ARE ATHLETICS COACHES WITH PHDs RARE?

D3 is a good clean division to coach in, but they lack the funding that d1 and d2 possesses.

I'm the oldest one here who runs, and without a doubt the only one who coaches AND runs. You can tell by all the other comments on here that nobody else is legitimately involved in it. Many people on here are ex-joggers who just come on here to talk trash and make time go by faster while at their desk job or at home. There may be 1 other guy on here who coaches. He uses the name texas highschool xc coach. The problem is he never says where he coaches or what town.

I'd be surprised if anyone else on here is currently or has ever been authentically involved in it at all.

"He never says where he coaches"? That's a pretty funny statement coming from a crazy guy like you who has spent years faking that you coach at a college that you refuse to name.

Take your meds!

Bowerman played football.

I know he played football but I think he also ran track.

Doc Counsilman and Jack Daniels both worked at Cortland BITD. No overlap in their time in Central NY but some common ground nonetheless.

Bowerman finished his FB career as Oregon's quarterback, but after his eligibility was over he ran track for 2 seasons, specializing in the 400,supposeedly running under 50 secs. in 1933-1934. While he was known as an HS FB coach (lost 11 games in 9 seasons), he also started track at Medford HS, winning several state tiles, both team and individual.

He took the freshman FB coaching job (he told me) because it was the only way he could become the track coach at Oregon.

In terms of coaching knowledge, the best route is a masters in some area of sport science. A great example is Tom Tellez, masters in biomechanics, and one of the best technical event coaches of all time.

Timmons was initially a swim coach, but was a state champion in swimming, x-country and track...

One of the best high school coaches in Washington state way back in my day was supposedly an ex pole vaulter who never ran. My coach was a long distance school record holder at UW and had me doing less than 30 mpw as a senior. The pole vaulter's guys had far better results and I believe he's in the WA high school coaching hall of fame.

Regarding Jack Daniels, he was a two-time Olympic medalist in the modern pentathlon, which of course has cross country as one of the events.

I don't think a PhD is necessary to coach well. If you are able to digest the findings of PhDs and apply that to coaching, you don't need to be a scientist yourself.

I work in "field engineering". Essentially our factory engineers design products and ship them out to the military to be used in their operations. Out in the field, where the products are being used, we install the products, upgrade them, advise the military of their limitations and capabilities (they often want to do new things that may or may not be possible with the products they have, or may require upgrades), repair the products, etc. The factory engineers don't have the first clue how to work in the field, and quite often we find major design flaws or limitations that have found their way into the product and have to let the factory know their product is faulty. If I went back to the factory, I would have only the faintest idea of what I was doing regarding design in any of the engineering areas within our products, but have the background to learn it if I needed to. Most frequently when field engineers move into the factory they become system engineers because we're generalists who know how all the parts interact with each other. Design/theory vs practical application are two completely different arts.

I see great coaches as physiology field engineers; they take all the specific knowledge generated by PhDs and implement it into a training program that works. They know how to deal with diverse things like an athlete's mental issues, the 1000 things that can go wrong at a meet and how to best deal with it, when to abort a workout when it's going bad, etc. This can only come from a lot of experience, which might have been gained while one was competing themselves, or through years of coaching. Someone like Jack Daniels could be both a successful researcher and great coach if they took the time to work in both fields.

Jumbo was a 400 guy for Villanova.

Gagliano was a football player in college. I don't know if he ever competed in track.

The only one I can think of is 430 Miler.

My biomechanics professor was a former swim coach who constantly quoted Doc Councilman. Meanwhile my exercise physiology professor was a former football coach.Both got out of coaching to use their PhD's to teach. I think that is a big part that is missing now - sports science professors who actually coached in college athletics.

Remember, there are many terminal degrees equal to a PhD. For example, DBA (Doctor of Business Administration), Ed.D (Doctor of Education) and DNP (Doctor of Nursing Practice) etc.

Owen Anderson, PhD coached some Kenyans I believe.

Most notable I can think of in the current NCAA system is Dave Smith at Oklahoma State, with a PhD in Pharmacology

None of these degrees are in any way equal to a PhD.

HRE is probably right, and we could look it up, but we will not!