Earlier this year Mark Simoneau was named East Track and Field head coach. Simoneau replaced former Head Coach Emily Fossoh this season, holding the team’s first practice of the season on Feb. 26.
After a full day teaching weights classes and hosting an after-school workout for off-season athletes, Simoneau gave junior Anderson Wood advice on his shot put technique — giving tips on how to practice his form and what muscles to exercise for the optimal performance.
Simoneau continued to help students in similar ways throughout the practice to make sure they are prepared for their events even before the season starts.
“[Student-athletes] are coming [into the gym] and doing some stuff in preseason together and working on their game,” Simoneau said. “So [Wood] is just excited to get started and we were talking about finishing on the ball, you know, so it’d be fun and really enjoyable.”
Simoneau, in his first year ever coaching track and field, was grateful for the opportunity to become the new head coach, drawing on his experience running track in high school.
“When Coach Emily stepped down, I wanted to [coach] since I’ve always enjoyed track,” Simoneau said. “I was excited for the opportunity to be able to get involved with the Track program here and just was excited to work with our athletes and kids here at the school.”
Fossoh has stayed on the team this season to assist Simoneau in his transition to head coach, but she is primarily focusing on coaching the shot put event.
“She just wanted to step down,” junior Carson Graves said. “[Head Coach] had a lot more work to do. You have to do a bunch of stuff, from getting all the spirit wear to organizing the meets and everyone’s events.”
Working with Fossoh and the other coaches has helped Simoneau adjust to his new position comfortably, learning how to organize practice schedules and implement effective drills with the help of the more experienced coaches.
“She’s been super helpful and she’s shared with me a lot of documents that she had from her past and given me a heads up on certain things,” Simoneau said. “And the other district coaches have been really great about helping and trying to communicate things and it’s been really good. Track and field has always been a really tight-knit community.”
The one change they are making to the program this year according to Simoneau is the introduction of Blast Athletic — an online network built specifically for high school and club sports. The goal is to simplify and enhance sports coverage and communication by connecting all athletes on a single social network page.
“It’s really easy to communicate with your athletes and parents and those things,” Simoneau said. “We’ll get everyone on the app and then it just makes it easy as coaches to communicate individually with people or as a group, whether it’s a group as far as throwing group, the jumps group or the sprinter group. We can break it up that way.”
The first week of practice has been mainly focused on discovering the strengths and weaknesses of each athlete, finding the best events for individuals according to Simoneau.
“It’s going to take some time from an organizational standpoint to get things done because the numbers will be pretty high,” Simoneau said. “It’ll be mainly people that are unsure of what they’re going to do, or some of the more speed, power type events that we will be focusing on.”
Since being named head coach, Simoneau has seen several students who were on the fence convinced to join the team.
“I know some of these kids that I think that were kind of on the fence, maybe unsure if they were going to do track before but again, we want as many kids that come out for track as possible,” Simoneau said. “We’re going to work hard and push ourselves, but want this to be a fun team environment where we’re rooting for each other and working to have success.”
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