One day it will happen. Maybe not this year or the next, but it will happen. Mountain View coach Dave Houle will sprint down the straightaway and lap his own expectations. He will finally realize what he's done. Great expectations will be met. It will be of world-record proportions. He will have to go down as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, high school coaches in history.
Houle has already won 31 state championships. Even when Houle isn't coaching, he's winning something.The National Federation of Interscholastic Coaches Association has honored Houle as coach of the year in basketball, track and cross country, where he won state titles in all four sports (one each for boys and girls cross county). It was the first time a Utah coach had won four state titles in one year.
"To me this is pretty cool. To receive an honor like this from the National Federation is a great honor. I've been truly blessed," Houle said.
Perhaps the reason Houle has become a great coach is because he was never a great athlete and Houle has been obsessed with being the best at something. So obsessed he once ran two marathons in 24 hours.
As a senior at Dugway High School, Houle was 5-6, 119 pounds. He was a wide receiver on the football team, but track was where his heart was.
Obsessed with winning a state championship, Houle organized his own medley relay team. He even had tryouts and hand-picked his team. His team met every day and on weekends often had sleepovers where the topic of discussion was usually focused on breaking the 1A state record.
They practiced passing the baton over and over again. Houle, armed with a stopwatch, knew he was on the verge of becoming something special. The team finally had run a time faster then what had won the state championship the year before. Houle would be great. Just wait and see. Even though it was still February, winning a state championship looked to be just a matter of time.
But within a few weeks, he was the only one left. One-by-one his teammates moved away, transferred to different army bases. Houle was heartbroken. He competed in the medley that year, but finished eighth.
Greatness would have to wait, but the desire to be the best at something continued to burn like an August forest fire.
Houle took his passion to Dixie College where he actually played football and ran cross country. He broke the six-mile conference record and three-mile conference record.
He graduated from Dixie and went on to run at Southern Utah. Houle wanted so badly to be the best that he ran six to eight miles each morning at 5:30 a.m. He would run another three miles at lunch and then go to cross country practice at 3 p.m., where he'd often run another 10 or 11 miles.
Houle's logic: If 10 miles would make him good, 20 miles would make him awesome.
"I was a young kid willing to do anything it takes to be great," Houle now says with a laugh. "I didn't know any better. There wasn't a coach there to tell me that was crazy. I later learned my over-training was a huge mistake."
As a senior at Southern Utah, Houle began helping coach the school's basketball team. He was going to be a coach, but he'd known that since he was 13 years old. His father, who ran the Little League, needed someone to coach a team that was in last place and hadn't won a game all year. The coach was moved away in midseason, and no one else would do it.
"I stayed up all night thinking of line-ups and learning all about the kids on the team. I polished and shined the bats and catcher's equipment. I loved every second of practice," Houle said. "I was told we wouldn't win a game, but we finished second that year."
After brief coaching stints at Milford and Carbon High school, along with College of Eastern Utah, Houle got a job at Mountain View where there was no coaching spots available. He had to beg to be a volunteer coach. Houle got his big break in 1983 when he was named the cross country coach, but only after the school's search to find a new coach came up empty.
In his first year, only four girls and six boys came out for the team. At least Houle wouldn't have to worry about cuts.
Houle then walked the halls of the school looking for runners and by the end of the week found two other girls. Incredibly, he coached the lady Bruins to a region championship and second-place finish in the state tournament despite having barely enough runners to field a team.
For the last five years Mountain View's cross country team has been the top-rated program in the country.
"I think without question he's reached unparalleled success in state of Utah," said Joel Gardner, Mountain View athletic director. "He relates to kids well and gives them a good experience when they come out. Obviously, he puts in a tremendous amount of time that most people are not willing to do."
But the pressure to maintain consistency in three sports has taken its toll.
"Sometimes I feel close to that burnout point. A price has to be paid to get a program to a certain point. You stress over winning one state championship. Last year I almost won five," Houle explained.
He could win four more state titles again this year. The girls cross country team is ranked third in the nation, while the boys are ranked fourth, but Bingham is ranked second. The boys and girls track teams should be strong again, and the girls basketball team hasn't been beaten in 49 games - a state record winning streak.
Houle won't acknowledge it yet, but greatness is in his grasp, he's already crossed the finish line in record time.