Today, we chat with Whitney HS coach, Jerry Dodge. Over the past few years, Whitney has been one of the top teams in the Sac-Joaquin Section (SJS) as well as a two-time podium team at the state meet in the last two seasons. The Whitney girls are currently one of the top teams in the SJS, regardless of division, and will be contenders for the podium once again in Division II. Jerry has been a lifelong runner and also coached his three children at Whitney.
1) What sports did you play in your youth? How did you get started running?I grew up in a small rural community where we just had flag football and softball, so that’s what I did. When I got to high school, I didn’t even know there was a sport called cross country. It was at the end of my freshman year when I saw pictures in my yearbook showing people running across a footbridge in the woods, which I thought was pretty cool. So I joined cross country for my sophomore year.
2) You started out as a sprinter at Oakmont and eventually transitioned to distance running? Was that something you chose to do, or did somebody encourage you to make that switch?
As a kid on the playground or during games at PE that involved running, I was pretty fast, so I always felt like I was a sprinter. Although I started cross country in my sophomore year, in track, I was still doing sprints. My cross country coach urged me to consider focusing on distance. And I’d have to say it was just the vibe of the distance community that made me want to be fully immersed, so my junior year I trained with the distance team instead of sprints.
3) What were some of your proudest achievements in high school?
Well my proudest achievement was snagging this cute, blue-eyed sprinter, who ended up being my wife of 38 years and counting! But in terms of running, two things come to mind. One was breaking two minutes in the 800. Not by much, but I did it. Two, the coaches named me MVP for both cross country and track in my senior year. I wasn’t the top point earner in either, but they pointed to my work ethic. Of course, I was very grateful for that recognition, and it helped shape how I view and value the athletes I work with.
4) During your athletic career, who are the coaches that had the biggest impact on you, and what did you learn from them?
Bill Tudsbury had been the long-time head of the track program at Oakmont, and he pushed me pretty hard, which helped me understand the toughness it takes to run distance. Ann Simpson was the cross country coach and track distance coach, and always had a calm, encouraging, and personable way of coaching me. For my senior year of track, Dan Navarro came back to his alma mater to coach the distance squad. Dan is an Oakmont legend who went 1:51 in the 880yd in the 1970’s. So I was pretty thrilled when I heard he was coming back as a college runner to coach us. He was the one who told me–and will remind me to this day–that I could break 2 minutes in the 800.
5) You competed in cross country and track and field at Sierra College and continue to run to this day. During your time competing and just running for fitness, what did you learn that has helped you currently as a distance coach?
3 P’s… Patience is key, pacing is key, and everything is a progression. It was during my post-collegiate years when I got into the 5K road circuit that I started to see the bigger picture and really became a student of the sport, starting to pay attention to the details of truly how to train. This learning was mostly informal and, along with research, simply involved striking up conversations with runners who characteristically raced well. I would also talk just as intently with runners who appeared to underperform. Over the years, it seemed that the patterns of success were coming mostly from actions of patience and consistency. This mindset has worked its way into how I approach coaching at Whitney. As one key example, we don’t need to battle an opponent in the first 200 meters to ultimately beat them to the finish line. Or another example, we don’t need to win an early season invitational when the main prize is in November. It is a long progression from summer conditioning to championship readiness. Even just for a workout, there is always a “build-up” following the warm-up for the purpose of prepping our bodies for the workload that is coming. As for pacing, it’s amazing to me how many runners–not just high school kids, but seasoned adults–who are all over the place with pacing. So whether it’s a race day or recovery day, we pay attention to what pace each runner should be targeting. It’s a hard concept to incorporate, but student athletes will listen if you have a consistent message, and our runners buy in as they know pacing is integral to how we train and how we race to give us our best chance to win. We have a lot of workouts where each and every runner on our roster is directed to hit a specific split to the nearest second, and they do. Completing the workouts “as prescribed” is in our written policy, so we do expect it. A lot of our work is tempo, and on tempo days, each of our 75 runners is assigned a pace group and a specific pace to hit. We take recovery just as seriously, so if it’s an easy day, everyone will run easy (ie, not exceeding the “speed limit” prescribed).
I’ve been coaching my entire adult life, depending primarily on what school I was teaching at. Whether it was middle school co-ed volleyball or a 5th grade basketball team where I was the worst coach in the world, it was always “we need someone to coach”, and I would take it on until the real coach showed up (they never did). When my own children came of age, that’s where I focused my availability. I absolutely loved coaching my own kids. I tried to be involved in whatever took their interest. We were a soccer family for a decade, and loved every minute of it. I coached those soccer teams the same way I coach distance: emphasizing patience. Eventually, all three of my kids migrated to running distance, and by the time each got to high school, it was all about Whitney XC. At first, I was just the runner-dad who offered to help out, but once again there was a point where there was a need for a coach, and before I knew it, I was taking on the whole program. That first year, my older son Logan was a senior, and my younger son Ethan was a freshman. Ethan and 3 other freshman boys made varsity due to an upper class that was pretty light, and we made it to state. We ended up making a little history as those 4 boys made state together all 4 years, which to my knowledge has never been done before or since in California. That first year was a magical experience because I got to coach a team with my two sons competing at state championships.
As one old coach once said in a dehumanizing sort of way, “Ya gotta have the horses”. We’ve been able to get both boys and girls teams to place top 5 at section championships every year since 2016, which has been hard to do. But top 5 at state is a whole different level. And to reach that level, you need talent. I’ll be the first to say, even with the affirmation of our improvement ratios and a tradition of rising up in November, there’s only so far you can go without runners who have high level potential. As coaches, we hope talented runners come to our teams, and if you have a winning tradition, that may increase those odds. But since we as public schools can’t recruit, it’s mostly luck of the draw. So I would simply say talent is the main variable between top 5 at sections and top 5 at state. The constant for us would be our approach, which is character first, emphasis on team, and a patient and steady training program that is tempo-based. Our AD said years ago, “there’s no such thing as a non-cut sport” so we developed criteria for making the XC roster that speaks not about ability, but about character, commitment to team, and culture. Our athletes are expected to commit, not to just practice six days a week, but to train fully with their teammates and how the workouts are prescribed and how we do things as a team. We don’t allow outside coaching, rather we are 100% self-contained. We believe this is essential to maximize a positive team culture and ultimately leads to attaining full potential for all who buy in. Each time we got top 5 at state, those were teams who developed together and stuck with each other for all the unglamorous, quiet miles 6 days a week for two or three years, but they also had that extra dose of talent.
The simplest way you could describe us is that we are a tempo-based program, and our goal for a training plan is a patient progression where we build mileage and intensity carefully. Like a lot of programs, our summer begins with slow and easy miles. We provide mileage tables for all the different levels of runners to methodically increase their mileage; this also includes an intro to light fartlek and progression to tempos that increase week by week during the summer, while eventually we begin incorporating hills. Each runner’s level is determined by multiple factors, including age, running age, durability, etc. We do a week-long team camp each summer, which works wonders for our team culture and for doing some easy runs in beautiful settings. For Whitney, summer is not for workouts, but for increasing mileage, building the long run, and conditioning our bodies to be prepared for the work that is coming. Once we get to August, we’re into a 7-10 day pattern where we hit long run (~25% of the week), hill work, and various tempo workouts and progressions. We like building our runners to be fresh and strong at the end of the season, which fits well into our “patience” theme, not worrying about September results but focusing on November. We incorporate speed, but it is minimal as part of a workout, not the workout itself (for example, sprints at the end of tempo reps). We do morning runs before school on easy days, otherwise we’re off campus for long runs and workouts.
9) When you put your racing schedule together, what determines which invitationals your team attends? How many races does your team typically race?
We like to start the season with 2 or 3 meets that have a light or informal element to them. We’re not trying to win, but to enjoy the sport while getting dialed in on pre-race routines, etc. Then we have a league race, which sort of ushers us into the more purposeful second part of the season. If we don’t get too serious til about late September, I feel like that is beneficial in shortening the duration of the need for higher mental focus. For midseason racing, we try to hit some course previews (ie, Willow Hills for sections, Woodward for state). We tend to avoid the big high-stakes events, which helps us keep our focus clearly on November. And so, for example, our annual state course preview is Rough Rider (Woodward Park) in mid-October. It’s a high-quality meet with a good representation of top-level programs, but without a lot of hype and bright lights. The third phase of our season is championships… SFL League Finals, which is insanely competitive, and finally SJS Section Championships to hopefully qualify for state.
10) Aside from your own running and coaching experience, how do you feel like you continue to learn as a coach? Coaching mentors? Clinics?
I was a teacher for 39 years and benefited from many trainings. But for ongoing growth as a teacher, the informal chats at lunchtime or with other teachers during breaks at seminars, etc., seemed to be where I got most of my meaningful strategies to truly help me in my profession.
The same is true for coaching. I enjoy attending coaching seminars, like the Superclinic at nearby Jessup University each winter. But I also pick up a lot of gems just in conversations, such as during the downtime of a track meet. At the top of that list is Jim Howard, who coached my daughter, Jenica, as she started college. His knowledge, experience, and overall demeanor made me instantly want to hear from him. Jim and I have spent many hours just on the topic of training runners. More recently, I’ve picked up a lot from our head track coach at Whitney, Josh Woods. We’ve had long drives back and forth to Arcadia and Clovis, where I’ve been able to hear his take on training techniques, a winning mindset, or just generally what elements are needed to make a championship run. And there are quite a few cross country coaches I’ve gravitated toward, whose programs have done great things the right way. Those are the coaches I always keep an eye out for at meets, hoping to have a good conversation.
We could talk about how to train, or certain workouts, but I would say to put effort into establishing a team emphasis. As I stated earlier, we’re all at the mercy of whatever talent level ends up on our rosters. Not long ago, we had a freshman group who came in, and not one of them finished in the top 50 of early-season freshman-only races. Even with better-than-average improvements by the time they were upperclassmen, it was going to be a long shot for them to make it to state. But whatever a team’s potential may be, having a team emphasis is significant. Set standards and be consistent with them. Be willing to part ways with top athletes who don’t buy in. I’ve always said I’d rather miss state by one spot knowing each member of our team showed full commitment and loyalty, than to win a banner with talented individuals who are only in it for themselves. Whatever talent level is on your roster, obviously training those runners properly is critical. But the team element is very underrated in our sport, and I believe very strongly that athletes who are able to leave their individual desires at the door and buy into something bigger than themselves are what gives a team a real edge.
12) Anything else you would like to add.
We have a simple saying for our program, and that is we want “to make it meaningful for everyone”. That, of course, implies that even the back-of-the-pack runners are valued, but it also means our top runners will not just be taken for granted. Cross country is possibly the most accessible sport, and we are very fortunate to be able to define an identity such that each runner is met where they have their potential. We are in the best, most pure sport on the planet. Just run, and enjoy it. I love the cordiality of our sport, the camaraderie not just among teammates, but among competitors. I love seeing elite runners of different teams cooling down together after laying out a lung trying to beat each other in high-stakes races. I love working with student athletes of high character, such that when strangers ask, “Are you the coach?”, nine times out of 10, the next comment is a compliment toward them. Although I thoroughly enjoyed 30 years of coaching various ball sports, I saw a lot of anger; that seems to be the case when there are two teams, one ball, and refs with whistles. The distance running community is rare and special, and I’m absolutely thrilled to be immersed in it. I hope every high school cross country coach feels the same way.
Thank you very much for your time Jerry! AJC
1 comment:
It’s clear why Whitney is successful. Well done Coach…. You too Albert. 😁😁
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