Personal Best Sports: Coaches Corner

Personal Best Sports LLC is made up of a group of current and former high school and college track and field coaches dedicated to promoting the great sports of road racing, cross country, indoor and outdoor track & field.

Coaches Bios:

Bill Cason – current Head cross country and track & field coach at Guilford College in Greensboro NC. Coach Cason coached collegiately at Clemson University and UNC Wilmington before joining the staff at Guilford College.

Cason has always enjoyed directing and hosting running competitions and has directed events locally, regionally and nationally since 1986. Cason wants to bring fun and excitement back to the track and field with team scoring, first class awards, music and additional family friendly onsite events to give everyone something fun and interesting to do while the track meet is going on.

E. Wade Williams: Meet Director, Southern Track & Field Championships. Coach Wade is a veteran of 40 plus year’s of very successful coaching at Western Branch (Va) High School, Clemson University and Virginia Military Institute (VMI). Coach Wade has directed or assisted with many track and field competitions to include the Virginia State High School Championships, the Southeastern (SEC) Championships and numerous high school and collegiate invitationals. Wade’s reputation for running on time track meets goes back to the 1960′s. Stay tuned for a more detailed bio on Coach E. Wade Williams.

David W. Blue – Northeast Guilford High School

Coach Blue’s first head coaching job was at Page High School in Greensboro, NC where his women’s track team won the conference championship. That same season Tonya Jeffries from Page won the state championship at 400 meters in 56.6.

The following fall he became head cross country coach at Southeast Guilford High School. That season he coached his runner, John Erickson to a third place finish in the state meet, Erickson ran 15:32 that day on The McAlpine Park course in Charlotte.

Coach Blue began his present position at Northeast Guilford in August of 1982. During his tenure there he has either been head coach of the women’s or men’s track & field teams. He started the women’s cross country program at Northeast and has been its only head coach. Northeast has won 15 conference titles in men’s track, men’s cross country or women’s cross country. Coach Blue has been the head coach for eight of them. As either the head track coach or the event specific coach he is responsible for 31 of the Northeast High School records. He was head coach for both the track team and the cross country team that recorded the highest finish in the state meet in school history. The 1988 women placed 3rd in the state cross country championships while the 2000 men were 5th place in track & field. Individually he has coached 127 all conference cross country runners, seven individual cross country conference champions, numerous track & field all conference athletes and champions. On the state level he coached two ALL STATE cross country runners as well as the state champion at 200 and 400 meters.

In 2001 Coach Blue was fortunate to get to coach the best track & field athlete ever at Northeast Guilford. Brett Wilson recorded the 2nd fastest time in the US in the indoor 500 meters of 1:04.48. He followed that up with the 8th fastest 400 in the spring at 46.91.He won the state at 400 and 200. His 200 time was 21.70. Wilson went on to Wallace State Junior College and Texas Christian University where he on several occasions split 45.9 on relays.

Later on Coach Blue got to coach both of his children to all conference recognition in both track and cross country. His daughter, Liana was all conference in cross country all four years at Northeast and won an individual conference and Guilford County title. She was also all state in the indoor 1000 in 2004. She holds two indoor and three outdoor school records for the Northeast program. She later ran at Charlotte where she was 4th in the Atlantic 10 Conference 10,000 meters.

His son, Adam ran on a state qualifying cross country team in 2008, was a two-time ALL CONFERENCE cross country runner and was a conference runner-up at 3200 meters on the track. He is currently running track and cross country for Coach Bill Cason at Guilford College.

Terrance Herrington: Elite Athlete Coordinator- Terrance’s long and illustrious track career began in Hartsville, SC where he established the still standing 800m and 1600m SC state high school records(1:51.0 and 4:10.2). Terrance raced collegiately at Clemson University where he earned All American certificates at 800m & 1500m while winning ??? A.C.C.individual titles indoors and outdoors.