After leaving the athletic footwear industry, teaching and coaching for the first time at age 46, cross country Coach Wayne Spinney is now doing what he always wanted to do.
A health and physical education teacher, Coach Spinney takes the reins from Coach Dave Martin, an English teacher who resigned last year after more than a decade coaching the team.
“For me it’s sort of a return to a past I’ve been sort of out of touch with,” Coach Spinney said.
Coach Spinney grew up in Swampscott, a community in the Boston, Mass., area. His career in athletic footwear has taken him gradually west starting in Massachusetts then on to Michigan, California and Oregon.
He has worked for New Balance, L.A. Gear and Avia, primarily in marketing and product development.
Coach Spinney is a 1973 high school graduate. He ran track in college at Northeastern. Boston, at the time, was the hub of the athletic footwear. The students with whom he attended college are now executives throughout the athletic footwear industry.
Coach Spinney said he did well in track and field, winning at the Greater Boston Championships and one of he top steeplechasers. His school was perennially at the top in New England. While he was there, 15 of his teammates could run a 4:15 mile.
While in college, studying to be a teacher, Coach Spinney had work study opportunities that landed him in athletic footwear. While there, he moved up through the ranks at New Balance from a job in a factory store to a product development position. He gained more responsibility and experience.
“I sort of put education behind me,” Coach Spinney said.
He earned his master’s degree in teaching with a focus in health education and minors in health and psychology from Western Oregon University in 2000. He left the athletic footwear industry in 1992 when he ended up at odds with Avia’s upper management and was fired. He returned to school and coached at the high school level and at Western.
“At that point, I said I’m going to go be a teacher,” Coach Spinney said.
After a dozen years in the athletic footwear industry, Coach Spinney said he told a friend, “If this was a perfect world, I’d be teaching and coaching.”
Coach Spinney hasn’t worked with distance runners in six or seven years, he said, not since he coached them at Western.
“I love running,” Coach Spinney said. “I always was sort of an outdoors person.”
He fell in love with athletics after watching Teddy Williams last game at the age of five. Growing up, he wanted to be a baseball player, but between the ages of 13 and 15, he didn’t grow much. As a freshman on his high school football team, “I got pancaked and tore some ligaments in my ankle. Those guys grew. I didn’t grow. I stayed small.”
Still, he was athletic and between his sophomore and junior years he discovered cross country and decided to give it a shot.
He ran a mile every day, but that summer, he attended camp. His first run with the team was seven miles.
“I thought I was going to die,” Coach Spinney said, but he survived and did well enough to qualify as a senior for state championships.
He walked on at Northeastern and eventually won a scholarship and completed a 4:08 mile.
Coach Spinney was a student teacher at Central High School and was introduced to Sweet Home by Athletic Director Jon Oliver. He mentioned Sweet Home may have a position open and introduced him to Sweet Home Athletic Director Larry Johnson.
He applied in Sweet Home and for a position in Los Angeles. He selected the Sweet Home job and likened the view coming into Sweet Home on his commute last week to a pair of shoes that fit just right.
As far as the team, “I feel pretty confident so far,” Coach Spinney said. “I think the boys have a pretty good chance at state depending on what kind of shape there in and what kids come out. Right after I sat down with Dave (Martin), I had the opportunity to look over the names and got more excited.
Coach Spinney said he likes to raise the standard athletically and academically.
“It’s me going back to something I’ve done successfully in the past,” he said. “One of my strengths and gifts in addition to teaching is encouragement.”
The girls’ team hasn’t done quite as well as the boys, Coach Spinney said. A small handful of schools have done well with both. That’s the standard that he would like to reach.
“Sometimes, the biggest thing is just to encourage them,” Coach Spinney said.
At the same time, the girls team has reached high standards, winning an academic award for its GPA last year and having a salutatorian on the team, Coach Spinney said.
Sports are less about building character than socialization for youths, Coach Spinney said. “It builds social ability. Kids realize, hey, I’m just like everybody else.”
Coach Spinney wants to help out that way in other areas. Potentially, he may like to build a skateboard club.
After all, he used to design skateboard shoes and loves talking to youths about skateboarding.