One of the spring sports in high schools and universities is track and field. The difficult part of track is that competition is at a large meet between several schools and not against one team at a time. So being able to watch a “home game” is often limited to one or two competitions a season.
I ran track in high school and college, my son ran track in high school and I have a grandson that runs track. I started to think about the coaches for track and field versus other sports. To be a track coach, the individual has to be a very multi-talented person. In terms of the ratio of athletes versus coaches, track is at the bottom of the list. Basketball in a big program may have a coach for every three or four players. Baseball has a tougher ratio of one coach for every seven or eight players. Track is more like one coach for every 20-30 athletes in some schools. In most schools, you have a coach for the boys’ and a coach for the girls’ teams. In track in many schools, you have one coach for both boys’ and girls’ track and field teams. Being a track coach requires a very broad background in the many events that comprise track competition. The big difference is that the many events are so different from each other and in many cases require a special knowledge of the event.
Looking at the many varied events in track and field shows how difficult it is to be knowledgeable in all of the events. Starting with the sprint events, you have the 100 and 200 meters for the very fast runners. At one time the 400-meter event was classified as a middle-distance event. It seems that the runners today are so fast it is now a sprint. The middle distance events include the 800 meters and mile (1,600 meters) and two-mile (3,200 meter). Training for these running events is different and requires a separate program to condition an athlete. After that comes the long-distance events like the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters and that again requires a special conditioning program. Add the high hurdles and the low hurdles to the sprint distances and once again it requires special training.
