Personal Leadership Platform

Emily Henson

University of Mount Union

ED 501

Dr. Capel

June 18, 2021

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I am currently a graduate assistant Cross Country/ Track and field coach at the

University of Mount Union. At Mount Union our student population is 50% women and

50% men. We have representation from 28 states and 12 countries. The majority of the

population that I work with are 18-22 year old white americans whose families are in the

middle class socio-econmic background. The average cost of tuition is 22,000 per year.

For most of our students this is a bit of a financial burden, yet they still choose to attend

Mount UnionIt is beneficial that most of our athlete are from similar backgrounds

because it allows the athletes to see themselves in each other and connect by life

experience. My coworkers are all male young adults in the middle class socio-economic

background. Being a female in a male dominated profession is sometimes difficult. It has

been important for me over the past few years to make sure I am strong minded, stand up

for myself, and speak loud and clear.

The emotional/mental culture of my organization is based around trying to get the

best out of each other each and every day. Each one of us has goals and dreams that we

are here to achieve and we don’t hesitate to discuss those topics and hold each other

accountable to them. This culture informs my platform by giving me the information I

need about the group to develop leadership tactics that will allow me to reach, motivate

and push the group to their potential.

As a young coach I am constantly developing my style and philosophy of

leadership. The reason I got into coaching and the one staple focus I had when I started

coaching was relationships. I am who I am today because of the coaches I had in my life

growing up. They each pushed me in different ways, ways that I needed to be pushed.
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They invested in who I was as a person and who I wanted to be. They listened and

believed in my goals and dreams, even when I knew they were too crazy to achieve. Even

today as a coach I continue to look toward mentors to connect with and lead me to be

better at my job. Now, as a coach I try to embody everything I appreciated about the

coaches I had. I want my athletes to know that I care about them as a person first. That I

want their happiness and success above all things. And maybe most importantly, I want

them to know that they can dream crazy dreams and that I’ll be there to hold them

accountable to those dreams.

Throughout this semester we have talked about connecting with other

leaders and leadership as a conversation (Sheehan, 2019). Something I have sought out

from the beginning of my coaching career is people to learn from. I have great mentors

here at Mount Union but I knew it would be beneficial to get information from an outside

source. So i joined a mentorship program where I was connected with a coach from a

very different program. Megan Knoblack works at a division I coach at an Ivy League

institution. I have been able to have conversations with Megan and other colleagues about

the best ways to lead and what has worked for them. Hearing other opinions and being

able to talk through problems with a fresh set of eyes has been a blessing.

Although I work very hard to create a relationship with each of my athletes, I also

try to direct them to each other. If the athletes can learn to lean on their teammates for

support, to share experiences and to push each other throughout this process we will be a

better team and better individuals (Sheehan, 2019). Some things I do to create this

connected web of athletes is to give them tasks. I will make someone in charge of
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keeping everyone positive for a workout. I will send an upperclassmen with an

underclassmen on an easy run practice day to allow them some time to talk and connect. I

will connect one athletes struggles to others so that they feel less alone and can walk

together through whatever they are dealing with. College is such an important time in

these athletes lives. They are changing and trying to figure out who they are while still

trying to accomplish great things. There is no better time to make connections, support

and let them know that whatever they go through in this season of life- they are not alone.

Stepping into a large leadership role at a young age has taught me a very important

lesson- nothings ever going to be perfect. I didn’t step into a perfect program. Although

training is great, it is not perfect. Although we have good athletes on the team, the culture

is not perfect. Although we do a good job in recruiting there are still holes where we

could do better. I am constantly trying to find ways to be better. If we keep doing the

same things year in and year out we are going to be exactly the same at the end of the

day. At the University of Mount Union there is an unspoken standard of excellence.

Mediocrity is not accepted. There is a sense of unsettlement in the air because everyone is

always trying to aim higher, be better, dream bigger. I believe it’s what drew me into the

university. I believe it’s why our academic programs continue to grow and change, it’s

why our graduates have high regards in the working world, and it’s why our athletic

programs are constantly at the top of the Ohio Athletic Conference. Life is short, there is

no time to settle, and the only way to continue getting better is to continue to change.

The mission of the University of Mount Union Mens and Womens Cross Country

and Track and Field program is to develop young adults into hard working, determined,
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and inspiring individuals. As a process and result of this mission we strive to continually

finish in the top 4 at NCAA Division III championships. Our Men's Track program has

26 top 4 finishes at the national level. We have been very successful in that regard and

hope to continue that success. As a student-athlete at Mount Union myself I experienced

a lot of disappoint and heartbreak at the conference and national levels. So, when I joined

the staff in the fall of 2019 one of my main focuses was to get the women's program to

the same level of success as the men's program.

My three biggest goals in my current position are to recruit at least 10 athletes

each year, finish top 2 in our conference on the Mens and womens side in all three

seasonal, and to have at least one athlete qualify to each of the NCAA Division III

National Meets within the year. My first goal of recruiting really supports all of my other

goals. If I recruit 10 athletes to join our team each year I will be supporting the programs

goal of bringing in at least 40 athletes per year. As one of 5 of the recruiters on staff this

will achieve more than my share of the goal. Recruiting is the biggest task that my job

requires and if I don't do it well I wont have the opportunity to do any other part of my

job well. In the college setting we have to recruit athletes to be on our team. First I spend

most of the summer identifying soon-to-be senior athletes who have ran competitive

times that we would be interested in. After I have identified as many seniors in the state

of Ohio and Pennsylvania that I would be interested in recruiting I try to find ways to

contact them. This is a very tedious endeavor and takes a lot of digging. For most of the

school year we spend our days, as a staff, touring campus with prospective student-

athletes. We try to sell them our product- Mount Union. As someone who graduated from
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Mount Union and had a great experience it is easy for me to share how magical it is. I

believe students connect with my excitement and pure joy when talking about all that

Mount Union has to offer. If we don’t bring in top recruits who will be competitive at our

level we can not compete at the level we want to. To do well we have to recruit well. This

year we will have 50 incoming freshman that we recruited. This is our new standard as a

staff. Recruiting well also makes us valuable to the university, a tuition driven institution.

My second goal is focused on doing well in the Ohio Athletic Conference. Our

Mens and Womens cross country team has not been top 2 at the OAC championships

since 2015. There has been a big focus and mental shift to finding and creating gritty

athletes who are willing to put in the volume of work necessary to put Mount Union back

at the top of the conference in Cross Country. We have changed the dialogue to be honest

about how hard it will be to accomplish this goal. We do not sugarcoat anything. We do

not brush over the topic of conference titles, we want it to be a familiar goal in the minds

of our team. With the current athletes we have right now we have a team that has the

talent to accomplish a top 2 performance at the conference level. To get there they will

have to run a little more volume, which I will right into the training. The biggest thing

will be preparing them mentally. Running is just as much mental as it is physical and to

accomplish a feat that this group has not accomplished before will take a lot of mental

strength. We will practice running through tired legs, not being afraid of running at the

front of the pack, as well as convincing this team that if anything they get will have to be

taken. We will have to have 3 athletes finish in the top 15 in each cross country race to be

top 2 as a team. On the track we have been able to accomplish this goal of being top 2 in
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the conference for the past decade. To continue this success we will have to continue to

score more than 30 points on the distance side.

My third goal is to have at least one athlete at each of the three national

championships per year. We have at least one athlete every year who is talented enough

and fit enough to make it to a national meet. The two biggest challenges as a coach in

completing this goal are keeping the athletes healthy and focusing on pushing them as

individuals in training. As a distance coach it is easy to fall in the trap of more is more.

More mileage usually means more aerobic development and conditioning for athletes.

Which means more fitness, but it also means more pounding on the body. It is important

to listen to the athlete and respect the body. In regards to pushing them as individuals, it

is sometimes hard when dealing with a team to prescribe training that is important for just

one athlete instead of training the group as a whole. To ensure that I am able to do this for

the upcoming year I have written out benchmark goals that I would like some of our top

runners to hit during training. Having a plan and goals for training beforehand will hold

me accountable and force me to focus on challenging each individual.

My presentation focused on the goal of recruiting 10 athletes each year. As I

mention in the presentation the most important thing that I would focus on to be able to

accomplish this goal is having 50-60 athletes on campus during their senior year. Going

to at least 5 cross country and track meets to recruit senior athletes. Then, a very

important piece is having a second visit and a second recruiter. Head Coach Kevin Lucas

always says the greasiest wheel gets oiled. So, having them back on campus and having
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someone else in their ear recruiting makes sure that they have Mount Union on their

mind.

A question that someone might ask is how we identify athletes that will push our

program forward. We never turn athletes away if they come to us with interest in joining

our team. I am the primary recruiter for women's distance runners, although I still recruit

all events for both genders. The primary times I look for when identifying recruits are sub

20:30 for 5k, sub 12:30 for 2 miles, sub 5:45 for a mile, and sub 2:30 for 800 meters.

Another question I might encounter is why we don’t spend more time recruiting out of

state, and there are many reasons for this. Ohio is very saturated with good athletes. We

often are able to get all of our recruiting needs fulfilled in Ohio. In the past when we have

spent a good deal of time recruiting out of state it has been in vain. Our second biggest

state representation on the tem is Pennsylvania, so we do spend a little bit of time

recruiting there. Out of the 140 athletes in our program for the 2020-2021 season, 8 of

them were from pennsylvania. Most of the time if they’re interested in us from out of

state they come to us.

Something else I might have encountered during my presentation is about what I

say to the recruits regarding training. A lot of my time spent recruiting is getting to know

the person as an athlete and an individual. I want to know what their experience in the

sport has been like, why they want to continue running, and who they are outside of the

sport. When we do talk about training we talk about how important aerobic development

is, because it’s something that is not accomplished very well in the high school system.
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I hope I was able to share a clear vision of the goals and mission of the Mount

Union Cross Country/ Track and field program. We have a lot of work ahead of us to be

able to accomplish our goals one day. Hopefully with a strict plan to implement we will

continue to grow. I am excited to continue learning and pushing our program forward.
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References

Sheehan, D. R., & About Dr. Rob SheehanDr. Rob Sheehan is the volunteer blog editor

of Insights With Impact and Academic Director of Executive MBA Programs at the

Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland. Read more... (2019,

February 18). Home. Retrieved from

http://insightswithimpact.org/2019/02/18/leadership-is-a-conversation/

Quick Facts. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.mountunion.edu/about-mount/quick-

facts