By JAKE GOODMAN, Student Reporter
If a winning record isn’t enough, he also has years of experience.
It was a busy offseason for the Rangers while searching for a new head coach. After getting in contact with different coaches who wanted to apply for the job, the search ended in
February as Northwestern hired former Guthrie High School cross country coach Clay Tarter.
Tarter coached at Guthrie for 38 years where he coached track, cross country and
Football. His team has managed to win six state championships for men’s cross country as well as one girls cross country in 2003. He has recently won two state championships in 2009 and
2010. He was also involved with 14 state runner-ups to McGuiness. Tarter has coached 24 all state runners in cross country.
Clay started the cross country program at Guthrie High School in 1982 and coached a student named Paul Dreason who was a strong runner. During Tarter’s first year, he only had two guys qualify for the state meet as Dreason qualified for second place. The second year more runners participated and they went on to win state
One fun memory that Tarter remembers from coaching at Guthrie is staying at the hotel rooms the night after the first state meet with his seniors and sitting in the hot tub
relaxing after a long day at the state meet at Oral Roberts University. Another fun memory took place after winning the first state title when the fifth place guy started second to last ended up making it in the top 30 runners in class 3A.
Each career does have heart wrenching moments. There was a meet in Tarter’s high school coaching career where they placed second and after the race, a Guthrie runner said he could have caught up to a guy to help the team take first place meet. Everybody was thinking they could have done a bit more.
Tarter is planning to recruit freshmen who have good grades and are willing to compete to help the team grow. Tarter said he wants to help the cross country team by getting better at each meet, set new personal records and improve in many areas.
Tarter graduated from Guthrie High School where he later returned to teach U.S. history and geography. After high school, Tarter went on to attend UCO where he graduated in
1976. He has been married for 40 years and attends North Haven church in Norman. With another milestone in place for his career, Tarter said taking the Northwestern job is a big step.
The Northwestern runners are ready to work under the new coach.
“I like our new coach and I think that he is a lot more personable and easier to get along with,” said Manuel Reyes, a sophomore pre-med major from tonkawa. “Coach Tarter is bringing a lot to the table to help us grow as a team, has plenty of experience with winning teams, knows what it takes to train athletes, treat injured athletes and how to push a healthy athlete to his limit.
Coach Tarter is also great at motivating us to work hard with him or on our own. He makes me very excited for the upcoming cross country season and more to come.”
The girls are also ready to work with Tarter as Willow Gahr is prepared for next season. “He seems like a real genuine guy and knows a lot about cross country since he has had more experience,” said Gahr, a biology senior from Carmen. “He seems like he’s in it with us and understands what it’s like coming from nothing and going forward. His experience being a coach for a long time will benefit the incoming freshman and those coming from off season. I think we will be better and stronger as a team. We are all in it together, learning from him as he is from us.”
The men’s and women’s cross country teams began spring practices in late February with
Tarter giving the athletes different workouts.
“Cross Country is a sport to where your head is always thinking because your mind does not want to accept the pain and time that it takes,” Tarter said.