New coaching staff leads cross country team amid pandemic
Updated: Nov 11, 2020
By Clay Boeninger
After taking a four-year hiatus to serve as an assistant coach, Fitz Read is back in action as the head coach of the AHS cross country team.
Read, a storied coach of more than 17 years, brings experience as a runner from his high school days at Lakota High School, and from his collegiate career at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. His team captains, senior Greta Hibbard and senior Jack Myers expressed great support for their head coach. “Coach Read has been in the game a long time, being a college runner and everything, so he knows what to do in every situation,” said Myers.
Read’s job is different this year, he says. While being an assistant coach largely focused on leading daily workouts and covering the meets, head coaching is much more administratively focused, said Read. Nonetheless, Read is still focused on progressing as a team, participating in all the strenuous workouts he assigns.
Read is joined this year by Coach Laura Tuljak and Coach Trevor Stephens. Tuljak, who was a high school runner with a lifelong love for all things athletic, is known for her intense energy. “If you know Ms. T,” said Hibbard, “you know the positive energy she brings to any situation.”
Myers had similar thoughts about Tuljak. Said Myers, “Coach Tuljak brings energy—she helps hype us up before races on some of those early mornings.”
Tuljak said she is most excited to see the team progress and become stronger and stronger as the season comes to its conclusion this October. Tuljak is also looking forward to coaching in the many years to come as she learns more about the sport and its runners along the way.
Hibbard, the team captain of the girls’ team, was happy to have a female coach for the first time in her career. “ I have never had a female coach,” said Hibbard of Tuljak.“It is super cool to have a female coach to connect with the girls' team unlike we have ever had before.”
Coach Stephens, a previous runner at AHS, joins the coaching staff this year as well. Stephens is known by his athletes as the team analyst. “Every pre-meet practice Coach Trevor shows up with a spreadsheet with both the girls’ and boys’ team's biggest competition at the upcoming meet,” said Hibbard.
Myers said nearly the same about Stephens. Said Myers, “[He] is very knowledgeable about team standings and informs us of important stats going into the meets.”
More impressive is that, according to Hibbard, Stephens is able to predict the meet results before they are announced by doing the calculations in his head.
Stephens chalks this up to his experience working in the athletic department at Hocking College. There, he was able to hone his stat-keeping skills. “I have gotten better with my… keeping stats over the years with experience,” said Stephens.
As the new coaching staff embarks on this historic season, coaches and athletes have their own goals they are striving for. The team captains want to leave their mark on the team for years to come. The coaches want to progress far into the postseason while keeping the COVID-19 case count as low as possible.
But one common theme unites these separate goals. In Myers’ words, “Being fast. And getting faster.”
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