A race with time and space

Coach Matthew Pence teaches Conceptual Physics to juniors and seniors at Armijo High. This is his fourth year teaching and 11th year coaching track and field, which he started doing right after graduating high school in 2009. Here, Mr. Pence is the head coach for the Cross Country and the Track Field teams.

Over the years, he has compiled quite a resume. “I have coached everything but throwing at one point or another, but my specialty is the distance events,” Coach Pence said. “I focus on athletes who run the 800 meters, 1600 meters, and 3200 meters (the half mile, mile and 2 mile).”

Before coming to coach on this campus, Coach Pence graduated from UC Davis with a degree in computer science—after taking a gap year-and-a-half at Solano Community College after his sophomore year. Deciding to coach, however, took a much more painful experience. “I broke my ankle when trying out for the UC Davis cross country team,” he said. Though debilitating to his running career, he turned the incident around, taking up his old high school’s coach’s place after the coach had left during Pence’s senior year.

When asked his favorite things about the sport, he said, “I love track because it is such a simple sport. Run this distance as fast as possible. It was what I was good at in high school and I wanted to stay involved even after my running career ended.” A good second best would be soccer, or football. Or perhaps that would be third, to a more leisurely—yet still competitive—sport.

In his free time, Coach Pence likes to play Magic: The Gathering. He has even traveled around to participate in a few large tournaments (and done fairly well; impressive!).

Before everything shut down, track practices were held most days of the week, starting from 3:15 to about 5:30. Weekend meets could go up to most of the day. League meets were almost every Wednesday and Invitationals were scheduled for almost every Saturday. For races, things were a bit more elaborate. If Armijo was hosting, the coaches had to set up and oversee that each event ran smoothly without much time to spare. When visiting other schools, coaches had more leeway to communicate with their athletes in race plans and prepping for any other event they’d be participating in.

“After races I am breaking down races with them to identify what went well and what didn’t so we can improve for the next race.” All in the name, of course, of taking opportunities to better yourself the next time around. “I want to keep working on becoming a better teacher and track coach,” said Pence, “so I can give my students the best experiences in the classroom and on the track.”