Vin Lanana the "brand"

They got a coach who is so good "X's and O's" that he gains the reputation he got.

Obviously Oregon would still be a decent team if they had the same recruiting class and Smith as the coach. No doubt about it. They would be great.

And I would argue that the resurgence of Eugene running is more due to the good young runners that train there. Galen Rupp is probably a big one, as are most of Alberto's athletes.

Business model, I agree with you 100%. In college athletics, recruiting is paramount. And recruiting is about building a brand and selling that brand to high schoolers and their parents. Coach K often talks to the business students at Duke about how they are in the same business as him.

Vin understands this and talks about it as well. At Stanford he could leverage the great academics and all around athletics success. At Oregon he can leverage the rich history and Nike money.

Where Vin is ahead of everyone else is building his brand through his administrative skills. He can put together incredible track meets, bringing attention and money to his schools.

Can Vin produce fast collegiate and post-collegiate runners? Yes. Could another coach do as well with the same talent? Arguably. But the best coach is the one who builds the brand and brings home the trophies.

Business model wrote:

Did Oregon hire a man that has the X's and O's ability to coach young men and women to run faster, or did they buy an image....but one that can produce results, perhaps primarily because of that image?

To me, your question is moot because you pointed out the obvious flaw in your own logic.

I'm a coach.

-or-

I'm a coach with a fabulous reputation for results. To top that off, I'm ambitious and congenial.

Well... come on. That's not even to say that Smith was a bad coach, or bad guy, or whatever. Just that Vin was, is, a superior brand, in MANY minds.

Oregon brought in a guy with good things behind him. And to me, comparing it to the Cubs is a poor example really. Compare it with a real, tangible product, since he had a tangible effect. Say Vin is the iPod and Smith is the Zune. Sure, the Zune works, is somewhat trick, but the iPod is the iPod. It is the iOriginator of the do-all DAP. The iPod is the iPod, and will always be so. It has 5.5 TIMES the share that Zune has.

My point is, your question would hold more weight if they brought in a guy of similar swagger to Vin, but much less tangible history. As it stands this Vin guy has had some decent athletes and won a couple of meets before...

(again with the Cubs) Plus, there is much more choice in the NCAA when it comes to top tier distance schools. In Chicago, you have the Cubs and the White Sox, and that's it. Plus, they have to care about how you feel about their losing, because they don't have a tangible product. What they have is something that will continue to exist, in theory, whether or not the fans show up. The game will go on, for at least a while.

With Vin's program, the kids stop coming, he's gone.

Nice question though.

Business model wrote:

Did Oregon hire a man that has the X's and O's ability to coach young men and women to run faster, or did they buy an image....but one that can produce results, perhaps primarily because of that image?

der.

they picked a guy who has the x's and o's ability and the image.

A thread of posts that does not descend into name-calling and offensive comments -- this is great!

Ask anyone that ran at a Heps school in the mid-80s, and you will learn that Lanana *developed* runners. He converted modest high school PRs into All-Americans and Olympians, and a NCAA XC team 2nd place.

Dartmouth became a distance power due to him. We went from beating them handily in XC and track, to practically getting blown out. At Stanford, the input was better but the output was even greater. Oregon will be contending for NCAA titles with a few years. The guy is good, and worthy of respect as a talented coach and motivator -- if that's a brand, then fine, I'll take that.

Vin is a great coach but Dartmouth was getting some pretty darn good runners: Sapienza: Foot Locker kid, Mike Fadil: NYS 2 Mile champ and stud steeple chaser in HS, Bob Kempainan: Foot Locker, Frank Powers: sub 9:10 in HS etc.

I think that he is a great recruiter and an even better coach

A story on Vin recruiting:

Stember goes to Georgetown on a visit, and Gagliano hears his mother is a devout Catholic, so he's sure to take her and Michael to Mass. Stember goes to Stanford two weeks later (in the interim Gags talked to Vin about the visit) and Vin meets Stember and his mother at the airport with the Stanford priest.

Stember goes to Stanford.

sounds like strategery to me. i give Vin thumbs up. thats the way the game is played and he's doing a great job. lets bump this post in 4 years and see how everyone feels then.

Yea, how about Gregg Andersen?Canada?8:01/3,000m HS Kid.

Vin "developed" runners? I know this will cause a bit of a stir but I will have to disagree. He develops teams, meaning he uses his Psych major and his manipulating skills to strike a balance with differing attitudes among athletes. However, athletically his technical approach is archaic and limited. His expertise as a coach is the implementation of Jack Daniel's mode of training, which is strictly an cardiovascular efficiency program, and to that end all of his runners are in great shape. But does he "develop" runners to achieve more after they move on from his politically charged athletic direction? Clearly if you look at the results this is not the case. Name one athlete that ran faster after they ran all 3 of his demanding seasons of high mileage running for their Stanford careers? Gabe Jennings, Michael Stember, Jason Lunn, Brad Hauser, Brent Hauser, Andy Powell, Jonathan Riley, Don sage...the list is actually ridiculously long and all were blue chippers coming in to Stanford. None have PRd since their Junior or Senior Year in any event! Some of them never even ran faster after high school even after running 4:00 in the mile.

Vin recently tried to get the Athletic Director position at Oregon but was denied for a local deep pocket developer who took the job for $1 a year. Eventually he will land a top athletic director job, something that he will be much more suited for. He is a far better politician than a coach.

Is he a bad coach? It depends on if you value the NCAA as your milestone. Sure he can bring a recruiting class of 14 out of the top 15 milers and two milers in the USA into Oregon per year, and put together a good cross country and track team at that level but will he prepare these athletes for the next level of competition? Will he address their weeknesses when they lack speed? core strength? power? flexibility? A sign of a good coach or a good teacher is that you are more prepared for the future.

Results speak for themselves.

What exactly are you saying? Is he being paid to develop post collegiate runners? I thought his job, as it is understood by all involved is to coach college athletes as college athletes. I could be wrong though.

In answer to your question. I believe Jonathon Riley has run faster over 5k since college around 13:20 now compared to 13:30ish in college. Jimmerson made world cross after college. Brad Hauser made the Olympics after he graduated. Ryan Hall came in under vin, he has improved since college. Same with Dobson. There are probably several others, but it really shouldn't be his concern how far they go after college unless he quits coaching college and starts coaching post collegiates instead.

Interesting thought, while I don't have any first hand experience with Vin, I've been around the Pac-10 track and field and cross country scene for about 8 years now. My general observation was always that he was a good coach, but a great recruiter. This observation was due to the fact that he always seemed to get guys to a certain level (usually a high one) early in their career, and then the progression of the athlete either slowed or stopped. I never put much thought into why this might occur, it was nothing more than a casual observation. One of the more frequent criticisms of Martin was that his athletes underachieved. This is a hard argument to make because you only have one possible scenario to observe, who knows what the athletes from one system might have done under a different one. However, his athletes did seem to pregress from year to year fairly consistently. Also, it is clear that Vin was a superior recruiter to Martin, part of this was due to the fact that while at Oregon Smith and the Nike people didn't see eye to eye, and this lead to a lot of sabotage. Vin will never have that problem because he's a much better politician.

I don't think that Vin will be winning too many national titles in cross or in track at oregon, the teams will do well, but he will run into two seperate problems. the first is Jerry Schumacker and Wisconsin. Jerry is the perfect combination, a great recruiter and great coach. And the second is that it is extremely difficult to win National track titles with just distance runners. I know they sort of did it at Stanford (Toby Stevenson scored some points) but even that is a bit of a fluke.

Anyway, I'm not sure I even addressed the original question, so here's a stab at it. I think that Vin teh brand is much more important than Vin the. I say this because there are probably 50 or more coaches that could have won national cross titles with the last teams he had at stanford, but only one coach was able to compile them at the same school. Hell, I'm not even a coach and I think I could have guided that team to a National title.

Hmmm... Let's see. Lunn ran 4:12 for the mile in high school, 3:50 in the 1500m for Rice, 3:42 in the 1500m at Stanford and an All-American at Stanford, then multiple 3:36's afterwards...

Yeah, Vin doesn't know how to coach.

I'll agree with you that Shumaker is a helluva coach and a great recruiter.

But Vin has a great training method and style. He's a business man and knows how to pick the winners, how to get guys motivated who don't know they need it, how to cool down the hotshots and workout kings and all the other stuff that goes into great coaching. It is not just having a good workout plan, desire to win and enthusiasm to be a good coach. It's a lot more than that, and Vin knows how to work it. And yes, he's a great recruiter. But you have to remember, if you have a good product it helps sell itself. Stanford and Oregon are great products (for different reasons) and the new product at both places resulted in a gigantic training playground.

Willy Wonka the Brand