Jeff Gifford doesn’t think of himself as a cross country coach.

Only during the season, that is.

The recent new head coaching hire for the Missouri Military Academy program is ready to help the school’s distance runners work through all of the months of the calendar, bringing several years of experience as a coach and as an Army veteran. Gifford said he retired from the military in 2020 before spending a couple years coaching middle school and high school cross country and high school track at North Callaway and he was drawn to what the Mexico boys boarding school had to offer.

“When you think of cross country, the facilities are the areas you can run,” Gifford said. “There is a large back campus, with a cross country course that is a beautiful area with trails; there is the Northeast Park nearby, which is great for workouts; and plus, you could be out running on country roads for long runs.

“Also, the nature of a boarding school, especially a military boarding school, (factored in). I was in the military myself for 20 years so I think there is a lot of value that I share with the athletes at the school.”

Gifford’s experience in the military includes combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan as he was artillery in the first half of his career and military intelligence in the second half. The medals and awards he earned include, but aren’t limited to, the Bronze Star Medal, the National Defense Service Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal and Korean Defense Service Medal.

He wasn’t just limited to military activities, however, as he coached distance running in an intramural capacity while he was there. Gifford said his runners ran in events such as a 10-mile race in Washington D.C. and a marathon in New Mexico remembering the Bataan Death March — a fatal event in the Philippines during World War II.

In his years of experience of seeing many runners, Gifford said there is a common thread shared by the best distance runners as they all seem to work year-round and don’t constrain themselves to the period of the season. In that respect, he doesn’t consider himself a cross country coach solely during the months of the season.

“If you want to be a competitive high school program, and to be a successful distance runner, you have to work on aerobic capacity pretty much year-round,” Gifford said. “Some of the higher caliber high school distance runners will run cross country in the fall and continue training through the winter, run distance races for track in the spring and continue training through the summer.”

It is a mentality a program needs to have, Gifford said. Not having conviction to run throughout the year ultimately hurts physically as the body is essentially going to “start from the beginning” after too much of a delay. Competing and staying active in other sports outside of cross country season is helpful, he said, as it aligns with his focus on building up athletes all year.

Gifford said he will stay focused on each runner’s individual improvement throughout the year, starting from when he was hired in June. He said he has a mailing list of the returning runners, so he has been able to communicate through email with cadets who go back to faraway homes during the summer, and has also worked with some who live in Mexico.

“I also have a communication system where I create a Google classroom for the team,” Gifford said. “I’ll put a lot of resources on there — resources on improving performance, injury prevention and things like that. One of the things I like to do is collect as much data on school records that I can and link that in there.”

Athletic director Brian Meny said Gifford seems to be a great fit for the program because of his understanding of MMA’s more restrictive schedule for athletes due to academy responsibilities but mainly because he is willing to go further. Meny said the program will miss Ryan Nowlin in the role, after stepping away from the position for more family time, but Gifford should bring the Colonels plenty of opportunities to get better by going to races like the Brian T Simpson Invite at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia.

“His organizational skills to me seem very outstanding,” Meny said. “He doesn’t believe it is a 4 o’clock to 6 o’clock job, but it’s going beyond those hours to make sure our cadets are prepared and continue to get better.”

The Colonels lost four of their top five runners from last year to graduation, including multiple time state medalist Bryson Powell, but there isn’t any reason to worry, Gifford said. MMA finished seventh at districts a year ago and could at the very least reach eighth with the potential to go higher than seventh.

Gifford said this year’s Colonels have much talent and untapped potential with returning runners and those coming up from middle school. He hopes the quantity will be on par with the quality.

“What I’ll strive to do is bring a larger contingent of athletes to every meet,” Gifford said. “It would be great if we could field a full varsity team (seven) at some of our races and also put 20 boys on the JY team. That would really help in development, and internal competition would increase the overall talent level.”