The CSU East Bay Head Track and Cross Country Coach Ralph Jones traveled to the United States Olympic Committee Training Center after being chosen by USA Track and Field to participate in a rigorous coaching academy.

Last week, Jones traveled to Chula Vista, Calif. to the academy’s training facilities as one of only four coaches to have been awarded the USATF/International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) Academy course.

The training featured seven days of intense training with Olympian and collegiate coaches and athletes from across the world in a variety of sports, and due to his completion of the training, Jones will soon receive an IAAF Academy diploma, the highest coaching certification awarded by the organization, in sprint and hurdles.

“There was a lot of information that was learned over the seven days of instruction, but if I took anything out of it, it was that you can never stop learning,” said Jones.

“As a coach, if you want to be good in your craft, you have to seek new information and new knowledge and always be actively engaged in what’s going on. We’re artist so it’s important for us to be the best artist in our craft as we can,” he continued.

Jones related that the importance of a direct correlation between the athletes and their coaches was highly advised and communicated over the course of the training.

“I learned, from a training and technical standpoint, there are a lot of scientifically centered things, but from just a holistic standpoint, what we’re doing is for the athlete; it’s athlete centered but coach directed,” said Jones.

“There are numerous things that effect positively and or negatively your athletes performance and it’s important as a coach to identify what those things are and come up with an organized plan of action to ensure that you direct those things around your athletes that they’re receiving that information in a positive manner.”

Determining factors in an athlete’s success, according to Jones, are their connections to their family, religion, culture, peers, social clubs, social media and certain habits they may have; essentially all that can both veer the athletes in the right or wrong direction.

With an athlete-centered, coach-directed approach, Jones believes that through the abetment and reinforcement by the coaches themselves along with university sources such as the athletic department, university academic and medical resources, the athlete can align these entities towards a full engagement in their sport.

“One of the things that were pointed out to me was that we have resources which are readily available that we as coaches, don’t take advantage of that are right under our fingertips if we seek them out,” said Jones.

“Here at East Bay, we have a great kinesiology and physical education department and we have exercise physiologist, psychologist, kinesiologist and bio-mechanist right here on campus that I could be utilizing to assist my athletes for success.”

The academy training couldn’t have come at a better time for Jones as he is readily preparing to begin his first season as being head coach of the track team at CSUEB, who had not seen a track season for more than a decade.

With the season set to start in early February, Jones and his coaching staff have begun to pass down the education learned in the academy down to his athletes and has incorporated strategies into his coaching regime.

Before the season gets underway, however, Jones will serve this weekend as an instructor at the USATF Level I Coaching Academy at Chabot College where he will demonstrate his acquired knowledge and expertise in track and field, allowing coaches from grassroots to collegiate levels to gain knowledge about the different aspects of the sport from the mental, physical and biomechanical sides.

Completion of the training last week, will also allow Jones to teach at USATF Level II coaching schools and makes him eligible to coach teams representing the United States at international competitions.

Jones will officially receive his diploma this July after his completion of a case study.

Jones mentions that being surrounded by USATF political decision-makers over the course of his training allowed him to hopefully make some end routes for bringing a seven-day, level II coaching school training to CSUEB in future years.

The USATF is the national governing body for track and field, long-distance running and race walking in the United States. Its coaching education program provides educational opportunities for all levels of coaches and is comprised of Sport Science Intensive, Technical Event-Specific Instruction and Hands on training experience, according to the USATF.org.

“We got instruction from some of the best coaches in the sport and they’re still learning and they’ve been coaching for a good 30 to 40 years so that was very motivational to see,” said Jones. “I look at myself as a life-long learner. I went to this academy to better myself as a coach because I want to be a better coach for my athletes.”