At promptly 8 a.m. on a cool August morning, my first day of cross country practice begins. It was my mom’s idea for me to try cross country and I wasn’t excited. I started the season with no previous training and I only knew a few of the other girls. But little did I know this was not just the first day of my cross country career, it was also the beginning of a relationship with a coach who becomes more then a coach to me.
Coach Kaczor is my cross country coach. During my freshman year, I found out I have tendentious in both of my knees and have to wear knee braces. Coach Kaczor would always check up on my injury. And he did this for every girl on the team. He would adjust each girl’s practice based on how their injury was doing and he got to know everyone on the team individually. He wouldn’t push us too far in practices, either and he was always encouraging us. He truly cared about each girl’s well being and didn’t want to see anyone hurt.
He was that type of coach who didn’t care how fast you actually were. He only cared about if you were giving your all during each race and practice. He wanted each girl to improve each week and so he kept track of every girl’s times to watch their progress.
During meets and practices he was always out there cheering for every girl. He would wait for the last girl to pass him before sprinting to a different spot on our course to continue cheering. Every time I saw him out on the course it gave me a boost of energy to move quicker. This is when I realized Kuczor is more like a teammate then my coach.
Each year I didn’t have the motivation to continue to do cross country, but Kuczor encouraged me to come out because he saw the talent in me and the look I would get when I would do well in a race. He knew exactly how to coach me because he knew I hated practicing. But when it came to a racing, he saw how much I loved it. He knew how competitive I was and used that to help me in practices. He used me as an example to the other girls when we were filling out our goal sheets for our upcoming race. He told them how I am a girl who hates practices, but knows exactly what to do on the course. But I wouldn’t have been so successful in my running career if it weren’t for him believing in me.
My coach is positive, motivating, and dedicated. He is my coach, my teammate, and my friend. I never thought I would like running, but after being coached by Kuczor I did.