St. Joseph's Coach

Bueller.......Bueller?

Check conference results. 8th in the in A 10 meet. Won a sprint event (men's sprint coach trains women sprinters.)Best distance times at the meet were 4:57 mile and 2:55 1000. Very good high school times but nowheresville in D1.

Coach is there 2years or so ?? need a full 4 year recruiting/coaching cycle to be fair to her and make any judgements.

Thanks.

What are your events and times? Jr or SR?

The school is very good academically, and they do have solid distance runners from time to time. Coach was a great runner and has had success as a coach in the past. It is only her second year at SJU so need to take indoor a10 results w a grain of salt. (Considering they don't have athletes in many of the field events, SJU is never at the top in track overall)

Her husband Gerry was a great runner for Nova in the 80's.

Isn't the men's coach one of the most successful high school coaches in recent history (before he got to SJU of course)?

Junior girl, 5:45 and 2:35

SJU for me? wrote:

Junior girl, 5:45 and 2:35

I think you need to take an honest look at where you are, where you think you can be by the end of your senior season, and where you would need to be in order to have an impact on the team.

While the A-10 isn't close to a power 5 conference, its definitely not a bottom feeder DI conference. To be brutally honest, your current PRs would only score points in the weakest DIII conferences in the country.

The last scoring place in their conference meet was a 5:01 mile, meaning you would need to drop 10 seconds per year in the mile in order to place at that meet as a senior in college. Even the most optimistic college coach will not expect any of their recruits to come close to those levels of improvements over the course of a career. The 800 is very similar. It took 2:15 to make finals, meaning you'd have to drop an equally astronomical 5 seconds per year in that event.

The bright side is that It does look like St.Joseph's takes on a fair number of walk-ons, at least at this point, since there are 1 or 2 athletes on the team that run similar times to yours. Realistically though, even if Coach O'Reilly is super accommodating and supportive of non-competitive walk-ons, it will be very hard for her to meaningfully pay attention to your training and development, especially since you won't really be able to work out with her scholarship or recruited athletes. You may also find yourself limited in terms of competition opportunities, as many teams will have 'travel rosters', where they carry a high number of athletes on the team, but for meets more than a short bus ride away will pare numbers down.

None of this is to dissuade you from St.Joseph's if the academics seem right, or even the team. But get to work, and bring those PRs down to the low 5:20s and 2:20s if you want to make it onto the coach's radar.

I didn't realize the only athletes who should run in college are ones who can score at the conference meet.... seriously?

x2 for this post. You'll likely be better served in a different program. You're a junior, so perhaps you have a big jump in performance this year or next. As it stands now, I would have taken you as a #4-5 on the D3 team I coached. You probably wouldn't have made the 4x8 or DMR. You'll end up racing in those small local meets (Haverford, Widener, Swarthmore, Ursinus types) if they take you as a walk on.

Don't get discouraged with honesty either! Remember, goals are measurable and achievable. Good things come to those who work hard (and stay healthy).

Lil' harsh..... wrote:

I didn't realize the only athletes who should run in college are ones who can score at the conference meet.... seriously?

I don't think anyone said that.

I said athletes with little chance to develop into scorers at their conference meet are unlikely to get much in the way of individualized training from their coach, will struggle to find teammates to train with since the coach won't be recruiting anyone at their level, and in many programs will struggle with opportunities to compete if they are allowed on the team.

If someone is fine with all of that, and will still get a positive experience out of the whole thing, absolutely go out for the team, and hopefully they find a program with a coach who will let them on the team. The 'harsh' truth is that at the DI level most programs will not take a walk on at that level of performance.

I coach at a DIII institution with a competitive (but not quite 'elite' DIII) track/xc program. We very much encourage athletes in the range of the OP to come out for the team if they are interested, but cannot offer any pull for them in admissions. Our travel roster is budget limited to 2 buses for men and women combined, meaning most years we have to make cuts, with a usual cut-off right near the OPs times, done after a month or two of training with the team. Some years where the roster is a little smaller, we also have to consider the validity of bringing an athlete to meets if they will be finishing dead last in any event we enter them in. In all honesty, we'd probably be a better team if the roster was closer to 50, as given our limited coaching staff, we're already spread a bit too thin and can't quite give every athlete the attention they deserve on a daily or weekly basis. Its also very hard to find meets week in and week out that we can afford to travel to that have competition challenging our conference scoring caliber athletes and at the same time not leave say a 17:15 male 5k runner all alone in last.

Some of the most rewarding people I've had the pleasure of working with over the years came into the program with equivalent PRs to the OP, as they have to be some of the most determined and hardest workers, are most likely to make leaps and bounds in performance every year, and success stories from those groups tend to be more compelling. The reality on the flip side is that the group of people on the cusp of having to be cut from our team have almost no one to train with, need different training plans due to generally coming from very weak training backgrounds, and are far more likely to quit the team due to the above and the lack of fun that can come from finishing near the back in every race.

Thanks for all of the advice. I really appreciate it! FWIW I hope my times come down because I ran cross for the first time this fall (played soccer for two years before that) and ran 21:00 for 5K. My mileage is double, 20-25 a week, to what it was last spring so I really think I can drop my times closer to what you said. Thanks again.

Lil' harsh..... wrote:

I didn't realize the only athletes who should run in college are ones who can score at the conference meet.... seriously?

Would you rather go to a mid major and have your seasons end in October, February and April or a D2 or D3 and be able to actually compete in a Championship meet? Man, that sounds like a lot of fun going to college to run and only competing 4-6 times a season with no Championship races.........

As a former Runner at SJU on the men's side, I can say that the program is on the upswing on the Women's side with the introduction of the new coach. I have only heard good things of what she is doing for the program.

When I was there the program is somewhat willing to take on walk on's as long as you put in the work and are competitive. I had a teammate who was barely under 5 min in HS who by his senior year ran 30:56 in the 10k.

And by the sounds of it the Women are trying to catch up more to the Men and share coaches now as well. Your best advice is to try to talk to the coach and see if you would fit on the team. Try reaching out to the Assistant Coach Teddy Myers as he has worked with a lot of recruits in the past.

Lil' harsh..... wrote:

I didn't realize the only athletes who should run in college are ones who can score at the conference meet.... seriously?

asking a d1 coach to babysit someone for 4 years who has no chance of helping the team is a little much. that's what club sports and intramurals are for.