Welcome to the Dakota Ridge Cross Country and Track and Field Blog!!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Live a Story...Leave a Legacy: The opening chapters...

Image
Live a Story...Leave a Legacy: The opening chapters... It would seem the appropriate time for me to finally get some thoughts out on the blog. Having been through team camp, August and now a couple of meets our seasons story lines have become far clearer than they were when I last sat down and attempted to write. I've always been into the stories that our Cross Country seasons create for both the program (plot driven) and for the individual student athletes that drive it (character driven). It often makes for the perfect storm of the characters (you all) reacting to events of the season and changing along the way. Usually a good recipe for interesting stories.  It is in "story" that we sometimes find answers to our own deep questions in life and develop meaning from our past and purpose for our future. Over the years I have seen many student athletes live out incredibly meaningful team and individual stories within the sport of distance running over a year or
Read more

A picture worth a thousand miles.

Image
A Picture Worth a Thousand Miles.  I often think about celebrating.  The feeling of accomplishment, a better drug then anything you will ever find.  This picture is from 2011 and is the moment Brent Vaughn, one of my closest and best friends crossed the finish line at USA Cross Country Champs. It was one of the best races of his life, and one of his biggest victories. You can read the fabulous article by Daniel Petty from the Denver Post by clicking the link here:  http://www.denverpost.com/2011/02/05/brent-vaughn-wins-2011-u-s-cross-country-championships/   In my head this image is what I think of when I think about success. In general the photos of runners crossing the finish line celebrating the effort and feeling the surge of glory that comes with it often come to mind.     For Brent as it is for most runners or really athletes in general, crossing the line after a successful effort, there is a tremendous amount of hard work, faith, luck, love and
Read more

Good to Great...Dakota Ridge XCTF

Image
Good to Great...Dakota Ridge XCTF 2017-2018 Good is the enemy of great And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great. We don't have great schools, principally because we have good schools. We don't have great government, principally because we have good government. Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life. The vast majority become quite good-and that is their problem.   ------Jim Collins (Good to Great 2001)  In Cross Country...We are a good program...and recently we have settled for being just that.  For Track and Field, we are  not  a good program yet (mediocre) and we are still searching for an identity.  As the 2016 school year ended we met as a school athletic program for our annual Athletic Legacy awards night. Every year we rightly honor the fantastic efforts of our schools student-athletes and coaches who had success throughout the school year.  I sat
Read more