Inside look: Porter-Gaud Cyclones and coach Hugh Knight

Team name: Porter-Gaud Cyclones
Coach name: Hugh Knight (Porter-Gaud Class of 1998): 14 years coaching. Due to the fact that we compete in so many Invitationals, we do not keep a win-loss record.
Assistant coaches: Larry Salley (Porter-Gaud class of 1987) and Tom Keyser (Porter-Gaud class of 2001)
Number of athletes on boys team and girls team: Boys: 16. Girls: 12
Top returners: Boys: Carson Marr, Ben McElveen, Cameron Ward and James Nicklas
Girls: Eleanor McLoud. 10 of the 11 other girls are brand new to the team this year.

New top runners: Boys: Christian Geils. Christian is only in 7th grade, but he logged more summer miles than any other boy on the team. He is training very well right now and looks to be in our varsity 7.
Girls: Taylor Cristo. Taylor is new to the team this year and looks to make an immediate impact at the front end. She is training very well right now and is a huge addition to our girls program.

Expectations for the season:
Boys: We are coming off of a third place finish at the SCISA state meet and graduated two of our top seven. Ben McElveen had an amazing summer and is quite fit right now. The key to our success will be depth and how quickly our mid pack runners can gain fitness. If we stay injury free and consistently improve, then we should be able to be competitive at the state meet.

Girls: A majority of the team is brand new to the sport of cross country so this will be a fun year. Many of the girls got started in track last spring and decided to join the cross country team. Eleanor McLoud is the fittest she's ever been at the point in the season, and we've got a good pack training hard together. Taylor Cristo has the potential to be among the top runners in SCISA and has been finishing ahead of several of our boys on long runs. I think Ellen Nirenblatt will be a surprise newcomer as well. Her training has been going well and she is getting fitter every day. They are a great group of girls and I look forward to what they can achieve this year.

Any major changes?: Lots of new runners on the girls team!

Team records for XC: We don't keep win loss records, but our boys were third in the state last year after having won the previous four state titles. For the girls, their highest ever team finish in SCISA has been third.

Uniqueness to yourself and/or team: I like to think that the team tends to take on the personality of the coach. All 3 coaches share a very similar philosophy in our approach to coaching. We are all believers that you can learn a lot about yourself and your teammates through hard work. Cross country is a very difficult sport and we are bonded together by the fact that we all compete at the 5K distance. This creates a common bond between all of us as we know what our teammates are going through and what it feels like to suffer. When you suffer together in training and racing, you gain a greater respect for yourself and your teammates. In turn, this brings us all closer together and creates a camaraderie that cannot be developed otherwise.

Meets focusing on this season: The SCISA state meet is our top priority and all other meets take a back seat to this one. That being said, we know that the Lake Murray Invitational and the Low Country Invitational are very fast courses so we look to run some fast times at those meets.

Coaching philosophy: By their very nature, athletes have a desire to please their coaches. When expectations are high, the kids will try to rise to that level. We are blessed to have highly motivated young men and women at Porter-Gaud. They are open and responsive to all advice given to them by their coaches. In terms of leadership and coaching styles, of course my words are important. What I tell them and how I coach them will have an obvious impact on their performance. In addition to this, I am a huge believer in leadership by example. All three coaches are out there running with the kids every day. I want the kids to know that we are feeling what they are feeling. I would never ask an athlete to do something that I myself (and Larry and Tom) would not also be willing to do. If I'm going to assign a 10 mile long run, then I'm going to be doing a 10 mile run as well. In terms of my personal philosophy, I go to work every day with a passion for coaching young athletes, making them into better runners, and imparting valuable life lessons. To be a good coach, you have to know your true purpose (i.e. Who am I and why am I here?). I want to cultivate a love of running in all of my athletes so that they may achieve success as an athlete while also learning valuable skills and training methods that they can carry with them into adulthood. I love nothing more than to hear from former athletes who are still running and say that high school cross country was their catalyst towards a life-long love of running and its health enhancing benefits. I also feel that the mental side of running can be easily neglected. When the running gets tough, the internal voice of fear says that if you just slow down or stop, it will feel better. When the voice of courage can overcome the voice of fear and convince the body to push through the pain, then the athlete will rise to a new level of success. This is how mental toughness is cultivated and small victories can be won every day in training when courage triumphs over fear.

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Get to know Porter Gaud coach Hugh Knight

Training advice as season progresses: Without giving away too much, a summer base and early strength work are very important! Aerobic threshold training is of great importance early on and paves the way for faster VO2 max work as the season progresses. Recovery days are important, but high school athletes are tough and resilient and can handle a pretty high workload. Cross country is also very different from track. While on the track, it's easy to get in a rhythm and get consistent splits. In cross country, the terrain varies and the courses may or may not be marked accurately. The athlete needs to learn to listen to his or her body and focus more on the racing side of the sport. You can't always be focused on your splits and sometimes have to run on your gut and intuition. If someone surges, you have to make the conscious decision to go with them or risk getting dropped and placed into no man's land.

Athlete beliefs: I want my athletes to to understand that there is a clear and direct connection between hard work and positive results. Sure you can have an off day from time to time, but if you consistently put in hard work, positive results will come. Talent alone will not cut it. This is also the best life lesson that they can garner from the wonderful sport of cross country. They will all have jobs as adults and if they learn early on that hard work leads to success, then they will be top performers in their chosen field of work. This is what is so great about running and athletics in general. There is far more learned than just the sport itself. The kids are learning life lessons that will allow them to be a better team player in the workforce, husband or wife at home, and mother or father to their children.

Parent relationship advice: Clear lines of communication are the absolute key to positive relationships. When expectations are known and communicated well, then few problems will arise. I am fortunate to have a wonderfully supportive group of parents at Porter-Gaud. They are all extremely involved in the lives of their children and make coaching their children a pleasure!

Challenges: The biggest challenge in cross country is to get everyone to train over the summer. Their coaches are not always there telling them what to do and they need to have that internal motivation to get out the door and train, even when it is 100 degrees and the easy decision would be to roll over when the alarm goes off!