Transitioning from athlete to coach

By Nate Thiesfeld, Shocker T&F Graduate Assistant

I started out at WSU as a fresh recruit for Steve Rainbolt. I put in my 5 years (1 red shirt year) as Shocker. Somewhere in the midst of my career as Shocker I decided I wanted to continue to be apart of track and field after I graduated.  Following my career at WSU I could not leave Shocker track and field just yet. I moved on to become a graduate assistant under Coach Bolt.

 To be on the other side things are a little different. My day starts with coming to the office and usually doing any task that the coaches throw my way which can vary from taking inventory to running off practice and everything in between. My first job that welcomed me to the world of coaching was a daunting task. I printed out over 20 state track and field results and identified quality juniors.  Now as I see the recruiting letters coming in, I’m glad all the work was worth something.

Besides office work my main job is for inventory and uniforms. As an athlete I was never fully aware of where our apparel and uniforms came from. I thought there was some magic WSU button we pushed and out popped 400 shirts nicely printed with the WSU logo on them… wrong. To outfit a track team there is a lot of work involved in picking out the correct logos, getting sizes from everyone on the team and so on. I appreciate coach Yost a lot more now that I realize all the work she put in over the last few years on uniforms and apparel.

After I do inventory/uniforms and any other odd job that Rainbolt wants me to accomplish its practice time. Every day I want to jump in with the runners and complete the workout, but usual I am helping time or in the weight room watching the athletes. The second speed endurance our team ran (usually the hard workout of the week) I lost my voice yelling times to the athletes. I am far behind Coach Bolt’s booming voice. I need some vocal lessons from Bolt so one day I can yell OOOOOoooooo for an extended period of time.  Another thing I never thought would be hard is timing athletes. When you have 40 runners running on the track with 2 minute intervals and they are all starting at different times. Yeah to say the least I am still learning how to efficiently time and record all the runs. 

This is the next best thing to being an athlete. I love working with this staff, and so far I couldn’t think of anything else I would want to be doing while I am in grad school. I can not wait for Shocker Track and Field to start, it should be a great year. I am excited to be apart of this team this year!