POLE
VAULT COACHES If you are coming to the Minnesota Track & field
Coaches Association Clinic on January 26-27 you can send videos to Olympic
Bronze Medalist and top Pole Vault Coach DEREK MILES and he will brake them
down and discuss them at one of his two pole vault sessions!
Here is what you get for your $100 Clinic fee!
48 Hours of Track & Field instruction from some of the top Coaches in
the World, Coach of the Year and Hall of Fame Banquet, 2 Free Socials, 20+
Vendors and over 100 Door prizes!
(Partial bios of some of the speakers) Speaker Bios
Beth Alford-Sullivan- currently the Director Of T & F/CC at the Univ. of Tennessee.
Past experience: Penn State, Stanford, Minnesota State-Mankato. 32 Coach of the
Year Awards. 9 Big 10 Team Titles. 167 All-Americans. USTFCCCA President. 3
time Captain of Univ. of Minnesota X-C Team. Matt Bingle- currently the Director of T & F/CC at the Univ. of Minnesota. 107 NCAA
Qualifiers. 10 All Americans. 4 Big 10 Titles. Captain, Most Valuable, All
Conference Hurdler at Ball State. Lucky Huber- Director of T& F/CC at the Univ. of South Dakota. 16 Conference Team
Titles. 2008 USTFCCCA National Women’ s Track Coach of the Year. 10th Place
Team finish at D-1 NCAA National Indoor Championships 2014. Coached three time
Olympic Qualifier, Derek Miles. Katie Wagner- three time USTFCCA National Assistant Coach of the Year (10, 14,
15). Her hurdlers and jumpers scored 29 points at the D-III Indoor National Meet in
2015 and 40 points in claiming the National Title Outdoors. She was a Conference
Champion in the Heptathlon and Pentathlon at UW-L. Dan Fitzsimmons- Head X-C Coach/Asst. Track at the University of South Dakota.
2015, second and third place finish at Summit League X-C Championships. 28
Individual Conference Champs in Track distance events. 8 State HS X-C
Championships at Yankton, SD and 5 State T& F Championships. 6 time State COY.
Former steeplechase record holder at USD. Andrew Rock- Head Men’s and Women’s T& F Coach at Bethel University. Olympic
Gold Medalist 4 x 400, 2004 Greece Olympic Games. 9 time National Champion at
Univ. of Wisconsin-Lacrosse. 2015 MIAC Women’s Track Coach of the Year. 13
National Qualifiers. PR of 44.35 in 400. AG Kruger- throws Coach at the University of South Dakota. 3 time Olympian 2004,
2008 and 2012 in the Hammer. World Record Holder in the Pentathlon (SP, Dis, WT
and Jav) for 35-39 age Group. National Champion and NCAA D-II National Athlete of
the Year 2001. Brett Ayers- Head X-C, Asst. T& F at Winona State University. Coached his Women’s
X-C Team to a D-II National Championship in 2011. He also ran professionally for
New Balance for seven years. Jim Dilling-Head Men’s Coach at Minnesota State Univ.-Mankato. 3 Time NSIC Coach
of the Year. 2 time USTFCCCA Region COY. 4 time NCAA D-II National Champion in
the High Jump. 2007 USA National HJ Champion. PR of 7’ 6.5”. Chris Parno- Assistant Coach at MSU-Mankato. 2 time USTFCCCA Region Assistant
COY. Guided 9 MSU sprinters to All American honors in 2015. 7 time All Conference
Hurdler, sprinter, decathlete at Univ. of Minnesota-Duluth. Tom Thorkelson-Coaches the throwers at Gustavus Adolphus College. Has coached
52 All Americans since 1985. Coached 3 time National Champion and Olympic
Trials Qualifier. Jane Reimer-Morgan- Head Girls Coach at Minnetonka HS. 6 Time MSHSL State
Champions. USTFCCA Minnesota Girls COY 2014. 2 time Minnesota Class AA Girls
COY.
Bob Bonk- 44 years as Coach at Fairmont HS. 6 time True Team State Champion. 1
MSHSL State Team Championship. 189 Individual State qualifiers. Bruce Kivimaki- Head Boys coach at Eden Prairie HS. 3 State Team Championships.
105 All State Track Athletes. Minnesota Boys Class AA COY 2010. Chris Milton- Pole Vault coach at Eden Prairie HS. 3 State Pole vault Champions. 17
All State Vaulters. 3 time MIAC Vault Champion. Nick Lovas- Head Boys Coach at Hopkins HS. 3 State Team Championships.
USTFCCCA Minnesota COY 2014. 2011 Girls COY.
Matt Jaschen- Head X-C Coach/Asst Track at Johnston HS, IA. 2013 Class 4A COY. Ben Youngs- Head Girls/Boys at Maple Lake HS. 1 State Team Championship. 2
time Minnesota COY ( Girls & Boys). 4 time State Runner-up. Patti Percival- Head CC/Asst.Track Coach at White Bear Lake HS. 2 State True Team
Championships. 3 runner-up finishes at State X-C. Moundsview HOF. Captain of
the Univ. of Minnesota Track/CC teams. Lee Van Nyhuis- Head Coach at Osakis HS. 15 Conference Championships. 8 years
with a Relay in the top three at State Meet. Minnesota Girls COY. Dave Emmans- Head X-C/Asst. Track Coach at Wayzata HS. 1 National
Championship in Girls X-C. 3 time State Champions. National X-C COY. Coached
State Record Holder in the 800. Dale Moga- Asst. at Rushford-Peterson/Houston. Coached State Champions in Long
Jump and Triple Jump. Also coached 2 All State Horizontal Jumpers. These
are just a few of the coaches that will be sharing their ideas and methods in January. Info on additional speakers and
a complete schedule coming soon!
Some of the greatest high hurdlers of all time. (From L to R) Renaldo Nehemiah,
Aries Merritt, Harrison Dillard, and Colin Jackson. Photo courtesy of IAAF
It seems fitting that the keynote speaker at this year's Minnesota State Track & Field Coaches Association Clinic has a Super Bowl ring. Renaldo "Skeets" Nehemiah was on the San Francisco 49ers Super Bowl champion team in 1984, but is better known as one of the top 110-meter high hurdlers in the world. He was the first to break the 13 second barrier in that event, and was a talented enough sprinter, sans hurdles, to be the MVP at the Penn Relays. As a high schooler, however, he was a star quarterback.
Further evidence of his multi talented athletic prowess was his four wins in the made for TV Superstars events in the 1980s. The track coaches gathered in Bloomington this weekend won't be after anecdotes on fly patterns or whether or not deflated footballs matter, but rather Nehemiah's wisdom on how to be the best at running fast over a lane of 42-inch high hurdles. Talking from his office in Reston, Virginia, Nehemiah, who now represents clients such as Olympic champion sprinter Justin Gatlin and 400 meter Olympic champion Kirani James, answered questions about his event and the things that have changed since he was the best in the world.
Technology, Nehemiah noted, has had the biggest impact on the event from camera phones, ubiquitous access to high quality video, to the composition of the track. The hurdles are lighter and the tracks faster than in his prime, Nehemiah said. These changes have influenced how races are run and won. In his day, Nehemiah added, the composition of the track wasn't a factor. People didn't talk more about the track's features--how "fast" it was--as much as about the strengths and weaknesses of the individual athletes.
A Roger Kingdom would assault the event, crashing through hurdles with raw power, while a technician, such as China's Liu Zhang was more like Nehemiah, a virtual ballet artist who "flowed" over the hurdles much as Mikhail Baryshnikov would flow across the stage at Lincoln Center. Balance, said Nehemiah, is the key to master hurdling. At its core hurdling is an all out sprint interrupted by a series of graceful bounding through the air. A key factor in getting from start to finish as fast as one can, he noted, was combining innate athleticism with something as simple as keeping the arms moving forward in a straight line, as they would in a 100 meter sprint. Not crossing the body, which can cause the body to pitch from side to side in wasted motion and energy instead of flash forward with all the momentum and drive pushing toward the finish.
Proper technique with the lead leg and trail leg are other skills need to be ingrained in the hurdler's "muscle memory" at an early age, so that those skills don't have to be reprogrammed later. It's far more efficient to teach the basics properly early in a hurdler's career than attempting to change a learned behavior that has been already hard wired into the neurological system, he said.
In events that are decided by razor thin margins even seemingly small "mistakes" can be the difference between winning and losing. So teaching the basics early is vital to an athlete's success. Something you can't teach, however, Nehemiah believes is the most important attribute for any athlete--the desire to get the best from yourself, to be the best you can be. That drive for success, athletic perfection, is an essential element of an athlete's success. That devotion to always learning, always pushing for something better, never resting on one's laurels or becoming complacent is something of a cliche. Probably because it is an essential attribute for those who want to succeed in any endeavor, Nehemiah says.
It has been a feature of Nehemiah's since his earliest efforts at locomotion. His nickname, Skeets, was given to him by his parents to describe the swiftness and determination Nehemiah had during the crawling stage of his infancy. At that early age, Nehemiah was focused on the basic premise of all racing--getting to the finish line as quick as possible. Without coaching or other incentives aside from completing his task as quickly as possible, Nehemiah was creating the building blocks of a career in sprinting and hurdling.
When he talks to the coaches this weekend his task will be just as simple. He does the talks, imparts what he's learned during his career in order to give back to the sport that has given him so much. Sharing and learning so the next generation will be able to enjoy the activities that have been the foundation of his athletic pursuits for decades.
If you want to read more about Nehemiah's stats, development as an athlete go HERE.
