Good Coachin‘!

State Champions!!!!!! Jenkins County High School Boys Track and Field Team won the Georgia State Championship in 2003. The head coach
is Charley Waters. Don’t skip ahead just yet, but at the end of this story, I’m going to recount one of the most amazing events I’ve ever
witnessed as a coach. Read on!

One day last summer, Charley and I started talking about track. I coached track many years ago at Jenkins County High. In the course of the
conversation, Charley mentioned that even though they had won the state championship that year, our team was comprised of sprinters. All
our points came in the sprints and in the field events. We did not score any points in any distance longer than 400 meters. I told Charley that
I knew a little bit about distance running and if I could ever help him all he had to do was ask. Well.....luckily for me....he asked.

It had been 19 years since I last coached track, that is light years in terms of how athletes’ attitudes have changed. Back in the day, coaches
seemed to have so much more control over our athletes. We pretty much told them what to do and they did it. All too often I see coaches
begging, pleading, bargaining, recruiting, knocking on doors.....trying anything just to get the kids out for that sport. Times have definitely
changed. Or maybe not.

The first few days of practice I was very impressed with the work habits of our track team members. Charley asked me to develop a workout
schedule for the distance runners and to make sure that the schedule was followed fairly closely every day. As the season progressed, it was
obvious that this team had one goal. Another state championship. I’ve been around teams that wanted to win a certain meet, or win a region
championship. Not these guys. They only talked in terms of getting that second ring.

I know enough about high school kids to know that it takes something a little extra to get 25 - 30 guys out to run track. Our little something
special is Charley Waters.

The season began with a big victory at Burke County. Screven County had built a brand new state of the art track and we were invited to the
first meet. Guess what? We won again. The neat thing about this meet is that there will never be another first time winner on that track.
Twenty years from now, when people research the history of Screven County Track, Jenkins County will be listed as the winner of the first
meet ever on that new track.

The season continued with impressive wins in Swainsboro, Screven County and Burke County. We finished 2nd in the 18 team Statesboro
Relays, then won again in Tattnall County.

Now it was region time. Coach Waters had a couple of little motivational tactics up his sleeve. The last practice before the region, we gave
each runner some blue PowerAde and asked them to run four laps, without swallowing the PowerAde. After the four laps, the runners had to
come over to the stands and spit out the PowerAde. Not a single runner swallowed before he finished his four laps. 

Wow. That was pretty impressive. Charley smiled and said, “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

I had heard rumors about the “ice barrel” from the 2003 team. Now I was going to get a first hand look.

The region track meet was held on two days. Day one was for the field events and the preliminaries of the running events. After the first day,
Jenkins County held a commanding lead. Charley told me that we were leaving at 10:30 Tuesday morning. I thought that was kind of early for
a 4 o’clock track meet in Savannah. But I was ready at 10:30. When I got to the bus, Charley had a couple of managers putting a 55-gallon
plastic drum on the back of the bus. The drum was filled about 3/4 full with ice. So this must the infamous ice barrel. I drove the bus out to
Charley’s house. I heard a couple of the guys talking about the ice barrel, I could tell some of the new guys were not too sure about this trip.
Were they in for some type of hazing or what?

Several of the guys pulled the barrel off the bus and began filling it with water. Now I was thinking that Charley was going to have to give
one heck of a speech to talk these guys into climbing into that barrel. Boy was I wrong.

The seniors and a couple of the leaders from the 03 team got off the bus with only gym shorts on. Now remember, Coach Waters has not said
anything about what was about to happen. Josh Lake climbed up on the edge of the barrel, took a deep breath, and slid down into the frigid
waters. Bug was the official timekeeper. He called out 30 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, that’s it, get out. Josh climbed
over the edge and reached for a towel. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Kendall Cooper jumped in. This continued for the next 40 minutes.
Now remember, the field events and some of the preliminaries had been run the day before. I couldn’t believe that the guys who were not
even running today were lined up waiting to get into the barrel. I knew there were a couple of guys who were going to gripe or something
before getting in......wrong. Even the one guy I was really expecting to balk jumped right in when his turn came. No one hesitated, no one
fussed, and no one had to be chased down. and I didn’t hear a discouraging word from anyone. It was absolutely the most amazing thing
I’ve ever seen.

This team went on to score 224 points in the region meet......second place scored 54 points. Region Champs! The barrel worked.

People often ask me what makes a good coach. Of course you have know a great deal about your sport, but the key to being successful is
that you have to get the athletes to play for you, and somewhere along the line, you have to convince them that you know what your are
doing and if they follow your directions, they will ultimately be successful. I have no idea if the ice barrel gave us any advantage at all.
Charley explained to me that the ice restricted the blood flow to the leg muscles. Then as the muscles warmed up, the body compensated for
the lack of blood by increasing the amount of blood flowing into the leg muscles. More blood meant more oxygen getting to the leg
muscles.......that meant more energy and faster times. Whatever! But I do know that there was absolutely no doubt in the minds of those 25
athletes who climbed into that barrel that it was going to give them an huge advantage. After all, they had won two regions championships in
a row and were the defending state champions. And for whatever reason, ice or not, they won their third straight region championship that
very afternoon.

Later that day we were waiting for Charley’s dad to take a few pictures around the bus when one of the parents from another school came by
and we started talking. “I’ve never seen anything like that (our score in the region meet) in my life“, he said. He watched our guys crowding
around Charley and the trophy and added, “You all have a great group of kids.”

I smiled and agreed and nodded towards Charley trying to line everybody up for a picture with the championship trophy. “Yeah”, I said, “
We’ve got a great group of kids, but everybody knows, it’s hard to beat good coaching!”