>>>>Yes, I'm aware of a lot of teams that become successful. My question is how.
When I was hired, we were XC only. During the interview process, I told the admin. we needed to add indoor and outdoor (distance only) to attract high level runners. They were on board (that was massive) I had zero asst. coaches - solo operation. When I arrived, we had zero All-Americans in the program history, once my last athlete grad. 6 years later we had 18 (XC, Indoor, Outdoor) There has not been one AA since I left. We were not a DI program, I took a team/program that was probably at best 150th XC team in the nation to the following:
6 months after being hired ranked #25 (top 6 runners all freshmen) 2015 finished 32nd at nationals.
Following year: Ranked in the top 10 most of the year but ran like crap at Nationals and finished 16th / 2016
Next year (30 months after being hired) Ranked 5-8 nationally / finished #8 at national meet 2017
M last year: 2018 / ranked #2 all season / our 4-6 at nationals ran poor and we finished #5 / we were in 1st through our top 3 finishers.
2019 - I resigned/retired - next coach inherited 6 out of my top 7 runners / finished 3rd at nationals but ranked #1 all season. If I stayed and signed 2-3 runners, we would have been a heavy favorite to win the NC.
2020 Covid etc. to current - program is now back to around 150th nationally as my runners have all graduated
How it was done:
#1. Nobody will care about your team's success as much as the head coach. Your enthusiasm or lack of it is contagious. I love to run, coach and runners are smart, they see this. If you have high expectations, your athletes will. I lived by this quote: "Great things are accomplished with enthusiasm."
#2. I told many that 85% of our success was directly related to these 3 things:
a) Recruiting
b) Motivation - me motivating the athletes and more importantly self-motivation for them
c) Staying healthy (Luck)
Recruiting is everything. I never stopped. I was relentless. The more athletes who turned me down (there were so many) the hungrier I got. I would add 2-4 distance runners to the team each year but literally reach out to 350 of the best American runners and about 75 international runners.
d) We were not D1, but in order to attract D1 caliber runners to a lower level I told the athletes the program would be run like a competitive D1 program racing against D1 teams in large meets in the regular season (beauty of XC) and then we get to travel the country running postseason championships (XC, Indoor, Outdoor) as most D1 runners stay home during post-season.
e) Every school has advantages and disadvantages. Know both of them not only in your sport, but everything (tuition, dorms, etc.). In recruiting I emphasized the adv. and turned the dis adv. into positives. Our biggest dis adv on paper was we were not D1 and I was going after D1 caliber athletes. The recruit says "I really want to run D1" I would say "Our program is run like a D1 program. Look at our schedule, we run against D1 schools all season long and then you get to go all over the country competing in national championships. If you are running D1, the odds of running 1 NC is slim, here you have a great shot at running in 12 NC (XC, Indoor, Outdoor) I also explained. we currently can beat 70% of the D1 programs in XC anyways.
In terms of me personally, I was an average coach in terms of planning workouts/developing athletes (not great-not bad) / I was a good motivator, but I was a great recruiter. What makes a great recruiter? Know your university inside and out, have charisma, be relentless - I could write pages on this topic but I won't bore you ....
Good luck to all the coaches out there