Kamehameha cross country coach Joel Truesdell believes that champions are built on the twin blue-collar traits of work ethic and determination.
“It’s the willingness to train, and more importantly the mental toughness and focus,” he said. “In a race, you have to be able to continue to focus when you’re tired. If you do that at practice, you should do that at the race.”
In BIIF girls competition, Hawaii Prep has a long history of dominance, collecting titles pretty much every year with occasional interruptions.
Truesdell’s Warriors captured championships in 2005 and ’07, the last year the powerhouse Ka Makani didn’t win.
Waiakea took home a BIIF trophy in 1983 and ’91. All the other seasons of championship glory belong to HPA.
Truesdell threw out the box-set notion that champion runners have to be slender with long legs and impenetrable lungs.
In fact, the last Waiakea runner to win a BIIF title was Tamarah Binek in 2002. She wasn’t really a runner or built like one.
She was a muscular swimmer who led the Warriors to historic HHSAA state swimming titles in 2002 and ’03.
“As a swimmer, she had the same ability to push and train hard,” Truesdell said. “In the high school field, there are all different shapes and sizes. But the best ones are willing to train and push through when they’re tired.”
He was talking about cross country, but his concept of hard work covers others sports as well.
Still, cross country is very much like golf, an individual sport.
There is team scoring, but the success of the team depends on the improvement of each member. And there’s the rub.
“Everybody improves at their own rate,” Truesdell said. “Any coach’s top seven runners order will almost never be the same near the end of the season. There will be a lot of changes between now and the end of the year.”
Waiakea coach Jordan Rosado looked at the youth on his girls roster, and came to an easy conclusion.
“We’ve got young ones who’ll step up in the next couple of years, and they’ll be really good,” he said.
Hard work is a good life lesson, but so is responsibility, something Waiakea girls coach Ipo Hai-Kelly stresses.
The Warriors have a no practice, no race policy. It’s spelled out in the beginning of the season. She doesn’t cut anyone a break, no matter how much pleading.
“That would be unfair to their teammates,” she said. “If you make a commitment, you have to fulfill our commitment.
“It’s like a job. If you’re supposed to come in at 8, you can’t come in 8:30 and think that will be fine with your boss. You have to be responsible for everything.”
Hai-Kelly’s Warriors are years away from becoming working stiffs. So, she makes it a point to maintain a pleasant atmosphere.
“It’s a good team. Everybody gets along,” she said. “All we expect is for them to finish the race, do what you can do, and try your best.”
