Cross county coach Geoff Masanet

How do you like your chances for this season?

I like our chances on the fella’s side. We have a young squad, but they’re very talented. Our sport is a unique one because we can only do as good as we can do and can’t control what our opponents do. We know that some of the other conference schools, Eastern Kentucky in particular, are very strong this year and we’ll do the best we can. If that means we get third or fourth, but we ran the best we could then we’ll be fine with that. On the women’s side, Samford is the heavy favorite. They pretty much have returned everyone from the last couple of years. While they were second last year, they won convincingly two years ago and three years ago. So hopefully we’ll be in the top three this year.

What is it like coaching both the men’s and women’s teams? Is it very difficult?

It is. Sometimes I don’t think people out in the real world acknowledge or understand that aspect of what a lot of distance coaches, cross-country coaches and sometimes track coaches and other sports where you can have both (men’s and women’s teams). Primarily just because you are doubling your numbers. The coach at University of Illinois, for example Wendel McRaven-great guy, great team-he’s more about men’s cross country runners, distance runners when it comes to track. I have to worry about men’s cross country and distance on the track and worry about women’s cross country and distance on the track. It is twice as difficult and takes twice as much time for these kinds of things. There are differences between guys and girls from a personality and emotional standpoint to just the X’s and O’s.

Do you have more difficulty teaching with one more than the other?

I would say there are equal difficulties. Perhaps, as a man, just invariably it’s going to be a little easier time identify with the guys because I am a guy. But I’ve been coaching for 13 years, this being my 14th year, and I’d like to think over time, even as a young guy first coaching right off the bat, that I’ve done a good job coaching the gals and not having gender being any type of issue. So I feel at this point, we are Even Stevens. At this point I don’t see a big difference.

Winning Coach of the Year six times throughout your career, would you say those kinds of awards are important?

No, not at all. When that happens, when you get Coach of the Year, it’s truly just a reflection of what your athletes did that year and to be honest, coaches we try to set up a training program and environment that has students takes leadership or ownership with their own running and their own team. They’re the ones truly doing the running and winning the championships. If we get recognized as the coach of the year for the kids doing well, I suppose that’s a feather in the cap, but it’s truly them doing the work and the ones giving the gift saying “here you go coach, because we did so well you get to be coach of the year.” Personally, it doesn’t do much for me.

Being a graduate of Eastern in 1992, what changes have you noticed at Eastern?

You know, Charleston and Eastern are one of those places where while certainly there are changes, when you look at places like Aurora or my hometown Crystal Lake and compare them to Charleston, there haven’t been tons of changes. And that’s one of the neat things about Charleston is that it’s a bit like a time capsule. Some of the neat things are that have changed are technology driven with the computers everywhere around. I don’t even think I used a computer when I was here except for maybe word processing. With the dining hall system setup now, it’s completely different from back when I was here. You lived in one dorm, you ate at that dorm and you went downstairs and they checked your name off a list. You didn’t scan your ID or anything of that nature. And also with some of the facility upgrades have been great. It’s been 10 years or so since the big athletic facility upgrades around here like baseball and what not. When I was here, the school of business was built and I remember what a big deal that was and how it made the campus look better and now the library has been done for a few years and the new fine arts center-that stuff is neat to see. In a lot of ways, there’s been a lot of changes, but in a good way it hasn’t changed so much that you feel alienated not having been here 15 years or so like me.

If you had a free weekend to do anything you wanted, what would you do?

Interesting. The funny thing is doing cross country and indoor, outdoor track we bang right through the entire year. There are weekends off here and there, but primarily those weekends are spent just chilling at home from being tired from being on the road or whatever. I like camping. I like to do outdoor types of things, and I like to travel so it’s kind of ironic that I’m on the road, it’s actually something I like to do. I like working with animals. One thing I’d like to do if I had a free weekend and the money, I’ve volunteered at many places in the past. I’d probably get on a plane to Utah to volunteer at this place and spend time working and helping animals.

When you were growing up, what did you want to be? Did you always want to be a coach?

When I was growing up, all I wanted to be was a baseball player. And I thought anyone else in the world, if they were a banker, football player or tennis player, anything else than being a Major League Baseball player until I was about 15; I couldn’t believe that’s what people would settle to do with their lives. I had a very narrow view of things and that’s all I ever wanted to do and that sounds nuts. Even in college, I majored in journalism and then was in geography. I felt I wanted to do something to combine those two interests working for National Geographic. I know that’s kind of cliche. I got into coaching when I really started realizing into grad school, that it really wasn’t wanted to do anymore. I always thought what Coach Mack did, boy, that would be a great life and a lot of fun. I never realized how much headaches and work was involved as well, but it wasn’t something I tried to do up until I was out of school for a couple of years.

Have you been able to form a good relationship with your athletes this season? How do you form a good relationship?

It’s been a couple of weeks since this year started, and I think to be honest, our teams have gelled very well. And for what reason I think I have always gelled with most people pretty well is that I’m a pretty approachable person. I’m fairly relaxed with the way I handle things, and I try to form that balance of being a coach and a friend to the kids. I think if you spend time with the kids off the field rather than have them come by your office it helps. We can just hang around and they could swing by my house if they ever wanted to. It especially helps on the road. There’s way more to this than just running fast. I’m still very close with a lot of my old runners when I coached in Kansas City and Long Beach. I was just at a wedding last week with a crew of them actually. Especially now years removed from when you coached those kids, it’s how we did as a team-that stuff is there, but its mostly the relationships that are most important.

Did you jump at the opportunity to come back to coach at Eastern?

I think a lot of people out there who have friends in coaching, colleagues and what not if Coach Mack stepped down, which no one would have every thought he would and he’s one of my best friends, so I kind of knew it was coming when it was coming we’ve talked on a daily basis for the last 20 years. When he decided to step down, I got my stuff together and you could say I jumped at the job, you could say I jumped about 50 times at it. I was obviously excited to be considered and then ultimately to get it.

With Halloween approaching, do you like scary movies or celebrating that holiday?

I love scary movies to begin with, but only the good ones. Some of the garbage that is out there today sort of ticks me off. The original “Dawn of the Dead” is like my favorite movie since the first day I rented it in high school. When the new one came out, it was ok. But I do like that stuff. So, I’m not going out there running around the streets in a scary costume and getting on to kids or anything but I enjoy that. In years past, some of the kids have come to practice dressed in a costume and what not. I encourage people to watch scary movies, but only the good ones, not lame ones.

How would you describe your relationship with your parents? Did they encourage you to get into athletics?

I don’t think any kid acknowledges those kinds of things happening as much as they should and maybe some do and that’s a good thing. I can tell you that everyone’s got parents that work and struggle to get them to come to meets but in retrospect, I can tell you that my parents were at almost every stinkin’ meet I ever ran in high school. I mean as close as possible. Even when it was a Thursday afternoon triangular meet at my high school and my dad had an hour and a half drive from the suburbs to get there after work, he got it done, he got there. Even during my career here, my parents came to the conference and regional meets. You know, it was a way for them to travel but the bottom line is they were there. They were always there and they weren’t appreciated enough by me as much as they should have been.

Do you plan on having a family someday?

Someday, I would assume. My mission in life isn’t to be a hermit, aloof guy until I’m 70. But I do put a lot of time and energy into coaching all of these years and my social life has probably suffered a little bit. The Chucktown isn’t exactly single central for the 30-year-old crowd, but somewhere down the line, sure.

What would you say some of your favorite foods are?

Well, I’m a vegetarian. If you ask my kids they would tell you I eat a lot of cheese pizza, a lot of peanut butter and Cheetos. I have a pretty limited diet. I eat a lot of Mimi’s frozen foods and I’m thankful County Market stocks them. I drink coffee. I love good coffee not like junky coffee. I don’t drink it because I’m addicted, I drink it because mmm-mmm good. So Starbucks coming to town, as much I don’t want to knock Jackson Avenue or Jitter’s and Bliss, I’m very excited by the fact that Starbucks is coming. As a vegetarian, I told my kids I like my animals alive so I can pet them.

Have you ever gotten into any interesting debates about being a vegetarian?

All the time. I welcome it. In a joking way, people always bring that up. I’m just a big animal lover and it’s a decision I made a long time ago. There’s a lot of environmental reasons out there, but my biggest thing is that I like animals and I would rather have them be alive and treated well. But yeah, there’s been some big debates. Most people don’t have very good arguments and I feel often it is a one-sided thing.

Do you prefer to coach in the fall season or in the indoor season?

I think if you talk to any coach in every season you’re in at the time, that that time is the best time. Maybe in the summer if I had time to sit back and pick, I would pick cross because only because there is just something about the freedom of it and the non-specifics of running this distance in this time. On the track that’s what you go for, but with cross time is thrown out the window. In cross, if you work hard and are tough mentally and physically and emotionally, it is the one sport that really pays off probably the most. Plus, when we’re indoors, I’d rather be on an outdoor track.

How often have you had an athlete challenge you to a race?

Not in a long time. And actually I haven’t had many head-to-head challenges; it’s usually a certain distance in a certain time. It’s been awhile. I remember a stupid one a few years back where the track team was doing some hard work out in the fall and it was just a 500-meter time trial to see how fast they could go. I was 28 or whatever and the guys kept giving me grief that I couldn’t run XYZ time that the sprinters we’re trying to run. I just laughed it off and went out there and quite easily hit the time. I actually went a little slow but then kicked like blazes the last hundred meters and I felt pretty good about that. Those challenges don’t come very often.

Where do you see yourself in 20 years?

Well, I hope I’m still here. I feel pretty fortunate to be here. In 20 years, I’d assume to see myself here doing what I’m doing and enjoying it.

What is some of your favorite T.V. shows?

Well I have to have the three big S’s and they are “Seinfield,” ‘South Park” and “The Simpsons”. And no, the Soup Nazi episode is not my favorite “Seinfield” episode.

Cross country coach, Geoff Masanet has been coaching for 13 years. Of those 13 years, he has won six “Coach of the Year” awards. Masanet says that the awards are simply a reflection of what the athletes accomplished throughout the year. Robbie Wroblewski/

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