Andy Gerard to George Mason

Who is the womens coach?

If I can defend Cook, he can come off as an asshole but I never knew him to lie or cheat.

All of this stuff happened after I lost touch with the program and stopped running in '96.

I know a new AD came in that was all about basketball and didn't care about the track teams that that decorated the field house with banners and provided the schools only team NCAA Championship along with a handful of individual and relay NCAA Champs.

I believe a female athlete made some long distance calls from the coach's office and Joe Showers was canned followed shortly by Norm Gordon. I'm sure there are details that I am unaware of.

Cook was planning to move on anyway but resigned in the middle of the year with some possible encouragement of this new AD.

I guess this was the late 90's and the teams haven't done much since.

There has never really been a men's cross country team.

I think maybe it truly is just personal issues involved. Didn't Gerard and Vin coach together at Dartmouth for a while? I thought that was the connection that helped him get the Stanford job. So obviously Lanana knows Gerard's coaching ability - why would he all of the sudden want him gone?

Coaching a top D1 team is grueling on a family/marriage. Watching my own coach for 4 yrs I can't imagine doing that. He was in the office 10-12 hrs a day plus recruiting calls, hosting recruits, travelling most weekends -sometimes 4-5 days at a time, planning workouts, meeting with athletes, etc, etc. There's never really a downtime because there's always a season coming up or more kids to recruit. I would think spending all that time away from your spouse/kids would really strain things after a while. Maybe Dena and Gerard were simply putting their families first w/their decisions. Is that so hard to believe?

maybe.. wrote:

I think maybe it truly is just personal issues involved. Didn't Gerard and Vin coach together at Dartmouth for a while? I thought that was the connection that helped him get the Stanford job. So obviously Lanana knows Gerard's coaching ability - why would he all of the sudden want him gone?

Gerard (along with Beth Alford-Sullivan) was on VL's staff in the early days at Stanford (not Dartmouth) before heading to W&M.

CAA wrote:

Why worried???? When Gerard was at a CAA school, they were never a conference favorite. Maybe because he doesn't give a crap about track. Mason's XC team will improve under Gerard (but they suck, so what will that mean?), Their track team will not reach the level they have reached in the past... IC4A and NCAA elites.

You sound worried my friend. You must go to JMU or W&M. Get ready to bend over and take your spanking like a good boy.

Quote "You sound worried my friend. You must go to JMU or W&M. Get ready to bend over and take your spanking like a good boy"

Excellent coaching does not make 29-30 minute 8k runners ~25 runners in a short period of time. I have a feeling neither W&M or JMU is in the least bit concerned with the fact that Gerard is coming to GMU.

West Virginia University Coach Sean Cleary was going to go to Mason...however things worked out for him at WVU so he is now staying there....they have some money open as he hasnt recruited in a few years as he expected to leave....i suggest you contact WVU and see if you can run for them. It is only 3 hours from DC. Cleary is a great coach and they have an excellent team (15th at NCAA, DMR to NCAA every year). Megan Metcalf won NCAA 5km this year and they had two other qualifiers including a 2;05 800m runner.

Good Luck!

Haaaaaaa, you are smoking crack buddy. Both W&M and JMU are pissing in their pants. They know their days are numbered.

I don't understand. Why did Andy Gerard change his name to George Mason?

stanfordman wrote:

I don't understand. Why did Andy Gerard change his name to George Mason?

huh? Was that supposed to be a joke??? I don't get it.....you sound kinda bitter

Runner81 wrote:

stanfordman wrote:

I don't understand. Why did Andy Gerard change his name to George Mason?

huh? Was that supposed to be a joke??? I don't get it.....you sound kinda bitter

yes, and it was damn funny.

To say that Norm Gordon got screwed is simply not accurate. An internal audit, which was released to the NCAA and the press (the Washington Post covered the story in detail), revealed that he committed serious rule violations (he allowed several of his Jamaican athletes to stay in his home during a semester break, thereby providing prohibited extra benefits), and he admitted to the violations after he got caught. There was a widely shared perception at the time that the athletic department conducted the audit to find a pretext to remove him, and that they would have fired him for even the most minor violation, but no coach in america could avoid termination for the violations they found him to have committed.

So Arkansas would quickly fire John McDonell if they found out that Graham Hood stayed at his house for a couple weeks before heading to Europe.

He got screwed for for being kind and doing the right thing. I'm sure many of us would have done the same.

W&M and JMU might be pissing their pants, but not because Gerard is coming to GMU. Because neither the JMU or W&M AD give a crap about track and field. W&M will be going on a third year without a track to compete on. JMU has had track scholarships cut to practically nothing. Gerard does not know enough about track and field to fit on the tip of his little dick.

I ran track at W&M. Gerard would walk into track practice everyday... he would walk right by the area where the sprinters and hurdlers would typically be practicing. He always came in late after he met with his distance boys. He rarely acknowledged me or us, other than to maybe grunt something like 'gonna try to get your ass over a hurdle today boys.' He was the worst coach I ever had... well he was non-existant as a track coach, so who knows. He must have convinced GMU to develop a distance program, becuase I'd go as far as to say he hates track and field if its not distance. At any rate GMU, good luck ... you'll need it.

I ran track and XC at WM and I have to strongly disagree. First of all the school is clearly dedicated to distance running but only because that is the most effective way to develop a strong program at a school with fairly limited resources and a strong academic background. When you don't have a D1 football team (and 1AA doesn't count) to lean on for sprints recruits, you are starting at a big deficit. The best quality WM can attract in sprints is ussually fairly non-competitive nationally. That being said under Gerard, WM put a significantly larger emphasis on field events - they've been fairly successfull too - They've won the CAA T and F champs 2 out of the last 3 years with athletes Gerard helped recruit (and you don't do that with nothing but distance). But don't forget this is a school with a pretty impressive record at the distance events over the last 10 years - they could pull a UofO and abandon their distance program in favor of other events but I guarantee they'd screw that up even worse than Oregan - you try recruiting solid sprints/field events to a small school in a small conference with limited money and a strong academic reputation. Better yet - name a similar school that has successfully done so recently. Gerard's record in distance speaks for itself but he's clearly committed to track.

The W&M track is currently being resurfaced and will be ready for the next season.

W&M doesn't have a track? Why does anyone go there then?