One thing I would say that perhaps led to his contract not being renewed was that he was traveling extensively to meets. I saw him at Hoka, I saw him at Brooks, and I saw him at Nike. Perhaps he exceeded his recruiting budget and simply didn't care, living the life on the road and in the spotlight.
Could it also be that he was still writing workouts for Newbury Park last year?
I didn't know much about coach Brosnan, but after reading some of the comments here, decided to check this out myself. And after about two minutes on google, found this interesting nugget: Newbury Park girls broke the 4 x 1600 national record in 4/22. So I guess we are now up to six NP families with talented runners. That's a lot of coaching luck! But all sarcasm aside, this is an absolutely stellar achievement by these young ladies. And it's obvious this could only be accomplished with the combination of talent, hard work and good coaching. I am impressed and quite frankly curious to see what coach Brosnan does next.
I didn't know much about coach Brosnan, but after reading some of the comments here, decided to check this out myself. And after about two minutes on google, found this interesting nugget: Newbury Park girls broke the 4 x 1600 national record in 4/22. So I guess we are now up to six NP families with talented runners. That's a lot of coaching luck! But all sarcasm aside, this is an absolutely stellar achievement by these young ladies. And it's obvious this could only be accomplished with the combination of talent, hard work and good coaching. I am impressed and quite frankly curious to see what coach Brosnan does next.
I'm not trying to knock Brosnan as he has clearly done a great job developing athletes from relatively low baselines (opposed to Sahlman/Youngs). But, also a lot of HS coaches aren't very knowledgeable with training (like bad) and even the ones that are, majority of them aren't pushing their HS kids very hard. Some are extremely strict about making sure their runners stay healthy and have more than enough in college and end up maybe being too conservative.
It's much easier to look good as a coach in HS because talent shows more and he's clearly benefited to some extent with having local talent (and the fact that they're able to train together). If you prescribe a HS'er even 45 miles a week, they're already doing 90% more than the average HS distance runner so at some point is it the coaching or the fact that the athletes are literally just doing more? When you get into college and then pro there's less and less variation between workload and talent so part of my perception on HS coaches is how well their athletes perform in college.
I get college coaching is a lot about recruiting, but when you're bending over backwords and possibly using illegal tactics (though he's denied this) to recruit, it may show the lack of confidence in your ability to coach/train your athletes who aren't proven. Brosnan may have been a little talent hungry cause that's what he's used to having to build his brand so he's recruiting left and right.
I'd like to see Brosnan developing a mid-level college team to an NCAA XC appearance without a ton of HS studs or transfers who were already proven. I think he can do it. Maybe even have a post-collegiate team on the side.
I get college coaching is a lot about recruiting, but when you're bending over backwords and possibly using illegal tactics (though he's denied this) to recruit, it may show the lack of confidence in your ability to coach/train your athletes who aren't proven. Brosnan may have been a little talent hungry cause that's what he's used to having to build his brand so he's recruiting left and right.
I'd like to see Brosnan developing a mid-level college team to an NCAA XC appearance without a ton of HS studs or transfers who were already proven.
Brosnan has ZERO interest in taking a bunch of mediocre runners and trying to improve them. He is ONLY interested in top runners with a lot of talent.
He is NOT trying to prove that he is a good coach. He is trying to coach runners to fast times. And in order to do that you need runners who are very talented. And in order to get runners who are very talented you need to be good at recruiting. That is why he was working so hard to get all those women transfers to go to UCLA.
I didn't know much about coach Brosnan, but after reading some of the comments here, decided to check this out myself. And after about two minutes on google, found this interesting nugget: Newbury Park girls broke the 4 x 1600 national record in 4/22. So I guess we are now up to six NP families with talented runners. That's a lot of coaching luck! But all sarcasm aside, this is an absolutely stellar achievement by these young ladies. And it's obvious this could only be accomplished with the combination of talent, hard work and good coaching. I am impressed and quite frankly curious to see what coach Brosnan does next.
I'm not trying to knock Brosnan as he has clearly done a great job developing athletes from relatively low baselines (opposed to Sahlman/Youngs). But, also a lot of HS coaches aren't very knowledgeable with training (like bad) and even the ones that are, majority of them aren't pushing their HS kids very hard. Some are extremely strict about making sure their runners stay healthy and have more than enough in college and end up maybe being too conservative.
It's much easier to look good as a coach in HS because talent shows more and he's clearly benefited to some extent with having local talent (and the fact that they're able to train together). If you prescribe a HS'er even 45 miles a week, they're already doing 90% more than the average HS distance runner so at some point is it the coaching or the fact that the athletes are literally just doing more? When you get into college and then pro there's less and less variation between workload and talent so part of my perception on HS coaches is how well their athletes perform in college.
I get college coaching is a lot about recruiting, but when you're bending over backwords and possibly using illegal tactics (though he's denied this) to recruit, it may show the lack of confidence in your ability to coach/train your athletes who aren't proven. Brosnan may have been a little talent hungry cause that's what he's used to having to build his brand so he's recruiting left and right.
I'd like to see Brosnan developing a mid-level college team to an NCAA XC appearance without a ton of HS studs or transfers who were already proven. I think he can do it. Maybe even have a post-collegiate team on the side.
I think you are a little off here.
Most high school coaches have to train whoever walks through their door no matter how talentless they are.
I know some really great knowledgeable coaches that have a roster at small public schools of 10 or less for XC. Maybe 1 or 2 has the potential to run fast out of 10 but that doesn't win meets.
I get college coaching is a lot about recruiting, but when you're bending over backwords and possibly using illegal tactics (though he's denied this) to recruit, it may show the lack of confidence in your ability to coach/train your athletes who aren't proven. Brosnan may have been a little talent hungry cause that's what he's used to having to build his brand so he's recruiting left and right.
I'd like to see Brosnan developing a mid-level college team to an NCAA XC appearance without a ton of HS studs or transfers who were already proven.
Brosnan has ZERO interest in taking a bunch of mediocre runners and trying to improve them. He is ONLY interested in top runners with a lot of talent.
He is NOT trying to prove that he is a good coach. He is trying to coach runners to fast times. And in order to do that you need runners who are very talented. And in order to get runners who are very talented you need to be good at recruiting. That is why he was working so hard to get all those women transfers to go to UCLA.
Well then I guess he needs to coach pro then. Either that or he should have never accepted a 1 yr deal at UCLA and waited til NAU, Colorado, Stanford, Oregon, On or Bowerman magically came knocking on his SoCal door prasing his HS accomplishments. Maybe he shouldn't be surpised when he's not getting top pro athletes, because like you said, "He is NOT trying to prove that he is a good coach".
Like obviously a lot of coaches would like to have top runners with a lot of talent. I'm interested and would like to have a yacht and a private jet. You're making it seem like he's talent hungry and all recruiting, do you even think he's a good coach? Are you going to praise him when he brings a 4:08 NCAA woman he recruited to a 4:06?
I think he is a good guy and coach. I spoke with him at length at nationals a few years ago. He didn’t have to because his team was preparing for the race but he did and shared great advice. If you look at the amount of kids that he has coached to run great times it’s insane. Even taking his big names out of the conversation he would still be considered one of the greatest high school coaches ever. I would let him coach my kids if he went to no name university. He is a great coach!!!! People just hate successful people so they say anything to bring them down.
I think he is a good guy and coach. I spoke with him at length at nationals a few years ago. He didn’t have to because his team was preparing for the race but he did and shared great advice. If you look at the amount of kids that he has coached to run great times it’s insane. Even taking his big names out of the conversation he would still be considered one of the greatest high school coaches ever. I would let him coach my kids if he went to no name university. He is a great coach!!!! People just hate successful people so they say anything to bring them down.
I'm not trying to bring him down. I feel bad for him, it seems like he got screwed over. I just found the qouted poster's comment entertaining. He's clearly an amazing HS coach, one of the best ever, I'm not disputing that and he seems like a great guy. But NCAA/Pro is another ball game. It amazes me how many people think coaching is universal, that if you can coach one level, you can coach all levels. I hope he lands another college job as I'm still interested in how he can build a collegiate program. I'd be more interested if he went to a program that wasn't already top caliber like a UCLA.
If you look at the amount of kids that he has coached to run great times it’s insane. Even taking his big names out of the conversation he would still be considered one of the greatest high school coaches ever.
He's clearly an amazing HS coach, one of the best ever, I'm not disputing that and he seems like a great guy. But NCAA/Pro is another ball game. It amazes me how many people think coaching is universal, that if you can coach one level, you can coach all levels.
Brosnan did really well as a high school coach because he brought college level training to a high school.
But last year at UCLA, Brosnan brought college level training to a college. And his college team competed against other colleges who were also, surprise surprise, doing college level training.
So Brosnan no longer had an edge in the type of training that his college runners were doing. And he knew that. So the only thing left was to try to out recruit the other colleges, which is what he was trying to do.
However, things are now going to get very difficult for Brosnan. The one advantage he had at UCLA was that most runners in Southern California knew who he was, so he figured he could recruit a decent number of them to stay local and go to UCLA. Or come back to Southern California for the runners who had recently gone to an out of state college. And he had some success with that strategy.
But if Brosnan gets hired by an out of state college, he loses that "stay local with me" advantage. And then he becomes just another college coach with no recruiting advantage.
But if Brosnan decides to try to get a job coaching at another California college, there aren't any big name California track colleges that will hire him. UCLA doesn't want him, USC already has Jebreh Harris, Stanford has JJ Clark, Cal Poly has Ryan Vanhoy.
So what is Brosnan left with in California? Trying to get something going at UC Berkeley? Trying to convince distance runners to go to SDSU? Pushing out the UC Riverside coach? Trying to revive Steve Scott's legacy at Cal State San Marcos? There aren't many options that would fit into his "convince the top California high school runners to go to college in California" strategy.
Any college that is willing to hire Brosnan at this point is probably not a college that Brosnan wants to go to. Brosnan has a problem.
A 4x 1600 record is respectably good for sure but still not so often run as an event is it?
Think it won’t be long before most schools with 1500-3000 students will have a <20 4x 1600 squad.
I will bet you any amount of money that won't happen. ""Most" = > 50%. Less than 1% of schools in 5 or 10 years, your choice, will have sub 20 4x1600 teams. To make it easier, Fewer than 25 TOTAL schools of that population will have top four average under 5:00 in any given year. Happy to put 10k into escrow on this. Or more.
Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win a LetsRun t-shirt.Help us build the best running shoe review site for a chance to win one of 10 LetsRun t-shirts.