Newbury Park is the greatest prep xc team in history

Coach Brosnan is obviously doing something right. Last night his girls team won Woodbridge, with one getting second. And her last name is not Young or Sahlman.

If he was considered one of the best, he would be making $150k instead of $5k. It is silly to compare him to a college coach or pro coach. A different skillet is required for that. He is a very good high school coach but he some great talent. I have a feeling that we will be asking what happened to him in 5 years.

Leo's interview.

https://www.dyestat.com/gprofile.php?mgroup_id=44531&mgroup_event_id=361&year=2021&do=videos&video_id=310647

jonesy22 wrote:

Coach Brosnan is obviously doing something right. Last night his girls team won Woodbridge, with one getting second. And her last name is not Young or Sahlman.

Of course he is doing something right. He’s doing a good job with some great talent. The leap to the greatest ever is where the problem arises. Give this some time. The case will be made when this group of boy phenoms move on. His girls team is really good. He deserves credit for that, but if the results of the boys matched the girls, would there be the same reaction to his “greatness”? I have a hunch in a couple years we’ll be seeing a competitive boys team and a competitive girls team, not the juggernaut boys team we are seeing now. Then he’ll be considered a really good coach, but not the second coming of his holiness. There never has been and there never will be a group at any school at the same time like the Youngs and Sahlmans.

Marty the thong wrote:

If he was considered one of the best, he would be making $150k instead of $5k. It is silly to compare him to a college coach or pro coach. A different skillet is required for that. He is a very good high school coach but he some great talent. I have a feeling that we will be asking what happened to him in 5 years.

Arthur Lydiard died broke. Awful coach right?

Is it that painful to give Brosnan credit?

It's pretty telling that a Texas runner for Vandegrift high school (not a famous national program--and so this guy is a good bet to improve markedly in college) broke the Texas record for the meet set by a great hs runner and hs sub-4 miler, Reed Brown, by five seconds, and still was 27 seconds behind and 17 seconds behind NP's fourth guy. This program is off the charts good, and if the top four weren't named Sahlman and Young, it'd just be something else. This team has now been great for years and the girls' team is on the rise now and will likely be the best in the country within the next two years as well. Coaching and expectations are all they need.

c7runner7 wrote:

The 'rest of the team' isn't actually slow. Their 13th guy in the 1600 ran 4:28 last year. That doesn't include a 9:27 3200 guy so really he was 14th. Their 15th guy ran a 10:00 3200. 16th guy was a sophomore who ran 4:43. The remaining guys were Freshman. So their slowest non-Freshman was a 4:43 sophomore. They only had 1 Junior or Senior who didn't run 4:28 or faster (or sub 9:30). He was the 10:00 kid who went from 11:26 and 5:15 as a Soph to 10:00 and 4:41 as a SR.

This is why I would have loved to have run for this program in high school. They take any material and, if they're willing to work hard, they become very good, if not great.

zxcvzxcv wrote:

c7runner7 wrote:

The 'rest of the team' isn't actually slow. Their 13th guy in the 1600 ran 4:28 last year. That doesn't include a 9:27 3200 guy so really he was 14th. Their 15th guy ran a 10:00 3200. 16th guy was a sophomore who ran 4:43. The remaining guys were Freshman. So their slowest non-Freshman was a 4:43 sophomore. They only had 1 Junior or Senior who didn't run 4:28 or faster (or sub 9:30). He was the 10:00 kid who went from 11:26 and 5:15 as a Soph to 10:00 and 4:41 as a SR.

This is why I would have loved to have run for this program in high school. They take any material and, if they're willing to work hard, they become very good, if not great.

yup, similar to the woodlands

Did you read what I wrote? I said that he is a very good coach. I guess you missed it. Had Lydiard been born 50 years later, he would have been wealthy.

Certainly Brosnan is very very good, but it’s too early to say he’s one of the greats. The culture and accomplishments of the team are set as much by the athletes as the coach, and everybody often gets better when you have such amazing talent at the top. Everything is just a step faster or a little more intense and this filters down through the roster. More kids want to join because so the funnel is bigger. It’s a virtuous cycle. When the Youngs and Sahlmans leave, then we will have a better insight into the coach’s special talent or lack of it in sustaining the extraordinary success.

Regardless of who gets the ultimate credit what is clear is that this 2021 Newbury Park team is the greatest prep team in history.

c7runner7 wrote:

The 'rest of the team' isn't actually slow. Their 13th guy in the 1600 ran 4:28 last year. That doesn't include a 9:27 3200 guy so really he was 14th. Their 15th guy ran a 10:00 3200. 16th guy was a sophomore who ran 4:43. The remaining guys were Freshman. So their slowest non-Freshman was a 4:43 sophomore. They only had 1 Junior or Senior who didn't run 4:28 or faster (or sub 9:30). He was the 10:00 kid who went from 11:26 and 5:15 as a Soph to 10:00 and 4:41 as a SR.

Wait is this true? If so, that's completely unbelievable. 4:43 is a good accomplishment for a high schooler. It indicates excellent training, and quite a bit of natural talent. To do it as a sophomore means that runner may be quite a bit faster as a senior. And this is the slowest non-freshman on the team?

I don't quite understand how the recruiting and transfers work out west. Does Newbury Park have cuts? It must. There's no way you pick 16 guys out of a hat and have all of them even physically capable of running 4:43. And are most of the runners transfers or recruits in some way? Otherwise, that's just an absurd amount of talent to have at even a large high school.

I went into this thread thinking "this happens all the time, it's just about the talent." But these numbers are ridiculous.

Does anyone know if someone has checked the home addresses of their XC team? I'd hate to learn they recruit and get talent from outside their catchment.

Yeah, I'm suspicious.

They spend a month at high elevation altitude camp. Their biggest mileage weeks are in the heart of the XC season. They do speed work (true speed work not 400m reps) year round. They don't over-race...they skip Mt Sac Invitational ever year. Their runners aren't 2 or 3 sport athletes. They do one thing, running, year round. In other words, they are 100% committed.

They've brought professionalism to HS ranks for warmups, cooldowns, nutrition, and precision workouts. If your team has varsity kids only running part of the year for XC and Outdoor and taking time off rest of the year -- you'll never beat a team like NBP. You have to be ALL IN.

Newbury Park? wrote:

They spend a month at high elevation altitude camp. Their biggest mileage weeks are in the heart of the XC season. They do speed work (true speed work not 400m reps) year round. They don't over-race...they skip Mt Sac Invitational ever year. Their runners aren't 2 or 3 sport athletes. They do one thing, running, year round. In other words, they are 100% committed.

They've brought professionalism to HS ranks for warmups, cooldowns, nutrition, and precision workouts. If your team has varsity kids only running part of the year for XC and Outdoor and taking time off rest of the year -- you'll never beat a team like NBP. You have to be ALL IN.

Yes, and you could talk about the youth track pipeline, kids transferring in and so on. I mean to me I've made this comparison on other threads but it's like a team of 4 and 5-star basketball players (e.g. Oak Hill, Sierra Canyon). While it's cool that they are really good as a team, the novelty has worn off for me and I'd be more interested in how fast the kids run on the track as individuals.

I am confused. Their slowest no freshman is 4:43 and he is 16th? How do they have so many fast guys with only about 20 guys on the team? Our 10th guy runs about 4:43 but we have 75 guys on the team with a few unable to break 6 minutes.

How many alumni finished in the top 100 at NCAA D1 XC Nationals over the last two years?

Newbury Park? wrote:

They spend a month at high elevation altitude camp. Their biggest mileage weeks are in the heart of the XC season. They do speed work (true speed work not 400m reps) year round. They don't over-race...they skip Mt Sac Invitational ever year. Their runners aren't 2 or 3 sport athletes. They do one thing, running, year round. In other words, they are 100% committed.

They've brought professionalism to HS ranks for warmups, cooldowns, nutrition, and precision workouts. If your team has varsity kids only running part of the year for XC and Outdoor and taking time off rest of the year -- you'll never beat a team like NBP. You have to be ALL IN.

100% true. Now comes the barrage of posts explaining why this is bad and he's ruining these kids. Blah Blah Blah.

c7runner7 wrote:

Their 13th guy in the 1600 ran 4:28 last year. That doesn't include a 9:27 3200 guy so really he was 14th.

I'm not sure that my HS has had 13 guys who have run 4:28 in our entire history! I think in my SR year our league final was won in 4:3x. This team is pretty darn impressive. I also have to say that HS runners have been putting up some great times the last 20 years. Makes me realize I wasn't nearly as good an athlete as I thought I was. Good for them!

PeanutButterJelly wrote:

How many alumni finished in the top 100 at NCAA D1 XC Nationals over the last two years?

Is this the new standard for High School success? I thought it was how they performed in High School races. My bad.