If Dennis won 36 Track and Field championships in the Ontario Association that Guelph is in, you can't say that Dave is the greatest track coach ever. Yet. You have to give Dennis some credit, even though Dave had all the athletes in the Olympics.
If Dennis won 36 Track and Field championships in the Ontario Association that Guelph is in, you can't say that Dave is the greatest track coach ever. Yet. You have to give Dennis some credit, even though Dave had all the athletes in the Olympics.
fred wrote:
Under Fairall, the Lancers had added an additional 43 Ontario University Championships (36 in track and field and seven in cross-country).
Just FYI I've been Coach of the Year in my subdivision for 45years straight.
DST is small fish/small pond. Can't believe this amout of hero worshiping for a guy that can't get anyone under 2:11 for the marathon.
Looks like Guelph has a distance coach job opening, anyone know if it's related to a coach leaving and if it had anything to do with interactions with the women's team?
Madeline Yungblut
Dave will get better as his daughter gets older.
he's more of a man's man.
he's a good guy who really cares about people more so than banners.
yungblood wrote:
Dave will get better as his daughter gets older.
he's more of a man's man.
he's a good guy who really cares about people more so than banners.
What does it mean to be more of a man's man in terms of this subject, the incredible decline of the Guelph XC women's program?
Why would such an experienced coach benefit from his daughter growing up? Seriously what has he been doing the past 20 years that having a teenage daughter will change his behaviour??
Q for lady gryph wrote:
Q for lady gryph wrote:
What do you posit is the reason for the precipitous decline of the women's cross country team at the University of Guelph?
Lady gryph your post suggests you might be legit and honest, so I'll ask this again.
Sorry, didn't check this thread for a while... but since it got bumped to the FP I'll respond.
To simplify massively, I think a major factor was "wealth redistribution" in the Canadian university system. I also think that other Canadian programs started upping their game (more serious training, recruiting) in response to Guelph's dominance; you can see that the indoor track standards have progressed massively over the last few years, indicating an across-the-board league improvement. But I'll try to address the recruiting thing:
In the "early" days of Guelph's success, most serious Canadian high school kids went the NCAA route. Aside from the allure/prestige/whatever, most elite-serious high schoolers don't want to be on a team where they are the best athlete by a long shot, even if the coaching is good (I'd venture that most Canadian university coaches are pretty good). Generally kids who stayed in Canada were those who would not have gotten a good NCAA scholarship (some exceptions, obviously... don't come at me with the pitchforks).
Over a period of years Guelph developed some of these "blue collar" type kids quite well, and started winning stuff because they were better at it/more ambitious than the other programs. Some momentum was created, and so they started to be viewed as the sole NCAA alternative. More "superstar" high schoolers (ie. world junior qualifier types) started wanting to come. They also were still quite attractive to the "blue collar" kids, as there was some hope of being a "diamond in the rough" a la Reid Coolsaet. Because of this, Guelph amassed a huge depth chart, while also having a good amount of top-end star power (athletes who would be highly competitive in the NCAA).
This made them difficult to beat in Canada. There were always high attrition rates during XC, but no individual loss was catastrophic because there was always someone in the 8-12 depth chart who was top-25 material. Similarly, there was a lot of cushion for redshirting rookies; most people on the championship squads were in their 3-5th years of school unless they were a ROY (rookie of the year) contender. Most people were "well-seasoned" by the time they got to compete for a team banner.
At some point I think the "blue collar" type kids started to balk at the fact that they could become a pretty good athlete at Guelph, and still never make the travel squad. This isn't entirely speculation on my part; recruits sometimes expressed this concern on trips. Understandably, I think some of the not-superstar athletes (that would have otherwise formed the formidable Guelph depth chart) started to consider other Canadian programs. Again, understandably, the idea of competing at 4-5 national championships on a non-winning team was more attractive than perhaps being permanently stuck on the B squad at Guelph.
To simplify a lot, I think this gave some other programs momentum, which eventually allowed them to be more competitive against Guelph, while simultaneously making Guelph more vulnerable due to disruption of their quasi-monopoly on recruits. Looking at the 2017 loss, to me it really just looks like Guelph's hand got forced. Most 1-2 year athletes weren't ready for prime time when I was there, and many All-Canadians were benched with injuries when I was there too. The difference in 2017 was that they didn't really have a strong back-up, and the loss/underperformance of some individuals became insurmountable, especially given the improved competitiveness of the CIS/Usports. This is not a slight at the athletes who competed - I think they performed honourably and to the best of their ability. If in some alt-universe, Guelph had been forced to field their team from a more limited pool in their peak dynasty years, they would have been in a bit of trouble as well IMHO. This is difficult to see from the outside, naturally.
I think overall, that this development is actually a positive for the CIS/Usports as whole and Guelph. The women's field in particular is very competitive right now, and I'm excited to see Canadian university sport becoming a more relevant option for Canadian high school students.
Dave just does not understand girls #sorry
certainly not in the way he needs to understand high performing eliteish young women,
certainly not as well as he "gets" the guys.
Pay close attention
Stress fractures and departures
Women's Team Rankings
Last updated: January 15th, 2018
Guelph Guelph - 109.16pts
Windsor Windsor - 91pts
Toronto Toronto - 87.5pts
Western Western - 68pts
Saskatchewan Saskatchewan - 55pts
Is this the team that has something wrong with it?
#1
The first 5 words in the first post were:
"The womens cross country team"
That's the team that has seen former Ontario Junior 5,000m record holders become riddled with injuries. The team whose top 2017 recruit left within the first month of the year. The team that was beyond dominant several years ago and, supposedly without changing anything, has experienced possibly the most catastrophic collapse in CIAU, CIS, and USports XC history.
Attempting to shift people's focus over to the men's teams, or over to the track team, is a pathetic attempt to ignore what has happened with this women's xc team. Throwing thousands of dollars into a new PR series doesn't change the damage done to the talented women that went to the University of Guelph to run cross country over the past few years.
They won the National cross country title every year from 2005 through 2016. Twelve titles in the last 13 years. Amazing record.
Great program wrote:
They won the National cross country title every year from 2005 through 2016. Twelve titles in the last 13 years. Amazing record.
The women's National cross country title has gone to Physi-kult the past few years, a Kingston based track club with several National team athletes The National championships are different than the University races.
I am curious how many thousands of dollars Speed River is paying for the video series. Club members and parents must be asking themselves if this is really the best use of their membership fees, which I hear are well over $1000 a year.
membership fees? wrote:
I am curious how many thousands of dollars Speed River is paying for the video series. Club members and parents must be asking themselves if this is really the best use of their membership fees, which I hear are well over $1000 a year.
There's a thread on Trackie now where someone asks about why so many athletes have left the program in recent years, and the Trackie mods keep changing the title from 'Speed River Exodus?' to 'Speed River?', despite the OP going back multiple times to reverse the changes. While this is going on, a known instigator starts a thread trying to fulfill a very personal vendetta against someone and uses expletives against anyone who goes on the thread, and the mods haven't touched that thread. Just based on this info, I would say Speed River paid Trackie a lot of money to make them look good.
I noticed the title change as well, yikes. If you are or know Bear Scout, can you confirm that here by specifying that you have attempted to change back to your original thread title of Speed River Exodus.
whataboutism wrote:
The first 5 words in the first post were:
"The womens cross country team"
That's the team that has seen former Ontario Junior 5,000m record holders become riddled with injuries. The team whose top 2017 recruit left within the first month of the year. The team that was beyond dominant several years ago and, supposedly without changing anything, has experienced possibly the most catastrophic collapse in CIAU, CIS, and USports XC history.
Attempting to shift people's focus over to the men's teams, or over to the track team, is a pathetic attempt to ignore what has happened with this women's xc team. Throwing thousands of dollars into a new PR series doesn't change the damage done to the talented women that went to the University of Guelph to run cross country over the past few years.
Calling it a PR series is a tiny bit hurtful to my journalistic integrity, my dude. Realistically speaking, why would I talk with someone who has been dealing with injuries for years if it was just a PR series? The goal is, and has always been, to tell the stories of people training in Guelph...something which I think I have done...if it comes off as PR-y, that’s only because the people I have talked to only have positive things to say (and if I’m being honest, that seems to be an accurate portrayal of the club culture). I will tell you that none of my content has been edited or censored by anyone associated with the club, and that will be the case for any future episodes as well.
Finally, if you’re going to mention the series, at least post a link????? Gotta get those clicks!
https://soundcloud.com/trackie-radio/citius-mag-presentssomething-in-the-water-the-500010000m-runnersActually, the mods have touched the thread. They've edited a couple of posts and even taken the extraordinary step of clarifying some of TT's words for him, noting that when he says he's leaving the "forum" he probably means the "thread." It's rather extraordinary that they're leaving the thread up. And I wonder why TT doesn't appear to consider that the thread could have an adverse impact on his role as a coach. He doesn't come off looking good at all--not someone I'd want coaching my kids.
CaptainLife wrote:
... a known instigator starts a thread trying to fulfill a very personal vendetta against someone and uses expletives against anyone who goes on the thread, and the mods haven't touched that thread. Just based on this info, I would say Speed River paid Trackie a lot of money to make them look good.
Speed River paid thousands of dollars to make a series that would be positive for their image. Nothing that you, Rochus, posted here fundamentally disagrees with that statement.
Your terminal mile podcast does fun interviews. That's cool. If you want people to take you seriously, maybe don't try using words like journalistic integrity and then follow it immediately with my dude.