Coaches who took their team from obscurity to nationals, how did you do it?

UNC Charlotte 2021 nationals team all from NC. Large majority of mens team is from NC

NAU seems to have a good pipeline for NZ and Aussie runners, but Grijalva was a baby when he came to the US. And Abdi Nur was an AZ high school runner. Wouldn't consider either of them "imports"

I should have known anybody capable of this isn't posting on here lol

Yes, I'm aware of a lot of teams that become successful. My question is how.

This is probably the most accurate post. Having coaches who grind and have enough funding. Recruiting is a major grind and a lot of head coaches who have no help get overwhelmed at smaller schools.

I've also noticed the top programs get transfers instead of developing athletes for four years.

Not as dramatic as at OU, but OSU went in a similar position pre-Dave Smith and followed a similar pattern to the one identified above ^. Dave's obviously a very smart coach and has evolved a bit over the years, but here's his basic pattern.

In his early years as an assistant and during first years as HC, he honed in to recruiting really hard working guys (e.g., Ryan Vail types) as well as some international talent. Very few scholarships between cross country and track, so most track scholarships were focused on distance runners, except for a handful of walkons. Big emphasis on high mileage, team culture, grinding, freshman always redshirting. Went from mid-level team to a podium at NCAAs w/ 3rd

After that, he got notable recruits like German Fernandez and Colby Lowe, the expectations at the program changed. During this stretch they won 3 national championships in XC. Included grad assistants in the team

Since then, he's earned more scholarships for the team in track and cross country following successes at the national and conference level. Expanded his coaching staff to a larger number of individuals. Facilities got an upgrade (cross country course updated, indoor track facility created, outdoor track renovated). There were some growing pains during those first years as the responsibilities evolved and he got his staff right, but now they've got more or less a full compliment of track and field athletes. Their training is more tailored to individuals and they're having really good success on both sides of the equation.

All that to say, the basic approach is pretty similar to get to the top. To stay at the top, you need additional resources and focus on continuity.

Do they? The only guys I can think of in the last, idk, decade from NZ and AUS that have made an impact are Baxter, Beamish, Quax and David McNeil. Four guys in 10+ years doesn't exactly strike me as a "pipeline."

That’s rare. Does religious zealot have anything to do with that? American youth is known to be woke and weak. You have to either import someone, or instill something to break the curse.

I remember a time when the answer to this question would be Syracuse. Letsrun did a decent article about them 8 years ago.

>>>>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

They have athletes from all over the west, where mormonism is popular. They will probably be the last team to get international talent though. That religion didn't catch on outside the US.

The answer to this question isn't Syracuse, I asked HOW these schools did it. I'd like to know from coaches and athletes in programs who got it done. I don't need a list of schools who sucked then didn't suck lol

Thank you for the response. Tons of respect to you for what you were able to accomplish.

My team hasn't accomplished anything yet, but we've made drastic jumps this year and I swear it seems like it's just because the culture and attitude are better. It's crazy how things can be so simple. We have big goals and I definitely enjoy hearing about what it takes to reach the next step.

I'd love to hear your pages on this, but understand there's only so much time in the day lol

You will find all the schools have about the same approach. You recruit a bunch of moderately talented kids (say 9:30 runners), build a culture of hard training and hope the progress into low 14min 5k runners which if you roll out a half dozen is a moderately competitive team. Then you hopefully get a few from the next step up and you start getting close to qualifying. Then you hope for that 1 or 2 big studs that turn you into a qualifying team.

down in D3, you are recruiting people for your schools niche and then getting them to buy in. It is a lot closer to HS where you can outtrain a lot of teams…

Thank you. Team culture is important but did not make my top 3 (85% of my teams success came from my top 3) My 2018 team ranked #2 all season was unfortunately a team divided mainly due to a couple top 7 runners not as committed as they should have been. That hurt us. My other teams were close and they ran not only for themselves but not to disappoint their teammates.
Another thing in building a successful team is you need to add motivated-committed runners (easier said then done as 18+ year olds get distracted at college) but if your teams majority is committed - the athletes that are not as committed sometimes get on board - sadly, it works the other way to if a good % are not committed // in Urban Meyers book “Above the line” I believe he said virtually all teams have a 10-80-10 //

10 - elite athletes (super motivated)

80 - typical college athletes (motivated but they have other interests)

10 - team cancer - not motivated - do the minimum

He said too many coaches spend too much time on both 10’s. Elites are going to be elite and do not waste much of any time on the bottom 10. The 80’s dictate your teams success. Focus your time there. He said it was common for him to speak to an elite athlete before practice snd say “hey, let’s try to get one of those 80’s in the top 10” make that top 10 a 15-20 etc

10%
80%
10%
% is the amount of athletes in your program / so 30 runners might be:

3-24-3 etc

Furman same. Not close to fully-funded still, not even a locker room, less than 3000 students, no masters programs, no foreign athletes and no transfers. My son got recruited just couldn’t afford.

I think BYU did it either the year they won or when they came 2nd. May have only been their top 5. I dont remember exactly, but there was some crazy stat that they all came from within 50 miles of BYU's campus or something.

you need to separate out personality conflicts from real team cancer. real team cancer has no friends. i didn't get along with my college soccer coach, who twice hit me with harsh punishments. but then most of the team hated the coach, i was just one of the more vocal about it, and the team voted me player of the year one season. i outlasted the coach, who was gone end of contract, and the next guy was the likeable assistant. zero problems. if that's the dynamic that's the coach's problem/ control freakery.