With the beginning of the new season, the girls track team experienced a change in coaching staff with the addition of four new coaches.

Changes in the coaching staff, for any sport, isn’t a rare occurrence. “[There are] about 40 changes over the course of a year,” said athletic director Randy Oberembt.

With 36 sports, 225 positions, and 185 coaches, it is no surprise that some coaches may need to be replaced during the year for various reasons.

The new coaching staff mostly affected the sprinters, hurdlers, throwers, and jumpers of the girl’s team, with only two of the sprinting coaches from last season still coaching.

Oberembt, who oversees athletics at New Trier, commented on the change. “When you have multiple staff members that are new, there is a significant challenge in acclimating the staff and the students. The familiarity is gone and you have to overcome that.”

With such a range of experience, many new ideas are brought to the table with the addition of new coaches.

“The advantage [of having new staff] is that you have new ways to do things, different perspectives.”
The most significant change made is the fact that sprinter and jumpers now train together.

Additionally, there is no longer a separation of Junior Varsity and Varsity runners.
“I think it is great that we have all been training together so that everyone can have an equal opportunity to succeed. We get to know other girls on the team who we may not have otherwise practiced with,” said Captain Isabelle Robbins.

The overall response from runners has been generally positive. “I like the new coaches [and] I feel like they pay attention to everyone on the team. Practice is far more organized than it was last year,” said Lily Craley, a sophomore on the team.

Along with the coaches, the senior captains Isabelle Robbins and Alex Cook have helped keep the team on track. “There’s a good group of seniors on the team who stayed [from last year]. That core group of seniors will get us pretty far when we actually start competing in meets,” said one of the new coaches, Tim Kelleher.

Although the team has only attended two meets this season, the hard work is already starting to pay off, according to Coach Jamie Klotz who has been coaching since last year. “In terms of overall performance, we are faster than we were last year at this time which would be indicative of positive performance.”

Robbins also noticed the change, “We have a lot of potential and the changes the coaches have brought to our training have already improved times and performances in our first two meets.”

Head coach Robert Spagnoli, who played an important part in selecting the new coaches, is happy with the change. “The new coaches have brought a wealth of experience, energy, and dedication to NT.”