environment here. Basically, our campus sits about 5 miles from the base of the Sierra Nevada foothills. The stretch of valley that separates our campus from the foothills is mostly protected park land (Lower Bidwell Park) and is lined with dirt trails. There is a giant Oak Tree forest with vines, bushes and all kinds of greenery in the Lower Park area which provides a great setting for running (parts of the original Robin Hood Movie were filmed in Lower Park). We use the flat trails near campus for tempo runs, intervals, fartlek training, and of course aerobic runs. This park continues up into the foothills above Chico where the trails turn more mountainous and rugged. This area is called Upper Bidwell Park. We do a fair number of our Long runs in upper park as well as some of our hill training sessions. When you take into consideration that 90 percent of our student-athletes live within 1/2 mile of campus and the park’s trails start within a mile of campus, we are very fortunate. I love running in cool places and parks when we’re on the road, but I feel for folks that have to drive for 15-20 minutes to find good dirt trails.

9) Describe your experience with coaching Scott Bauhs? When did you first realize that he had the talent and determination to become an elite runner?
Coaching Scott Bauhs... We were SO fortunate that Scott Bauhs chose to come to Chico State, and hopefully, Scott would say the same thing about his decision to come here. I couldn’t imagine a college career going a whole lot better than his did here. Working with Scott was definitely a learning experience. From day 1 Scott was a very confident and determined young man. He was just stuck in a body that had the physical development of a 14 year old. While recruiting Scott I loved his fire and willingness to go after athletes that had better marks or were bigger names than he. He was a fearless runner that just wasn’t as developed as some of those around him. When you’re a DII coach trying to land top recruits you have to expect that you’re not going to land a lot of the “big names” because they think that they’re better than DII... So Scott was a perfect recruit. He had the tools if you were willing to really watch and follow his progress. Fortunately for us his former HS teammate Katie Lee was in full swing in becoming our best distance runner to date (16:25 school-record 5k) so Scott’s HS coach Tim Hunter felt as though we might be a good option for Scott and thankfully Scott felt the same. Since Scott’s first day with us he talked about how he wanted to become one of the fastest kids from his HS graduating class nationally. After a so so freshman year, Scott really started to make some good progress his sophomore year. As a RS frosh he ran 29:39 for 10k, then a year later he dropped that to 28:53, and the next year he ran 27:48, with a final 5k split of 13:49! I think the turning point along the way was after Scott’s second year of school he spent the summer living and training in the Tahoe area with a number of other athletes from our team. He came down at midsummer and off no workouts ran 29:02 at Wharf to Wharf and enjoyed an amazing cross country season after. That track season he ran 13:40 for 5k and 28:53 and we knew he was on his way to realizing some of the dreams that he had for himself.

Since this website is read mostly by HS athletes I think it’s important to point out some of the things that really stood out about Scott’s training and racing. The biggest thing was that he wasn’t a “workout warrior” guy. Scott worked out hard, but we learned to pick and choose when we’d go hard and when he’d just listen to his body and get a good workout in. Mileage days averaged in the mid 6 min pace per mile more often than not and even after Scott had run 27:48 he was still doing most of his runs at the same paces as his teammates. I think oftentimes people feel that if they run hard on a daily basis that they’ll become faster. It’s really the balance of faster and easier paced runs that pays the biggest dividends and if you’re willing to believe in this, especially as you’re preparing to race, and during races, you’ll probably do pretty well!


10) What achievements (Cross Country or Track and Field) are you most proud of during your time at Chico?
I read somewhere that we’ve had 18 teams finish among the Top-10 nationally during our recent streak of success. I’m very proud of the tradition that we’ve established more than anything. As I mentioned earlier, I can think of so many great kids who did so many great things that added to this and other accomplishments. I’m just proud of the fact that we’re a very competitive team and that we feel as though we stack up quite well against teams of all levels. I should also point out that we are not a highly funded scholarship team. Because we are relatively new to the scholarship arena, we have only 1.5 scholarships per gender to work with, so people like Scott Bauhs were receiving only a percentage of their tuition, which says even more about the kids in our program. They are here because they want to be a part of something special and certainly not because we have more money to offer than another program because that’s rarely the case.

11) What is your advice for high school runners who have asperations of running in college? What can they do during high school that will ease their transition to college?
This is a great question. Since I was not a really fast high school runner I am extremely grateful for the opportunity that I had to compete in college. I remember the first day wearing my Shasta College jersey and how much that meant to me. I would advise young men and women to follow their dreams for college running, but try to keep in mind the reality that every program has it’s limitations as to how many kids they can take on each year and who they can take aboard. They need to send emails to coaches at different schools and ask questions like whether they might be a good fit for that program. I receive approximately 2-300 emails a year from kids who are interested. Many have the ability to run at this level, but we’re only able to take aboard 7-8 per gender each year. Selecting who we are able to keep out of such a large pool is quite difficult and challenging. I have kids who come here every year wanting to walk onto the program who I’m not able to take aboard, and it kills me to see them stuck here unable to run. In many cases I’ve advised these kids to look at other programs that they could probably run for including Community Colleges, but unfortunately, many of these kids won’t consider the JC option. If running is a very important part of your decision with college, then the student-athlete really needs to look hard at the different options out there to hopefully find the right fit both academically and athletically. This might be a four-year university or it could be a Community College like it was in my case.

12) What would your advice be for a high school coach who is trying to get his or her program to the next level where they are competing at the section level and beyond?
Create a fun atmosphere where hard work and year-round commitment is expected and the norm. If the kids understand that cross country and track aren’t seasonal sports when it comes to training, then you’ve made some great progress. If you can get a large group (the core of your team) to buy into this concept, you have the beginnings of a Davis, Dana Hills, Jesuit, Royal, Sugus, or other teams that have success on a yearly basis. At the high school level you’re going to have down years as talent comes and goes, but if you can keep the numbers up and get the kids to buy into year-round training, some of those little skateboarders (like Scott Bauhs) are going to develop into Diamonds down the road.

Thank you for your time, Gary. Best of luck to all your athletes the remainder of this season.

Thank You Albert for all that you have done and continue to do for the sport!
PS: I just found out that our women are now ranked #1 in the NCAA for DII! It’s just a ranking but a first for our program!

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