Coming from Purdue University, Raffael Craig makes his debut as the head Track and Field coach for the upcoming season.
By Omar Woods
Sports Editor
Sports
Right before the start of the new semester, Winthrop made a big change to its Track and Field Program. In July of this year, Winthrop made the decision to hire Raffeal Craig as the Head Track and Field Coach for the upcoming season.
Craig is no stranger to leadership roles. Before his hire at Winthrop, he was the assistant coach at Purdue University for two years and also an assistant coach for Louisiana Tech University. Before his college coaching tenures, his coaching journey originally started at a High School in New Jersey.
“I did three years at Purdue. Prior to that, I did a year at Louisiana Tech and before that I did a volunteer year at Texas Tech,” Craig said. “I was actually a high school coach and a math teacher in Millville, New Jersey for fifteen years and then COVID happened and the opportunity presented itself to consider moving up to college.”
Coaching at the high school level has a few differences from coaching at the college level. Craig talked about these differences and the mindset he had when first making the big leap from high school coaching to college coaching.
“Coaching is coaching. The only difference is that you can talk in more detail,” Craig said. “At the youth level, I’m going through the basics. At the high school level, it’s a little bit more. At the college level, we can have more conversations about your training. I can let you have some input in it cause I’m always trying to make sure they understand the why in everything that they do.”
Every coach has their own blueprint of what traits an ideal athlete should have and incorporate into their life. When asked what makes an ideal track athlete, Craig said one main attribute stood out above all: Discipline.
“The biggest one in track and in life is probably discipline. You got to be disciplined to do the right things and to do the little things,” Coach Craig said.
Craig said nailing the basics of warming up and training as well as always trying your hardest are what elevate the good athletes into great ones.
“On the track side of it, it’s the drills, the warm-ups, and doing everything to the best of your ability. Take that into the work force while doing every little thing to the best of your ability well, you are probably the guy getting a bunch of raises,” Craig said.
A few athletes on the Track team have also noticed a positive change in the culture of the program due to Coach Craig’s influence, like track athlete and interactive media major Dominique Nesbitt.
“He brings structure to the culture and that happens to change the team and the attitudes,” Nesbitt said. “He is a huge part of this culture shift.”
Some track running students mentioned how hard Craig pushes them and how that also changed the attitude of the culture. Biology major and track runner Reginald Grant said fall practice has been focused on building up the athletes psychological stamina.
“Right now, we are going hard at fall practice trying to build up mentally right here,” Grant said.
Other track runners, like web development major Shadrach Nvodjo, mentioned how the culture is more focused than before.
“I feel like this year, we are kinda more centered around our work,” Nvodjo said. “With the structure for this year, I feel like the team will have a better outcome.”
Craig has a few expectations and goals for the track team at large. One of his overall main goals for the team is to see improvement from the track athletes on and off the track field.
“My biggest expectation is everybody gets better. If you walked away with a PR, that’s great. If you walked away with PR at the conference meet, then that’s even better,” Craig said. “We are here to support them, and we just want to be a resource that will allow them to get the most out of themselves and get the best experience.”
