LetsRun.com Investigates: What Makes Mark Wetmore So Special?

wait a min wrote:

What they dont say is that he is certifiably crazy

He hids in trees and bushes while watching races so he doesn't have to have human contact !

No human personal skills at all. Unless your on the I side

And where do they mention the attrition rate

Please

Dont look at this guy as an icon !

He is down rt spooky. !

Clearly you have never met Mark Wetmore. One of the most interesting and hilarious people you can speak with. Also a phenomenal public speaker.

okaypal wrote:

wait a min wrote:

What they dont say is that he is certifiably crazy

He hids in trees and bushes while watching races so he doesn't have to have human contact !

No human personal skills at all. Unless your on the I side

And where do they mention the attrition rate

Please

Dont look at this guy as an icon !

He is down rt spooky. !

Clearly you have never met Mark Wetmore. One of the most interesting and hilarious people you can speak with. Also a phenomenal public speaker.

Mark Wetmore is also a phenomenal judge of character. If he doesn't like you or avoids you, look within for the answer. You're the one who is deficient in character.

The book did not hurt his ability to recruit that's for sure.

Combine that with being a great coach, great places to train, and a good school and you have yourself a powerful combination.

more by gold wrote:

Does my memory fail me? Thought Jenny leaving was covered in the NB More Than Gold video, and explained as Wetmore's decision.

You may be right. I wasn't trying to imply it was a secret, but most people didn't know that. We don't watch promotional videos. Neither jon or myself knew about it.

It wasn't meant to be an exhaustive biography of Wetmore. That's called a biography and comes in book form.

If we did that, we'd need to talk to some disilluisioned ex alums, maybe Jay Johnson, etc.

Here's a great Wetmore story I know of. Wetmore was coaching an 800 guy. He was on verge of making the Olympic Trials. His collegiate eligiblity was up. The guy was like "what are we going to do next year?"

Wetmore responds. "Nothing. you are going to get a job."

The guy wasn't from a well off family, wetmore realized maybe he could make the trials but he was never going to be an Olympian so he probably should move on and try to help his family financially.

Every year that guy calls Wetmore and leaves a number on the voice mail. The number is the amount of dollars in his retirement account.

Wetmore told me this story in 2000 when we saw him in Tahoe during the break at the Trials and had just started letsrun. It was told to us in the concept of, "I can't believe you Ivy League guys who could be doing so much stuff are so focused on running."

I responded, "I think it's the opposite. I think it's easier for an Ivy grad to go all in on running post-collegiately (weldon or lear for example). They know they can get a job if they screw around for a few years living the dream."

But i found it was interesting at the time that a pro coach would tell a runner that. Now having coached myself, I think I could tell someone that.

Yes, your memory failed you. The only mention of Wetmore in that video was a recruiting trip he made to Jenny's home in Florida. No mention of the transition to Benson or why she was no longer coached by Wetmore.

more by gold wrote:

Does my memory fail me? Thought Jenny leaving was covered in the NB More Than Gold video, and explained as Wetmore's decision.

I am a big fan of Wetmore, both as a person and as a coach.

But some of the writing about him borders on hagiography. He himself would point out, as the article does, that he makes mistakes, so it's worthwhile pointing some of those out. Most recently, the CU team did terribly outdoors this year.

Of the top-7 from XC, not a single guy made an NCAA outdoor final this spring. Bosshard (who turns 25 this month) didn't have XC, but did place 7th in the 10,000.

As an outside observer, I can't figure out whether the problem was over-training or poor peaking. I'd say it was likely more the latter, since many of the guys ran well at Payton Jordan, but in Saarel's case, it seems like he was tired after mid-April (there was [justified] speculation that he might be able to attach the 5000 AJR at Payton, but he looked flat/heavy). Heck, the kid is a freshman, so an 8th place at XC and 3rd in the indoor 3000 still adds up to a great year, but it seemed like they were trying to set him up for World Juniors, but he was obviously toast by NCAAs).

One take on all this is that Wetmore gets a lot out of guys in XC who aren't all that good. Another might be that they train so hard for XC that they're spent by track. I would guess that his training is more suited to 10K XC than 1500/5000 on the track (I know, Simpson and Coburn seem to refute this idea, but it still seems like he isn't quite as good as coaching a 15/5 male as he should be).

Or, it could have just been one of those times when Wetmore changed things up, and really worked everyone hard with big outdoor goals in mind, and it was too much, and this year he'll make the adjustment. As I mentioned before, he'd probably be the first to take the blame if he messed up.

Not bashing Wetmore or the CU guys at all. Just pointing out that the XC brilliance from the fall didn't transfer onto the oval in the spring of 2014.

Take a look how good the West regional is. To qualify for nationals you basically have to be top 8 material. They qualified 4 guys for nationals and had another very close. It wasn't a home run season but it wasn't that bad. I believe everyone from their XC roster PRd in something.

This was a fun read. Some quick observations if Rojo and Wejo are getting into the long-form business:

* Writers need to learn to write and editors need to learn to edit. You don't need to go to journalism school to do this (though it doesn't hurt to go to the right ones), but you do need to learn how to describe people, events and scenes and organize stories so they actually make sense.

* One of the strengths of this story, and there are many, is that it isn't written first-person, as so much crap is these days.

* I interviewed Wetmore a few times and covered XC in the mid-90s, in the Goucher/Culpepper era. In interviews, Wetmore always said exactly what he believed about a specific issue (say, recruiting internationally). Not the most personable guy in the world, but brutally honest, in a good way.

* One thing he mentioned was that CU went out slow in NCAA XC (excepting Goucher) because they were coming down from altitude and could rely on strength more than speed. I've wondered if they still did that and if it was true.

This was overall a good read and well-reported. But a little more attention to writing and detail could have made it great.

This is truly fantastic work. Like Chris Lear said, this is why I come to LRC.

I enjoyed this. Thanks.

His focus on relay teams in his high school coaching days is interesting.

I wonder why doesn't he bring his teams to Penn in April? Surely they could normally put together a strong DMR or 4xmile most years.

Great work and would love to see more specific LRC features and articles like it. Both Mitch and Jon are doing great work.

Rojo,

Please, please, please: more of this. This is why I come to LRC, too. You have to have more of this original content moving forward.

Thank you.

Chicago Style Pizza wrote:

His focus on relay teams in his high school coaching days is interesting.

I wonder why doesn't he bring his teams to Penn in April? Surely they could normally put together a strong DMR or 4xmile most years.

Colorado does not have a track program, they just cross country

wetmore is a fraud wrote:

Chicago Style Pizza wrote:

His focus on relay teams in his high school coaching days is interesting.

I wonder why doesn't he bring his teams to Penn in April? Surely they could normally put together a strong DMR or 4xmile most years.

Colorado does not have a track program, they just cross country

Saarel finished 3rd over 3000m indoors, and 3rd at the Pac 12 1500m.

Bosshard finished 7th over 10,000m outdoors.

Kipp finished 3rd in the steeple, Coburn won the steeple the previous year, Kipp won the steeple the year before that, and also made the olympic team that year, along with coburn.

CU also had a few others qualify for nationals over 10,000m last season.

Another vote for more articles like this on letsrun. you guys are well-positioned to get inside scoops and backstories. please more!

ttc wrote:

I've said it before-

Wetmore is a very good coach.

But coaching at altitude is a HUGE advantage.

Wetmore is a very good coach.

He does better than other programs that are also located at altitude, which obviously says lots. But he also gets the best recruits of those schools.

Wetmore is a very good coach.

But to coach at CU with the best recruits- you do not need to be a legendary great coach to win.

Wetmore is a very good coach.

There is the live-high, train-low deal that cancels out altitude benefits- but not so much in XC, where it's a distinct advantage being at altitude vs sea level. Plus again, the **world's best** distance runners have disproportionately lived at **altitude** the majority of their lives.

Wetmore is a very good coach.

But if he was the coach at a sea-level location, lots would be different.

Like in New Jersey?

automaticslim wrote:

This was a fun read. Some quick observations if Rojo and Wejo are getting into the long-form business:

* Writers need to learn to write and editors need to learn to edit. You don't need to go to journalism school to do this (though it doesn't hurt to go to the right ones), but you do need to learn how to describe people, events and scenes and organize stories so they actually make sense.

* One of the strengths of this story, and there are many, is that it isn't written first-person, as so much crap is these days.

This was overall a good read and well-reported. But a little more attention to writing and detail could have made it great.

These are great points that should be noted.

George Atlas wrote:

Running on Empathy wrote:

Surprised there was no mention of Jerry Quiller, the former head coach at CU who hired Wetmore as an assistant in the first place. Was there some friction between the two that would prompt such an omission?

Well before Wetmore was at Colorado Jerry Quiller coached an individual NCAA Cross Country Champion and had a top 5 team place in 1985.

From reading "Running With the Buffaloes" I gathered that Wetmore and Quiller coached different groups at the start and Alan Culpepper greatly improved with the more Lydiard style under Wetmore and the team shifted allegiance. But that's just my speculating from reading one book.

Q did hire Wetmore and was a mentor to him , Wetmore had his own ideas and Q let him work with the athletes. It disappointing that Wetmore has not said publicly that Q gave him the opportunity and flexibility to coach. Q had head coaching responsibilities and allowed Wetmore to take on the distance athletes.

Wetmore even though thought to be shy of accolades does have an ego.