Mike Vukovcan As is often the case in life, sometimes things are just meant to be.
Back in 2010, Jeff Brunton was an assistant coach for Dave Vestal on the Hopewell High School Football team, along with helping out in the junior high basketball program. However, due to some budget cuts in the Hopewell athletic program and as a way of making some extra income, Brunton was approached about helping out with Hopewell’s Track and Field team. Bruton has a passion for physical training and working out, so he decided to accept the challenge.
The challenge for Brunton was that he had never been involved in Track and Field, which made things interesting.
“I was hesitant at first because I had never competed in track, so I was kind of like we’ll ‘fake it till you make it thing’,” Brunton told Vikings Sports Now. “At first, I was put in charge of coaching the jumps- long jumps, triple jumps, pole vault, high jumps, so I really had to try and figure it out.”
Considering he had no real knowledge of the sport and was put in charge of coaching some challenging events, how did Brunton figure it out?
“A lot of YouTube, to be honest. I remember, my first year, we had 3 sophomore pole vaulters that also had never done it before either, so we were all rookies. We all got on YouTube, we found beginners drills and tried some things out and learned together. Also, I attended some clinics, including one at Slippery Rock in order to learn some of the basics. From there, we just kept working at it, working at it and working at it. It really became addictive.”
“We also went to a lot of meets where our sophomores wouldn’t make the opening heights, and they’d stay there all day just watching the rest of the pole vaulters. They’d watch them, try to pick up things, watched what they were doing and then would bring it back to practice. They got better. One of them, eventually went over 12 feet his senior year, which would’ve tied the old school record.”
Hopewell HS Track and Field
Fortunately for Hopewell and hundreds of current and former athletes in the program, this opportunity was presented to Brunton. He stuck with it and after taking over as head coach in 2014, Brunton has transformed Hopewell’s Track and Field program into the most successful sport in the school district and one of the best teams in Beaver County.
“I just feel the ownership of this program because it’s something that I played a part in building up and something that’s grown,” said Brunton. “I’ve met so many kids over the years that have taught me more than I was able to teach them. For me, it’s just been so rewarding for a decade and a half to keep doing this and be a part of it. I’m proud of our accomplishments as we’ve had a lot of amazing athletes over the years. We’ve broken 21 school records the last 15 years. We’ve had a lot of kids earn Division 1 scholarships, get nationally ranked. I’m proud of that.”
“I’m also proud of the size of the team. Even though our school is half the size it was when I started, we have 100 kids on the roster every year now. I’m so proud of that. It’s also little things. Kids that initially come out just to try and be good at something or just to have fun with their friends, who then fall in love with it, find a passion for one event, put everything they have into it. Even if they don’t become a star athlete, just to see the personal progress that they achieve makes you very proud and proud of them. Track is a sport where everything is objective. You can measure yourself against yourself every day. You can see how much better you’re getting. Even if you’re not beating everyone else, you’re beating you from yesterday. That keeps kids going until they get into that competitive area where now they’re beating other people too.”
One of the more amazing accomplishments of Coach Brunton’s regime is what’s currently happening with the girls’ team. How incredible is this- the Hopewell Girls have not lost a section meet in 8 years. That’s pretty amazing.
“The last time we would’ve lost a section meet would’ve been 2016, which was the last time we were in AAA,” said Brunton. “We’ve always had a very competitive team with the girls because I believe we get the best girl athletes in the school every year, although softball is now starting to cut into that (laughing).”
Brunton noted that with Hopewell being back in AAA competition, that streak will certainly be tested on Tuesday when they host Blackhawk, who is a very balanced team. Hopewell’s strengths are in the sprints, hurdles and throws so they’ll need to take advantage of the events that they have strengths in.
When asking him about the program’s success, Coach Brunton was consistently humble in deflecting the praise to the athletes and refrained from talking about himself. However, he did talk to me about his coaching philosophy that’s led to this decade worth of winning and how he goes about dealing with the different personalities of so many athletes.
“It just comes down to love and passion,” Brunton tells Vikings Sports Now. “I go into every team meeting every season with the starting point of loving every kid on the team, even the kid I just met. When you have kids that maybe need some motivation or maybe they’re traditionally difficult to deal with, I try to deal with them as if they were the most important kid to me. I let them know and show them that they’re incredibly important to me and we’re going to fix this so that you can succeed.”
“I also try and not get caught up in the big picture. I never refer to this as my team because it’s the kids team. I have the attitude that I’m here to serve them and do whatever I can to make them better because that’s the only reason they come out because they want a chance to be good at something. They’re not coming out to track because of me, they don’t owe me anything. We’ve had some very talented athletes who have waivered sometimes on what they want to do. I’ve always told them you don’t owe me anything. You were born with this gift, you don’t owe me, you don’t owe it to the school, you don’t owe it to anyone but yourself to be the best that you can. I’m here just to try and help you but at the end of the day it’s your choice to really be the one that wants it. Because if I’m the one that wants it more than you than it’s not going to work.”
Coaching at any level is far from easy these days but Brunton has a special way of dealing with athletes and getting the best out of them.
The Hopewell School District is fortunate to have him and that he made the decision to start coaching a sport 15 years ago that he knew nothing about. Hopewell and the athletes are better for it.
