Is it safe to say the best coaches make it d1? The coaching gets worse each division?

Flawed premise: the cream does not always rise to the top.

Couldnt be farther from the truth. Lots of clueless coaches in d1and plenty of quality coaches in all other divisions. Just less connected most if the time. Give any coach the top athletes and they will look good.

No not even close. First what is your definition of best coach. What criteria do you think a coach would use to define the best job. Are those two compatible.

There are a lot of reasons why coaches end up where they are and a lot of reasons why coaches stay when they could coach faster teams elsewhere. It's not all about winning at the top level for many great coaches. Coaching non revenue sports at the college (or probably even any) level is a lifestyle decision or a passion for many.

Most driven and best recruiters.

I run d2 and I have a great coach. 😃

Beast of the best wrote:

They say the cream always rises to the top. D1 has the best athletes, I assume the same can be said for coaches. Does the coaching get worse each division?

One of the best middle distance coaches in any division is at D3 Haverford.

Beast of the best wrote:

They say the cream always rises to the top. D1 has the best athletes, I assume the same can be said for coaches. Does the coaching get worse each division?

Tell that to Al Carius

Beast of the best wrote:

They say the cream always rises to the top. D1 has the best athletes, I assume the same can be said for coaches. Does the coaching get worse each division?

Plenty of D2 and even D3 teams teabag D1 schools on the reg.

The best D1 schools have the coaches who are best at recruiting. Not necessarily coaching.

Wealthy Industrialist wrote:

Beast of the best wrote:

They say the cream always rises to the top. D1 has the best athletes, I assume the same can be said for coaches. Does the coaching get worse each division?

Plenty of D2 and even D3 teams teabag D1 schools on the reg.

The best D1 schools have the coaches who are best at recruiting. Not necessarily coaching.

Actually sometimes the DI coach will only be there because he was a good athlete. The same could be said for the other divisions but it's easy to assume that DI has the most of those characters.

What incentive does a school have to hire the best coach? Intercollegiate competition is a joke, nobody cares about it. Only the individual athletes really matter.

A pro group has a bit of incentive, but it's usually a coach who forms them in the first place.

Scuse me while I lol

Beast of the best wrote:

They say the cream always rises to the top. D1 has the best athletes, I assume the same can be said for coaches. Does the coaching get worse each division?

Coaches also have different visions of success at different schools. For instance, some coaches are more interested in individual development and satisfaction; they may hold individuals back in their training to keep them healthy. Other coaches may be more interested in winning and times; they may throw hard training at all of their athletes to see who sticks. The former coach may produce a faster team, but the latter coach may create a better environment producing lifelong athletes.

t;orejn wrote:

Coaches also have different visions of success at different schools. For instance, some coaches are more interested in individual development and satisfaction; they may hold individuals back in their training to keep them healthy. Other coaches may be more interested in winning and times; they may throw hard training at all of their athletes to see who sticks. The former coach may produce a faster team, but the latter coach may create a better environment producing lifelong athletes.

Whoops, meant to say the latter coach may produce a faster team, but the former coach may create a better environment producing lifelong athletes

This is true to an extent. Keep in mind that recruiting is as important as any other skill for success as a collegiate coach, and the best D1 coaches are great recruiters. Also, any decent D1 program will almost always have a more intense training program than even a great a D3 program, because the talent pool and performance expectations are just different.

I went to a mid-pack D1 school in one of the power 5 conferences.

One year, a D3 all-American transferred onto our team. At first, he was good enough to score for our mediocre team in XC, but nothing beyond that. Within his first year with D1 training, he improved so much that he qualified for D1 track nationals as an individual.

The coaching wasn't necessarily "better", per se, but the expectations were higher and the training was much harder, so he got better.

I had experiences with 7 different coaches from high school, junior college, D1, and D3. Some of the these coaches, coached "Elite" runners. The best coach I had was the junior college coach. It was rumored every year D1 schools were recruiting him but he never left.

This board is loaded with DII and DIII coaches so you are likely going to get bias remarks.

I believe coaching is an art and many coaches around the country do it very well no matter division. We all go after the same athletes but the best want to run DI as they should. Great athletes make "great" coaches not the other way around.

Bottom line- the division doesn't dictate the coaching but bad DI coaches are few and far between and usually don't last. A handful of bad apples sure but that could be said for any division.

Jack Daniels Cortland State

Nope. It has nothing to do with coaching ability. If "Coach D" on here is really an actual D1 sprints coach as he claims, it proves you can become a D1 coach despite knowing less than nothing about proper training. Becoming D1 coach is mostly about having a background as an elite athlete (which results from a genetic gift, not knowledge) and then working one's way up through the old boys network.

They say the best trolls start threads like this one.

I'd say they're right.