Steve Magness (4:01 1600m) and his choice to go to Rice

Thanks for the candid input, LMAC. It certainly was painful to watch you battle through oxygen debt in the WAC steeple your junior year. Don't stop now, you've got a good future in the sport - even if you have to move up to the marathon.

Amen, brother Dutra.

agreed.

the negativity gets old.

i'll just say this: going to stanford and saying it has a great rep is largely because of some magazine. at any school you can really push yourself or really just get by.

i meant that for school. it works for athletics, too. but guess what? lots of 50-ft triple jumpers go to schools like princeton and duke and rice...and lots of them are jumping 47 feet in two years. and lots of 4:05 h.s. milers are running 4:11. and lots of 4:20 guys are running 13:54...do you get my drift?

let the kid do what he wants. he might look at running as a "for now" thing, and not want to be our next great hope. he might just really have enjoyed his trip to rice. he might just be putting academics first.

quit the bashing. not everyone goes to sleep with their spikes on their nightstand. i think and dream about running as much as the next guy, but back off, people.

and for god's sake, how many rhodes scholars come from schools not even on these precious little lists? great academics are available at most universities, students just might have to look harder at UT-PA than rice...

cheers,

greg

ps. and if you're reading this, magness, rip it up at state and enjoy yourself!

Matt Lane isn't chopped liver, but the other schools I mentioned have more guys excel in track.

Michigan - Brannen, Willis, L'Horelxksrwera (obviously I cant spell this)

Notre Dame - Watson, Morrison, Somok, Chamney

Stanford - too many to list

Georgetown - OConnel, Lukevic, Koborsi, Welsh

Wisconsin - Festa, Spiker, Wallace, Teg

you get the picture.

1st off I'd like to say that I eat, sleep, live, running. There a re numerous reasons I chose to go to Rice, but most importantly I think I will succeed there.

I didn't want to go to a school like Stanford because I don't want to be another person lost in the crowd. I'm not a fan of that at all. I know exactly what I think I should do training wise and I like having the opportunity to discuss that with my coach and Rice gives me that.

To the people complaining about the weather- I've lived here all my life. Trust me, I'm used to it. I really can't stand cold weather, so that through a lot of Northern schools out of the picture too. Weather's not a factor as I've trained here all my life and no how to deal with it. It's not that big of a deal.

To the people who said I'd have no one to train with- I really think your wrong. I mean look at the team. Davis and Pessing are awesome mid distance guys. Plus throw in Scott Loftin (8:11 3k as a frosh) into the mix for long distance. Plus Pablo Solares(1:50, 4:07) and there's plenty of guys to train with. I mean even if I didn't have anyone, I've been our #1 runner in HS for 3 and a half years. I know how to train upfront.

Hope that answers all the questions, later

Stop me if you've heard this one before...

10 Longhorns, 10 Aggies and an Owl get together for a meeting, what do you call the Rice grad?

A: 'Boss'

Steve Magness, you made a very wise decision.

I didn't want to get started on Tyson Hendricksen or Jason Lunn, but here goes.... Lunn left Rice and was successful at Stanford because he actually started training, unlike at Rice. That was his choice.

. Rice had a great team in the early 90s under coach Straub but when he retired the program change significantly. Jon Warren is only in his second year as head coach and if he continues to recruit like this, he will make Rice into a great team.

Lachlan

There is no comparison between the program under Straub and what Warren will do. Straub recruited a stellar group of athletes;Street-Thompson,Bronson, Chris Jones,Bryce Cramer, Lunn, Klein, Pope, Willmington. But, he beat the poop out of them. I watched Bronson,Jones, and other studs run repeat 300's and felt like I was wathing a national championship. Cramer,Lunn, and Klien ran 3x600 @ 1:19. So, please don't say that "he actually started training" unless you mean that he started traing properly. Klein should have had a longer career, Cramer was an extreme talent that was doing the wrong training as was Lunn. Forty miles a week doesn't cut it with these guys.

Warren will be the first to tell you that if Straub wasn't going through some personal problems and would have kicked some of less sincere runners off of the team, he could have had a national championship team. Warren will not run the guys in these intense workouts, he will listen to the athletes, and he will trim the strong personalities that are not productive.Watch for Warren to produce fine teams.

May I suggest that the new kid, Magness, listen to Warren, keep his training log to himself,remember what got him this far, and make this the last post that he reads on this site. Say hello to Jon for me.

...or, just maybe, he envisions a future that doesn't include professional running. God forbid that he might aspire to be a surgeon, or teacher, or attorney and not the assistant manager of a running store making $10 / hr. when he's 35.

Newsflash: Many happy, successful people in this world were never NCAA or Olympic champions.

Didnt Guwain Guy attend Rice and run some quick mile times. Cant be too bad for a miler type. Sometimes the competetive nature of a team of 10 sub 4 min miler i.e. Arkansas is not for everyone.

Yes, G. Guy ran 1:47.32/3:41.00/3:58.21 and was NCAA Indoor Champ over 1000m in 85 and 2-time All American in the 1500m outdoors for Rice U.

sjm say,

>1st off I'd like to say that I eat, sleep, live, running.<

Please keep that running log coming. It is great to see a young person that is wise and obviously is enjoying his success, the fruit of his labor.

I'm sure you will succeed at Rice as well as anywhere. You know what to do.

Best of Luck.

Magness will perform as well at Rice as any other school while Jon is there. The bottom line is that the programs are completely different now than they were when Lunn (and I) was aboard. Lunn needed somebody to show him what it took to be a good runner. All he knew from his highschool days was that running 15-30 miles a week produced times like 49/1:52/4:10/9:02. He was looked upon to be the leader at Rice, when in fact he needed some guidance. Honestly, he didn't know his head from his ass. Jon was starting as the assistant coach back then, but really wasn't able to guide BK, Bryce, or Lunn because Straub took them under his wing. Both Bryce and Lunn actually quit the team (Lunn dropped out of school and hung out in Cali with his girlfriend for a semester). Under the Stanford program, Lunn was able to see what other runners were doing and "actually trained".

Magness looks as if he knows how to work, knows what "good" is and has a coach that can take him there. If he can handle all the four-eyed physics geeks at Rice, then he'll run as well as his talents will take him.

Well said, Dan.

First of all, congratulations to Steve on his fine performance and his choice for college.

I ran with Jon @ Rice in the 80's. He is a great guy and will be a great coach for Steve. Judging from his training log, Steve is well aware of what it means to train for success. He and Jon will get along great.

Steve - can't wait to see you run in the Blue and Grey!!!

Buffy wrote:

"There is no comparison between the program under Straub and what Warren will do. Straub recruited a stellar group of athletes;Street-Thompson,Bronson, Chris Jones,Bryce Cramer, Lunn, Klein, Pope, Willmington. But, he beat the poop out of them. I watched Bronson,Jones, and other studs run repeat 300's and felt like I was wathing a national championship. Cramer,Lunn, and Klien ran 3x600 @ 1:19. So, please don't say that "he actually started training" unless you mean that he started traing properly. Klein should have had a longer career, Cramer was an extreme talent that was doing the wrong training as was Lunn. Forty miles a week doesn't cut it with these guys.

Warren will be the first to tell you that if Straub wasn't going through some personal problems and would have kicked some of less sincere runners off of the team, he could have had a national championship team. Warren will not run the guys in these intense workouts, he will listen to the athletes, and he will trim the strong personalities that are not productive.Watch for Warren to produce fine teams.

May I suggest that the new kid, Magness, listen to Warren, keep his training log to himself,remember what got him this far, and make this the last post that he reads on this site. Say hello to Jon for me."

G'day all,

I have to say that I was very surprised to see this topic at the top of the message board. I thought people were over it. When I said Lunn actually started training properly, I meant that when he went to Stanford, he started running over the summer. I have heard from Jon that Lunn did not run over the summer when he was at Rice and that is why he never did well at cross. Hard to run a good 10k off no base work. I know Brice Cramer was always injured and the funny thing (or tragic depending on how you look at it) is that with Brian Klein, his career was finished when he moved to SF for work and trained with the Farm team. Coach Lanana changed his training around after laughing at what he had done while he was at Rice and then Klein f***ed his knee up and never ran again.

Buffy, I would say hi to Jon for you but like everyone else on this thread, you do not use your name so it it hard for me to tell Jon Hi from some guy on the letsrun.com message board, called "Buffy". I would love to know who you are. I have absolutely no problem with people who have a different opinion to me or those who know more about the subject than I do. I would love to hear more about what Straub's training was like. Also, if Magness is actually reading this. I am also enjoying your training log. Keep it up. I think it is really inspiring to read what others are doing, especially those who love running so much. If you ever want to email me because you have any questions about Rice, ask Jon for my email address. I am sure he would be happy to give it to you.

Out-

Lachlan

G'day all,

I have to say that I was very surprised to see this topic at the top of the message board. I thought people were over it. When I said Lunn actually started training properly, I meant that when he went to Stanford, he started running over the summer. I have heard from Jon that Lunn did not run over the summer when he was at Rice and that is why he never did well at cross. Hard to run a good 10k off no base work. I know Brice Cramer was always injured and the funny thing (or tragic depending on how you look at it) is that with Brian Klein, his career was finished when he moved to SF for work and trained with the Farm team. Coach Lanana changed his training around after laughing at what he had done while he was at Rice and then Klein f***ed his knee up and never ran again.

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You may be right about the # of miles that Lunn ran over the summer, I guess that he could have done more. But, he was their top CC runner during his sophomore year. It is tough to put in miles in Houston in the summer when you work a full time job. It is 82 degrees at 5 O'clock in the morning and 10 at night.

Brice was the most talented runner in that batch. He needed aerobic work and not the massive lactic work that he got there. Jon would have changed this.

Brian rarely showed up to practice in Palo Alto because his heart wasn't in it. He likes to rewrite history.

Straub was a quarter miler that stretched to the 800 and then to the mile (4:04). He thought that the mile was a long quarter and his training exemplified that thought. It worked for Guy, but he didn't like it.

Good luck to Magness and to Warren.