Members of the Fountain Hills High School track and field team have been in good spirits after their first three meets, but some athletes weren’t optimistic at the beginning of the season. Kevin Clancy took over as head coach two weeks before the season began, and the transition was not seamless.

“At first, it was a little bit rough because [Clancy] was the only coach,” junior Jentezen Behnke said. “He didn’t have anyone, so I felt bad for him, and then people were kind of confused with everything going on. Once he started getting everything together, everyone’s had a great energy.”

Clancy said there were a lot of protocol changes, such as warmup routines, that the Falcons had to get used to in that first week. Clancy also said his biggest priority in the first week was hiring the right assistant coaches.

Clancy recruited a former Fountain Hills state javelin champion, a Fountain Hills tutor, a Fountain Hills parent, and a former NCAA and Pan American triple jump champion to help the Falcons this year.

“Getting the right pieces in place,” Clancy said. “It took a couple of days, but we’ve been pretty well oiled since then.”

The Falcons, in short, had to accept the reality of the coaching change. The lone rostered freshman, Katherine Hampton, ran cross country last year, so nearly all 33 Falcons had Nick Goodman as a coach prior to Clancy.

“I feel like we miss [Goodman] this season, but Clancy is also a really good coach,” sophomore Elliana Bartman said.

Fortunately for Clancy, he built up a good reputation with student athletes in his first year at Fountain Hills as the sports medicine teacher and assistant coach to both cross country and boys soccer. Clancy also has a master’s in sports coaching and has over 10 years’ experience in both collegiate and high school coaching.

Behnke has a unique perspective on the coaching changes because he never ran for Goodman. Behnke went to Desert Mountain High School his freshman and sophomore years, and he played football for the Falcons last fall instead of cross country. According to Behnke, it was hard for the Falcons to get over losing Goodman, but the turnaround started to happen within the first week.

“Everyone’s wanting to go to state and win state,” Behnke said. “So that’s everyone’s main focus.”

Behnke prefers jumping events, and says his goal is to jump over six feet in the high jump by the end of the season. Behnke is happy with all the assistant coaches that Clancy brought on board, especially Omar Craddock.

Craddock won three NCAA titles at the University of Florida for the triple jump in 2012-2013, and he was the Pan American triple jump champion in 2019. Craddock and other assistants don’t come to every single practice, but they offer lots of wisdom and experience to the Falcons.

Other assistant coaches include Stephanie Lies, a 2020 Fountain Hills alumnus and the Division 3 2019 Arizona javelin champion. Zygmunt Gorgol is an AVID school tutor turned high jump coach, and Patrick Garman has two daughters on the beach volleyball team but is assisting as the pole vault coach.

“When it comes to track, there’s so many people in so many events, I just try to create the structure for them to be successful,” Clancy said.

Outside of the new coaches, not much has changed for the track and field team. Junior Tyler Irvine Violette only had two weeks of track as a freshman before COVID-19, but he ran last season and says the culture of the team has mostly stayed the same.

“Everyone’s always ready to work, ready to put their time in and do their best to go out and compete and have fun,” Violette said. “A lot of kids just do track to have fun, and that’s not a bad thing because they make the culture fun. Then there are kids like me. I want to win every race, which is also good because that makes people want to work hard too.”

One area of the team that Clancy would like to grow is female participation. Only nine of the 33 Falcons are girls, and eight of those nine are underclassmen. Some girls are competing in as many as four events per meet, but Clancy says that’s because they are interested in extra events, and not because they need girls to run extra events for scoring purposes.

Clancy says his coaching style can be hands off at times, but he tries to instill a sense of accountability in the Falcons. Clancy wants to grow the accountability in his younger athletes, since the Falcons only have two seniors in Sebastian Jackson and Anthony Kasson.

“I feel like the difference between this season and last season, personally for me, it’s been harder,” sophomore Skye Alker said. “It’s been a good hard, because I feel like I’ve improved sooner than I did last year, so I kind of like the new coaching style.”

This Friday, March 25, the Falcons go to the NIKE Chandler Rotary Invite at Chandler High School. Clancy said it’s the biggest meet in the state, and he knew about it as a coach in California. The meet also marks the halfway point of the season and is a month before the Northeast Valley Championships on April 25.

Next week, the Falcons host their only home dual meet of the season. The Falcons will host Payson on Wednesday, March 30, in the Battle of the Beeline at Fountain Hills High School.