Scott Swanson
Nathan Whitfield grew up in a sports family, with a dad who has been a longtime assistant in multiple sports at Sweet Home High School.
Frankly, though, a decade ago he probably didn’t see himself leading the track program at his alma mater. In fact, he didn’t even plan to be a teacher.
But thanks to a variety of circumstances, Whitfield now finds himself as head coach for the Huskies, surrounded by a whole new generation of coaches that he’s recruited from his peers from back when he was throwing javelins, the shot, the discus for Sweet Home.
He wants to bring some stability back to Sweet Home track and field after several years of coaching changes and general instability, not the least of it caused by the COVID pandemic.
The Huskies had a group of athletes on the boys side last spring that, reasonably, could have contended for a trophy, if not the 4A Division title, until sports were abruptly canceled for the year with the onset of the coronavirus restrictions.
That would have been then-Head Coach Dakotah Keys’ third season with the Huskies. Keys, also an Oregon State Police trooper, transferred to eastern Oregon last year. Keys had taken over after longtime head coach and biology teacher Billy Snow stepped down at the end of the 2015 season, followed by Alysson Bodenbach at the helm for one year.
Whitfield said he thinks having some continuity in the program will be helpful.
“In the four years since Billy kind of retired, we’ve had a lot of turnover with coaches – not just head coaches, but assistants as well. I am trying to get some of that consistency in here, where, (kids say) ‘Hey, I like this coach. He’s gonna be there. I like working with him’ and get that consistency, get those numbers up.
“It’d be great to have those guys that the kids know, so they go, ‘Hey, he already knows where I’m at and I don’t have to start over.”
A first step, he said, is simply being present at the high school.
“I think me being in the building will help a lot. It’s just, I get to see the kids a lot more every day in the halls, tracking them down, getting them out.”
Having grown up in and competed for Sweet Home and graduated from SHHS, in 2007, he understands the culture.
In high school Whitfield played football, basketball and competed in track and field for the Huskies, just missing qualifying for the state meet as one of the top throwers in the then-Valco League.
He didn’t compete in sports in college, choosing to focus on pursuing an engineering degree at Oregon State University.
“I didn’t want to try to double dip on doing sports and school at the same time,” Whitfield said. “At the same time, I wasn’t out of it and I was still sticking around, coming and watching games. I just wanted to focus on school.”
He started assisting with the Huskies’ track program eight years ago, while he was still in college.
“I started scheduling easier classes during those terms so I could come out and help out, mostly with the javelin back then, and then I started taking on other things.”
He became a full-fledged coach in 2016, under Bodenbach, a former Michigan State University runner who spent a year at the helm in Sweet Home.
Meanwhile, other coaches encouraged Whitfield to consider teaching, so he started substituting in the Special Education room at the high school as an assistant, then “ended up taking over the room the next year.”
His trajectory as a track coach has been aided by “great coaches that came before me,” Whitfield said, citing Snow and wrestling coach Steve Thorpe, with whom he has also served as an assistant, as examples.
Snow, he said, is “probably the best coaches’ coach I ever got to work with. He was great at just enabling us coaches and setting them up for success. And the last couple of years, coaching with Steve Thorpe, getting to watch him and what he does with that great program.”
There’s also Randy Whitfield, a former javelin state champion, who has worked with Sweet Home throwers, primarily in the javelin, for 20-plus years, as well as serving as a football assistant for many years.
“My dad was coaching me the whole way up and I still coach with him today.”
So now Nathan Whitfield is in charge and he’s looking to build the program back to what it was when he was graduating, when the Husky boys and girls were both powerhouses in the state, the boys winning three straight state titles in 2008-10.
“Right now we have decent numbers, but it’s never the numbers you quite want,” he said. “But this year, with COVID and everything else, it’s hard to judge. Compared to what I’m seeing with other teams, we’re maybe a little undersized.
“My dream would be to have 80 or 100 kids out here and start competing for those district and state titles a little bit more consistently.
“In track, numbers always wins,” he said, noting that in 2010, the Huskies last state championship year, the team was the largest it’s ever been.
The Huskies had 57 boys and 37 girls who competed during that season. On the boys side alone they had enough talent to, on paper, win the state title even without Keys, who won the 110 hurdles, the high jump, the pole vault and the long jump. The girls took third in state that year.
“I’d love to get there,” he said. “I’m not expecting to get there overnight, but to work towards that.”
Building the program, he said, will start with younger children, who don’t currently have many organized opportunities to compete in track and field in Sweet Home, unlike other communities from which the Huskies’ competitors come.
“I think it all starts with those little kids’ programs,” Whitfield said, noting how the Sweet Home Mat Club provides talent for the high school wrestling program. The Sweet Home Swim Club also provides a steady stream of future state high school place-winners to the Huskies.
“I’d like to create something like that as well, ” he said. “I remember when Kyler Gaskey was running the little kids program (at the Boys & Girls Club),” Whitfield said. “He got a lot out of those kids and he got a lot of kids out there. Probably the last three or four years, we’ve been able to reap the benefit of that great program. Just building those programs up.”
Coaches in other sports have encouraged their athletes to participate in track, which has also helped the Huskies, he noted.
Track and field helps athletes develop in other sports, as it did him as a three-sport athlete, Whitfield said.
“It’s a great one if you have another primary sport that you want to get in shape for and you want to get stronger and faster. It’s a great sport to have them come out and do that and it helps us and it helps them.
“If you get them in the weight room or get them running more, all that stuff, you’ll see bounds of improvement.
“One thing I remember doing three sports all four years of high school is that I was in great shape, year-round. I was still sore every season, but it was different muscles.”