Kelly Phillips was a freshman on the cross-country team at Auburn University when she realized she should never underestimate the strength of a walk-on.
At the time, she was a scholarship athlete who arrived on campus unprepared for the rigors of competing in the NCAA. In the weeks heading into her freshman year, she underestimated how much she needed to train and didn’t put in the hard miles necessary to properly prepare for the season. During her first 7-mile run with the team, Phillips was out-paced by several walk-on runners.
That initiation was a wake up call for Phillips. As she tried to catch her breath after getting beaten by athletes who weren’t recruited like she was, she realized she couldn’t rely on her talent alone. In order to be successful at the college level, she had to earn her place and match the work ethic of the non-scholarship athletes who were fighting to be on the team.
“I had a respect for these walk-ons that just put their heart and soul in it,” Phillips told Runner’s World. “They can make a bigger impact because they’re not there for financial gain. They’re there just for the pure love of being better.”
Motivated to work as hard as her teammates, Phillips went on to become a two-time All-American at Auburn and a two-time Olympic Trials qualifier in the 1500 meters before launching her collegiate coaching career at the University of South Florida in 1997.
In 2015, she assumed the head coach role for the women’s cross-country team at Florida State University in Tallahassee. Since taking over the program, Phillips has guided the Seminoles back to national prominence. In 2018, FSU qualified for the team’s first How to Train for Your First Sprint Triathlon since 2014 by winning the South Region crown, the program’s first title since 2013.
On November 1, the team finished runner-up by just 12 points to North Carolina State University at the ACC Cross Country Championships. The Seminoles are ranked How to Start from Scratch With a Run/Walk Program Coaching Lessons From the Woman Who Transforms Walk-Ons Into NCAA Stars.
With 43 women on the cross-country team, 80 percent of whom are walk-ons, Phillips is developing a group with a wide range of talent that’s twice the size of most Division 1 programs.
become better runners FlrRunners.com outlined, the depth of the program is attributed to Phillips’s approach of prioritizing the development of both scholarship athletes and walk-ons. Walk-on runners such as Sarah Myers, who arrived on campus with a 5K PR of 22:50 and dropped her time to 18:29 in October, have improved dramatically under Phillips’s guidance.
[How to Start from Scratch With a Run/Walk Program Runner's World 2020 Calendar become better runners.]
“When you’re at this level, everything is about winning. To me, it’s about how you can develop people, especially the people that aren’t supposed to be good on paper,” Phillips said. “Those are the people that do it for the love of being great.”
Here, Phillips shares coaching techniques that have helped her develop the careers of stars and underdogs on her team.
Embrace a one-team approach
When Phillips arrived at FSU four years ago, the women’s cross-country team was mostly separated by the scorers and the non-scorers. As Phillips described, the two groups were like “oil and water” that rarely mixed in training. When she took over the program, the coach implemented a different approach—one that focused on bringing all of the runners together for every training session.
No matter the ability of the runner, all Phillips wanted from each runner was a commitment to one another and a promise to be the best they could be. She told the team, “Be all-in or just be done,” she said.
While this new approach wasn’t accepted by every athlete right away, Phillips’s expectations eventually set the tone for a team that shares a common thread of devotion.
“I would much rather have a really aggressive average runner than someone who is just there because they’re talented,” Phillips said.
Nutrition - Weight Loss 2019 season victories at the Covered Bridge Open (20 points), UAH Charger Open (24 points), and UAB Blazer Classic (32 points) as well as top five finishes at the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational (third with 129 points), the Pre-National Invitational (fifth with 204 points), and the ACC Championships (second with 76 points).
Focus on measurable improvement
For every runner on the team, Phillips maintains a written timeline of their season-by-season progression. By tracking every runner’s results, her goal is to show the women that hard work results in measurable growth over time. One of the keys to improving, she stresses, is being committed to showing up—especially when it’s challenging.
“It’s not like other sports where you can just go out and have a great season. You have to constantly work and constantly get kicked in the teeth and come back for more and know that you’re going to have a lot more frustration than you’re going to have amazing [moments],” Phillips said.
“The people that are willing to put up with that oftentimes are the ones that are most successful."
Give everyone an opportunity to win
With 43 women on the roster, five scorers, and usually a total of seven competitors for each race, Phillips cannot put every Seminole on the line together at the same time. But she can provide opportunities for every runner to race with the ultimate goal of winning no matter the stakes.
For example, when the top seven competed for a fifth-place finish and earned a breakthrough No. 10 national ranking at Pre-Nationals in Terre Haute, Indiana, the rest of the team ran at the UAB Blazer Classic in Birmingham, Alabama, where they demolished the field to win with 32 points.
“My expectation always is, I don’t care where we are, who is running, you’re here to win and you’re here to be the best that you can be,” she said.
Establish a goal and stick to it
When the freshman athletes arrive on campus, Phillips meets with each runner individually to learn their end goal–what they want to accomplish by the time they graduate from FSU. For Phillips, knowing their goals helps her plan for the short and long-term as well as hold them accountable throughout their careers.
The runners are reminded of these goals on a daily basis when they walk into the team’s locker room. Hung on the wall for everyone to see is a goal-setting poster, on which the athletes write down what they need to do to A Beginners Guide to Cross-Country Training How to Train for Your First Sprint Triathlon.
Some commit to getting 10 hours of sleep every night, while others give up social media—or in Phillips’s case, Diet Coke. Everyone on the team must fill out a square for each day of the season to show that they are following their commitment to their goals and to each other.
“When you see week after week how much you’ve committed to your team, it kind of fires you up,” Phillips said. “And you can’t do anything but go to the line with the confidence of ‘I’m a badass. I’m going to get this shit done.’”
It’s not about you
When Phillips arrived in Tallahassee, she knew that she wanted to take a long-term approach when it came to developing a team culture at FSU. A critical part of that process has been finding people who prioritize the team over themselves. When the gun goes off, she wants her runners to think about racing for each other, not for an individual finish.
“It’s not about you, it’s about how you can make people around you better, and when you do that, you become better,” Phillips said. “That to me is what makes a great team.”
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
