Weekly Plan: At the start of the week, the coaches will post online a weekly schedule of workouts. The workouts are listed to give you an idea of what’s coming up (if you want to know), while the information may also include the next meet’s starting time, plus breakfast times, bus leaving times, or team meeting times. While the coaching staff will also mention these verbally, it is your responsibility to keep track of all information.
CARW Center / Weight Room / Training Room: The CARW gym (and all rooms inside) requires ID all the time. Pomona students and Pitzer students need to their school ID card. Our trainers are Becky Roark, Matt Wilson, and Kylie Reid. All are excellent trainers, and the room is usually open from 1:00pm until the last practice or game is complete. If you need to see a trainer, make an appointment, or see if you can walk in. Please follow up with the trainers in the days after you’ve been seen there, since they want to know your status following an appointment with a trainer.
College-mandated physicals: You must have completed a sports physical and you must have set up an account on SportsWare and filled in all the required information before you can begin to practice with the team.
Equipment issue / Lockers / Team gear: Once you have completed your physical, you may practice and receive equipment and team gear, including a uniform jersey top, uniform bottom, meet day jacket, meet day pants. Once you check this equipment out, you are responsible for it and must return it at the end of the season. After the season, you will be charged for equipment not returned. The Equipment Room will gladly wash your gear–we’d actually prefer it–but if you wash it yourself, don’t put items in hot water or a hot dryer because our lettering will come off. The Equipment Room will also wash your private workout gear. Put it on your pin and put the pins in the team can in the lockerroom. It will be washed and returned.
Eligibility / Course Credit: Both Pomona College and Pitzer College students need to be enrolled in a minimum of three courses to be eligible to compete in varsity intercollegiate athletics. Less than three courses will render you ineligible to compete on a varsity team. Pitzer students must maintain a 2.0 GPA to stay eligible. Pomona College and Pitzer College students who wish to receive credit need to fill out an add-drop form at the Registrar’s Office during the first ten days of the semester.
Fall Break: Fall Break runs from Sat., Oct. 15 (after we return from our trip) through Tuesday, Oct. 18. This means you don’t have classes on the Monday and Tuesday, which is about a week and a half prior to the SCIAC Championships – an important time for peaking. Thus, we are asking that team members be back on campus for practice on Fall Break Tuesday at 3:00pm.
SCIAC Conference: The Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) includes California Lutheran University, California Institute of Technology, Chapman, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps Colleges, University of La Verne, Occidental College, Pomona-Pitzer Colleges, University of Redlands, and Whittier College.
Course Length: The standard distance for collegiate women’s cross country courses is both 5000m (3.1 miles) and 6000m (3.7 miles). Invitationals will be held at either distance, with the remainder of the season at 6000m for Conference, Regionals and Nationals.
Meet Scoring:
• SCIAC Championships: All nine SCIAC teams compete against all others. Add up your top five places for team score. Lowest score wins.
• Invitationals: Scoring varies, and is sometimes not kept at all.
Coaching philosophy: In our role as a coaches, our highest goal is to see individuals develop, whether that happens through a single season, through their college years, and through their life. Having fun and winning are also goals of mine and the team, but they are lower in priority than an individual’s progress. “Athletes first, winning second.”
• To be on the women’s cross country team, you need to be committed to workouts, your team, and meets, and you need to have a clear competitive reason or purpose for being on the team.
• Our aim as coaches is to foster an atmosphere of hard work and fun; the two are not incompatible. In competition, we have two major emphases: one for the team, and one for the individual. The team aspect comes in our scored competitions. The individual aspect comes in your own personal race. As a coach, we are committed to the team, and committed to you as individuals.
• We will work with you as much as you are interested in learning and working on your running.
• One of our favorite quotes is from Coach John Wooden: “Discipline yourself, so others don’t have to.” Oftentimes we believe our job calls for removing pressure you place on yourselves. our aim is to teach you physical and mental strategies for college cross country competition, and to give you a framework for physical conditioning and fitness that you can use the rest of your life.
Rules/guidelines: Communicate with coaches as you see conflicts arising with practices or meets. Do not make unilateral decisions, such as, “I won’t be at practice today because I have a lot of homework.” Make your communication be collaborative, such as, “I have a lot of homework and I’m worried about my time commitments today at practice. What do you think?”
TEAM
• Do not wear meet sweats around campus; they are for meet days only.
• Respect your teammates in all their endeavors.
• Support teammates. Cheer each other on during workouts.
WORKOUTS
• Make workouts. If you absolutely cannot make a workout, call a coach directly. •Don’t tell someone else to pass on a message that you will miss practice.
• Be on time for workouts or else you are holding everyone up.
MEETS
• Compete in meets wearing a Pomona-Pitzer uniform and sweats.
• Tell a coach ASAP if you have a conflict with a meet. Legitimate conflicts are GRE exams, geology field trips, etc. Bad conflicts are ski trips, not liking to get up early on Saturdays, etc.
• Be on time when we are leaving. Get breakfast, go to the bathroom, etc. before the scheduled leaving time. If you don’t think you will be on time, have a teammate call you to wake you up. Leave your cell phone on and near your bed on Friday evenings.
• Represent our team well in competition: do not swear within hearing distance of an official or a competitor. Do commend and congratulate opponents regardless of the outcome.
• Everyone must travel to and from meets with the team. If you want to go home with someone else, your parents need to email Kirk before the competition in order to be excused.
• Cheer on the men’s team, but do not expect them to cheer you on.
MISSED PRACTICES
• Make every effort to attend all scheduled practices. Invariably a conflict will arise; plan ahead. If you foresee a conflict, let a coach know well in advance.
• Coaches’ Rule: Excused misses will be tolerated, so long as we do not believe them to be overused.
STUPID RULE
• Would your coaches think that what you’re doing is stupid? We can’t list all the things NOT to do – and if we did, you’d come up with a new one. Don’t do stupid things, which will lead to team and individual repercussions.
CRITERIA FOR A VARSITY LETTER: To earn a varsity letter for being on the women’s cross country team, you must:
• run in the top five on our team in any meet, OR
• finish in the top half of the field in any race, OR
• compete in two invites and the SCIAC Championships,
AND
• Be in good standing on the team at season’s end.
(We may award letters on an individual basis: injury, special circumstances, etc.)
Letter Awards: Certificate (First year), Sweatshirt (second year), Wool blanket (third year), graduation sash (fourth year).