That is because the university recently announced that former assistant coach Robert Young will be taking over the head coaching duties for track and field.

“Sort of the same job, with a different title, and a shifted, more balanced, load of responsibilities,” he said, when describing his change of position.

Prior to coming to Michigan Tech, Young was a head coach at the high school level in Colorado, so he feels like this change is something that he can handle.

“I’m excited about it,” he said. “It’s a relatively familiar feeling. I coached high school as a head coach for 11 years, so I kind of know what it feels like to be the head coach of something. But, getting into it at this level is exciting and an opportunity to help grow the program.

Michigan Tech’s new track and field head coach Robert Young addresses members of the women’s track and field team last season before a meet. (Photo courtesy of Michigan Tech University)

“I really like the direction we’re headed. We as a staff did some soul searching this past spring, trying to figure out what we are and where we’re going to go, because we don’t want to just do this, we want to do this really well. Figuring out how, given the constraints that we’re working with, and the limitations and the opportunities we have, how do we maximize that to do this.”

Young will still serve as an assistant coach for cross country, which he felt was important as well.

“(I’m) really happy with where we landed on that,” he said. “We’ve got a good picture of what our values as a staff are, and what direction that’s going to be able to push the program. I think being able to have two ‘dueling’ head coaches for the cross country track program will allow us to push in that direction, because the attention isn’t as split. There’s always (been) the split of like is it cross country, is it track?

“So, doing this, potentially, will allow some clarity so that we can more strongly drive in that performance direction. We’re never going to lose sight of supporting our athletes, and they’re here to get it. They’re student athletes. They’re here to get an education. They’re all going to go on and be professional in something that’s not running related. They’re here to enrich their experience and enrich the university and we understand that. But, we want to perform within that context. We want to be good at what we do, and so I think this will help us move in that direction.”

Of course, as with anything, when Young steps on the field this spring, he will be without one of the premier runners in recent years in Clayton Sayen. Sayen, a Houghton native, had an All-American career at Michigan Tech, but finished his eligibility last spring.

“His impact on the program is huge, and actually I think potentially, in some ways, he enabled this,” said Young. “Our success, which was in many ways his success, gives our administration, it probably gives (them) the confidence to go, ‘OK, yeah. They’re doing something right. Let’s keep doing that.'”

Since Young has been around the running programs at Michigan Tech for the last three years under cross country head coach Kristina Owen, he feels he has a good handle on the future direction of the track program.

“I feel really confident that we can hit the ground and just roll, because I have a really good handle on what we are and who we are,” he said. “I know the lay of the land. Now, we can point the ship in this direction.

“I know where we stand, and I have a very clear picture of where we are and the direction that I’d like to see us go.”

Measuring success in track and field is different from measuring success in other sports, like football, hockey, or basketball, where there is a clear winning team and a losing team. Young likens track to more of an individual sport, rather than a team one.

“We don’t look at it in terms of win and losses,” he said. “There is no record … I guess technically you could figure it out, but that is not the important part of our sport. Our sport is, especially on the track side, an individual sport. We are looking to see each of our athletes grow and perform at their best level. Then, as a program, we want to see individual athletes performing at a national level.

“So, our stated coaching staff purpose is to be nationally competitive in all of our track and field events, and cross country as well. We want to have athletes representing Michigan Tech at that national meet in all of the disciplines that we have. That is the target.”

Young admits that while he has lofty goals, it will take some time for the student athletes to work their way there.

“It’s going to take us some time to get to a level where we have every discipline represented, but that is the direction we are trying to go,” he said. “Success for us, or what to watch for, is how well are we doing at making individual conference champions on the track, making national qualifiers, earning All-Americans. That’s the target.”

Having his athletes competitive with each other is just as important as whether they are competitive on the bigger stages.

“There’s this cool thing where team culture makes the individual better, right?” he said. “So having this robust, healthy, competitive team culture within our team lifts everyone up and makes those individual things better. (It) makes some of those accomplishments increasingly more likely because of the team aspect of it.”

In pushing for his team to reach new heights, Young knows that some athletes need different coaching styles than the rest of the group. He feels that is where his background in sports psychology comes in handy.

One such student athlete that tested his skills was Jesse Jacobesse, who also finished her eligibility last spring. Young felt once the two of them found a common ground, her racing success improved.

“She was one that just wanted to do all the training, all the time, and that doesn’t always work,” said Young. “My master’s degree is a sports psych-based coaching degree. Using some of the skills I learned there, (I could say), ‘Hey, let’s try this idea out for how we could potentially help you manage your nerves or deal with this.’

“Some of those skills she really leaned into, and actually turned a corner because of it. She’s the best visual advisor I’ve ever worked with, and it really worked for her. She did tons of reps of practice, running the 800 meters in her head. So, when she got into race time, she’d been there before. She’d seen it in her head so many times. That allowed her to relax and just execute what we had trained her body to do.”

Young likes that challenge of finding out what it takes to bring out the best in each student athlete.

“That’s what makes a good track and field coach, right?” Young asked, “probably a good coach in general. Especially with that somewhat individual nature of track, it’s figuring out what does each kid needs on any given day, and trying to give that to them. Getting it right for every kid, every day, in a program of our size is pretty hard because there’s a lot of them. But, being able to connect to as many of them, and get them what they need on any given day, is sort of the goal. Every practice is kind of about that. Luckily most of them don’t need much.”

One area Young hopes to see improvement on in the future is the training facilities the university provides. While there have numerous improvements to the ice arena, the football field, and even the trails this summer, the track team has to practice indoors mostly, which limits how many disciplines the team can work on within the sport.

“It’s a significant limitation,” he said. “Last year, I think we used the outdoor track at the high school three times on the season. So, we’re training on the indoor track basically entirely, and translating to outdoor in the event areas where it doesn’t really matter. That’s where I think we are at our best.

“In the event areas, we discovered last spring, we trained real hard trying to practice throwing the jav inside. When we got outside to throw the real jav for the first time in a meet, it didn’t translate well, because you just can’t do it. It is definitely a challenge. It’s actually part of (how) we’re going to take the program in a direction. We’re going to lean into the things that we know translate well on the outdoor track.”

Young feels that the track program can ‘lean’ in on running events, especially distance running, to find success.

“Those are going to be our bread and butter events, and we’re going to move away from events where our training is limited and is not conducive to being successful,” he said. “Creating conference championships, national caliber athletes, we can’t train a national-caliber hammer thrower, because we don’t have anywhere we can even throw a hammer. We’re not going to try to do that because it’s not reasonable to do it at that level. So, we’re going to lean into the events where we can train, and we know we can do it.

“Distance running is going to continue to be our bread and butter. The facilities we have, and the coaching staff we have, is conducive to making very quality distance runners. But, at the same time, there’s an opportunity to grow and train well for some of those other events. We’re going to lift those up as we go.”