At the end of the 2019-2020 school year, AHS welcomed a new staff member: the Girls Cross Country coach Jacques Sallberg. While last year’s track season ended prematurely with the coronavirus lockdown, Coach Sallberg is sure to help the team reach new heights when cross country season returns.

A former professional runner himself, Coach Sallberg started running cross country as a high school sophomore, and after earning a scholarship through running, ran semi-professional during and after college before focusing on coaching. As for coaching itself, he actually had plenty of experience for it before officially pursuing coaching as a professional career. 

“I actually started my senior year in high school. We didn’t have a distance coach, so I decided to help them out. It was much harder than I thought it would be, but it set the foundation for what was to come,” Coach Sallberg notes. “While in college, I began coaching youth runners and even some of the runners on my team during the off season. At the tail end of my professional career I worked with youth, high school, and collegiate runners as well as coaching several youth running clubs and serving as a consultant to high school coaches throughout the San Gabriel Valley. I’ve been running and coaching now for almost 30 years.”

When asked about his favorite part about coaching, Coach Sallberg answered, “There is tremendous fulfillment in helping athletes reach their goals. This is probably my favorite part about coaching.”

While Coach Sallberg enjoys coaching, it certainly isn’t an easy job. “I am responsible for teaching and mentoring a diverse student population the fundamentals of cross country training and racing which include, but are not limited to the planning, organization, and implementation of a sound training plan that has an emphasis on developing successfully competitive athletes,” he said.

Even in the off-season, when racing hasn’t started yet, Coach Sallberg continues to stay active as a coach. Besides helping student athletes prepare for the season, he still has plenty of other responsibilities, including “formulating objectives for the upcoming season and keeping abreast of new ideas and techniques by attending clinics and workshops.”

He is also tasked with being knowledgeable about the ins and outs of cross country, as well as any CIF rules and regulations concerning the sport.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Coach Sallberg is now also required to “adhere to proper procedures for out-of-season practices according to state high school association guidelines and to the rules and regulations of AHS.”

Additionally, with school closures and the coronavirus still on high alert, this year’s cross country season has been condensed to a few short months as opposed to the usual semester-long duration and will only start in December. With in-person group practices unlikely to happen until a few weeks prior to the start of the season, Coach Sallberg has resorted to conducting most of his coaching through email and text messages. 

Despite the unique challenges posed by the pandemic, however, Coach Sallberg still has high hopes for this year’s cross country season. The “first goal would be to physically be in the presence of the whole team.”

After that, “once the team is given clearance for this, all the right pieces should fall into place and we can start looking forward to racing competitively when the season begins.”

Photo courtesy of SCAUSATF.ORG