By Stephanie Sparrow, reporter

Throughout Jim Thorpe High School, there are a lot of students who participate in sports all year long. Last year, the JT Track and Field team had many accomplishments during their season. They had a handful of athletes who made it to states, with a winning record at the end of the season. With speaking to the head coach Mr. Frank Miller, he told The Olympiad what his thoughts were about this season.

Mr. Miller is one of Jim Thorpe’s science teachers, so what made him decide to become a coach? Mr. Miller stated, “This is my 10th season as the head coach of the track and field team and 13th season overall. I have always been involved in playing sports and really enjoy teaching and working with students who want to achieve success.” For the 2015-16 track and field season, like all coaches, he has hopes for his team, “The hope is continued improvement on a daily basis. If the student-athletes improve on a daily basis, there is a great chance for both team and individual success at the end of the season,”  he told The Olympiad.

With the team already having their first scrimmage at Palisades this year, it gave Mr. Miller an idea of how the season might turn out.

“After our first few competitions, our student-athletes have shown that they can handle adversity and the ability to put setbacks behind them and respond in their upcoming events. By doing this, nothing should rattle our kids and, in turn, it potentially can lead to great team and individual success in the League and Districts aspects of our season,” he stated.

Besides coaching, Mr. Miller enjoys watching the young athletes compete and seeing all their hard work pay off when one of his student-athletes places and earns a metal.

“My favorite event to coach is the hurdles. It is such a demanding event between the need for speed, flexibility, and a ‘fearlessness’ to put yourself on the edge of falling to be great at the event. My favorite event to watch is the 4×400 Meter relay. To be truly great at this event, you need four individuals who just push themselves to the furthest they can go. For relay team success in this event, there is no hiding of anyone because in sprinting one full lap, any weaknesses get observed,” Mr. Miller said.

Just as every other coach, Mr. Miller loves to see his students improve. With being the head coach, he gets to see everyone’s score improve from week to week.  As well as him seeing the improvements, he can also see where improvement needs to be.

“I think we have room to improve across all events. We have the ability to be a really solid and well balanced team if we continue to improve daily as our number goal is that,” said Mr. Miller.

Between teaching and coaching, Mr. Miller is involved with this generation and has been there for students. With his thirteen seasons overall and ten years being head coach, he’s seen a lot on and off the track. The Olympiad asked him for some closing words. His reply was, “The group of student-athletes that are on this year’s track team have been a joy to work with this season. Each day they show up with the proper approach and attitude and understand that what they put into each day, is what they get out during competitions. This group really competes and pushes themselves. These traits won’t only lead to success on the track and in the field, but also are great qualities for success in life.”