How to win NXN two years in a row? Joan and Marc Hunter Q & A

JBring in bunch of stud transfers. 3 of the top 5 where transfers, and they had no depth after 5, pretty simple. Oh and get the workouts from some one else. No respect for that. Develop a program.

Easy. Just crap out a ton of transfers and anyone could win.

You guys make recruiting sound easy. It is difficult to search out high school kids and convince the parents to move just for running. Parents have jobs.

Sounds like alot of jealousy about a program on the upswing, that has come in and won back to back titles. The "Blue Blood" of the sport sound a little uneasy that Loudoun Valley has set records that none of them were able to do.

Every school gets transfers - great programs like Great Oak and F-M have gotten them where is the outcry there ?

Geesh wrote:

Every school gets transfers - great programs like Great Oak and F-M have gotten them where is the outcry there ?

Were 4 of their 7 runners transfers too? I honestly don't know- is it that bad and common at that level?

Kids want to run for a great program with knowledgeable coaches. I have looked at their training and it’s impressive. If I had a kid, I’d want them to be coached by the Hunters.

Geesh wrote:

Sounds like alot of jealousy about a program on the upswing, that has come in and won back to back titles. The "Blue Blood" of the sport sound a little uneasy that Loudoun Valley has set records that none of them were able to do.

Every school gets transfers - great programs like Great Oak and F-M have gotten them where is the outcry there ?

Not jealousy, just how you win. It’s the talent not the training.

Great program wrote:

Kids want to run for a great program with knowledgeable coaches. I have looked at their training and it’s impressive. If I had a kid, I’d want them to be coached by the Hunters.

Can you post a link to their training that you´ve seen? Why is it impressive? Not a troll! I would like to see it.

From what I´ve read & listened to, the top kids double to get to around 70 miles a week. Everything is aerobic w/ the CV workouts being the bread-and-butter. 130 kids on the team. Anything else?

Geesh wrote:

Sounds like alot of jealousy about a program on the upswing, that has come in and won back to back titles. The "Blue Blood" of the sport sound a little uneasy that Loudoun Valley has set records that none of them were able to do.

Every school gets transfers - great programs like Great Oak and F-M have gotten them where is the outcry there ?

And Bozeman had a new transfer in their top 5 in 2016 also.

One of their runners who could stick with their top 5 didn’t finish the NXN race. I guess having the transfer on the team made up for that.

Their 6th NXN finisher finished near the bottom in that race and very far behind their 5th.

Their #1 almost received all American, and their 2-5 weren’t far behind him and all finished as a pack.

Mileage is mentioned by Joan Hunter in the interview. I didn't see anything about two workouts a day, but I may have missed something.

I, too, would love for my son or daughter to be coached by the Hunters. I wish I'd had a coach like either Marc or Joan to vastly improve my mediocrity. I am serious. Not everyone has the talent, but everyone can improve personally. I was never meant to be a top runner, but the right coaching and motivation, like what the Hunters apparently provide to even their untalented runners, would have likely been the shot in the arm that I needed but was denied.

Good luck to Marc and Joan. They're honest and open, and it sure seems like they care about every kid on their teams, no matter what level of talent each has.

The Hunters deserve a lot of credit not just for their coaching but in bringing up a kid as level-headed yet charismatic as Drew. Had not only the ability and work ethic, but the perfect "good guy" personality to start a dynasty around. So many fast kids fall short in this area, or coaches don't know how to capitalize.

I've seen a few articles, I think one was on mile split, and read/listened to many interviews where Joan Hunter talks in detail about their training. These were on "High School Running coach" and some other podcasts. Yes, they do stress aerobic milage, but it is done at a controlled pace. They do not over race and their intensity is FAR lower than the vast majority of teams. What they do seems to work. It's interesting that their girls team isn't to the level as their boys. In an interview, she commented that their commitment to running wasn't to the same level as the boys. I think the girls are stating to get better, so it will be interesting to see what happens with them.

I agree that talent is a huge factor, but coaching is extremely important in having the athletes perform up to their potential. I’m sure there’s many an athlete that has the talent, but is doing obnoxiously hard workouts that break them down or they are not doing enough aerobic running to build their running economy and stamina. The great coaches are few and far between. It’s not just the ability to write a couple hard workouts a week that makes a good coach. It’s the ability to execute the key workouts correctly, along with executing the maintenance runs correctly, and all the little extras. The great coaches have this balance. The Hunters seem to have this dialed in.

You have to get the program first, than you get the transfers. Nobody transfers schools to run cross country for a so-so program.

Does anyone else find it amazing that they have 120+ runners on the team? how do you not lose kids while running?

When I ran there were 30 (boys and girls) on my team.

Some bitter people on here. Look, as a former college coach who realizes TALENT IS GIGANTIC, I can understand why some people are bitter on here.When Jonathan Gault told me he wanted to do the interview, I told him he could only do it if he specficially asked them about the transfers.

But come on, they have developed a great program. Do you realize the girls team also won the state title this year? They have done an AMAZING job of creating a program

But without the transfers, yes, they don't win the back to back NXN titles and we probably aren't interviewing them.

As a result, I made sure we put in an editor's note in Part II which is now published. It comes after Marc Hunter incorrectly states they would have "easily won" in 2017 even without the transfers.

But they do a good job of answering all of the questions about transfers. Here are some quotes from Marc about transfers.

Marc: We’ve had a local coach accuse us of recruiting. First of all, it’s ethically wrong. We would never. If you think what recruiting entails: calling a kid, calling a parent, seeing a kid at the meet saying, Hey, you should run with Valley, seeing a parent at a meet, You should run with Valley. I just can’t imagine myself ever doing something like that. That’s unethical. That’s someone else’s athlete. Who am I to think that I should try to make that kid run for us? It’s ridiculous. And by the way, we’re good enough without them. If you take all the transfers away last year, we would have easily won the national championship last year.

LetsRun.com: How many of them are moving solely for their kids to run for you guys at Loudoun Valley?

Marc: I think that’s zero. I’ll go back to it’s a transient area. People are moving to this area all the time and they’re leaving. Matter of fact, we’re going to lose Affolder’s brother next year because his dad’s moving to another assignment in the South. I would say zero moved here just to run. I know everybody thinks that the parents are moving here so their kids can run for Valley and that’s not the case.

Late spring, early summer, we get a call or I get a call or an email, almost on a weekly basis, from kids that want to transfer here. And I actually have talked several out of transferring, because if they want to transfer for only athletic purposes, I say that’s not a good enough reason. The first question I pose is, If this fails from an athletic perspective -- so if your kid does not run well, gets sick, gets injured, falls out of love with the sport -- will this still be a good move for the family? And if they can’t immediately tell me why this would be a good move, even if their kid fails athletically, then I suggest that they probably rethink the reason for coming down here. The last six families that have moved in have moved without even talking to me. I haven’t even had a chance to talk to the last six families. They’ve already moved. They know they’re moving to the area, their kid is an average runner and they just want to be part of a good team. They moved, they get a call, they say we’ve just moved into the Valley school district so we just want to know what it takes to come out for the team.

Every top program has kids that try to transfer to the school. I don’t blame any of the families that are trying to get their child onto a team with a knowledgeable coach and successful team. It’s a compliment to the coach! I see it all the time, even with less successful teams. As long as all rules are followed, there’s nothing wrong with it. I am a parent of a runner who runs on a team that is filled with kids that don’t really care and a coach that doesn’t have any experience. I would love for him to have teammates to run with and a coach he can trust. In stead, he does what he loves and looks forward to college, when he can have a true team experience.

It doesn't hurt recruiting that Loudoun is the richest school district in Virginia.

rojo wrote:

But come on, they have developed a great program. Do you realize the girls team also won the state title this year? They have done an AMAZING job of creating a program

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Do you realize that their girls would have been second in the state without their most recent transfer?

I don't think anyone is accusing the Hunters of actively recruiting kids. I certainly don't believe they would do that. The Affolder situation is clearly just luck, at the right time (although I'd love to know how long of a drive the dad has from LV to work). But I think people get justifiably frustrated when kids are moving in on their own accord, and of course they aren't going to say no to them. I don't blame them for that, but Marc said himself they didn't talk to the 6 most recent families before they moved.

The problem it seems is more that kids from Virginia are saying, "hey, I want to win NXN so the easiest way is just to go to this school that's 20 or 40 minutes over there." I'd definitely want to be on a big team with good coaches and a great culture, but at some point there also has to be some pride in trying to elevate your own program instead of just jumping ship.

I had pretty bad high school coaches and was a mid 16's guy. I went on to have a really great college career where I exploded and realized my potential (broke 14). I do look back sometimes and think how cool it would have been to have great coaches and be the guy who ran 15:10 in high school, but I just chalk it up to being unlucky. Are kids these days feeling entitled to having everything as they want it? I'm not sure, but it seems like the issue lies more here than with active recruiting. Not sure though.

And this is off topic, but did anyone else notice that 4 of Saratoga's 7 girls were 7th and 8th graders?