Northern Arizona Cross Country Dynasty Through the Eyes of Its Head Coaches

9/26/2018 6:22:56 PM

OGDEN, Utah - Northern Arizona has been the dominant cross country program of the Big Sky Conference getting its first taste of victory in 1971. The Lumberjacks have won 27 team titles with 26 individual first-place finishers on the men’s side and 20 team championships with 16 individual winners on the women’s side. The NAU men are coming off of two straight NCAA Championships and are primed for a three-peat.
 
From the architect, Ron Mann, to Eric Heins and now Michael Smith, we asked each coach how they were able to have success at Northern Arizona and what has made Northern Arizona the NCAA cross country dynasty.
  What were your goals at Northern Arizona when you took the program over in 1980?
"Our goal has always been to be a conference contender, a regional representative, and a strong national presence and that’s the way it has been from the beginning. The conference championship has always been paramount and the way to get onto the national scale was the regional performance and then national was as high as you could go."
 
What did you tell recruits to expect when they come to Northern Arizona and what makes NAU special?
"Always told recruits that Flagstaff is a very special place, in a variety of different ways culturally, educationally, and athletically. Flagstaff has a very unique culture in that you have a variety of different groups that are apart of this society. You have a great community, to live in Flagstaff, Arizona is a wonderful experience. It’s small, intimate and it has a diverse community. You then have the intellectual part in Northern Arizona which has always been outstanding in everything that they do and departments that are very outstanding in what they do like the Physical Therapy program as well as many of the sciences that are available. Athletically, I believe that it’s the best place in the world to train."
 
You finished runner-up twice while you were the coach, what was it like getting so close and how hard was it to come back from almost winning the following year?
"It wasn’t a problem for me at all. I feel that you leave it better than you found it and you hope that whoever follows you leaves it better than they found it. The natural progression of Northern Arizona University and the goals we set back in 1980 are still alive and well today. We got very close. We were 600 meters away from winning a national championship in Iowa and we couldn’t get it done. Did I believe it could be done? Yeah, the only way that it could be done was for me to move aside and let somebody else take the reins and build upon what I had already done. I have nothing but pride and admiration for Eric (Heins), J.W. Hardy who took over before Eric, and now Mike Smith. Two of the three worked under my tutelage and now Mike is doing the same things and more."
 
You were recently named to the six-member U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) 2018 Hall of Fame induction class. Twenty-four years of your career were spent at NAU. What does this honor mean to you and how did NAU play a part in it?
"Northern Arizona played a huge part. I was a student-athlete here and I started my career here as a graduate assistant in 1976. To be the head coach from 1980 -2004, those (years) were for the lack of a better word, the golden years of my career so Northern Arizona will always have a special place in my heart and in my soul. However, the honor of being inducted into the Hall of Fame is an induction of your peers. It’s one thing to get honors that are easy to get. Some honors are awarded by virtue of your position but this award is not that way. There are so many coaches throughout high school and college that are a member of the USTFCCCA and to be selected among the group of people that many of which are my personal friends, you go “Wow”. Being honored in the same manner that my mentors and the people that I idolize in that same realm is humbling, honoring and it is treasured."
 
What is one of your favorite memories of coaching at NAU?
"There are so many, if I had to pick one it would be the 1993 Big Sky Indoor Track and Field Championships. Northern Arizona won both the men’s and women’s titles at home. It wasn’t just a win it was a domination. It was over after day one and it was probably the highlight of my Big Sky Conference career. At that time and it still true to this day, there were some great coaches from the Ben Jacoby’s (Boise State), the Chick Hislop’s (Weber State) and so on. I highly revered the coaches that were in the Big Sky and to win over those people is special.
 
Also, the year in Iowa in 1988 that we finished second in the nation. To come that close in just eight years at my tutelage at Northern Arizona was wonderful. To have that honor of being on the podium for the first time in my career is something I’ll never forget."
  You took over a program that had already had a lot of success, how were you able to build off of that and continue to elevate the program?
"I was very fortunate to be hired into a situation where the team had two future Olympians (Lopez Lomong and David McNeill). In my first year (2007) the team was very hungry to reach the national championship and to do something special. I believe that year set the tone for my 10 years at NAU. We had such a talented team that year, my job was to help guide them, but to really stay out of their way. My approach has always been to apply sound physiological principles to their training and allow them to develop each season. I do not think I did anything specific to “elevate” the program. It was already a very high-level program. With the advent of social media and I think NAU-Flagstaff started to get highlighted more often and runners from around the world began to take a serious look at joining our program. NAU-Flagstaff is such a great place for distance runners and cross country that it was just a matter of time before a national title was brought back to NAU."
 
Did you have an idea heading into the 2016 season, that your team would be competing for a National Championship at the end of the season?
"It is easy to say yes in hindsight, but I absolutely felt that we would be competing for a national championship. We had redshirted our No. 1 runner Futsum (Zienasellassie) in 2015 and had a great runner in Matt Baxter joining the team for 2016. Matt had international experience and I felt that our younger guys would benefit from their season of racing without Futsum in 2016."
 
What did you tell recruits to expect when they come to Northern Arizona?
"In recruiting, I always explained that running at altitude can be tough, not only physically, but mentally as well. You are running slower than you are used to and you take longer to recover. If you aren’t mentally ready for that, it can cause runners to second guess themselves and their coach. Therefore, I would always remind them to be patient and that if they stuck with it, they would see the benefits when racing at sea-level. I also never shied away from telling recruits that we wanted to win a national title. I believe in setting high goals, but this was also a realistic goal when you look at NAU’s history of top 4 finishes. I would discuss my training philosophy and how we would work together to reach their individual goals."
 
How did you define success for the program?
"To be honest during most of my career I was focused on winning. It was not until my last year or so that I adopted more of a process oriented belief in success. There are simply times when another team is better than you and that does not make your team or season unsuccessful. I believe in setting a goal and developing a plan towards that goal. Success if following through on that plan and performing each step of the process to the best of your ability during that plan."
 
What makes Northern Arizona special?
"Northern Arizona is special for a lot of reasons. Flagstaff is a unique small-town environment that encourages a healthy lifestyle and specifically running. You can travel higher or lower in elevation in a matter of minutes depending on what you are trying to accomplish in training. You have a wide variety of places to run so runners never get bored of the same routes. You have great weather, even during the winter when it snows, you can find areas to run outside of town that are lower in elevation that do not receive snow. NAU is a very welcoming campus and we are student-focused, so from the moment students step onto campus they have a sense of belonging."
  There are not too many head coaching jobs where you are taking over a team that won the National Championship the year before, what was your approach to taking over and putting your stamp on the program?
"I had the opportunity to work under Coach Heins in the fall of 2016 for our first National Championship and observe some of his expertise and that was extremely helpful, ultimately I'm a different person and a different coach, so it was a mix of inserting some of the new aspects to practice in as well as making sure to step back and not change some of the elements that were working so well."
 
What did you learn from Coach Heins in the months that you were on staff together?
"I think there certainly were aspects to training but perhaps the most important thing I learned, is what I think he would tell you he learned from Coach Mann, which is that the athletes must be loose and relaxed to be at their best. That's the tone we set at practice and competition." 
 
You not only won the NCAA title last year, you dominated with your top-three placing top eight and your top five receiving NCAA All-American honors, how were you able to do that?
"The places the athletes finish are a product of a mindset, effort, and execution of a team strategy. We don't have specific conversation about placings, we talk about how we'll run the race. We felt our best team finish that day was going to require an aggressive strategy."
 
What do you tell recruits to expect when they come to Northern Arizona?
"Expect to pursue their own journey in running in one of the most inspiring backdrops possible, Flagstaff Arizona., which we believe is the best place to train in the world. Expect to be supported by awesome teammates and caring coaches and expect to graduate with a degree that will assist you in the next chapters of your life, whatever they may be."
 
How do you define success for the program?
"Success for us is continuing to build and grow from the program we were yesterday, to keep a vision present which always has the student athletes at the center, and makes the process, not the outcomes, one that we're proud of. Championships come and go, but how NAU does business is most important to me."
 
What makes Northern Arizona special?
"I believe Flagstaff is a place that allows you to really find and honor yourself which is crucial for athletes at the age we're coaching. In addition, we believe it holds some exceptional criteria for a world class training locale: the perfect climate, altitude, and running surfaces. At NAU there's a tradition that puts team competition at the forefront of our focus, which leads to some pretty amazing goals that are set not by individuals but by a like-minded group. And lastly, we seek out exceptional coaches and student athletes to make their mark on their chapter here."