Get to know Dani Cook: Sixth year running coach at Fossil Ridge HS
FORT COLLINS, Colo. — Dani Cook, head coach for the Fossil Ridge High School cross country team and assistant track coach, is in her sixth year at FRHS. She continually displays her passion for running, family, and being an uplifting influence on young minds.
Dani grew up in Indiana and ran in high school and then collegiately at Indiana State. Post-college, she trained with Team Indiana Elite for three years, and more recently, she has trained on her own and with a local running group in Fort Collins. Her dedication is evident as this past February she competed in the marathon portion of the US Olympic trials.
Along with being a committed athlete and coach, Dani has a husband and two children, who have also integrated themselves into the program at Fossil Ridge. Her husband is an assistant coach and her kids can often be found at practices, which the team adores. Dani says seeing how the team interacts with her kids brings her so much joy. They’ve been blessed to have many great big brothers and sisters. The students on the team have also shown Dani herself much appreciation, as a coach, a mom, and an athlete.
Prior to FRHS, Dani coached three years of high school in Indiana and four years at the collegiate level at Western Michigan and Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. Throughout her time coaching, one of the most important things she learned is the potential influence she has on her student athletes. Coaching and the sport itself are about more than just running. During this impressionable time in their lives, students can be heavily impacted by relationships with teachers and coaches, be it positive or negative.
“[It] can facilitate great athletic performances, but it can also help get an athlete through difficult times in their lives and the sport can be a positive outlet for those struggles,” Dani shared regarding the trust between a coach and an athlete.
Dani’s philosophy as a coach is to guide and empower young athletes and let them take those gifts and make their own decisions. She keeps them looking forward with a “growth mindset” so they can learn from negative experiences and become stronger for the next challenge. In training, she pushes her team by simulating the demands of a competitive race. For example, a workout might get faster and tougher as it goes along, similar to how a long-distance race becomes harder as it progresses. Dani aims to train her runners to be able to break down a race into segments, making it easier to manage mentally.
Her experience, passion, and ideology combined to be a major factor when the 2018 girls team won the first ever Front Range League title. Not only that, they placed 4th at the state meet, the highest finish in school history. Dani says it was so much fun watching them do something that had never been done before.
If the students who are coached by Dani take anything away, she hopes it’s a love for running. It’s a sport and activity that has numerous physical, social, and emotional benefits that can last a lifetime.
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