Conversation / WITH BOOKER WOODS : Winning Coach Puts Kids on Track

I started coaching girls from my church in track in 1974. We competed in Parks and Recreation meets. In 1978, I came to the Jets, then called the West Vernon Jets. Ronald Moore, who founded the Jets in 1973, was already coaching the boys.

I put together a relay team of girls--ages 10 and 11--to complete in the Amateur Athletic Union, then the governing body for track and field in this country. It was a lot more competitive than what we were used to. The Jets’ girls won the relay race, but were disqualified because they ran out of their lanes. But they liked the competition. It was the first time that they ran on an all-weather track.

The next year, the same four girls won the national championship in the four-by-four relay. We had lots of success early on.

And that success continues. We’ve had over 50 individual national champions and about 50 or more national championship relay teams in the USA Track and Field Junior Olympics.

I don’t turn any kid away. I feel that any kid can be very competitive and you don’t know when they are going to get to that point. Sometimes a kid will come out and she just has natural talent and overnight will become a super athlete. But the more common case is of girls who stay on the team two, three, four years before they blossom into superstardom.

One girl, in particular, came to the team at age 8 and through two years as a bantam (ages 8 and 9) was a low to average competitor. In her first year [ranked] as a midget (age 10), she was an average sprinter--67 seconds in the 400-meter dash. At 11, she not only won the national championship but set a national record--58.1 seconds--in the 400-meter dash. And this was a kid that at first nobody thought was that good. I don’t say to a kid, “You don’t have it,” because they may and it just takes a little time for it to come out.

There are so many different types of events in track and field that require a different set of muscles. If a girl isn’t a good sprinter, maybe she will be good at long distance or high jump or long jump or shot-putting. It’s something there for anyone if they really want to try.

What I know is that this sport builds kids’ self-esteem. They can win medals. They can travel. For some of my girls, their first out-of-town trip is with the team. It gives them hope.

Many of my girls are in college now on track scholarships. A lot of them have already gone through college on a scholarship. They have attended UCLA, USC, Howard University, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., Arizona State. This fall, one will enter Stanford. When they come back to visit, the younger girls see how all of this hard work is connected. It’s my wish that every one of them will focus on her grades and get a scholarship.

My responsibility as coach is to prepare them, to communicate with them in a way that helps each girl reach her personal best. For example, I don’t know sign language, but I wanted to communicate one-on-one with a Jet who is deaf. I pointed to her, did a running motion with my elbows, then a fast running motion. It was my way of saying to this girl, a hard worker, “Today, I want you to run faster.”

But I don’t tolerate girls who break the rules. These rules include no profanity, no fights, no arguments, no calling adults by their first name, especially if it is a parent or somebody on the coaching staff.

Once, I sacrificed a national championship in Melbourne, Fla., because two girls on the relay team, who had been warned earlier, got into a fight--I think it was over some socks--before the competition. I kicked them off the team.

Of course, I felt bad for the other girls on the relay team. I may have even regretted that decision. But it set a precedent: Even if the national championship is on the line, a girl who disobeys the rules can no longer compete as an L.A. Jet.

The other thing I can’t tolerate is a bad attitude. I have 68 girls on the team, ages 5 to 15. A superstar with a bad attitude will just destroy the team. She has to go.

But this work keeps me humble. I love these children. Sometimes that has meant going beyond track and taking them into my home. And my wife, Hannah, has always been supportive of me and the team. Once we took a 13-year-old who was having problems into our home. Hannah and I raised this girl and loved her just as if she were our own. She stayed for two years.

The L.A. Jets have been fortunate to have parents who are willing to work and make sure that the money is there. It takes about $34,000 to $40,000 a year to finance the club so that children don’t have to pay entrance fees for competition or travel and hotel accommodations for out-of-town trips. We have had sponsors; the highest has been $8,000 a year.

We have raised our money through candy drives, jog-a-thons, raffles, souvenir books. Each parent has been asked to meet a quota. Nearly all of them do. But no child suffers when a parent doesn’t cooperate, because there are always other parents who are willing to take up the slack.

I think that I’m a good coach, not a great one. I think God is blessing me through the efforts that I am putting forth because I try to serve Him as best I can.