BHS XC: Duarte reflects on year since retirement

The turkey was on the table a year ago for Jim Duarte — so to speak anyway.

No, not a Thanksgiving meal but the opportunity at a fourth straight cross country state title and the chance to go out on top.

For the former Barstow High School cross country coach, Thanksgivings normally meant the nearing of the pinnacle of the cross country season — the CIF championship race in Fresno, which is held the Saturday after Thanksgiving. An obsession for turkey or Black Friday shopping wasn’t Duarte’s main focus. Winning championships were.

Duarte and the Aztecs’ cross country team entered the CIF Division III cross country championship on Nov. 29, 2008, as favorites to win. They came through, managing to hold off Campolindo and Petaluma for the Aztecs’ sixth CIF championship in eight years.

And then, while accepting the CIF trophy, Duarte suddenly announced his retirement as coach.

In the year since his retirement, Duarte said a burden has been lifted off his shoulders.

“Invariably people always ask me, ‘Do I miss it?’ ” Duarte said. “I always tell them, ‘No, not at all.’ ”

These days Duarte is more relaxed and open to talking about some of the methods that helped
create one of the most successful cross country programs in California if not the country.

Duarte is famously obsessed with the details — everything from stats to keeping his runners healthy. That hasn’t changed. He still has old handouts and record sheets quickly available in the living room of his Barstow home.
The coaching aspect, however, he is done with. After 15 years as the Barstow High School cross country coach, Duarte — while proud of the team’s accomplishments — is glad to be done.

“Before when I had the team, I had strong concerns about my wife, my children ... maybe other close family members and then 20 to 30 kids,” Duarte said. “Those people take up quite a bit of one’s mind. When you don’t have 20 to 30 athletes to think about, it’s a little more relaxing.”

Duarte picked up some of his first coaching lessons sitting in Pauley Pavilion watching John Wooden’s practices as an undergrad at UCLA. Duarte picked up many coaching ideas from the Wizard of Westwood, but he truly began to refine his craft once he took over the Barstow cross country and track teams in 1994.

Duarte became a master of inspiring athletes through a dedication to the psychological aspects of competition.
The Aztecs spent significant time training but that wasn’t even the most time-consuming aspect of coaching, Duarte said. The coach would spend hours planning ways to approach each athlete.

“It’s kind of odd,” Duarte said. “The workouts would take up X amount of time but the team itself took up way more time in my head.”

“Way more time” equated to just about every waking moment, Duarte said.

“I was quite often thinking about what each kid on the team was doing,” he said. “I was conscious of where they were attitude wise. Were they doing the right things? Were they motivated enough? Were they maybe going to have a problem that was going to impede their progress? So in my head, I’d play out conversations I might have with the kid.”

Retirement first hit Duarte while passing the Sierra Ave. exit on Interstate 15 during the last year. It was an area he and his runners stopped at on the way to invitationals, but it gave him pause during recent trips.

“It wasn’t a sadness, and it wasn’t joy either,” Duarte said. “It was just like my life had changed.”

By summer he fully realized he had time for things other than cross country. The previously summer evenings were spent in the desert conducting workouts with his runners. Now he had more time for his wife and family.
These days Duarte has rededicated himself to teaching and spending time with his wife, Debbie Durate, and family.

He plans to eventually pursue his master’s degree, but has found teaching in the classroom more fulfilling than studying for the moment.

“I don’t want it to infringe upon what I’m doing with my students right now,” Duarte said.

At home, he’s a dedicated husband. He said he now does more of the house work than Debbie. He still makes a point of holding a date night on Friday’s with Debbie, a tradition the two started when Friday was one of the few nights he had off from cross country and school.

“I guess now I am more of a captive and slave to her than before,” Duarte said.

During Thanksgivings past, Duarte would have to balance cross country and family activities. The cross country team still worked out on Thanksgiving in preparation the championship race on Saturday. Debbie remembers the rush to get the holiday meal prepared in between workouts.

“It’s nice that he doesn’t have to head out the door,” Debbie said. “It’s way less stressful.”

As the results for this year’s CIF cross country championship come in today, Duarte will likely take a peak at the result. He won’t find any Barstow runners. No Aztecs runners were able to make it past Desert Sky League finals this year, ending a run of 15 straight trips to at least the CIF-Southern Section Finals.

“As the season was close to the beginning, I was saddened by the fact that Barstow wasn’t going to be dominant anymore,” Duarte said. “It’s sad that it’s gone ... for awhile. I mean who knows what will happen in the future. I do know what (Assistant coach Keith) Shipman and I put together is really hard to duplicate.”

Contact the writer:
(760) 256-4124 or
mpeters@desertdispatch.com