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Goetz Prepares for Indoor Track & Field Season
12/3/2020 4:48:00 PM | Cross Country, Track & Field
DURHAM, N.C. – With the indoor track & field season approaching, Daniel Goetz is in the midst of his first year as an assistant coach with the Duke program.
After serving nearly three years in a volunteer assistant role, Goetz was promoted to his current position in July of 2020, and spent the fall working closely with Rhonda Riley in her first season overseeing both the men's and women's cross country squads.
Goetz and Riley helped guide the two teams to their best finishes at the ACC Cross Country Championship since 2012, as the women placed fourth overall while the men claimed fifth. The results were boosted by All-ACC performances from men's senior CJ Ambrosio, women's senior Michaela Reinhart and women's sophomore Samantha Schadler.
Duke's success in women's cross country has been consistent since Goetz joined the staff in 2017. In his first season, Reinhart captured ACC Freshman of the Year in addition to all-conference honors alongside teammate Amanda Beach. The following two seasons saw Reinhart (2018 and 2019), Gabrielle Richichi (2018) and Sara Platek (2019) capture NCAA All-Southeast Region honors.
During the indoor and outdoor track seasons, Goetz has assisted with all women's distance events. He has been directly involved with numerous individual achievements and accolades by Blue Devil runners, including Monica Herber qualifying for the final round of the 10,000m at the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Three Duke distance runners have earned All-ACC status over the past three seasons, with the most recent being Reinhart claiming a silver medal in the 3,000m at the 2020 ACC Indoor Championship.
In a conversation with the Duke communications staff, Goetz reflected on the 2020 cross country season, his personal coaching style and what he looks forward to this track & field season.
What are your thoughts on how the cross country season went in Rhonda Riley's first year overseeing both the men's and women's teams?
"I think overall, it was successful considering all the circumstances with COVID happening in March, not having an outdoor track season, Norm retiring in the spring and then I got hired in July. So, I think there's a lot of new things that everyone had to adapt to and luckily for Rhonda and me, we were really comfortable with what we were doing with the women already and I think our task was to basically earn the trust of the men's team as well. Something that we always talk about is trust is earned. We can always say 'Trust the process,' but it has to be earned as much as it is just given. The men did a really good job of kind of adapting to our process. There's a lot of new things and they did a great job, and I think that was evidenced by the highest finishes that we had [at the ACC Championships] since 2012 on both sides. I think both the men's and the women's teams benefitted from having each other. I think that was one of the biggest changes that we had as a united team, was having all of them kind of under one team. Sam [Schadler] and a couple others in an interview with The Chronicle said that that was one of the biggest differences from this year to last was just more of a team comradery. It's different when you have 18 women versus 42 athletes total. The women did great, especially compared to last year – last year was a big disappointment for us. The men, I think, were slightly disappointed with their finish, thinking they could've been a little bit higher, but considering all the circumstances that they went through with COVID, the new coaching staff and even without nationals – that was kind of a carrot dangling in front of us right away and now it's going to be held in March. I think still with room for improvement, being fourth on the women's side and fifth on the men's side is a step in the right direction and hopefully we keep the ball rolling."
Did you and Coach Riley have to adapt to coaching the men's cross country team the same way they had to adapt to your coaching styles?
"I think the biggest difference is having to organize 42 athletes versus 18. It's a lot easier to have two sets of eyes on 18 athletes and now with Sean-Patrick Oswald as a volunteer for us, having three sets of eyes on 42 athletes, we had to be a little bit more organized. The women did a really good job of being a little bit more autonomous than they needed to in the past because we would have practices overlapping. They had good leadership on the team with the five seniors there. The men have really good leadership as well with their five seniors. We kind of put a lot of responsibility on the athletes and the biggest part of the difference of how our process was – we knew the women already, and of course we added some freshmen in there – but our number one job was getting to know the men and how they tick. They have their own traditions and styles and way of doing things, and we have our ways that we do things. Not that one is better or right or anything like that, but just adapting to those different nuances. I give a lot of credit to the men. It's more than me and coach trying to change them. They're really just autonomous already and self-motivated, and so there wasn't much prodding or poking or motivating that we needed to do – they're really self-motivated already. We always tell our athletes no matter what that they're the drivers and we're kind of the navigation system. We tell them, 'Try to make a left here,' or 'Get back on the road,' or whatever that is. We try to empower them, essentially, and let them tell us what their goals are and we talk about how we're going to get there."
What has it been like being a part of a track & field coaching staff that had some personnel changes during the offseason?
"It's pretty seamless, to be honest. Obviously, I wasn't relatively new to the staff – I'd been here for three years prior to this and so I knew the people on staff here already. A lot of credit goes to Jacky [Mendes] because she's done a great job coming in here and fitting in and doing what she needs to do. Looking ahead to the track season, I think something that Coach Riley and I are looking forward to once we get the opportunity is traveling again as one united team. There's a lot of bonds and talks and discussions that happen when you're on the bus or hanging out at the hotel or being at the track all day. You get to kind of watch other coaches as well. It's fun to watch the other coaches do their thing because in cross country, we're just stuck in the distance world and I think it's a little bit of a different mindset than it is for some of the other events. You just get a different feel for the sport when you're in track & field, and you get to watch the other athletes and coaches and how they interact. You kind of learn from that, to be honest, because they've got a lot of different things that they do. Whether it's how they communicate or how they process things, it's always a learning process for all of us and that's kind of the fun part of it. Each year, you have a new team. You graduate some people, you bring in some new freshmen and maybe some transfers and so each year it's a new team, new dynamic and it's always a process of learning the people and just getting to know them, how they perform and how they operate."
How would you describe your coaching style?
"Something that I've told athletes and I've talked to Coach Riley about is I like when they do something that they've never done before. Whether it's set a new personal best, finish a race at the highest position possible or even just go through their personal battles within a race. In practice, when they come back and they're like, 'I've never felt that way before,' or 'I've never hurt that way before.' Basically, they go through those experiences and they get to see themselves and the world in a different light. It's like opening their eyes to a new level of what they can do and what the world offers, and so I just get really excited about that process. If you watch me at practice, I do a lot of watching. I just like to observe and just see how different athletes operate – whether it's the way they move or how they handle certain stresses. When the opportunity is there to succeed, is that something that excites them? I like the whole process of watching people grow and develop, and hopefully I can help guide them there. I kind of said it before, Coach Riley and I tell this to the athletes – it's their careers, it's their performances, their experiences and we want to be catalysts to have a really positive, formative and challenging experience for them where they come out the other side better runners but also better teammates, better people and maybe they graduate from Duke and can face other life challenges a little more confidently and competently because of their experiences with cross country and track."
What expectations do you have for distance runners in the upcoming indoor track season?
"Our process is not one where we say, 'You need to be here, here and here.' We don't always like to put those pressures from the outside on them because they can be limiting in two ways. One is, you could say, 'You could be here,' and they have a bad performance but still surpass that and think they've had a good performance. Or, they've had a really good performance and fall short of that, and now they're down on themselves. Definitely we want to have goals with individuals, but they're there to state how we get there, and so we focus so much on what we are doing today that's going to set us up for tomorrow, what we are doing this week to set us up for next week and what we are doing this season to set us up for next season. So, we try not to put those limitations of, 'This person is going to do this and this.' Each person's journey is different. We've had people that we didn't expect necessarily to make an impact right away that have and then vice versa, there's always bumps in the road. The other thing we talk about too is each person's individual success is part of the team's success. Say you don't make an All-ACC squad but your teammate happens to score at an ACC meet, which is a really big accomplishment. What we tell our athletes is that result wasn't just a result of what that individual did, but a result of the culture of the team. That's something maybe less tangible, but something that we definitely aim for, is how do we create a culture where people's eyes are lifted to having bigger goals and seeing what's possible?"
#GoDuke
After serving nearly three years in a volunteer assistant role, Goetz was promoted to his current position in July of 2020, and spent the fall working closely with Rhonda Riley in her first season overseeing both the men's and women's cross country squads.
Goetz and Riley helped guide the two teams to their best finishes at the ACC Cross Country Championship since 2012, as the women placed fourth overall while the men claimed fifth. The results were boosted by All-ACC performances from men's senior CJ Ambrosio, women's senior Michaela Reinhart and women's sophomore Samantha Schadler.
Duke's success in women's cross country has been consistent since Goetz joined the staff in 2017. In his first season, Reinhart captured ACC Freshman of the Year in addition to all-conference honors alongside teammate Amanda Beach. The following two seasons saw Reinhart (2018 and 2019), Gabrielle Richichi (2018) and Sara Platek (2019) capture NCAA All-Southeast Region honors.
During the indoor and outdoor track seasons, Goetz has assisted with all women's distance events. He has been directly involved with numerous individual achievements and accolades by Blue Devil runners, including Monica Herber qualifying for the final round of the 10,000m at the 2019 NCAA Outdoor Track & Field Championships. Three Duke distance runners have earned All-ACC status over the past three seasons, with the most recent being Reinhart claiming a silver medal in the 3,000m at the 2020 ACC Indoor Championship.
In a conversation with the Duke communications staff, Goetz reflected on the 2020 cross country season, his personal coaching style and what he looks forward to this track & field season.
What are your thoughts on how the cross country season went in Rhonda Riley's first year overseeing both the men's and women's teams?
"I think overall, it was successful considering all the circumstances with COVID happening in March, not having an outdoor track season, Norm retiring in the spring and then I got hired in July. So, I think there's a lot of new things that everyone had to adapt to and luckily for Rhonda and me, we were really comfortable with what we were doing with the women already and I think our task was to basically earn the trust of the men's team as well. Something that we always talk about is trust is earned. We can always say 'Trust the process,' but it has to be earned as much as it is just given. The men did a really good job of kind of adapting to our process. There's a lot of new things and they did a great job, and I think that was evidenced by the highest finishes that we had [at the ACC Championships] since 2012 on both sides. I think both the men's and the women's teams benefitted from having each other. I think that was one of the biggest changes that we had as a united team, was having all of them kind of under one team. Sam [Schadler] and a couple others in an interview with The Chronicle said that that was one of the biggest differences from this year to last was just more of a team comradery. It's different when you have 18 women versus 42 athletes total. The women did great, especially compared to last year – last year was a big disappointment for us. The men, I think, were slightly disappointed with their finish, thinking they could've been a little bit higher, but considering all the circumstances that they went through with COVID, the new coaching staff and even without nationals – that was kind of a carrot dangling in front of us right away and now it's going to be held in March. I think still with room for improvement, being fourth on the women's side and fifth on the men's side is a step in the right direction and hopefully we keep the ball rolling."
Did you and Coach Riley have to adapt to coaching the men's cross country team the same way they had to adapt to your coaching styles?
"I think the biggest difference is having to organize 42 athletes versus 18. It's a lot easier to have two sets of eyes on 18 athletes and now with Sean-Patrick Oswald as a volunteer for us, having three sets of eyes on 42 athletes, we had to be a little bit more organized. The women did a really good job of being a little bit more autonomous than they needed to in the past because we would have practices overlapping. They had good leadership on the team with the five seniors there. The men have really good leadership as well with their five seniors. We kind of put a lot of responsibility on the athletes and the biggest part of the difference of how our process was – we knew the women already, and of course we added some freshmen in there – but our number one job was getting to know the men and how they tick. They have their own traditions and styles and way of doing things, and we have our ways that we do things. Not that one is better or right or anything like that, but just adapting to those different nuances. I give a lot of credit to the men. It's more than me and coach trying to change them. They're really just autonomous already and self-motivated, and so there wasn't much prodding or poking or motivating that we needed to do – they're really self-motivated already. We always tell our athletes no matter what that they're the drivers and we're kind of the navigation system. We tell them, 'Try to make a left here,' or 'Get back on the road,' or whatever that is. We try to empower them, essentially, and let them tell us what their goals are and we talk about how we're going to get there."
What has it been like being a part of a track & field coaching staff that had some personnel changes during the offseason?
"It's pretty seamless, to be honest. Obviously, I wasn't relatively new to the staff – I'd been here for three years prior to this and so I knew the people on staff here already. A lot of credit goes to Jacky [Mendes] because she's done a great job coming in here and fitting in and doing what she needs to do. Looking ahead to the track season, I think something that Coach Riley and I are looking forward to once we get the opportunity is traveling again as one united team. There's a lot of bonds and talks and discussions that happen when you're on the bus or hanging out at the hotel or being at the track all day. You get to kind of watch other coaches as well. It's fun to watch the other coaches do their thing because in cross country, we're just stuck in the distance world and I think it's a little bit of a different mindset than it is for some of the other events. You just get a different feel for the sport when you're in track & field, and you get to watch the other athletes and coaches and how they interact. You kind of learn from that, to be honest, because they've got a lot of different things that they do. Whether it's how they communicate or how they process things, it's always a learning process for all of us and that's kind of the fun part of it. Each year, you have a new team. You graduate some people, you bring in some new freshmen and maybe some transfers and so each year it's a new team, new dynamic and it's always a process of learning the people and just getting to know them, how they perform and how they operate."
How would you describe your coaching style?
"Something that I've told athletes and I've talked to Coach Riley about is I like when they do something that they've never done before. Whether it's set a new personal best, finish a race at the highest position possible or even just go through their personal battles within a race. In practice, when they come back and they're like, 'I've never felt that way before,' or 'I've never hurt that way before.' Basically, they go through those experiences and they get to see themselves and the world in a different light. It's like opening their eyes to a new level of what they can do and what the world offers, and so I just get really excited about that process. If you watch me at practice, I do a lot of watching. I just like to observe and just see how different athletes operate – whether it's the way they move or how they handle certain stresses. When the opportunity is there to succeed, is that something that excites them? I like the whole process of watching people grow and develop, and hopefully I can help guide them there. I kind of said it before, Coach Riley and I tell this to the athletes – it's their careers, it's their performances, their experiences and we want to be catalysts to have a really positive, formative and challenging experience for them where they come out the other side better runners but also better teammates, better people and maybe they graduate from Duke and can face other life challenges a little more confidently and competently because of their experiences with cross country and track."
What expectations do you have for distance runners in the upcoming indoor track season?
"Our process is not one where we say, 'You need to be here, here and here.' We don't always like to put those pressures from the outside on them because they can be limiting in two ways. One is, you could say, 'You could be here,' and they have a bad performance but still surpass that and think they've had a good performance. Or, they've had a really good performance and fall short of that, and now they're down on themselves. Definitely we want to have goals with individuals, but they're there to state how we get there, and so we focus so much on what we are doing today that's going to set us up for tomorrow, what we are doing this week to set us up for next week and what we are doing this season to set us up for next season. So, we try not to put those limitations of, 'This person is going to do this and this.' Each person's journey is different. We've had people that we didn't expect necessarily to make an impact right away that have and then vice versa, there's always bumps in the road. The other thing we talk about too is each person's individual success is part of the team's success. Say you don't make an All-ACC squad but your teammate happens to score at an ACC meet, which is a really big accomplishment. What we tell our athletes is that result wasn't just a result of what that individual did, but a result of the culture of the team. That's something maybe less tangible, but something that we definitely aim for, is how do we create a culture where people's eyes are lifted to having bigger goals and seeing what's possible?"
#GoDuke
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