Pomona-Pitzer Men's Team Coaching Carousel DRAMA

karen rodgers wrote:

Sooooooo wrote:

Who cares! I hate posts like this. She is a track coach, she can coach the team however she wants and if they are successful (likely based on number of kids on the team, team gpa and number of kids at nationals or conference winners) who cares how she does that.

Being annoyed that a coach devalues distance and focuses on sprints and jumps or whatever random events they want is like being mad that the new football coach runs a spread offense instead of the option offense you’re used to seeing… it doesn’t matter, they can do whatever they want to be successful as a team. I know that cross country exists also so being moderately successful in that sport is great but if she has the same number of total kids and the same number of total kids going to track nationals, the AD probably doesn’t really care.

Pretty much. The drama, if there is any, sounds like it's coming from a bunch of butthurt distance losers who are borderline racist at best.

How do we know either interim coach wanted the job? How do we know both didn't do something to disqualify themselves? How do we know that the new coach isn't going to be successful? How do we know the AD doesn't want the team to move in a different direction, because sprinters can more easily perform multiple events on the track? How do we know that the AD isn't going to augment this hire with a distance assistant? How do we know this new coach is automatically going to change everything that's been done and worked before?

We don't. Only kneejerk discriminatory idiots in this thread assume that it's going to be a failure, almost exclusively because she's black and she's a woman.

spitzer wrote:

Pomona Pitzer has been very odd about how they’ve handled their Mens XC/TF program since Tony Boston stepped away initially on sabbatical and then “kind of” permanently.

When this happened, Jordan Carpenter was on the staff and named interim head coach. Despite helping the team winning NCAAs and Boston being gone for a few years, they told him Boston might come back / he won’t be named full head coach. Being smart, Carpenter jumped ship and is doing well at BU.

Cue the next interim placeholder, Kyle Flores. He continues the strong tradition of the team doing well, wins a convincing NCAA XC title and the Athletic Dept once again says “ nope no permanent position for you! You’re out!” Flores wasn’t even part of the application process!

Pomona Pitzer then hires Amber Williams, a sprint coach, to lead the most successful D3 cross country team of the past 5 years.

A very whacky scenario at PP and a lot of kids left very confused…

karen rodgers wrote:

Sooooooo wrote:

Who cares! I hate posts like this. She is a track coach, she can coach the team however she wants and if they are successful (likely based on number of kids on the team, team gpa and number of kids at nationals or conference winners) who cares how she does that.

Being annoyed that a coach devalues distance and focuses on sprints and jumps or whatever random events they want is like being mad that the new football coach runs a spread offense instead of the option offense you’re used to seeing… it doesn’t matter, they can do whatever they want to be successful as a team. I know that cross country exists also so being moderately successful in that sport is great but if she has the same number of total kids and the same number of total kids going to track nationals, the AD probably doesn’t really care.

Pretty much. The drama, if there is any, sounds like it's coming from a bunch of butthurt distance losers who are borderline racist at best.

How do we know either interim coach wanted the job? How do we know both didn't do something to disqualify themselves? How do we know that the new coach isn't going to be successful? How do we know the AD doesn't want the team to move in a different direction, because sprinters can more easily perform multiple events on the track? How do we know that the AD isn't going to augment this hire with a distance assistant? How do we know this new coach is automatically going to change everything that's been done and worked before?

We don't. Only kneejerk discriminatory idiots in this thread assume that it's going to be a failure, almost exclusively because she's black and she's a woman.

Wise Old Man wrote:

D3_Guy wrote:

According to a current member of the PPXC team:

Neither coach ever wanted to leave: the school administration consistently disrespected them by not giving them proper resources and or opportunities while CMS is building a 500 million dollar facility down the street

Their most recent coaching departure was forced and as previously stated

Pomona already had a top tier sprint coach, but decided to push him out to work more with lifting which was his other position

The issue is the Pomona and Pitzer Administrations that have put the athletes last time and time again. They are single handedly responsible for the decline of what should be a dynasty

A couple of minor corrections/amendments to what you’ve written. PP just completed a multi million $ athletic facility. I think there was a lot more ambivalence among the current athletes about the last coach than your source is letting on for a number of reasons. On a strictly competitive level, the team badly under performed at xc nationals this past year, though there were many strong distance track performances. However, it’s true that PP has become a D3 distance powerhouse and the choice of a sprint/hurdles oriented coach to lead the program has perplexed/disappointed many. People are waiting to see how it all shakes out, just with a little trepidation. I’m sure nobody is in the least focused on the race or gender of any coach, just the event focus of the coach and their coaching accomplishments. Finally, the current AD at PP, she is a former D1 all American T&F athlete, but in the throws.

rojo wrote:

karen rodgers wrote:

You're not going to address the obviously racist insinuations being made on this thread?

How typical.

Racist? What are you talking about. I saw no one talking about race at all. They are talking about sprint vs distance. And one person did post something about sex - 9 reasons (referrring to title IX). I'm actually stunned people haven't talked about race at all.

In the end, schools can do whatever they want but as someone else said it's very odd for an NCAA winning coach not to get the permanent job.

But there are plenty arguments a school could make for a hire like this. The facts are there are more people on most track teams than xc teams so focusing on track may impact more student-athletes. Maybe they don't care about winning. Or maybe they don't think it's hard to win in xc since two different coaches have won ncaa titles in recent years.

Or since you brought it up, an obvious key reason for this hire could be race. The school is exteremly diverse - only 34% of it's students are white - but it appears to me that every single head coach at their school was white except for maybe the water polo coach who might be Hispanic. The previous permanent xc/track director Tony Boston was black so maybe when they saw they had the opportunity to replace him with a black candidate with D1 head coaching experience they jumped at it.

The odds of finding a black candidate for many of their teams like water polo, tennis, golf is extremely low so hiring a black track coach might have been very imporant to them.

-Rojo

PS. Please don't turn this into a larger discussion on whether Affirmative Action is a great thing or a form of racist discrimination against whites/asians. Any posts that are off topic like that will be deleted.

karen rodgers wrote:

Sooooooo wrote:

Who cares! I hate posts like this. She is a track coach, she can coach the team however she wants and if they are successful (likely based on number of kids on the team, team gpa and number of kids at nationals or conference winners) who cares how she does that.

Being annoyed that a coach devalues distance and focuses on sprints and jumps or whatever random events they want is like being mad that the new football coach runs a spread offense instead of the option offense you’re used to seeing… it doesn’t matter, they can do whatever they want to be successful as a team. I know that cross country exists also so being moderately successful in that sport is great but if she has the same number of total kids and the same number of total kids going to track nationals, the AD probably doesn’t really care.

Pretty much. The drama, if there is any, sounds like it's coming from a bunch of butthurt distance losers who are borderline racist at best.

How do we know either interim coach wanted the job? How do we know both didn't do something to disqualify themselves? How do we know that the new coach isn't going to be successful? How do we know the AD doesn't want the team to move in a different direction, because sprinters can more easily perform multiple events on the track? How do we know that the AD isn't going to augment this hire with a distance assistant? How do we know this new coach is automatically going to change everything that's been done and worked before?

We don't. Only kneejerk discriminatory idiots in this thread assume that it's going to be a failure, almost exclusively because she's black and she's a woman.