For The Tribune
Randy Fife has coached athletes in various sports for more than 30 years, and he lists several factors why he has stayed in coaching for that long.
“I’ve told people if you can find what you’re really passionate about, what you really enjoy, where you think you’re supposed to be, and you get paid to do that, you can’t beat that,” Fife said. “I feel like I’ve found what I was meant do to.
“I enjoyed coaching tennis. When I coached tennis, I loved it. I’ve coached elementary basketball, I’ve coached middle school basketball, I’ve coached boys and girls sports, I coached in the summer, little league and softball.
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“It doesn’t matter what that sport is, I enjoy it. It’s working with kids, seeing progress, motivating kids, teaching fundamentals of whatever sport it is. I think I was meant to coach.”
Fife graduated from Carroll High School (Flora) in 1978 and was named the Cougars’ most valuable performer in cross-country, basketball and track his senior year.
At that time he held the school record in cross-country and the mile run in track.
He advanced to state in the mile and placed eighth.
After graduating from Ball State University, Fife began his teaching and coaching at Madison High School.
Fife served as the head boys tennis coach in the fall, the assistant boys basketball coach in the winter, and the head girls tennis coach in the spring.
“That was part of the condition taking the job,” Fife said. “The principal said, ‘You’ll coach tennis won’t you,’ and I said, ‘yes I will,’ so I became a tennis coach. I was there for three seasons.”
Fife’s basketball coach at Carroll his junior and senior seasons was Gary Merrill. They coached together at Madison and at Seymour.
“When I graduated from Ball State he called and wanted to know if I wanted to come down there and coach basketball,” Fife said. “I interviewed to basically coach basketball, but I coached tennis as well.”
Merrill and Fife came to Seymour together in the fall of 1985.
Fife was Merrill’s JV coach for four years, and Fife also coached boys tennis and was an assistant boys track coach during that time.
Merrill moved to DeKalb and Fife became head basketball coach of the Owls and held that position for three years.
After Fife left basketball, he returned to coach tennis and continued to coach track.
This will be Fife’s 33rd year coaching track and his 15th as head coach of the Owls. He also became boys’ cross-country coach the same year.
He coached the SHS boys to 10 sectional titles between 2004-2017, including five in a row 2007-11.
Last spring he coached both the boys and girls to sectional titles.
He’s had all-state performers in Eric Werskey in 2005 and ’06, and Nolan Fife and Andrew Brock both in 2010. Werskey was a state champion in the discus in 2005 and the shot put in 2006.
Fife also coached the Seymour boys to sectional and regional titles in cross-country (2007-09), and to a semistate runner up in 2007.
He took boys teams to the state finals in 2007 and 2011, and guided the Owls to the Hoosier Hills Conference title in 2015.
He said changes he has seen in cross-country over the years include conditioning, the distance the athletes run and the scheduling.
“When I ran, people just ran cross-country basically to get in shape for other sports,” Fife said. “There were very few runners that were just dedicated to running. Once I got into cross-country coaching I saw there were more kids dedicated to running.
“Now, with the internet, kids can track who’s running, where, and what kind of times everybody’s running. It used to be that if you were a pretty good runner in your part of the state you were probably satisfied. Now you can easily compare yourself to runners form other schools, from different parts of the state, from different parts of the country to kind of know where your at and kind of provide some motivation for you.”
Fife said the numbers have grown over the years.
“I think the first year I had 8 boys, and one year I had 26,” he said. “Typically, I’m pretty happy if we have 18 to 24.”
The tournament cross-country schedule has changed, and Fife said he went to Bedford for the sectional and regional for several years, but the Owls have gone to Brown County in recent years.
He said a few changes have been made in track over the years, with the 3,200 relay replacing the 800 relay, and 330 hurdles replacing the 180s.
“We have better athletes now,” Fife said. “A few of our records have been there a while.”
Many of Fife’s former runners stay in close touch.
“There’s a bond that’s developed; there are kids that I still text, email, make phone calls that graduated years ago that are out of college now that keep in touch,” Fife said. “That’s one of the special things about coaching — it’s hard to develop those relationships through the school year with kids because there’s so many kids, and you really don’t get to spend that much time with them, but with cross-country it’s a rewarding part of the job.”
“In cross-country I see those kids day-after-day, and it’s a smaller group. It’s amazing the tight-knit group that they become. They’re like the Seymour cross-country alumni. They’ll have outings, get-togethers. Kids that have graduated back in 2007 will come to the outing and see those kids who graduated in 2014.”
The former runners stay competitive with the current group at SHS.
“At our midnight 5K, there is always a group of alumni to get together to outscore the varsity,” Fife said. “It’s unofficial, we don’t score the 5K. It’s always a little unofficial competition between the returning runners and the alumni. They’re always trying to recruit alumni that are in shape to get them to come out and run.”
Randy and his wife, Cherie, have four children: Jordan, Nolan, Caitlyn and Lauren.
Jordan qualified for the U.S. Olympic trials in the steeplechase in Oregon in 2008 and 2012 and is now head women’s and cross-country and assistant track coach at Missouri State (in his fourth year).
Nolan, who was a volunteer coach at Indiana State, is in his second year as a volunteer coach at Illinois. He ran on Big Ten cross-country and Big Ten indoor track championship teams at Indiana, and scored at the Big Ten outdoor meet in the steeplechase.
Caitlyn helped coach girls cross-country and track at Center Grove and is now a counselor at a high school near Detroit and Lauren works at the NCAA in Indianapolis.
“There’s not much I’d change about (my career),” Randy said. “I kind of wish I’d have gotten into cross-country a little sooner, but it’s been good and I really enjoy it. I’m blessed. I always seem to get kids that want to work hard.”