Cross Country: Out of the pack, on the sideline

Kyle Soloff ’11 and Ashley Higginson ’11 have spent most of their Friday and Saturday mornings this fall much the same way they have for the past four years: eagerly awaiting the sound of a gun to signal the start of a race.

But this year, when the rest of the pack goes off, they stay behind. Members of the cross country and track teams for four years, Soloff and Higginson are spending their first year after graduation as volunteer assistant coaches, Soloff for Princeton men’s cross country and Higginson for women’s cross country and track.

“I feel the excitement and I feel the nerves, but then the gun goes off, and I’m not on the line,” Soloff said. “That takes some adjusting to and getting used to.”

For Soloff, volunteering alongside eight-year head coach Steve Dolan has been a chance to observe his old coach’s techniques and get experience of his own as he prepares for a career in coaching. He had always been interested in coaching, and he realized it was a true passion of his last year after graduating. Although his running career was over, Soloff did not feel ready to leave the sport.

So far, he has been assisting Dolan with logistics and lineup decision-making, as well as assisting with training and workouts and helping runners with injuries and health problems. According to senior captain Donn Cabral, during practices Soloff sometimes helps runners pace workouts since he is still in shape, and at other times bikes along while they run, encouraging them and providing advice.

“Kyle’s not afraid to be the bad guy if he needs to be,” Cabral said, adding that he and his teammates were very happy to learn that Soloff would be returning because he was one of the most fun teammates to be around.

Soloff said that although it was a little strange coaching his former teammates at first, over the past few months he has learned how to respect boundaries since he is not on the team anymore, while still taking advantage of the unique perspective he provides as a recent graduate.

While he has been learning a lot, and the experience has been beneficial, his first year has not been without its challenges. In particular, he has had a steep learning curve when it comes to helping players recover from injuries, which in the past he had just left up to the trainers. He has also realized how much of a headache it can be to formulate a lineup.

“Our team is very good this year and very deep, so there have been some tough decisions about who’s running what meets,” Soloff said. In addition to coaching, Soloff is working at the Office of Sustainability, where he interned as an undergraduate interested in environmental studies. In the near future he is looking to get a full-time assistant coaching position somewhere and hopes to stay in coaching for the long term.

“Kyle would be an excellent coach,” Dolan said. “He definitely has the right attributes. He’s hardworking, he has a good rapport with people, and he has a good understanding of the sport and what it takes to be good.”

Higginson, a politics concentrator who is deferring law school for a year, is not necessarily planning on staying in coaching for the long-term. A former captain and All-American who placed third in the nation in the Steeplechase her junior year, she is treating this year as an opportunity to train for the Olympic Trials, which will be held in June.

“She’s been to the mountaintop as they say,” head coach Peter Farrell said. “She’s such an accomplished athlete, she’s such an established person in the track community, she’s such an experienced woman, that all of that can’t help but rub off on the team.”

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Farrell noted that since the team has a large freshman class of nine runners this year, it’s helpful to have a coach who is not that far removed from the experience of adjusting to college.

“I wanted to maintain a feminine role on the team, like a leader/mother role,” Higginson said. “Peter’s an amazing coach, and he knows what he’s doing, but the girls need someone that really gets it when it comes to talking about things like midterms week, and some of that silly but important stuff about being a student athlete.”

While Soloff still runs, training is a priority for Higginson, who needs to meet certain standards for the 3000m steeplechase by June in order to qualify for the Olympic Trials and then the London Games 2012. She is living on Nassau Street and training twice a week in New Brunswick with the New Jersey New York Track Club, a team of young professionals and college graduates run by a friend of Farrell’s.

Farrell said that as long as Higginson, who missed five weeks last year with a stress fracture, stays healthy, she has a very good shot at qualifying. Higginson said that it was very helpful for her to be able to spend so much time at Princeton because she can still get advice on her performance and training program from Farrell. It has been beneficial for her to be able to have a mentor with whom she has developed a relationship for four years rather than start over with someone new.

When the season began, she was trying to juggle her training and coaching with a nine-to-five job at a local law firm, but found the balance too exhausting. In order to keep up her commitment to the Tigers, Higginson instead took up a part-time job with the Office of Admissions. So far, she has been helping out by reading applications and hopes to begin giving information sessions and participating in public speaking events.

“It’s good to have somebody in the admissions office, you know?” Farrell said, chuckling.

On days when she has her own workouts, Higginson goes on recovery runs with the team and uses this opportunity to relax with them and provide guidance. But on days when she doesn’t train with her own team, she goes out with the team on long runs and keeps them motivated.

“She brings a fresh perspective as someone who can see the college career with just enough distance that she can still relate to us, but not so much that she’s caught up in the everyday activities,” senior captain Alex Banfich, whom Higginson described as her best friend throughout college, said. “She’s really been great about stepping back and letting me be the captain of my team.”

But does she call her “coach”?

“Only jokingly,” Banfich said.