Agree the meet has gone downhill, but the other things you are saying are ridiculous. Are you that unemployed coach who has been bashing the Stanford program hoping to get hired there? (Your post sure comes across that way.)
Agree that the post is hyperbolic but I don't think it's as far off as you do. JJ Clark was a mediocre hire made by a historically-bad athletic director in Bernard Muir. He has overseen the cratering of Stanford's athletic department financially and the end of Stanford as a premier football and (men's) basketball school. Makes terrible hire after terrible hire. And Clark was one of them.
I think JJ has done a good job overall. The staff has done a great job recruiting. They have had some bad breaks with recruits getting injured or not living up to perceived potential. It does seem like a lot of the distance guys haven't worked out. The men's team finished 3rd at NCAA Outdoor just last year, then they lost two stars and now have to reload. So far the reloading looks pretty good.
You may be correct about the financial part - a track program fund raiser was recently announced. I don't understand how a university endowed as well as Stanford would have funding issues. Maybe you can fill in the details.
stanford has lost a lot of its institutional/staff-level ties to pro running/nike, and the broader elite distance running culture/community
pros/elite collegians would rather go to smaller meets with fewer heats of each event and not sit thru 20 heats of 1500s unsure about exact start time
new insanely tough standards for global championships means that just being a really good meet isn't enough, meets need the perfect setup to justify being one of a couple bites at the apple an athlete gets in a cycle
covid forcing innovation with small meets accelerated everything
Yeah pros and collegians would rather go to a small meet with nobody around so they feel even more irrelevant and less elite than they already do.
Are you kidding me? You and the other poster who mentioned Azusa being bad are so low IQ and out of touch. Bryan Clay’s atmosphere is special and that’s why people go there.
Mediocre track, mediocre facility, but great vibe. Perfect for running fast. Let me know the next time Stanford, Mt Sac, or any of those other sh*t meets let spectators line the track for an elite 1500m.
It used to be the biggest distance meet in America - now the meet directors seem to not respond and barely anyone comes. Are there as few entires this year as last year? Was Stanford hoping the meet would get smaller?
I guess this raises a bigger question about what has made the meets at Asuza so successful?
A meet that lets everybody in does not make it successful, anyone can do that if a money grab is their objective. Azusa is nothing but a huge cluster F of nobody runners and a terrible viewer experience. It's painful to sit through heat after heat of C, D and E level runners just to get to a recognizable name. If Stanford opened it up to letting everyone in that wanted to be in, it would be big too, but who wants to manage that mess other than Azusa? Valby was the only name at Azusa, the rest was boring, it rained yet again and other than Valby, absolutely no fast times were run. At least there are recognizable names running this weekend, I'm excited to see what Ostrander can do in her return to the steeple.
Ahh, it rained?!?! How can meet management allow such a thing!?
The weather is typically perfect for distance events, so I am perplexed. I don't know if they comp the athletes, if not then Palo Alto area is super expensive so that could be one reason for the exodus.
Agree the meet has gone downhill, but the other things you are saying are ridiculous. Are you that unemployed coach who has been bashing the Stanford program hoping to get hired there? (Your post sure comes across that way.)
Agree that the post is hyperbolic but I don't think it's as far off as you do. JJ Clark was a mediocre hire made by a historically-bad athletic director in Bernard Muir. He has overseen the cratering of Stanford's athletic department financially and the end of Stanford as a premier football and (men's) basketball school. Makes terrible hire after terrible hire. And Clark was one of them.
Agree-a lot of this is on Muir; a lot has changed in about 10 years--from a top-10 football program winning the Rose Bowl and their basketball program making the sweet 16 to mediocre programs-funny they will be soon competing in the ACC-contrast Stanford's decline in track to the really good job Milt has done at UNC...it took a few years but now one of the best in the ACC!
Fundraising for college endowments is often very specifically targeted for specific programs. Without knowing the pipeline from the endowment to the athletic department budget to the track budget, it's not that simple. An extreme outlier is Phil Knight giving the U of O ~$200m to re-build Hayward Field. I'm sure a lot of other people at the university could think of better uses for that money had it been unrestricted.
Azusa is easy. It started as the second tier meet for anyone who didn’t get into Mt SAC. So, schools from all around the country could bring the whole team. The best runners run Mt SAC, the slower runners do Azusa. Pretty fair if you ask me. Then Mt SAC said they don’t want schools doing that and it will kill Mt SAC off as coaches will give the middle finger to Mt SAC for being ridiculous.
can you explain what Mt. Sac is doing to schools? How can you stop someone from going to anothet meet.
stanford has lost a lot of its institutional/staff-level ties to pro running/nike, and the broader elite distance running culture/community
pros/elite collegians would rather go to smaller meets with fewer heats of each event and not sit thru 20 heats of 1500s unsure about exact start time
new insanely tough standards for global championships means that just being a really good meet isn't enough, meets need the perfect setup to justify being one of a couple bites at the apple an athlete gets in a cycle
covid forcing innovation with small meets accelerated everything
Yeah pros and collegians would rather go to a small meet with nobody around so they feel even more irrelevant and less elite than they already do.
Are you kidding me? You and the other poster who mentioned Azusa being bad are so low IQ and out of touch. Bryan Clay’s atmosphere is special and that’s why people go there.
Mediocre track, mediocre facility, but great vibe. Perfect for running fast. Let me know the next time Stanford, Mt Sac, or any of those other sh*t meets let spectators line the track for an elite 1500m.
Hate to break it to you, but Evert Silva does not make for an elite 1500. There were 48 heats and not a single elite among them. A complete waste of time. Lining the track in the pouring rain to watch D3 dudes run 4 minute+ 1500s may be "special" but not in a good way. You must be the Azusa meet director because no one else could be this much of a fanboy for a $hitty, bloated track meet.
A meet that lets everybody in does not make it successful, anyone can do that if a money grab is their objective. Azusa is nothing but a huge cluster F of nobody runners and a terrible viewer experience. It's painful to sit through heat after heat of C, D and E level runners just to get to a recognizable name. If Stanford opened it up to letting everyone in that wanted to be in, it would be big too, but who wants to manage that mess other than Azusa? Valby was the only name at Azusa, the rest was boring, it rained yet again and other than Valby, absolutely no fast times were run. At least there are recognizable names running this weekend, I'm excited to see what Ostrander can do in her return to the steeple.
Ahh, it rained?!?! How can meet management allow such a thing!?
Typical low IQ debate tactic. I didn't say Azusa sucks because it rained, I said it sucks because it rained (the last 2 years BTW) and because of all of the other reasons. Forming an opinion based on cumulative data is what smart people do, stupid strawman arguments is what idiots like you do.
Azusa is easy. It started as the second tier meet for anyone who didn’t get into Mt SAC. So, schools from all around the country could bring the whole team. The best runners run Mt SAC, the slower runners do Azusa. Pretty fair if you ask me. Then Mt SAC said they don’t want schools doing that and it will kill Mt SAC off as coaches will give the middle finger to Mt SAC for being ridiculous.
can you explain what Mt. Sac is doing to schools? How can you stop someone from going to anothet meet.
Hey Wejo, how come you guys didn't write any articles or cover any of that hot men's distance running action from Bryan Clay?
Ahh, it rained?!?! How can meet management allow such a thing!?
Typical low IQ debate tactic. I didn't say Azusa sucks because it rained, I said it sucks because it rained (the last 2 years BTW) and because of all of the other reasons. Forming an opinion based on cumulative data is what smart people do, stupid strawman arguments is what idiots like you do.
You are cringe. Doesn’t even matter if you are trolling or not. Weak hands type your messages.
If you are in the West region (probably East region too), and want to qualify for NCAA Preliminary rounds, you gotta race there. A vast majority of the 1500m and 5000m qualifiers come from there. A lot of steeplers too. 800m you can do elsewhere. 10,000m probably Raleigh or Stanford. But that’s about it. There is a reason why Valby and other elites chose there.
Typical low IQ debate tactic. I didn't say Azusa sucks because it rained, I said it sucks because it rained (the last 2 years BTW) and because of all of the other reasons. Forming an opinion based on cumulative data is what smart people do, stupid strawman arguments is what idiots like you do.
There is a reason why Valby and other elites chose there.
Bryan Clay is a collegiate meet. Most of the best regular season college outdoor distance performances happen at Bryan Clay, Stanford, and the Raleigh Relays. There are post-collegiate athletes in the meet, but it's not really a meet for elites. That's not its purpose. It works great for college athletes looking to get their prelim qualifier mark.
If you're looking for elite performances, most of those take place in the summer outdoor track and field season. Payton Jordan used to work as an elite meet to start the outdoor season, and it's probably lost its luster for a lack of institutional interest in hosting a meet for pros. It's a great place for it should they ever have that institutional interest again, but I can understand why an institution doesn't want to take that on.
In 2023, Mt Sac put out information that guarantee entry into their meet would require signing a contract that says they wouldn't participate in other meets in the area. Most colleges opted against that, and didn't attend. Mt. Sac had low participation last year as a result, and they moved to a different weekend and became more of a regional level meet.
Agree that the post is hyperbolic but I don't think it's as far off as you do. JJ Clark was a mediocre hire made by a historically-bad athletic director in Bernard Muir. He has overseen the cratering of Stanford's athletic department financially and the end of Stanford as a premier football and (men's) basketball school. Makes terrible hire after terrible hire. And Clark was one of them.
I think JJ has done a good job overall. The staff has done a great job recruiting. They have had some bad breaks with recruits getting injured or not living up to perceived potential. It does seem like a lot of the distance guys haven't worked out. The men's team finished 3rd at NCAA Outdoor just last year, then they lost two stars and now have to reload. So far the reloading looks pretty good.
You may be correct about the financial part - a track program fund raiser was recently announced. I don't understand how a university endowed as well as Stanford would have funding issues. Maybe you can fill in the details.
The 3rd in Outdoors was great but, let's be realistic, it was totally on the backs of Ky Robinson, Charles Hicks and Onwuzurike, two of whom are already gone (as you said) and Ky will be gone after this season. Coaches should get credit whenever things go well, but I think it's also fair to say that it doesn't necessarily say a ton about JJ and certainly doesn't give me any confidence that that would continue. I also don't see how the "reloading looks pretty good" but maybe I haven't looked hard enough at the non-distance results lately.
Stanford, being Stanford, will continue to recruit well, and I don't think Santos is as bad as everyone makes him out to be as the men's distance coach. At least not in terms of training. I occasionally hear stuff about the culture of the team not being all that cohesive and Santos being a bit of a d-ck, but I'm not on the inside so who knows. I do think JJ is far worse coaching the distance women than Santos is with the men. JJ should probably stick to coaching the 400/800 women and leave it at that.
As someone else said, endowment money is mostly spoken for and to my knowledge none of it ever goes to the athletic department. The athletic department is expected to be self-funding, and that's why the decline of football and MBB has hit hard. It obviously didn't help that the Pac-12 in general and Larry Scott in particular (plus the most recent Pac-12 commissioner) were all incompetent. But Muir gets as much blame as anyone in my opinion.
Hey "Could be a number of things". No I am not that unemployed coach. I coached full-time and attended the Payton Jordan every year for about a decade. Enjoyed how well organized it was and how they promoted it. Their Director of Ops did an amazing job. Then new head coaches come in and things began to change. It wasn't about money, it was about caring to promote the meet. If you think JJ has done a good job with the Payton Jordan meet then you really don't know anything about collegiate track and field. Sorry.
i heard that the original construction was measured on the outside or the middle of lane one instead of on the rail. Stanford has been cheating forever and not just with their facilities. block S logos are so passé but the clear delination is NCSU>Syracuse>Stanford>clingers.
i will give $100 to someone that gets a wheel out there and accurately measures lane 1. #effthepinetree
i heard that the original construction was measured on the outside or the middle of lane one instead of on the rail. Stanford has been cheating forever and not just with their facilities. block S logos are so passé but the clear delination is NCSU>Syracuse>Stanford>clingers.
i will give $100 to someone that gets a wheel out there and accurately measures lane 1. #effthepinetree
That's one of the dumbest posts I've seen here in a while, and that's saying something. Thanks for the laugh.
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