What follows are two excerpts from the 82 minute interview Coach Soles did with Jay Johnson. Members can listen to the interview and read the full transcript of the interview. Click here to view Coach Soles’s training summary.
On program success and dealing with doubters and parents:
Doug Soles: I think there’s a lot of basic commonalities: Dealing with parents, just trying to make sure that everybody understands the direction that we’re going. We all deal with that. That’s one of the number one things when I talk with other coaches, it’s funny because they look at me like “oh, you sometimes have issues with parents?” Just because you’re successful doesn’t mean you’re not dealing with people that have questions or decide that they ran a 5k once and so they obviously know more about running then you do. I think the most important thing is to really own your program. This is what we do. This is what we have. And this is what we offer for the kids. And if people don’t like that then they have to go do something else. That’s one of the number one questions that I get from high school coaches when I talk with people through email or in person, is how do you deal with the craziness that sometimes the parents will have? And I think the most important thing is to just be honest, be upfront, and own your program. This is what we do. Don’t shy away from that, don’t start wavering, “okay, now this parent is upset so we’re going to start to change things to this.”
Doug Soles: You have to really look at what the most important thing is for you and your program and what’s the most important thing for the kids.
If what you’re doing is what you believe is the right thing to do then that’s what you have to do whether or not mom and dad or whoever else out there wants to believe in it or whatnot, but you just have to own it. I think that’s one of the big things. And that’s what we try to do, is do everything we can to provide a program that the kids are going to be successful in, that they’re going to have fun in, that kids are going to have ownership in and we’re going to take ownership of that as a program. If most parents decide that they only want their kids to run 20 miles a week, then maybe that’s the wrong program for them. That’s a commonplace thing that I see a lot with other high school coaches, just being unsure. Why are they being attacked? Well, I think we all are. Because it’s one of those things that there are a 1000 paths to Rome. You can train a million different ways and get a lot of different results. I don’t think there’s one right way to do it. But I think one of the things, if I could tell high school coaches to make sure that you do, is own your program. Own your results. And don’t let somebody tell you that you’re not doing the right thing if you believe you are.