Tim Ritchie - new head coach of men's XC at UMass-Amherst

Great coup for UMass! A lot of potential there.

He is following Ken O'Brien, head coach for the last 50 years. UMass has had some great runners the likes of Randy Thomas, Mike Quinn, Wayne Levy and some more recent ones but I believe with Tim they will be able to bring in & develop some top talent.

Great job Umass. Hire a guy who could not even finish his last marathon because it was cold and rainy. Wonder if he will cancel practice when its "bad" outside in the New England winters. Must be nice knowing your coach is soft so you can walk all over him.

Should of hired anyone of the hobby joggers who did not wimp out of their last marathon.

Drop it like its hot wrote:

Great job Umass. Hire a guy who could not even finish his last marathon because it was cold and rainy. Wonder if he will cancel practice when its "bad" outside in the New England winters. Must be nice knowing your coach is soft so you can walk all over him.

Should of hired anyone of the hobby joggers who did not wimp out of their last marathon.

He's coaching, not getting a sponsorship. Finishing or dropping out of a marathon quite literally means nothing in terms of how well he can develop athletes. Nice troll though.

Interesting hire for UMass.

He will be able to recruit but not develop talent. Probably going to be on the same trajectory they have been on the past few years.

What do the UMass alums think? I know most of Western Mass Distance Project are UMass guys and on these boards? Tom Derderian?

Yessir wrote:

Interesting hire for UMass.

He will be able to recruit but not develop talent. Probably going to be on the same trajectory they have been on the past few years.

Alot of people turned down this job. One of them in the summer and about 8 candidates this spring. He wasn't the top choice....not even close.

TheTruth2018 wrote:

Yessir wrote:

Interesting hire for UMass.

He will be able to recruit but not develop talent. Probably going to be on the same trajectory they have been on the past few years.

Alot of people turned down this job. One of them in the summer and about 8 candidates this spring. He wasn't the top choice....not even close.

He could be dead and still do better than OBrien.

Big school talent pool and yet produced nothing significant for the past 20 years.

Ghost of Bob Marcum wrote:

What do the UMass alums think? I know most of Western Mass Distance Project are UMass guys and on these boards? Tom Derderian?

I just don't know how much coaching he actually ever did in any of his coaching jobs. Seems like he's only ever been a low level assistant. He might do just fine, but definitely is unproven.

But then again, I don't know if Umass even has men's scholarships and he isn't coaching any women (the women's team is much better) so I'm not sure they could have attracted a candidate with a big resume. I'm surprised Tim would even accept this job because his marathon career was going well. I hope they still let him run marathons.

.... and McKirdy goes home devastated.

You are a bit of an ass.

Does he still plan on competing? No word from him on retiring and focusing on coaching, but I can’t imagine he’d have much time as a head coach.