Coaches Spotlight- Chad Walker Starrs Mill
1- Congrats on having a great regular season. When did you first become interested in Track and Field?
I became interested in track and field in high school.
2- Did you compete in HS or College as an athlete? or another Sport?
I ran track at Milton high school because I knew it would help me with football. After high school, I went to the University of West Georgia and played football. I played wide receiver and had a great career.
3- Describe your journey from novice Coach to your Head Coaching position now
After college, I trained and worked for Loren Seagrave while teaching and coaching football and track at Wheeler High School. Loren Seagrave who is one of the most renowned speed coaches in the World. He is known for mechanics and his training program. Lorean was a former coach at LSU and is the founder of Velocity Sports Performance. While at Wheeler High School(1997-2005) I was very fortunate to be surrounded by some great track coaches in the county Craig Hines and David Ravenscraft from Wheeler...also Tom Williams from Walton, Lee Gower from McEachern, and Bill Sheskey from Pope. I learned so much from these coaches during my eight years at Wheeler. I became the head track coach at Wheeler after my second year of teaching and have been a head coach in track ever since 1998.
4- How important is it to have the full support of the AD and resources available to succeed?
I came to Starr's Mill in (2005-present) and I have had great support from our administration, AD, and parents from day one.
5- What are some of the challenges in building a successful program?
We have continued each year to grow as a program both boys and girls. We have about 100 kids that run for our middle school team. When I first took over in 2005, we averaged about 80 kids for our program and today we are averaging 150 kids.
6- Do you have a supportive Track Booster Club?
We have a very supportive booster club and that is important. The challenges are having enough coaches for the amount of kids that we have on the team. We have been fortunate to be able to bring in some community coaches which has helped out a ton.
7- What are your program's Goals every season? County/Region title, State Championship?
As the head boys and girls coach, I want to have both girls and boys at the same level and the biggest challenge is trying to keep both boys and girls at a level that is competitive across the state. We work really hard to keep our program at a competitive level each year. Our goals as a team are to win the region each year and qualify our relay teams and as many individuals as we can for the Sectional/State meets. Since I have been at SM, we have had two runner-up's at the state meet for girls and one runner-up for the boys.
8- Assess your team's Region meet and the opporunities faced at Sectionals to advance.
I thought our region meet went well...our girls tied for first with Forest Park and our boys were 4th. Unfortunately, we lost our best hurdler Taylor Brunskole due to injury and he was ranked in the top two for 5A in the 110H and 300H. He is only a junior and will be back next year. We had a very fast region meet with teams like Mt. Zion, Creekside, Drew, and Forest Park for both boys and girls. McIntosh and Union Grove looked very strong behind Mt. Zion who won the region meet with 147 on the boys side. Northgate and McIntosh girls look very good behind Starr's Mill and Forest Park who tied with 113 points on the girls side. The sectional meet will be a challenge for Starr's Mill but I see our region 4-5A making a strong statement and advancing many athletes out of the sectional to the state meet.
9- What advancements should the GHSA make to bring our Sport on par with the 'other' 47 states ?
The one advancement I would suggest would be to have a qualifying time or a standard to meet during the season. I would also like to see the 4x800 become part of our state meet. We have been running this race as an exhibition race at region for way too long and it is time we get it approved. I am excited to see that we are finally going to a three turn stagger in the 4x400 relay next year.
Bonus- What has been among your favorite memories as a Coach
In 2003 we won the State Championship at Wheeler and that was a great memory. We had some amazing talent at Wheeler including Reggie Witherspoon, Aries Merritt, and David Dickens who were part of that championship team.