UPPER LAKE — To build a winning program, all Upper Lake High School cross country coach John Woods had to do was sell running … as in running is fun, running is exciting, running is good for you, and running is what you want to do … to the teenagers who populate Lake County”s smallest high school.
In other words, Woods was facing a difficult task. He pulled it off.
Just three seasons after bringing a new fall sport to the Northshore of Clear Lake, the Upper Lake Cougars have one of the better boys” cross country teams in the small-school ranks. You can thank Woods ? and some very dedicated runners — for that.
Following a solid showing in the fall of 2009, Woods is the Lake County Coach of the Year in boys” sports for the 2009-10 sports season.
Led by a handful of talented runners, including Michael Dolan, Charlie Coburn, Christian Cisneros, Andrew O”Meara, Fwee Chao and Ben Mullin, the Cougars won their first Coastal Mountain Conference championship. Woods was equally blessed with an up-and-coming group of frosh-soph runners, namely Alex Rogers, Jared Wade, Gage DeHeer and Cory Rodriguez, which means Upper Lake will be ready to defend its title in the upcoming season.
Woods is passionate about running and that enthusiasm has rubbed off on a handful of his runners. He”s also a hard worker who plans ahead, which goes hand in hand with the sport.
Before the official start of the 2010 cross country season, Upper Lake runners — new and returning — will already have gotten their feet wet by participating in the Run to the Coast team fundraiser — a trek that takes the Cougars from Ukiah to Caspar on the Mendocino County coast. That”s in addition to a run around Angel Island and the 300 miles Woods is hoping his runners will log as part of a voluntary summer workout program.
“We call it the 300-mile challenge,” Woods said. “I gave them each logbooks so they could record their workouts and the number of miles they run. “I”m hoping 75 to 80 percent of them do it (reach 300 miles). Some will run 500.”
Looking back on the success the Cougars experienced in the fall of 2009 when both the JV and varsity boys” teams won CMC titles, Woods reiterated it”s not easy to convince teenagers to run for the fun of it.
“It”s hard and it was harder this year,” Woods said with an eye toward the 2010 season. “I like to make sure I leave it open to everyone. I don”t care if you can run a mile now or not. I”ll get you to the point that you can run a mile, two miles, three miles.”
Woods said a handful of runners on last year”s championship teams couldn”t run very far when they first came out for the team.
“I try to make it (running) for everybody, for all ability levels. A lot of these kids want to be part of something and we”re a family,” Woods said.
And it”s not just about running, according to Woods.
“I stress academics,” Woods said. “Our team nearly had a 3.0 average last year.”
