Running the Tangents With: Levi Huseman

1)  Personal Profile: What is your name and where do you currently coach? How long have you coached there and how long have you been coaching XC and where else have you coached? What are some of your coaching accomplishments in terms of Team State Placings and Individual State Placings? Are you a teacher? If not, what is your profession? Do you coach other sports and, if so, what? Family, interests, hobbies, or anything else that readers may find interesting about you.  Don't be afraid to brag.

My name is Levi Huseman.  I'm one of the coaches at Olathe North High School.  I coach both cross country as well as track and field.  My coaching career started at Olathe North in 2010; I then spent one year at Free State High School with Coach Heffernan and then found my way back to Olathe North and have been here ever since.

Our teams have done relatively well over the years. In cross country, our boys teams were the 6A state champions in 2015, 2017, and 2018 and on the girls side since 2017 our girls have been the state runners up or third place team 5 times. And then between 2020 and 2023 Anjali Hocker Singh became just the 7th individual to win 4 individual cross country state championships. On the track and field side of things our girls teams were the 6A team champions in 2021 and 2026 in addition to a runner up finish in 2024 and our boys were the 6A team champions in 2022, 2023, and 2026 with runner up finishes in 2024 and 2025.

I'm a PE teacher currently but when I started teaching I taught physics and chemistry. My wife Mallory was a head cross country and head track and field coach before she transitioned into a high school administrator and we have two kids that are currently 8 and 10. We all do a lot of stuff outside from skiing in the winter to spending a lot of time at the lake swimming and doing water sports.  We try to mix in a 5K with all 4 of us at a minimum a couple times a year and then both kids are involved in different sports year round.

2)  What is your high school/college athletic background?

  In high school I dabbled in a lot of different sports and did something fall, winter, and spring each year; I played basketball, ran track, ran cross country, and actually played one year of soccer as well.  I realized that I enjoyed running and ended up competing at the University of Kansas on both the cross country and track and field teams.  Cross obviously everyone ran 8K's and 10K's.  During track I ran the shorter races; 800, 1K indoors, Mile/1500, 3K indoors, and then the steeple outdoors.  I've continued to run post college but run more marathons than anything else.

3)  How do you feel about the current state of cross country here in Kansas? What is something you'd change about cross country in Kansas? In the U.S.?

 I think high school cross country in Kansas is honestly in a super exciting time.  Really just high school cross country in general.  The opportunities that everyone has as well as all the access to training/equipment/travel/meets we're really seeing athletes getting a lot better and excelling.  It's cool to see Kansas athletes competing at big out of state meets and national meets and competing well.  I think that in the past a lot of these meets weren't as convenient from a timing perspective or location so we had much fewer kids competing.  I'm very much a believer in the idea that "rising tides lift all boats" and I think that we're in the middle of a metaphorically rising tide.  It's just fun to watch.

I think the thing that I'd want to change is again giving kids more opportunities; to be coached and to travel. The want is there to be coached and/or to go and compete against outside competition.  And ultimately the more support and opportunities we give our athletes the more chance they have to improve.

4)  What is/are your top XC coaching/athletic memory(ies)?

 I don't know that there has been one moment that stands out above the rest.  As far as coaching I remember the travel trips, the bus rides home from meets when we overperformed.  I remember running with the team; when I was still fast enough to be reasonably close and I remember the exact moment when I was no longer fast enough to jump in a workout.  I've always enjoyed after practice when we're done except for stretching and chatting while everyone takes care of the things they need to take care of.  I think it's been the little things that have stuck with me.  And the same for when I was competing, it was walking through campus to practice, the training room, the van rides to our route for the day and the ice baths after.  It's the people, that's what stands out.

5)  What is your favorite meet that your team goes to and why?

 Our travel meets have always been my favorite.  Over the years we've been to Ames, Minneapolis, Stillwater, Sioux Falls and Fayetteville.  This past year we were able to travel with our entire team to the Chili Pepper Festival down in Fayetteville and I think that might be at the top of the list.  It's everything outside of the actual running that I think makes cross country and distance running special and travel trips let you experience with a team.  I've definitely enjoyed those.

Our training is probably more on the boring end of the spectrum.  Our goal is consistent mileage; as much as we can without getting hurt.  We try to have a long run every 7 days all year long except for while we are building back up from a break.  And then save for about 10 weeks in the fall and 10 weeks in the spring, we don't do any workouts at all; just mileage.  Some days it ends up being harder/faster and some days slower and easier; we just call it spontaneous fitness.  When our goal is mileage I've always felt that scheduled workouts tend to get everyone just a little banged up.  And then after about 10 weeks of those we need to back off; never liked the idea of backing off mileage so we skip the workouts to keep the mileage in there.  During those 10 weeks we add in a 20-25 minute continuous tempo and some intervals.  I like the intervals to be 3-4 minutes long with roughly equal rest so depending on where we're at we run for time or somewhere in the 800-1200m range for our varsity kids

7)  What's the best high school race you ever saw/were a part of?

I feel like I've been fortunate to watch a lot of good racing.  In terms of just a stacked race, the 2023 Olathe Twilight boys race had I think 3 of the top 20 ranked runners in the nation at the time and those three guys put on a show.  The first year the Kansas Relays were at Rock Chalk Park we had a group of boys that ran really well in the 4x1600m relay and it was an exciting race.  And then Anjali's senior year at the state cross country meet just because of the pressure and she went out and was absolutely dominant winning by something like 45 seconds.

8)  Describe/explain a fun tradition your team does or maybe even one you've witnessed another team do that promotes a positive team culture.

I think the summer training trips are awesome.  We've had opportunities in the past to do that and those have been something that the kids talk about and I remember as being great for our team culture.  Team dinners are the same way; just getting a chance to hang out apart from running.  Another tradition that I was fortunate to observe was during my one year at Free State.  Coach Heffernan had a campout with the entire team.  They played games, ate, camped in tents, and then ran back to the school in the morning.  We've tried to copy that at Olathe North at different times and I've always thought that was a fantastic culture building event.

9)  20 years from now, describe high school XC. What changes do you think will be made different from today? Faster Times? Different Distances? Rule changes? Anything else?

I don't know what it looks like.  I hope it's filled with a bunch of kids that enjoy running though.  I don't think, or rather I hope, it doesn't look the same as it does today just because I think that if we're not progressing with the rest of the country and world we're doing a disservice to the kids.  But no matter what I hope there are kids that enjoy running. 

10)  Who has been influential in your running/coaching career?

Oh man I feel like I've had a ton of people shape my life.  Experiences just in sports just in general gave me a lot of opportunities but running has definitely given me more than anything else.  My parents got me involved in just about every sport that existed to the point that I thought I was a basketball player for the longest time.  My high school cross country and track coach (Phil Williams but everyone just called him Coach Will) held all of us accountable and honestly gave me my first experience of being on a team.  After graduating high school Chris McAfee who coached at a different school let me come run over the summer with a couple of his athletes that were still running and during college I went back and helped with summer training trips.  My teammates in college, we spent hours and hours together both running and in the van driving to runs or meets or just hanging out.  A lot of the things that our teams now do are things that I picked up from my coaches at KU.  DC and Whit were awesome, I didn't appreciate everything at the time but those experiences absolutely shaped how I coach now both in terms of training and just relating to athletes.  In coaching I bounce ideas off of a lot of people but the ones I ask the most are Aaron Davidson, Chris McAfee, and Justin Wrigley. 

In my personal life I met my wife at a track meet where she was coaching another squad as well and now most of my friends are from our coaching community.  I'd definitely say running has been intertwined in my life and it wouldn't be the same without it.  And the same goes for the people.  I've been blessed to have so many people take an interest in me as a runner, coach, and person.