The 2010 Cross Country Season has begun and we figured it might be fun to sit down with one of the most successful and respected coaches in the State of Missouri, Parkway West's Dale Shepherd, to find out a little bit about his coaching and training philosophies, the history of the Parkway West program and just how the heck he gets his kids to run so well at the State Meet! Big River's Courtney Chazen sat down with Coach Shepherd just after official practice started up on August 9th.

In towns across America, there emerges a coaching figure who represents not only a sport, but embodies the spirit and philosophies of what makes that community unique.  In Eugene, Oregon it was Bill Bowerman, in Elmhurst, Illinois it is Joe Newton and in Chesterfield, Missouri there is Dale Shepherd – cross country and track coach for the Parkway West Longhorns.

A lifelong physical education teacher, Shepherd joined the Parkway community in 1968 after receiving his B.A. from the University of Missouri.  Shepherd took over the head coaching duties for cross country and track at Parkway West in 1983. In 2001 he retired from teaching and took a hiatus from cross country. Luckily for the Longhorns, he was coaxed back into coaching in 2008. With an impressive resume (his teams have won two state championships and he's coached 20 All-State performers) Shepherd was inducted into the Missouri Track and Cross Country Coaches Association (MTCCCA) Hall of Fame in 2007.

Before we talk about your coaching career, tell me how you first got involved with running.
I have an older brother who was a runner in high school when I was in middle school. He got me interested in it and directed me that way. He ran in high school, so I followed in my bigger brother’s footsteps. But I can remember as a junior in high school thinking that this was something I wanted to do: I want to teach and coach. So, I did.

What was the West cross country program like when you first took over?
I came to West the year they closed Parkway North Junior, which was the ‘83-‘84 school year and West was good. They’d had some good years in late 1970s and placed in the state meet. They had a state champion in the early 70s. So, West has always had a pretty storied cross country team.

How did you help build the numbers of the team?
Word of mouth. Kids recruiting kids is a big thing. I kind of initiated a program where I’d go down to the middle schools and talk to P.E. classes throughout the school year, just to generate some interest. They [middle schoolers] would see who I was and say, “Oh, that old man! I don’t want to be with him.” [Laughs]. We’ve always had fairly decent freshman teams, but they do vary in size. We only had seven in 2009. Four years ago we only had eight kids, but all eight of those kids are still running cross country as seniors. We also get kids from the track team, who later decide to go out for cross country.

Do you have any basic philosophies that you’ve instituted over the years, in terms of conditioning your runners?
I am a hands-off coach during the off season. At one time we could not meet with kids, except for just a few days during the summer, but I didn’t even do that. I’m a firm believer that one of the things kids should take away from our program is self-discipline. They should learn self-discipline and to do things on their own, with some guidance. And that’s the way I’ve done it all the years I’ve coached cross country. I suggest to them that they run during the summer and I give them some guidelines, and they are supposed to report back to me one way or the other. I used to do postcards, but now it’s just email.

I read all these things in MoSplit [Missouri Mile Split] and everyone’s upset because they can’t meet with their kids. But I think the kids take a little bit more away from it knowing that they’re the ones who went out there and did the training. They didn’t have some coach out there with them day in and day out during the summer making sure they were running.  They have to assume that responsibility.

How has running impacted your life and the lives of your runners?
Well, for me I’ve got sore knees, a bad back and no hair left [Laughs]. I’m a physical education teacher and my philosophy has always been that exercise should be an important part of your life. That’s one of the goals that I have for kids who participate in my programs - come away from here with a desire to work on your physical fitness and wanting to be physically fit. I don’t run like I used to, but I still challenge kids during the summer. I tell them that I will put in as much time as they do. It may be that I’m walking, but I will walk 5-6 days a week. Sometimes, I walk more miles than some of them run.

How do you use running to teach life lessons?
I’ve done this in track for quite a few years and in cross country I haven’t done it so much, but I am using it this year. We have a quote for the day. It’s not always about running. It’s not always about athletics. It’s about education and doing things the right way – being a good person and so forth.

Some people say, “Do we put too much emphasis on wanting to win?” I don’t emphasize winning, but I do tell the kids, “It’s fun to win.” When the question of “Should we really be concerned about winning?” comes up, I say: “If you have a doctor, do you want a winner? If you have a lawyer, do you want a winner? If you have a stock broker, do you want a winner?” It’s the same thing in life – whether it’s in running – that you go out and be the very best that you can be no matter what you do. So, there’s definite carry-over. Big time.

You have had a lot of really talented runners come through your program, and some have gone on to have very good collegiate careers like Eric Fernandez and Ross Larimer. When you see that kind of talent in a young runner, do you purposely develop him carefully with an eye toward what he might be able to do down the road?
Actually, Fernandez and Larimer came into the program and I wasn’t the cross country coach. I had retired in 2001 and I didn’t come back until they were juniors. Dave Tobey’s the one who really took them through their four years of high school. They are two of the most talented that have come through West, but I tend to treat all the kids the same. You obviously talk to the kids who have a lot more ability about strategy, and their workouts are geared a little bit differently. Not in the sense that they would do something completely different than anyone else, but they may do a higher volume at a faster pace. But I treat them all the same.

Fernandez didn’t like me his freshman year in track because I treated him like a freshman. But we have a very good relationship now. He was upset because I did some things one way and it wasn’t what he wanted, but we have a real good relationship now. He emails and calls me. We’ll get together and go for bike rides.

You are famous for "peaking" your athletes at the right time. Could you touch on what you do that seems to always have them ready to go at the end of the season?
Well, good kids make good coaches. We obviously cut back on our training, but we do the same thing everybody else does. We reduce the number of miles and crank the speed up a bit.  We do some things just to get them on that edge. I think the most important thing is rest.

We do some psycho-cybernetics [Laughs]. That’s an old word. We do mental imagery.  We look at the state cross country course, talk about it and try to get the kids to visualize themselves running the course and doing things at a certain spot. We have them talk positively to themselves about a different phase or parts of the race in order to have a good performance.

You talk about peaking, but it goes back to the tradition of the program and what has happened in the past. The kids want to do well because the teams before them have done well and I think that has a lot to do with it. When we get down to the end of the season, we cut out the morning practices, and that’s part of reducing the mileage.

If you had to pick just one, which workout tells you the kids are in shape and ready to run fast?
It’s hard to pick out one. An important part of our program are Fartlek’s. I’m a big time Fartlek guy. And we do that most of the season, but another thing we do are repeats. Personally, I would like them to do mile repeats, but I’ve found that the kids don’t handle them so well. So, we do 800 repeats and we look at that and compare it from year to year and kids can see what they and some of their teammates have done in years past. That’s an indicator of what kind of condition they are in.

The big question: will this be your final year as West's coach?
I don’t know. When I retired the first time, my wife and I were going to do some things and we haven’t done all those things yet. It’s kind of year to year. They said some kids got upset when I left the first time. The important thing is that we’ve got Kevin John and this his third year working with me. They say it’s been hard to find someone to coach cross country, which I find unbelievable since it’s probably the best sport to coach that there is.

What are your goals for the team in 2010?
They are the same as every year: Win the Parkway Quad. Win Conference. Qualify through districts and sectionals and go down and perform well at the state meet. I have never put in the mind of the kids that we need this place, or that this is the place we ought to get. At the state meet our goal is just to go down and perform well. And if we do that, then you can’t ask for any more.

What is your proudest coaching moment?
You could say it was neat to win two state championships and it certainly was. You could say it was the year we went to the state meet and every single kid PR’d. There was a year when we were seeded sixth in the sectional meet and ended up qualifying, which surprised everybody.

But I would say the proudest moment is not really when I was coaching. This past summer and over the last year there were two kids from West who organized Relay Missouri* and they asked me to help them. That was my proudest moment.  Two of the three runners ran for me in high school. They got other kids involved and it was neat that they did all of the organizing. They ran 284 miles on three of the hottest days. Kids would jump and say; “I can go again, I’m ready,” but no one ran more than 20-minutes at a time. That was an exciting time.

*Relay Missouri is a 300-mile run from Kansas City to St. Louis. The event took place June 17-19, 2010, with the goal to raise money and awareness of the desperate need to help homeless children in America. According to relaymissouri.blogspot.com

What is the greatest compliment a former runner has ever given you?
I think it’s when they come back and tell you what you said to them in practice. Just some of the quotes from kids who will come back and repeat them to me 20-years later. “I can never forget when you said….” And I think that’s the greatest compliment that you can get – for them to take something away from the program, to remember it and continue to work on it.

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