Personal Profile: Tell us about yourself. Don’t be afraid to brag!
Howdy. Rich Simmons here (often “Richie” to those from Cheney). I’ve been the head cross country coach at Cheney since 2004 and the head track & field coach since 2010. I actually started my coaching career at Wichita East with the 2004 track & field season under Michael Draut.
Historically, Cheney has been much stronger at track & field and our state cross country success has been fairly modest with five different individual medalists and two state trophies during my tenure. But I will say, based on times at the state meet, my 2025 girls might have been 3A champs more often than not in the last fifteen seasons. Just a tough year!
I’m probably more proud of our participation numbers. Prior to 2004, Cheney averaged fewer than 10 athletes on the cross country roster, going back to 1978. Since 2004, we’ve averaged just under 30 athletes a year.
I’m currently working as Special Ed Para at Cheney High School after years as a substitute teacher. I used to own a DVD rental store in Cheney before streaming took over the market.
My hobbies are rather involved. I’ve self-published two novels (Magic Carpet Ride and An Odd Fellow) and am working on a third. I’ve had a history podcast since 2017 called History in Film. I love photography and travel. I’ve been to all 50 states, Europe three times, and went to Japan in 2024.
I’m also a massive movie nerd. There have been 621 movies all-time nominated for the Oscar for best picture. I’ve seen 617 of them (getting close, but it gets hard to find some of them!). Not sure if that’s a brag or a cry for help.
What is your high school/college athletic background?
I attended Cheney public schools from first grade through graduation. Probably like many distance runners, I was never really an athlete or particularly into sports until I stumbled into distance running. I like to say no one ever noticed that the slow, uncoordinated kid never got tired. I had kinda started liking basketball as a freshman, but as I tell my runners now - no one chooses to be a distance runner, it chooses you. I had modest success as a freshman, breaking 5:00 and 11:00 in the 1600 and 3200, respectively. Sophomore year saw a couple fun, breakout races - running my first sub-18:00 5K at the frozen state meet of 1993 in Wamego, and finishing 5th in the 3200 at state track. By junior year basketball was replaced by running 500 miles over the winter and I won the 3200 at state (by 0.06 at the line). That fall I also won state cross country as a senior, but then probably lost a little motivation and got complacent. Senior year was a bit disappointing in track and wasn’t helped by the death of my coach from cancer over spring break.
I went on to run four years at Wichita State University under John JK Kornelson. I’m glad I stuck it out all four years, but my performance was rather underwhelming. I was a middle-of-the-pack guy at best. It was still a good experience and I did end with some PRs my senior year (nothing special - 1:58 in the 800 and 4:04 in the 1500).
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 appreciate the recent attempts at fairer regionals and I’m not sure how this is shaking out in other classifications, but in 3A, based on the initial coaches poll, you have eight of the top nine ranked teams on both the boys and girls sides all going to sub-state at Norton (that will change with Central Heights moving down and going east, but still). A north-south split would be more balanced.
I also roll my eyes at the over emphasis on times in cross country. Some courses and some days are just faster or slower than others. Rankings based on time are silly. I feel like someone more qualified than me could train an AI to handicap courses based on times, wind, and wet bulb data and then assign them a score. e.g. Halstead is Rim Rock -0:37 or something like that. Sorry, I’m kind of a math nerd too.
What is/are your top cross country coaching/athletic memoryies?
Despite what I just said about times not mattering, it’s still obviously fun to PR. If it’s a particularly fast day, you’ll find me 100-200 meters from the finish shouting the current time to my athletes. There’s nothing better than seeing them realize they’re about to have a massive PR and kick it into the finish.
Biggest highlights have to be our girls’ state trophy runs in 2022 and 2025. It’s just rewarding beyond words to see the athletes you’ve been working with every day posing for pictures with the trophy at the end of the season.
What is your favorite meet that your team goes to and why?
We change things up a little each year, but aside from the traffic it’s hard to beat Rim Rock. Another one that sticks out, however, is Hesston. I love their format of only racing against your grade. It’s great for an early season meet and allows for a lot of our freshmen to run their first-ever 5K against only other freshmen.
What’s your go-to workout for your team?
Aside from easy runs, I actually try not to repeat workouts too often during a season. No real reason, but it keeps them from being able to say “I don’t like this workout” because unless they remember it from last season, they don’t know what’s coming. :) But we have a mid-season workout I like that is a change of pace from traditional intervals and I call it the medley. We do a short sprint ladder into tempo 800s into race-pace 1000s and end with some bleacher runs to get them some “hill” work while they’re fatigued.
What’s the best high school race you ever saw/were a part of?
An easy answer for anyone who was there, but the 2017 KU Relays showdown in the 3200 between Cailie Logue, Molly Born, and Emily Venters where they ran 10:09, 10:10, and 10:16, respectively. I guess that’s track, but I’m hard pressed to think of anything that compares in cross country.
Describe/explain a fun tradition your team does or maybe even one you’ve witnessed another team do that promotes a positive team culture.
Probably the posters I make for our time trial. Since 2008 we’ve come up with a different pop culture theme and create a simple 8.5” x 11” poster that the winning time trial team gets to sign. They’re all together in a binder. So we’re now to the point that the first poster is older than my current seniors. This year was Spider-Ran: Far From Slow ("With great lung power comes great responsibility").
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’m calling my shot on AI seeding for regionals. And dedicated cross country courses are seeming to become more and more common, so that’s a trend I could see continuing - at least to the point that there are just a lot more well-maintained and fun courses.
Who has been influential in your running/coaching career?
We really are the sum of all the coaches and athletes we’ve worked with over the years. I hope I’m always learning and adapting from everyone around me. It’s hard not to start and end with my high school coach Vernon Ferguson. He passed away 30 years ago, but those in our area may know the name from our invitational track meet at Cheney each spring.
