3x10 wrote:
Also, if Wetmore had left his position as coach at Seton Hall sooner (or had bypassed it completely) then he would have another couple national champion teams on his resume as well as a lot of top 20 guys. (To wit: it's pointless (to the point of inanity) to speculate on what Wetmore or Lananna could have accomplished if either had taken a different path from what he actually did.)
I don't entirely disagree, but I do disagree to some extent as emphasized by this post:
"as vin left he told gerald to let him coach the seniors, the guys HE recruited and worked on. He gave him their packets for cross and if gerald tried to change them, hall would rebuff him and say "thats not in my packet." vin handed him an NCAA championship with tenforde,dobson,hall,sage,luchini, robison. vin loves telling this story and how gerald is a shitty recruiter. why do you think luchini moved to oregon to be a tutor at UofO as a nike athlete? vin, of course."
The other question I have for you is why are you pointing out top twenty footlocker recruits?
A) There are plenty of schools that get the top recruits in the country and can't do crap with them. Lanana can.
B) Recruiting IS part of being a good coach. It's like being a boy scout master. Would you lead your troops off into the rainy woods with canvas tents if you had the abilitity to get synthetic water proof tents? The ability to recruit is the ability to be prepared on the front end. That is a skill not a given.
You basically have 5 types of coaches:
1)One who recruits as much top foreign athletes as possible (UTEP, Arkansas, Iona, Providence, Alabama etc. etc.)
2)One who doesn't recruit all that well but is does a great job with what he gets. (Wetmore is an example of this but he gets some pretty great runners. In fact bringing in unknowns who grew up excercising at altitude and have little or no experience racing at sea level - making it appear like they are not talented - is quite a good lot of runners to get.)
3)One who recruits a heckuva lot of talent and doesn't do much with it (UCLA, Washington & Cal come to mind but that list goes on).
4) One who recruits well AND coaches well - BAM! Lanana with Shcumacher included.
5)Shatty coaches.