Ivy Coaching

Yeah, except Williams hasn't been able to take care of business lately... Bowdoin and Tufts have schooled them at NESCAC's for the last three years and the rest of the conference is catching up with them as well...

Arrogant Williams runners like to talk about how good they were.

Gregorek is a great coach and a great person. He loves an athlete that works hard and is committed to getting better no matter the time you walk through the door with. He has strong family roots in the area so is unlikely to be headed anywhere. 4 years under Johnny G produces solid runners. Heps X-C title this year speaks for itself. Providence is a very nice city, and Brown is a great school. One of the original liberal schools before it became a dirty word which makes for an enriching learning environment.

actually, Columbia does most of their long runs at Rockefeller State Park Preserve, which has many miles of dirt/gravel trails that etch their way through the vast forests and meadows of the area. The dramatic elevation changes along the way make for some great hilly running. There are literally hundreds of different trail options altogether, but there's this awesome 16 mile loop around the perimeter of the park that is perfect for a nice Sunday morning long run.

Another great spot for long runs in NYC that is often overlooked (or undiscovered) is the "Long Path" trail, which runs along the Hudson River. The trail begins on the Pallisade escarpment, right next to the George Washington Bridge, and goes on uninterrupted for over 300 miles (all the way to Albany!). Running on this trail by the edge of the cliffs allow for some pretty spectacular views of NYC and the Hudson... definitely one of the best out-and-back runs NYC has to offer.

Could you provide some examples of walk-ons at Harvard and Yale that have improved "quite dramatically?"

Right, Williams had a real tough time yesterday, winning the regional championship for the 3rd time in 4 years.

My son ran for them a couple years ago and they are and continue to be a classy team. Sorry you didn't get in.

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1) Williams College 115.50

2) Tufts 107.50

3) Bates College 84.50 4) MIT 73

5) Springfield 64 6) Bowdoin College 50

7) US Coast Guard 49.50 8) Univ. of Southern Maine 33

9) Amherst College 31 10) Trinity 28

11) Middlebury College 24 12) Colby College 22

13) Westfield State 15 13) Keene State 15

15) Brandeis 13 15) Rhode Island College 13

17) Wesleyan 12 18) UMASS Dartmouth 10

19) Worcester Polytech 9 20) Eastern Connecticut 6

21) Worcester State 2

The Real Deal wrote:

Cornell- Rojo..nuff said if u want to go to the hardest of the Ivy League schools (They should consider taking them out of the Ivy league anyways because lets face it they are a state school)and compete for a subpar program that was the joke of XC Heps this year...then yeah it seems like a perfect place. Just keep running your easy runs at 8 minute pace boyz

I'm always a bit suspicious of someone motives when I see someone blasting someone else with a lot of hatred on these boards.

So I went and looked up the ip address of Real Deal. I can confirm that the Real Deal is posting from a computer at another school within the Ivy League (hey owning this website has its priviliges).

(As of right now I'm not going to reveal the school in question but have told Rojo)

So Real Deal if you don't think Rojo will do a good job why are you so worried to go out of your way to denigrate him?

But that's besides the point. In case you all haven't learned you need to be suspicious of anonymous posts. Everyone has their own agenda.

My recommendation for a coach in the Ivy League is obviously Rojo. I believe its the best training philosophy out there.

Sure his team didn't do well this year in XC but he's only been there a year plus+. He had like 3 freshman on his varsity. Running success doesn't come over night.

But he had 2 sophomores at 3:46 last year.

And look at his best runner. Bruce Hyde. You won't see him in the cornell results this year as bruce is taking the year off from cornell but training under rojo. 8:03 for 3k a few weeks ago. That's tops in the ivy league. 4:03 for the mile. I believe that is tops as well. Bruce was like a 4:18 guy in high school. I think the other coaches are taking notice.

Bruce will have 2 years left. Give rojo time. They're young and getting better.

My 2nd choice is obviously Yale. Different coach than when I was there but the team is running very well. They appear to really be putting it together this year.

Yale might even win it all next year in XC. In the past I'd be worried about a jinx but Brown won the league this year and had never won. The last time Yale won was during the last grea war - no not Persian Gulf, World War II.

But for any prospective student I say visit the schools and see what you think of them. Meet the guys on team, look at the academic programs, get a feel for the place and how it fits in with your goals and priorities. No school is best for everyone.

And for the the people from ivy league schools who have posted constructive posts on this threads, i congratulate you for not viciously attacking someone.

Back in my day our basic long run was up Riverside Park, across the GW Bridge (great views) and along the Palisades and back. Or down to Battery Park and back - early Sunday morning you could run right down the middle of the roads for alot of it.

Cloisters was a good medium long run.

Central Park has enough diversity to keep in interesting between roads, trails, carriage paths. And the occasional "battle royale" with people who did not want to be passed (like boxers).

But the best for me was Park Avenue/6th Avenue during rush hour in a pack of ~10 runners with 800m guys as gunners to make the tough crossings when necessary. With new recruits this run would pretty much tell whether they wanted to come to Columbia for me.

So if you can visit for a run or two you would get a feel for it: some love it, some hate it.

I guess I should thank big-brother for defending me on her but I don't need someone else to defend me. I'm more than willing to do it and refuse to have all of the hard work I put into coaching be undermined by some 19 year old jerk throwing out accusations without any facts.

So here we go.

"Real deal", If you think I'm not a good coach, well then so be it. If you're going to judge me based on our record in xc this year, you are an idiot. That would be like saying Haile G. is a crappy runner cause he got beat in the 2 mile this weekend in Birmingham.

I've been at Cornell for 1.5 years. My record speaks for itself.

Last year in track, I coached 3 athletes that are now in the top 10 all time (the program is 100+ years old) in the 1500. Two sophomores (one actually should be considered a redshirt soph) at 346 and 347 and a senior at 348.

I also had two guys join the top 10 all-time in the steeplechase (903 and 907) - both Heps scorers with PRs and NCAA regional marks at the conference meet.

Moreover, I had a guy get 2nd in the 5k and 2nd in the 10k. Additionally, we had an NCAA regional qualifier (150) in the 800.

The thing that I'm most proud about that group is that they all ran their seasonal bests at one of the championship meets (conference, IC4as or NCAA regionals) outdoors.

But citing achievements to me often isn't a sign of a good coach (it may just be a sign of good recruiting). Have my guys improved? Yes.

My top 800 guy ran 150 last year. Previous pr 153.

In the 1500/mile, they improved from 414/15 in the mile to 346 in the 1500 (that's a 403 equivalent) and from 411 in the mile to 347 in the 1500 and now to 403 in the mile this year indoors. That's big time improvement.

In the steeplechase, the guy who ran 903 last year had run 911 two years before I got there but only like 919 the year before I got to Cornell so we corrected the course and got nice improvement. My 907 guy had a flat 3k pr of 847 prior to my arrival so he improved a ton.

So the guys clearly are improving and they are running well when it counts. To me, that's the sign of a good coach.

Looking at this year, yes, I'll be the first to admit that we 100% sucked in cross country. How many coaches will say that? Our performance was unacceptable.

That being said, I knew when I took the job that this would be a rebuilding year and knew that I'd be without the services our Mr. Hyde as well as we're trying to do something special here - not just win the conference and be content to go to the show.

We were last in the league in xc. Big deal. We didn't get the job done.

I may be wrong but I don't think there was a single soph, junior or senior on our xc roster than ran under 930 in highschool. We were young and got our butts whipped. It's hard to beat schools with a freshman dominated top 7 when you're competing against schools with multiple footlocker finalists.

I could go on and talk about how other schools waste way more talent than I even have on my roster (including your school most definitely) but I'll take the high road.

You can mock my top guys this year in the 3k and 5k all you want but both of those guys have pr'd this year indoors and are freaking hard workers and want to be good, real bad. The 1449 guy's previous pr was 1513 and he battled back fromm an injury last year so mock him all you want.

I'd love for you to have the balls to email me your name so I can belittle your accomplishments in a public forum.

You forgot to mention the success we've had in the mid-distances so far this year. We have the #1 time int he league in 1,000 and if Hyde was on my roster I'd have the #1 time in the mile and 3k as well.

If not for an unfortunate injury last week, we'd have a new school record holder in the men's 800 and I also think I have a team that could break our school record in the 4 x800 if we had a chance to run it fresh.

Does that make me a genius? No,It's stupid to rely on one or two guys to make you look good. It's also stupid to judge a coach using selective statistics (like XC and not track).

I've given you the facts. I believe they show that I'm a good coach.

My plan is to rewrite the standards of excellence in the Ivy League in the mid-distances and distances. I want Cornell mid-d and d to be viewed as a national power like Dartmouth was when Lanana was there.

I'm working very hard to accomplish that goal and refuse to see my reputation (and my recruiting) hurt by someone posting unfounded accusations on the Internet.

We have a strong recruiting class coming in next year and the future looks bright.

I especially enjoy proving the critics wrong. When I was hired, an idiot posted all over dyestat that I would be an awful mid-distance coach given my long distance background.

Well that's where we had a ton of success last year. And I'm not going to lie, I greatly enjoyed getting a personal email from the critic over the summer apologizing for bad-mouthing me and congratulating me on our success in the middle distances.

I look forward to getting a similar apology from you when the distance success comes and we're hosting that Heps championship trophy at VCP.

-Rojo

PS. Real deal, knowing what I know about where you go to school, I find it ironic that you belittle the academic reputation of Cornell. We're one of the top schools in the world and certainly the #1 school in the Ivies in the science/technology area. Last time I checked (today on the front page of the Washington Post), nanotechnology was the wave of the future and we're like the world leader in that area.

I don't pretend to be an expert, but from what I can see Cornell is a program that's really going after it.... At least they're not sitting on their laurels!

I agree completely. I am content to run small loops over and over, it's really better because you can know exactly how far you've gone, plus if you have to dump or something you aren't 15 miles from home. Some of my friends just CAN'T STAND to run anything that isn't a beautiful 5 mile loop, and I don't get it at all. They won't even run out and backs because they're "too boring."

in hs, rudy chapa did most of his running on a 3/4 mile loop, sadly he was only able to run 28:32 for 10,000m.

Mile

1 O'Keefe, Brendan Senior Brown Fastrack 4:06.29

2 Groothuis, Gerry Junior Columbia Mets 4:07.80

3 McLean-Foreman, Alasdair Junior Harvard 4:08.02

3000m

1 Sundell, Steve Senior Columbia Terrier Inv 8:05.62

2 Groothuis, Gerry Junior Columbia Iowa State 8:09.32

3 Mucchetti, Stephen Sophomore Dartmouth Fastrack Inv. 8:12.72

5000m

1 Sundell, Steve Senior Columbia Iowa State 13:59.57 2.Smith, Austin Junior Princeton columbia 14:17.30

3 Meyer, Lucas Junior Yale Boston University 14:17.52

At home in VT i have literally 100's of miles of trails. I swear that i run a half mile loop for 80% of my training when i am home. I like running loops because its easy to just shut your mind off and cruise through the run. Its nice to have the option of running different courses, which we do at cornell. But i don't think its really a big issue when it comes to training, unless you have no access to soft surfaces. The bottom line is that you have to get the mileage in every day, as long as you can do that it doesnt matter where you are running.

I would write about why rojo is a good coach but he seemed to write enough already. I hope the dude thats talking shit can bring it this weekend. But you probably didnt even make the bus...

I think a lot of the bad press from cornell comes from its bold predictions and self praise. For expample the Cornell media guide mentions numerous times winning the IC4A XC title...a race no one runs. Your goals are publicly stated as practically world domination. Olivar Tassanari is referred to as a future All-American...give me a break, be realisic in your goals and people won't call you out. So keep on winning IC4A XC and defending yoruself on your own website, let your athletes do it next time.

Groothuis wrote:

actually, Columbia does most of their long runs at Rockefeller State Park Preserve....

I guess i stand corrected, i've never heard of that before. Which is funny, considering i live there. Whenever i hear people talk about the running near columbia they say, "Central Park, Riverside Park, VCP and Armory", which is where i ran and it got old real quick. I'll look it up, thanks :-)

Nice post Rojo, i've always thought that relative improvement is a better indicator of good coaching than the fastest times an individual at a school runs.

bruce, not to badmouth you, but you aren't going to school now, correct? the times you've put up this season are good, but if you aren't attending cornell right now, and you aren't working, then you're essentially a professional runner: you have all the time you need to train, you can get all the sleep you need, etc. almost no one else in the ivy league has that luxury. just something to think about when you come back to school, although i'm sure no one needs to tell you that.

Oh yeah, those harvard/yale/princeton/brown kids are staying up REALLY late doing HARD WORK...are you kidding me?

I don't know if this hyde kid has a job...but even if he doesn't, he probably spends more time reading for pleasure than other ivy kids spend 'studying'.

Buff_Runner wrote:

Oh yeah, those harvard/yale/princeton/brown kids are staying up REALLY late doing HARD WORK...are you kidding me?

I don't know if this hyde kid has a job...but even if he doesn't, he probably spends more time reading for pleasure than other ivy kids spend 'studying'.

let me guess. you were a sociology major at rutgers?

Last time I looked this fall Bruce was working as a cook at some restaurant. and he worked a lot from like 3 oclock to 11 oclock at night. As a result he adapted his training and ran once a day most days, but a lot of mileage.

I'd talk to him at midnight his time and he was tired.

I'm pretty sure now that he's back in Ithaca he's working again.

But if some runner in college tells me they can't be good because they don't have enough time I have no sympathy for them.

There is tons of free time in college. Put it to use productively. People used to ask me when I was in college how I could manage to attend an Ivy League school, do well academically and run well. It was all about setting priorities.

College is one of the best environments to train in. You have a group of teammates and everything taken care of for you. Sure you have academic and social commitments but I'd love to be able to swap my life as a professional runner to be on a college team again.