Monday Motivation: Coach John Arredondo of Valparaiso HS


Welcome back to the "Monday Motivation" series. We invite coaches around the state to give insight into their teams recent performances and have them relay messages that they have shared with their teams at various points in the season.

This week's piece comes from Valparaiso High School girls cross country coach John Arredondo. Coach Arredondo has been with some great programs throughout Northwest Indiana. He started as a boys assistant cross country coach at Portage High School and was also hired as a Track and Field assistant the following spring coaching the sprints. Then in 2014, after many seasons spent at Portage, Coach Arredondo was hired as an assistant at Valparaiso for cross country and track. Coach Arredondo was then hired as Head Girls Cross Country Coach at Valparaiso in 2019 and is also an assistant coach for Valparaiso Girls Track heading up the distance team.

Read below Coach Arredondo's full message discussing his team's performance at the Rudy Skorupa Invite on August 27th, the lessons taught for the week ahead, and the environment of a team after the loss of high caliber graduating seniors. 


Greetings Milesplit fans, coaches, & athletes. I hope your seasons have gotten off to a good start & if not, you still have time to improve! As Coach Horowitz said a few weeks ago, don't panic & stay the course. Continue to do what is right for your athletes & things will work out in the end. 

This past weekend the "Valpo" girls headed over to Lake Central High School & participated in the Rudy Skorupa Invite. It is a great early season meet as we get to see Lake Central, La Porte, Crown Point, Portage (all DAC members) & Illiana Christian. All these teams are highly ranked in our Semi-State so we were anxious to see how we would match up. Normally this is our 1st meet of the season, but we were lucky to be invited to the Larry James Invitational hosted by Chesterton last week, so we were able to run those 1st meet nerves out. Last week, we didn't run our best so a few of our girls were a bit disappointed so from a motivational standpoint, the coaching staff didn't have to do much motivating this week. Many of them had a great week of practice, so they were chomping at the bit to get out there & compete. 

Despite enjoying coming to this meet, we haven't really run that well here. Maybe 1st meet jitters, etc, but our performances haven't been that great. That said, we knew the weather would be nice & as mentioned above, I felt we were ready to run well. Both our squads, varsity & reserve, did not disappoint. In the varsity race, we were led by Grace Thomas who was runner-up to Brenna Sobecki of La Porte.  Nicole Vollrath (LC) was 3rd, our Elzabeth Ehrhardt was 4th, & Ella Olthoff (Ill. Christian) rounded out the top 5. We ended up with 7 in the top 15 as we went 2-4-10-13-15 for 44 points to take the team title. In the reserve race, our Rue Harter, took home the win. Our girls actually went 1-2-3 with Izzy Amendola & Allie Wheeler coming in those spots. Our team went 1-2-3-7-9, finishing with a team score of 22. There were a few PR's but more importantly, lots of smiles after the races. It's always great to see them have success for the work they have put in. We will be at the Manchester Invite & the THSB State Preview meet this weekend so we are excited for those challenges. 

Many of us are in our 3rd-4th week of school. Athletes are tired as they re-adjust. Germs are everywhere. Athletes are getting sick. Adjust & adapt. It's fine to have a plan, but as the old saying goes, write it in pencil! It is very easy to over analyze everything right now. Just take a step back & while the calendar is getting ready to turn to September, there is no need to panic. We tell our athletes to trust us, to trust the training & to trust the process. As coaches, we also need to remember that. Over my years coaching, I have learned that your highs are never that high but more importantly, the lows are never that low, especially this time of year. My coaching staff (Heather Henderlong & Marissa Mcnamara) & I, we preach that to our athletes. There are always things YOU CAN do better. Whether it is warming up, drills, core work, weight work, or simply just being a better person or teammate...we all can improve. I attended Coach Phil Yoder's (FW-Carroll) session at the clinic a few years ago & despite all the great training advice he gave, the biggest thing I took from it was simply, enjoy the journey. As coaches & athletes, I think we get wrapped up in the end result. Enjoy your race. Enjoy your practice runs. Learn from all of them because the races & years go by too quickly. Enjoy the moment you are in because the season will be over before you even realize it. All of this is especially true now as we ramp up training & really start to get into the heavy, "big meet" part of our schedules. 

We have been fortunate to have some great runners come through our program. While I have been here I have had Logan Ferngren, Ava Gilliana, & last year Kaylie Politza. As you can imagine, these are tough athletes to replace. All have left an impact on our program. Specifically to Kaylie, while she was obviously that "low number" that we all love, her impact as a TEAMMATE is her legacy here. She was not only our number one runner, but our number one fan. Our coaching staff has watched that positive energy continue here with this current team & its leaders. The attitude & culture is something that has always been important here, going back to Coach Devries to Coach Nellessen to our current group. We encourage. We support & that's why Kaylie fit in so well here.  As mentioned above, despite who comes & goes, standards & expectations do not change. Obviously her impact on the course is missed (along with another Varsity Sr, Lilly Maldia) but our athletes know ultimately they control how well we do. They are excited for the challenge & have really put the miles in up to this point. They know this year it is important to do those "little things": keep contact with each other, close the gaps during races, & finish races.  We will ultimately see how it plays out. 

Thank you MileSplit for the opportunity. I am truly honored. As Coach Sandlin said a few weeks ago, if there is anything I can do for anyone out there to promote OUR sport, just shoot me an email. I love to talk about training, culture, & music (ha!). We all can learn a lot from each other. Good luck to all of you & your teams the rest of the way!


If you are a coach that wants to be a part of the series this season, reach out to us at milesplitin@gmail.com for more information.