Justin Cooper, the new girls track and field head coach, said he came to Glenbrook North because it seemed like a great place to work.
“[GBN has] such a great tradition of students that work really hard in the classroom and do a great job of being involved in their community,” said Cooper. “It seems like a great place for students to excel.”
Cooper ran track at Carthage College, competing in long jump and decathlons. In college, Cooper was selected to the All-Conference team twice, as a sophomore and senior. After college, he worked and coached at Lakes Community. There, he was the assistant girls track and field coach for four years and the head coach his last year.
While coaching at Lakes Community, he had athletes win the state meet in the 4 x 800 meter relay in both 2012 and 2013. He also had an athlete place in the long jump and high jump at the state meet last year.
Assistant coach Peggy Holecek said she thinks Cooper will bring a nice variety of knowledge and experience to the team.
“He was a decathlete in college,” said Holecek. “I think he’s going to bring a lot of practical, interesting [and] fresh ideas to our staff.”
Another assistant coach, Rob Berg, has rejoined the coaching staff this year after taking a break while his daughters were in high school. Berg agrees with Holecek that Cooper will use his background to provide a unique coaching perspective.
“It says something that [the Athletic Department] went out and chose somebody who’s an experienced coach,” said Berg. “I think that really matters that you have someone that [is] brought in from a pretty successful program, who [has] experience and knows what it takes to build a winning tradition.”
Cooper said he wants to start the trend of winning conference every year.
“I think there’s a real sense of pride that comes from winning conference,” Berg said.
Cooper said to achieve his goal, the girls will be working in the weight room twice a week to prevent injuries, swimming to have a non-impact workout and tapering when it comes to bigger meets.
“Whether we attain that goal [of winning a conference championship] or not will kind of be determined [by] how hard we work during preseason workouts, during [the] indoor season and just how the team kind of gels together,” Cooper said.
He said he also plans on doing fun things, such as relays, with the team on Fridays to help the girls become closer.
“When you’re tired, exhausted, you’re on that last lap of your mile race, and you have your teammates that you’ve worked with and trained with the entire season there helping you and cheering you on, it helps a lot,” said Cooper. “It just lends itself to having a more team-oriented atmosphere.”
The first meet is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 12, at New Trier.
“[I am] really excited to have this opportunity and I’m really looking forward to seeing where our student-athletes can kind of build on their successes in the past,” Cooper said.