Last week, I got a phone call from Warsaw Athletic Director Dave Anson, telling me I needed to put my Warsaw Community High School Sports Information Director hat on and check my email because a head coach had resigned. The first thing that went through my head was “I hope it’s not Scott Erba.” But it was. Erba resigned as girls track and field coach after 13 tremendous seasons. His success is obvious: • Northern Lakes Conference champs 11 times – the last 11 years. • Sectional champs the last 10 years. • Regional champs each of the last five years and six overall. • 44 individuals and 22 relay teams qualified for the state meet. Seven individuals and nine relay teams were state finalists. Lady Tiger track and field has become the gold standard in northern Indiana. For the last seven years or so, the rest of the field in the NLC has been relegated to a battle for second place. Those seven coaches have slept a lot better in the last week. But in all of it, there is a number that I think gives us all the maximum insight into the impact that Scott Erba has had at WCHS: 36. When Erba took over the Lady Tiger Track and Field program in the spring of 2004, there were 50 girls on the team. Last spring, in what we now know was his final season, the roster was 86 girls deep. When you increase a program’s participation by 58-percent and roughly one in every 12 girls walking the halls of Warsaw High School is on the track team, you’ve left it better than you found it. All that a year after he left a Warsaw girls cross country program who’s foot print was just as large in the NLC and regional watershed as the track team. So, then the question is hy stop? He’s still young, he still seems to have more energy than any of the kids in the whole school, the program has no signs of slowing down, and he still loves coaching. Those are all reasons to stay, but they are also the reasons he’s not going to do it anymore. He’s leaving the program in the best of shape. When you look at who should be competing again this spring, they will be the favorite to leave the rest of the conference and sectional fields in their wake. But, like the girls he has been coaching, Erba has a dream and he is clearing the way to go after it. He is a well-trained human being. The discipline in almost every aspect of his life is beyond admiration. He teaches people how to train and improve their bodies, and people listen because they know he lives it. The stats listed above … he gave me all of those. He didn’t keep track of those things for his own vanity. It’s a product of his own organization, and the analysis of how to make each member of his team better. He is as genuine as they come. When you work with him, as an athlete, assistant coach or member of the media, you know he cares. Rest assured that the girls he has worked with in track and cross country know it. How else do you explain a roster going from 50 to 86 in a sport where a limited number of girls can compete in the meets? The beauty of his coaching style is that he could make girls do what humanly no one should want to do, and they did it by their own choosing. It’s like a Jedi mind trick, and he is the master. Now he is leaving coaching others behind, to focus on coaching himself. Erba shared with me that he has an itch that, at age 47, he wants to scratch in the form of triathlons and running races. He hadn’t really been competitive in such races in 17 years, but he got back into it last spring and surprised himself by earning USA Triathlon All-American status. And an old flame in his life was rekindled. He wants to train toward the goals of racing more often and getting back into the Ironman-distance races. If you know him, you know not to bet against him. Matt Campbell has taken the reigns of the girls cross country juggernaut Erba left behind, and they haven’t missed a beat. Someone is going to inherit a sports car in the form of a girls track and field program. They will be good at distance, in sprints and on the field. And that person’s challenge will be to keep it going. Erba isn’t a big guy, but he has left huge running shoes to fill.
