Mission/Philosophy Statement

We are proud of our running programs here at Lewis-Clark State.  We believe that we are helping to prepare our student-athlete runners to be leaders through athletic and academic success.  

In our opinion, the definition of success does not encompass only race times and placings, but also includes understanding, accepting and practicing hard work, teamwork, sacrifice and goal setting.  We strive to provide our runners the resources and leadership to compete at their highest level while pursuing academic excellence. At LCSC we strive to be the best we can possibly be. We want to see our runners be successful in everything they strive for.  We hope to enhance and develop values which foster leadership, self-discipline, teamwork, character and fair play.

We believe that there is a lot more to life than just running and although running is obviously important to us, in order to be successful at running we must work to balance out those other things in our lives that are important.  Including our academics, family, friends, etc…  With this framework we hope to provide opportunities for our runners to learn self-discipline, responsibility, decision-making skills, and assist them in the attainment of goals.

We strive to help our runners become the best runners they can be, but also hope that we have an impact on the long term running success and life successes they will also achieve.

In the end, we hope that those who have chosen to run here at Lewis-Clark State will look back at this experience with joy and happiness and will take the lessons and experiences they have had here and continue to use them for the rest of their lives.

Although this philosophy may sound long winded and very idealistic, we don't want people to think that winning is not important to us.  Yes, we have qualities and other criteria that we hope that our runners cultivate while here, however anyone who knows me knows that I like to win.  I work very hard to put my teams into a position to be successful and to win.  Some can argue that there are good lessons to be learned through a loss or second place, and I don't disagree.  However, there are great lessons to be learned and must be learned in order to win.  Winning is a frame of mind and we hope that all of our athletes will think of themselves and the team that they belonged to as a winner.

    -Dr. Mike Collins, Head Coach

Another couple of things of note about the program that many do not know.  Much of what the program does for training is very scientifically based.  Many workouts are similar to what you would see with Jack Daniels style of training.  In addition, the team does blood testing at the beginning of the season to determine iron levels, so that if there are any problems with runners being anemic or borderline anemic, they can be remedied.  Also, due to a grant that was awarded to Dr. Collins in 2006, the kinesiology program has a metabolic system where runner VO2max values can be determined as well as their anaerobic threshhold.  All of which help in the over all health and wellness of the team and ultimately in their running performance.