It’s a shame. Lagat is a Good man, but coaching demands results. Arizona is a tough place to train and recruit. Basically have to do all your runs in the AM.
This post couldn't be more inaccurate in terms of the actual school year. Training in perfect 70 degree winter weather with a mountain backdrop is pretty sweet.
I’m less concerned with the sweet weather from November to March and more concerned with the other seven months. I was near Tucson late last September. It was 106. It was 98 at 9 PM. It was miserable. October they had 16 days 95 or higher (6, 100 degree days). That basically covers all of cross country season, when one is typically running their highest mileage.
Kenyan Olympic Medalist and one the greatest middle distance runners in history is out. Drake University Coach and Connecticut state champion is in, along with 7 Kenyans.
Lagat was an embarrassment and failed experiment as a coach. He is a fantastic example of “not all great athletes make great coaches”.
Lagat was brought in hastily to plug the gap when James Li “retired” abruptly amidst multiple massive athlete maltreatment scandals and assistant coach Hannah Peterson disappeared the same week with no formal announcement. Lagat was brought on as a big name to maybe steer the ship back to normalcy and gain US recruiting power. It didn’t work out and the team tanked to horrendously poor showings at Pac12s and more recently Big12s. None of the recruits turned into anything notable and the program shed a significant amount of athletes on a year-over-year basis. Leaving mid-July at least gives time for a new coach to be hired and acquainted before the season starts.
Maybe importing Kenyans will do the trick. But first order of business is finding a new coach. On the positive side, they can’t do much worse. There’s a lot of work to be done in the desert for this program.
Strange that nobody is mentioning Lagat's engagement with Zanzibar and the Element Portal on the rim. I think it suggests his priorities are on the rim of the Indian Ocean, far more than in AZ.
What are you even talking about?
Maybe "nobody is mentioning" your concerns because they seem arcane and trivial. Add some actual information and perhaps someone will care.
Arizona Track and Field/Cross Country Head Coach Andrew Dubs announced three additions to his coaching staff on Wednesday as Jay Koloseus and??Gabriel Mvumvure have
The question is whether the new Kenyan recruits were Jay's doing or whether he inherited those recruits from Lagat. In either case, Arizona is dealing with these guys:
The question is whether the new Kenyan recruits were Jay's doing or whether he inherited those recruits from Lagat. In either case, Arizona is dealing with these guys:
Kenyan Olympic Medalist and one the greatest middle distance runners in history is out. Drake University Coach and Connecticut state champion is in, along with 7 Kenyans.
It is the case. If it’s not hot, it’s insanely windy. Source: I live in Tucson.
Insanely windy? I don't think Tucson is on the list of the windiest cities in the U.S. There are other cities that are windier and have runners that do just fine--see Boston.
But, let's grant some of you that it is hot, and it is windy. U of A seemed to have some pretty good runners and teams in the 80s, 90s, and into the 2000s. They were able to manage the heat and the wind, so I think we should rule out the idea that Arizona is a tough place to train and recruit.
Really? The temps are 80 or higher from Mar to Nov. Sorry but did you say "school year?" Don't know about your school but most college runners train in the summer too. There's such a thing called cross country starting in Sept.
I'll just assume that you don't live here. Desert temps are not like the rest of the country. You can't go based solely on numbers. 80s here is not like 80s elsewhere.
When I was in Scottsdale last I remember being really surprised that it could be 105 degrees but I wasn’t sweating. Very different from hot weather in Georgia, for example
This post couldn't be more inaccurate in terms of the actual school year. Training in perfect 70 degree winter weather with a mountain backdrop is pretty sweet.
I’m less concerned with the sweet weather from November to March and more concerned with the other seven months. I was near Tucson late last September. It was 106. It was 98 at 9 PM. It was miserable. October they had 16 days 95 or higher (6, 100 degree days). That basically covers all of cross country season, when one is typically running their highest mileage.
"I was near Tucson late last September. It was 106. It was 98 at 9 PM. It was miserable".
By the way, Phoenix isn't "Near" Tucson. Big difference in temps, PHX can be 10-15 degrees warmer. In case you didn't know, PHX is in a large valley, aka "The Valley of The Sun", Tucson sits at 2600 elevation and is cooler than PHX. That being said, yes, it is the desert and Tucson does get hot, but not to the extreme as everyone thinks. On those "warmer" days, if you're out the door by 7:00-8:00 am and after 5:00 pm you'll be fine. There are great places to run in the local National Parks (East Side-West Side), and the local golf country clubs are very accommodating to running on the their golf courses (when not busy).
When Lagat became the X-C coach at U of A I said it was a mistake. Nothing to do with Lagat as a person, and definitely nothing to do with his running accomplishments. Lagat simply doesn't have the ability to be an elite coach. As with most Kenyans, he does not comprehend the process of what it takes to communicate a training and or race plan. Their natural talent supersedes all conventional training and racing. Simply put, they just run fast and don't know why. IMO, Lagat's path to greatness as a runner is not comparable to most elite athletes. He's insanely naturally gifted, but lacks the coaching acumen to translate that to the athletes he coaches. Fred Harvey put blind faith into Lagat, and got burned. Now both have rode off into the desert sunset leaving a once storied distance program in shambles.
