How's University of Michigan's women's distance program?

I've lamented this for awhile. A disproportionate number of super elite women have come out of Michigan (including ann arbor) in the last 7 years and went to other schools. I reluctantly get stanford, but MSU? Yuk. Some, have come here and left. Now, its going to happen anywhere, it's a big country, but it just makes me wonder why U of M can't keep these gals. Ya got Very Nice Track Club right in town. First class athletic facilities across the board. Somethin aint getting their attention.

Dudek- National champ in HS Brooks, Footlocker, U20 champ, A2 then left

Flynn- Brooks PR champ

Dadamio- Brooks PR champ

Vanderlende (was at A2 then left)

Forsythe- A2 then left

It would be nice to see someone stay. But ill take poaching some all time greats from other states. That hasn't worked out real well.

Technically, I left out Katelynne Hart who came, not much development, and Vanderlende did stay but left.

Grant Fisher, Dudek, Flynn, and Dadamio all went to Stanford. Apparently they got something goin on over there.

The dudes really develop. Tom Brady, Foster come to mind that really flourished recently. Nick Willis and Kevin Sullivan, Alan Webb came through.

9th at big 10s this year.

To that point, the gigantic elephant in the room is the mighty Ron Warhurst, coach of Nick Willis, Hobbs, Sullivan to name a few. Does a great job with VNTC and the pro women. He did not quit. He was forced out by the new AD Dave Brandon that "cleaned house" and got fired not long after when students stopped buying football tickets.

Would nick Willis ever be asked to coach the team? Would he do it? Would he be any good? Doesn’t he still live in Ann Arbor?

Guys have developed decently well over the past decade or so. Some big successes and some misses. The timing of peaks and such for big races have been off from time to time in XC but they all seemed to show up fairly well for BIG Outdoors and Indoors the past 2-3 years. Seems like most of their current guys are trending upwards and they could be contending for the win in BIG XC soon. That's much harder to do in a bigger conference now however.

The women's team has been fairly rough as of late. Many of the teams in the state that turn out elite high school talent aren't pushing their women to go there. Injury rate has been through the roof unfortunately and you can only have so many incredible talents come through and get injured every year before people start to notice. Seems like they haven't had many of the lower tier recruits develop as well like they had in the mid 2010s when they were a consistent contender.

On the men's side a few national champion athletes or athletes that are close to that caliber from the state have also chosen other schools as well. Kids do not stay in state or automatically chose MSU over Michigan like they used to in the early 2010s and that makes recruiting a lot tougher if I had to guess. Some of the recent developmental success stories on the mens side will hopefully get some kids to stay in Ann Arbor. There's a few really solid local talents that could be big for them.

He would be the best. Has the accolades, brains and the personality.

That's fair. I mean its hard to compete with Stanford I guess for the hearts of 17y/o kids. But we are talking 2 athletes competing literally across the street form the Big House for 4 yrs... going elsewhere..maybe one going to MSU was the back breaker for me.

Football, hockey, bball, softball, wrestling, field hockey, baseball, gymnastics and swimming seem to win some battles for great athletes and not all those sports are NIL. XC and track has to ask itself what they could do better (or whatever those sports are doing?) beyond the name. Top 20 academic school with unlimited athletic resources, brand new outdoor and indoor track, is losing out to pretty much everyone for the elite women. Erin Finn, Vanderlende, Hart were big gets. So I guess we don't lose out on everyone. But as you said, injuries...

In truth the fact that so many elite female runners have come form Mich lately maybe that shines a lite a little brighter on what's going on. I don't need anyone fired, lets just do better.

Most kids aren't smart enough for Michigan.

Its interesting because for a while there McGuire had a solid team, in the mix every year for NCAA XC Podiums (lost by one point to Oregon the one year) all the way back to Katie McGregor - they have dropped off a ton in the last few years. I wondered why I wonder if there is somethng to the Sully thing..

why would any elite high school distance runner chose to train in Michigan? Seriously. There’s your answer. I would bet that the girl who went to sparty will regret that decision if she doesn’t already.

Lol I think you should educate yourself before stupid posts like this. You must be young.

I never get the idea that a state school should be able to 'keep star athletes at home'.

Of course it's always a valid option to 1 - want to make it happen for your home State school, or 2 - be close for friends and family to come watch.

But plenty of kids deliberately look to see a different part of the country, or to go to a top academic school. If an athlete wants to move, nothing a coach can do will keep them in state.

Michigan, by the way, has generally recruited very well on the woman's side, but has not turned that into results recently.

If your goal is a P4 school with good academics and 4 season weather, Ann Arbor is a pretty amazing place.

Agreed on this. I have heard it straight from UM coaches’ mouths.

And to the poster who brought up the injury issues, I wonder how much of this is due to attempts to keep up with the growth of the B1G conference/ncaa as a whole. McGuire has historically recruited incredibly well in-state and across the border in Canada, although the Stanford pipeline has grabbed a few notable ones recently (and also J. Jazwinski going to NCState hurts).

Remember in 2016 when Michigan and Michigan State were both podium-level women’s teams with (iirc) all 14 varsity runners from the Mitten? Fast-forward to 2024, where apart from BYU, the podium teams (and also 5th place Oregon) have an undeniable overseas influence with at least one scoring runner coming from Oceania, Europe, or Africa. I don’t think we’re ever going to see McGuire joining the others in the game of buying older/more accomplished recruits via the popular overseas “recruiting” services.

The result? UM is forced to either train their domestic/Canadian recruits harder to catch up to the Lemngoles, Kiprops, Olemomois, Bunnages, etc. or accept mediocrity. Perhaps this has led to him pushing a little too far with training, just speculating. But I like that he’s trying. Obviously it has taken longer than we the fans would like to get back toward the top (and I imagine McGuire himself is also not thrilled with their recent results). But I appreciate that he’s not throwing my tax dollars so far overseas.

You hit on a hot topic for me as well as for Dave Ramsey. A kid from Michigan will go to Indiana to pay $58k when they could have paid $$24k at Michigan State. They wave at the Indiana kid at the state line who chooses Michigan State at $61k as opposed to Indiana at $28k.

One of my children ran at our state school and paid nothing due to academic aid. He could have run at several out of state Power 4 schools who offered 25% athletic plus academic aid leaving a bill of about $20K per year. So he ran on no scholarship but paid less. He knows several guys who did the opposite. The kids touted their big athletic scholarships even though they still paid more than sticker price for instate.

im guessing the average womens runner out of HS is light years ahead of average football player. And they are going to stanford?

well....I can see dirty-snow, always cloudy SE michigan vs No Cal is a losing prop. And i agree it takes a special person to choose East Lansing over Michigan. I just would love to know what kind of push the squad is making to land these gals. Just saying we are Michigan might not be enough. Need to get olympic finalists who are literally still running track here to get out there and help recruit. Maybe a fly-by by the VNTC.

I’m in my 50s. I have a kid running on a full ride at an elite program. Had offers from everyone they talked to, including schools academically superior to Michigan. Admission to any of them would have not been a problem.

I spent multiple weekends on the patio at the Torrey Pines Hilton during Foot Locker talking to their peers and parents. Exactly zero of them had interest in going to Michigan. There was more interest among these kids in going to Stillwater, OK for crying out loud.

But, please, do explain to me how I don’t know what I’m talking about.

Gee.

I wonder, how does Stanford do it?

"Most" kids aren't smart enough... laughable.

I've got nothing against Michigan but that's simply not true. (Especially when you are talking about distance athletes.)

I agree, although Jazwinski is far below the level of these other girls. The other poster alluded to better academic schools etc...? I agree that if nothing lese, kids do like to
"go away" for school. But U of M is objectively a top 20 school academically, variably rated # 1 among public schools, and top 3 for sure in Athletic departments and facilities. They need to maybe not rely on the rep so much (although it counts) and really go after some kids. Its just a bit too many for my radar to not go off. I have heard rumblings about the program but nothing concrete. Kids that don't run are selling their souls trying to get into school with a 15% acceptance rate and over 100K applicants, kids that are elite runners are saying meh? We got to up our game...somewhere.