City Heights Runners: Helping Youth Realize Their Potential Through Running
I’ve never lived in City Heights, but I spent many days, summers, and Saturdays in the community.
I attended Clark Middle and Hoover High. The people and streets around in and around these spaces feel part of my life. There is plenty to love about City Heights: the people, the food, the parks—it’s a cultural hub marked by its embracing nature toward all people.
Hidden in the mixed layers of people and organizations in City Heights is City Heights Runners, a free running program for middle and high schoolers. Serving City Heights for more than ten years, the City Heights Runners (CHR) program has trained hundreds of local youth, including myself.
Today, I coach the CHR club at Horace Mann. As a coach, I work to encourage running among youth in City Heights. But it’s more than running; it’s about building character.
It is special training kids in distance running. There is the initial stage where kids say, “Coach, I could never run 30 minutes. I can’t even run one lap!” That is called closed-mindedness. And it is the greatest challenge we face when training Horace Mann kids.
However, standing beside them during the journey and during the victories is incredibly wonderful. Watching them complete their first race, flushed from exhaustion and overwhelmed with surprise and happiness at having finished - there is no greater joy for me than watching another person conquer exactly what they believed impossible!
The confidence boost is propelling.
Within our running niche, we’ve cultivated a unique culture. Respect, integrity, selflessness, generosity, and inclusivity are a few principles we coaches encourage amongst our runners.
As part of our program, we hire high school runners for a summer internship. Their assignment is to encourage and train new runners for a 5k by replicating the high school team culture amongst the middle school team.
We encourage them to be themselves, using their natural skills to relate with middle schoolers. During meetings, we assign roles and review training plans allowing each coach a role and voice at practice.
Coach Brian is a senior at Crawford. He is part of our summer coaching internship this year. Over the last five weeks, his running group advanced from thirty-minute runs to four-mile runs. His special tool is connecting one on one with young athletes. He forms a connection by seeing them for who they are and pushing them toward achievement.
Coach Maua is also a Crawford senior. She is kind and gentle. But she is a woman of authority and justice. Her unique tool is patience. Being a coach pushes her to self-advocate for what she believes is best for the athletes. This looks like her requesting her little sister, a middle school runner on the team, be switched from her group for the betterment of her sister’s training. She sets aside her discomfort and uses her voice to lead exercises and stretches.
Coach Mar is a junior at Crawford. This internship is her first job and her first summer making money. While at first uncertain about interacting with middle schoolers as a leader figure, she learned asking for help is a resource. On a few occasions, we’ve talked one-on-one about managing behavior issues and runner expectations. Her taking action and stepping into her role as a leader looks like asking for assistance and acting on it.
Our goal is to nurture their growth as leaders by creating a space for them to lead, teach, and assume a healthy level of authority and responsibility. Giving the high schooler positively-directed authority, with the instruction to be honest and kind above all else, induces a leadership behavior that provokes middle schoolers to want to run, to want to train, and to want to race strongly.
This team culture emanated at Hoover where City Heights Runners first began, and continues today at Crawford. Dozens of us are now college graduates, and college athletes, working in City Heights. And despite our different paths and schools, we welcome each other as we are wherever we meet.
This is what I demonstrate to the high school coaches. There is a balance between demanding the best from an athlete and encouraging the growth and self-actualization of the person. They see and hear me first show love to the young athlete - “That was one of your best runs so far! I can tell by how comfortable you seemed” - before critiquing - “Next time, be sure to hydrate so you’re less tight.” Leading with empathy and kindness. It is the only way to transform our families and communities to first see the good in people and in life.